A Companion to Modern Turkey's Centennial: Political, Sociological, Economic and Institutional Transformations since 1923 9781474492546

Table of contents :
CONTENTS
List of Figures and Tables
Foreword
Introduction
Part I Founding of the Republic – What Was Envisaged?
1 The State and its Constitutions: Constitutional Politics from Empire to Republic
2 Post-war Reconstruction and Reforms of the 1920s and 1930s
3 The Same Old New Turkey: The Contours of Turkish Politics from Atatürk to Erdoğan
Part II Political Ideologies in Turkey
4 One Hundred Years of Kemalisms
5 Imperious Nationalism in New Turkey: Foreign Policy Discourses in the AKP’s Electoral Manifestos
6 Leftism in Turkey
7 The Trajectory of Liberalism in Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Present
Part III Governance Challenges and Politics
8 Democracy in Turkey
9 Civil–Military Relations in Turkey: Back to Square One Yet Again?
10 Turkey’s Transformed State Identity
11 Nothing is Different, but Everything has Changed: Party Politics in Turkey in its Centennial
12 The Political-economic History of Modern Turkey: Political Institutions, Economic Dynamics and Democratisation
13 Human Rights in Turkey
14 Secularism and Islam in Turkey: A Century of Contention
15 The Presidency of Religious Affairs (the Diyanet) and the Organisation of the Secular State
Part IV Turkey’s Conflicts and Protracted Political Fault Lines
16 Non-Muslims in Turkey as the ‘Founding Other’
17 Alevis in Turkey: Past, Present and Future
18 Relations between Turkey and Armenia
19 The Kurdish Question: A Century Later
20 The Turkish–Kurdish Peace Process: Reasons for Failure and Future Prospects
Part V Turkish Foreign Policy
21 A Pragmatic Approach to Turkish Foreign Policy (1923–48)
22 Turkish Foreign Policy during the Cold War: The Cyprus Issue and Other Determining Factors
23 The Crisis of Turkish–American Relations
24 Turkey’s Relationship with the Soviet Union and Russia
25 Greece–Turkey Relations
26 The Eastern Mediterranean in Turkish Foreign Policy: From the Defensive to the Assertive
27 The Cyprus Conundrum in Turkish Foreign Policy
28 A Century of Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Balkans: Imperial Legacy, Geography and Humanitarian Ties
29 Turkey’s Policy towards Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Expectations, Failures and Achievements
30 Turkey and the Middle East: From Defensive-pragmatic Engagement to Offensive-ideological Interventionism
31 Turkey and Africa: Once Miles Apart, Now Reliable Allies?
32 Turkish Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges
33 A Curious Love Affair? EU–Turkey Relations
34 Turkey's Seven Decades of Ebb and Flow within NATO
35 Turkey as a Global Aid Actor
Part VI Economy, Development and Environment
36 A Century of Agriculture in Turkey: We’ve Come a Long Way
37 Urbanisation in Turkey
38 Every Drop Counts: A Century of Hydraulic Infrastructure Development in Turkey
39 Turkey’s Energy Policy: Path Dependency of Carbon Lock-in
40 Social Policy and the Welfare State: From ‘Modernisation’ to ‘De-Europeanisation’
41 Environmental Protection versus Economic Development in Turkey
42 Disaster Risk Management in Turkey
Part VII Society and Culture
43 Constructing the Youth of the Republic: Youth and Population Challenges in Modern Turkey
44 Development of the Turkish Higher Education System between 1923 and 2023
45 Turkey’s Civil Society between Repression, Neoliberalisation and Grassroots Mobilisation
46 From Silent to Emphasised Gender and Sexuality in Turkey
47 Turkey as a Migrant-sending State: Diaspora Formation, Mobilisation and Engagement Policies since 1923
48 Journalistic Issues through a Century under Crackdown: From Idealistic Dreams to One-man Control
49 Questioning Century-old Turkish Art through the Polarisation Concept
50 Sport and Politics in Turkey
51 Turkey’s Migration Management Regimes
52 Refugees
53 Revisionist, Resurgent Power, Breaking with the West, Sailing with Eurasianist Winds
Index

Citation preview

A COMPANION TO MODERN TURKEY’S CENTENNIAL

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A COMPANION TO MODERN TURKEY’S CENTENNIAL Political, Sociological, Economic and Institutional Transformations since 1923 Edited by Alpaslan Özerdem and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk

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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com © editorial matter and organisation Alpaslan Özerdem and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk, 2023 © the chapters their several authors, 2023 Cover design: Euan Monaghan Cover image: © MicroStockHub/iStockphoto Edinburgh University Press Ltd The Tun – Holyrood Road 12 (2f) Jackson’s Entry Edinburgh EH8 8PJ Typeset in 11/15 EB Garamond by IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and printed and bound in Great Britain A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 4744 9251 5 (hardback) ISBN 978 1 4744 9254 6 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 1 4744 9253 9 (epub) The right of Alpaslan Özerdem and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk to be identified as editors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).

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CONTENTS

List of Figures and Tables Foreword by William Hale

x xii

Introduction1 Alpaslan Özerdem and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk Part I Founding of the Republic – What Was Envisaged? 1 The State and its Constitutions: Constitutional Politics from Empire to Republic Levent Köker 2 Post-war Reconstruction and Reforms of the 1920s and 1930s Ioannis N. Grigoriadis 3 The Same Old New Turkey: The Contours of Turkish Politics from Atatürk to Erdoğan Hakkı Taş Part II Political Ideologies in Turkey 4 One Hundred Years of Kemalisms Karabekir Akkoyunlu 5 Imperious Nationalism in New Turkey: Foreign Policy Discourses in the AKP’s Electoral Manifestos Ayşe Kadıoğlu and Bengi R. Cengiz  6 Leftism in Turkey Ömer Turan

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11 27

38

53

66 78

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vi | contents  7 The Trajectory of Liberalism in Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Present Bican Şahin, Seval Yaman and Belgin Tarhan Part III Governance Challenges and Politics  8 Democracy in Turkey E. Fuat Keyman and Cana Tulus Turk  9 Civil–Military Relations in Turkey: Back to Square One Yet Again? Gencer Özcan 10 Turkey’s Transformed State Identity Toni Alaranta 11 Nothing is Different, but Everything has Changed: Party Politics in Turkey in its Centennial Şebnem Yardımcı Geyikçi and Hakan Yavuzyılmaz 12 The Political-economic History of Modern Turkey: Political Institutions, Economic Dynamics and Democratisation Taptuk Emre Erkoç 13 Human Rights in Turkey Nate Schenkkan 14 Secularism and Islam in Turkey: A Century of Contention Ahmet T. Kuru 15 The Presidency of Religious Affairs (the Diyanet) and the Organisation of the Secular State İştar Gözaydın and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk Part IV Turkey’s Conflicts and Protracted Political Fault Lines 16 Non-Muslims in Turkey as the ‘Founding Other’ Elçin Aktoprak 17 Alevis in Turkey: Past, Present and Future Nukhet A. Sandal 18 Relations between Turkey and Armenia Pinar Sayan 19 The Kurdish Question: A Century Later Mehmet Gurses 20 The Turkish–Kurdish Peace Process: Reasons for Failure and Future Prospects Alpaslan Özerdem and Bahar Baser

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90

107 121 133

144

161 173 184

194

215 229 240 252

264

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contents | vii Part V Turkish Foreign Policy 21 A Pragmatic Approach to Turkish Foreign Policy (1923–48) Ayla Göl 22 Turkish Foreign Policy during the Cold War: The Cyprus Issue and Other Determining Factors Ahmet Sozen 23 The Crisis of Turkish–American Relations Ömer Taşpınar 24 Turkey’s Relationship with the Soviet Union and Russia Paul Kubicek 25 Greece–Turkey Relations Mustafa Aydın 26 The Eastern Mediterranean in Turkish Foreign Policy: From the Defensive to the Assertive Zenonas Tziarras 27 The Cyprus Conundrum in Turkish Foreign Policy Cihan Dizdaroğlu 28 A Century of Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Balkans: Imperial Legacy, Geography and Humanitarian Ties Birgül Demirtaş 29 Turkey’s Policy towards Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Expectations, Failures and Achievements Bulent Aras 30 Turkey and the Middle East: From Defensive-pragmatic Engagement to Offensive-ideological Interventionism Serhun Al 31 Turkey and Africa: Once Miles Apart, Now Reliable Allies? Elem Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu 32 Turkish Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges Nur Köprülü 33 A Curious Love Affair? EU–Turkey Relations Senem Aydın-Düzgit 34 Turkey's Seven Decades of Ebb and Flow within NATO Sinem Akgül Açıkmeşe and Ali Şevket Ovalı 35 Turkey as a Global Aid Actor Alpaslan Özerdem Part VI Economy, Development and Environment 36 A Century of Agriculture in Turkey: We’ve Come a Long Way Fatma Handan Giray

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279

291 302 317 329

342 355

367

380

393 405 417 431 443 455

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viii | contents 37 Urbanisation in Turkey 485 Sinan Erensü 38 Every Drop Counts: A Century of Hydraulic Infrastructure Development in Turkey 501 Arda Bilgen 39 Turkey’s Energy Policy: Path Dependency of Carbon Lock-in 513 Emre İşeri 40 Social Policy and the Welfare State: From ‘Modernisation’ to ‘De-Europeanisation’529 Ayşe İdil Aybars 41 Environmental Protection versus Economic Development in Turkey 540 Senem Atvur 42 Disaster Risk Management in Turkey 553 Burcak Basbug Erkan Part VII Society and Culture 43 Constructing the Youth of the Republic: Youth and Population Challenges in Modern Turkey Demet Lukuslu 44 Development of the Turkish Higher Education System between 1923 and 2023 Burhan Barlas 45 Turkey’s Civil Society between Repression, Neoliberalisation and Grassroots Mobilisation Bilge Yabanci 46 From Silent to Emphasised Gender and Sexuality in Turkey Nil Mutluer 47 Turkey as a Migrant-sending State: Diaspora Formation, Mobilisation and Engagement Policies since 1923 Bahar Baser and Gözde Böcü 48 Journalistic Issues through a Century under Crackdown: From Idealistic Dreams to One-man Control Ceren Sözeri 49 Questioning Century-old Turkish Art through the Polarisation Concept Elif Dasatrlı 50 Sport and Politics in Turkey Basak Zeynep Alpan

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571

583

597 610

625

637 649 660

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contents | ix 51 Turkey’s Migration Management Regimes Kermal Kirişci and Ayselin Yıldız 52 Refugees Zeynep Şahin Mencütek and Bezen Balamir Coşkun 53 Revisionist, Resurgent Power, Breaking with the West, Sailing with Eurasianist Winds Cengiz Çandar

674 694

707

Index719

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Figures and Tables

Figures 11.1 Volatility in Turkey 1950–2018 11.2 Party system fragmentation in Turkey 1950–2018 11.3 Political polarisation in Turkey 1950–2020 19.1 An analytical summary of the Kurdish question in Turkey (and beyond) 37.1 Urbanisation in Turkey 1960–2020 in comparison with select countries 39.1 Supply of carbon fuels (oil and coal) 39.2 Natural gas pipelines and projects through Turkey 42.1 Seismic hazard map of Turkey 42.2 The 1509 ‘Little Doomsday’ earthquake 42.3 Totally collapsed site after 1999 Marmara earthquake 42.4 AFAD organisational chart 42.5 TAMP

154 155 157 255 488 518 524 554 555 559 561 562

Tables 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 36.1 37.1

The period 1923–50 The period 1950–60 The period 1961–80 The period 1983–2002 The period 2002–11 The period 2011–15 The period 2015–19 Main indicators of agriculture in Turkey Urban and rural population growth in Turkey

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145 145 146 148 149 151 153 473 487

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figures and tables | xi 37.2 Most populous cities in Turkey 39.1 Turkey’s primary energy supply (five-year intervals) 39.2 Renewable energy legislation in Turkey 39.3 Energy sector targets 42.1 Significant earthquakes in Turkey between 1939 and 1945 42.2 Significant disasters in Turkey during the 1990s 42.3 Disasters in Turkey since the 1990s

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491 518 521 525 556 557 558

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Foreword William Hale

T

he end of the First World War also saw the end of four great historic empires, but with quite different results in each. In Russia, the Romanovs were overthrown by the world’s first successful communist revolution. In Germany and Austria-Hungary, the Hohenzollerns and Habsburgs gave way to flawed democracies, to be overcome by Nazism and the disaster of another world war. In Turkey, uniquely, the Ottoman dynasty was succeeded by a nationalist resistance which overthrew the imposed partition planned by the Entente powers, projecting its leader, Mustafa Kemal, later Atatürk, into a position of almost unchallenged power until his death in 1938. Atatürk won national authority in the most traditional way – that of a ghazi, the commander of a successful war against a non-Muslim enemy, but as president, he used it to convert his country to something quite untraditional – a secular republic, committed to modernist aims inspired by Western notions of ethnic nationalism. Massacres and deportations of the Ottoman Armenian community in 1915, and the departure of most of the Ottoman Greeks under a post-war population exchange with Greece, left the Kurds of southeast Anatolia as the sole important ethnic minority. Following the proclamation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, Kemal launched a determined programme of legal, cultural and educational reforms, implemented through the single-party regime of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). In the 1930s, this was augmented by one of the world’s first attempts at planned and state-led industrialisation of a backward rural economy. During the Second World War, Turkey stayed neutral and enjoyed political stability under the cautious presidency of İsmet İnönü. It underwent a second transformation in 1945–50 when İnönü, anxious that his country should not be left out of the new democratic world order, allowed the formation of an opposition party. Led by Adnan Menderes, xii

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foreword | xiii the Democrat Party (DP) successfully challenged the CHP in Turkey’s first free elections, held in 1950, and went on to rule the country for the next ten years. In analysing the operation of the political system during this and the following decades, Şerif Mardin made the classic suggestion of a binary divide in Turkish politics, between the ‘centre’ of secularist-modernist intellectuals, state bureaucrats and army officers, and the ‘periphery’ of conservative local elites in the towns and villages of Anatolia. The DP was the first of a series of centre-right parties which represented the second pole without openly attacking Kemalist modernism. However, it was ultimately challenged by its own failure to respect the democratic principles that had brought it to power, or to maintain economic growth. In 1960 it was overthrown by the military, the most powerful focus of the ‘centre’, in what turned out to be first of three military interventions within twenty years (1960–1, 1971–3, 1980–3). The remarkable feature of each of these was that they were all ultimately controlled by senior commanders with essentially conservative aims and that they all withdrew after a relatively short time to give way to elected civilian government. In the long intervals of civilian rule, successive governments under Süleyman Demirel’s Justice Party (up to 1980) and Turgut Özal’s Motherland Party (after 1983) continued the dominant centre-right tradition established by the Democrats. Political history is never quite continuous, however. After a brief eruption of socialism in the 1960s, followed by a version of social democracy led by Bülent Ecevit’s reconstructed CHP, resurgent Islamism began to make itself felt during the 1990s. Beginning in the 1980s, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) waged a campaign of terrorist attacks on civilian and military targets, with no effective response from governments to meet the real needs of the Kurdish minority. The result was near-chaotic political instability, and eventual economic collapse in 2001–2. In the aftermath, in November 2002 Tayyip Erdoğan, formerly a successful mayor of Istanbul and founder of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), won the first of five general elections, which kept him in power for an unprecedented twenty years. Erdoğan had an Islamist background but appeared to have adapted to liberal pragmatism. Initially, his government had important achievements, both political and economic, to its credit. By the end of this process, however, his future looked seriously challenged. After overcoming a botched coup attempt by rebellious officers in 2016 and changing the constitution in 2017 to provide for an all-powerful executive presidency, President Erdoğan’s hubris took over his government. The result was a serious erosion of democratic standards, a faltering economy, and an uncertain future as the Turkish Republic approached its centenary year. Foreign policy was fundamentally affected by global conditions. As a front-line state in the Cold War, Turkey was a firm member of NATO until after the dissolution of the USSR, with its clash with Greece and the Greek Cypriots its most serious local contest. In the early 2000s, its long-standing quest to join the European Union as a full member made

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xiv | foreword initial progress but then ran into the quicksands of opposition from France and Germany, and in 2004 the EU made the chronic mistake of admitting the Republic of Cyprus, but with no representation of the Turkish Cypriots. During the second decade of the new century, Erdoğan moved towards a neutral position between Russia and the Western powers, only to find this strategy severely challenged in 2022 by the war in Ukraine and the prospect of a second cold war between East and West. Behind the political twists and turns of the Turkish Republic’s first century were fundamental economic, social and cultural changes. In the 1920s, Turkey was still an underpopulated country, with a population of just 13.6 million recorded in the first national census, held in 1927. By 2022 this had risen sixfold to 86 million. In the process, Turkey had become an urbanised and industrialised country, with just under 76 per cent of its population now living in urban areas, compared with 17 per cent in 1927. The main cities were concentrated in the west of the country, and Istanbul became a megalopolis of over 15 million people by 2021, compared with 700,000 in 1927. Economically, the transition was equally striking, as per capita GDP at purchasing power parities grew to over $30,000 in 2021, or around the level of most of southeastern Europe, including EU members like Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. The national economy had been transformed, with agriculture accounting for around 7 per cent of national income in 2020, compared to an estimated 46 per cent in 1929, and the share of industry rising from 11 per cent to 28 per cent over the same period. Starting with basic industries like textiles, cement, iron and steel in the 1930s, by the second decade of the next century, the list had risen to include flourishing automotive and electrical appliance industries (both important export items) as well as chemicals and advanced defence equipment. Economic development underlay and enhanced important social and cultural changes. Besides the massive growth of the industrial working class, this included the rise of a new entrepreneurial and technocratic elite – not just in the cities of western Anatolia, but also in important cities in the centre and south like Kayseri and Gaziantep. As in the rest of the world, communications were revolutionised by the growth of transport and electronic media, producing a significant shift towards a modern consumer culture. Religion was still important to most Turks, but polls suggested that the young were likely to have notably less conservative values than their forebears. Against this, the recognition of cultural differences was far more widespread than previously, with Kurdish, Laz, Arab and other identities now widely accepted as part of national society. None of this suggested that, as the Republic’s centenary approached, the future would be easy. By the summer of 2022, Turkey was in the grips of yet another economiccum-fiscal crisis, with the annual inflation rate approaching 80 per cent, a chronic balance of payments deficit, and no clear solutions visible in government policies. At home, the

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foreword | xv Kurdish problem continued to divide the political community, while abroad, the country faced serious problems in its relations with both East and West. Turks had reason to celebrate, but needed to face the future with courage and innovation as well as the ability to benefit from their experiences of the previous hundred years.

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Introduction Alpaslan Özerdem (George Mason University) and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (London Metropolitan University)

O

n 28 May 2023, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was declared as the winner of the Turkish Presidency for a third term. This was a very significant moment for the contemporary Turkish Republic, since Erdoğan is now offically the longest serving political leader of the country as, first, Mayor of Istanbul between 1994 and 1998, later as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014, and as President since then. After winning his last election against the opposition candidate, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, President Erdoğan said that now was the time to ‘put aside all the debates and conflicts regarding the election period and unite around our national goals and dreams’. At the moment of its republic’s centenary, Turkey does need unity, for it is a highly polarised country along many socio-political and economic faultlines. Although President Erdoğan said ‘We are not the only winners, the winner is Turkey’ and added ‘The winner is all parts of our society, our democracy is the winner’, many in the country would disagree. It has been via his divisive politics, irresponsible management of economy, bad governance, nepotism, corruption and autocracy, that the country is entering its next centenary at a point of political degeneration, economic collapse and social disintegration. In the early years of this new era, the country faces critical priorities such as fighting inflation, healing the wounds from the catastrophic earthquakes of February 2023 and managing out-of-control migration from Syria, Afghanistan and other countries. In fact, it seems unbelievable that Erdoğan still won the presidential election despite all these challenges, although it should be noted that the election process was neither fully free nor fair. In today’s Turkey, Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and its cronies control a very large part of the media, and his government used the state resources ruthlessly in the election campaigning. Therefore, since the election, Turkey experts and millions of the country’s disillusioned citizens have been wondering 1

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2 | alpaslan özerdem and ahmet erdi öztürk whether this will continue to be a problematic democracy with unorthodox economic policies, or whether the government will return to more conventional ones. However, this is not the first – and will not be the last – critical junction for the Republic of Turkey which has a long and sophisticated socio-political history. The Turkish Republic is a political and social structure that has managed to survive by constantly changing and transforming since its establishment in 1923 (Yavuz & Ozturk 2020). Actually, the fact that it always changes and transforms is due to its emergence as the relative inheritor of a similarly changing and transforming structure, and also due to its geography (Karpat [1959] 2015; Mardin 2006). As is well known, Turkey was founded on the legacy of a war of independence after the collapse of the semi-theocratic Ottoman Empire, which ruled in Anatolia, north Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and especially in the Balkans. Turkey, which was established as a nation-state by shrinking its lands in accordance with the conditions of the period, nevertheless carried within itself the fears, anxieties and fragility left over from the the multicultural, multilingual, multireligious and multicoloured Ottoman Empire (Adisonmez 2019; Zarakol 2010). However, on the path determined by the founding leader, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in his attempt to build a new state, there has always been a political and social structure that has fed desires among the young and energetic, who have Turkish-style Westernisation goals. This is why Turkey, which is fragile on the one hand, and excited on the other, has always been stuck between different ideological groups, has found it difficult to decide what its identity is, and perhaps after completing a century of existence is still in a way trying to decide. If Turkey were an ordinary country, it is very likely that this 100-year-old period might still represent its establishment phase, or its borders or structure would have changed greatly, like many other examples that were established at the same time or afterwards. However, although Turkey has undergone great changes in some ways, it still continues to exist in its 100th year and enters its second century with different potentials that are very likely to contain surprises. This book deals with the different aspects of Turkey’s 100 years of change, politically, socially and institutionally, with their very different dimensions. The main reason why these different aspects are presented together is that every institution, every policy choice and every sociological event in Turkey is naturally interconnected. Since this change and transformation are interconnected, the book in your hands aims to present Turkey’s story and experts’ views on the future in many ways. In fact, Turkey’s century-old story has been covered in many other studies with many aspects, but the majority of them have preferred to focus on a single point by dealing with a certain period of Turkish history, certain institutions or certain events. On the other hand, this study, with its broad scope, deals with the history of Turkey from different perspectives. So what do we think this change is? Maybe we need to go back a bit to understand this.

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introduction | 3 Under the name of Kemalism, the founding fathers sought to erect the Republic of Turkey around a set of immortal principles and institutions, born out of the Ottoman modernisation that had persisted throughout the First World War. Indeed, Kemalist ideology was an enlightenment movement and ideology for Turkey (Alaranta 2011). Despite this, both the founding fathers and the assorted leaders and ranking figures who dealt with the administration, based on the conditions for its transformation, felt that change was imperative in the structure of the state, without touching certain principles. The greatest reason why they did not fall victim to this sense of compulsion was that Turkish society had historically assumed, with its state configuration and sociological structure, the practice of fundamental change. We can explain this situation primarily by discussing the various forms of evolution for different components – including state, history, phenomenon, incident and society. The structure of the Turkish state and its institutions and their functions, although relatively stable and formulaic, were explicitly and constantly mobile towards change, and their transformation throughout acknowledged political history as a societal configuration and a direct reflection of this. This notion brought forth the assertion of a state tradition situated with certain precepts and presuppositions in Turkey, starting from the late Ottoman era. The state purportedly has a balance that relies on a paradoxical plane, beginning with the relationship the state facilitated with religion but also including the Kurdish question, the topic of gender and other issues. Although this paradoxical balance generated a slew of ‘others’ and victims throughout the history of the Republic, it managed to somehow maintain itself, depending on a host of dei ex machina and on military and bureaucratic tutelage up until the new millennium. To retain this disputed success, it interrupted its already fragile and underdeveloped traditions of democracy numerous times and frequently gambled with the nature of politics. Republican Turkey has been pulled in different directions by different socio-political actors and state apparatuses. While the political majority has always been formed by the centre-right parties, the high-level state bureaucracy has mostly sided with secular, Kemalist left-wing politics, acting as guardians of the Republic. While the guardianship mechanisms have been trying to consolidate Turkey in a coercive secular, nationalist and Western-oriented position, the majority of the population has supported the rightwing political actors who have voiced the religious sensitivities of the masses that have been ignored and suppressed by the secular elite. Even so, the right-wing parties did not have an agenda to change the secular identity of the country and Turkey constructed relations with foreign countries on this basis. In this regard, Turkey’s Muslim yet secular and Western-oriented identity formation gave it power to influence countries all over the world until the beginning of the new millennium. Things have also changed in the period under the rule of the AKP.

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4 | alpaslan özerdem and ahmet erdi öztürk What is the Aim of this Book? As noted previously, this book aims to investigate the first century of the modern Turkey within seven parts which will cover internal and external political issues, economic dimensions, the main conflicts, and all other socio-cultural phenomena. Therefore, all the parts employ both interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary mindsets since this is the only way to explain the complicated dynamics of Turkish state and society. As has been underlined numerous times in the Turkish studies literature, the studies of Turkish politics and society have developed around a number of binaries such as the centre vs periphery debate, state vs. society, and Kemalism vs. Islamism. The dominant paradigm in the period from the 1970s through the 1990s, more or less, utilised the centre vs. periphery approach to explain ideological conflicts in the country. Islam was treated as the identity and ideology of the periphery while Kemalism (i.e., the attempted project to create a secular nation-state along the lines of European institutions and practices) was treated as the ideology of the centre, epitomising the doctrine of modernisation. Due to Turkey’s lack of democratisation and failed economic programmes, many social scientists accused Kemalism, with the military as its guardian, of being the key obstacle to democratisation and economic development. A prevailing paradigm in the social science community suggested that when Turkey tears Kemalism apart, along with its institutions, especially the military, it will remove all obstacles, clearing the way for democracy and establishing a classically liberal economic system. Because of this definition of Kemalism as a burden on the country’s potential economically and politically, liberals and Islamists have allied their forces against the Kemalist power-bloc (i.e., the military, secular judiciary and state bureaucracy). In an age of neoliberalism where everyone criticised ineffective bureaucracy as aggravated by its size and the flexing of state power, the AKP leveraged this critique for its own purposes to undermine the state institutions and build its own Islamist self-serving political structure, as predicated on President Erdoğan’s image as a saviour of the nation. In short, there are no easy causal explanations for the social, economic, political and institutional transformations experienced by Turkey since 1923 and they can only be explained via employing both interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary mindsets. In this regard, this Companion builds the backbone of its focus and argument from an interdisciplinary perspective and this will be applied throughout all chapters in order to explain the transformations of Turkey via its structures, values and norms. Although a focus on the politics of each topic and issue will be the main commonality between its chapters, there will also be a great deal of openness to sociological, psychological and anthropological approaches and methods. As this Companion combines many different disciplines jointly, every single chapter is a unique contribution to the literature. Thus, this book will shed light on what tomorrow holds for Turkey by delving into a comprehensive framework of transformations from yesterday to today and the future.

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introduction | 5 How to Read this Book and What it Contains Each chapter in the book has a standard order and harmony within itself. In this context, the book can be read from the beginning to the end, as well as part by part or chapter by chapter. In this context, each part is as follows: Part I: Founding of the Republic – What Was Envisaged? The essential path to understanding Turkey and its political, social and economic changes passes primarily through a grasp of the Ottoman era. The correlation between Ottoman modernisation and Turkey’s creation of its founding cadre entails both continuity and disengagement within the religious, social and political conflicts that have raged on since Ottoman times. This section reviews the founding codes for the Republic of Turkey to understand where we are today and to envisage the future. Part II: Political Ideologies in Turkey. One can view the political and social life of Turkey, starting from the late Ottoman period, as instances of various clashing political ideologies and collaboration corresponding to the interests and principles during different eras. The relationship that Kemalism, the founding ideology, constructed with nationalism, liberalism, Islamism and leftism later created the ideology and policy moulds for the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), the founding party throughout the history of the Republic, and the other parties that oppose it. Because of this situation, learning about yesterday, today and tomorrow for the political philosophies in Turkey will precipitate an understanding of the nation’s ideological sphere. The objective of this part is to examine Turkey’s mentality towards these ideologies. Part III: Governance Challenges and Politics. Turkey has a population exceeding 80 million, and sits among the world’s most complicated geographies. On the one hand, it is the sole constitutionally secular state in the Middle East, with idiosyncratic state– religious relations, and has a social configuration embracing rooted religious traditions. On the other hand, it has the region’s most powerful military, with the potential at any time to intervene in domestic politics, and as a nation embodies a mound of political parties championing claims such as demilitarisation. We can assert the existence of a state and social reasoning, in every sense, in Turkey – this is key to understanding Turkey both regionally and globally. This section, in order to meet this need, discusses Turkey’s military structure, the position of its civilian politics, Turkish democracy and its state– religious relations, a configuration with few equivalents elsewhere in the world. Part IV: Turkey’s Conflicts and Protracted Political Fault Lines. In Turkey, as in many nations with imperial pasts, a multicultural, multireligious, multilinguistic and multi-ethnic society struggles to transform, swiftly and by necessity, into a nationstate. Moreover, these struggles reveal themselves as historical conflicts. Each conflict profoundly impacts Turkey, influencing various domains. For instance, the conflict raging between the Turkish state and the PKK terrorist organisation, which claims

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6 | alpaslan özerdem and ahmet erdi öztürk to defend Kurdish rights in Turkey, has affected many economic, cultural and social phenomena. Similarly, Alevi rights erect a paradoxical relationship with Turkey’s secular mentality and mar social peace. As evident from the Kurdish and Alevi issues, the Armenian question – and those of other religious and ethnic minorities – are crucial to understanding the fundamental texture of the Turkish nation. This section will shed light on what tomorrow holds for Turkey by delving into the basics for these issues and by discussing yesterday and today. Part V: Turkish Foreign Policy. Turkish foreign policy evolves in relation to the nation’s internal political balances, regional elements and global developments. As such, the foreign policy will be quite thorny for a nation that bears an incredibly dynamic social structure and domestic politics and that resides in a geography that binds together the Western and Eastern worlds. Turkey’s foreign policy preferences thus rely on multifaceted structures and a slew of dynamics. Moreover, if we are to consider that, starting in the 1960s, Turkey moved from the balance-based foreign policy it had established with nearly the entire world to a Western-oriented foreign policy but after 2010 redefined itself along Eurasianist lines with growing religious, ethnic and historical transformations in domestic politics, the nation’s foreign policy escapade then encapsulates both a convoluted and an enticing character. This section, accordingly, examines every aspect of Turkey’s foreign policy through its historical connections. Part VI: Economy, Development and Environment. The domestic politics, foreign policy and political actors of a nation are, no doubt, substantial elements, but the basic points that they control and that ensure the fundamental continuity of the nation are the economy, development and numerous adjacent factors. Considering this aspect, Turkey offers several intriguing examples for both researchers and individuals interested in the topic. If we are to remember that the centre–periphery conflict began not in politics but in the realm of economics, we can observe the reverberations of this struggle in Turkey’s evolving fields of energy, science, architecture and culture. Moreover, all these policies are being reformed with Turkish modernisation, a Western influence and re-blooming neo-Ottoman nostalgic visions, and Turkey is undergoing a collective transformation. Understanding this transformation will push us to see that the Turkey of the future will be essential. This section lays out the nuanced details of this great transformation. Part VII: Society and Culture. Just as in many other nations, Turkish political society is shaping politics in society. We suggest that there exists an attraction – and a perpetual influence – between Turkish society and politics. Dynamic Turkish politics fundamentally originate from a dynamic social configuration, and transformation is rapid in fields such as the media, education, sports and art, which directly interest society. For instance, the Turkish media printed its first newspaper in the late Ottoman era, began using alternative media methods, contrary to many examples around the world, after 2010 and

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introduction | 7 responded to the changing politics and social structure. Another example is the support of the War for Independence by sports clubs, today a reflection of the competition over Turkish politics. This situation encapsulates issues such as art and education while simultaneously influencing, in a broader context, views on migration and diaspora politics. This final section discusses with a broad and pluralistic perspective these points, which are vital to understanding Turkey but are comparatively overlooked, despite their utmost importance, because of the high politics/low politics hierarchy. The chapters within these parts were written by people at different levels in their careers, working in very different parts of the world, and looking at the world differently. Their common features are that they are experts in the subjects they study and that what they say about Turkey is important to the world. The main issue, both for us as editors and for the authors, was to chronicle Turkey’s first century in an objective way. We hope they will write something for the second century, benefit from this study and leave a memory from us to them. References Adisonmez, Umut Can (2019), ‘When Conflict Traumas Fragment: Investigating the Sociopsychological Roots of Turkey’s Intractable Conflict’, Political Psychology 40(6): 1373–90. Alaranta, Toni (2011), The Enlightenment Idea of History as a Legitimation Tool of Kemalism in Turkey, Helsinki: Helsinki University Printing House. Karpat, Kemal H. ([1959] 2015), Turkey’s Politics: The Transition to a Multi-Party System, Prince­ ton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mardin, Şerif (2006), Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Yavuz, M. Hakan and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk, eds (2020), Islam, Populism and Regime Change in Turkey: Making and Re-making the AKP, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Zarakol, Ayşe (2010), ‘Ontological (In)security and State Denial of Historical Crimes: Turkey and Japan’, International Relations 24(1): 3–23.

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Part I Founding of the Republic – What Was Envisaged?

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1 The State and Its Constitutions: Constitutional Politics from Empire to Republic Levent Köker

Introduction

M

aking and changing constitutions has always been of critical importance in contemporary Turkish politics. Since the formative years of the National Struggle (Millî Mücâdele, 1919–22), the Republic has had four constitutions in 1921, 1924, 1961 and 1982, each with amendments of its own. We have to note, however, that Turkish experience in constitutional politics dates back to 1876, when the Ottoman sultan granted the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, it is quite evident historically that this first ‘modern constitution’ was itself the outcome of earlier reforms under Selim III (1789–1807), Mahmud II (1808–39) and the Tanzimat era (1839–76). So, not unlike many European countries, Turkey has had a history of constitutional politics for the last 200 years or so. Throughout this relatively long experience in constitutional politics, Turkey has undergone drastic changes at economic, socio-cultural and political levels. From the angle of issues regarding making and changing constitutions, the most notable change was, to be sure, the transition from a multi-ethnic and multiconfessional empire to a nation-state. The transition from a ‘patrimonial sultanism’ (İnalcık 1992) to a nation-state took a revolutionary form when, in 1921, the people’s representatives in the newly formed Turkish Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM) redefined constitutionally the country as ‘the state in Turkey’ (Türkiye devleti), governed by the people, and declared that all powers of the government are based unconditionally on the principle of national sovereignty. So far as the idea of national sovereignty embodies in itself a democratic notion of government, it is no surprise that Turkish politics, since the proclamation of the Republic in 1923, has involved struggles for constitutionalising democracy within the framework of the emerging nation-state. 11

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12 | levent köker Be that as it may, however, we need to underline the fact that the republican experience in ‘democracy’ has not been very successful. Historically, the Turkish Republic has met on and off, and within strict limitations, some of the criteria of polyarchy (Dahl 1989) but there were also authoritarian moments. Following the Republican People’s Party’s authoritarian single-party rule under Atatürk and İsmet İnönü (1923–1950), there were instances of direct military rule (the coups in 1960 and 1980) or interim governments controlled by the military in 1971–3, 1983–7 and 1997. There were also instances of undemocratic, majoritarian single-party governments, first during the final years of the Democrat Party (especially 1957–60), then Nationalist Front coalitions with fascistic elements in the 1970s, and finally recent authoritarian drift under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), culminating as of today in the form of ‘hyper-presidentialism’ (Petersen & Yanaşmayan 2020: 8). This last episode of authoritarianism under Erdoğan’s leadership came about after a series of democratic reforms between 1987 and 2010 in the form of constitutional amendments with the aim to get rid of the authoritarian-statist elements in the current 1982 constitution, authored by the military junta after the 1980 coup d’état. Following the parliamentary elections in 2011, and in line with the general public consensus on the need for a totally new constitution, the speaker of the TBMM took the initiative and formed an ad hoc Constitutional Reconciliation Committee (CRC) whose duty was to prepare a draft new constitution. After nearly two years of work, the CRC had to dissolve itself soon after the ruling AKP submitted its proposal for a hyper-presidential government. If the AKP’s proposal was the immediate reason for the CRC’s dissolution, the real reason was the political parties’ incapability or unwillingness to resolve the main problems, ranging from the Kurdish issue to secularism and the Alevi issue, from class conflict to questions of gender and sexual orientation, all with deep implications for the legitimacy of the state. What are the reasons for Turkey’s failure in democracy? Many students of comparative politics and constitutional lawyers specialising in Turkey seek answers within the theoretical framework provided by analyses of hybrid regimes, competitive authoritarianism, populism, the global retreat of democracy, and so on (Köker 2019; Köker 2020). A perspective dominant in the main body of the current literature depicts republican Turkey as a ‘modern state’ founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk with an aim to create eventually a democratic polity (Özbudun 1981). Relying quite heavily on this allegedly pro-democratic beginning in the 1920s and 1930s, it has been stressed that Turkey has had a relatively successful story of democratisation which resulted eventually in a negotiation process for full EU membership (Turan 2015). It was even a seemingly solid argument during the first decade of AKP rule that Turkey had become a model for the entire Middle East and north Africa as a democratic success story under a conservative government with a strong Islamist background. At the heart of this success story lay a

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the state and its constitutions | 13 very promising approach to the Kurdish issue including the ‘peace and solution process’ and the ‘Kurdish opening’ (Köker 2010). An abrupt ending of this process and the subsequent rise of authoritarian politics reversed almost all democratic reforms, leading many students of Turkish politics to argue, especially after the transition in 2017 to the hyper-presidential system, that Turkey needs to find a way to restore a parliamentary system as before or even better. Although the argument here is understandable, it fails to see some of the fundamental reasons why Turkey ended up in a depressingly oppressive political situation. One thing is for sure, the argument above misses the fact that there has always been a very strong authoritarian element in Turkish politics. Either in the form of a strong centre in conflict with the periphery (Mardin 1973), or formulated as a ‘strong state tradition’ (Heper 1992), or even under the banner of ‘tutelage’ (Özbudun 1981), or more recently a focus on an authoritarian constitutional tradition (Tombuş 2020), many scholars have previously emphasised the decisive impact of the state in politics and society. With this in mind, it seems plausible to reformulate the ‘decisive’ role of the state in politics and argue that the main reason for Turkey’s failure in building up a fully democratic polity is the way the state gets involved in fundamental political issues. Put differently, since the formation of a nation-state during and after the First World War, the main issue in Turkish politics has been the conflict between the state imagined as a monolithic entity and the plurality of identities, lifestyles and ideological predispositions in society (cf. Özbudun 2012). In what follows I would like to take up this fundamental issue in two separate sections. First, I wish to trace the origins of and changes in the classical notions of the state historically from the classical era of the Ottoman Empire to the First Constitutional Period in 1876. The second section deals with the ways in which the first imperial constitution reflected changes in politics and society and gave way eventually to the constitutions of the new nation-state under the Republic. In lieu of a conclusion, I wish to discuss a possible democratic way out of the current authoritarian predicament. Changing Conceptions of the State One of the fundamental issues embedded historically in the process of constitutional politics in Turkey pertains to the relationship between the state and the constitution. Theoretically speaking, there are two fundamentally different ways of conceptualising this relationship. Constitutional theorists Arthur Jacobson and Bernhard Schlink explain this very succinctly in an introductory essay where they compare American and German constitutional traditions. According to Jacobson and Schlink (2001: 1–2), the American state is the creature of a constitution framed by the people through its representatives. It is inconceivable on any other basis. The constitution precedes the state,

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14 | levent köker logically and temporally . . . The German state, by contrast, precedes the constitution. It does so historically – the state as the object of the monarch’s will and power was there before any constitution could frame or found it – and the course of history has guided legal thinking. Until the Federal Republic (Bundesrepublik) the constitution was understood not as founding and framing the state, but rather as shaping and limiting the inherently unlimited powers of an already existing political organisation.

These lines provide us with a key to understanding the nature of constitutional politics in Turkey as well. In the Turkish experience, like in Germany, the state precedes the constitution, but there is an important difference. If the precedence of the state in Germany lasted until the Federal Republic, it still continues in Turkey with perhaps one very critical historical exception of the 1921 constitution, the first constitution of the Republic. Put differently, excluding the 1921 constitution, made by the representatives of the people, all the historical and current constitutions were ‘given by the state’. Thus, it is crucial to understand the historical and central presence of the state in the Turkish constitutional experience. The contemporary Turkish state is an interesting mélange of several different historical developments. At first, the state was identified as a tripartite entity comprising the sultan (and the ‘palace’ or the Ottoman dynasty at the centre), ‘the guardians’ (sınıf-ı askerî, that is the janissaries and ulema), and the re’aya, literally the flocks of people (cf. İnalcık 1964). Historically, this classical notion of the Ottoman state was in line with the Islamic theories of government of the time, legitimised with an idea then known as the ‘circle of justice’ (dâire-i adâlet). In this classical understanding of the state, there were two kinds of law, the holy law as revealed by God (that is, Sharia) and the law given by the sultan (örf-i sultanî). This idea of the sultan as the ‘just ruler’, observing the sacred law (Sharia) and making his own laws for the goodness of the state, reached its perfection under the reign of Suleyman I (1520–66). According to Linda T. Darling, who argues that this ‘perfection . . . was worthy of comparison with Plato’s vision of the Virtuous City’, Suleyman became the personification of the Ottoman just ruler, the one who executed law and exercised power on behalf of the poor and weak. He deliberately highlighted his divine selection for his role and fostered the image of his greatness . . . This was a potent image for the Ottomans; lyrics of the period pictured the world as the garden of paradise, or the Empire as a protected garden in the wilderness of the world. In the real world, too, the sultan’s palace at the heart of the Empire sat at the heart of a walled garden. (Darling 2013: 139–40)

The original conception of the Ottoman state was important because, in contrast to some widely shared interpretations that the sultan had absolute or despotic power, it shows that there had been a theory of legitimation with some legal-normative restrictions

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the state and its constitutions | 15 on state (the sultan’s) power. The idea of the sultan both as the bearer of the ‘old law’ (kanûn-ı kadîm) or ‘lawgiver’ (kânûnî) and as the observer of justice was not only a utopian image instrumentalised to legitimise the existing order but was also thought to be the reality, meaning that a truly just order was established in this world. Thus, any change in this order of the state as the order of the world (nizâm-ı âlem) was considered to be a ‘decline’ from perfection (Darling 2013: 140). This original conception of the Ottoman state began to change after the late sixteenth century and this process of change has been regarded predominantly both by the chroniclers and thinkers of the period and by modern historians in terms of decline and fall. Reflecting a perception of time as a ‘birth-growth-decline-death’ cycle predominant in ancient and medieval mentality (Nisbet 1969), Ottoman history, especially after the reign of Suleyman I (‘the lawgiver’), has been narrated as a process of decline. Within that framework, Ottoman chroniclers and authors of advice (nasihatnâme) literature of the time saw decline and fall as imminent. They thought that it was their duty to find ways to reduce the pace of decline and keep the state alive for longer periods of time. This mindset has been so influential that even modern-day mainstream accounts of Ottoman history are written mostly under the impact of this ‘decline problematic’. In a somewhat different fashion, however, modern accounts of Ottoman history explain ‘decline’ as a direct outcome of world-historical developments, namely the emergence of capitalist modernity. More precisely, according to these narratives, the Ottoman Empire remained to a great extent stagnant and failed to keep up with the economic, cultural and political changes in Europe, where a process of transition from feudalism to capitalism, or from tradition to modernity, as the second greatest change in the history of humanity after the first great transition to settled agriculture (Bendix 1967: 292) was well underway. Accordingly, it was thought that the Ottoman Empire declined because of the ‘Oriental’ nature of the Ottoman state. In contrast to this vision of the Ottoman Empire as a unique instance of Oriental despotism or sultanism for that matter, a more recent trend endeavours to situate Ottoman political development within the general framework of modernity. This relatively new trend first rejects the decline problematic and tries to refute the idea that the ‘modernising reforms’ initiated by Selim III, Mahmud II, the Tanzimat era and culminating in the ratification of the first constitution in 1876 were responses to a process of decline. The argument is that the Ottoman state had started to modernise itself almost simultaneously with the formation of modern kingdoms in seventeenth-century Europe, well before the reforms of the nineteenth century. In the words of Rifa’at Abou-El-Haj (2005: 64, emphasis added), ‘a good part of the meaningful or enduring reforms of the tanzimat represent the culmination of a process of change having roots in the seventeenth century’. According to him, it is impossible not to see the fact that in the seventeenth

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16 | levent köker century ‘three orders – the sipahi, kul, and ulema – make up the society, meaning here those permitted to participate in political affairs’ (Abou-El-Haj 2005: 30, emphasis added). Baki Tezcan, inspired by Abou-El-Haj, takes a step further. For Tezcan, what the mainstream narratives of Ottoman history deem as decline was, in fact, a reconstruction of the state to replace the ‘patrimonial state’ and hence to be named as ‘the Second Ottoman Empire’ (Tezcan 2010: 10). Moreover, dwelling upon the writings of Ottoman officials as well as foreign observers, Tezcan argues that the Ottoman state from the late seventeenth century onwards was an example of ‘limited monarchy’ with a relatively democratic content, which he prefers to name as a process of ‘proto-democratization’ (Tezcan 2010: 7, 8, 10, 242–3). Thus, by the end of the seventeenth century, the ‘virtuous polity’ of the classical Ottoman sultanate gave way to a new formation in which the sultan’s supreme ruling power was checked and limited by what Abou-El-Haj calls the ‘orders’, namely the janissaries as ‘representatives of the people’ (Tezcan 2010: 8) and the ulema. The arguments developed by Abou-El-Haj and Tezcan about an ‘early modern Ottoman state’ coincide interestingly with a simultaneous change in the ways in which the Ottomans thought about the state. In other words, a transformation in the conception of the state took place during and after the late seventeenth century, almost exactly as the state started to take on a modern character. In the classical tripartite depiction of the state (and society) and the idea of the circle of justice mentioned above, the central place was given to the sultan in a manner in which the state was identified with him. This identification of the state with the sultan (and the ruling dynasty) can be easily captured in the changing meaning of the Ottoman-Turkish word devlet (Arabic dawla), which from literally meaning ‘to rotate’ came to signify the ruling dynasty (cf. Lewis 1988: 35–6). The identification of the sultan with the state began to change in the seventeenth century with changing conceptions of other related terms, most notably ‘politics’ (siyaset). Reciting Abou-El-Haj’s argument about the formation of the modern state involving a gradual separation of the state from ‘the ruling class’, Marinos Sariyannis (2019: 436) clarifies that [a] turning point in the history of the term would again be Kâtib Çelebi’s definition of the word as both ‘kingship/kingdom’ and ‘society’ or ‘community’, which functions as a bridge between the meanings ‘power’ or ‘dynasty’ and ‘state apparatus’ or ‘government’. A society has to be governed, and its well-being is identified with the good functioning of its government: this line of thought facilitated, it may be said, the semantic transition toward the development of the notion of ‘state’.

This points to the fact that, as the Ottoman state evolved from patrimonial sultanism to an early modern state, groups making up the Empire found ways to participate in

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the state and its constitutions | 17 political matters and decision-making processes. This created not only new power-sharing mechanisms but also new forms of conflict among diverse segments of society. Roughly speaking, it seems possible to observe that from the mid-seventeenth to the late eighteenth century, the ‘Second Empire’ was almost a ‘constitutional’ political order in which the sultan at the centre shared his power with the janissaries and the ulema, or to use AbouEl-Haj’s terminology, ‘the orders of the sipahi, kul and ulema’. When the outbreak of the modern constitutional revolutions in Europe and North America made a disintegrative impact on the Ottoman Empire from the late eighteenth century onwards, a further change in power-sharing took place. The earlier problem of delaying decline and fall of the state changed also into a problem of finding ways to save the Empire from disintegration. As Ali Yaycıoğlu (2016: 14) argues in Partners of the Empire: In the late eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire tested three competing alternatives to reform the imperial order and preserve a relatively integrated and operational system. First, there was a reform agenda that was based on top-down reorganization through bureaucratic and military centralization and disciplining the military, and gradually society. I call this alternative ‘the new order of empire’. The second alternative was based on a partnership between imperial and provincial elites, not only through fiscal relationships, but also through political and constitutional ties. I call this alternative ‘the order of notables’. The third alternative was based on bottom-up mechanisms, such as collective participation in fiscal and administrative management, public opinion, and electoral processes, which I call ‘the order of communities’.

From the early nineteenth century onwards, these three ‘competing alternatives’ mingled with the growing currents of nationalism that emerged first in the Balkan provinces, then in other parts of the Empire. ‘The new order of empire’ followed the paradigm of the absolutist monarchies of the time and tried to establish a central bureaucratic and military organisation even before the Tanzimat, when Mahmud II got rid of the janissaries in 1826. During the Tanzimat era, the new bureaucratic centre of the state needed to find ways of integrating the provinces in order to stop further disintegration. Thus, new regulations were put in effect to reorganise administrative units in provincial areas as different as Baghdad in present-day Iraq and Tuna (Danube) in the Balkans (cf. Davison 1963). Using Yaycıoğlu’s terminology, it is possible to suggest that, through a series of reforms declared in the imperial rescripts of 1839 and 1856, ‘the new order of empire’ at the centre came in closer contact with ‘the order of notables’, and tried to set up a relatively modern local public administration. This new organisation designed the relations between the centre and the provinces in relatively modern legal frameworks on the one hand and enabled the provincial elites and the communities to participate in the decisionmaking process on the other.

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18 | levent köker There seems to be a consensus among historians and social and political theorists that these developments, in fact, were precursors to the first ‘modern’ constitution of the Ottoman Empire. Here, I use the term ‘modern’ as an adjective that conveys the triple processes of secularisation, uniformity and legalisation of the power apparatus (cf. Poggi 1978: 95–116). ‘Secularisation’ here refers to the reception of modern laws from Europe, ‘uniformity’ to the attempt at creating a uniform relationship between diverse provincial administrative units in the Empire, and ‘legalisation’ to the codification of public and private realms in accordance with principles like equality before the law, thus general and non-personal norms of law. This triple process provided the grounds for making the first modern constitution amid turbulence at the imperial power centre – not so uncommon since the mid-seventeenth century. The first constitution of 1876 (Kânûn-ı Esâsî) was prepared by a special committee of reformist bureaucrats led by Mithat Pasha, and Sultan Abdülhamid II was enthroned after he conceded to the demands for restructuring the Empire along the lines of contemporary constitutional monarchies in Europe. Constitutional Politics under a Modernising State: Emerging Issues of Identity and Legitimacy In view of the foregoing, we can argue that the conceptions of the Ottoman state changed especially after the mid-seventeenth century from ‘state-as-dynasty’ in the classical era (İnalcık 1973) to ‘state-as-sultan-and-bureaucracy’. Following the bureaucratic reform and the establishment of local administration units which made, though to a limited extent, popular political participation possible under the Tanzimat, the notion had become something like ‘state-as-sultan-and-bureaucracy-and-local elites’. Despite the fact that the Ottoman sultan had the final call in the decision-making processes, ‘the men of the Tanzimat’, that is, the central imperial bureaucracy, had de facto the upper hand in running the business of rule. This final change in the conception of the state came about at a time when the Empire had started to lose parts of its territory as a result of nationalist uprisings in the Balkans and Mohammed Ali Pasha’s insurgence in Egypt. So, encountering threats of disintegration, the imperial bureaucracy, most notably the army as the powerful partner of the state, faced the big historical question of the time: ‘What is to be done to save the Empire (the state)?’ An immediate answer was to reorganise the state in accordance with the constitutional monarchies of Europe, which were trying to cope with liberal, nationalist and emergent socialist movements. The ideas developed by a group called the Young Ottomans carried a modern constitutionalist vision and aimed to set up a parliament in the Empire together with a radical redefinition of the imperial subjects. In brief, the Young Ottomans’ endeavour was, on the one hand, to reach a synthesis between modern (liberal) constitutionalist ideas and the Islamic principle of government by consulta-

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the state and its constitutions | 19 tion (meşveret) with the representatives of the people (Mardin [1962] 2000: 396–403), and on the other, to advance the idea of an ‘Ottoman nation’ which ensued from the Tanzimat reforms directed to keep diverse ethnic, religious or confessional groups within the Empire (cf. Mardin [1962] 2000). This was a harbinger of future attempts to set legal boundaries to sultanic power and institutionalise a parliamentary government. Young Ottoman ideas to restructure the Empire as a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government and construct simultaneously an Ottoman nationhood were attractive to some prominent men of the Tanzimat, most notably to Midhat Pasha. Having a very successful career in modernising local administration, especially in critical locations like Baghdad and Tuna provinces, Midhat Pasha took the lead in drafting a constitution for the imperial centre. Hence, in 1876 Sultan Abdülhamid II declared that the Ottoman state had a constitution and elections for the House of Deputies (Meclis-i Mebusan), the lower house of the newly established Ottoman parliament (Meclis-i Umumî, meaning General Assembly), would be held immediately. Having taken the Belgian constitution of 1831 as a model, the constitution was essentially a modern legal document in some crucial respects. For instance, it took a further step in carrying the notion of equality before the law recognised in earlier imperial edicts of the Tanzimat, redefining all subjects of the Empire as ‘Ottoman citizens’ with equal and inalienable rights and liberties. On the other hand, the constitution did not prefer the separation of powers of the Belgian model and adopted instead the stronger position of the monarch as in the 1850 Prussian constitution (Abadan & Savcı 1950: 34). Thus, there is a consensus among constitutional historians and lawyers that the 1876 constitution didn’t carry institutional mechanisms or provisions that limited explicitly the powers of the sultan; instead the sultan had the constitutional mandate to dissolve the parliament and the government at will. Similarly, the constitution also failed to offer the necessary measures to protect the rights and liberties of the ‘Ottoman citizens’. Despite these significant drawbacks that compel us to situate the 1876 constitution closer to the conservative constitutional monarchies in Europe in the nineteenth century, this first experience in constitutional government in the Ottoman Empire had two different but related dimensions. First, as mentioned earlier, the 1876 constitution retained the nearly absolute power of the sultan but interestingly, the legitimacy of the sultan’s power was no longer founded on ‘tradition’ or ‘religion’. Second, the constitution recognised all Ottoman subjects (tebaa) as equal citizens, a new approach to society with an ambitious goal of creating a unified Ottoman nation. Taking these two dimensions together, we can conclude that the 1876 constitution not only sustained the earlier reforms by bringing together modernity (European constitutionalism) and tradition (Islamic principles of governance) but also laid the seeds for a rupture from traditional to national sovereignty in the future.

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20 | levent köker Events after the inception of the constitution revealed rather conspicuously the changes in the state and the political processes. Abdülhamid II took advantage of the political crisis that emerged with the outbreak of the Ottoman–Russian War in 1877, dissolving the House of Deputies just a few months after the convention of the Ottoman parliament and suspending the constitution. From early 1878 until 1908, the Ottoman state was an example of sheer absolutism. Although the 1876 constitution remained formally as the valid basic law of the Ottoman state, it was never effective until July 1908 when, following military insurgencies in parts of the Empire, most notably in Macedonia under the leadership of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, İTC), Abdülhamid II had to declare that he was reinstating the constitution and that the Ottoman parliament would convene immediately after elections for the lower house. The despotic reign of Abdülhamid II between 1878 and 1908 was an era in which, as we saw, the earlier reforms had been advanced in different social areas ranging from the educational system to communication infrastructure. As it marked an advancement of reforms started earlier in the nineteenth century, the Hamidian era was also one in which a dualism resulting from the symbiosis of tradition and modernity in the Ottoman state and society intensified in many spheres of life. For our purposes here, it should suffice to note that traditional notions of the state continued to exist alongside the new institutions and modern codes of law including the 1876 constitution. The dualism of tradition and modernity, however, gained more visibility and provided an almost permanent ground for political conflict both among the ‘power elites’ and in society at large. This was due to a great extent to the shift from a traditional to a modern, legal form of state legitimacy. Under the Tanzimat era, the imperial rescripts safeguarding equal rights and liberties of all Ottoman subjects regardless of their ethno-religious identities made reference still to the old notion of justice (Darling 2013: 161–3, 171–4). Under the 1876 constitution, which recognised both the sovereign power of the sultan and Islam as the religion of the Ottoman state, this dualism was sustained albeit with an important difference: as mentioned above, the source of the legitimacy of the state turned out to be ‘human will’ (Tanör 2020: 136). A significant corollary to this novelty was the emergence of ideologies and their impact on politics. Thus, it was no coincidence that in the Hamidian era, both the sultan and his opponents made references to various sets of ideas and values, that is, ideologies, to justify their political preferences and actions, consequently paving the way to the different, at times rival, political ideologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, namely Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism. This shift away from the classic notions of the state before the reign of Abdülhümid II ‘reflected changes not only in political thought and power relations, but also social transformations among the elite’. (Darling 2013: 176). According to an eminent scholar of Ottoman politics and culture, this shift could be treated as an outcome of the deeper

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the state and its constitutions | 21 changes in Ottoman social structure which were summarised as a transition from a ‘static system of classification’ to ‘a system of solidarity’ (Mardin 2011). Mardin construes the classical ‘Ottoman view of society as an immense checkerboard of social positions that have an essentially static function of preservation’ (Mardin 2011: 4, emphasis added). This overlaps almost entirely with the notion in the circle of justice of ‘treating unequals unequally’, that is keeping communities (milletler in the Ottoman system) intact in their ascriptive places. A change that gained visibility in the late nineteenth century was that it was no longer possible to control communities within a static system; thus the circle of justice lost its appeal and had to be replaced by a ‘system of solidarity’ (Mardin 2011: 6), or ideological programmes. Thus, at the heart of this change was the emergence of political ideologies as new programmes for providing the state with a new basis of legitimacy. In short, the reign of Abdülhamid II marked the transition to the ‘age of ideologies’ in the Empire. Among the three alternative ideologies, Islamism had two variations. First, Abdülhamid II made use of Islam in its more traditional interpretations to justify his ‘despotism’, to garner support from traditionalist segments within the bureaucracy, and to use the Ottoman Caliphate as a source of power in international politics. The other form of Islamism was the ‘modernist’ understanding of the Young Ottomans. As mentioned above, their defence of constitutional monarchy as not only compatible with but also a requirement of a truly Islamic government provided a basis for opposition during three decades of despotism (Mardin [1962] 2000). The Young Ottomans’ reference to Islam for political ends also played an important role in their advocacy of an equal Ottoman citizenship. Under the reign of Abdülhamid II, however, it became evident that the ‘Ottoman identity [had] assumed an increasingly Turkish character, even if this identity was packaged in universalist Islamic terms’ (Deringil 1999: 11). It is no surprise, therefore, that the İTC tried to save the Empire as a new state based on Turkish nationalism. At a time when Ottomanism was doomed to fail and Islamism was associated with Hamidian despotism, the İTC aimed at creating an ‘imperial nation-state’, with a stronger reference to Turkism or Turkish nationalism. That being said, it should be stressed carefully that the İTC’s main aim was to save the Empire and to that end, it was struggling to find ways to integrate different groups and reunite them in a centrally strong imperial order. So, at least in the early years after 1908 (the first occasion being in 1909), it changed the 1876 constitution to give the country a parliamentary form of government which meant a shift of state power from the sultan’s palace (Saray) to the Sublime Porte (Bâb-ı Âli), and then it wanted to control both the parliament and the cabinet. A recent study plausibly argues that the İTC, at least in the early years of the Second Constitutional Period, consisted of ‘strong centralisers’ who were ‘Ottomanist but also Turkist’ (Sohrabi 2018: 836). In retrospect, this looks like a final

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22 | levent köker attempt at saving the Empire under a new and modern form, that is as an ‘imperial state’ based on ‘Ottoman nationhood’. It is no surprise that the individuals and groups bearing this ‘neo-Ottomanist’ political ideology (Sohrabi 2018) were ‘Westernised members of the middle class’ who also adopted predominantly a positivist worldview, a secularist stance vis-à-vis religion, and so on (Hanioğlu 2001: 289–311). As events of war and nationalism proved, the last saviours were bound to fail and the death of the Empire was imminent. Their legacy, however, was to create a nation-state, this time not an imperial one. The cardinal problem, the problem of the identity of the nation, however, remained unresolved. The İTC, Ottomanist and Turkist at the same time, turned out to be conspicuously Turkist especially during the First World War. The strong centralist control of the triumvirate of Enver-Talât-Cemal pashas, the Armenian massacres, the forced resettlement of Kurds (1916), and Enver Pasha’s overambitious attack to recreate a ‘Turkic’ empire were the last, depressing and disturbing, agonies of Ottoman collapse. Against this background, during the turbulent times of the National Struggle (Millî Mücâdele), the first constitution of the Republic, the 1921 constitution (Teşkilât-ı Esâsîye Kanûnu), was passed by the Turkish Grand National Assembly. This constitution had a revolutionary character and was exceptional in many ways. It was revolutionary in two related but distinguishable respects. First, the 1921 constitution marked a definite transition from imperial politics to a unified, homogeneous nation-state. In this respect, it complemented the earlier revolution of 1908 and went further beyond the İTC’s ‘reluctant nationalism’ (Sohrabi 2018). Bearing in mind that historically the İTC had been involved quite heavily in the earlier organisation of the nationalist movement (Zürcher 1984), and the previous declaration of a desire to create a ‘republic’ and a ‘new state in Turkey’ (Türkiye devleti; cf. Tanör 2016: 38–9), promulgation of the 1921 constitution was a definitive break with the Ottoman state. Second, the 1921 constitution not only declared the creation of a new state in Turkey, a Turkish state, but also claimed the new government was the ‘government of the people’ based on the principle of unconditional sovereignty of the nation. So, from a legal theoretical perspective, this was either a fundamental political decision that brought a basic law of the land into existence or a revolutionary change of the basic norm (leaving behind the divinity of Ottoman monarch, adopting instead the sovereignty of the people or the nation). The 1921 constitution was exceptional in many important ways. It was, to be sure, the only constitution in Ottoman-Turkish history that was made by the representatives of the people in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. The ‘constituent power’ in the making of the 1876 constitution was the sultan and the bureaucracy. Subsequently, both the 1961 and 1982 constitutions were authored under the domination of the military bureaucracy. Although the 1924 constitution was made by the TBMM, the assembly then was under

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the state and its constitutions | 23 the ‘dictatorial’ control of the Kemalist cadres dominated by the military and civilian bureaucrats of Ottoman background and organised in and around the Republican People’s Party. The 1921 constitution was exceptional also in terms of the ‘democratic’ organisation of the new state. In line with the revolutionary zeal of its time, the basic norm of the 1921 constitution was formulated as setting up a state in which the people would take control of their fate directly in their hands. Thus, the 1921 constitution had stipulations establishing a decentralised popular government, providing autonomy to the councils at provincial and lower levels of public administration. It has to be mentioned, however, that 1921 constitution was a very short document and lacked many aspects needed in a full written constitution. It was promulgated, interestingly, without the annulment of the 1876 constitution. Once the sultanate had been abolished in 1922, the Treaty of Lausanne signed and ratified in 1923 and the Republic inaugurated in the form of a constitutional amendment later the same year, the new state had to make a new, full constitution, later to be known as the 1924 constitution. This was the end of the revolutionary and exceptional contributions brought about by the 1921 constitution. Provisions regarding decentralism were never put into practice, ‘rule by the people’ was replaced by the idea of ‘rule for the people’ where people were used interchangeably with the nation, and the nation was deemed as a monolithic and solidaristic totality devoid of divisions and conflict. This ideology, entrenched in the 1924 constitution, was reformulated as Kemalism in 1931, and to date remains the paradigm that dominates Turkish politics and law. In Lieu of a Conclusion In line with the fundamental issue of the precedence of the state over the constitution and in the light of the above exposé, I can draw some conclusions. First of all, the precedence of the state over the constitution continues albeit with some fundamental changes in the structures of the state and society. In due course, the state changed from the state-as-sultan/dynasty to the state-as-sultan/dynasty-and-bureaucracy then to the state-as-bureaucracy during and after the formation of the Republic. The impact of these changes was reflected first in the TBMM in the early 1920s and brought to the fore the defence of popular government against the despotism of bureaucrats, then formulated in terms of class conflict, that is, the conflict between the people and the bureaucratic class (memûrîn sınıfı). Secondly, the 1876 constitution (and the 1909 amendments) didn’t include any changes to the bases of legitimation of the state. Claiming popular government based on national sovereignty was the invention of the 1920s. This radical shift in the 1920s required a new definition of people’s identity. We know, to be sure, that under conditions of modernity, governments must be based on popular consent, popular consent requires a constitution and a working constitutional order needs a ‘predominant’ constitutional

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24 | levent köker (or political/national) identity (Rosenfeld 1994: 6). In this critical precondition, the problem of a predominant identity of the people has been left unresolved, embodying the uneasy, inconsistent and conflicting combinations of Islamism and Turkism. Historically Turkey became a republic in the early 1920s, an heir to a multi-ethnic, multiconfessional empire, but aimed to construct a homogeneous nation. ‘The nation’ in this case had to be redefined by the republican state, that is, the bureaucracy that led the way to its new foundation. The redefinition of the new nation had to be forged and disseminated among the people whose self-definition was predominantly based on religion. Thus, having drawn its territorial borders in accordance with the locations where the majority are Muslims, signed and ratified the Treaty of Lausanne where the last residue of the Ottoman millet system remained in the form of ‘non-Muslim minorities’, the state-as-bureaucracy now had to take pains to teach the Muslims that they were members of a Turkish nation which had an existence before and outside Islam. If in the earlier phase under Abdülhamid II, the Turkic character of Ottoman ‘identity was packaged in universalist Islamic terms’, now, under the Republic where the reluctance of the İTC was replaced by a resolute Turkish nationalism, Islam needed to be put under state control to be relegated further to the private realm. This early Republican politics meant a policy of Turkification of the overwhelmingly Muslim population, including Kurds, Circassians, Laz, Arabs and so forth, as well as Turks. Finally, I must stress that the perennial problem of constitutional politics and the unending search for a true constitution in Turkey can be overcome if and only if the peoples in Turkey, with all their diversity and sources of conflict, agree to live together under a new state founded this time, and this will be the first time in their history, by their own will. This is no easy task, for the ‘nationalist paradigm’ has taken root so deeply in the course of history from the Hamidian era to the Kemalist Republic that a revolutionary paradigm shift still awaits its strong and organised supporters in the publicpolitical sphere. References Abadan, Yavuz and Bahri Savcı (1950), Türkiye’de Anayasa Gelişmelerine Bir Bakış, Ankara: AÜSBF. Abou-El-Haj, Rifa’at (2005), Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, 2nd ed., Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Bendix, Reinhard (1967), ‘Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 9(3): 292–346. Dahl, Robert A. (1989), Democracy and Its Critics, New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press. Darling, Linda T. (2013), A History of Social Justice and Political Power in the Middle East: The Circle of Justice from Mesopotamia to Globalization, Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

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the state and its constitutions | 25 Davison, Roderic H. (1963), Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856–1876, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Deringil, Selim (1999), The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876–1909, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü (2001), Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks 1902–1908, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Heper, Metin (1992), ‘The Strong State as a Problem for the Consolidation of Democracy: Turkey and Germany Compared’, Comparative Political Studies 25(2): 169–94. İnalcık, Halil (1964), ‘The Nature of Traditional Society: Turkey’, in Robert E. Ward and Dankwart E. Rustow (eds), Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 42–63. İnalcık, Halil (1973), The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. İnalcık, Halil (1992), ‘Comments on “Sultanism”: Max Weber’s Typification of the Ottoman Polity’, Princeton Papers in Near Eastern Studies 1: 49–72. Jacobson, Arthur J. and Bernhard Schlink (eds) (2001), Weimar: A Jurisprudence of Crisis, Berkeley: University of California Press. Köker, Levent (2010), ‘A Key to the “Democratic Opening”: Rethinking Democracy, Citizenship and the Turkish Nation-State’, Insight Turkey 12(2): 49–69. Köker, Hüseyin Levent (2019), ‘Making Sense of Turkey’s Transition from Democracy’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19(1): 195–200. Köker, Levent (2020), ‘Başkancı Rejim: Popülist Yarışmacı Otoriterlik mi Diktatörlük mü?’, Birikim 377: 6–26. Lewis, Bernard (1988), The Political Language of Islam, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Mardin, Şerif (1973), ‘Center–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics’, Dædalus 102(1): 169–90. Mardin, Şerif ([1962] 2000), The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, New York: Syracuse University Press. Mardin, Şerif (2011), ‘Turkish Nationalism: From a System of Classification to a System of Solidarity’, in Ayşe Kadıoğlu and Fuat Keyman (eds), Symbiotic Antagonisms. Competing Nationalisms in Turkey, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 3–9. Nisbet, Robert A. (1969), Social Change and History: Aspects of the Western Theory of Development, New York: Oxford University Press. Özbudun, Ergun (1981), ‘The Nature of the Kemalist Political Regime’, in Ali Kazancıgil and Ergun Özbudun (eds), Atatürk, Founder of a Modern State, London: Hurst. Özbudun, Ergun (2012), ‘Turkey – Plural Society and Monolithic State’, in Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds), Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 61–94. Petersen, Felix and Zeynep Yanaşmayan (2020), ‘Introduction’, in Felix Petersen and Zeynep Yanaşmayan (eds), The Failure of Popular Constitution Making in Turkey: Regressing toward Constitutional Autocracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 3–20.

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26 | levent köker Poggi, Gianfranco (1978), The Development of the Modern State: A Sociological Introduction, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Rosenfeld, Michel (1994), ‘Modern Constitutionalism as Interplay between Identity and Diversity’, in Michel Rosenfeld (ed.), Constitutionalism, Identity, Difference, and Legitimacy, Theoretical Perspectives, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 3–35. Sariyannis, Marinos (2019), A History of Ottoman Political Thought up to the Early Nineteenth Century, Leiden and Boston: Brill. Sohrabi, Nader (2018), ‘Reluctant Nationalists, Imperial Nation-State, and Neo-Ottomanism: Turks, Albanians, and the Antinomies of the End of Empire’, Social Science History 42(4): 835–70. Tanör, Bülent (2016), Türkiye’de Kongre İktidarları (1918–1920), Istanbul: Yapı ve Kredi. Tanör, Bülent (2020), Osmanlı-Türk Anayasal Gelişmeleri, Istanbul: Yapı ve Kredi. Tezcan, Baki (2010), The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, New York: Cambridge University Press. Tombuş, Ertuğ (2020), ‘The People and Its Embodiment: Authoritarian Foundations of Constitutions in Turkey’, in Felix Petersen and Zeynep Yanaşmayan (eds), The Failure of Popular Constitution Making in Turkey: Regressing toward Constitutional Autocracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 59–83. Turan, İlter (2015), Turkey’s Difficult Journey to Democracy: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yaycıoğlu, Ali (2016), Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of Revolutions, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Zürcher, Erik Jan (1984), The Unionist Factor: The Rôle of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement 1905–1926, Leiden: Brill.

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2 Post-war Reconstruction and Reforms of the 1920s and 1930s Ioannis N. Grigoriadis (Bilkent University)

Introduction

T

o understand the relevance of the post-war reconstruction and reform of the 1920s and 1930s to contemporary Turkish politics on the centennial of the Republic of Turkey, it suffices to examine the representation of the towering figure of early republican Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in contemporary Turkey’s public discourse. Some prefer to call him Mustafa Kemal; they display war-era pictures of him in military uniform and with a moustache and add the title ‘Pasha’ (Paşa) to his name. He is the military hero who fought and won battles against the Entente forces in the First World War, organised the Turkish nationalist resistance in the aftermath of the Moudros Armistice, using religion as a mobilisation tool, and won the war against the non-Muslim Armenian and Greek forces on the eastern and western front respectively. Mustafa Kemal has thus been raised to a powerful symbol of nationalist and religious resistance with many faces (Cetin 2019; Özyürek 2004). Others prefer to remember him as Kemal Atatürk; they display him in Western civilian attire without moustache. Instead of his military background, reference is made to the surname Atatürk introduced by a 1934 law for mandatory surnames for all Turkish citizens. He is the political reformer who took the opportunity of the absolute power he enjoyed in the aftermath of the war and the Treaty of Lausanne to launch a social engineering project rare in its implications. Kemal Atatürk is the visionary leader who attempted to relieve republican Turkey from its Oriental cultural, political and cultural background and decisively push it into the Western civilisational paradigm. He aimed to change the fate of his nation by introducing a set of radical reforms. These sought to detach Turkey from its Ottoman and Oriental past and firmly locate it within the community of Western states by rising to the level of contemporary civilisation. Having deep faith in Enlightenment and Western civilisation, he identified Turkey’s 27

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28 | ioannis n. grigoriadis Oriental identity as the key reason for its economic and social underdevelopment and saw fast-track Westernisation as the sine qua non for the survival and prosperity of the Republic of Turkey. In either incarnation of Gazi Mustafa Kemal Paşa or Kemal Atatürk, he remains a powerful symbol and contentious point in Turkish politics. This bifurcation points at a divide dating back to the 1920s but surviving to date in Turkey. Reminiscent of Prussia in the late nineteenth century, Turkey has been experiencing its own long culture war (Kulturkampf), with Atatürk’s reforms being at the heart of the confrontation. Tension reached unprecedented new levels when following the first term of the AKP administration, polarisation became a valuable political instrument for the prolongation of the AKP hegemony in Turkish politics. Following the collapse of the Kurdish peace process in 2015 and the establishment of the AKP–MHP coalition, an alternative model emerged through the rise of Necip Fasıl Kısakürek to a de facto official ideologue of the coalition. This chapter highlights some aspects of Kemal Atatürk’s reconstructions and reforms that have shaped republican Turkey and continue to resonate in various ways in contemporary Turkish identity dynamics. Atatürk’s Reforms: An Overview In a halo awarded by the reversal of Turkish fortunes after the Treaty of Sèvres and the military victory he won, Mustafa Kemal put forward his radical reform plan. Its implementation was facilitated by the concentration of all powers in his hands. The abolition of the Sultanate and the declaration of the Republic on 29 October 1923, the abolition of the Caliphate on 3 March 1924 and the establishment of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) were decisions that met with opposition at both elite and civil society levels. By abolishing the Caliphate, it became clear that under Atatürk Turkey would no longer seek a leader’s role in the Muslim world; its religious identity would cease to be a defining element of its foreign policy and worldview, to the chagrin of many Islamist political movements around the world. The use of the term inkilap or devrim (‘revolution’ in Ottoman and ‘new’ Turkish respectively) to describe the radical character of Atatürk’s political reform makes sense in that respect. Turkey had to become Western against the West. It had to win its independence against the signatory states of the Treaty of Sèvres. During the war, it was easy and opportune to mobilise the Turkish population using anti-Western and Islamist rhetoric. Yet, as soon as the war was over, Mustafa Kemal recognised that Turkey had to quickly find its position within the Western civilisational paradigm and took radical steps in that direction, which were at times deeply unpopular. Turkey had to become Western, if necessary, against the will of its own people. There was no time – or even patience – to convince the people of the wisdom of the fast-track Westernisation programme that Atatürk espoused. Turkey’s Westernisation would be a top-down project of social and cultural engineering. The 1925

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post-war reconstruction and reforms  | 29 outbreak of the Sheikh Said rebellion and the 1926 ‘Izmir Conspiracy’ provided reasons for introducing a ‘state of emergency’ and enacting the Law on the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükûn Kanunu). This granted Atatürk virtually absolute power, which in turn facilitated the acceleration and the implementation of the most groundbreaking parts of his reforms, which could otherwise have faced significant opposition (Başkan 2010). Reaching the level of contemporary civilisation (muasır medeniyet seviyesine ulaşmak) was indeed the declared aim, and all efforts had to be directed to that end. The new Turkish republican identity would be built against the shadow of the Ottoman one, and the set of these radical reforms would form the core of what would be called ‘Kemalism’. These would later be summarised into the ‘six arrows’ (altı ok) of the emblem of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), the party founded by Mustafa Kemal himself, which rose to become the guardian of his legacy: republicanism (cumhuriyetçilik), populism (halkçılık), nationalism (milliyetçilik), laicism (laiklik), statism (devletçilik) and revolutionism (inkilapçılık). Among the numerous reform steps, one could highlight those which heralded Turkey’s entry to the Western cultural paradigm and economy. In November 1925 a law banned the fez and the turban, forcing all men to wear Western headgear. This ‘hat revolution (şapka devrimi)’ decision met with strong resistance, as the fez had risen to be a key symbol of Ottoman identity and the turban was one of the main symbols of the ulema class. Removing both symbols of Ottoman civic identity and Sunni Islamic erudition from the public sphere could only be imposed by means of state violence. Removing Islam from the public sphere expanded to the calculation of time. A law enacted on 26 December 1925 banned the use of Hijri and Rumi calendars and introduced the Gregorian (Miladi) calendar. While the Rumi calendar was itself an innovation introduced with the Tanzimat reform and meant to combine the Islamic calendar with modern needs, Mustafa Kemal’s decision removed any connection between the calendar and Sunni Islam. Turkey began to use the Miladi calendar officially on 1 January 1926. Reform in the field of education continued. Following the abolition of the medrese system in 1924, a reform law for mandatory secular education was introduced in 1926. Arguably the decision with the highest symbolic significance was to turn Hagia Sophia from mosque to museum in 1934: it stated republican Turkey’s ambition to join the Western civilisational paradigm, viewing Hagia Sophia not as war booty – a church converted to a mosque by ‘the right of conquest’ – but as an outstanding world heritage monument belonging to humanity. Reforms extended to the field of law, with the most prominent examples the abolition of the Ottoman Mecelle and the 1926 introduction of the Swiss civil and the Italian penal codes. This brought a fundamental transformation in civil rights. Equality of men and women was thus proclaimed, and in 1930 Turkey became one of the first

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30 | ioannis n. grigoriadis European countries where women were given the right to vote. Female empowerment became one of the most spectacular early accomplishments of Atatürk’s reform programme, especially as it was juxtaposed against the Ottoman state of affairs. The model of ‘republican woman’ (cumhuriyet kadını) became one of the most potent and lasting icons of the Atatürk reform programme, coming in contrast with developments in other Muslim-majority countries and representing a measure of the programme’s success. The 1 November 1928 ‘letter revolution’ (harf devrimi), the decision to ditch the Arabic alphabet and introduce a version of the Latin alphabet adapted to the phonetic needs of the Turkish language, was another step of momentous symbolic and cultural dimensions. One could argue that literacy in Ottoman Turkish corresponded to a minuscule part of the country’s population and achieving literacy through the Arabic alphabet was more difficult than with the Latin one.1 While it was clear that the Arabic script was not suitable for a language like Turkish, the Arabic alphabet enjoyed a privileged position: in the end Arabic was the language of Islam, believed to be the language in which God dictated the Quran. Identifying the Arabic alphabet with Sunni Islam, whose public presence was coming under severe pressure, meant that learning it would no longer be supported and would be identified with religious obscurantism and reactionary political views. This meant that in a few years a large rift emerged between republican Turkish citizens and Ottoman Turkish culture, whose short- and long-term consequences are hard to overstate. Pre-1928 written sources suddenly became inaccessible and foreign. Parallel with the Romanisation of the Turkish alphabet was the decision to have a ‘language revolution’ (dil devrimi) (Ayturk 2004; Aytürk 2008). The purification programme of Turkish transformed the language, with the substitution of thousands of Arabic- and Persian-origin words with new ones suggested or produced by linguists inspired by older Turkish- or Turkic-origin words. This transformation reached a point where even transliterated older texts would be barely understandable by Turkish readers. Even the signature text of Mustafa Kemal, ‘Nutuk’, his six-day-long address to the Turkish parliament, became incomprehensible to the point of needing a translation into ‘new Turkish’ for the younger generation to be able to read it (Alaranta 2008). It is for these reasons that Geoffrey Lewis famously used the term ‘catastrophic success’ in his evaluation of the alphabet and language reform projects launched by the Atatürk administration (Lewis 2002; Lewis 2019). The decisions to ban Oriental music from public radio Early attempts to adapt Ottoman Turkish to other alphabets were observed in the country’s non-Muslim minorities. Ottoman Turkish publications were written in the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek alphabets by members of these respective communities who wished to appeal to their Turkish-speaking community brethren while substituting their national alphabets for the Arabic alphabet. The identification of the Arabic alphabet with Islam and the Quran arguably played a role in that decision.

1

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post-war reconstruction and reforms  | 31 and annihilate the Ottoman archives and their late retractions are two examples of the extremes that Atatürk’s reform drive sometimes reached. Removing constitutional references to Islam as the state religion and introducing the principle of secularism (laïcité or laiklik) was the final step in a process aiming to remove Sunni Islam from the public sphere. Inspired by positivist thinking, dominant in the French Third Republic and the 1905 Law, Atatürk considered science to act as a substitute for religion, just as religion had acted as a substitute for magic in previous phases of human history. Religion was understood as a liability, a burden that any modern society had to be rid of, in order to achieve smooth progress towards modernisation and Westernisation. Limiting religion’s role in the public sphere was only the first step in a comprehensive reconfiguration of state–religion affairs (Grigoriadis 2009). However, this did not mean cutting the umbilical cord connecting the state with the dominant religion. On the contrary, the 1924 establishment of the Directorate of Religious Affairs was meant to provide the necessary institutional means for the complete subordination of Sunni Islam to the state. Banning religious orders (tarikatlar) was an essential step in the aim to achieve full state control over Islam. Prohibiting the public use of Islamic attire added a solid cultural dimension to the reform. While introducing secularism as a constitutional principle came as late as 1937, it was clear that it would become one of the banners of the new regime and its reform campaign. These reforms were not only linked with Mustafa Kemal’s determination to bring Turkey into the Western family of states. They were also underwritten by the urgent need to boost Turkey’s reconstruction and development. Restarting the Turkish economy, which had been decimated by the dramatic events of the early twentieth century, was a sine qua non. Given the massive blow that the economy had suffered after a decade of war, resettling the Turkish refugees, allocating the properties of the uprooted Armenian, Assyrian and Greek minorities (Morack 2017) and reconstructing the economic infrastructure was a priority. The abolition of traditional weights and standards in 1931 and the official introduction of the metric system brought Turkey closer to Western economic standards and underlined that Turkey’s economic future was linked to its integration with the Western economy. On the other hand, focusing on the development of a national economy intent on autarky was not only in resonance with the dominant views of the time (Aktar 2003; Keyder 2003). It also aimed to consolidate what was considered the most significant accomplishment and the most precious, i.e., national sovereignty. There was an unintended consequence of import substitution policies aiming to reduce the trade deficit and boost employment of the young republic in the field of popular culture: the emergence of tea as one of the icons of republican Turkey. The introduction of tea cultivation in the Artvin, Trabzon and – mainly – Rize provinces of the Black Sea was not the first in the region (Ercisli 2012: 310–12). It followed the path of imperial

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32 | ioannis n. grigoriadis Russia, which had successfully introduced the cultivation of tea in the adjacent province of Batumi a few decades before. The domestic production of tea had solid economic reasoning and involved heavy state involvement in its planning and execution (İnal 2021: 354–60). Drinking locally grown tea instead of imported coffee was not only helping create jobs in the Black Sea countryside but also saving precious foreign currency. Eventually, Turkey became self-sufficient in tea, while tea consumption became so widespread that it became an icon of republican Turkey (Yildirim & Karaca 2022: 2). Turkey has emerged as the country with the highest per capita consumption in the world. The teacups intrinsic to Turkey have been repeatedly used in tourist commercials as they have come to represent the ‘essence’ of Turkey. Ironically the decline of the relative popularity of coffee versus tea in republican Turkey coincided with the rise of a new debate about the ‘nationality’ of what had been called ‘Turkish coffee’ in western Europe since the sixteenth century. Falling into the realms of what Michael Billig aptly described as ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig 1995), the debate about the true origins of the common coffee culture of the Balkans and the Middle East has boomed. While the discussion over Turkish coffee and its transfigurations into Armenian, Bulgarian, Cypriot, Greek or Serbian coffee continues unabated, it is interesting to note that coffee-drinking culture remains nowadays unchallenged in countries other than Turkey. Atatürk’s Reforms – The Aftermath It is no surprise that Atatürk’s reforms comprise a cornerstone of the Turkish education system. The history of Atatürk’s revolution (inkilap tarihi) has been designated as a mandatory course throughout Turkish higher education, state and private, to be taught to first-year students regardless of their future specialisation. This emphasis does not conceal the fact that these reforms have remained contentious throughout republican Turkish history, particularly when the political environment became more tolerant to dissent. Soon after the end of the Second World War the contradictions of Kemalism’s Westernisation programme were becoming apparent: Turkey’s Westernisation could never be complete under an authoritarian political regime, as its full participation in the Western camp required a democratic transition. While being Western was not tantamount to being democratic in the interwar years, this changed in the aftermath of the Second World War and under the exceptional circumstances that led to the emergence of the Cold War. As Soviet threats against Turkish sovereignty rose and the Western camp presented itself as the abode of democracy and freedom, transition to a multi-party system became expedient. Ismet Inonu was the leader who agreed to hold multi-party elections in 1946 and surrender power to the winner of the 1950 elections and leader of the opposition, Adnan Menderes (Esen 2014). Turkey made a crucial step towards Western-style

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post-war reconstruction and reforms  | 33 democracy when it joined Western international political organisations and eventually NATO in 1952. Its steps towards multi-party democracy became an acid test for the viability of Atatürk’s reforms themselves. The gradual return of Sunni Islam in the public sphere under Menderes was part and parcel of a populist political agenda promoting a majoritarian understanding of democracy. This paved the ground for the establishment of a culture war (Kulturkampf) setting that dominated Turkey’s experiments with democratic politics (Grigoriadis & Grigoriadis 2018; Kalaycıoğlu 2012). This was underpinned by Turkey’s dramatic demographic and social transformation, a development with momentous implications for its politics.2 Realistic or exaggerated fears about the abolition of Atatürk’s reforms bringing Turkey closer to the Western cultural paradigm were used as pretext for military coups and other hybrid interventions in the country’s democracy. While the gradual democratisation of Turkish politics inevitably brought aspects of the Atatürk reform into public scrutiny and debate, the rising authoritarian tendencies of the Menderes administration and the 27 May 1960 coup showed the limits of Turkey’s democratisation capacity. The 1971 and 1980 coups confirmed the tutelary role of the military, in stark contrast with the democratic consolidation taking place in southern Europe, in Greece, Spain and Portugal. Military claims of credible threats against Atatürk’s reform programme by its popularly elected leaders were served as justification for their intervention. Regardless of the severity of these threats, it is therefore no surprise that some of the most consequential ideological and political struggles in republican Turkey were fought over aspects of Atatürk’s reform, such as women’s rights and secularism. The rise of Turkish political Islam and of political leaders such as Necmettin Erbakan and intellectuals such as Necip Fasıl Kısakürek was linked with a challenge to key aspects of Atatürk’s reforms and discussions about the extent of the popular appeal of Western liberal democracy. The headscarf issue is a prime example of these struggles because it shed light on one of the contradictions of the Kemalist project, being at the same time emancipatory for those women who suffered under Islamic discrimination and oppressive for those women who chose to dress in public according to Islamic tradition.3 At the end of the Cold War the triumph of liberal democracy and the acceleration of European integration put Atatürk’s reform project under a new light. Liberal democracy The population of the country rose from 13.5 million in 1927 to 84 million in 2021 and its urban population rose from 21 per cent in 1950 to 75 per cent of the total in 2018. 3 The decision of the Erdoğan government in spring 2021 to withdraw from the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, although Turkey was the first signatory of the convention, offers a clear example of how such issues have served in the domestic political theatre. 2

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34 | ioannis n. grigoriadis was now an essential element of what one calls ‘the West’. This became best understood in the context of Turkey’s European integration process. The ‘Copenhagen Criteria’ set by the EU institutions as benchmarks for those states interested in becoming full members of the Union required candidate states to be consolidated liberal democracies with free market economies. The Greek–Turkish rapprochement removed a significant institutional barrier for the improvement of EU–Turkey relations, and the Helsinki decision of the European Council in December 1999 to call Turkey an EU candidate state had historic significance. While political and economic reform to meet the Copenhagen Criteria was launched by a coalition government under Bülent Ecevit between 1999 and 2002, the process gained further traction in November 2002 when the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) won an absolute majority of seats in the parliamentary elections. The ultimate success of Atatürk’s reform would be its adoption by the majority of the country’s population, including the Islamic conservative part. This came closest to realisation in the early 2000s when a party with Islamist political origins came to power pledging to turn Turkey into a consolidated democracy and thus pave its way towards membership of the European Union. This development contravened mainstream views, which could not recognise that Islamist political actors could even indirectly promote Atatürk’s cause by consolidating Turkey’s democracy and reaching membership of the European Union. Initial optimism receded, as following consecutive electoral victories and the consolidation of firm control over the state, the AKP government started shifting towards authoritarianism. Moreover, the AKP administration increasingly employed populist rhetoric based on Atatürk’s reform and its contradictions in its aim to challenge his hegemonic position in Turkish history. This has become clearer with the rise of Necip Fasıl Kısakürek as the thinker with the most profound influence on official AKP ideology as it has developed since Erdoğan’s decision to abandon the Kurdish peace process and join forces with the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). Sultan Abdülhamid II, who was depicted in the darkest colours by republican Turkish historiography, is presented as the true reformist leader who struggled to save the Ottoman Empire against all odds but was in the end betrayed by the pro-Western Young Turks. The July 2020 decision of President Erdoğan to convert the Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque may have many interpretations, domestic and international. It could indeed be viewed as a cancellation of one of Atatürk’s most symbolic decisions in positioning Turkey within the Western cultural realm. Challenging the importance of the Treaty of Lausanne is another favourite topic. The Treaty of Lausanne is no longer portrayed as a historic success but as a selloff for Turkish interests. Similar is the attitude towards the promulgation of the Republic. Instead of a cause célèbre, the Republic is the work of ‘two drunken men’ (iki ayyaş), an implicit reference to Kemal Atatürk and Ismet Inönü. The appearance in July 2021 of the head of the Diyanet, Ali Erbaş, with a sword during the

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post-war reconstruction and reforms  | 35 first sermon in Hagia Sophia and his 1 September 2021 officiating over the beginning of the new judicial year with Islamic prayers and explicit references to Islam as the base of the judicial system were good examples of the proliferation of Kulturkampf under the AKP government (Gürsel 2021). Conclusion Atatürk’s reforms remain crucial in the future trajectory of the Republic of Turkey because they underpin a fundamental choice about Turkey’s own identity and position in the world. They reflect a debate that lasted for at least a century before the founding of republican Turkey. Atatürk was not the first Turkish statesperson to seek political and cultural integration with the West as a strategic priority as well as an existential question. However, he had the power and will to put forward a Westernisation program of momentous proportions and consequences. The debate about Atatürk’s reform and Westernisation in general has acquired new dimensions, well beyond the limits of the Turkish Kulturkampf that turned into one of the most profound features of Turkish politics of the twentieth century. In the twenty-first century, discussions about the future of the West abound, and the rise of a post-Western world attracts intellectual and policy attention. Francis Fukuyama amended his famous and much-misunderstood ‘end of history’ thesis by arguing that China’s autocratic development model could potentially pose a formidable challenge to liberal democracy. If the link between liberal democracy and economic development is weakened, then countries like Turkey could be more easily tempted to break away from the liberal democratic path and seek Asian alternatives to what has proven to be the path for political and economic success since the end of the French Revolution. Through his radical top-down reform Atatürk attempted to place Turkey within the West and introduced Western values, as he considered them to be universal. Whether Turkey remains a member of the Western bloc or not depends on a number of factors. On the centennial of the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the West remains by far Turkey’s most important economic and political partner, yet the voices of those who see the West as being in irreversible decline and advise have gained pace in Turkey as well in other countries of the Western periphery. At this time, the liberal democratic international order faces a variety of challenges on several levels; it would be imprudent to expect that the future of Atatürk’s reforms and Turkey’s position in the globe depends on the ability of the international community to promote and defend what has been understood as global values and fundamental human rights. One of the most important remains the ownership of these reforms and Turkey’s Western orientation by the majority of the country’s citizens. This is a mission of the Turkish citizenry and in particular for the Turkish youth. A century after their introduction, the viability of Atatürk’s reforms hinges upon

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36 | ioannis n. grigoriadis the explicit support and defence of the people on whose behalf and for whose benefit they were implemented. Atatürk’s reforms will be completed only when a social majority embraces and promotes them. References Aktar, Ayhan (2003), ‘Homogenising the Nation, Turkifying the Economy: The Turkish Experience of Population Exchange Reconsidered’, in Renée Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey, New York: Berghahn, pp. 79–95. Alaranta, Toni (2008), ‘Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s Six‐Day Speech of 1927: Defining the Official Historical View of the Foundation of the Turkish Republic’. Turkish Studies 9(1): 115–29. Aytürk, İlker (2004), ‘Turkish Linguists against the West: The Origins of Linguistic Nationalism in Ataturk’s Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(6): 1–25. Aytürk, İlker (2008), ‘The First Episode of Language Reform in Republican Turkey: The Language Council from 1926 to 1931’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18(3): 275–93. Başkan, Birol (2010), ‘What Made Ataturk’s Reforms Possible?’ Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations 21(2): 143–56. Billig, Michael (1995), Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Cetin, Idil (2019), ‘Photographs of Ataturk in the Early Republican Press: How His Image Was Used to Visualize Events?’ Middle Eastern Studies 55(5): 701–32. Ercisli, Sezai (2012), ‘The Tea Industry and Improvements in Turkey’, in Liang Chen, Zeno Apostolides and Zong-Mao Chen (eds), Global Tea Breeding: Achievements, Challenges and Perspectives, Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, pp. 309–21. Esen, Berk (2014), ‘Nation-Building, Party-Strength, and Regime Consolidation: Kemalism in Comparative Perspective’, Turkish Studies 15(4): 600–20. Grigoriadis, Ioannis N. (2009), ‘Islam and Democratization in Turkey: Secularism and Trust in a Divided Society’, Democratization 16(6): 1194–213. Grigoriadis, Ioannis N. and Theocharis N. Grigoriadis (2018), ‘The Political Economy of Kulturkampf: Evidence from Imperial Prussia and Republican Turkey’, Constitutional Political Economy 29(3): 339–69. Gürsel, Kadri (2021), ‘İktidarın “İkinci Adamı” Ali Erbaş ne istiyor?’ HalkTV.com.tr, http://kadrigursel.com.tr/Iktidarin-ikinci-adami-Ali-Erbas-ne-istiyor/8407 (accessed 20 January 2023). İnal, Rahşan (2021), ‘Tea Farming Industry in Turkey and Social Economic History 1920–1960’, Alternatif Politika 13(2): 351–70. Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (2012), ‘Kulturkampf in Turkey: The Constitutional Referendum of 12 September 2010’, South European Society and Politics 17(1): 1–22. Keyder, Çağlar (2003), ‘The Consequences of the Exchange of Populations for Turkey’, in Renée Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey, New York: Berghahn, pp. 39–52. Lewis, Geoffrey L. (2002), The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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post-war reconstruction and reforms  | 37 Lewis, Geoffrey L. (2019). ‘Atatürk’s Language Reform as an Aspect of Modernization in the Republic of Turkey’, in Jacob M. Landau (ed.), Atatürk and the Modernization of Turkey, New York: Routledge, pp. 195–213. Morack, Ellinor (2017), The Dowry of the State?: The Politics of Abandoned Property and the Population Exchange in Turkey 1921–1945, Bamberg: University of Bamberg Press. Özyürek, Esra (2004), ‘Miniaturizing Atatürk Privatization of State Imagery and Ideology in Turkey’, American Ethnologist 31(3): 374–91. Yildirim, Oya and Oya Berkay Karaca (2022), ‘The Consumption of Tea and Coffee in Turkey and Emerging New Trends’, Journal of Ethnic Foods 9: 8.

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3 The Same Old New Turkey: The Contours of Turkish Politics from Atatürk to Erdoğan Hakkı Taş (German Institute for Global and Area Studies)

Introduction

N

ow we are founding a new state. Whether you like it or not, the founding leader of this new state is Tayyip Erdoğan’ (Evrensel 2017). These were the words of Ayhan Oğan, a prominent executive member of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), spoken after Turkey’s 2017 constitutional referendum approving the country’s transition to a presidential system. The transition was meant to herald the advent of the long-promised ‘New Turkey’. This catchphrase, however, is hardly a novelty in the Turkish political scene. The 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which restored constitutional monarchy and prepared the way for the ascension of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, İTC), was lauded as the birth of the ‘New Turkey’ (New York Times 1909). In July 1923, Ziya Gökalp, the ideologue of Turkish nationalism, published a series of editorials titled ‘Goals of New Turkey’ (‘Yeni Türkiye’nin Hedefleri’) in the daily Yeni Türkiye (‘New Turkey’), laying a blueprint for the new government in Ankara (Gökalp 1974). Even years later after the proclamation of the Republic on 29 October 1923, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was still referred to in parliamentary records as ‘the founder of New Turkey’ (‘Yeni Türkiye’nin banisi’) (TBMM 1938; TBMM 1951). This ideal never waned in popularity. The New Turkey Party (Yeni Türkiye Partisi, YTP) has been the name of two political parties with diverse ideological strands: one formed in 1961 as a successor to the centre-right Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), while the other was founded in 2002 as a liberal leftist party. The AKP jumped on the ‘New Turkey’ bandwagon only after 2010, when it lost its initial reformist momentum, and circulated the nebulous dream of ‘New Turkey’ not only to re-energise its base but also to justify its transgressions under the context of a ‘transition’ (Taş 2014).

‘

38

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the same old new turkey | 39 Within a perpetual state of newness reverberating throughout regimes dubbed ‘Enverland’, ‘Kemalland’ and then ‘Erdoğanland’, this chapter rather focuses on the old habits that inform both the substance and the style of Turkish politics. It first elucidates the futility of the Old vs. New Turkey debate in a historical context and then argues for the persistence of Turkey’s shared political language. The primacy of the state forms the syntax of this language, while the ontological insecurities contribute significantly to its lexicon. The Zigzag Course of Turkish Politics The Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923 following a war against post-First World War occupational forces, quickly embarked on a project of modernisation and building of the nation-state. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who became known as the saviour and revolutionary leader of Turkey, served as the Republic’s first president until his death in 1938. Seen as ‘the first official of his kind in the Muslim world’ (Karpat 2004: 221), Atatürk was determined not only to turn the people of the new republic into a nation, but also to make society modern (muasır) and civilised (medeni) (Zürcher 2007: 95). He lived by the credo ‘We will be modern and Turkish’ (Ellison 1928: 26). This ‘will be’ required a drastic political and social transformation, for which the Turkish revolutionaries launched a broad reform programme encompassing all facets of state and society. Not only did the reforms, framed as Kemalism, aim to transform the state from an Islamic empire to a nation-state and its legitimising ideology from Islam to nationalism; they also sought to alter Turkish culture and morality from its religion-based Ottoman framing to one that was secular and national. Even a century later, students of Turkish politics begin their analyses on contemporary affairs with a default section on the early republican years and their arguably longlasting consequences. This common practice begs the question of why the early years were so formative and the Kemalist ideology so enduring. Yet, beyond an analytical choice, Atatürk and his legacy have never lost their immediate relevance for Turkish politics, with politicians making constant references to the formative years in their rhetoric. According to AKP supporters and anti-Western Kemalists, for instance, contemporary politics is merely an extension of those times. In this line of thinking, the Turks’ liberation war against the Western imperialists and their in-house proxies is still being waged (Çınar & Taş 2017). Debates over Turkey’s retreat from the Kemalist ‘Old Turkey’ under AKP rule predominantly focus on ideational drivers. Likewise, they reflect the established paradigm of centre–periphery cleavage, which leads analysts to frame Turkish politics as a Kulturkampf between the secular establishment and the religious people. Another dimension of this schism is rooted in nineteenth-century Ottoman modernisation debates between

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40 | hakkı taş two opposing blocs – the secularist Westernists and the conservatives – perpetually bickering over which civilisation Turks belong to. As Şükrü Hanioğlu puts it, the pioneers of the Westernism (Garbçılık) movement realised their dreams with the establishment of the new regime in Turkey, since the early republican secularisation reforms went along with those Westernist propositions advanced during the Second Constitutional Period (1908– 18) (Hanioğlu 1997: 146). Closer to the other bloc, AKP leaders have not concealed their distaste for Kemalism. Erdoğan, now Turkey’s longest-serving leader, has sought to leave his imprint on the country by dethroning the secular establishment and completely overhauling the existing political system in order to create a new Turkey in his own image. Despite occasional public embraces, Erdoğan has rarely uttered the word ‘Atatürk’. While AKP deputy Metin Külünk argued that the transition to the presidential system took revenge on the preceding two centuries, another AKP deputy, Tülay Babuşçu, said that the ninety-year commercial break for the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire had come to an end (Evrensel 2017). Notwithstanding this widely held depiction of Old vs. New Turkey, whether the AKP era amounts to a distinct ideology labelled ‘Erdoğanism’ or can be classified instead as ‘Islamic Kemalism’ depends on one’s perspective (T24 2017; Yılmaz & Bashirov 2018). First, the sole focus on ideological differences obscures the actual substance of politics in Turkey. In many ways, Erdoğan followed the Kemalist model of state- and nation-building. From a broader perspective, both were shaped by an erosion of liberal values, as well as the rise of authoritarian ideologies in their times, following the Great Depression (1929–39) and the Great Recession (2007–9) respectively. As was the case during Turkey’s formative years, Erdoğan’s efforts culminated in the unification of state and party, which thrived on a personality cult. After the 1925 outbreak of the Sheikh Said Rebellion, which provided ample justification to crush all opposition, the one-party regime was consolidated by the declaration of martial law in the eastern provinces, and the adoption of the Law on the Maintenance of Order (Takrir-i Sükûn Kanunu), which remained in force from 1925 to 1929 and conferred extensive powers to the government. Two attempts to establish a multi-party system were crushed by immediate revolts: the Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası, TCF) was shut down following the Sheikh Said Rebellion, and the Free Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası, SCF) collapsed after the 1930 Menemen Incident. Likewise, the 15 July 2016 abortive coup, a ‘God’s blessing’ in Erdoğan’s eyes, provided him with the golden opportunity to suppress all opposition and reshape the entire system through a sweeping series of emergency decrees (Taş 2018). Again, the ambitious Kemalist policies to engage in social engineering appear to have been replaced by a Sisyphean task of cultural revolution, utilising state resources in the AKP era. In particular, the institutional overhaul is accompanied by rewriting history, as it was in 1930s, to demonstrate the superiority of the Turkish-Islamic civilisation, all in

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the same old new turkey | 41 order to revive a lost glory and bolster the people’s self-confidence and ability to stand up to the West (Akyol 2014). Even on a discursive and performative level, Erdoğan strived for his rule to resemble the early republican years. To kickstart the second liberation war, he began his 2014 presidential election campaign in Samsun and Erzurum – the cities where Mustafa Kemal Pasha made his first stops in 1919 to launch the National Struggle. As his predecessor opened the parliament on 23 April 1920 after Friday prayers at the Hacı Bayram Mosque, so Erdoğan began his term as president with Friday prayers at the same mosque on 13 July 2018 (Akçam 2018). Abandoning Kemalist symbols such as Republic Day on 29 October and Mustafa Fehmi Kubilay – a lieutenant beheaded by an Islamist mob during the Menemen Incident – as the Republic’s martyr, the construction of New Turkey instead used 15 July as a founding myth, declaring that day a national holiday of ‘Democracy and National Unity’, and elevated Ömer Halisdemir, who was martyred during the 2016 coup attempt, to national hero status. Similarly, AKP supporters rephrased the Kemalist slogan ‘Atam İzindeyiz’ (‘Father, we follow in your footsteps’) to ‘Adam İzindeyiz’ (‘Man, we follow in your footsteps’) (Yanarocak 2017). From this vantage point, Erdoğan appears not to be truly challenging Atatürk, but emulating him, all to appear as the saviour-founder of New Turkey. Second, the Old versus the New Turkey is misconstrued because framing the entire pre-AKP period as Kemalist Old Turkey suffers from a presentist bias, oversimplifying the historical trajectory in which the Kemalist project was opposed and modified by multiple actors. This is how the military intervened in politics almost every decade to make a ‘balance adjustment’ to Turkish democracy; as General Çevik Bir put it in 1997, ‘We have tuned up our democracy’ (Hürriyet 1997). Initially, the Kemalist elite, positing itself as progressive in the face of ‘Islamic backwardness’, postponed the transition to democracy until society became ‘mature’ enough: ‘How can we build up a perfect democracy, with half the population in bondage?’ Atatürk stated (Ellison 1928: 23). In 1945, however, Turkey opened up its political system not out of any belief about the maturity of its people, but out of the exigencies of the Cold War – namely, the threats posed by the Soviet Union’s expansionist policies and Turkey’s alignment with the Western bloc. With the first free and fair elections held in 1950, the Anatolian masses had their political say for the first time in their history. Following a lengthy period of centralisation and accumulation of public resources under state power, however, political parties became vehicles for competing social groups to seize governmental positions and resources. Due to protectionist policies prior to 1980, economic actors, far from counter-balancing the political authority, would rather reap the advantages of closer clientelist ties to state actors (Gourisse 2017).

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42 | hakkı taş Long before Erdoğan’s populism, it was the DP who thrived on the coalition of the discontented groups of the Kemalist regime by addressing the political and economic interests of the cities and the popular religious demands of the rural population. The DP was elected with the enticing campaign slogan ‘Yeter, söz milletindir’ (‘Enough, it is now the nation’s turn’) printed beneath an open right palm, in criticism of Kemalist authoritarian rule in a single-party regime. The 1950 elections marked a new period, in which Kemalism alone was incapable of attaining and legitimising political hegemony. In fact, as an offshoot of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), the Democrats maintained Kemalist values, while advocating less state intervention in economic and religious affairs. In order to avoid the fate of the TCF or SCF, they still had to reassure the founding elite of their intentions. Early in 1951, they passed the Atatürk Bill, which punished anyone who insulted or encouraged others to insult Atatürk’s memory in word or deed (Sakallıoğlu 1996: 237). Nonetheless, on a similar path to its predecessor from liberal promises to repressive policies, the DP became what it initially denounced: a party that heavily suppressed political and societal dissent. The military accused the DP of being the epicentre of anti-Kemalist activities and intervened in politics on 27 May 1960, resulting primarily in two major consequences. First, while the architects of the coup d’état interpreted Kemalism more strictly than the founder’s pragmatism, they accorded the military a sacred role in guarding the secular unitary regime. The 1961 constitution established new structures such as the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK) through which the military could systematically weigh in on daily politics. The republic became a tutelary democracy, with the general will being equated to the generals’ will. Overall, with its reconstruction of Kemalism and the political setup it created, 1960 is more relevant and definitive than 1923 when comprehending the dynamics of contemporary politics. The second consequence was that the new constitution seemed to promote plurality and broaden the scope of individual and associational liberty (Yılmaz 2019: 727). In a less restrictive environment, new social actors with distinct political objectives were about to emerge. These comprised not only leftist movements and labour unions, but also religious groups and political parties, all of which posed varying degrees of challenge to Kemalist orthodoxy. The 1960s and 1970s were turbulent years. When the right vs left polarisation took the form of street violence and terror, the military intervened in 1971 with a memorandum, followed by a massive crackdown on militant leftist groups. Nevertheless, this would not avert the conditions resembling civil war that Turkey faced by September 1980. While the coalition governments formed after the 1973 elections were unable to address economic problems, political parties were polarised along the same ideological lines. The main character of the party system during this decade was fragmentation. Both major parties, the CHP and the DP, needed the backing of minor ideological parties to have a hope at

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the same old new turkey | 43 winning at election (Demirel 2003: 258). These minor parties included the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), as well as the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi). Describing the political turmoil of the time, Frederick Frey contended that ‘part of the current malaise in Turkish political culture is due to the fact that the Kemalist paradigm is exhausted, that this is obscurely recognised, and that no successor has been accepted’ (Frey 1975: 70). On 12 September 1980, the army staged a textbook coup d’état. They remained in power until 1983, launching a project of total transformation not just in the legal and political realms, but also in society overall. The military-led MGK suspended the constitution, dissolved the parliament, banned all political parties, suspended all professional associations and trade unions, and imprisoned 650,000 people (Yavuz 2003: 69). The political engineering of the 12 September regime extended well beyond legal amendments, attempting instead to create a new morality and to fill the ideological void. The MGK tried to incorporate indigenous values including Islam into nationalism, and reinvented Kemalism in order to foster national unity challenged by leftist, Kurdish and Islamist movements. Their objective was to promote a depoliticised Turkish Islamic culture. This redefinition of key notions, dubbed the Turkish–Islamic synthesis, reflects the Zeitgeist of the 1980s. Often called the era of conservatism, efforts here were made to tame the revolutionary spirit of the 1960s and to reintegrate the rebellious youth into the mainstream. Moreover, Turkey was impacted by the liberalisation wave of the 1980s, which relied on market economy and individualism. This new context heightened ethnic and religious aspirations. Further, it compelled the state to re-establish its legitimacy on a new foundation: one that was less entrenched in the secular modernisation agenda, and more inclusive of local elements, notably Islam (Sakallıoğlu 1996: 245). Quite fittingly for this goal, the winner of the 1983 general elections, the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), combined Muslim conservatism with a commitment to economic liberalism under the leadership of Turgut Özal. The fragmentation of the political party system in the late 1980s and the failure of centre parties to penetrate Turkish society led to an organic crisis in the 1990s, during which the term ‘identity crisis’ acquired widespread use in the press and in academia. In the aftermath of the Cold War, numerous identity groups including Sunni revivalists, Kurdish nationalists, Alevis and feminists all increasingly asserted their identity claims, challenging Kemalism as a monolithic force to mould Turkey’s culture and society. Reflecting this period of identity politics, the 1995 and 1999 elections saw the rise of relatively powerful political parties representing different identities: the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP) based on Islamic identity, the MHP based on ultranationalist Turkish identity and the People’s Democracy Party (Halkın Demokrasi Partisi, HADEP) representing Kurdish identity (Özbudun 2000: 142).

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44 | hakkı taş The 1997 military intervention sought to reinsert Kemalism and regulate politics by suppressing the rising tides of political Islam and Kurdish nationalism. One of its lasting effects is the militarisation and anti-Westernisation of secular groups, eventually culminating in the emergence of a new form of Kemalism known as Ulusalcılık (Çınar & Taş 2017). While the military became more involved in moulding public opinion and directly addressing the masses under a new rationale of political consumerism, the support of European bodies for ethnic and religious groups in the name of liberal democracy antagonised the old champions of Westernisation in Turkey. A second consequence, then, is the moderation of Islamism and Kurdish activism, which, facing direct state repression, sought Western support and established political parties embracing democracy and pluralism – the AKP in 2001 and the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP) in 2005 respectively. The Common Tongue of Turkish Politics It is widely told that Turkey was born out of the ashes of the 600-year-old Ottoman Empire. Nonetheless, the founding elite inherited numerous political, economic, religious and cultural institutions and practices within those ashes. Similarly to how the Kemalists sought to break their ties to the Ottoman past, yet controversially built the new nation-state on existing institutional structures, the AKP elite, despite their hostility to Kemalism, shared a similar political system and rationale with their predecessors. It is the power of this existing political structure that informs even its ideological contenders every time. The Primacy of the State From the Ottomans’ Devlet-i Aliye-i Ebed-Müddet (Eternal Sublime State) to the Republic’s Kutsal Türk Devleti (Sublime Turkish State), as expressed in the 1982 Constitution, the transcendental nature of the state required that community and the state take precedence over its members; more simply, interests were aligned with the common rather than the individual good (Heper 1985). Recent study indicates that the Ottoman Empire was no textbook example of Oriental despotism, nor was the early Republic independent of sectional interests. While the state apparatus lacked the capacity to impose its vision on society in the 1920s and 1930s, it was hardly an external, uniform, autonomous bureaucratic whole (Gourisse 2017). Thus, in the famous notion of the ‘strong state tradition’, ‘strong’ cannot refer to ‘state’. Instead, it refers to ‘tradition’, highlighting not the strength but the traditional primacy of the state in Turkish politics. This logic is first manifested in the raison d’état’s dominance over all spheres of life. For instance, just as the legal role of Islam was often moderated by the Ottoman state’s pragmatic concerns, secularism, despite its centrality in Turkey’s political and social

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the same old new turkey | 45 life, has been redefined several times in response to historical exigencies. That is why the military, as the self-appointed guardian of Turkish secularism, could adopt almost diametrically opposed interpretations of Kemalist secularism following the 1960 and 1980 interventions. Second, the primacy of the state blurs the distinction between the public and private. The Ottoman tradition of the father state (devlet baba) fostered a political culture which viewed the interventionist state as legitimate (Özbudun 2000: 147–8). The ambitious Kemalist project intended to permeate the private domain, with Atatürk declaring that ‘every place that is home and household to the Turk will become a model of cleanliness, beauty and modern culture’ (Atatürk 1995: 218). Likewise, Erdoğan urged women to have a minimum of three children and enacted a law in 2012 making Turkey the first country to punish elective caesareans (Kocamaner 2018). In a vicious cycle, the public approval of interventionism even now comes in return with widespread demands for the state to handle all social problems. In 2022, after a young medical student committed suicide because of the oppressive environment in his religious dormitory, many saw the solution in the further enhanced capacity of the state and raised calls for a saviour-leader to completely shut down religious communities, as envisioned in the early republican years (Bianet 2022). Third, this political logic generates a specific social contract between the state and the citizen, according to which it is not the former but the latter who is made responsible for protecting the other. ‘The state demands healthy, sturdy citizens who have a high level of comprehension, national sentiment and affection for the homeland in order to maintain order and defend the country,’ Atatürk stated (İnan [1931] 1998: 45–6). In the same reckoning, Erdoğan called his supporters ‘mübarek bir davanın hizmetkarları’ (‘the servants of a sacred cause’) and called for them to take to the streets to protect the government on the night of 15 July 2016 (the abortive coup) (Taş 2022: 137). It is clear that urging for martyrdom has become a recurrent motive in AKP rhetoric. The Fear of Unbecoming While the primacy of the state shapes the syntax of Turkish politics, the ontological insecurities likewise form its lexicon. Fear has informed the Republican tradition that employs a ‘recurrent cycle of conceptual patterns and associated roles – those of the “big man”, selfless hero, and traitor’ in political culture (White 2015). It has both external and internal dimensions. Externally, a persistent, paranoid memory still marks Turkish politics. Dubbed ‘the Sèvres syndrome’, it is most easily explained as the fear that Western imperialists will never abandon their goal of dividing and controlling Turkey (Çınar & Taş 2017: 681). The Liberation War (1919–22) revoked the Post-First World War peace treaty of Sèvres, which envisaged the partition of the Ottoman Empire along

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46 | hakkı taş ethno-religious lines; still, the fear persisted as a ‘chosen trauma’ driving Turkish nationbuilding (Akgönül & Oran 2019: 15). While Atatürk cautioned the people repeatedly about internal and external enemies, the political language of friends and foes grew to dominate the making of politics. Since the 2013 Gezi protests, Erdoğan has increasingly invoked this terminology, arguing that the very survival of the nation (milletin bekasi) was jeopardised. ‘If we are not careful in these stern times [. . .] we will find ourselves confronted with conditions like those in Sèvres,’ Erdoğan warned. ‘Turkey is witnessing its biggest struggle since the war of independence’ (Schwerin 2017). Internally, these political fears are driven by the perceived fragility of the Kemalist nation-building project. The question of who exactly is a Turk remains an open-ended one with no definitive answers, marking Turkey’s permanent identity crisis and bolstering anxiety of the country collapsing like a house of cards. This lack of confidence is manifested in a limited tolerance for pluralism, most notably for ethnic and religious minorities. Turkey is globally ranked among the lowest in terms of social and religious tolerance, indicating the lack of social capital and interpersonal trust towards others who hold divergent beliefs and lifestyles (Kalaycıoğlu 2012: 175). A constant overemphasis on ‘one state, one nation, one flag, one language’ stems from the weakness of this unity. Although it began with an inclusive, somewhat pluralist discourse, the AKP also eventually adopted this vocabulary, struggling with the twin enemies of the Kemalist republic: Kurdish separatism and, partly, political Islam. Such fears of dismemberment and extinction stifle the plurality of voices and confine politics to a narrower scope. A state of emergency has existed for nearly half of Turkey’s republican history, marking political crisis as an ingrained feature of Turkish politics (Yılmaz 2019: 722). From the TCF in 1925 to the DTP in 2009, various political parties were outlawed for threatening the regime’s secular unitary character. Under the spell of political taboos surrounding the indivisibility of state and nation, the red lines of Turkish politics have increasingly restricted freedom of speech. In this regard, the AKP frequently invoked Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code, which serves to effectively criminalise any criticism directed at Erdoğan as an insult to the Turkish president. Conclusion The Kemalist reforms are on shaky ground today. However, it is Kemalism’s key power that it informs even its rivals. Again, it is its self-defeating success in mobilising the masses towards socio-economic development that created new classes and outlooks, now serving to challenge the founding ideology. While Kemalism is still the most successful modernisation project in the Muslim world, the current disenchantment with Islamism has reinvigorated trust in Atatürk’s legacy. Nevertheless, the Kemalist success is a mixed one at most. Far from having found its balance and identity, Turkey’s political history has

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the same old new turkey | 47 seen four constitutions (1921, 1924, 1961 and 1982, with ongoing debates about a new constitution since 2007), not to mention two direct (1960 and 1980) and three indirect (1971, 1997 and 2007) military interventions in addition to six failed military attempts or revolts (1961, 1962, 1963, 1969, 1971 and 2016). A century on from its foundation, the country is still divided along different identities and lifestyles. There is hardly anything to hold these blocs together and integrate them into a society as a whole. For the majority of Turkish society, Atatürk has always been a revered symbol of shared identity. The Turkish future, however, is contingent upon Kemalism being rescued from its post-1997 out-of-touch position, which is pro-state, communitarian, militarised, isolationist, and devoid of ideological elasticity. Rather than intellectual debates about postKemalism or post-post-Kemalism, the leaderless Gezi spirit may shape a new civilian and liberal interpretation among younger generations. What the future holds also depends on the trajectory of the Kurdish question, which has served as a benchmark for how much freedom and democracy can be tolerated in Turkish politics. After the end of the Kurdish resolution process in 2015, the AKP, which had previously apologised on behalf of the state for the Kurdish killings in the late 1930s in Dersim, resorted to the same oppression in southeastern Anatolia. While Turkey expanded its Kurdish policy in the region, the question’s now-transnational character introduced various parties and power dynamics, further complicating the process of political normalisation. Overall, the enduring features of Turkish politics – the primacy of the state and existential fears – are likely to dominate the immediate future. References Akçam, Taner (2018), ‘Erdoğan’ın İkinci Cumhuriyet’i ve Atatürk’ün Birinci Cumhuriyet’i: Kuvvetler Birliği, Suriye Politik’, Birikim, 9 November, https://birikimdergisi.com/guncel/9202/ erdoganin-ikinci-cumhuriyet-i-ve-ataturkun-birinci-cumhuriyet-i-kuvvetler-birligi-suriyepolitik, accessed 20 January 2023. Akgönül, Samim and Baskın Oran (2019), ‘Turkish Politics: Structures and Dynamics’, in Alpaslan Özerdem and Matthew Whiting (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 13–26. Akyol, Mustafa (2014), ‘From Ataturk to Erdogan: Turks rewrite history’, Al-Monitor, 20 November, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2014/11/turkey-historical-revisionism-ataturk-erdogan.html, accessed 20 January 2023. Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1995), Opening Addresses Delivered to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey 1920–1938, Istanbul: Foundation for Establishing and Promoting Centers for Historical Research and Documentation. Bianet (2022), ‘Public backlash against religious community dorms in Turkey after Enes Kara’s passing’, 12 January, https://m.bianet.org/english/youth/256090-public-backlash-againstreligious-community-dorms-in-turkey-after-enes-kara-s-passing, accessed 20 January 2023.

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48 | hakkı taş Çınar, Alev and Hakkı Taş (2017), ‘Politics of Nationhood and the Displacement of Founding Moment: Contending Histories of the Turkish Nation’, Comparative Studies in Society and History 59(3): 657–89. Demirel, Tanel (2003), ‘The Turkish Military’s Decision to Intervene: 12 September 1980’, Armed Forces and Society 29(2): 253–80. Ellison, Grace (1928), Turkey To-day, London: Hutchinson. Evrensel (2017), ‘AKP member: We founded new state, founding leader is Erdoğan’, 4 August. Frey, Frederick W. (1975), ‘Patterns of Elite Politics in Turkey’, in George Lenczowski (ed.), Political Elites in the Middle East, Washington, DC: AEI, pp. 41–82. Gökalp, Ziya (1974), Yeni Türkiye’nin Hedefleri, Istanbul: Baha. Gourisse, Benjamin (2017), ‘State Domination in Turkey and the Ottoman Empire’, Politika, January, https://www.politika.io/en/notice/state-domination-in-turkey-and-the-ottomanempire, accessed 20 January 2023. Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü (1997), ‘Garbcılar: Their Attitudes toward Religion and Their Impact on the Official Ideology of the Turkish Republic’, Studia Islamica 86: 133–58. Heper, Metin (1985), The State Tradition in Turkey, Walkington, England: Eothen Press. Hürriyet (1997), ‘RP’den Bir’e Divan-ı Harp isteği’, 24 February. İnan, A. Afet (ed.) ([1931] 1998), Vatandaş İçin Medeni Bilgiler, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (2012), ‘Political Culture’, In Metin Heper and Sabri Sayari (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Modern Turkey, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 171–81. Karpat, Kemal (2004), ‘The Evolution of the Turkish Political System and the Changing Meaning of Modernity, Secularism and Islam (1876–1945)’, in Studies on Turkish Politics and Society: Selected Articles and Essays, Leiden: Brill, pp. 201–31. Kocamaner, Hikmet (2018), ‘The Politics of Family Values in Erdogan’s New Turkey’, Middle East Report 288: 36–9. New York Times (1909), ‘The younger men of the New Turkey’, 21 February. Özbudun, Ergun (2000), Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Sakallıoğlu, Ümit Cizre (1996), ‘Parameters and Strategies of Islam–State Interaction in Republican Turkey’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 28(2): 231–51. Schwerin, Ulrich von (2017), ‘Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Policy: Neo-Ottoman Rumblings’, Qantara, 18 January, https://en.qantara.de/content/erdogan-and-turkish-foreign-policy-neoottoman-rumblings, accessed 20 January 2023 T24 (2017), ‘Doğu Perinçek: Erdoğan İslami Kemalist oldu’, 20 September, https://t24.com.tr/ haber/dogu-perincek-erdogan-islami-kemalist-oldu,444938, accessed 20 January 2023. Taş, Hakkı (2014), ‘What does the “New Turkey” stand for?’ OpenDemocracy, 17 December, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/what-does-new-turkey-stand-for/, accessed 20 January 2023. Taş, Hakkı (2018), ‘The 15 July Abortive Coup and Post-truth Politics in Turkey’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18(1): 1–19. Taş, Hakkı (2022), ‘The Chronopolitics of National Populism’, Identities 29(2): 127–45.

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the same old new turkey | 49 TBMM (Turkish Grand National Assembly) (1938), Tutanak, Session 2, 14 November. TBMM (1951), Tutanak, Session 1, 15 January. White, Jenny (2015), ‘The Turkish Complex’, American Interest 10(4). Yanarocak, Hay Eytan Cohen (2017), ‘My Rival Is My Teacher: Erdoğan in the Footsteps of Atatürk’, Turkeyscope 2 (1): 1–5. Yavuz, M. Hakan (2003), Islamic Political Identity in Turkey, New York: Oxford University Press. Yılmaz, Zafer (2019), ‘The Genesis of the “Exceptional” Republic: The Permanency of the Political Crisis and the Constitution of Legal Emergency Power in Turkey’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46(5): 714–34. Yılmaz, Ihsan and Galib Bashirov (2018), ‘The AKP after 15 Years: Emergence of Erdoganism in Turkey’, Third World Quarterly 39(9): 1812–30. Zürcher, Erik J. (2007), ‘The Ottoman Legacy of the Kemalist Republic’, in Touraj Atabaki and Erik J. Zürcher (eds), Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Ataturk and Reza Shah, London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 95–110.

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Part II Political Ideologies in Turkey

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4 One Hundred Years of Kemalisms Karabekir Akkoyunlu (SOAS University of London)

O

n a cold February morning in 2022, two men attempted to topple a statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in a public square in the Black Sea city of Samsun. Confronted by angry citizens, they failed in their attempt and fled. The news sparked a national outrage. Within an hour, #Samsun and #MustafaKemalAtaturk had become trending topics on Turkish Twitter. Government officials condemned the ‘heinous and provocative’ act. Opposition politicians, celebrities and football clubs took to social media to express their undying love and loyalty to the republic’s founder. Locals took turns to guard the statue, which was inaugurated in 1932 and depicts a uniformed Mustafa Kemal mounted on a rearing horse, unsheathing his sword. The Interior Ministry announced that the suspects had been apprehended and were facing criminal charges. The incident captures a compelling snapshot of Turkey on the eve of the Republic’s centenary: eighty-four years after his passing, and despite two decades of Islamist rule, Mustafa Kemal’s statues still adorn public places. It is still a crime to insult his memory, and any act or statement against him can still provoke a genuine nationwide outcry. This is a level of public sanctity and adulation that very few twentieth-century leaders have come to enjoy. In fact, as national symbols, Atatürk and Kemalism, the secular nationalist worldview upheld by self-declared followers of Mustafa Kemal’s path, have been undergoing a renaissance of sorts in recent years, becoming ever more popular. This is a remarkable turn of events: until about a decade ago, the dominant view of Kemalism in Turkish politics and academia was that of a reactionary ideology linked to a repressive and out-of-touch state elite led by an overweening military and bureaucracy that stood in the way of Turkey’s democratisation. As the country edged closer to becoming a European Union member under the reformed and reformist leadership of Recep 53

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54 | karabekir akkoyunlu Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), it was expected to finally break free of its Kemalist straitjacket. That did not happen. In their quest for power, the ruling Islamists purged the military and the bureaucracy of the Kemalists, even if they did not dare touch Mustafa Kemal’s statues. But the promise of liberal democracy and economic prosperity remained unfulfilled. Instead, as Turkey has taken a deep dive into autocratic rule, arbitrary justice, cronyism and economic crisis, the image of Atatürk, for the first time disassociated from state power, has been recast under a new light, as a symbol of civilian opposition to the AKP, especially among younger Turks who have only known life under Erdoğan’s government. In the process, a new generation of activists and scholars have taken to rehabilitating Kemalism as a social democratic and civic idea. It is attractive, and not entirely inaccurate, to read this resurgence in terms of a state vs society dialectic, as in state-imposed religiosity triggering a secular societal backlash, just as state-imposed secularism had previously caused a religious backlash. But this is far too simplistic. For one, the dialectic divides history into neatly separated Kemalist and postKemalist eras, and ignores the continuities that run through them, including pragmatic alliances between seemingly irreconcilable political actors. But more importantly, it risks treating Turkey in a vacuum: Kemalism and all of its prefixed incarnations (anti-, post-, neo- etc.) emerged in the context of the wider intellectual and political currents of their time. Without this wider context – of postmodernism, neoliberalism and globalisation, as well as their discontents – we cannot understand the latest shift in narratives in Turkey. In this vein, this chapter provides an overview of the origins, evolution and various reinterpretations of Kemalism in changing historico-political circumstances over the past century. It then discusses the intellectual and political context surrounding the rise and decline of the so-called ‘post-Kemalist paradigm’ (Aytürk 2015). Finally, it ponders the implications of the emergence of ‘neo-’Kemalisms for Turkey’s engagement with the wider world, as well as with its own past, present and future. Kemalism: The Origins Kemalism is the Turkish modernisation project. As such, it shares a lineage with Ottoman modernisation initiatives dating back to Sultan Selim III’s ‘New Order’ in the late eighteenth century, followed by the reforms of Mahmud II, the Tanzimat era, the reign of Abdulhamid II and the Young Turk government. Differences in historical context, ambition, worldview and methods notwithstanding, all of these shared the common purpose of ‘catching up’ with the West and restoring the sovereign status and territorial integrity of the central state vis-à-vis the European powers and its own population. Turkish nationalism, which is at the ideological core of Kemalism, was the latest and the most enduring in a series of attempts by the Ottoman elite to reformulate state–society

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one hundred years of kemalisms | 55 relations amid the turbulent processes of territorial loss, imperial decline and cataclysmic collapse. Although each of these earlier attempts – Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism – ended in failure, they continue to cast a shadow on the politics of modern Turkey. In terms of cadres and ideology, Kemalism was closest to its progenitor, the Young Turk movement and the Committee of Union and Progress. Not only were many leading Kemalists, including Mustafa Kemal himself, former Unionists, but the Kemalist nation-building project was very much a continuation of the Unionist policy of creating a national (that is, Muslim) bourgeoisie that was launched after the 1913 coup, and led to the annihilation of Ottoman Christians during and after the First World War. Nonetheless, there were differences between the Unionists and the Kemalists in methods as well as goals. Mustafa Kemal was conscious of the outrage that the violence unleashed by the triumvirate of Enver, Talat and Cemal during the war had generated in Western public opinion. He was careful to renounce Enver’s pan-Turkist ambitions and present the nationalist cause as legitimate self-defence within defined borders.1 After the victory, the Ankara government sought to establish its sovereignty and legitimacy through international treaties. Even the population exchange with Greece was carried out in a ‘civilised’ manner, on the basis of the Lausanne Convention signed by both countries in 1923. That there were ‘civilised’ and ‘uncivilised’ ways of conducting ethnic cleansing speaks more about the historical context of the early twentieth century, where nationalism was widely seen as a progressive and emancipatory ideal, and cultural diversity a root cause of anarchy and conflict, than about Kemalism per se, which was a product of that context. Civilisation was a hierarchical notion: to be civilised was to be modern, and to be modern a people had to be a nation, not merely a tribe, an ethnic group or a religious community. Being a nation entailed not only the attainment of ‘national consciousness’, but also the modern institutions to control, defend and impose order over a territory and its inhabitants. Only nations were deemed worthy of respect, recognition and independence: a nation-state. This dichotomous and teleological view of modernisation formed the basis of admission to the League of Nations, which laid the foundations of our existing international system of states. Its variations informed the paternalistic nationalism of European colonial powers (best characterised by the interwar-era mandate system), the liberal nationalism of Woodrow Wilson, and the anti-colonial nationalisms of Asia and Africa. ‘Everyone

Addressing the Grand National Assembly on 1 December 1922, Mustafa Kemal said: ‘Gentlemen, we drew the animosity of the entire world upon this country and this nation because of the grand and chimerical things we said we would do but didn’t [. . .] Instead of provoking our enemies by chasing notions that we will not and cannot realise, let us return to our natural and legitimate boundaries. Let us know our limits. For, gentlemen, we are a nation who wants life and independence. And only for this should we sacrifice our lives.’ (Arsan 1989: 216)

 1

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56 | karabekir akkoyunlu should remember that the Algerian people are now adult, responsible, and conscious,’ wrote Frantz Fanon, as he made the case for Algerian independence (Fanon 1963: 134). Kemalism does not stand out because it was a unique or revolutionary ideology in a global sense. It did not threaten to upend the international system built upon this paradigm of modernity, but sought a higher place for Turkey in its pecking order; Mustafa Kemal’s stated goal was to elevate Turkey’s ‘national culture to the level of contemporary civilisation’, which was to be found in the West. Nor was it revolutionary from a class perspective, as it was not against capitalism or private property. The Kemalist principle of populism (halkçılık) reflected a corporativist view of society, in which there was no class antagonism, but instead the harmonious cooperation of different social strata in the unified body of the nation, whose head and soul were represented by the leader (Yücel 1988). While this was similar to the discourse of populism that emerged as a third way between liberalism and socialism in Latin America in the interwar era, Kemalism lacked the land reform programme that was at the centre of the Argentinian, Brazilian and Mexican populisms.2 Kemalism stands out primarily because of its remarkable ability to renegotiate the terms of the Ottoman defeat after the First World War, assert Turkey’s sovereign nationstatehood and gain a respectable international status for the young republic against considerable odds. The emergence of Kemalist Turkey fascinated observers in the East and the West. The armed resistance led by Mustafa Kemal in Anatolia had a transnational appeal across a wide geography stretching from the Balkans to Egypt and to British India as a successful anti-imperialist model for Muslims living under colonial rule.3 Turkish nationalists’ defiance of Western powers and single-minded pursuit of forging a sovereign nation-state inspired Germany’s National Socialists (Ihrig 2014). Yet Mustafa Kemal was not regarded as another Hitler by his contemporaries. Franklin D. Roosevelt called him ‘the most valuable and interesting statesman in all of Europe’. ‘Atatürk’s death’, Winston Churchill lamented, ‘is not only a loss for the country, but for Europe is the greatest loss’ (Rawlings 2013). For many of these contemporaries, the fact that the Kemalist nation-building project included authoritarian consolidation and the forced expulsion/assimilation of ethnic and religious minorities did not necessarily present a contradiction. Suppressing democracy

Of course, as Keyder (1987: 121) notes, Turkey also lacked the kind of landowning oligarchy that was dominant across post-colonial Latin American republics.  3 The Indian pan-Islamic Khilafat movement, for instance, organised mass demonstrations and considered sending volunteers to support Mustafa Kemal, whom they called Mujaddad-i Khilafat (‘Renovator of the Caliphate’). Kemalist Turkey’s subsequent secular reforms, in particular the abolition of the caliphate, would naturally come as a betrayal (Clayer et al. 2018: 16).  2

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one hundred years of kemalisms | 57 and imposing social homogeneity were rather easily excused as lamentable necessities on the path to progress and modernity. When the young republic framed its bloody suppression of Kurdish rebellions in terms of a civilising mission to root out backwardness, it was echoing a familiar Western discourse. In a similar vein, a Time magazine editorial from February 1927 praised ‘the Young Turks of today’ for ‘trying harder and with more success than any other backward people to catch up with the march of civilization’. While calling Mustafa Kemal a dictator and comparing him to Benito Mussolini for having his opponents executed, the editorial went on to describe the two leaders as ‘strong, and occupied in achieving much that is good’ (Time 1927). Multiple Kemalisms: Evolution and Revisions Kemalism did not become an official party programme or state ideology until it was codified and adopted as such by the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the course of the 1930s (Parla 1995), when there was a concerted attempt to formulate it as a fixed doctrine. Nathalie Clayer and colleagues (2018: 24) argue that ‘the making of Kemalism’ was about ‘negotiating Turkey’s place on the global symbolic chessboard, while also attempting to isolate the country by affirming its uniqueness’ at a time when transnational ideologies, namely fascism and communism, were on the rise. It was also, we might add, about bureaucratising Mustafa Kemal’s charismatic authority and ensuring institutional continuity after his eventual demise. Even so, in the CHP’s first ordinary congress after Atatürk’s death, there were still discussions about the ambiguities of Kemalism and the need to ‘write its book’, although by this time there were already several books written on the subject by leading intellectuals and senior party officials (Bora 2017: 157). It’s worth mentioning that none of these works belonged to Mustafa Kemal himself. His followers often argued Kemalism was a reflection of Mustafa Kemal’s lived experiences and principles, rather than ideological dogma. But the lack of a founding script and theoretical corpus meant the ideology would remain inextricably tied to its founder’s charismatic legacy. Besides, taking Mustafa Kemal’s long and eventful public life as the basis for Kemalism created a need to account for its internal contradictions, as a decade on the front line as military officer and fifteen years as head of state inevitably involved taking ad hoc decisions, making and breaking pragmatic alliances, and balancing between rival factions. As a result, although declared timeless and unchangeable after his death, different groups and actors were able to interpret Mustafa Kemal’s ideological legacy according to their own worldview and priorities, cherry-picking and emphasising certain periods, words and deeds over others. In particular, the absence of a clear economic programme allowed for both the political right and the left to adopt a version of Kemalism that suited their worldview.

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58 | karabekir akkoyunlu During the late 1920s, two factions started to emerge within the CHP. The military officers and bureaucrats led by İsmet İnönü made up the first faction, which favoured a dominant role for the state in socio-economic life, while the second faction, an alliance of landowners and the nascent bourgeoisie, led by Celal Bayar, a prominent former Unionist and banker, advocated a more limited and indirect state role. Atatürk mediated between the two sides, occasionally ‘ventilating the parliament’ (Atay 2009: 533), appointing İnönü as prime minister in place of a liberal predecessor at the height of the Sheikh Said rebellion in 1925, then replacing him with Bayar in 1937. The gap between the two factions would widen following Atatürk’s death, eventually leading to the latter group’s split from the CHP to establish the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) in 1945. In other words, both Bayar and Adnan Menderes’s economically liberal, socially conservative DP, which governed Turkey throughout the 1950s, and its main rival, İnönü’s statist CHP, were led by Kemalists who claimed to be the true inheritors of the leader’s legacy. It was the DP government that criminalised insulting Atatürk and finished the construction of his grand mausoleum in Ankara. As Mustafa Kemal’s body was being interred at Anıtkabir, Bayar gave a speech in which he called loving Atatürk ‘national worship’. Even so, for those officers, bureaucrats, students and intellectuals who viewed the transition to multi-party politics in 1950 as a premature move that would jeopardise the Kemalist modernisation project, the DP was a counter-revolutionary party supported by the most backward elements in society. They welcomed the coup d’état carried out by left-leaning junior officers on 27 May 1960 against the DP government as a heroic act to save liberty, democracy and the Kemalist revolution. The rebranding of Kemalism as a revolutionary left-wing ideology gained ground in the 1960s with the rise of the socialist movement in Turkey, an outcome of fast-paced urbanisation, industrialisation and the liberal political environment enabled by the 1961 constitution (Mazıcı 2009). In the global context of decolonialisation and Cold War geopolitics, left Kemalist writers – most influentially those associated with the weekly Yön magazine – combined Kemalism’s emphasis on modernisation with state developmentalism and a Third Worldist approach to foreign policy.4 With a few notable exceptions, young socialist and communist leaders of the late 1960s and the early 1970s saw no contradiction between socialism and Kemalism.5 The right-wing military coups of 1971 and 1980, which crushed the socialist movement in the name of upholding Atatürk’s legacy, also dampened the enthusiasm for a left-wing Kemalism. During the 1970s, Bülent Ecevit succeeded İnönü as the new CHP Yön had its roots and inspiration in Kadro magazine, which put forward the first leftist interpretation of Kemalism during its short publication life between 1932 and 1934.  5 One exception was Ibrahim Kaypakkaya, who described Kemalism as ‘the very definition of fascism’.  4

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one hundred years of kemalisms | 59 chairman and set out to remake it as a modern social democratic party in the western European mould. This involved toning down the İnönü-era emphasis on Atatürk as the party’s core identity and emphasising democracy, which was missing from the original ‘six principles’ of Kemalism. The CHP’s manifesto for the 1973 election, titled ‘Ak Günlere’ (‘To White Days’), which brought it back to government for the first time since 1950 largely thanks to Ecevit’s bread-and-butter politics, involved only two references to Atatürk and none to Kemalism (CHP 1973). Following the coup of 12 September 1980, the Turkish military effectively claimed monopoly ownership of Atatürk’s legacy and invoked its self-appointed regime guardianship role to justify suspending democracy, suppressing civil liberties and constructing a new ‘national security regime’ that equipped the soldiers with new tutelary powers (Sakallıoğlu 1997). In their mission to root out political, in particular left-wing, activism, the generals promoted a depoliticised version of Kemalism, known as Atatürkçülük, which was little more than leader veneration. Although junta leader and future president Kenan Evren, who liked to think of himself as the second coming of Mustafa Kemal, declared that the Turkish nation was ‘neither to the left nor to the right’ of Atatürk but ‘walking resolutely towards’ his ‘sacred ideal’ (Cumhuriyet 1980), in reality the coup makers were much more lenient towards the right and in particular towards Islamists, whom they considered loyal to state authority and useful in the fight against communism. Often referred to as the ‘Turkish–Islamic synthesis’, this combination of Turkish nationalism and religious conservatism encouraged by the 1980 coup makers would shape Turkey’s electoral politics for decades to come. During the 1980s and 1990s, images and words of Atatürk accompanied every act and policy of this national security regime, whether in school classrooms, where uniformed officers taught national security courses and students swore an oath to ‘dedicate my existence to the Turkish existence’; in State Security Courts, where military judges handed out heavy prison sentences to ‘offences against the indivisible integrity of the State’; or in the infamous Diyarbakır prison, where Kurdish activists were systematically tortured and abused. The Turkish military’s ‘dirty war’ against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its bloodless coup against the country’s first Islamist-led government in 1997 were waged in the name of upholding the Republic’s secular nationalist founding tenets. The generals that orchestrated the ousting of Necmettin Erbakan’s coalition government in 1997 did so through the coordinated pressure of their civilian associates in politics, the media, civil society and the business world. This was seen as an effective way of maintaining tutelary control of democratic politics in a post-Cold War setting where military coups were becoming increasingly costly; a ‘post-modern guardianship in a postmodern world’ (Akkoyunlu 2022). But the tide turned against the guardians quicker than expected. The AKP’s breakthrough election victory in November 2002 ushered

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60 | karabekir akkoyunlu in a coalition of Islamists, liberals and conservative Kurds united in their opposition to military tutelage. Dropping their predecessor’s anti-Western rhetoric, the ruling Islamists promised to adhere to Turkey’s commitments to the IMF and NATO, and prioritise its bid for membership of the EU, which they pragmatically framed as the fulfilment of Atatürk’s goal of ‘entering contemporary civilisation’. While the European liberals came to view the AKP and its informal coalition partner, the transnational Hizmet movement of Fethullah Gülen, as the agents of a potentially historic reconciliation between liberal democracy and Islam, the US government welcomed the Turkish Islamists as a pro-Western ‘moderate’ answer to the ‘radical Islam’ of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. For the AKP’s domestic opponents, growing Western support for the ‘neoliberal Islamist project’ posed an existential threat to Turkey’s secular foundations and national sovereignty. Within the military and its civilian supporters, the palpable sense of abandonment by the West triggered an anti-Western reaction, culminating in a geopolitical stance known as Eurasianism, which advocated Turkey’s split from NATO and the EU, and strategic alignment with Russia, China and Iran. To ‘nationalise’ this imported worldview, whose intellectual origins and main ideologues were from Russia, its proponents framed Eurasianism as the correct interpretation of Kemalism, which ‘has never been synonymous with Westernisation, but rather with anti-Imperialism’ (Akçalı & Perinçek 2009). This was the first ‘neo-Kemalism’ of the twenty-first century. Throughout the 2000s, the Kemalist Eurasianists resisted the loss of institutional power to the Islamists through a combination of democratic and non-democratic means. These included aborted coup plans by the military high command in 2003 and 2004, mass rallies organised by Kemalist civil society groups and a military ultimatum against then foreign minister Abdullah Gül’s ascent to the presidency in 2007, and finally a Constitutional Court case for the AKP’s closure in 2008. They failed and were removed from power also through a mixture of democratic and non-democratic means, involving EU-backed legal reforms, successive election defeats, constitutional referendums, and politically motivated court cases ostensibly to root out an extra-legal criminal network embedded within the state, but in fact used to purge and punish an entire opposition bloc. Post-Kemalism and its Discontents Although the undoing of the Kemalist guardianship happened quickly, its build-up had been gradual. Since the 1980s a consensus had been forming among left-leaning and liberal scholars, intellectuals and journalists that Kemalism was the single most formidable obstacle to societal peace and democracy in Turkey. Prominent members of the ‘liberal intelligentsia’ not only spoke up against the military’s existing tutelary prerogatives and anti-democratic acts, state-sanctioned extrajudicial killings and ongoing human rights

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one hundred years of kemalisms | 61 abuses. They also pointed to the Republic’s foundational episodes, in particular the systematic violence unleashed upon the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks, and later, the Kurds and conservative Muslims, in the making of the secular Turkish nation-state, as the basis of an insecure authoritarian state that continued to hold Turkey’s society and politics in its grip. To break free of this authoritarian grip, Turkey needed to deconstruct the ‘wrong republic’ (Nişanyan 2010) that was built on genocidal foundations, and reconstruct a ‘second republic’ (Altan 1992). While contemporary developments in Turkey, in particular the interventions of 1980 and 1997 and the state’s dirty war in the Kurdish provinces, provided the domestic context for the emerging ‘post-Kemalist paradigm’, its intellectual impetus was the rising postmodernist wave that challenged the epistemological assumptions of modernisation – its claims to rationality and objective truth, dichotomous view of civilisation, and single universal path to progress – and exposed its Orientalist underpinnings. Taking on board the prominent Turkish sociologist Şerif Mardin’s ‘centre–periphery’ theory, post-Kemalist scholars and intellectuals turned the Kemalist depiction of the Kurds and conservative Muslims as suspect and reactionary elements on its head, and ascribed to these peripheral actors a central democratising role. Finally, a critique of Turkish nationalism flourished in the context of the post-Cold War paradigms of liberal democratisation and globalisation, which saw former leftists advocate an alliance with pro-market conservatives to push for Turkey’s integration into the ‘global village’. The liberal intelligentsia played a critical role in presenting the Islamist score-settling with the Kemalist guardians as a cathartic moment that could open the way for Turkey’s democratic consolidation. By the mid-2000s, when Turkey came closest to fulfilling its EU ambitions, they appeared to be vindicated. But what seemed to be an expansion of democracy and liberties turned out to be just a fleeting moment of openness during the transfer of power from one elite group to another in an increasingly fluid geopolitical environment. As the Islamists consolidated their rule in the early 2010s, they did not hesitate to part ways with the liberals.6 While some members of this intelligentsia went along with Erdoğan’s hegemonic project well into the 2010s, others, like journalist Ahmet Altan, publicly turned against it and became high-profile victims of the witch hunt targeting the followers of Fethullah Gülen and other Erdoğan opponents after the failed coup attempt of July 2016. The opportunistic use of the anti-tutelage and centre–periphery arguments in their crudest forms by the Erdoğan government on its way to establishing a highly illiberal In the words of Aziz Babuşcu, the AKP chairman: ‘Those who were our stakeholders during the past decade will not be our partners in the coming decade [. . .] The liberals, for instance, were our stakeholders during this process. But the future is the era of construction. And this construction era will not be as [the liberals] wish. Hence, they will no longer be with us.’ (Hürriyet 2013)

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62 | karabekir akkoyunlu and personalistic presidential system has dealt a discrediting blow to the post-Kemalists, many of whom have not only been hounded by Erdoğan’s new regime, but also mocked, derided and stigmatised by its opponents. There were also cooler-headed critiques, such as the debate initiated by Ilker Aytürk (2015) in Birikim, which essentially argued that the post-Kemalists couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Indeed, the singular focus on the 1908–1945 period may have blinded some of these intellectuals to the prevalence of a patriarchal state tradition both pre- and post-dating the Young Turk and Kemalist experiences that cannot simply be explained as a factor of them. Like its rise, the decline of the post-Kemalist paradigm took place in a context larger than the confines of Turkey’s domestic politics. This involved the failures of globalisation in delivering its promises of freedom and prosperity, deepening socio-economic inequalities and exploitative practices in the name of economic liberalism, and the US invasions and occupations in the Middle East under the banner of democracy promotion. Having tied their own fate to the success of the Europeanisation project, Turkey’s liberal democrats were also let down by the EU’s inability to live up to its own principles when confronted with the rise of xenophobic nationalisms in response to post-2008 austerity measures and refugee crises. To be sure, there was no inevitability to these outcomes to justify the determinism with which the AKP’s Kemalist opponents denied a chance to Turkey’s democratisation from the very beginning. By conducting politics on a zero-sum basis, that categorical denial arguably contributed to a self-fulfilling prophecy (Akkoyunlu & Öktem 2016). But there were also signs of caution early on, which the AKP’s liberal supporters either missed or chose to overlook. Back to a Neo-Kemalist Future? Asked whether they felt gratitude towards Atatürk’s service to the country, and if they thought recent times had made them better appreciate Atatürk’s value, of the respondents to a nationwide poll conducted in November 2021 answered 93 per cent and 73 per cent yes respectively (Diken 2021). Even when accounting for the bias in the wording of the questions and the pressure some may have felt in answering them, these are remarkable figures for a country with deep political fault lines. Indeed, Turkey’s two-decade experience under Islamist rule, which promised social peace, justice, liberty, transparency and prosperity once the Kemalist tutelage was disassembled, but ultimately delivered conflict, autocracy, corruption, perversion of justice and deepening poverty, appears to have breathed new life into Atatürk and his ideological legacy. Within the opposition to Erdoğan today, a new generation of academics and activists with no links to the military or state bureaucracy proudly call themselves Kemalists. They point to the early Republic not as a shameful moment in history, but one from

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one hundred years of kemalisms | 63 whose positive sides inspiration can be drawn, like the emphasis on secularism and women’s rights, good neighbourly relations and pragmatic neutralism, and the ability to oversee the peaceful transfer of power through democratic elections.7 There are also more unexpected converts, such as prominent journalist Hasan Cemal, who after having spent much of the previous decade defending Erdoğan against the Kemalists, announced in 2016 that he was ‘standing with Atatürk against Erdoğan’ (Cemal 2016). Even President Erdoğan, who sees himself as the founding father of ‘New Turkey’, has lately assumed a more respectful tone when addressing Mustafa Kemal, despite having spent a career undoing his ideological legacy. Erdoğan’s survival instincts after 2016 have brought him into coalition not only with the far-right Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) but also with his former enemies the Eurasianist generals, based on a shared anti-Gülenist, anti-liberal, anti-Kurdish agenda; an ultra-pragmatic manoeuvre that prompted Doğu Perinçek, the flag bearer of Kemalist Eurasianism and one of the most shadowy figures of modern Turkish politics, to declare Erdoğan an ‘Islamic Kemalist’ (Sputnik 2017). Does the looming end of the Islamists’ political hegemony augur the beginning of a new Kemalist future for Turkey? Can a demilitarised neo-Kemalism emerging out of the democratic struggle against the AKP guide Turkey out of its impasses into safe harbour in an uncharted world, or would it turn to revanchism once in power? What, if anything, does a new Kemalism offer to the people, in particular the Kurds, whose rights its previous adherents so thoroughly trampled upon? Or is this the tragic continuation of an ageold vicious cycle between the two sides of the same paternalistic coin that goes back to the struggle between Sultan Abdulhamid and the Young Turks, which does not allow Turkey a third alternative? On the eve of the Republic’s centenary, these questions remain open. One thing, however, is certain: in Turkey, nationalism is as potent as ever. It is the glue that binds all the political parties that make up the two grand alliances on either side of the political divide – and excludes the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP). The newfound nostalgia for Mustafa Kemal frequently takes the shape of a search for a nationalist saviour to root out the ‘foreign invaders’; this time not British or Greek occupation forces, but Syrian and Afghan refugees. The post-Kemalists may have got many things wrong, but they were spot on about the destructive and oppressive side of nationalism and its terrible manifestations in Turkey’s modern history. Discarding those critical insights together with the postKemalist paradigm, and glorifying nationalism once again as an emancipatory ideal would be a terrible mistake. See for instance Esen (2021a), Esen (2021b).

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64 | karabekir akkoyunlu References Akçalı, Emel and Mehmet Perinçek (2009), ‘Kemalist Eurasianism: An Emerging Geopolitical Discourse in Turkey’, Geopolitics 14(3): 550–69. Akkoyunlu, Karabekir (2022), Guardianship and Democracy in Iran and Turkey: Tutelary Consolidation, Popular Contestation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Akkoyunlu, Karabekir and Kerem Öktem (2016), ‘Existential Insecurity and the Making of a Weak Authoritarian Regime in Turkey’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4): 505–27. Altan, Mehmet (1992), ‘İkinci Cumhuriyet nedir, ne değildir?’ Türkiye Günlüğü, Autumn. Arsan, Nimet (1989), Atatürk’ün Söylev ve Demeçleri, Cilt 1, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. Atay, Falih Rıfkı (2009), Çankaya, Istanbul: Pozitif. Aytürk, İlker (2015), ‘Post-post-Kemalizm: Yeni Bir Paradigmayı Beklerken’, Birikim 319: 34–48. Bora, Tanıl (2017), Cereyanlar: Türkiye’de Siyasi İdeolojiler, Istanbul: İletişim. Cemal, Hasan (2016), ‘Erdoğan’a karşı Atatürk’ün yanındayım!’ T24, 29 October. CHP (1973), ‘Ak Günlere : Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi 1973 Seçim Bildirgesi’, available at https:// acikerisim.tbmm.gov.tr/xmlui/handle/11543/751, accessed 21 February 2023. Clayer, Nathalie, Fabio Giomi and Emmanuel Szurek (2018), Kemalism: Transnational Politics in the Post-Ottoman World, London: Bloomsbury. Cumhuriyet (1980), ‘Evren: “Atatürk kutsal bir idealdir”’, 10 November. Diken (2021), ‘MetroPOLL’den Atatürk anketi’, 27 November, https://www.diken.com.tr/ metropollden-ataturk-anketi/, accessed 20 January 2023. Esen, Berk (2021a), ‘Değişen Mustafa Kemal algısı (I)’, PolitikYol, 16 November, https://www. politikyol.com/degisen-mustafa-kemal-algisi-i/, accessed 20 January 2023. Esen, Berk (2021b), ‘Sivilleşen Kemalizm neden bazı kesimleri rahatsız ediyor?’ PolitikYol. 21 September, https://www.politikyol.com/sivillesen-kemalizm-neden-bazi-kesimleri-rahatsizediyor/, accessed 20 January 2023. Fanon, Frantz (1963), The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press. Hürriyet (2013), ‘Babuşçu’dan ilginç değerlendirme’, 1 April. Ihrig, Stefan (2014), Atatürk in the Nazi Imagination, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Keyder, Çağlar (1987), State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development, London: Verso. Mazıcı, Nurşen (2009), ‘27 Mayıs, Kemalizmin Restorasyonu mu?’, in Murat Gültekingil and Tanıl Bora (eds), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Kemalizm, Istanbul: İletişim. Nişanyan, Sevan (2010), Yanlış Cumhuriyet: Atatürk ve Kemalizm Üzerine 51 Soru, Istanbul: Everest. Parla, Taha (1995), Türkiye’de Siyasal Kültürün Resmi Kaynakları: Kemalist Tek-Parti İdeolojisi ve CHP’nin Altı Ok’u, Cilt 3. Istanbul: İletişim. Rawlings, Nate (2013), ‘8 odes to Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic’, Time, 29 October.

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one hundred years of kemalisms | 65 Sakallıoğlu, Ümit Cizre (1997), ‘The Anatomy of the Turkish Military’s Political Autonomy’, Comparative Politics 29(2): 151–66. Sputnik (2017), ‘Perinçek: Erdoğan, İslami Kemalist oldu’, 20 September, https://tr.sputniknews. com/turkiye/201709201030222172-perincek-erdogan-islami-kemalist/. Time (1927), ‘Turkey: youth going West’, 21 February. Yücel, Yaşar (1988), ‘Atatürk İlkeleri’, Belleten Dergisi 52(204): 810–24.

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5 Imperious Nationalism in New Turkey: Foreign Policy Discourses in the AKP’s Electoral Manifestos Ayşe Kadıoğlu(Sabancı University) and Bengi R. Cengiz (Sabancı University)1

T

he essential power of nationalism stems from what Anthony Smith ([1995] 2007: 13) described as ‘its chameleon-like ability to transmute itself according to the perceptions and needs of different communities and of competing strata, factions and individuals within them’. The ability to entangle with other ideologies enhances the appeal and persistence of nationalisms. When nationalism inhabits ‘host vessels’ or host ideologies such as liberalism, conservatism and socialism, it reflects their features and creates ‘areas of nationalist discourse’ within them (Freeden 1998: 759). Nationalist discourse exists in a variety of host ideologies adopted by both incumbent and opposition political parties. In this chapter, nationalism does not denote a distinct ideology, but a discourse hosted by another ideology, namely conservatism. Our main endeavour is to identify the distinguishing features of the nationalist discourse within the conservative ideology of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) governments in Turkey from 2002 until today. Our focus is on ‘official nationalism’, a top-down discourse that reflects the nationalism of the incumbent government (Anderson 1991: 101; Seton-Watson 1977). In what follows, the official nationalism of both the founders of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s and the AKP governments in the course of the past two decades is depicted in an attempt to reveal its transformation in Turkey. As Tanıl Bora (1994) underlines, the official nationalism of the founding years of the Republic constitutes the ‘root language’ of all other nationalisms in Turkey. Accordingly, various We would like to thank the Manifesto Project for facilitating our access to the Justice and Development Party’s (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) electoral manifestos from 2002 to 2018. See: https://manifestoproject.wzb.eu/

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imperious nationalism in new turkey | 67 manifestations of nationalism in Turkey can be mapped in reference to the official nationalism of the founding years of the Republic. The official nationalism of the early republican era was distinguished by two main motives: the preservation of the unity of the state and Westernism (Kadıoğlu 2011). Although Westernism was abandoned occasionally, these twin motives of official Turkish nationalism have remained prevalent throughout the Turkish Republic. Nevertheless, in the last few years of the AKP’s two-decades-long governance since 2002, there has been a visible shift away from Westernism. Moreover, the AKP’s nationalist discourse has acquired domineering and overbearing motifs accompanying the increasingly authoritarian features of the political regime. The first part of the following chapter underlines the twin motives of official nationalism, namely preservation of the state and Westernism, reflecting the root language of official nationalism during the early republican years. The second part portrays the AKP governments’ shift away from Westernism as manifested in the party’s electoral manifestos from 2002 until 2018 in the light of some of the key turning points in foreign policy. This shift in the AKP’s nationalist discourse was accompanied by a move away from the policy of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ based on soft power towards domineering and militarist policies. It is the contention of this chapter that the nationalist discourses of the AKP governments portray a shift from a proactive and mediating language towards a domineering and militarist discourse in the period after 2016. It is this shift from confidence to arrogance as well as from cooperation to distrust that we define as ‘imperious nationalism’ in this chapter. Core Motives of Official Nationalism in Turkey In The Making of Modern Turkey, Feroz Ahmad (1993: ix) aptly indicated that Turkey ‘did not rise phoenix-like out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. It was “made” in the image of the Kemalist elite who won the national struggle against foreign invaders and the old regime.’ A similar point was underlined by Şerif Mardin (1981: 208–9), who maintained that ‘Mustafa Kemal [the founder of the Turkish Republic] took up a non-existent, hypothetical entity, the Turkish nation, and breathed life into it’. The idea of a Turkish nation was indeed a non-existent, hypothetical entity at the turn of the twentieth century. The republican elite set out to construct it by forming institutions such as the Turkish Historical Society and the Turkish Language Association as well as the People’s Houses at the beginning of 1930s with the task of educating the citizens of the new Republic. Turkish citizenship was defined through a language not of rights but rather of duties in citizenship education textbooks throughout the republic (Üstel 2004). The key political thinkers of the early twentieth century expressed the need to forge a

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68 | ayşe kadioğlu and bengi r. cengiz Turkish nation in order first to preserve the unity of the state (devletin bekası) and second to become Western. Yusuf Akçura (1876–1935) was the first political thinker who spelled out Turkism as a political project to preserve the unity of the Ottoman state. In his pioneer article titled ‘Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset’ (‘Three Ways of Policy’) that became a manifesto of Turkish nationalism after its publication in 1904, Akçura assessed the policies of Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism in terms of their ability to ensure the power and progress of the Ottoman state (Georgeon 1999). He thought Turkism was the most rational policy geared towards preserving the unity of the Ottoman state. The second motive of Turkish nationalism, namely, the will to become Western or Westernism, on the other hand, was expressed by another Turkish nationalist, Ahmet Ağaoğlu (1869–1933), who became one of the founders of the nationalist organisation called Türk Yurdu (Turkish Homeland) in 1911. Ağaoğlu did not think Islam was the cause of the backwardness of the Turks. He rather thought that backwardness stemmed from the lack of national consciousness and sovereignty that were the key features of Western societies. Hence, he embraced nationalism as a prelude to Westernism. In other words, forging a Turkish nation was necessary to achieve the kind of progress that existed in the West (Kadıoğlu, 2007). While other key nationalist thinkers of the era, such as Ziya Gökalp, maintained that only the material aspects of Europe should be taken while retaining an authentic Turkish identity, Ağaoğlu believed in wholesale Westernisation, with its culture and civilisation (Kadıoğlu 2011). The will to preserve the unity of the state has remained a constant feature of official nationalism in Turkey throughout the history of the Republic. The nature of Westernism, on the other hand, has fluctuated between wholesale Westernism and adoption of only material aspects of the West while retaining a genuine culture. In fact, Turkish official nationalism has an innate ‘paradox’ in comprising both an urge to imitate the West and a hostility towards it (Kadıoğlu 1996). This paradox is manifested in the strange combination of a sense of pride with low self-esteem, reflecting one of the significant cultural dilemmas in Turkey (Kadıoğlu 2015). Although there were critical moments when Westernism was increasingly questioned, it nevertheless remained a key aspect of the root language of official nationalism in the Turkish Republic until recently. Westernism as one of the core aspects of official nationalism in Turkey led to foreign policy choices that ensured the country’s positioning in key Western institutions. In the period between the two world wars, the Turkish republican elite made a concerted effort to join the early proposals for a European union as well as the League of Nations (Barlas & Güvenç 2009). Turkey became a member of the Council of Europe and NATO in 1950 and 1952 respectively. By 1963, the Ankara Agreement, which created an association between Turkey and the then European Economic Community, was signed. Between

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imperious nationalism in new turkey | 69 1961 and 1975, Turkey signed various bilateral agreements with European governments that led to labour migration from Turkey to various cities in Europe. In about a decade, it became clear that the so-called Gastarbeiter or Turkish guest workers were not temporary and would stay in Europe. The stories of the second- and third-generation migrants from Turkey became interwoven into the stories of Europe (Kadıoğlu 2019). While Turkey remained a country at the margins of Europe throughout the 1970s and 1980s, its strategic and military significance seemed to decline after the Cold War. Nevertheless, policies geared towards Westernism led Turkey to become an official candidate to join the European Union (EU) in 1999. Shortly after this historical development, the AKP formed its first government at the end of 2002 after winning 34.42 per cent of the vote and almost two thirds of the parliamentary seats in national elections. Nationalist Discourse in the AKP’s Electoral Manifestos In what follows, the shift in the AKP’s nationalist discourses is portrayed by reviewing the six election manifestos of the AKP (2002, 2007, 2011, June 2015, November 2015 and 2018) while highlighting some of the turning points in its foreign policy. Electoral manifestos are public documents prepared for the consumption of everyone interested in learning about the vision of a political party in all realms of governance. It is through these documents that a political party puts forth its promises prior to national elections. A comparative survey of the electoral manifestos of a single political party over time has the potential to reveal policy shifts with the caveat that they are biased documents about the party’s past achievements and mostly include unsubstantiated promises. Nevertheless, they have the potential to reveal a political party’s identity. Indeed, a survey of the electoral manifestos of the AKP between 2002 and 2018 with a special focus on visions of foreign policy portrays a visible shift in the AKP’s nationalist discourses over time. During its initial years in government, the AKP characterised itself as a political party with a ‘conservative democrat’ ideology (EM 2002: 22; EM 2007: 11)2. In addition, the AKP seemed to regard the EU as an anchor for democratisation and continued the trend set by the former government to accept reform packages in the parliament on critical issues such as the abolition of the death penalty, gender equality, priority of international agreements over domestic law, and freedom of the press. In the years between 2002 and 2011, AKP governments displayed a cooperative and constructive attitude in foreign policy and engaged in playing the role of a mediator in some of the key regional conflicts. Electoral manifestos of the AKP are abbreviated in the text as EM followed by the year. The electoral manifesto of 2002, for instance, is ‘EM 2002’ the electoral manifesto of 2007 is ‘EM 2007’ and so forth. There were two elections in 2015 and hence two electoral manifestos; the first electoral manifesto in June is denoted as ‘EM 2015/June’ while the second electoral manifesto in November is ‘EM 2015/November’.

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70 | ayşe kadioğlu and bengi r. cengiz The 2002 electoral manifesto of the AKP underlined full membership in the EU as a natural outcome of the Turkish modernisation process. It emphasised the vitality of the EU’s Copenhagen Criteria in steering Turkey’s democratisation process while criticising the EU sceptics in Turkey (EM 2002: 5). In addition, the AKP’s foreign policy was defined as ‘free from prejudices and obsessions’, with ‘cooperation’ as a priority (EM 2002: 131). The AKP’s position vis-à-vis the Annan Plan was one of the earliest manifestations of a cooperative and constructive attitude in foreign policy. The plan, known by the name of the then secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, opted for an independent Cyprus where Turkish and Greek Cypriot citizens would coexist in a bi-communal federal republic. The AKP gave its support to the plan despite opposition from the main opposition political party and the Turkish military. The plan failed when it was voted on in a referendum on 24 April 2004 by the Turkish and Greek Cypriot citizens since it was rejected by the Greek Cypriots despite its approval by the Turkish Cypriots. Nevertheless, a week later, the Republic of Cyprus became a member of the EU. This was the initial blow to the AKP which sparked the party’s search for alliances beyond the EU. It was about this time that the notions used by Ahmet Davutoğlu (2001), namely ‘strategic depth’ and ‘zero problems with neighbours’, became prevalent in Turkish foreign policy. After serving the AKP as the chief advisor (2003–9) to the then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Davutoğlu became the foreign minister (2009–14) and then prime minister (2014–16) of Turkey. He had envisioned a Turkish foreign policy that was proactive and multidimensional, as expressed in the AKP’s 2007 electoral manifesto: Turkey is a versatile and multidimensional country in terms of its foreign policy agenda and responsibilities. Turkey is a country that is both European and Asian; Northern and Southern; Balkan and Middle Eastern and Caucasian; and a part of both Mediterranean and Black Sea and the Caspian Sea regions. Our historical background, geographical and cultural depth, geostrategic location requires a multidimensional foreign policy that is well defined and has a comprehensive outlook. (EM 2007: 210)

The AKP’s 2007 electoral manifesto was openly critical of an attitude of distrust that presumed that Turkey was surrounded by enemies. Instead, it underlined the necessity to transform such a ‘conflictual mindset’ into a confident one in order to make Turkey a big and central state which acted as ‘a founding actor of a medium of cooperation and dialogue’ (EM 2007: 215) As Prime Minister Erdoğan put it in 2008: ‘The feeling of insecurity of being a country surrounded by seas on three sides and enemies on four sides is a feeling of the past. Turkey no longer operates with such a feeling of insecurity.’ (Erdoğan 2008) As will be portrayed below, by 2018 the praise for such a confident mindset eager to cooperate and mediate was replaced by distrust and a conflictual mindset.

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imperious nationalism in new turkey | 71 The 2018 electoral manifesto of the AKP portrayed an impression of Turkey as a country surrounded by enemies, a view that was ironically criticised in the 2007 electoral manifesto as well as by Erdoğan. Davutoğlu’s policy of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ was included in the 2007 electoral manifesto (EM 2007: 214). It endeavoured to ‘move Turkey away from being a defensive country that reacts to crises’ towards becoming an ‘actor that can – with its global vision – give direction to developments’. (EM 2007: 210) Indeed, Turkey engaged in a proactive and constructive policy in its neighbourhood and assumed the role of a mediator state in the Middle East as well as the Balkans between 2007 and 2010. These years did not necessarily include a diversion from Westernism but rather widened the foreign policy horizons by adopting a multidimensional approach. During this time, for instance, Turkey facilitated and mediated many rounds of proximity peace talks between Israel and Syria (Arbell 2014: 10). As one of the first states to recognise the state of Israel in 1949 coupled with its ongoing relations with Hamas, the AKP presumed that Turkey was in a pivotal position to play the role of the mediator. Yet, Turkey’s attempts at conflict mediation came to an end when Israel launched an attack against Hamas in Gaza on 27 December 2008, a few days after Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert visited Ankara. The attack terminated the proxy peace talks between Israel and Syria mediated by Turkey. Turkey’s role as a mediator state was not limited to the Middle East. In December 2009, Davutoğlu, then foreign minister, met with his Bosnian and Serbian counterparts. This was a time when the relations between Serbia and Bosnia were deteriorating and Western attempts at mediation were failing. These tripartite meetings continued with Davutoğlu paying multiple visits to both Belgrade and Sarajevo in the spirit of what he called ‘rhythmic diplomacy’ (Davutoğlu 2013). These diplomatic efforts triggered the initial meetings between the Serbian president and the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as the exchange of ambassadors. A similar style of cooperation became visible in relations with Armenia on the basis of a ‘football diplomacy’ and normalisation of relations in the autumn of 2008. Yet these efforts failed due to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over NagornoKarabakh. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh would culminate in a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan with Turkey’s involvement, ironically, on the side of Azerbaijan in 2020. No other example portrays Turkey’s shift from attempts at cooperation and mediation (albeit unsuccessfully) to outright military involvement as clearly as its relations with Armenia. The shift from policies of mediation became visible when Prime Minister Erdoğan stormed out of a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2009 after telling his co-panellist Shimon Peres, the president of Israel: ‘When it comes to killing, you know quite well how to kill. I know very well how you shot and killed children on

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72 | ayşe kadioğlu and bengi r. cengiz beaches.’ This was a move that turned him into a populist hero overnight not only in Turkey but in Palestine and the Arab world. He was greeted by thousands upon his return to Istanbul. The relations with Israel received another fatal blow when a six-ship international flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade, was intercepted by Israeli forces on 31 May 2010, killing eight Turkish citizens and one US citizen of Turkish descent aboard the largest vessel, called the Mavi Marmara (International Crisis Group 2010). In 2011, anti-government protests and uprisings that came to be known as the ‘Arab Spring’ began to sweep through the Arab world. Although Turkey initially assumed the role of a model state to be emulated by these transitioning societies, civil wars soon erupted in most of them. The rising instability in its neighbourhood, and the escalation of war in Syria with repercussions on Turkey’s Kurdish conflict would gradually lead to the predominance of a security discourse in foreign policy replacing the language of cooperation and mediation. Despite these emerging volatilities, the zero-problems discourse continued in the 2011 electoral manifesto with an emphasis on Turkey’s ‘steering’ role in establishing peace, security and cooperation in its region (EM 2011: 270). The adoption of a security discourse was further accentuated when domestic tensions between AKP and the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, HDP) increased over the adoption of a presidential regime coupled with the HDP’s electoral gains to the detriment of the AKP in the June 2015 elections. The failure to form domestic coalitions among the political parties in the parliament led to the snap elections of November 2015 during which AKP established its majority in the parliament. The period between the two elections in 2015 was characterised by intense violence including the tragic death of hundreds of civilians in two suicide bombings carried out by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). By the end of 2015, the feeling of distrust and being surrounded by enemies was becoming evident in the discourse of the AKP leaders. In a speech in December 2015, President Erdoğan referred to Turkey’s historical and geographical destiny to face enemies: Turkey cannot afford to be weak due to its history and geographical location; we have to be strong. I always say this: if we are not strong, [they] don’t allow us to live for one day on this land. I do not repeat the expression ‘Turkey is a country surrounded by seas on three sides and enemies on four sides’. On the contrary, I state that we, as the Turkish nation, cannot avoid our historical and geographical destiny to face enemies. (Erdoğan 2015)

The nationalist discourse of the AKP had already began to acquire a security dimension following the Arab Spring. The AKP’s electoral decline in the June 2015 elections and the failed coup d’état attempt of 15 July 2016 enhanced the political party’s security

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imperious nationalism in new turkey | 73 discourse. By May 2016, Davutoğlu had been replaced by Binali Yıldırım, who became the last prime minister since Turkey’s entrenched parliamentary regime was replaced by a peculiar presidential regime in 2017 in which the office of the prime minister was abolished. The 2018 elections were undertaken during the final weeks of the two-year state of emergency that was declared after the July 2016 coup attempt. The 2018 electoral manifesto revealed a hardening of the AKP’s security trepidations by openly stating ‘war with terror’ as one of the foreign policy priorities of Turkey that underpinned the subsequent shift from confidence and proactive mediation to distrust and hard-line military involvement in its region. During this period, it is possible to see a visible decline of Westernism in the AKP’s nationalist discourse. The parameters of the AKP’s imperious nationalism were formed during and after the 2016 coup attempt. Imperious Nationalism The 2018 electoral manifesto of the AKP can be distinguished from the former electoral manifestos on the basis of containing a separate sub-heading on ‘National Security and War on All Forms of Terror’ under the section on ‘National Security and Foreign Policy’. Although there were references to the war on terror in stating foreign policy priorities in the electoral manifestos before 2018, these references still had a cooperative tone. For instance, the June 2015 manifesto listed the collaboration with the US for the ‘Global Forum for Fighting Against Terrorism’ and with Finland in ‘Mediation for Peace’ as Turkey’s contribution to global peace (EM 2015/June: 323). The 2018 manifesto, on the other hand, underlined Turkey’s vanguard role in the war on terror: ‘Our country plays a vanguard role in fighting against terrorist organisations associated with Al-Qaeda and ISIS, which threaten international security by their terrorist activities in different countries’ (EM 2018: 317). The language of the 2018 electoral manifesto portrayed AKP’s distrustful attitude towards its neighbours; in it the word ‘enemy’ was used sixteen times, whereas it was mentioned only once in the 2007 electoral manifesto. The 2018 manifesto further stated: ‘Our fight continues outside our country as much as inside.’ (EM 2018: 316) There was no doubt that distrust in others had become the definitive attitude of the AKP leaders in both domestic and foreign policy in the aftermath of the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. During the state of emergency declared after the coup attempt, 152,000 civil servants, academics, teachers, police officers, health workers, judges and prosecutors were purged by emergency decrees. By the time the state of emergency came to an end in July 2018, more than 150,000 people had been taken into custody and over 78,000 arrested on terrorismrelated charges (European Commission 2019: 9). The failed coup attempt led to the escalation of a perception on the part of the AKP leaders that was akin to ‘Sèvres syndrome’ regarding foreign policy. The Treaty of Sevres,

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74 | ayşe kadioğlu and bengi r. cengiz signed in 1920 between the Entente Powers of the First World War and the Ottoman Empire, had negative connotations in the founding myth of the Turkish nation-state due to its provisions for the partitioning of the Empire. Hence, the expression ‘Sèvres syndrome’ indicates a spirit of distrust and disillusionment in the evil intentions of the enemies of the Turks. The reclamation of this spirit is accompanied by the resurrection of Turkish nationalism. In a speech he gave in December 2016, President Erdoğan said that Turkey could no longer remain inactive against the threats it faced: ‘If we do not act in this critical period, when the world and the region Turkey is located in are being restructured, we will end up living under Sèvres conditions.’ (Erdoğan 2016) In describing Turkey’s foreign policy in the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, Bülent Aras (2017) also points to an attitude among the AKP leaders that was reminiscent of Sèvres syndrome. He underlines the rising significance of a Eurasianist tendency that challenged the former policy of zero problems with neighbours, which did not exclude Westernism but purported to go above and beyond it (Aras 2017: 9). Envisioning a new geopolitical identity for Turkey, Eurasianism considers Russia as the primary ally of Turkey, while being sceptical towards Western actors including NATO, the EU and the US (Aktürk 2015). Such a rapprochement with Russia signalled Turkey’s shift away from Westernism coupled with an offensive foreign policy agenda. The Blue Homeland (Mavi Vatan) Doctrine, which was put forward by Turkish Eurasianists, is a case in point. Begun as a set of massive drills conducted by the Turkish navy in early 2019, Blue Homeland is actually ‘a geopolitical concept’ that seeks to extend Turkey’s ‘political-military grip towards surrounding waters and high-seas around the Anatolian Peninsula’. (Kasapoğlu 2019; Özkaraşahin 2020) Although it lost its momentum by 2022, it reflected one of the manifestations of Turkey’s more offensive and militarist foreign policy after 2016. Indeed, Turkish foreign policy became increasingly more militarist in the aftermath of 2016. In an essay in the Financial Times, an analyst maintained that the ‘Turkish president’s muscular foreign policy has left Ankara more isolated from the west’. (Pitel 2021) Turkey’s full support for Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 revealed the AKP’s aspirations in the south Caucasus. Turkey’s multiple military interventions in the Syrian civil war have been ongoing since February 2015. Turkey also got involved in the civil war in Libya by sending troops and military support for the interim Government of National Accord in January 2020. All these military involvements portray a new belligerent attitude in Turkish foreign policy. Conclusion The shift from a mediator state to a belligerent state became more pronounced when, before the 2018 national elections, the AKP entered into a domestic electoral alliance

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imperious nationalism in new turkey | 75 with the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), a political party with an ethnicist-Turkist agenda, an anti-immigrant stance and a desire to bring back the death penalty. The AKP’s imperious nationalist discourse that became visible after 2016 has three key components. First of all, it signifies the abandonment of Westernism. Westernism was a leitmotif in nationalist discourses of incumbent governments throughout the republican era. It was not abandoned during the peak era of the policies of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ although AKP discourses had underlined multidimensional policies rather than an exclusively Westernist position. A policy of rapprochement with Russia became more visible between 2016 and 2021, portraying the strengthening of a Eurasian perspective in the AKP’s outlook.3 Secondly, imperious nationalist discourse signalled a shift of emphasis away from mediation and cooperation towards a belligerent and militarist language. Turkey under AKP rule was no longer acting as a broker in resolving long-lasting conflicts in Cyprus, the Middle East and the Balkans, nor making moves towards opening its border with Armenia. The AKP’s vision of a proactive mediating state was replaced by one of an offensive polarising state. Thirdly, imperious nationalist discourse signals a shift away from an earlier mindset of confidence that was described in the AKP’s electoral manifestos. While the AKP’s 2007 electoral manifesto was clearly critical of the assumption that Turkey was surrounded by enemies, by 2018, its electoral manifesto was laden with expressions that indicated AKP’s distrustful view of the world and the assumption of its leaders that Turkey was indeed surrounded by enemies. In other words, the AKP had adopted the distrustful discourse that it had criticised earlier. Overall, the AKP’s imperious nationalist discourse indicated a shift away from Westernism. It also indicated a shift from a mindset of cooperation and mediation towards conflict as well as a shift from a language of confidence to distrust. Imperious nationalism has been accompanying the AKP’s increasingly belligerent and militarist foreign policy since 2016. References Ahmad, Feroz (1993), The Making of Modern Turkey, London: Routledge. Aktürk, Şener (2015), ‘The Fourth Style of Politics: Eurasianism as a Pro-Russian Rethinking of Turkey’s Geopolitical Identity’, Turkish Studies 16(1): 54–79. Anderson, Benedict (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, 2nd ed., London and New York: Verso. A revealing development was Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 defence missile system in 2019.

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76 | ayşe kadioğlu and bengi r. cengiz Aras, Bülent (2017), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy after July 15’, Istanbul Policy Center at Sabancı University, February, https://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/Content/Images/Document/turkishforeign-policy-after-july-15-7fc40f/turkish-foreign-policy-after-july-15-7fc40f.pdf, accessed 23 January 2023. Arbell, Dan (2014), ‘The US-Turkey-Israel Triangle’, Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, October, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-u-s-turkey-israel-triangle/, accessed 23 January 2023. Barlas, Dilek and Serhat Güvenç (2009), ‘Turkey and the Idea of a European Union during the Inter-War Years 1923–39’, Middle Eastern Studies 45(3): 425–46. Bora, Tanıl (1994), ‘Türkiye’de Milliyetçilik Söylemleri: Melez bir Dilin Kalın ve Düzensiz Lügati’, Birikim 67: 9–24. Davutoğlu, Ahmet (2001), Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu, Istanbul: Küre Yayınları. Davutoğlu, Ahmet (2013), ‘Zero Problems in a New Era’, Foreign Policy, 21 March, https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/03/21/zero-problems-in-a-new-era/, accessed 23 January 2023. Erdoğan, Recep T. (2008), ‘Korku refleksiyle hareket eden Türkiye geride kaldı’, Dünya, 7 September, https://www.dunya.com/gundem/quotkorku-refleksiyle-hareket-eden-turkiye-geridekaldiquot-haberi-54264, accessed 23 January 2023. Erdoğan, Recep T. (2015), ‘2015 Yılı TÜBİTAK Bilim, Özel ve Teşvik Ödülleri Töreninde Yaptıkları Konuşma’, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Cumhurbaşkanlığı, 3 December, https://www.tccb.gov.tr/ konusmalar/353/37188/2015-yili-tubitak-bilim-ozel-ve-tesvik-odulleri-toreninde-yaptiklarikonusma, accessed 23 January 2023. Erdoğan, Recep T. (2016), ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: eğer durmaya kalkarsak kendimizi bulacağımız yer Sevr şartlarıdır’, Anadolu Ajansı, 22 December, https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ gunun-basliklari/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-eger-durmaya-kalkarsak-kendimizi-bulacagimizyer-sevr-sartlaridir/712130, accessed 23 January 2023 European Commission (2019), Turkey 2019 Report, 29 May, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/20190529-turkey-report.pdf, accessed 23 January 2023. Freeden, Michael (1998), ‘Is Nationalism a Distinct Ideology?’ Political Studies 46(4): 748–65. Georgeon, François (1999), Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Kökenleri: Yusuf Akçura 1876–1935, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları. International Crisis Group (2010), ‘Turkey’s Crises over Israel and Iran’, 8 September, https:// www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/western-europemediterranean/turkey/turkey-scrises-over-israel-and-iran, accessed 23 January 2023. Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (1996), ‘The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction of Official Identity’, Middle Eastern Studies 32(2): 177–93. Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (2007), ‘An Oxymoron: The Origins of Civic-Republican Liberalism in Turkey’, Critique, Critical Middle Eastern Studies 16(2): 171–90. Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (2011), ‘The Twin Motives of Turkish Nationalism’, in Ayşe Kadıoğlu and E. Fuat Keyman (eds), Symbiotic Antagonisms: Competing Nationalisms in Turkey, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

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imperious nationalism in new turkey | 77 Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (2015), ‘Skeletons in the Turkish Closet: Remembering the Armenian Genocide’, OpenDemocracy, 24 April, https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/skeletons-in-turkishcloset-remembering-armenian-genocide/, accessed 23 January 2023. Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (2019), ‘What Stories Does Europe Tell? A View from Turkey’, Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University, 17 October, https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/publications/what-stories-does-europe-tell-a-view-from-turkey, accessed 23 January 2023. Kasapoğlu, Can (2019), ‘“The Blue Homeland”: Turkey’s largest naval drill’, Anadolu Agency, 27 February, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/analysis/-the-blue-homeland-turkey-s-largest-navaldrill/1404267, accessed 23 January 2023. Özkaraşahin, Sine (2020), ‘Assessing Turkey’s Blue Homeland Geostrategic Concept’, EDAM, 8 September, https://edam.org.tr/en/assessing-turkeys-blue-homeland-geostrategic-concept/, accessed 23 January 2023. Pitel, Laura (2021), ‘Erdoğan’s great game: soldiers, spies and Turkey’s quest for power’, Financial Times, 12 January. https://www.ft.com/content/8052b8aa-62b9-40c9-a40c-d7187d5cd98a, accessed 23 January 2023. Seton-Watson, Hugh (1977), Nations and States: An Inquiry into the Origins of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Smith, Anthony D. ([1995] 2007), Nations and Nationalism in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity Press. Üstel, Füsun (2004), Makbul Vatandaş’ın Peşinde: II. Meşrutiyet’ten Bugüne Vatandaşlık Eğitimi, Istanbul: İletişim.

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6 Leftism in Turkey Ömer Turan (Istanbul Bilgi University)

Introduction

O

ne cannot properly analyse the social and political history of Turkey, from 1923 to 2023, without taking into account the history of leftism. This chapter, understanding the term broadly, aims to provide a general framework for leftism in Turkey covering a spectrum of left-wing positions, including centre-left, social democracy, socialism, radical left and armed struggle. Leftism in Turkey has manifested itself through four distinct concerns over the last century – a) anti-imperialism, b) class politics, c) social democracy and d) the Kurdish identity – and this chapter overviews how left-wing political actors have entangled and disentangled these concerns. The chapter argues that, across a series of historical junctures, leftism has shaped the making of Turkey’s political and social spheres by voicing diverse rights (including the social rights of workers, the rights of Kurds, and women’s and gender rights) and making the claim for overall democratisation. Labour organisations were established and conducted a series of strikes from 1908 onwards. In 1910, the Ottoman Socialist Party (renamed the Socialist Party of Turkey after 1918) was founded, while the Turkish Communist Party (Türkiye Komünist Partisi, TKP) was founded in Baku in 1920 during the transition period from Empire to Republic. The assassination of the TKP’s founding cadre, including its leader Mustafa Suphi, by the nationalist resistance movement in 1921 sent a clear message to Soviet Russia that the Ankara government was not going to permit class-based politics that were independent of the republican establishment. As a result, leftism was not visible as a distinct political position during the early republican period. Nevertheless, the Kemalist leadership emphasised leftist values such as anti-imperialism and secularism in its official discourse. Several former TKP members were also coopted by the single-party regime, the most influential of whom, Şevket Süreyya (Aydemir), published the journal Kadro (1931−4). Kadro 78

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leftism in turkey | 79 had proposed reformulating Kemalism as a more rigid ideology with a more left-wing emphasis. The conflict between industrialised countries, which were also the colonising powers, and non-industrialised countries, which were colonised, was perceived as the central political contradiction by the majority of Kadro’s writers. One could compare the perspective developed in Kadro to an early version of dependency theory (Gülalp 1985), given the journal’s frequent use of terms such as ‘world system’ and ‘colony-metropolis’. However, this proposal to canonise Kemalism as a rigid ideology only received short-term and partial support from the single-party regime. The Kemalist establishment preferred to follow a more pragmatic and flexible path, positioning the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) as a political organisation with a range of economic policy views, some of which supported private enterprise. When the multi-party political system was established in 1946, some members of the TKP (which continued to exist as an illegal organisation) founded the Socialist Party of Turkey, which was subsequently closed down by the Istanbul Martial Law Command. Although there was some labour unrest in the 1940s (particularly in mining areas), leftism failed to mobilise the masses and remained confined to intellectual circles. In 1946, as part of the government’s efforts to showcase its official anti-communism and forge an alliance with the ‘free world’ in the new Cold War equilibrium, several left-wing academics were dismissed from their positions at Ankara University. This was the first wave of purges directed at leftist academics and was followed by several more (in 1971, 1983 and 2016−18). Several left-wing intellectuals were imprisoned as scapegoats when a pogrom targeting local Greeks in September 1955 occurred in Istanbul and Izmir, even though it was orchestrated by state-affiliated elements. 1960−1980: The Heyday of the Left It was not until the 1960s that the left−right cleavage in Turkish politics became apparent. The Saraçhane meeting, organised by the Association of Istanbul Labour Trade Unions in December 1961, was a watershed moment in the aftermath of the 1960 coup d’état. The grievance that precipitated this meeting was the emergence of a new political order, in which the 1961 constitution guaranteed the right to strike but left no legal regulation for the implementation of this new right. A more critical trade unionism emerged at this point, and the meeting drew over 100,000 workers from various cities, with the rallying cry ‘We, too, have a word to say!’ (Kaya 2018). In this era of class politics, workers were no longer considered to be passive subjects. Despite the strident demands, the parliament passed the Collective Bargaining, Strike and Lockout Law only in 1963. In 1961, the trade unionists who organised the Saraçhane meeting also established a new political party: the Workers’ Party of Turkey (Türkiye İşçi Partisi, TİP). From 1962 onwards, the TİP gained momentum under the leadership of Mehmet Ali Aybar, and

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80 | ömer turan its clear ideological stance compelled all other political parties to declare their ideologies. Prior to the 1965 general elections, İsmet İnönü, Kemalism’s veteran leader, declared that his party, the CHP, had evolved into a left-wing mass party. For İnönü, however, the left was a modified version of statism, one of Kemalism’s ‘six arrows’, understood as a centrally planned development scheme. The 1965 elections were not a success for the CHP, with only 29 per cent of all voters supporting them. However, the 1966 party congress reaffirmed its left-wing orientation (Bora 2017: 576), and, as a result, social democracy became a central axis of Turkish politics. In contrast to the CHP, the TİP had a relatively successful election in 1965, winning fifteen seats in the parliament. With the rise of the left in politics, left-wing intellectual activism grew significantly, as evidenced by the establishment of new left-wing publishing houses, the translation of Marxist-Leninist classics, and the emergence of politically engaged novelists and poets. For example, the weekly political periodical Yön (published between 1961 and 1967), edited by Doğan Avcıoğlu, shaped the political discussion during the 1960s. Yön’s foundational influence was to dismantle the taboos surrounding Marxism and socialism and to give them visibility and its writers frequently defined socialism as a populist development doctrine that permitted rapid growth. Avcıoğlu’s feature articles encouraged the Atatürk youth’s ‘national awakening’, in which the youth would reject ‘foreign petroleum, CocaCola, Sana and Vita [two margarine brands]’ and foreign beers, as all of these were associated with a vast network of interests involving states, merchants and professors. As the epicentre of third-worldism, the periodical also prominently featured the ‘Kurdish question’ on its cover page, consistent with its status as a taboo-breaker. Following the 1965 elections, the TİP’s deputies in parliament gained significant public visibility, which they used to articulate their socialist perspective. For the TİP, the United States’ war in Vietnam was a critical issue. For example, Çetin Altan, a remarkable TİP deputy, influential orator and columnist for a daily newspaper, frequently condemned the US in the context of Vietnam and stoked anti-American sentiments. Mehmet Ali Aybar, the TİP’s leader, followed an unconventional form of socialism by rejecting the Soviet model. He contended that the issue of ‘freedom was at the heart of socialism’, and he summarised his vision in several instances by referring to concepts such as ‘Turkey’s socialism’, ‘libertarian socialism’ and ‘individualist socialism’. According to Aybar, the Turkish socialist movement needed to maintain a critical distance from the Soviet model. The Soviet military intervention to crush the Prague Spring in 1968 aided Aybar in making his point more forcefully, but this eventually sparked a debate within the TİP. While assessing the TİP’s contribution to leftism in Turkey, one should not overlook the party’s recognition of the Kurdish question at its October 1970 congress. With this decision, the TİP recognised the existence of a Kurdish people who lived primarily in

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leftism in turkey | 81 eastern Turkey and were subject to state oppression and assimilation. Additionally, the party resolution emphasised the importance of not reducing the issue to uneven regional development. The 1970 resolution, which was made possible by a large number of Kurdish political activists affiliated with the TİP, viewed the Kurdish question through the lens of a socialist revolution. Kurdish political activists were also affiliated with the Revolutionary Culture Clubs of the East from 1967 and organised a series of meetings, known as the Eastern Meetings (Doğu Mitingleri), in Kurdish cities throughout Turkey to express the demands, claims and grievances of these regions and the Kurds. The resolution of 1970 was the primary reason for the party’s closure by the Constitutional Court in the aftermath of the 1971 military intervention. Student protests, which included occupations of university buildings, marked the years 1968 and 1969. As was the case with several other movements during the 1968 protest wave, students in Turkey staged demonstrations against US imperialism, particularly during the American Sixth Fleet’s visits to Istanbul in July 1968 and February 1969. The dynamism generated by the TİP was critical to the 1968 movement in Turkey. In 1965, members of the TİP founded a network of socialist student clubs known as the Federation of Debating Societies (Fikir Kulüpleri Federasyonu, FKF) at major universities. These student clubs served as pivotal hubs in the years that followed, promoting communication, coordination and commitment among leftist students and making socialist activism visible on university campuses. Nevertheless, students grew increasingly dissatisfied with the TİP’s parliamentarianism and, in October 1969, they abolished the FKF to found the Revolutionary Youth Federation of Turkey (Türkiye Devrimci Gençlik Federasyonu, abbreviated as Dev-Genç), a mass organisation. Dev-Genç possessed greater autonomy than the FKF, was more amenable to violent protest and preferred youth vanguard politics to pioneer the revolution. Numerous students associated with Dev-Genç supported a coalition of ‘progressive’ army factions launching a left-wing putsch. As had been observed in other countries, as the student protest movement waned, some radical students were tempted to initiate their revolution through small-group armed struggle. By the late 1970s, some radical students had concluded that revolution required armed propaganda and guerrilla warfare. The Turkish People’s Liberation Army (Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Ordusu, THKO) and Turkish People’s Liberation Party/Front (Türkiye Halk Kurtuluş Partisi/Cephesi, THKP/C) were two groups founded in December 1970 with a relatively small membership but a significant impact on history. The beginning of the 1970s was marked by workers’ protests on 15−16 June 1970, in which nearly 100,000 workers in Istanbul brought the city’s daily life to a halt. In 1967, left-wing trade unions founded the Confederation of Progressive Workers’ Unions (Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, DİSK) to integrate trade unionism and

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82 | ömer turan class-based politics. The grievance that sparked the 15−16 June demonstrations was a regulatory change approved by the government aimed at impeding DİSK’s significant rise in collective bargaining authority. Following mass demonstrations, which developed beyond DİSK’s control, the government was forced to withdraw the proposed change. While the 15−16 June protest demonstrated that groups ignoring the working class and aspiring to revolution through a left-wing military coup were incorrect in their analysis of the social context, these groups had not yet made their final move and attempted a left-wing coup in March 1971. The 9 March plot was revealed by the high command at the last moment, and the General Staff responded with a memorandum compelling the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP) government to resign. Although the parliament was not shut down following the military intervention on 12 March, martial law was declared in all major cities. Military rule launched a witch hunt against the left, arresting activists and intellectuals in large numbers and resorting to systematic torture. Although the memorandum removed Süleyman Demirel, the leader of the AP, from the prime ministership, the commanders agreed with the AP’s vision and believed that the social rights guaranteed in the 1961 constitution were excessively broad, complicating Turkey’s governance. They eventually amended the constitution significantly. Another traumatic event associated with the coup of 1971 was the executions of Deniz Gezmiş, Yusuf Aslan and Hüseyin İnan, three members of the THKO and leaders of the student movement, who were sentenced to death by a military court operating under martial law, clearly motivated by right-wing rage. The March 1971 memorandum precipitated a split within the CHP. Bülent Ecevit, the party’s secretary general, declared that the coup’s true target was the CHP’s left. However, the conservative wing of the party backed the putschists’ technocratic government. Ecevit found this intolerable and resigned as secretary general. Nevertheless, he cemented his position as the party’s new president during the 1972 general congress, while also reaffirming the party’s social democratic orientation. In the 1973 elections, the CHP became the biggest party, demonstrating that the coup attempt was unable to contain left-wing dynamism. Ecevit’s CHP did not hesitate to employ leftist jargon, possibly more to the left than social democracy. For example, the party’s famous slogans included ‘Land to the tiller, water to its user’, and ‘This order will change’. At the same time, Ecevit was always careful to distinguish the CHP from the socialist left, which included numerous factions capable of armed struggle. In 1974, under the leadership of Prime Minister Ecevit, Turkey sent troops to Cyprus to put an end to communal violence. As a result of the successful establishment of a safe zone for Turkish Cypriots in the north, Ecevit declared the end of the coalition government and called for an early election to secure a majority in parliament. Other parties opposed this plan, and Ecevit’s miscalculation contributed significantly to the political instability that ensued in the following years.

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leftism in turkey | 83 Social democracy, led by the CHP, had electoral successes at the local level as well. Social democrats won local government elections in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir in 1973. The CHP developed a ‘New Municipalism’ approach with the support of Ahmet İsvan in Istanbul and Vedat Dalokay in Ankara, which emphasised local participation, the role of local government in production and support for unionism. In this period, local actors successfully asserted their political autonomy from the central government (Bayraktar 2007). Its successes in the municipalities gave the CHP another opportunity to have make an impact on politics and shaping the public sphere. While the CHP was the largest left-wing political organisation in the 1970s, it was unable to dominate left-wing politics. There were numerous radical left groups organised as political parties or informal organisations, and a significant number of them operated outside the legal realm. Ergun Aydınoğlu observes that by the mid-1970s, the left began to massify, accompanied by organisational fragmentation. By the decade’s end, the number of legal and illegal organisations had surpassed fifty (Aydınoğlu 2007: 278). The TKP and the Revolutionary Way (Devrimci Yol, abbreviated to Dev-Yol) may be viewed as illustrative of various radical leftist styles. From 1973, the TKP began a massive recruitment drive, and despite the party’s illegal status, its members gained control of several legal institutions, including the DİSK. The TKP was modelled after the USSR and maintained a critical distance from political violence, whereas Dev-Yol was modelled after the former THKP/C and thus armed struggle was an integral part of the organisation. The THKP/C was a closed organisation, whereas Dev-Yol was a popular movement with thousands of supporters and a highly flexible organisational structure. For Dev-Yol, the primary reason for incorporating arms into political struggle was the escalating attacks by far-right groups. As a result, they defined themselves as ‘neighbourhood organisations resisting fascist attack’ and ‘resistance committees.’ Several issues of the journal Devrimci Yol sold more than 100,000 copies. In 1979, the movement also won municipal elections at Fatsa, a town in the Black Sea region. In the 1970s, the Kurdish left began to organise independently of the Turkish left, and there were at least seven distinct Kurdish organisations during the decade’s second half. For the majority of these, the ethnic question was a matter of colonisation, and thus their political objective was liberation through armed struggle. The election of an independent candidate, Mehdi Zana, as mayor of Diyarbakır in 1977 signalled the beginning of a new political struggle against the suppression of Kurdish identity. The 1970s were also a period of increasing union strength. Between 1977 and 1980, nearly 200 strikes occurred, aggravating both economic and political crises (Keyder 1987: 192). Elements of the left, including social democrats, radicals, socialists, trade unionists and members of local resistance, had an impact on the broader public sphere. From

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84 | ömer turan cinema to bestselling novels, the left consolidated its cultural hegemony. Although the 1971 military intervention was intended to contain leftism, it proved to be ineffective. 1980−2002: New Agendas, New Perspectives The military coup of 1980 had a markedly different impact on politics, and particularly on leftism. No leftist organisation could have survived the period of the junta, during which the junta closed down all political parties. Strikes were prohibited, and DİSK was closed as well. Thousands of people were detained and tortured. Following the suspension of the constitution, the putschists drafted a new constitution for a referendum in 1982. The new era was defined by the military’s increased tutelary power, a more constrained political sphere, and early but bold steps toward neoliberalisation. At least three new agendas were developed by left-wing activists to continue their political struggle and regenerate their worldview. First, several left-wing intellectuals began to consider and discuss civil society in their periodicals, which laid the groundwork for the 1990s expansion of the public sphere. Second, several left-wing women activists identified themselves with feminism (Arat 2008), which remains a significant domain of resistance. Third, in 1986, the Human Rights Association (İnsan Hakları Derneği, İHD) was founded by a group of intellectuals, journalists and relatives of political prisoners. Since then, the İHD has been a vital milieu for Kurdish leftist activists to collaborate with Turkish leftist activists. However, these three new agenda items − civil society, feminism and human rights − could only support the left in Turkey to a limited extent after the Soviet model collapsed in 1989 and right-wing hegemony was strengthened nationally and globally. Having said that, the remnants of the left’s former cultural hegemony became visible in the mid1980s. For instance, with a weekly circulation of 500,000, the satirical magazine Gırgır was a significant leftist component of the public sphere. And in 1989, the Social Democratic Populist Party (Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti, SHP) won the municipal elections in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir. However, allegations of corruption in Istanbul harmed the social democrats’ reputation. In the 1991 general elections, the SHP came third and formed a coalition government with Süleyman Demirel’s right-wing party. The 1991 elections was a watershed moment for Kurdish representation in parliament and the Kurdish–Turkish left alliance. The People’s Labour Party (Halkın Emek Partisi, HEP), the legal political party of the Kurdish political movement, won twenty-two seats in parliament as a result of an alliance with the SHP − an alliance that did not last long. At the parliament’s oath ceremony, some members of the HEP spoke in Kurdish from the rostrum. Even for many members of the SHP, this symbolic gesture was excessive. In 1993, the HEP was shut down by the Constitutional Court on grounds of separatism and the Kurdish political movement established its next party, the Democracy Party. As the Kurdish armed insurgency intensified, following

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leftism in turkey | 85 the collapse of the SHP–HEP alliance, the Turkish left was unable to provide an alternative voice strong enough to oppose the militarist approach to the Kurdish question. The 1990s was not only a period of increased visibility for Kurdish identity but also a period of Alevi renaissance (Neyzi 2003), and the Turkish left inevitably recognised the importance of identities. The 1990s also saw the rise of political Islam in Turkey, with the Welfare Party winning local and national elections. This resulted in the social democrats, who had already severed ties with the working class and labour unions, adopting a more Kemalist political discourse. The establishment of the Freedom and Solidarity Party (Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi, ÖDP) in 1996 was a breakthrough moment for the socialist left. Following years of organisational fragmentation, several socialist groups came together to form the ÖDP. The two terms embedded in the ÖDP’s name embodied the party’s aspiration for synthesis: solidarity connoted homage to the old socialist struggle, while freedom implied openness and sensitivity to new concerns. The ÖDP articulated an emancipatory, autonomous, internationalist, ecologist, anti-militarist and anti-sexist political vision. Its wellknown slogans included ‘The party of love and revolution’ and ‘The party that is not a party’. The party’s platform argued in favour of democratic planning over market imperatives. The ÖDP garnered impressive coverage in the mainstream media, which helped to level the playing field. However, it did not have significant electoral success. The party’s most famous hesitation was ‘no/yes’ (havet) to Turkey’s EU bid, and even the majority of ÖDP members were unable to recap the party’s positions. In terms of labour activism, the 1990s began with the Zonguldak miners’ strike. To show their support for the miners, Turkey’s largest labour confederation, the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türkiye İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, abbreviated to Türk-İş), called for a one-day nationwide strike, which ended up being the country’s largest ever, with nearly 1.7 million workers participating. Despite this striking start, the remainder of the decade saw a steady decline and waning of unionism and labour activism. The labour movement’s only significant achievement was securing the right for public employees to unionise. Following the adoption of the constitution and legislative amendments in 1995, the Confederation of Public Employees’ Trade Unions (Kamu Emekçileri Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, KESK) was founded in 1995 and has served as a joint platform for the Kurdish political movement and the Turkish socialist left ever since. Due to the 10 per cent national threshold, the CHP was unable to secure seats in parliament in the 1999 elections. However, the Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP), led by Bülent Ecevit and his loyal supporters, received the highest vote share, though it lacked a parliamentary majority. Ecevit was the prime minister of a minority caretaker government when Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), was captured, a few months before the elections.

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86 | ömer turan This boosted his prestige and the popularity of his centre-left party, which incorporated elements of social democracy, nationalism and secularism. The coalition government led by Ecevit had several significant achievements, including a series of political reforms in preparation for EU accession, the abolition of capital punishment and rapprochement with Greece. However, the centre-left’s reputation was harmed by the government following the IMF prescriptions in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis. 2002−2023: The Left vs AKP Rule The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) era began with the 2002 elections. When the new government prepared a motion authorising the US to launch troops into Iraq via Turkey, the left organised a broad coalition and mobilised large anti-war demonstrations in several cities. The Kurdish political movement, socialist political parties, DİSK and the conservative Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Unions (Türkiye Hak İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyounu, abbreviated to Hak-İş) were all members of the coalition. These massive demonstrations persuaded approximately ninety members of parliament from the AKP, and the parliament eventually repealed the motion in March 2003. This was a moment that demonstrated the left’s capacity to influence the broader public sphere. The first decade of AKP rule in Turkey saw further fragmentation in left-wing interpretations of the political balance of power and context. Following its re-election to parliament in 2002, the CHP initially supported the AKP’s political reform programme aimed at EU integration. From 2005 onwards, conservatives within the CHP were more vocal in their opposition to the AKP’s reform agenda. For example, the CHP did not support the UN plan for a unified Cyprus, which was championed by the government. As the AKP consolidated and expanded its support base, the centre-left, represented by the CHP, reduced social democracy to a concern for secularism with a visible Kemalist tone. The socialist left was unable to overcome its hesitations about Turkey’s EU accession and instead focused on opposition to neoliberalisation. In 2007, Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister, began planning his presidential candidacy, and several wings of the left organised five republican rallies in protest, the first of which was held in Anıtkabir, Atatürk’s mausoleum in Ankara. These five rallies were organised in collaboration with a specific coalition composed of the CHP, DİSK and KESK, as well as several civil society organisations. Most likely, the average participant saw the AKP government as a threat to democracy and secularism, and the rally claimed to protect democracy. Some participants viewed these rallies as a chance to lay the groundwork for a Kemalist coup d’état. Although this coup did not happen, the Turkish Armed Forces issued a memorandum in April 2007 expressing their concern about the presidential election process. The General Staff statement

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leftism in turkey | 87 emphasised that the AKP’s presidential candidates were unfit for the position due to their lack of loyalty to Kemalism. The AKP leaders’ response to this memorandum was to call a snap election, in which they increased their support to 47 per cent. In the 2007 general elections, the Kurdish political movement decided to run for parliament with independent candidates to circumvent the 10 per cent threshold, gaining twentytwo seats as a result. Numerous socialist organisations and parties backed the Kurds’ campaign for independent candidates. The constitutional amendment package of 2010 was a milestone in the AKP’s consolidation of power. Twenty-six articles were included in the package, some of which had symbolic significance, such as Provisional Article 15, which guaranteed judicial immunity to the leaders of the 1980 coup d’état. The package appears to have been centred on new regulations governing the composition and authority of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors. During the referendum campaign, some socialist intellectuals and organisations supported the ‘yes’ vote, arguing that the amendments were necessary for the AKP’s fight against military tutelage, while the majority of the left supported the ‘no’ vote. This schism resulted in further fragmentation and fault lines within the socialist left in the coming years. The proposed amendments were approved by a majority of voters, and it became clear that the new composition of the Supreme Council of the Judges and Prosecutors was AKP’s main leverage to create judicial power dependent on political leadership. In 2013, another watershed in Turkey’s recent history occurred. Since 2009, some secret talks between Turkish officials and PKK negotiators had been held in order to explore avenues for negotiation. The public was informed of the start of the peace process in the early days of 2013. Simultaneously, there were increasing indications of the AKP government’s growing authoritarianism. In May, the government announced plans to build a shopping mall in Istanbul’s Gezi Park, adjacent to Taksim Square, and as part of the preliminary steps toward this goal, a number of trees were felled. An initially small group of protestors, aiming to safeguard the park, triggered massive demonstrations in all major cities of Turkey. Their grievances included the government’s authoritarian interventions and attempts at curtailing non-conservative lifestyles through restrictions on the sale of alcohol and the imposition of abortion regulations (Turan 2020). According to the official estimates, 2.5 million people attended Gezi protests across Turkey, and a majority of the protestors were discontent with the AKP’s synthesis of neoliberalisation and authoritarianism. All in all, June 2013 was yet another moment when the left had its impact on the larger public sphere. After two years of mediated talks, the peace process collapsed in 2015, giving the militarist use of power the upper hand once again. As a result, the political sphere shrank. The political landscape was further complicated by the July 2016 coup attempt.

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88 | ömer turan The putschists were mostly officers affiliated with the faith-based network of Fethullah Gülen, a former ally of the AKP. Erdoğan was able to consolidate his power following the failed coup attempt by instituting a ‘state of emergency type government’ and initiating the transition to a presidential system. From 2016 to 2018, the state of emergency facilitated the purge of leaders and members of the Kurdish political movement, socialists and academics demanding peace. Turkish politics has never been a fully consolidated democracy, but since the declaration of the state of emergency, the principle of rule of law has been supplanted by arbitrary restrictions on fundamental rights. Under these circumstances, it is more difficult than ever to amplify a left-wing opposition. Nevertheless, the CHP scored a major victory in the 2019 local elections, winning Istanbul and Ankara, as well as several other major cities. Two factors contributed to this surprising outcome: first, in Ankara and Istanbul, the CHP preferred candidates who could win over conservative voters, and it was allied with the right-wing Good Party; second, this alliance received support from the voters of the People’s Democratic Party, the most recent party of the Kurdish political movement, implicit during the campaign period and very important at the moment the votes were counted. While some leftists are suspicious of the CHP’s new orientation, seeing it as too close to the right, others cast doubt on the party’s ability to win support from the Kurds. However, it is worth noting that the AKP’s defeat in the 2019 local elections demonstrated that the left retains the ability to generate impact. Conclusion This overview demonstrates that leftism in Turkey has been drawing on diverse reference points, including national developmentalism, Kemalism, Marxism, the labour movement, Soviet-style socialism, social democracy and human rights activism. Reconciling the universalist principles of the left with local realities has been a challenge for both the socialist and the social democrat camps. This challenge has included the question of how to approach identities and, most visibly, how to ally with the political demands of the Kurds. Especially since the 1960s, leftism has had at least three major impacts on Turkish politics. First, as a political position based on an ideology, it pushed all other positions to formulate their worldviews more explicitly. Second, it has acted as a hub defending the rights of workers and as a decisive proponent of human rights and democratisation. Third, the left-wing political struggle has extended the public and political spheres. When all these three impacts are taken into consideration, one should remark that throughout the last 100 years, many people in Turkey have formulated their political demands within the framework of leftism and situated left-wing ideas as a key component of their political imaginations. When considering the potential path of the left in Turkey in the near future and coming decades, it is important to remember that the current ‘de-democratisation’ has

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leftism in turkey | 89 accelerated the dissolution of society in Turkey. The snapshots of society’s dissolution are numerous: the rise of authoritarianism has severely restricted the spaces in the democratic public sphere where diverse points of view can coexist. Different segments of society do not share a vision that acknowledges unjust treatment of other segments. As a result, their political imaginations do not anticipate an inclusive human rights and social justice perspective. Turkey’s contemporary society and political system seem incapable of developing a rational framework for gender rights, Kurdish and other minorities’ cultural rights, ecological balance, the rule of law and democracy in the broadest sense. The most viable option to reverse this process is a more powerful left-wing politics in Turkey, comprising democratic secularism, feminism, green vision, pluralism and a vision for peace, with more agenda-setting power. The outcome of the CHP’s current search for coalitions with various groups (including the conservatives) will reveal whether leftism in Turkey will play a significant role in the processes of redemocratisation and the establishment of a society that reasonably combines freedom and social justice. References Arat, Yeşim (2008), ‘Contestation and Collaboration: Women’s Struggles for Empowerment in Turkey’, in Reşat Kasaba (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 388–418. Aydınoğlu, Ergun (2007), Türkiye Solu (1960–1980), Istanbul: Versus. Bayraktar, S. Ulaş (2007), ‘Turkish Municipalities: Reconsidering Local Democracy beyond Administrative Autonomy’, European Journal of Turkish Studies, https://doi.org/10.4000/ ejts.1103, accessed 23 January 2023. Bora, Tanıl (2017), Cereyanlar: Türkiye’de Siyasî İdeolojiler. Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Gülalp, Haldun (1985), ‘Nationalism, Statism and the Turkish Revolution: An Early “Dependency” Theory’, Review of Middle Eastern Studies 4: 69–85. Kaya, Muzaffer (2018). ‘“We Too Have a Word to Say”: Enactment of the 1963 Collective Bargaining, Strike and Lockout Law in Turkey’, Journal of Interrupted Studies 1(1): 48–68. Keyder, Çağlar (1987), State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development, London: Verso. Neyzi, Leyla (2003), ‘Zazaname: The Alevi Renaissance, Media and Music in the Nineties’, in Paul J. White and Joost Jongerden (eds), Turkey’s Alevi Enigma: A Comprehensive Overview, Leiden: Brill, pp. 111–24. Turan, Ömer (2020), ‘Resistance and Gift-Giving: Gezi Park’, in Barış Ülker and María do Mar Castro Varela (eds), Doing Tolerance: Urban Interventions and Forms of Participation, Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich, pp. 171–93.

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7 The Trajectory of Liberalism in Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Present Bican Şahin (Hacettepe University), Seval Yaman (Social Sciences University of Ankara) and Belgin Tarhan (Aydın Adnan Menderes University)

Introduction

T

he history of liberalism in the West dates back to the seventeenth century. However, no such background as to liberalism has been experienced in Turkey. Since Turkey’s adventure in modernisation began towards the early nineteenth century, and the crucial developments which brought the liberal soul to the body of the West, such as reformation, industrialisation, enlightenment, and scientific revolution, have not taken place in Turkey, the path that liberalism followed in Turkey was different from the one that was followed in the West. Liberalism in Turkey emerged and developed under the strong influence of ideas such as Islamism, nationalism and Kemalism. Until the establishment of the Association for Liberal Thinking in 1992 and the Liberal Democratic Party in 1994 no movement or institution defined and labelled itself as ‘liberal’ and advocated liberalism systematically and holistically. This is why the 1990s were significant for Turkish liberalism, and these were the years when liberals were officially organised both in the political sphere and in the field of civil society and formed their own ideological bloc. From the 2000s onwards, different movements (3H, the Liberal Youth Association and so on) began to emerge within the liberal bloc and worked collaboratively until 2013. In parallel with the developments in politics and polarisation in society after 2013, sharp divisions and different hostile camps have emerged among the liberals. Weak Liberal Voices of the Late Ottoman Modernisation Liberal ideas came along with modernisation to the Ottoman Empire during the Westernisation process. The military reform programme was launched in the eighteenth century and then was followed by extensive legal and political reforms in the following 90

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 91 century. The first step of modernisation was the Edict of Gülhane (Tanzimat Edict, 1839), which brought the ideas of the rule of law, rights and freedoms and constitutionalism to Ottoman politics. The Ottoman Empire entered a new phase of modernisation with the Ottoman constitution (1876). However, as Mustafa Erdoğan (2005: 32) stated, it is not right to equate modernisation with liberalisation in the Ottoman Empire, because the same legal regulations contributed to the modern state by expanding the power of the central government in the Empire. Nevertheless, the impact of the liberal paradigm on the modernisation process can be discussed through liberal intellectuals’ solutions to Turkey’s socio-economic and administrative-political issues. Intellectuals and politicians who are close to liberal ideas in Turkey have had some common characteristics. First of all, the primary motivation of liberal intellectuals has been the survival and the future of the state; liberal ideas have been on the agenda as long as they have been compatible with and have served the state’s survival problem. The question of ‘How Turkey Can Be Recovered’, the title of the work written by Sabahaddin Bey (Prince Sabahaddin) in 1913, has given direction to the intellectual world. Since the intellectuals were mostly influenced by the conjuncture of the contemporary cultural and political climate rather than liberal philosophy, the development of liberal values and principles occurred in an eclectic structure, sometimes displaying conservative, nationalist or Kemalist tendencies. The second common characteristic is the ‘rootlessness’ problem caused by the lack of institutional and philosophical heritage in liberal thought in Turkey, and the disappearance of liberal intellectuals and politicians like the stars in the sky shining on and off until even the 1990s. There has been no transfer of ideas except a few articles and books. Lastly, liberal intellectuals, who were in a narrow cultural and political environment, could hardly make their voices heard, regardless of whether they were close to the ruling or the opposition bloc. For example, Sabahaddin Bey and Mehmet Cavid Bey took part in the administrative board of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, İTC), and Ahmet Ağaoğlu was the member of the first Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) and then the Free Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası, SCF). Although they were among or close to political powers of that period, their contributions to expanding economic and political freedoms were limited. Moreover, it is not possible to observe the existence of a consistent and integrated liberal opposition during the governments of the İTC, CHP and Democratic Party (DP) (Bora 2017: 522). However, liberal voices from the economic, social or political axis have been heard, albeit weakly. Liberal ideas mostly infiltrated to the Ottoman Empire from the economic sphere, which was the primary issue for the state. In the new age where the economics of conquest had outlived its usefulness, the Ottoman economy was not compatible with the developed and productive economies of the Western states due to its low production capacity.

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92 | bican şahin, seval yaman and belgin tarhan The mercantilist economic model, which gave rise to wars along with economic protectionism, was largely abandoned in the West. The principles of the modern economy such as free enterprise, free trade and production were also echoed in the Ottoman Empire. Sakizli Ohannes Pasha (Ohannes Pasha of Chios, 1836–1912) completed his higher education in France and taught the basics of modern economics at the Mekteb-i Mülkiye (School of Civil Administration). The anti-interventionist political economy of JeanBaptiste Say, one of the intellectual bases of the Manchester School, influenced Ohannes Pasha’s works. In his textbook Mebâdi-i İlm-i Servet-i Milel (‘Principles of the Science of the Wealth of Nations’), which he wrote for students of economics, he argued that the welfare of societies could be achieved not only by the accumulation of precious metals but also by strong production. According to Ohannes Pasha, the main obstacles to freedom of ownership and enterprise must first be removed so as to integrate the Ottomans with the world economy (Mercan & Buluş 2005: 227–8). The intellectual influence of Ohannes Pasha declined for reasons like the frequent interruptions of education at the Mekteb-i Mülkiye due to wars, and also the limited academic circle of intellectual transfer. Despite these, Mehmed Cavid Bey, one of his students at Mekteb-i Mülkiye, spread the liberal economic doctrine to the next generation. Mehmed Cavid Bey (1875–1926), like his predecessor Ohannes Pasha, turned his face to the economic side of liberalism and adopted the views of the Manchester School. Cavid Bey argued that the economy had immutable laws like the laws of nature. Therefore, bending or denying these laws only impoverishes societies (Cavid Bey 2001: 5–7). In this respect, he argued that socialism and its derivative, state socialism, are also condemned to fail. Cavid Bey evaluated the Ottoman economy through the Ricardian theory of comparative advantages. According to Cavid Bey, agriculture, as the best production potential, should be improved, foreign trade should be fostered, and capital accumulation should be ensured. For this purpose, foundations of a free market economy should be established by protecting property rights. Cavid Bey, who wrote a four-volume book titled İlm-i İktisat (‘The Science of Economics’), served as the minister of finance for many years along with his role as a deputy in the constitutional monarchy after 1908. However, it is hard to say that Cavid Bey’s views on political economy found supporters at the İTC, to which he belonged. In the model proposed by Cavid Bey for the Ottoman economy, there must be a peaceful policy for production and trade. On the other hand, when he was a deputy and minister in the post-1908 era, the Ottoman Empire was constantly at war, and the limited resources of the country were spent on the military. Sabahaddin Bey (1879–1948) was the first intellectual to influence Ottoman modernisation by adopting a socially based liberal analysis beyond the economic paradigm, and he stated that the main problem in the Ottoman Empire was not solely an administrative crisis. At the First Congress of the Ottoman Liberals, held in Paris in 1902, he withdrew

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 93 from the developing İTC due to different arrays of opinion. Sabahaddin Bey founded the League of Private Initiative and Decentralisation in 1906. He participated in the political formation after the 1908 Revolution of the Ottoman Freedom Party. Sabahaddin Bey claimed that despotism in the country was not related to the persons in charge or administration in power: ‘We can never ensure individual freedom by eliminating Abdulhamid. Abdulhamid’s place today shall never be filled in unless we try to discover and eliminate the first cause of our misery’ (Sabahaddin Bey 2021: 80). The root cause of the issue lies in the social order. Sabahaddin Bey was influenced by the education he received in Western countries and was also interested in how societies, as part of the general trend, could establish order. In this respect, either individualistic or communitarian features would prevail in a society. According to Sabahaddin Bey, individualistic societies provide a climate through which individuals can best reveal their mental and physical capacities. Thus, Sabahaddin Bey’s understanding of liberalism developed – based on individualism. Individual initiative is encouraged, as is individual development. On the other hand, in societies that establish communitarian structures, one would survive not by individual enterprise and by production but by leaning on social circles such as family, community, class or political power. The reason for the current state of the Ottoman Empire was due to the mindset of the community and social order. For example, the ongoing reforms since the Tanzimat could not bring the expected freedom and prosperity (Sabahaddin Bey 2021: 87). Its provisions centralised local production forces as in the Charter of Alliance (Sened-i İttifak) of 1808. According to Sabahaddin Bey, one of the factors that strengthened the communitarian social structure had been (administrative) centralism. Unlike political centralism, authorising a central government in matters of foreign policy, security and justice that concern the whole society, administrative centralism enables a central government to make binding judgments on local issues. Sabahaddin Bey suggested a decentralised system, which is the opposite of administrative centralism (Durukan, 2009: 154). Leaving the administration of local issues to local councils and administrations would encourage individual initiatives and individualistic social formation. Liberal Voices For and Against the Constituent Power of the Republic The years between 1918 and 1923 in Turkey were the first phase of the War of Independence and the transition from a multinational empire to a nation-state based on popular sovereignty. The First Assembly of Turkey (23 April 1920–15 April 1923), which served under war conditions, had a revolutionary founding character with extraordinary powers (with an assembly government system based on the unity of powers). Although there seemed to be no political parties in this period, there emerged different ideological groups in the Assembly. The First Group consisted of democratic secular members who aimed to destroy the institutions inherited from the Ottoman Empire. The Second

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94 | bican şahin, seval yaman and belgin tarhan Group consisted of conservatives who had a religious and nationalist appearance (Demirel 2005: 165). The main disagreement between these groups was the unity of powers under the extraordinary conditions. Disputes such as the authorisation of the speaker of the Assembly to sign on behalf of the Assembly, the election of the members of the Executive Committee which overlapped with the Council of Ministers in the parliamentary system, from candidates nominated by the Speaker of the Assembly instead of by the Assembly itself, and giving Mustafa Kemal exceptional powers with the Law of Supreme Military Commander (Demirel 2005: 168-170) were the issues that Second Group criticised. In the second term of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (1923–7), a small number of opponents of the first term could be elected. The Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası, TCF), which included Mustafa Kemal’s comrades, such as Kazım Karabekir, Rauf Orbay and Ali Fuat Cebesoy, was established on 17 November 1924. An opposition similar to the First Assembly continued with the TCF. The programme of the newly formed political party listed its views on the function of representative democracy after adopting the unconditional sovereignty of the nation. It was regarded as essential to separate the government system from the principle of unity of powers, to transfer to a multi-party system in which different voices can get along together. However, like the opposition in the First Assembly, the TCF was presented as pro-Caliphate and pro-Sultanate and was banned for security reasons, referring to the Sheikh Said Rebellion that broke out in the eastern provinces in 1925. After the first attempt at a multi-party system failed in 1925, the new opposition party, called the Free Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası, SCF), entered the political scene with support of Mustafa Kemal himself in 1930 to oppose the single-party rule of the CHP. President Mustafa Kemal encouraged his close friend Ali Fethi Bey, who was the former prime minister and then the Paris ambassador, to establish an opposition party, nominated the founding members of the party and provided the necessary financial support (Okyar 1980: 416–17). Despite the effects of the Great Depression, the SCF supported free trade against state interventions. The party programme found a way out of the economic bottleneck by reducing state expenditures and paving the way for productive peasants and farmers. Together with the founding chairman of the SCF, Ali Fethi Bey, Ahmet Ağaoğlu, known as the ideologist of the party, was the figure who strengthened the opposition voice with liberal policies. Ağaoğlu, who contributed to the preparation of the first programme of the CHP, was a nationalist liberal intellectual. Despite his close links to the founding members of the Republic, Ağaoğlu was one of the few insiders who criticised the government towards the end of the 1920s. He challenged the problems such as the lack of a mechanism of opposition to control and limit the power of the government. Ağaoğlu, in

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 95 his work titled Devlet ve Fert (‘State and Individual’), wrote that the only source of production and creativity was the individual (Ağaoğlu 1933: 24). The state should pave the way for the individual’s production and progress and be responsible for correcting social and political conflicts (Coşar 2005a: 238). Democracy without Liberalism between Military Coups: 1950–80 During the period between 1946 and 1950, because of national and international demand and pressures, Turkey was forced to experience democracy and held its first general election (1946), and this led to the strengthening and enriching of the ideas in the political and intellectual opposition. In 1947 Ali Fuat Başgil and Ahmet Emin Yalman established the Society for the Dissemination of Free Ideas (Hür Fikirleri Yayma Cemiyeti, HFYC) with the aim of carrying the liberal spirit to ‘the farthest corners of the country’ (Özavcı 2015: 167). The HFYC published the Journal of Free Ideas. The circle of the HFYC was an important voice of anti-authoritarianism and liberalism during this period. According to Hilmi Ozan Özavcı (2015: 160–9), the HFYC was the first liberal civil society organisation that brought together the ideas of political liberalism and democracy, and the authors of the Journal argued that, in the absence of either one of these, there would be either authoritarian regimes or the tyranny of the majority. Although they both emphasised the importance of political liberalism (freedoms and democratic institutions), Başgil and Yalman came from different cultural and intellectual backgrounds; therefore they represented different schools of liberalism. Yalman, who was a unionist/Kemalist and secular, had strong disagreements with Başgil, who was a conservative liberal (Özavcı 2015: 166), on the government’s religious policies, the meaning of secularism and the Kemalist reforms. Although these disagreements caused the HFYC to be closed in a short time, the opposition movements, in general, advocated the demands of constitutional government, rights and freedoms, and the rule of law in the face of political suppression, providing a vibrant environment for public discussion in this period. In 1946, Turkey entered a new era with a multi-party system. What was established was a controlled democracy, since almost every ten years after 1950, Turkish democracy was interrupted by military coups. The military in Turkey did not function in a classical manner. It not only protected the country from external aggression, but also functioned as a guardian of the secular system at the national level. In case of the existence or the perception of a threat to Turkey’s secular democracy, the military actors did not hesitate to intervene and shape Turkish politics. The interventions of the military into politics damaged the development of democracy in two ways. The first, direct result was the violation of the first rule of democracy, which is the establishment of national will through general elections. However, the indirect, maybe the more harmful and controversial, result of these interventions has been

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96 | bican şahin, seval yaman and belgin tarhan the emergence of the strong emphasis of the ruling parties on national will and the electoral mechanism and their weak and unwilling interest in the development of democratic institutions. The overemphasis on the national will has become the most dangerous and common disease of Turkish democracy. In the hands of political leaders, the notion of the national will turns into a threat to democracy and transforms itself into an understanding of majority rule without checks and balances and constitutional government. As Güliz Sütçü rightly claimed (2011: 341): ‘The commitment to the procedural rules of democracy, particularly to the electoral mechanism, on the part of political leadership is considered necessary for the establishment and survival of democracy. However, the political actors’ commitment to the electoral mechanism does not guarantee the well-being of the democratic regime.’ This limited or primitive understanding of democracy without liberalism also profoundly affected the development and destiny of liberalism in Turkey in the political sphere. While the parties had strong liberal tendencies in their economic policies and relied on the national will, other basic principles of liberalism became more secondary for the ruling parties of Turkish politics after the 1950s. The 1950s were marked by the end of single-party rule and the years of the first elected government of Turkey. The Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) had great success in the 1950, 1954 and 1957 elections, emphasising the power of democracy in terms of a national will which brought them to power. According to Hamit Emrah Beriş (2021: 309), the DP had associated itself with political freedoms and the popular will. Popular will was the mechanism for its legitimacy against the single-party regime of the CHP. In the second half of the 1950s, Adnan Menderes and the DP started to face opposition from different groups and institutions because of its anti-democratic policies such as suppressing the newspapers and the press, censorship of the freedom of speech in the universities, cases against the CHP, closure of some opposition parties and so on. In this period, Turkey experienced majoritarian rule or the tyranny of the majority because of the lack of a mechanism to limit the power of the government, which is still the main problem of Turkish democracy. In the face of these authoritarian tendencies of the DP, liberal intellectuals placed themselves in an oppositional position. Since it is liberalism’s nature to have a strong suspicion against the empowering of the state, the liberals’ support for the policies of the government has always been temporary and partial in Turkey. The first opposition to the anti-democratic policies of the DP came from an intellectual group that started to publish a journal called Forum in 1954 (until 1970). Some leading intellectuals came together around this journal and focused on the development of Turkish democracy and the economy. It is not easy to argue that Forum, as a whole, was a liberal journal because it was not liberalism, but the authoritarian policies of the DP and the desire for more democracy that brought together the authors from different ideological standpoints. On the one hand, liberal intellectuals such as Aydın Yalçın, Osman Okyar

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 97 and Kazım Berzeg wrote articles in the journal but on the other hand, leftist or social democratic intellectuals such as Şerif Mardin, Münci Kapani, Bülent Ecevit, Turhan Feyzioğlu and Atilla İlhan played a crucial role in shaping its framework. The first aim of Forum was summarised as ‘deepening and strengthening the bases of Turkish democracy’, and the second was structuring a sound and rational economic development. Beriş (2021: 310) has argued that Forum was a synthesis of political liberalism and Kemalism with respect to its economic standpoint, which was based on statism. Although the DP was the target of criticism of the journal, it also kept its distance from the CHP in the opposition. The two blocs (CHP and DP) of Turkish politics were criticised by the journal; the former for having leftist fever, the latter for flirting with fascism (Coşar 2005b: 417). While criticising these main blocs of Turkish politics and emphasising their impartiality, some authors of the journal supported the Free Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası, SCF) individually. The SCF was established by a small group of ex-DP parliamentarians who criticised the authoritarian policies of the DP and were expelled from the party in December 1956. This party lived only three years and was closed in 1958. In the 1950s, in short, liberalism could not be defended as a holistic ideology, and it found its place in the criticisms directed against the policies of the DP and in the attempts for more democracy. The DP period and the 1950s ended with one of the most tragic events of Turkish political history. The execution of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes and the other two outstanding figures of the party has always been remembered as a black and bloody mark on Turkish democracy. The 1960s and 1970s were not times for liberalism; instead, these decades were marked by the robust youth, feminist and LGBT movements, which were seen as parts of the New Left politics around the world and in Turkey as well. These social movements came to the scene with political activism that depended on the rejection of the existing system of power relations and underlined the existing system’s unjust and unequal consequences with a socialist inspiration. In these times of socialist dreams, liberalism waited quietly in its corner and re-emerged on the stage of history with the 1980s. Political Liberalism in the Grip of Economic Liberalism: The 1980s The 1980s were marked by a tremendous economic transformation, with the marketoriented reforms of Ronald Reagan in the USA and Margaret Thatcher in the UK to free the markets after a long period of Keynesian policies, which depend on government control on the economy by increasing government expenditures and decreasing taxes to stimulate demand. In parallel with this economic change in the world, Turgut Özal, who came to power in 1983 after the military intervention of 1980, initiated a similar transformation in Turkey. Özal is seen as the representative or architect of neoliberalism because of his economic reforms for the free market economy by replacing the import

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98 | bican şahin, seval yaman and belgin tarhan substitution model and promoting an export-oriented market economy. However, despite the determined steps Özal took towards the free market economy, it is difficult to say that he was a liberal. According to Metin Heper (2013: 143–4), Özal had a great deal of impatience for the procedural rules of democracy, an authoritarian style and Islamic tendencies. Özal and his party, the Motherland Party, was a melting pot of four different views, in which he attempted to bring together centre-right, centre-left, ultra-nationalist and Islamist views under one roof (Heper 2013: 145). In short, Özal was a firm believer in and supporter of economic liberalism, but he had a weak commitment to democracy, institutions and the rule of law; he underestimated the importance of the rule of law and neglected the need to develop a robust legal infrastructure for a well-functioning market economy (Öniş 2004: 114–20). What made Özal liberal, according to Beriş, was his insistence on free enterprise (2021: 311). The journal Yeni Forum (‘New Forum’), which started to be published in 1979 by Aydın Yalçın (as a continuation of Forum), is an important intellectual movement in this period. Yeni Forum had a distinctive ideological position compared with Forum. Yalçın emphasised the role of the journal with the concepts associated with liberalism such as the regime of liberty, pluralist society, freedom of discussion and human rights (Coşar 2005b: 416). Although the liberal stand of Yeni Forum is more prominent than that of Forum, Atilla Yayla, who is also one of the writers for Yeni Forum, has claimed that the members of Yeni Forum were not entirely liberal and that it included neoconservatives, Kemalists and nationalists in it. Yayla argued that it is not liberalism but anti-communism that was the common characteristic of Yeni Forum (Yayla 2013: 63–83). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the journal lost its motivation, which was based on the struggle against communism. When Yalçın celebrated the collapse of the Soviet Union with the pride of being right, it was also meant to be the end of the journal’s mission (Yayla 2013: 82–3). The Institutionalisation of Liberalism in the Political Sphere and Civil Society: From the 1990s to the Present The 1990s were not very fruitful for liberalism in Turkey in the political sphere. One exception was the Liberal Democratic Party (Liberal Demokrat Parti, LDP), which is unlike the other centre-right parties in that they partially follow liberal principles in their programmes but do not use the adjective ‘liberal’ in their names. The LDP was founded under the leadership of Besim Tibuk in 1994. As a businessman, Tibuk offered practical solutions to Turkey’s socio-economic problems from a liberal perspective. However, the LDP has not fared well in the general elections in which it has participated. The first decade of the twenty-first century witnessed significant socio-political developments in Turkey from a liberal standpoint. The most important of these

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 99 developments was the coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in 2002. The founding leaders of the AKP, namely Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Abdullah Gül and Bülent Arınç among others, used to be followers of Necmettin Erbakan and his National View. However, they belonged to a more reformist branch and opposed Erbakan’s leadership. Thus, shortly before 2002 elections, they departed from Erbakan’s movement and founded the AKP. Unlike National View, the AKP has not been hostile to the West and pursued European Union membership. Thanks to the democratic reforms the AKP carried out in its first three years in power, the European Union opened full-membership negotiations in 2005. Contrary to National View, which defended state interventionist and protectionist development in the economic sphere, the AKP made peace with the free-market economy. As a result of this reformist identity, the AKP earned the support of liberal intellectuals as well. This successful economic and political performance provided the AKP with another victory in the 2007 general elections. However, this reformist stance of the AKP began to change in the wake of the 2011 general elections. As the AKP consolidated its power in domestic politics and pushed the military out of the political space with the Ergenekon cases, its authoritarian inclinations gradually became apparent. The new discourse of the government brought about a rather nationalist, populist-conservative AKP, replacing the previously reformist, conservative one with liberal overtones. If we look at the public debates that have been initiated by the leading figures of the AKP since 2011, we can begin to see this change. One such symbolic debate raged over the issue of abortion during the spring and summer of 2012. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister, commented that abortion was equivalent to murder and revealed government plans to restrict it. This created a backlash, especially among the secular segments and the feminist movement of Turkey. Another debate that took public opinion hostage was on alcohol consumption. The government moved to restrict the consumption of alcohol by restricting the hours for selling it and regulating the places of consumption. Although it was not a total ban on alcohol consumption and they were mild restrictions even by Western standards, the regulations were perceived as attempts at imposing a religious way of life since a conservative government put them forward in a Muslim country. Finally, in conjunction with the education reforms, Prime Minister Erdoğan commented that the aim was to raise a pious youth. All these debates and policies make more sense when viewed in the light of the comment made by Aziz Babuşçu, the former chair of the Istanbul branch of the AKP. He commented in a conference along the lines that in the past the AKP entered into a coalition with the liberals. The past ten years were the years of dismantling [of the tutelage regime – the military and civilian bureaucracy], and we partnered with liberals around the issues of freedom, law and justice. In the future, we

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100 | bican şahin, seval yaman and belgin tarhan will part company. The future will be the era of construction, and our liberal ex-partners will not like what we will construct. (T24 2013)

All these policy debates and comments were interpreted to mean that what the AKP wanted to do now was not to bring more freedom for everyone in Turkey but rather to create a country in its own image. This change in discourse was accompanied by a change in policies especially after 2013. One can identify three critical junctures: first, the Gezi Park protests in the summer of 2013; second, the graft probe of 17–25 December 2013; third, the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016. At each one of these junctures, the AKP government responded with policies that took Turkey further away from liberal democracy. In response to the Gezi Park protests, the stance of the government was to declare that these protests were organised by foreign powers and their purpose was to dismantle legitimate government through street demonstrations. On the basis of these premises, the government criminalised civilian protestors and suppressed demonstrations by physical force. In response to the 17–25 December graft probe, the government declared that it was a coup attempt by judicial means and reacted with policies that put the judiciary under the effective control of the government. Finally, in response to the 15 July coup attempt, the government declared a state of emergency under which exceptional measures were taken. One of the fundamental changes that occurred under the conditions of the state of emergency was the introduction of a presidential system with a referendum on 16 April 2017. Lacking basic checks and balances, the new governmental system in Turkey further consolidated democratic backsliding. It is not misleading to say that the longest-running and one of the most influential liberal thought movements in Turkey has been the Association for Liberal Thinking (ALT). ALT was established in 1992 in Ankara by a group of academics in an environment where totalitarianism had collapsed in Europe with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Among the founders of ALT were Atilla Yayla, Mustafa Erdoğan and Kazım Berzeg. ALT gained its official status in 1994, and Kazım Berzeg became its first president. The circle of ALT believed that a liberal democracy based on human rights, the rule of law and tolerance, and a free-market economy based on the freedom of enterprise and property rights were the foundations of contemporary civilisation. Thus, ALT determined its mission as the promotion of the intellectual traditions underlying contemporary civilisation in Turkey. To achieve this mission, ALT carried out various intellectual activities such as publishing the quarterly journal Liberal Düşünce (‘Liberal Thinking’), translating the main works of the liberal tradition into Turkish, and holding conferences and seminars.

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 101 As a natural result of their liberal interpretation of Turkish republican history, the circle of ALT took issue with the Kemalist tutelage regime. In their view, with its solid Turkish nationalism and strict secularism, Kemalism was the main reason for the grievances of different segments of Turkish society. While harsh secularism had victimised pious Muslims and non-Muslims, Turkish nationalism had victimised the Kurds and non-Muslims such as Armenians, Greeks and Jews. It was believed that if the tutelage regime with its Kemalist official ideology had been dismantled, a liberal democracy could have been established in Turkey. With this belief in mind, the members of ALT were vocal critics of the 28 February coup in the late 1990s. Furthermore, to the extent to which the AKP carried out an existential struggle against the tutelage regime in its first two terms in power, ALT members were quite supportive of it. However, roughly after the 2011 elections, differences of opinion as to the democratic aspirations of the AKP began to surface among the members of ALT. While one group believed that the AKP government was taking an authoritarian direction and should be criticised, the other group thought that the government was still struggling against anti-democratic forces and had to be supported. One event around which there were significant differences of opinion was the Gezi Park protests. While one group sympathised with the protestors and thought that the protests were legitimate given the recent authoritarian discourse of the government, the other group thought that they aimed to destroy constitutional government by creating chaos through street demonstrations and were illegitimate. The other crucial event around which great differences existed was the 17–25 December 2013 graft probe. Basically, there were two responses to this event within the ALT circle. One group thought that there were serious allegations of misconduct by some of the government members and due process of law must be carried out. On the other hand, the other group argued that these cases were brought forward by the members of the Gülen Order and the whole process was a coup attempt by judicial means. The second group firmly believed that the trial process must be halted. In light of these profound differences of opinion, the group within the ALT circle whose members took a critical stance of the government concerning the Gezi Park protests and the 17–25 December graft probe decided to establish a new association. Thus, the Freedom Research Association (Özgürlük Araştırmaları Derneği, ÖAD) was established in 2014. Among the founders of the ÖAD were Mustafa Erdoğan, İhsan Dağı, Bican Şahin and Orhan Kemal Cengiz. Şahin was elected as the president at the first general assembly in the autumn of 2014. The ÖAD describes itself as a classical liberal think tank that carries out public policy research with the vision of a free and prosperous Turkey. The ÖAD organises itself around three centres: the Centre for Civil Freedoms, the Centre for Economic Freedom and the Centre for Rule of Law and Democracy. In partnership with domestic and foreign partners, the ÖAD carries out research, publishes reports, and holds conferences and seminars. In the face of rapid deterioration in the spheres of rule

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102 | bican şahin, seval yaman and belgin tarhan of law and individual freedom, the ÖAD has devoted a significant part of its energy to researching these fields. Conclusion Contemporary liberals of Turkey tend to find bits and pieces of liberalism in Turkish history starting from the late Ottoman period. In the first phase, liberalism in Turkey emerged between large ideological blocs such as nationalism, Islamism and republicanism as an eclectic or blurred view. In the second phase, liberalism developed as a part of democratisation attempts in Turkish politics. Instead of establishing a holistic, comprehensive and consistent ideological standpoint, Turkish ‘liberals’ fluctuated with the sharp ups and downs in Turkish democracy until the 1990s. With the establishment of the LDP and ALT, people who identified themselves as liberal came together under a political party or a think tank. While the LDP received very low votes in the elections, ALT experienced a great divergence after 2013. The liberal intellectual movements could not maintain their initial influence and dynamism in the social and political field. The primary reason for this is the lack of a civil public space, which is the common problem for all intellectual movements in Turkey. The second reason is much more related with the liberals’ relations with the ruling party. The right-wing (or centre-right) parties, to which the liberals gave their support during their first terms in power, can easily replace the liberal or democratic approach they initially advocated with collectivist, populist or anti-democratic policies after they have consolidated their power. The history of liberal movements in Turkey showed similar dilemmas during the rules of the Democratic Party, the Motherland Party and lastly the Justice and Development Party. References Ağaoğlu, Ahmet (1933), Devlet ve Fert, Istanbul: Sanayiinefise Matbaası. Beriş, Hamit Emrah (2021), ‘Liberalism and Muslim Liberal Thought’, in Lutfi Sunar (ed.), The Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Muslim Socio-Political Thought, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Bora, Tanıl (2017), Cereyanlar: Türkiye’de Siyasi İdeolojiler, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Cavid Bey, Mehmet (2001), İktisat İlmi. Ankara: Liberte Yayınları. Coşar, Simten (2005a), ‘Ahmet Ağaoğlu’, in Murat Yılmaz (ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Liberalizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 236–42. Coşar, Simten (2005b), ‘Yeni Forum’, in Murat Yılmaz (ed.), ‘Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Liberalizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 416–17–20. Demirel, Ahmet (2005), ‘Millî Mücadele Döneminde Birinci Meclis’teki Liberal Fikir ve Tartışmalar’, in Murat Yılmaz (ed.) Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Liberalizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 164–84.

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the trajectory of liberalism in turkey | 103 Durukan, Kaan (2009), ‘Prens Sabahaddin ve İlm-i İçtima- Türk Liberalizminin Kökenleri’, in Mehmet Ö. Alkan (ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce, Cilt 1: Cumhuriyete Devreden Düşünce Mirası – Tanzimat ve Meşrutiyet’in Birikimi, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 143–55. Erdoğan, Mustafa (2005), ‘Liberalizm ve Türkiye’deki Serüveni’, in Murat Yılmaz (ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Liberalizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 23–41. Heper, Metin (2013), ‘Islam, Conservatism, and Democracy in Turkey: Comparing Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’, Insight Turkey 15(2): 141–56. Mercan, Birol and Abdülkadir Buluş (2005), ‘Osmanlı’nın Son Dönemindeki İktisadi Sorunlara Yönelik Çözüm Arayışında Liberal Aydınlar’, Muhafazakâr Düşünce Dergisi 4: 217–41. Okyar, Ali Fethi (1980), Üç Devirde Bir Adam, ed. Cemal Kutay, Istanbul: Tercüman Yayınları. Öniş, Ziya (2004), ‘Turgut Özal and his Economic Legacy: Turkish Neo-liberalism in Critical Perspective’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(4): 113–34. Özavcı, Hilmi Ozan (2015), ‘Opposition to Authoritarianism: The Society for the Dissemination of Free Ideas and the Road to Democracy in Turkey 1947–50’, Turkish Studies 16(2): 161–77. Sabahaddin Bey (2021), Türkiye Nasıl Kurtulabilir? Ankara: BilgeSu Yayıncılık. Sütçü, Güliz (2011), ‘Playing the Game of Democracy through the Electoral Mechanism: The Democratic Party Experience in Turkey,’ Turkish Studies 12(3): 341–56. T24 (2013), ‘Babuşcu: Gelecek 10 yıl, liberaller gibi eski paydaşlarımızın arzuladığı gibi olmayacak’,1 April, http://t24.com.tr/haber/babuscu-onumuzdeki-10-yil-liberaller-gibi-eski-paydaslarimizin-kabullenecegi-gibi-olmayacak,226892, accessed 23 January 2023. Yayla, Atilla (2013), Özgürlüğün Peşinde, Ankara: Liberte Yayınları.

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Part III Governance Challenges and Politics

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8 Democracy in Turkey E. Fuat Keyman (Sabancı University) and Cana Tulus Turk (Sabancı University)

T

he history of modern Turkey can be portrayed as a pendulum swinging recursively between the possibility of democratisation and retreat to political closure. From its inception in 1923 as an independent and modern nation-state until today, these wild swings provide an adequate picture and reading of modern Turkey. Turkey is a country with 150 years of experience with constitutional democracy and seventy-five years of experience transitioning to democracy; yet, at the same time, it suffers from recursive failures to consolidate its democracy as well as more recently from democratic backsliding. It also constitutes an illustrative and enlightening case for comparative studies on democratic regression on a global scale. This chapter relies on two interrelated yet analytically and historically separate literatures on democracy, that of the consolidation of democracy1 (Özbudun 2000; Przeworski 1991: 26) and that of democratic backsliding, to provide a critical analysis of the evolution of Turkish modernity. We suggest that despite the grand transformation that Turkey has been undergoing since its founding in the areas of the economy, foreign policy, urbanisation, culture, social mobility, identity, technology and recently digitalisation, the problem of democracy – both failing to consolidate it and its recent backsliding – has been enduring. On the eve of the Republic’s centennial, the successful implementation, institutionalisation and internalisation of democracy in Turkey should be accepted not as a given but as a visionary target to be achieved. Parallel to the Democratic consolidation refers to a situation in which democracy ‘becomes the only game in town, when no one can imagine acting outside democratic institutions, when all the losers want to do is to try again within the same institutions under which they have just lost.’ For more, see Ozbudun (2000); Przeworski (1991: 26).

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108 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk recent global regression of democracy – which has involved ‘the incremental erosion of democratic institutions, rules and norms that results from the actions of duly elected governments, typically driven by an autocratic leader’ (Haggard & Kaufman 2021: 1, 4)2 and has led to concerns about whether democracies are in danger as a whole – the recent authoritarian turn in Turkey has created a growing consensus in academic and public discourse on the fragility and preciousness of democracy. Therefore, strengthening checks and balances, preserving institutions, securing rights and freedoms, and advocating for deliberation and inclusiveness over delivery and efficiency are crucial to saving democracy from what has come to be known as competitive authoritarianism or populism. In substantiating our argument, we will first focus on Turkey’s grand transformation process since 1923 and analyse ruptures and continuities within it. We note that these processes have made Turkey a complex society with multiple layers of modernisation, bringing about multidimensional cleavages. Second, we will offer a brief account of the ‘transition to democracy’ in 1945, then the failure of its consolidation despite processes of globalisation and Europeanisation since 1980 – a failure that has created a suitable platform for democratic backsliding since 2015. Third, in a more detailed fashion, we will delineate the ways in which democratic backsliding has been operating institutionally, cognitively and sociologically, giving rise to the simultaneous weakening of democratic governance and deepening of polarisation. Finally, we will explore the extent to which redemocratisation is possible and what needs to be done to achieve this end. Transformation: Turkey as a ‘Complex Society’ The history of modern Turkey is one of ruptures and continuity. It involves system-creating ruptures paving the way to structural changes in line with significant continuities across different periods. Both these ruptures and continuities are part of the grand transformation that shapes the history of modern Turkey as a history of modern nation-building and nation-state-building, defined as the will to reach contemporary levels of civilisation. Moreover, the process of transformation is an ongoing, multidimensional, multiplex and complex one, in so far as it has involved at least five interrelated clusters: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.  2

1923–present: processes of modernisation; 1945–present: processes of democratisation; 1980–present: processes of globalisation; 2000–present: processes of Europeanisation; 2015–present: democratic backsliding.

We use the term ‘democratic backsliding’ according to the definition used by Haggard and Kaufman (2021: 1, 4).

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democracy in turkey | 109 The present nature of Turkey is characterised by the simultaneous and intertwined existence of all five of these clusters as well as their impacts on the economy, politics, identity and foreign policy. Their impact together has rendered Turkey’s transformation into a much more ‘complex society’. This complex sociology of Turkey has been complicated further by the multiplication of political cleavages as a result of the multidimensional process of transformation. Since 1923, several political cleavages, each corresponding to the different dimensions of transformation, have occurred. These political cleavages can be listed and categorised in the following way: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1923–present: the centre–periphery cleavage; 1945–present: the left–right cleavage; 1980–present: the global–national cleavage; 2000–present: the identity–citizenship cleavage; 2015–present: the authoritarianism-democratisation cleavage.

Currently, Turkish politics must navigate all of these cleavages, operating simultaneously and in an intertwined fashion. They together require an understanding of Turkey as a complex society whose good and just governance entails attempts to cope with all of these cleavages at the same time. Processes of modernisation, democratisation, globalisation, Europeanisation and democratic backsliding, coupled with the centre–periphery, left–right, global–national, identity–citizenship and authoritarianism–democratisation cleavages, make governing Turkey as a complex society much more complicated and challenging. Two interrelated points are worth making. On the one hand, Turkey’s transformation as a complex society can be observed in its economic dynamism, rapid urbanisation, middle-class formation, active foreign policy and technological improvements. Today, Turkey is a highly urban society with a growing middle class, a pivotal state actor in its region and the eighteenth largest economy in the world. All of these factors have been driven by its ongoing modernisation, globalisation and Europeanisation. Despite the existing problems, risks, middle-income trap and stalemate, Turkey has benefited from this transformation. On the other hand, the same cannot be said for the area of democracy. Even though Turkey transitioned to a democracy in 1945, much earlier than its southern European and Latin American counterparts, the transformation process has not yet paved the way to consolidation. Its fragile democracy has been interrupted by recursive coups and regime breakdown; instrumentalised rather than internalised by governing political and economic elites; and operated as a ‘tutelary democracy’ in which the military, judiciary and/or state bureaucracy oversaw the activities of the elected civilian government. The failure of consolidation has been coupled with democratic

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110 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk backsliding in recent years as Turkey has switched its parliamentary system to executive presidentialism. All of these points have created a paradox that has remained unsolved, meaning that rather than convergence, it is the decoupling/disconnect between modernisation and democratisation, or becoming a complex society without democracy, that characterises Turkey’s transformation process. In what follows, we will briefly analyse the unsolved paradox of Turkey’s transformation. The Transition to Modernity In his influential book The Making of Modern Turkey, Feroz Ahmad correctly observes that ‘Turkey did not rise phoenix-like out of the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. It was “made” in the image of the Kemalist elite which won the national struggle against foreign invaders and the old regime’ (Ahmad 1993: 2). Moreover, in the process of making the Republic, the primary aim was to ‘reach the contemporary level of civilisation’ by establishing political, economic and ideological prerequisites such as the creation of an independent nation-state, the fostering of industrialisation and the construction of a secular and modern national identity. Thus, while Turkey as an independent nationstate emerged out of an independence war against Western imperial powers, it nevertheless accepted the universal validity of Western modernity as the primary way of building a modern state. For the first president and founding father of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and his followers, it was only through rapid modernisation entailing the introduction and the dissemination of Western reason and rationality into what was regarded as traditional and backward social relations that Turkey would be stronger and more secure vis-à-vis its enemies. It can be argued in this sense that since its inception in 1923, the process of making modern Turkey has prioritised both security and modernity, meaning that the Kemalist elite was always concerned about the security of the new nation at a time when they accepted the universal validity of Western modernity. For the Kemalist elite it was imperative to create a nation-state distinct from the persona of the sultan, secular and institutionally strong in order to achieve modernisation and security. Moreover, the Kemalist elite also took seriously the Weberian answer to the riddle of the ‘European miracle’; that is, that the reasons behind Western advancement could be located precisely in Western cultural practices. Modernisation was understood not just as a question of acquiring technology but as something that could not be established without institutions nor absorbed without a dense network of cultural practices. This means that the commitment to modernisation had to be supplemented with the creation of an institutional governance structure as well as with a set of cultural practices that were to constitute the discursive and institutional foundation for a modern and secular national identity.

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democracy in turkey | 111 The state’s attempt to achieve rapid top-down modernisation of the new republic and the construction of a modern and secular national identity was initiated through a set of reforms, namely those of republicanism, nationalism, statism, secularism, populism and reformism (from above). These reforms defined the nation-state as the sovereign subject of modernity, operating as the dominant actor in the political, economic and cultural spheres, and aimed to construct a national identity that was both secular and classless. This necessarily entailed the subjugation of the ‘Other’, namely Islamists, Kurds and other minorities. The ideal citizen was a symbol of secularism and civilization, virtuous enough to do what was in the state’s interest over individual interests. Similarly, the Other was expected to accord primacy to citizenship over differences. It should be pointed out that although the state played a significant role as a dominant and sovereign actor in the process of the top-down construction of a modern and secular national identity, the state-based designed reforms aiming at achieving its internalisation by society at large were not very successful. As Serif Mardin correctly suggests, even though Turkey’s arrival at modernity was successful in the process of modern nationstate-building, it nevertheless failed to construct a ‘social ethos’ (Mardin 1995). In other words, Turkey’s lack of success in societal modernisation translated into failure in cultural modernisation. The strong symbolic role of Islam in the identity formation of the majority of people living in rural areas in particular, and in the formation of everyday life in the republican era, as well as the resistance to cultural assimilation from ethnic Kurds in southeastern Anatolia in particular, clearly illustrates the lack of social ethos embedded in the Kemalist elite’s plan to civilise through societal modernisation. As will be seen in the following section, it is this problem of social ethos – that is, the emergence of the disjuncture between societal and cultural modernisation processes in the republican era – that has paved the way to identity-based conflicts in Turkey, mainly in the form of Islamic resurgence and the Kurdish question. In addition to the problem of social ethos, which has resulted in a divided and polarised society without social cohesion, the lack of reference to democracy during the transition to modernity was one of the defining features of the early republican era. Modernisation without democratisation shaped Turkey’s process of transformation. More than the early Republic’s one-party system, it was the Kemalist elite’s need to ‘catch up’ to the level of civilisation in the West as rapidly as possible in order to make Turkey more secure and stronger – often despite democratic considerations and reinforcing top-down reforms – that explains the democratic deficit in this era. In this context, the articulation of modernity and security, framed by the discourse of Westernisation and operating as the main mode of the state-centric societal modernisation, is the primary mark of the early republican era of modern Turkey.

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112 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk The Transition to Democracy and the Failure of its Consolidation The first rupture in the building of the modern Turkish state was the transition to parliamentary democracy from 1945 to 1950. Since this rupture Turkey’s modernisation has entailed significant references to the question of democratisation. Unlike Latin American and southern European countries, where the transition from authoritarianism to democracy was realised through a rupture with the old regime, Turkey’s experience involved a peaceful transition through reform and change from the single-party political system (Ozbudun 2000). Following the Second World War, the Democrat Party emerged from within the ruling Republican People’s Party to win the 1950 elections, turning the singleparty regime into a parliamentary democracy. Thus, the transition to democracy began with the opposition party coming to power through elections. The second major rupture occurred with Turkey’s exposure to globalisation in the 1980s. Since then, globalisation – both in the economy and in culture and politics – has underlined processes of transformation in Turkey as it has squeezed ideas of ‘the national’ – i.e., the nation-state, national economy and national identity – between global forces and local dynamics. The discourses of a minimal/effective state, free-market rationality and identity/difference have gained power and popularity and have increasingly become the focus of politics inside Turkey. The increasing dominance of the free market and neoliberal thinking, the resurgence of identity politics and the formation of proactive foreign policy became defining features of the Turkish state. It has become impossible to understand and govern the country without reference to globalisation. Therefore, since the 1980s, and especially since the 1990s, processes of modernisation have acted in tandem with processes of globalisation and democratisation. In the year 2000, Turkey faced the third major rupture as the European Commission granted Turkey candidacy status for full membership of the European Union during the Helsinki summit of December 1999. This decision led to the deepening of Turkey’s European transformation as it demanded that Turkey should initiate a democratic and constitutional reform process to further upgrade its democracy. This entailed Turkey’s adaptation of the Copenhagen Criteria, the requirements for democratic reform to begin accession. Despite the existing problems of stalemate in relations and the lack of trust in the other party, the process of transformation has since been linked to the concept of an ‘EU anchor’ – the impact of which still plays an important role in the economy, urbanisation, education and civil society. This anchor has created the expectation that democracy should be ‘the only game in town’ and that modernity should be articulated with democracy in such a way that stability, social cohesion and peace become sustainable. Therefore, Europeanisation became synonymous with modernisation, and Turkey began to look towards strengthening democracy and checks and balances rather than retreats to political closures and severe polarisation.

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democracy in turkey | 113 In light of the above account of Turkish modernisation after its transition to democracy, we suggest that four factors have been crucial in preventing its consolidation. As has been analysed in detail, these factors are namely those of (1) recursive regime breakdowns in the period between 1960 and 2016 that weakened democracy, first, by establishing a tutelary system in which state elites had the power of oversight over the civilian government and, second, through recent democratic backsliding and institutional erosion by the executive presidential system; (2) the choice of clientelism, nepotism and populism by civilian governments to win elections, which resulted in making the economy, modernity and societal trust fragile in crises; (3) the state-centric control of opposition parties and civil society, weakening participation and active/equal citizenship and giving rise to the increasing power of identity politics and polarisation; and (4) the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) privileging of hegemony over transformation, aiming at shifting the multi-party parliamentary system to executive presidentialism and prioritising power fusion, absolute loyalty to the leader and centralised governance over the separation of powers, the independence of the judiciary and governing institutions, merit and decentralisation. After the weak coalition governments and political and economic instability of the 1990s, the AKP’s single-party rule has demonstrated that the more power the AKP has, the more its relationship with democracy has become instrumental and majoritarian, leading to democratic backsliding. This has indicated that when democracy and coalition governments are weak and fragile, single-party rule is also conducive to democratic backsliding. These factors, as well as the lack of a suitable institutional and legal platform, have led to the failure to consolidate democracy amid processes of transformation in Turkey. This has translated into the recent competitive authoritarian and populist turn towards democratic backsliding, which we will analyse in what follows. Democratic Backsliding In the first half of the 2010s, the crucial question regarding the process of democratisation in Turkey was whether the ruling AKP as the dominant party and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the strong leader would continue the ‘unfinished’ democratic consolidation phase of the 2000s or whether it would go in the other direction – choosing leadership over hegemony and increasingly leaning towards authoritarianism (MüftülerBaç & Keyman 2012). Especially after 2015, increased authoritarian tendencies coupled with the erosion of democratic institutions, and the weakening of the system of checks and balances, paved the way for the gradual retreat of democracy. The AKP left its transformative role and adopted a position in favour of the status quo, reverting to the bifurcated programme of modernisation characterised by swings between transformation and retreat in democratisation (Keyman & Gumuscu 2014).

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114 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk All of the incumbent AKP’s attempts to restructure the constitution in order to aggrandise the power of the executive in the name of the presidential system have led to certain setbacks in democracy in Turkey (Bermeo 2016; Esen & Gumuscu 2021). This leads us to define the period starting in 2015 and continuing until today as the cleavage between authoritarianism and democratisation. During this period, the power of the executive was consolidated and monopolised at the expense of the judiciary and the legislature. Horizontal checks were reduced, and political rights and civil liberties declined. Executive aggrandisement also brought periods of economic shocks and stagflation, severe polarisation and a skewed playing field for opposition parties, civil society and minorities. The AKP gradually moved from power-sharing to power fusion. Its hegemony in Turkish politics created negative repercussions for democratic consolidation that manifested in (1) the institutionalisation of its monopoly of power over the legislature, executive, media and the AKP itself, (2) the absence of the state’s transformative capacity and (3) a weakened system of checks and balances. Turkey’s weak democratic performance, starting with the AKP’s second phase in power and becoming visible during the election cycle in 2015, has led to its perception as a partial democracy with authoritarian tendencies. The November 2015 election results helped Erdoğan and the AKP regain muchneeded confidence and power to push for changing the political regime to executive presidentialism. Until the 2010s, despite the existence of several regime breakdowns and democratic deficit problems in its multi-party system, Turkey continued its commitment to parliamentary democracy and the norms that made democratic consolidation possible. Yet, this commitment changed when Erdoğan’s insistence on presidentialism since the presidential elections in 2007 was realised following the referendum on the presidential system in 2017. The switch to a presidential system has since accelerated Turkey’s democratic backsliding. As such, the process of backsliding coupled with increased authoritarian tendencies was also reflected in Turkey’s declining credibility in foreign affairs. An image of an introverted, conservative and authoritarian Turkey emerged and resulted in a serious trust problem between Erdoğan and the West, which became evident with the 15 July 2016 coup attempt and the impasse in EU–Turkey relations after the EU–Turkey refugee deal (Aydın-Düzgit & Keyman 2012; Yardımcı-Geyikçi & Yavuzyilmaz 2022). In time, the place of democracy in Turkish politics as ‘the only game in town’ has been in question in behavioural, attitudinal and constitutional terms. Scholars have since started to classify the regime as ‘competitive authoritarian’ (Esen & Gumuscu 2016; Sözen 2020) or one with ‘authoritarian’ tendencies (Arat & Pamuk 2019). The majoritarian understanding and instrumentalisation of democracy in Turkey have become more visible over time. Presently, there remains no power to check the government. This turn in the AKP’s mode of governance towards securitisation, otherisation and

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democracy in turkey | 115 polarisation has undermined democratic consolidation by generating significant democratic erosion in freedoms of expression, assembly, association and information (Keyman & Gumuscu 2014). Turkey’s weak democratic performance is visible in the international indices indicating democratisation performance such as the Freedom in the World Index, the Economist Intelligence Unit Democracy Index, various V-Dem indices and the Rule of Law Index. According to Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2021 report, 2020 was the fifteenth consecutive year of declining political rights and civil liberties worldwide. Turkey’s decline in the indices over the last decade and backsliding in its status to ‘not free’ since 2018 is also part of this trend (Repucci & Slipowitz 2020; Repucci & Slipowitz 2021). Turkey’s overall score has been gradually declining over this period,3 which is reflected in the two main categories – political rights and civil liberties – as well as their sub-categories. According to the detailed analysis of these reports, the main reasons for this serious decline in rights and liberties after 2015 are the centralisation of power in the executive branch as a result of the conditions of the state of emergency and the increasing number of statutory decrees after the failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016, the 2017 constitutional referendum and the exclusion of the representatives of the People’s Democratic Party from the parliament and local administration through repeated law cases against them. Moreover, a deeply uneven playing field among the opposition parties, media bias during election campaigns in favour of the AKP, frequent arrests and convictions of journalists and social media users, weakened academic freedom, the forced removals of elected mayors, and continued purges and arbitrary prosecutions leading to a weakened civil society are also among the reasons for the deterioration of press freedom, freedom of expression and the rule of law. Regarding the AKP’s experience before 2015, it is possible to see that the bifurcated character of the Turkish modernisation programme was gradually expanding and that a conservative route was followed, far from the possibility of democratic consolidation (Keyman 2010: 100). Indices on democracy, rule of law and rights and liberties reveal that this trend continued after 2015 and has constituted the benchmark of Turkey’s democratic decline. According to the Democracy Index 2021, published by the Economist Intelligence Unit in February 2022, Turkey’s democracy score was 4.35 out of 10. Considering the index’s previous data, Turkey, which achieved a score of 5.12 in 2015, 5.04 in 2016, 4.88 in 2017, 4.37 in 2018, 4.09 in 2019 and 4.48 in 2020, has fallen from the category of ‘flawed democracies’ to the category of ‘hybrid regimes’ over the last seven years. In recent years, Turkey scored 55 out of 100 in 2015, 53 in 2016, 38 in 2017, 32 in 2018, 31 in 2019 and 32 in 2020.

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116 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk According to the 2021 V-Dem report Autocratization Turns Viral, based on their Liberal Democracy Index (LDI) dataset, the third reverse wave of democracy since 2010 continues, and Turkey is among the top 10 declining countries (Alizada et al. 2021). The LDI compares data since 1972 and classifies countries into four categories: autocracies, electoral autocracies, electoral democracies and liberal democracies. Turkey is among the electoral autocracies, after it ‘lost its status as a democracy in 2014 and has since descended into the bottom 20 per cent in the world on the Liberal Democracy Index (LDI)’ (Maerz et al. 2020). The report states that the arrest of journalists is a significant factor in the decline of civil liberties, which has been an important dimension of Turkey’s recent democratic decline.4 Judicial constraints on the executive branch are an essential component of checks and balances in any given regime. For legislative constraints on the executive index, Turkey’s score was 0.37 in 2015, 0.32 in 2016, 0.14 in 2017, 0.17 in 2018, 0.21 in 2019 and 0.27 in 2020.5 Turkey’s Rule of Law Index score has also been in decline since 2015 (0.46 in 2015, 0.43 in 2016, 0.42 in 2017, 2018 and 2019, and 0.43 in 2020). This index, from the World Justice Project, assesses the rule of law, covering four main dimensions with certain subcategories: accountability, just law, open government and accessible and impartial justice. Turkey’s place in the regional and income-based groups has generally been at the bottom of the list, especially after 2015, which is a significant indicator considering the context of Turkey’s democratic decline. For instance, Turkey’s ranking in 2015 was 29th out of 31 upper-income countries and reached 40th out of 42 in 2020. According to the Rule of Law Index 2020, Turkey ranked 107th out of 128 countries and has the worst score in its Eastern Europe & Central Asia region in terms of constraints on government powers, regulatory enforcement and fundamental rights (see World Justice Project 2020). Over the past year, its scores have worsened concerning the absence of corruption (moving from 57th to 60th), civil justice (from 96th to 103rd) and open government (from 94th to 97th), while its ranking in criminal justice remains the same at 85th. Recently, the examples of Turkey’s non-compliance with the decisions taken by both the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) and the European Council6 as well as its withdrawal from Turkey’s score was 0.23 in 2015, 0.18 in 2016 and 0.11 in each of the years 2017–20, on an index that ranges from 0 to 1.  5 V-Dem formulates legislative constraints on the executive index as the second dimension of checks and balances and assigns a value between 0 and 1.  6 One example is the case of Kavala v. Turkey. Osman Kavala, a jailed philanthropist, businessman and human rights defender, has been in prison since 2017 without a conviction. The ECtHR states that there is a ‘lack of reasonable suspicion’ that Kavala has committed any crimes and the European Council condemns Turkey for non-compliance with the court’s ruling. This single case not only has extremely important consequences for the rule of law in the country, but also illustrates how executive aggrandisement damages institutional ties outside.  4

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democracy in turkey | 117 the Istanbul Convention7 through presidential decree clearly illustrate how competitive authoritarianism establishes a problematic relationship with rule of law both inside and outside Turkey. The existence of a strong opposition is an important factor that has a direct impact on countering executive aggrandisement and preventing autocrats from gaining power before they become powerful enough to set the rules of the game to their advantage (Levitsky & Ziblatt 2018). In the Turkish context, the AKP’s consolidation of power has been triggered by the inability of the opposition parties to limit the incumbent party’s electoral hegemony and further autocratisation over time. The AKP’s grip on power over its first three terms and the absence of a strong opposition has been coupled with the inability of the opposition to counter ‘Erdogan’s charismatic control’ (Arat & Pamuk 2019). The AKP’s highly instrumental approach to democracy and the existence of weak opposition parties have given rise to fear, anxiety and uncertainty about the future and identity of Turkey while generating severe social polarisation, which does not bode well for democratic consolidation (Keyman & Gumuscu 2014). Many scholars point to the fact that many leaders have been using authoritarian populism as a weapon to accumulate political power and populist rhetoric at the expense of dividing societies with a discourse of ‘us versus them’. Polarisation among political elites and society has reached an alarming stage in Turkey, which is one of the most polarised nations in the world (Erdogan & Semerci 2018; Aydın-Düzgit 2019). Populist policies play a significant role in increasing the level of polarisation and negatively impacting consensus and compromise, creating obstacles to living together. Finally, related to institutional erosion, democratic backsliding in Turkey has proceeded through privileging the decisions of the president vis-à-vis key regulatory and judiciary institutions. In this regard, frequent changes in the governors of the central bank as well as the increasing subjugation of this institution to executive presidentialism, coupled with constant attacks on the Supreme Court and other courts as well as non-compliance with their decisions, exemplifies the overpoliticisation and erosion of governing institutions in Turkey. Even though Turkey has recently been confronted by serious economic problems giving rise to inflation and unemployment crises in addition to the rule of law problems, executive presidentialism continues its overcentralised and populist mode of governance. Another important retreat: the Istanbul Convention, formally known as the Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, guarantees not only the prevention of all forms of violence against women and the LGBTI+ community but also the investigation and prosecution of cases on domestic violence, including protection and support from the state.

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118 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk Conclusion: The Possibility of Redemocratisation The transformation of complex societies such as Turkey does not come without serious problems and recurring political, economic and cultural crises. The history of modern Turkey can be described by the simultaneous existence of success and failure – that is, success in transformation through establishing the necessary institutional structure of modernity, such as the nation-state, modern positive law, parliamentary democracy, a market economy and citizenship, but at the same time failure in making modernity multicultural, democracy consolidated, the economy stable and sustainable, and citizenship based on the language of rights and freedoms. This has led to recursive swings between democratisation and authoritarian closure at the governance level as well as swings between hope and despair in societal psychology. While Turkey underwent its transition to democracy through reform, it has failed to consolidate this transformation despite its experiences of globalisation and Europeanisation and their system-changing impacts. The latest episode showcasing this failure of consolidation is Turkey’s democratic regression through democratic backsliding, institutional erosion and severe polarisation. Reading the history of modern Turkey as outlined in this chapter indicates that democracy should not be taken as a given or derivative phenomenon; on the contrary, it is the most important systemic benchmark not only for critically assessing the past but also for building a better future by learning from past mistakes. In this sense, critiques of Turkey’s dynamic process of transformation from the angle of democracy should encompass both a critical analysis of its failure to consolidate its democracy and its recent backsliding. It is only by doing so that a successful and sustainable redemocratisation can be possible and hopefully achieved. As Turkey celebrates the centennial of its foundation as an independent, modern nation-state in 1923, there is a possibility that the pendulum of Turkish history will swing towards redemocratisation. The coexistence of serious economic problems, severe institutional erosion and governance failures, on the one hand, and growing dynamism and the popularity of opposition parties coupled with highly successful municipal government performances by opposition party mayors in key cities such as Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, on the other, can be seen as indicators that change in the direction of democracy is possible. With its rich history, complex modernity and geopolitical pivot quality, Turkey has all the potential not only to resist authoritarianism but also to build its future in democracy. References Ahmad, Feroz (1993), The Making of Modern Turkey. London: Routledge. Alizada, Nazifa, Rowan Cole, Lisa Gastaldi, Sandra Grahn, Sebastian Hellmeier, Palina Kolvani, Jean Lachapelle, Anna Lührmann, Seraphine F. Maerz, Shreeya Pillai and Staffan

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democracy in turkey | 119 I. Lindberg (2021), Autocratization Turns Viral: Democracy Report 2021, V-Dem Institute, March. Arat, Yeşim and Şevket Pamuk (2019), Turkey between Democracy and Authoritarianism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem (2019), ‘The Islamist–Secularist Divide and Turkey’s Descent into Severe Polarization’, in Thomas Carothers and Andrew O’Donohue (eds), Democracies Divided: The Global Challenge of Political Polarization, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem and Fuat Keyman (2012), ‘EU–Turkey Relations and the Stagnation of Turkish Democracy’, Global Turkey in Europe. Bermeo, Nancy (2016), ‘On Democratic Backsliding’, Journal of Democracy 27(1): 5–19. Erdogan, Emre and Pınar U. Semerci (2018), Fanus’ta Diyaloglar: Türkiye’de Kutuplaşmanın Boyutları, Istanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Esen, Berk and Sebnem Gumuscu (2016), ‘Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey’, Third World Quarterly 37(9): 1581–606. Esen, Berk and Sebnem Gumuscu (2021), ‘Why Did the Turkish Democracy Collapse? A Political Economy Account of AKP’s Authoritarianism’, Party Politics 27(6): 1075–91. Haggard, Stephan and Robert Kaufman (2021), Backsliding: Democratic Regress in the Contemporary World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keyman, E. Fuat (2010), ‘Modernization, Globalization and Democratization in Turkey: The AKP Experience and Its Limits’, Constellations 17(2): 312–27. Keyman, E. Fuat and Sebnem Gumuscu (2014), Democracy, Identity and Foreign Policy in Turkey: Hegemony through Transformation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt (2018), How Democracies Die, New York: Crown. Maerz, Seraphine F., Anna Lührmann, Sebastian Hellmeier, Sandra Grahn and Staffan I. Lindberg (2020), ‘State of the World 2019: Autocratization Surges – Resistance Grows’, Democratization 27(6): 909–27. Mardin, Serif (1995), ‘Kollektif Bellek ve Mesruiyetler Catismasi’, in O. Abel, M. Arkoun and S. Mardin (eds), Avrupa’da Etik, Din ve Laiklik, Istanbul: Metis. Müftüler-Baç, Meltem and E. Fuat Keyman (2012), ‘Turkey under the AKP: The Era of Dominant Party Politics’, Journal of Democracy 23(1): 85–99. Özbudun, Ergun (2000), Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Przeworski, Adam (1991), Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Repucci, Sarah and Amy Slipowitz (2020), Democracy under Lockdown: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Struggle for Freedom, Freedom House, October. Repucci, Sarah and Amy Slipowitz (2021), ‘Democracy in a Year of Crisis’, Journal of Democracy 32(2): 45–60. Sözen, Yunus (2020), ‘Studying Autocratization in Turkey: Political Institutions, Populism, and Neoliberalism’, New Perspectives on Turkey 63: 209–35.

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120 | e. fuat keyman and cana tulus turk World Justice Project (2020), WJP Rule of Law Index 2020, https://worldjusticeproject.org/ruleof-law-index/global/2020/, accessed 24 January 2023. Yardımcı-Geyikçi, Şebnem and Hakan Yavuzyilmaz (2022), ‘Party (De)institutionalization in Times of Political Uncertainty: The Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey’, Party Politics 28(1): 71–84.

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9 Civil–Military Relations in Turkey: Back to Square One Yet Again? Gencer Özcan (Istanbul Bilgi University)

R

elations between civilians and the military (CMR) in Turkey went through significant changes until they assumed their present form. The ingredients of the relationship came into being at the beginning of the twentieth century, after the 1908 revolution. The revolution brought the military to the fore as the arbiter between major political contestants. Commanders of the army and the navy became cabinet members with portfolios and participated in decision-making in non-military matters (Hanioğlu 2011: 180). After 1909, when the army crushed the counter-revolutionary forces, the military’s influence further expanded at the expense of the civilians’. Following the coup of 1913, the military became even more influential. On the eve of the First World War, the military’s position had morphed into the principal actor of Ottoman politics. The Great War and the ensuing War of Liberation catapulted the military into a position of ultimate power and brought the young generation of officers who had led the 1908 revolution to the fore as the founding fathers of the young republic. It was during this brief span of time that the foundations of the entangled relations between the men of politics and men of arms in Turkey were laid. Therefore, the binary perspective implied in the title of the chapter poorly corresponds to the complex relationship between the politicians and the forces. Contrary to its fame for stringent discipline, Turkey’s military rarely held its cohesiveness when socio-political transformations gained momentum. Turf fights and fissures between the high command and junior officers often impaired the chain of command. The formation of juntas by junior officers during the 1950s and the 1960s were manifestations of deepening political cleavages seeping into the ranks of the military. Furthermore, the military’s relations with the politicians have never been watertight. Notwithstanding the military’s claims of being above politics, its interventions were either in line with the programme of a political party or were geared to accomplish economic and political 121

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122 | gencer özcan demands raised by the ruling parties. Furthermore, binary approaches tend to overlook militarist practices adopted by civilians who eagerly instrumentalise them to stamp out political forces aspiring for social change. Keeping these complexities in mind, this chapter will address the CMR in Turkey in three discernible stages of transformation during the republican era. The Military’s Exclusion from Political Interference (1923–60) Almost immediately after the proclamation of the republic, the military’s role in politics became a divisive issue among the founding fathers. With ‘awe-inspiring reputation and prestige in the army’ (Ahmad 1977: 148), Fevzi Çakmak was appointed chief of the General Staff (CGS) to keep the military outside daily politics. However, his efforts did not deter the opposition from its endeavours to instrumentalise the military for a takeover. The struggle gained momentum when a group of generals who were not on the same page as Mustafa Kemal on the abolition of the monarchy and the proclamation of the republic stepped up their efforts. Mustafa Kemal’s first reaction was a legal arrangement, which was geared to disengage the military from politics. The Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM) passed Law No. 385 enacted on 19 December 1923 stipulating that officers and soldiers would be obliged to resign from their commissions if they were elected. Article 23 of the 1924 constitution addressed the same issue: ‘A person is not permitted to be a deputy and hold another Government post at the same time’, which, inter alia, meant that the CGS would no longer be a member of the cabinet (Çelik 2008: 86). Sensing that legal measures would not suffice to prevent the influential pashas such as Kâzım Karabekir, Ali Fuat Cebesoy, Cafer Tayyar Eğilmez and Refet Bele from instrumentalising the army, Mustafa Kemal did not miss the opportunity when the plot to assassinate him was aborted in 1926. Eventually dubbing it the ‘Pashas’ Conspiracy’ in Nutuk, Mustafa Kemal eliminated all pashas who were not supportive of his radical programme. Furthermore, Military Penal Code No. 1632, enacted on 22 May 1930, set down that military staff involved in any activity which might deem to be political would be imprisoned for up to five years (Askeri Ceza Kanunu 1930: 1134). In contrast to its disengagement from mundane politics, however, the military continued to play a critical role in the consolidation of the regime. First and foremost, it put down continual Kurdish uprisings during the first decade of the Republic. Furthermore, the regime identified itself with the military. From pictures in primary school textbooks to monumental sculptures in major cities, images of soldiery embodied the regime. The military’s influence was also palpable in other areas of socio-economic life. During the first three decades of the Republic, the deputies with military backgrounds constituted the largest group within the TBMM as their percentage never fell below 20 per cent (Demirel 2013: 328). The rail and road routes

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civil–military relations in turkey | 123 were mapped out in compliance with the requirements of national defence. When it came to critical political junctures, the military’s role was even more decisive. In order to secure a smooth transition of power after Atatürk’s death, Çakmak attended the TBMM’s session in person to display the army’s support for İsmet İnönü (Koçak 1986: 134–6). However, the army’s prestigious image deteriorated due to the draconian austerity measures taken during the Second World War (Metinsoy 2007: 237–41). As the law enforcement agency in rural areas, the gendarmerie became the interface of the regime, and its image ingrained in the peasantry’s mind was notorious. Not unlike in rural areas, martial law, enacted on 23 November 1940, worsened the image of the military in major cities. When the war ended, the İnönü administration misemployed the military during the critical years of the transition to multi-party politics. The gendarmerie acted at the behest of the İnönü administration to put pressure on the newly founded Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP). The DP leaders rightfully complained about how the İnönü administration exploited martial law in major cities to hinder their party’s activities. Furthermore, during the first elections in 1946, the gendarmerie intimidated the DP’s propaganda efforts in rural areas. Throughout the 1950s, the ‘tyranny of the gendarmerie’ was one of the major planks that the opposition parties ascribed to the İnönü administration in their election campaigns. The transition to genuine multi-party politics with the 1950 elections gradually changed the political context in which CMR evolved. With Turkey’s participation in the Korean War and its admission to NATO in 1952, the change gained further traction (Esen 2021: 205). The change brought about its own ramifications within the military. First of all, while the high command remained loyal to the Old Prussian school, junior officers saw a window of opportunity in membership to NATO. Having prompted the use of new technologies, the introduction of the American military doctrine empowered the junior officers vis-à-vis the Prussian-trained top brass, who were either reluctant or unable to adopt innovations in warfare (Güvenç & Uyar 2022). In addition to the cleavages alongside technological lines, the rigid discipline was another matter of discontent among junior officers. Diaries and memoirs penned by the Turkish veterans of the Korean War include envious remarks about the non-hierarchical relations prevailing in the US Army. As the generational cleavages became conspicuous, the junior officers’ resentment towards the top brass led to the proliferation of juntas. On the eve of the 27 May 1960 coup, junior officers pejoratively dubbed the generals as ‘büyükbaş’ or cattle. As the DP leadership was more interested in securing the allegiance of generals, the junior officers’ resentment morphed into opposition to the Menderes administration. Rumours that Prime Minister Menderes despised the officers and said that ‘reserve officers would suffice to run the TAF’ were widespread (Demirel 2011: 242–3). By the same token, one of the modalities of CMR in the 1950s was that the CGSs of the period joined the DP after their

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124 | gencer özcan retirement. For instance, in the run-up to the 27 October 1957 elections, CGS İsmail Hakkı Tunaboylu, land forces commander Ahmet Nuri Aknoz, air force commander Fevzi Uçaner and navy commander Sadık Altıncan resigned one after another to run for parliament on the DP ticket. It was striking that their resignation coincided with the heyday of the crisis with Syria when the army was on full alert. The Military and the Formation of the National Security State (1960–99) Ostensibly led by General Cemal Gürsel, former commander of the land forces, the junior officers ousted the DP administration on 27 May 1960. Naming itself the National Unity Committee, the junta immediately set off the process of writing a new constitution in line with the ‘Proclamation of Primary Aims’. This was a political programme adopted by the Republican People’s Party’s (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) 14th congress, held on 12–15 January 1959. The document had provided a political framework for the junta to let progressive law professors draft a constitution with effective check and balance mechanisms. Beyond giving a political orientation to the putschists, the degree of the CHP’s involvement in devising the coup remained a dubious matter. However, İnönü’s remarks about the way his party engaged in the precursory stages of the coup are noteworthy: ‘We are neither inside nor outside the 27 May coup.’ Although the junta vowed to keep its distance from political parties, the military was instantly ‘sucked into’ politics (Ahmad 1977: 194), and became susceptible to the trials and tribulations of political life. Almost immediately after the coup, among the officers, even within the junta, signs of disunity over political issues were ubiquitous. As early as July 1960, General Gürsel diagnosed that ‘the army is sick’, urging officers ‘not to look back and return to their barracks’ (Aydemir 1976). In November 1960, the junta had to jettison fourteen of its members. Accused of dragging their feet about returning to civilian rule, they were exiled abroad. However, the exile did not bring peace into the rank and file of the army. After two abortive coups in 1962 and 1963, cleavages between the high command and junior officers were still widening. Although the civilian components of the coup defined the major parameters of the constitution, the junta took advantage of its dominant position to secure a set of legal and institutional prerogatives for the military. The creation of the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK) was the embodiment of those prerogatives that the military granted itself. While the prime minister, the minister of defence, the minister of the interior and the minister of foreign affairs made up the civilian wing of the council, the military wing was composed of the CGS and the commanders of the army, navy and air force. Seemingly, the council was to function as a platform where politicians and soldiers could consult each other on sensitive security issues. However, the MGK performed as a body in which the military wing imposed its demands on the civilian side. The promotion

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civil–military relations in turkey | 125 of national security as the pivotal concept of the state’s official language was one of the novelties introduced by the military. The junta had named the council after a neologism, ‘güvenlik’ (‘security’), a word which had not been used in any political context prior to the early 1960s (Özcan 2010: 307–49). By expanding the use of this amorphous concept that then permeated all spheres of politics, the military increasingly portrayed itself as the sole protector of national security. As a concept, it was effectively devised to turn political issues into matters of security. Interestingly, all civilian governments readily instrumentalised the concept to securitise political issues. Governments used the concept as a pretext for postponing strikes or cancelling rallies. The judiciary used it as a flimsy pretext to accuse and convict members of the opposition for contravening national security. In the late 1960s, the radicalisation of Turkish society was concentrated in factories and universities. Similar to what happened in the rest of the world, the youth in Turkey followed the global trends to espouse radical versions of political change. In the eyes of the leftist youth, the stumbling block on the way to the country’s prosperity was Turkey’s dependence on the West and its membership of NATO. In demanding Turkey’s withdrawal from NATO, the university youth grew increasingly critical of the military. ‘The army and the youth hand in hand’, the slogan students chanted on the eve of the coup of 27 May 1960, was dropped. Towards the end of the decade while students were disparaging the top brass as ‘fascists’ or ‘lackeys of NATO’, the high command seemed to resort to a more aggressive discourse to meet the offence. In a public statement, the CGS, Memduh Tağmaç, openly targeted university students as a ‘group of miserable persons who have been trying for some time to drag the country into the dark pit of their ideology’. He accused them of destroying the ‘reputation of our armed forces’. The military high command and the ruling Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP) government were in agreement on how to deal with the mounting leftist activism among university students. The high command increasingly sided with the right conservative segments of the political spectrum, while junior officers became more sympathetic towards the rising left. By the turn of the 1970s, cabal activities of the junior officers had paralysed the army, prompting Tağmaç to complain that ‘I am barely holding the chain of command’ (Birand et al. 2007: 194–5). The Yön circle led by Doğan Avcıoğlu became one of the most influential groups over junior officers’ thinking and ideological orientation (Selçuk & Koca 2022). Avcıoğlu believed in the revolutionary potential of the armed forces for the transformation of the government into a quasi-socialist regime. He claimed that the social and political transformation Turkey needed could only be accomplished by a coalition of ‘vigorous forces’ composed of intellectuals, students and soldiers. His radical programme alluding to a transfer of power ‘on the point of a bayonet’ enticed junior officers. His widely circulated Türkiye’nin Düzeni became the bedside book of many officers. Even Faruk Gürler, the

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126 | gencer özcan commander of the land forces, was once quoted to have said that ‘he would deem an officer who had not read it yet as incomplete’ (Gürkan 1985: 104–30). By the latter part of the decade, the constitutional prerogatives and other vested interests turned the top brass into ‘a privileged group with a major stake in the status quo’ (Ahmad 1977: 195). Beyond bolstering its own institutional prerogatives, the high command threw its weight behind the ruling classes and stood against demands for equality and social justice raised by workers and university students. In 1967 CGS Cemal Tural issued an order to the armed forces to prepare themselves for the struggle against subversive activities, implying the left-inclined youth movements. At the turn of the decade, CGS Memduh Tağmaç was complaining that ‘political currents striving for the improvement of social rights [had] moved far beyond economic progress’ (Ahmad 1977: 197). The military’s 12 March 1971 intervention was to a large extent the outcome of these complex dynamics evolving within the institution. The high command stymied the radical officers’ coup slated for 9 March 1971 and staged their own three days later. They issued a memorandum accusing the parliament and the government of driving the country into ‘anarchy, fratricidal strife, social and economic unrest’ (Ahmad 1977: 205). They demanded the formation of a strong government resolute enough to accomplish reforms envisaged by the constitution. PM Demirel acquiesced and resigned in compliance with the memorandum. His reaction to the intervention was restrained as he contented himself with mentioning in his letter of resignation that ‘it was not possible to reconcile the memorandum with the constitution and the rule of law’. The junta handpicked Nihat Erim, a professor of law and İnönü’s long-time protégé, to form a government of technocrats. He alleged that his government was to function above politics. However, acting at the behest of the high command, he simply implemented the Demirel government’s agenda. Erim’s reluctance to carry out reforms and indifference to the military’s grave violations of human rights led to the resignation of eleven ministers known to be reformists. The following government that Erim founded undermined the check and balance mechanisms of the 1961 constitution. While the constitution was crippled, Demirel’s AP readily supported the amendments (Demirel 2005). Likewise, while Erim was passing laws granting more prerogatives to the military, Demirel simply remained aloof. His party in the parliament enthusiastically approved the death penalties for Deniz Gezmiş, Hüseyin İnan and Yusuf Aslan, young leaders of the left in their twenties. Demirel later expressed his opportunistic approach during the interregnum when the military pulled strings behind the scene, saying that ‘we were not in power; yet we were not in opposition either’ (Demirel 1973: 379). Similar to what happened in the elections held after the 27 May 1960 coup, the results of the first elections held on 13 October 1973 disappointed the junta as Bülent Ecevit at

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civil–military relations in turkey | 127 the helm of the CHP scored the best result. As secretary general of the CHP, Ecevit had resigned from his post to protest against his party’s support for the military intervention. He challenged İnönü and ousted him on 24 May 1972 to become the leader of the CHP, rapidly changing the party’s platform to secure the support of the lower classes. In the run-up to the elections, Ecevit had espoused slogans such as ‘We shall besiege monopolies’, ‘End to profiteering, robbery and exploitation’ and ‘We shall not be slave either to the state or to capital’. The CHP’s surprising performance revealed the popular resentment for the military rule during the interregnum. Ecevit’s success meant a regression on the part of the military and the ascent of the political left in electoral politics. However, what happened in Cyprus in July 1974 put CMR on a different trajectory. The coup that the Greek military junta plotted in Cyprus prompted Turkey’s successful military intervention on 20 July 1974. It caused paradoxical consequences as far as CMR were concerned. Firstly, the operation boosted the image of Ecevit as the ‘conqueror of Cyprus’. Being known as a poet-politician, the intervention in Cyprus turned the image of Ecevit into that of a resolute prime minister. Posters depicting Ecevit wearing military helmets were on display almost everywhere –from the rear windows of intercity buses to the walls of coffee houses. Secondly, the successful operation restored the prestige that the army had lost due to martial law remaining in effect after the intervention on 12 March 1971. Since the Korean War, it was the first time that the military had accomplished such a large-scale operation abroad. In years to come, the military capitalised on this success to improve its public image. For the same reason, the military tried to belittle the civilian contribution to this success. The junta which seized power in September 1980 would pointedly obliterate Ecevit’s name in the official documentary on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the operation. Later, the military would sideline the governments to monopolise the resolution of the Cyprus problem as the sole arbiter on Turkey’s behalf. This became crystal clear when the junta took a critical decision to declare the independence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on 15 November 1983 only days before the Özal government assumed power. Exacerbated by the economic crisis of 1977–9, perpetual political crises generated conditions conducive for yet another military coup on 12 September 1980. Well prepared in advance, the coup was swiftly carried out by the high command led by the CGS, Kenan Evren. The junta named itself the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu). Abolishing the parliament, the junta assumed legislative and executive powers until the parliament started functioning in compliance with the new constitution (Tanör 1995: 33). The military coup of 1980 differed from earlier ones as the military ventured to overhaul Turkey’s politics. The junta empowered bodies which the military controls. With Article 118 of the 1982 constitution, the MGK gained an almost equal status with the cabinet. During the three years following the coup, the junta continuously disparaged

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128 | gencer özcan politics and strived to obliterate the former generation of politicians. In the wake of the coup, all mayors were replaced by vigilantes appointed by the junta. In his first statement, Evren had accused the parties and MPs of ‘being spectators of the ongoing terror, anarchy and separatism’. Furthermore, all politicians who worked in the administrative bodies of parties were banned from political activities. Attempts to depoliticise society were not confined to such proscriptions. Large segments of society such as public servants were prohibited from being members of political parties. Bans were imposed to the effect that relations between trade unions and parties were disconnected. Against such a political backdrop, the junta continued to enforce the economic stability plan inherited from the Demirel government. Known as the 24 January Decisions, its success was contingent upon lowering wages and silencing opposition. When the military rule officially came to a close in late 1983, Turkey’s political landscape was abysmal in terms of human rights violations. What the chairperson of Turkey’s Union of Employers had foretold on the day of the coup, ‘Until today the workers laughed, now it is our turn to laugh’, (Köse 2020) came to be true. Termination of the Military’s Political Agency (1999–2018) Due to the ramifications of the Gulf War of 1991 and the intensification of armed resistance put up by Kurdish separatism, the military maintained its influential position in politics after the end of the Cold War. Throughout the 1990s, the military maintained its primacy and held the power to say the last word on issues of critical security importance such as northern Iraq, Syria and Cyprus. It was still strong enough to force the Islamistled government to resign in 1997. However, after 1999, the amendments to Turkish law in compliance with the EU’s harmonisation packages gradually eliminated the legal prerogatives of the military (Özbudun & Yazıcı 2004: 32–41). CMR took another turn when the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), a party with an Islamist pedigree, came to power on 3 November 2002. In order to undermine the military’s agency in politics, the AKP governments tactfully continued to demilitarise the state. However, the tug of war between the military and the AKP led to a political crisis triggered before the presidential elections in 2007. The CGS, Yaşar Büyükanıt, issued a memorandum on 27 April 2007 to warn the government that the military would interfere if a non-secular figure was elected as president. The defiant AKP took up the challenge by calling snap elections and eventually scored a decisive edge in the elections held on 22 July 2007. It later transpired that when faced with the memorandum the AKP leadership decided to strike back through a Faustian deal with the Gülenist network (Kardaş & Balcı 2019: 151–2). The deal stipulated that the network would mobilise its members/ personnel/adherents who had infiltrated into the military and police to eliminate defiant generals and officers by way of kangaroo trials (İdiz 2013).

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civil–military relations in turkey | 129 Eventually, the struggle ended with the termination of the military’s political agency in July 2011, when the CGS, Işık Koşaner, and his three top commanders resigned in protest at premeditations staged by the Gülenists. In his farewell address, Koşaner underlined that it had become ‘impossible to continue in his job as he could not defend the rights of men who had been detained as a consequence of a flawed judicial process’ (Letsch 2011). As an unprecedented event, the resignation of Koşaner and his colleagues marked the end of an era during which the military maintained its political agency and political primacy. However, the termination of the military’s political agency instigated yet another struggle between the AKP and the Gülenists as the latter became confident enough to ask for a larger share of power from the former (Kaya & Cornell 2012). The scope of their struggle went beyond the limits of CMR in Turkey, yet one of the most critical fights was over the control of the military. The power struggle reached its pinnacle when the Gülenists precipitously plotted a coup on 15 July 2016. Having failed to mobilise the rest of the top brass, the Gülenist generals were overwhelmed by their colleagues. As of 2022, many points about the way the putsch was planned and conducted still remain dubious. However, it obviously differed from the previous attempts in a significant way, for the civilian components played the leading role in its instigation, and steered it. The attempt gave the AKP leadership the necessary pretext to set its long-awaited project of a presidential system in motion. Subordination of the military to the civilian authority was part and parcel of the new system, named the presidential government system (PGS). The PGS reorganised the hierarchy among the key security agencies, creating a new constellation of forces within the state. The new hierarchy empowered the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of the Interior and the National Intelligence Service and lessened, if not terminated altogether, the political agency of the once omnipotent military. The gendarmerie and the coastguard were detached from the military. Under the new regime, the military high command lost its powers to steer the promotion process. The powers of the Higher Board of the Military, the body which used to take final decisions about promotions of generals, were to a large extent transferred to the president. Moreover, the board also lost its control over military education and the healthcare system. Furthermore, the PGS established strong control over the military. Close scrutiny mechanisms were introduced to monitor all activities among the officers. However, such civilianisation did not lead to a spontaneous ‘democratization either of the political regime and the state or of the so-called “civil–military relations”’ (Akça 2018: 59–60). Given the extensive powers granted to the office of the presidency alongside the absence of check and balance mechanisms, civilian oversight control over the military was not in compliance with the established democratic norms. In the new regime, the military has become just one of the organs that the president can voluntarily instrumentalise to

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130 | gencer özcan accomplish his own political goals. A striking event that occurred on 27 April 2018 bore witness to what ‘civilian control over the military’ would mean under the new system. Reportedly on the request of President Erdoğan, CGS Hulusi Akar paid a visit to former president Abdullah Gül to discourage him from running for the presidency (‘Apoletli Ziyaret’ 2018). Another aspect of demilitarisation was the military’s disengagement from society. It became discernible in three areas, Firstly, the gendarmerie, the military’s arm in the rural areas, was subordinated to the Ministry of the Interior. Secondly, as a precaution to prevent similar attempts, the military’s garrisons were removed from city centres. Thirdly, the new Military Service Act cut the time of mandatory military service period in half and made paid military service permanent (‘New Military Service Law Approved’ 2019). As a result of these arrangements, the military’s capacity to monitor and control the pulse of society was significantly limited. However, the military’s subordination to civilian authority and its disengagement from society did not necessarily mean the termination of quotidian militarist practices. It is striking that while the military’s role in politics is eclipsed, politicians seem to encourage their civilian supporters to assume militaristic practices. In the aftermath of the putsch, the AKP administration often depicted elections as a deadly struggle and demonised the opposition as an enemy or accomplice of foreign powers to be defeated. During the cross-border operations in Syria, it became commonplace that AKP supporters attended party conventions in paramilitary clothing and chanting slogans that they were ready to fight. Shrouded in strong religiosity, the cult of martyrdom was exalted. High-budget historical serials on TV and videos prepared in commemoration of military victories such as the Battle of Manzikert of 1071 or the Battle of Gallipoli of 1915 continuously embellished war and soldiery. The belligerent discourse infiltrating into all spheres of social life seems to mark the beginning of a new phase of CMR in Turkey: militarisation by civilians. Given the disengagement from society and strong control mechanisms that the PGS imposed on the military, prospects that the military will regain its political agency appear to be limited. The future of CMR in Turkey will to a great extent depend on the longevity of the PGS. However, with or without the PGS, it would be extremely difficult for the military to restore its previous position in politics for the foreseeable future. Conclusion During the first three decades of the Republic, the military in Turkey was absent from day-to-day politics. Under the close scrutiny of CGS Fevzi Çakmak, the military functioned as the main pillar of the regime. The military’s political presence was discernible in two areas: the army pacified detrimental domestic challenges and functioned as the guardian of the Republic. The regime showed every effort to identify the nascent nation with

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civil–military relations in turkey | 131 its army and thus remained confident that the military would come to its assistance when needed. The insulation from politics came to an end after the introduction of multi-party politics and Turkey’s membership of NATO. The politicisation of the military gained momentum during the 1950s and reached its climax during the political crisis later in the decade when the military spearheaded social and political forces, which made the military coup on 27 May 1960 possible. However, involvement in daily politics made the military more susceptible to the vicissitudes of power relations during the 1960s. Members of the top brass or junior officer corps forged alliances with various social segments such as university youth or with various political parties or socio-political movements. Throughout the following four decades, the military encroached on all spheres of political life and finally became an omnipotent player in Turkey’s politics. With the three coups it staged in 1960, 1971 and 1980, Turkey’s military furthered its institutional privileges, created its own judiciary system and eventually founded a praetorian national security state (Demirel 2005). Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union, while many militaries around the world had to give up their prerogatives, Turkey’s military could maintain its pivotal position within the state and act as subordinate vis-à-vis the civilian authorities. However, the pivotal position has never been above politics. Contrary to all claims, the military appeared to act as the bulwark against the social and political forces challenging the existing order for change. However, legal reforms and political contingencies brought the military’s political agency in Turkey’s politics to an end in 2011. References Ahmad, Feroz (1977), The Turkish Experiment in Democracy 1950–1975. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Akça, İsmet (2018), ‘The Restructuring of Civil–Military Relations during the AKP Period’, Confluences Méditerranée 107(4): 59–71. ‘Apoletli Ziyaret’ (2018), Cumhuriyet, 28 April. Askeri Ceza Kanunu (1930), https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/mevzuatmetin/1.3.1632.pdf, Aydemir, Şevket Süreyya (1976), İhtilalin Mantığı, Istanbul: Remzi. Birand, Mehmet Ali, Can Dündar and Bülent Çaplı (2007), 12 Mart: İhtilalin Pençesinde Demokrasi, Ankara: İmge. Çelik, Seydi (2008), Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Devlet ve Asker: Askeri Bürokrasinin Sistem İçindeki Yeri, Istanbul: Salyangoz. Demirel, Ahmet (2013), Tek Partinin İktidarı: Türkiye’de Seçimler ve Siyaset 1923–1946, Istanbul: İletişim. Demirel, Süleyman (1973), 1971 Buhranı ve Aydınlığa Doğru. Ankara: Doğuş. Demirel, Tanel (2005), ‘Lessons of Military Regimes and Democracy: The Turkish Case in a Comparative Perspective’, Armed Forces & Society 31(2): 245–71.

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132 | gencer özcan Demirel, Tanel (2011), Türkiye’nin Uzun On Yılı: Demokrat Parti İktidarı ve 27 Mayıs Darbesi, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Esen, Berk (2021), ‘Praetorian Army in Action: A Critical Assessment of Civil–Military Relations in Turkey’, Armed Forces & Society 47(1): 201–22. Güvenç, Serhat and Mesut Uyar (2022), ‘Lost in Translation or Transformation? The Impact of American Aid on the Turkish Military 1947–60’, Cold War History 22(1): 59–77. Gürkan, Celil (1985), 12 Mart’a 5 Kala, Istanbul: Tekin. Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü (2011), ‘Civil–Military Relations in the Second Constitutional Period 1908– 1918’, Turkish Studies 12(2): 177–89. İdiz, Semih (2013), ‘Turkey’s Ergenekon verdicts: justice or vengeance?’, Al-Monitor, 6 August, www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/08/ergenkon-military-coup-verdicts-revenge. html, accessed 24 January 2023. Kardas, Tuncay and Ali Balcı (2019), ‘Understanding the July 2016 Military Coup: The Contemporary Security Dilemma in Turkey’, Digest of Middle East Studies 28(1): 144–6. Kaya, M. Kemal and Svante E. Cornell (2012), ‘The Big Split: The Differences That Led Erdogan and the Gulen Movement to Part Ways’, Turkey Analyst 5(5). Koçak, Cemil (1986), Türkiye’de Milli Şef Dönemi 1938–1945, Cilt 1, Istanbul: İletişim. Köse, Ahmet Haşim (2020), ‘Adını arayan rejim . . .’, Gazete Duvar, 30 September, https://www. gazeteduvar.com.tr/adini-arayan-rejim-makale-1500274, accessed 24 January 2023. Letsch, Constanze (2011), ‘Turkey military chiefs resign over sledgehammer “coup plot” arrests’, The Guardian, 30 July, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/30/turkey-militarychiefs-resign-sledgehammer, accessed 24 January 2023. Metinsoy, Murat (2007), İkinci Dünya Savaşında Türkiye: Gündelik Yaşamda Devlet ve Toplum, Istanbul: İş Bankası. ‘New Military Service Law Approved’ (2019), Turkish Daily News, 25 June. Özbudun, Ergun and Serap Yazıcı (2004), Democratization Reforms in Turkey 1993–2004, Istanbul: TESEV. Özcan, Gencer (2010), ‘Türkiye’de Milli Güvenlik Kavramının Gelişimi’, in Evren Balta Paker and İsmet Akça (eds), Türkiye’de Ordu Devlet ve Güvenlik Siyaseti, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi. Selçuk, Ekin Kadir and Bayram Koca (2022), ‘Solun Aydına Bakışı: Türkiye’de 1960’lı Yıllarda Sol Çevrelerde Asker-Sivil Aydın Zümre Tartışması’, Pamukkale Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 48: 61–77. Tanör, Bülent (1995), ‘12 Eylül Rejimi (1980–1983)’, in Sina Akşin (ed.), Bugünkü Türkiye Tarihi 1980–1995, Istanbul: Cem. Ulus, Özgür Mutlu (2011), The Army and the Radical Left in Turkey: Military Coups, Socialist Revolution and Kemalism, London: I. B. Tauris.

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10 Turkey’s Transformed State Identity Toni Alaranta (Finnish Institute of International Affairs)

Introduction

T

his chapter investigates Turkey’s state identity since the establishment of the Republic in 1923. The analysis is divided into three periods: the Kemalist single-party era (1923–50), the Cold War era and the post-Cold War era. The literature on identity and its role in explaining a state’s foreign policy is expanding but also controversial because identity itself is a contested concept. This study asserts that a state identity can function as an explanation of a state’s foreign policy only when reframed as the politics of state identity formation, a process of domestic power struggle within which certain autobiographical narratives of the state become dominant for a particular period (Alexandrov 2003: 39). A state identity has both an internal and an external dimension. Regarding the former, a state identity can be defined as the ‘sets of beliefs about the nature and purpose of the state expressed in public articulations of state actions and ideals’ (Lynch 1999: 349). According to Shibley Telhami and Michael Barnet (2002: 8), state identity ‘is the corporate and officially demarcated identity linked to the state apparatus’. However, one should not understand state identity as unchanging or free of contestation. Indeed, it is useful to agree with Richard Lebow (2016: 28), who underscores that while we speak about state identity, we should in fact talk about multiple identifications which serve instrumental ends for those who advance and propagate them. In Turkey, competing conceptualisations of state identity are largely built on simultaneous hegemony-aspiring articulations of national identity, but in addition to that they are also affected by the external systemic context within which they have been produced (Alaranta 2015). Thus, state identity cannot be reduced to national identity as it is also constituted by the international system. An international system creates and maintains statuses that a particular state can take within a pattern of stratification (Holsti 1970). 133

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134 | toni alaranta The question of Turkey’s state identity can only be addressed as part of the competing formulations of the modernising state and its external environment. The current stage – the rise of China and the relative weakening of the West – has the potential to cause a true paradigm change in Turkey. A master narrative depicting the Ottoman Empire and subsequently the Republic of Turkey implementing its defensive modernisation project with secular and religious forms of nationalism competing with each other in the face of Western dominance is for the first time since the beginning of the nineteenth century relativised, and its hegemonic position as the (dualistic) articulation of Turkey’s place in the world challenged. Turkey has witnessed a power struggle between two competing visions of a ‘rescue plan’, namely Westernising-secularist (Batıcı-laik) and Eastern-Islamic (Doğucu-Islamcı) currents (Küçükömer 1994: 8). The dichotomy had a long pedigree in the late Ottoman Empire and was subsequently intensified in the Republic by the Kemalist vanguard. As explained by Carter Findley (2010: 18–19), acknowledging the Westernising-secularist versus Eastern-Islamic structure as essential does not mean the supporters of these two would not have in several periods and in terms of various issues found shared interests and borrowed many things from each other. Within the larger confrontation there has always been convergence and the actual content of the narratives advocated by the representatives of the state has always depended not only on long-term convictions but also on the rapidly changing day-to-day issues. It is also noteworthy that this dichotomy is reproduced in the conflicting sub-traditions of Turkey’s strategic culture (Mufti 2009). Kemalist State Identity The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic inaugurated a new republican state philosophy, subsequently labelled Kemalism (Kemalizm). According to it, the new state was defined as a Turkish national state. This required conceptualising a particular ‘Turkish self’ and its traditions. However, the question of what exactly these Turkish traditions were has always been debatable, calling for various interpretations (Karpat 2012: 139). There nevertheless developed a dominant, state-sponsored official Turkish nationalism called Atatürkish nationalism (Atatürk milliyetçiliği), according to which all ethnic communities living within the borders of the Republic composed a Turkish nation united by shared history, traditions and geography (Oran 1997). The official account of the Anatolian Resistance Struggle of 1919–22 as the Turkish Revolution was given in 1927 by the leader of the resistance forces and the first president of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in his famous six-day speech (Nutuk). It offered the fundamental definitions which have been at the centre of Kemalist discourse ever since. These include the claim that the purpose of the Anatolian Resistance Struggle was not to save the traditional rights of the Anatolian Muslim population and the integrity

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turkey’s transformed state identity | 135 of the Ottoman state, but to establish a secular Turkish nation-state. According to the speech, during the resistance struggle the Turks took their proper place in the universal history of progress (Atatürk [1927] 2006). The mission of making Turkey a modern European nation-state was established by the Kemalist one-party regime during the first three decades of the Republic. These state elites wanted to make Turkey European, and they saw the separation of religion and politics as being at the heart of European modernity. During their nation-building project, a certain understanding of legitimate political authority was established, based on the idea of creating a new, rational human being (yeni insanı yaratmak) as an ideal citizen (Selçuk 2006). This emancipation project, understood as catching up with modern civilisation, legitimised the state both internally and externally in the era dominated by the principle of national self-determination worldwide. Before the Republic, three concepts were used for ‘modernisation’: asrȋleşme, muasırlaşma and çağdaşlaşma. All these terms have the word for ‘era’ or ‘age’ as their root. Ziya Gökalp and other social thinkers of the pre-Republican era used these words interchangeably. All referred to the attempt to make use of all ideational and material possibilities offered to the humanity in the given era. Thus, çağdaşlaşma and its synonyms were used in the Ottoman realm to describe a social transformation to make society modern. It is noteworthy that this çağdaşlaşma was at the time also often referred to as Avrupalılaşma (Europeanisation) and Batılılaşma (Westernisation) (Efe 2011). Atatürk specifically emphasised the nature of the Turkish Revolution (Türk Devrimi) as a civilisational (medeni) project. The cultural revolution Atatürk wanted to see taking place in the country was essentially about changing people’s mentality, their very way of thinking. In this attempt, there is no doubt that Atatürk wanted to see his people internalising something that was perceived as a Western way of thinking, in contrast to Eastern mentality (Efe 2011). In this sense, it is an undisputable historical fact that in his feverish drive to modernise Turkey’s state and society, Atatürk at the same time wanted to Westernise Turkey. Nevertheless, the modernisation project established as the cornerstone of the new Turkish national identity was simultaneously imagined as distinct from the West. The Western great powers, in particular Britain and France, had in the infamous Treaty of Sèvres planned the partition of Ottoman Anatolia, leaving only a truncated Turkish state. The Kemalist Turkish national identity has thus always included relatively strong reservation and even hostility towards the West. This animated the Kemalist state philosophy, bringing with it a self-image of being the vanguard of anti-imperialism and defensive modernisation, emphasising the storyline according to which the new Turkish state was a model of national liberation to all other non-Western states. This also established the doctrine of strict neutrality at the core of Turkey’s state identity from 1920s to the 1940s, only to be radically reconsidered after the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin became an existential threat to Turkey.

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136 | toni alaranta From these premises, both the system-level characteristics of the post-First World War era, and the implementation of the national modernisation ideology and its concomitant idea of a secular Turkish national identity came together to form a particular Turkish state identity dominant from 1923 to 1945. It envisioned the idea of Turkey taking its proper place among the civilised nations of the world. This world had reached its contemporary quality among the Western nations. This ‘civilisational turn’ underlined the nation-state model, accompanied by industrialisation, universal scientific education and state sovereignty. The Kemalist Turkish state identity was to a large extent confirmed by the external actors. Many developing countries cherished Turkey as a role model, while the country’s secularisation and educational programmes seemed to confirm the modernisation theory upheld by the Western academia of the time. The new Westernising Turkey and the image of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as a great statesman of the modern era thus strongly contributed to the production of the Kemalist state identity. While the new republican Turkey imagined itself as the beacon of hope for all oppressed nations of the ‘East’, it turned its back on the Islamic Middle East, in which the Ottoman Empire had been the dominant state actor. Identification narratives providing the basis for state identity tend to imply boundary-making distinctions including Self–Other dichotomies. Just as much as these representations are about other nations, they can be about one’s own past. From this perspective, the Islamic Ottoman imperial past became the Other of the secular and national Republic. Thus, the trauma caused by the loss of an empire was turned into a virtue in the Kemalist ideology. The official autobiographical narratives of the Republic underscored national unity, progress and unconditional state sovereignty. The dictum ‘peace at home, peace in the world’ was offered as the official manifestation of state identity. In practice it meant strict neutrality, and soon also protectionism and a national development model based on state-led industrialisation (Esen 2014: 603–4). All this was indeed about the politics of state identity: in terms of external environment, the Kemalist state identity aimed to delegitimise all future attempts by the outside powers to interfere in Turkey’s domestic affairs, while in the domestic sphere the new identity was used as a powerful tool against all opposition, especially when it tried to utilise the symbols of the old regime. Turkey’s State Identity during the Cold War The major transformation brought by the bipolar Cold War enforced Turkey to abandon strict non-alignment and seek a security arrangement within the emerging Western bloc. Although Turkey’s NATO membership was signed in 1952 by the new Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) government, the initial steps for increasing cooperation with

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turkey’s transformed state identity | 137 the United States had already been taken in the latter part of the 1940s by the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). Membership of a security alliance with an explicit adversary was a major change in Turkey’s foreign policy. However, the main ingredients of Turkey’s state identity remained intact. The DP leadership ultimately had the same convictions about Turkey’s role in the world – they were raised in the same modernist and Westernising system as the Kemalist vanguard (Ahmad 1993: 103–9). Nevertheless, the DP’s ideology, combining social conservatism and liberal economic policies, was accompanied by a new, more active foreign policy. Sending Turkish soldiers to the Korean War and presenting Turkey as a conservative status quo force aligned with US interests in the Middle East against Soviet-leaning leftist-secularist forces are examples of this new orientation. The cultural modernisation understood as creating a new rationalist human being implementing a ‘civilisational turn’, espoused by Kemalism, was interpreted in a more pragmatic way by the DP leaders. The Western orientation implied by Atatürk’s cultural revolution was now partly replaced by an institutional attachment to the West and concentrating on material and technological advancement. This was explicitly confirmed by Celâl Bayar, one of founding members of the DP and the Republic’s third president, when he noted that Atatürk’s Westernising reforms were not aimed to secure a superficial resemblance with the West, but to generate in Turkey the kind of dynamism that characterised Western societies (Bayar 1978: 74). The ideological components of the Turkish mainstream centre-right tradition were thus firmly established: social conservatism and material progress in the domestic sphere, together with Western orientation in foreign policy. The DP advocated Westernism to the extent that Turkey’s foreign policy under DP leader Adnan Menderes has been titled ‘active Americanism’ (aktif Amerikancılık). To sum up these developments, one can argue that the ‘contemporary civilisation’ earlier identified with Europe was now seen to reside in the US (Balcı 2013: 79–82). The end of the Second World War and the collapse of authoritarian and fascist regimes in Europe emphasised liberal and democratic governance as features of the post-war West. These ideals needed to be considered in Turkey as well, and the discourse on democracy and accountable government was taken by the DP as indicating Turkey’s Western-oriented state identity. This self-image was expected to be accepted by the Western nations, of which Turkey was now an indisputable member. The UN-based system of state sovereignty and determined attempts to safeguard key national interests through dialogue and stubborn diplomacy became the cornerstone of Turkey’s Cold War-era autobiographical narrative of the state and its role in the world. Nevertheless, the 1960 coup that ousted the DP also brought to the fore an increasing domestic struggle over Turkey’s future. This was intensified by rapid urbanisation and the emergence of a vocal working-class and student movement. The right–left divide that had

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138 | toni alaranta initially emerged within the Kemalist tradition was now expressed also outside the traditional state philosophy. From 1965 onwards, this mechanism made the CHP a platform for ideological competition. This intra-party struggle was solved as under its new leader, Bülent Ecevit, the CHP was declared to be a social democrat party (Bilâ 2008: 197). In this context, a considerable section of the military was also leaning to a leftist-nationalist position that questioned Turkey’s strong Western orientation in its foreign policy, while another significant section further underscored enduring NATO commitment and Western capitalism against all leftist and allegedly pro-Soviet tendencies (Akyaz 2002: 181–2). Starting from 1950 and the emergence of multi-party politics, the conservative centreright has dominated Turkish elections. However, twice during the 1970s this cycle was broken by the CHP’s electoral success (in 1973 and 1977), although its votes were not enough to form a CHP majority government. The success came with a new programme specifically addressing the working class and peasants. It was under a coalition government under Ecevit’s premiership that Turkey invaded the northern parts of Cyprus. This was a response to an immediate threat, a coup d’état in Cyprus that aimed for union (enosis) with Greece and the declaration of the Hellenic Republic of Cyprus. Turkey’s operation was successful in its goal to safeguard the existence of a distinct Turkish political community on the island, but it meant the de facto division of Cyprus. It also meant that Turkey was placed under arms embargo by the US. The Cyprus intervention ended Turkey’s explicitly Western-focused foreign policy, which was now replaced by a balanceseeking view, between the two superpowers of the era. Together with the absolute refusal of any territorial autonomy for the Kurdish minority, the protection of the Cypriot Turks indicates the ‘hardcore’ of what is perceived by all Turkish parties as the crucial questions of national security and sovereignty. Territorial integrity of the centralised state within the borders established in the Anatolian Resistance Struggle (1919–22) and the protection of the Turkish ethnic community in the only remaining Aegean island not under Greek rule function as the enduring markers of state sovereignty. Turkey’s state identity as it has evolved from 1923 to the present day includes several competing identification narratives, but these two are its absolute presuppositions. The centre-right tradition from the DP to the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, AP) of the 1980s reproduced a national narrative of material development, a realist foreign policy outlook, and an attempt to forge a workable synthesis of local and universal aspects of modernity. During the 1980s, Turkey was increasingly made part of the neoliberal capitalist system. This opened society, allowing for the flourishing of all sorts of ideological currents (also in the media); the Islamic movement in particular started to make its presence felt in civil society. The Turkish–Islamic synthesis established after the 1980 military coup was most of all a state-centric ideology aimed to crush all leftist and socialist

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turkey’s transformed state identity | 139 movements inside Turkey. The civilian version of this current was represented by Turgut Özal. Under his premiership and later presidency, Turkey became a trading regime that also started to seriously widen its geographical horizon to the Middle East (Kalaycıoğlu 2002: 46). However, both the military junta under Kenan Evren and the civilian administration under Özal were pro-Western in all significant aspects. Its new emphasis on Sunni Islam as an important ingredient of Turkish national identity notwithstanding, the state identity established by the official government apparatuses during the 1980s underscored Turkey as a Western country, firmly anchored in the Western security alliance. To a large extent, this state identity was confirmed by external powers, in the systemic context that was still based on Cold War bipolarity. However, even though the official state identity represented by the state apparatuses still reproduced the narrative according to which Turkey was firmly in the Western camp, the wider discourses on national and state identity were becoming much more heterogeneous. Özal allowed for the rediscovery of Turkey’s Ottoman heritage as a source of national identity. This theme was subsequently taken up by the intellectuals labelled as ‘Second Republicans’ (İkinci Cumhuriyetçiler), who started to envision for Turkey a much more prominent role in the Islamic Middle East. These currents also paved the way for later transformation of state identity during the 2000s under the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). Turkey’s State Identity after the Cold War One can argue that the end of the bipolar system after 1990 has brought about major changes in Turkey’s state identity, although this was not self-evident in the beginning. On the other hand, there are strong reasons to interpret the coming to power of the Islamicconservative AKP in 2002 as a distinct later phase of post-Cold War Turkey’s state identity formation. This evolution has been strongly influenced by systemic changes, from the unipolar moment of US global hegemony in the 1990s, to the rise of China and the relative weakening of the West since 2008. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended Turkey’s status as the guardian of the Western bloc in the eastern Mediterranean. It opened a search for a new role for Turkey in the new systemic context, also inducing the country to seek influence among the newly established independent Turkic republics in central Asia. At the same time, social and political thinking of the 1990s in Turkish academia was steeped in narratives underscoring the dead end of the republican project based on the idea of a centralised and homogenised nation-state model. This so-called post-Kemalist paradigm (Aytürk 2015) was strongly influenced by Western postmodern philosophy. The weakening of the modernisation paradigm in the West strongly challenged the secularisation theory and the universalism implied by the European Enlightenment tradition (Kadıoğlu 1998). The republican state ideology seemed

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140 | toni alaranta increasingly challenged, a process finally made explicit when Necmettin Erbakan’s Islamist Welfare Party gained unprecedented success in the 1995 parliamentary elections, leading to Erbakan’s premiership until his government was ousted by a military ultimatum in 1997. The 1980s had introduced in school curriculums the glorification of a militarised and nationalist credo of Turkish-Islamic collective identity. However, during the 1990s, the official state-backed nationalism taught in schools and disseminated by the mainstream media still reproduced the idea that with the establishment of the Republic in 1923, the Turkish nation had turned its back on the Islamic Middle East and consolidated its journey to the West. This was accompanied by an enduring foreign policy doctrine replete with ideas of securing Turkey’s internal sovereignty and external security through Western alignment and by keeping Turkey out of regional conflicts, especially in the Middle East. This strict doctrine of non-intervention was, however, almost compromised when Turkey and Syria came on the verge of war due to the presence of a Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) haven within Syrian territory. The coming to power of the Islamic-Conservative AKP, with ideological roots in the conservative centre-right and Erbakan’s Islamism, has brought about the most extensive transformation of Turkey’s state identity thus far. This has been crucially linked to the new national narrative advocated by the AKP leadership since 2002. According to it, the republican experience from 1920s to 1990s marked a failed state–society relationship, where the Westernising state elite had repressed the ‘real’ representatives of the nation, the conservative Muslims. The liberal-oriented Turkish scholarly community for a long time participated in reproducing this narrative by arguing that conservative Muslims had been marginalised and were not being politically represented. This produced a research tradition within which the conservative periphery was repeatedly seen to challenge the secularist centre, from the DP of the 1950s and Özal’s AP of the 1980s, all the way to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the AKP (see Atasoy 2009; Keyman & Gumuscu 2014). Within the AKP’s national narrative, the ‘old Turkey’ had not only obstructed the flourishing of the nation but also unnecessarily restricted Turkey’s role in the world (Davutoğlu 2012). From these premises, the idea of a great restoration lies at the heart of the AKP’s national narrative. It extensively uses catchwords such as ‘normalisation’ to describe an alleged healing process, of bringing together hitherto conflicting traditions of state and society (Miş & Aslan 2014). In this sense, the Kemalist past has become the Other for the Self of the AKP’s ‘New Turkey’. The self-representations advocated by the official state apparatuses have thus made a full circle: from being the example of a holistic civilisational turn of the Kemalist secularist-national identity to the AKP’s self-representation of Turkey as the leading power of Islamic civilisation. Again, this has been a process of the politics of state identity, an intentional act to challenge the Kemalist foundations in order to conquer the state apparatus and then consolidate the AKP’s unlimited power.

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turkey’s transformed state identity | 141 The foreign policy narratives of the AKP are a direct continuation of the domestic restoration theme. They call for a new international order, one where Turkey takes its place as the ‘order-producing country’, remaking the allegedly failed arrangements upheld by the Western powers. Widespread narratives of Western decline and the bankruptcy of the so-called liberal international order, prominent both in Turkey and around the globe, provide the external basis of this new state identity. Turkey is increasingly seen as a civilisational core country, destined to play a much bigger role in world politics. The new Turkey discourse has to a large extent developed into a strongly nationalist ‘great Turkey’ vision that in many respects reproduces some of the key assumptions of expansionist international relations concepts (Saraçoğlu 2013). Its domestic target is the secularistWesternising state tradition and its alleged proponents, especially the main opposition party, the CHP. The Islamic-conservative state identity can be interpreted as revisionist. Occasionally it has come to challenge the normative basis of the American-led order, calling for increasing multipolarity. This has also led not only to increasing rhetorical attacks against the West, but to a militarisation of foreign policy and use of hard power in international conflicts, especially in the Syrian and Libyan civil wars, the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict and the eastern Mediterranean competition over exclusive economic zones. The Islamic-conservative ideology has manifested itself in Turkey’s stubborn support for the Muslim Brotherhood in the Middle East. This policy has been narrated as value-centred foreign policy by the AKP leadership, and it is based on the idea that domestic restoration – of remaking the state by empowering the conservative Muslims – also guides Turkey’s actions towards other Muslim-majority countries. On the other hand, the new state identity has been animated by profound transactionalism, according to which Turkey cooperates with Russia, China, and the West in similar manner, advancing its national interest without prioritising any of the great powers. The search for a new ‘strategic autonomy’ (Keyman 2021) has thus characterised Turkey’s state identity all through the post-Cold War era, and during the last ten years this autonomy has been increasingly based on the idea of Turkey as an Islamic state actor in a transforming, post-Western international system. Conclusion: Turkey’s State Identity at the Centennial of the Republic The subtle analytical difference between national and state identity is important because one can imagine a situation in which a national identity is transformed without any significant change in foreign policy or in the country’s position in the international system. On the other hand, a change in state identity occurs precisely when this is happening – that is, when a state’s long-term foreign policy and its overall positioning in the system is transformed due to factors operating on both the unit and the systemic level. This process is very much evident in Turkey at the centennial of the Republic.

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142 | toni alaranta The Kemalist state identity was premised on the ideology of Turkish revolution. This implied a civilisational turn where the national narrative of Turkey was based on the same historical trajectory as the modern West, as Europe was conceptualised as the leading representative of the modern world. The centre-right electoral bloc representing civilian power in the Cold War era also reproduced the narrative of Turkey taking its place in the alliance of Western nations leading material and scientific development. This approach was strongly urged by the bipolar system and the threat caused by the Soviet Union. After the Cold War, a search for a new role brought with it some experiments and new foreign policy activism, but until 2002 and the AKP era, this was not backed by a drastically new national identity narrative. That all changed with the AKP, as the party leadership has increasingly redefined Turkey’s national identity from the Islamic-conservative perspective. On the other hand, domestic power struggles, especially with the AKP’s one-time ally the Gülen movement, and the need to build new alliances afterwards have seen, especially since the 2016 coup attempt, a temporary pact between secularist-nationalist officers and the AKP’s Islamists. In the foreseeable future, Turkey’s state identity will likely maintain those key characteristics that relate to the enabling systemic context, namely, the rise of China and the relative weakening of the West. In Turkey, this paradigm shift generates a powerful narrative of an autonomous actor, based on a civilisational definition of the national self. Its current expression strongly underscores Islam as a core ingredient, but the more secular version, now suppressed by the official state ideology, also participates in the reproduction of Turkish distinctiveness from the Western world. In one form or another, the quest for strategic autonomy is likely to continue, but the way in which it is articulated, to what extent it conceptualises the West as a threat on a civilisational level, and what role secular and Islamic identification narratives play in all this, depends on domestic power struggles and the emerging ruling coalitions – ultimately on what identification narratives are used as a tool to create and maintain a collective political actor. References Ahmad, Feroz (1993), The Making of Modern Turkey, London: Routledge. Akyaz, Doğan (2002), ‘Ordu ve Resmî Atatürkçülük’, in Ahmet İnsel (ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasî Düşünce, Cilt 2: Kemalizm, Istanbul: İletişim, pp. 180–91. Alaranta, Toni (2015), National and State Identity in Turkey: The Transformation of the Republic’s Status in the International System, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Alexandrov, Maxym (2003), ‘The Concept of State Identity in International Relations: A Theoretical Analysis’, Journal of International Development and Cooperation 10(1): 33–46. Atasoy, Yıldız (2009), Islam’s Marriage with Neoliberalism: State Transformation in Turkey, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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turkey’s transformed state identity | 143 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal ([1927] 2006), Nutuk (Söylev), Istanbul: Kitap Zamanı. Aytürk, İlker (2015), ‘Post-post Kemalizm: Yeni bir paradigmayı beklerken’, Birikim 319: 34–48. Balcı, Ali (2013), Türkiye Dış Politikası: İlkeler, Aktörler, Uygulamalar, Istanbul: Etkileşim. Bayar, Celâl (1978), Atatürk’ün Metodolojisi ve Günümüz, Istanbul: Kervan Yayınları. Bilâ, Hikmet (2008), CHP 1919–2009, Istanbul: Doğan Kitap. Davutoğlu, Ahmet (2012), ‘Principles of Turkey’s Foreign Policy and Regional Political Structuring’, Ankara: Center for Strategic Research. Efe, Adem (2011), ‘Erken Dönem Cumhuriyet’te Çağdaşlaşma/Modernleşme Çabaları’, Türk Yurdu 100 (292). Esen, Berk (2014), ‘Nation-Building, Party-Strength, and Regime Consolidation: Kemalism in Comparative Perspective’, Turkish Studies 15(4): 600–20. Findley, Carter Vaughn (2010), Turkey, Islam, Nationalism, and Modernity: A History 1789–2007, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Holsti, K. J. (1970), ‘National Role Conceptions in the Study of Foreign Policy’, International Studies Quarterly 14(3): 233–309. Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (1998), ‘Republican Epistemology and Islamic Discourses in Turkey in the 1990s’, Muslim World 88(1): 1–22. Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (2002), ‘The Motherland Party: The Challenge of Institutionalization in a Charismatic Leader Party’, Turkish Studies 3(1): 41–61. Karpat, Kemal H. (2012), Kısa Türkiye Tarihi 1800–2012, Istanbul: Timas. Keyman, E. Fuat (2021), ‘Türkiye-Batı İlişkileri: Stratejik Otonomi Bitiyor mu?’ Perspektif, 11 May, https://www.perspektif.online/turkiye-bati-iliskileri-stratejik-otonomi-bitiyor-mu/, accessed 25 January 2023. Keyman, E. Fuat and Sebnem Gumuscu (2014), Democracy, Identity, and Foreign Policy in Turkey: Hegemony through Transformation, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Küçükömer, İdris (1994), Batılılaşma & Düzenin Yabancılaşması, Istanbul: Bağlam Yayıncılık. Lebow, Richard Ned (2016), National Identities and International Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lynch, Marc (1999), ‘Abandoning Iraq: Jordan’s Alliances and the Politics of State Identity’, Security Studies 8(2–3): 347–88. Miş, Nebi and Ali Aslan (2014), ‘Erdoğan Siyaseti ve Kurucu Cumhurbaşkanlığı Misyonu’, Siyaset, Ekonomi ve Toplum Araştırmaları Vakfı (SETA). Mufti, Malik (2009), Daring and Caution in Turkey’s Strategic Culture: Republic at Sea, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Oran, Baskın (1997), Atatürk Milliyetçiliği, Ankara: Bilgi. Saraçoğlu, Cenk (2013), ‘AKP, Milliyetçilik ve Dış Politika: Bir Milliyetçilik Doktrini Olarak Stratejik Derinlik’, Alternatif Politika 5(1): 52–68. Selçuk, İlhan (2006), ‘Türkiye Aydınlanması: “Yeni İnsanı Yaratmak”’, in Demet Elkâtip (ed.), Türkiye’de Aydınlanma Hareketi, Istanbul: Alkım, pp. 31–7. Telhami, Shibley and Michael N. Barnett (2002), Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

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11 Nothing Is Different, but Everything Has Changed: Party Politics in Turkey in its Centennial Şebnem Yardımcı Geyikçi (University of Bonn) and Hakan Yavuzyılmaz (Başkent University)

A

lthough the history of party politics in Turkey goes back to the nineteenth century and as such politics in the country has always been characterised as party politics, in this chapter we will look at the period since 1923. To date, party politics in Turkey has mostly been analysed separately under different periods without really providing a comprehensive picture. As Turkey celebrates its centennial in 2023, it is a perfect moment to look back and explore the change and continuity in party politics since the establishment of the Republic. In doing so, we employ a twofold strategy. First, following the footsteps of Dankwart Rustow (1966: 112), who argued that party politics in Turkey follows a rhythm ‘of diastole and systole, and of expansion and contraction’, we provide a long-term qualitative assessment of expansion and contraction in party politics by detecting actors, processes and outcomes since 1923. We also define the party system type for each period, showing how many changes the party system experienced and what factors account for system change. Second, looking at data on volatility, fragmentation and polarisation since the beginning of multi-party politics, we provide a picture of change and continuity based on descriptive statistics. While Ergun Özbudun (2013: 65) defined the three maladies of the party system as high volatility, high fragmentation and extreme polarisation, a long-term analysis of these indicators shows that electoral volatility has ups and downs while fragmentation has been mostly moderate. Polarisation, conversely, has remained persistent throughout the Republic’s history. Legacy of Unsettled Divisions 1923–50: Design of the Rules of the Game The Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) was the main agent with the sole authority under single-party rule to decide the principles of the regime, 144

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party politics in turkey  | 145 which were secularism and nationalism (Karpat 1964: 74). The lack of any balance of power between different groups and the CHP in the early years led to the creation of principles that were not agreed on by all groups within society, bringing to the fore signs of unsettled social and political divisions. Table 11.1 The period 1923–50 Actors

Processes

Outcomes

CHP

Design of the Rules of the Game

Unsettled Social and Political Divisions

Single-party

1950–60: Emergence of Divisions The 1950 elections were the first fair multi-party elections, which resulted in victory for the newly established Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP). During the 1950s, Turkey had a two-party system in which the major parties retained 90 per cent of the votes and 98 per cent of total seats – the DP as the governing party and the CHP as the main opposition party. From the second term onwards, as the economic situation started to deteriorate, the DP could not maintain the liberal political environment and so turned to authoritarian measures. Table 11.2 The period 1950–60 Actors

Processes

Outcomes

CHP

First Challenges to Rules of the game

Appearance of clerical and anti-clerical division in politics

DP

Emergence of military as an important agent

Two-party

In 1960, the military seized power following a coup and abolished the DP. The significant outcomes of the DP experience on Turkish politics were the evident appearance of clerical versus anti-clerical sentiments as a sensitive political issue for the coming years, as well as the emergence of the Turkish Armed Forces as a key political actor (Kalaycıoğlu 2010: 31). While the DP’s coming to power corresponded to the rhythm of expansion, its increasingly authoritarian acts initiated a moment of contraction, when one actor dominated the system and started to repress other political forces. This period ended with a military intervention in 1960 and was followed by a period of expansion.

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146 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz 1961–80: Politicisation of Society In the 1961 elections, the CHP received a plurality of the votes (37%), while the DP vote was split between two parties – the New Turkey Party (Yeni Türkiye Partisi, YTP) (14%) and the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP) (35%) (Kalaycıoğlu 2008). The AP, with its leader Süleyman Demirel, emerged as the true heir of the DP and the party had a landslide election victory in 1965, pushing the CHP back to the position of main opposition party. However, the main challenge to the AP emerged from the far right. In 1969, the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), an ethnic nationalist anticommunist political party, was founded. The National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi, MNP) was founded in 1969 as a political Islamist party. On the left of the political spectrum, the socialist Turkish Workers’ Party (Türkiye İşçi Partisi, TİP) was established. The CHP, meanwhile, repositioned itself to the ‘left of centre’. Table 11. 3 The period 1961–80 Actors

Processes

Outcomes

CHP

Politicisation of society

Consolidation of military’s over politics position

AP

Emergence of new political groups: nationalists and Islamists

Tip MHP MNP Two and a half party

Following these developments, at the beginning of the 1970s, as society became highly politicised and polarised, political turmoil enveloped the country (Altunışık & Tür 2005: 36). On 12 March 1971, the military issued a memorandum banning the TİP and the MNP together with several extreme left- and right-wing organisations. In the 1973 elections, the CHP won with 34 per cent of votes but could not form a single-party government. Several coalition governments were formed after the elections, but none of them was capable of curtailing societal turbulence. In the 1977 elections, once again the CHP managed to win, but could not gain the required majority to form a government and therefore had to seek a coalition. However, neither the CHP nor the AP could form a stable and strong government. In 1980, Turkey experienced another military coup. In 1982, the military junta promulgated a new constitution which dramatically limited political rights and freedoms.

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party politics in turkey  | 147 The period from 1961 until 1980 can be described as one of an expansion in which several new political forces entered the political scene, though there were moments of contraction such as the aftermath of the 1971 memorandum. The legacy of this period for the coming years was the consolidation of the military’s suprapolitical role in the political scene, the emergence of nationalist and Islamist political forces and the introduction of coalition governments into Turkish politics. The period that followed the 1980 coup until the first elections of 1983 saw the most severe contraction rhythm in that the military intervention destroyed political activity as a whole: all political parties were closed down and their leaders were banned from politics, a national election threshold of 10 per cent was introduced, links between parties and associations (including trade unions) were dismantled and, for the 1983 elections, the military junta reserved the right to review political parties (Tachau 2000: 139). What made this time different from other periods of contraction was that it was initiated by the military, not by a civilian political force. 1983–2002: Lost Decades Only three parties participated in the 1983 elections, the Nationalist Democracy Party (Milliyetçi Demokrasi Partisi, MDP), the Populist Party (Halkçı Parti, HP) and the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP). The ANAP, which was the only party free from military influence, won the elections with a landslide victory (45%). In 1983, the Social Democratic Party (Sosyal Demokrasi Partisi, SODEP) was established by previous members of the CHP and then merged with the HP to form the Social Democratic Populist Party (Sosyal Demokrat Halkçı Parti, SHP) which finally became the CHP again in 1995. Bülent Ecevit established the Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP). On the right wing, the leader of the banned AP, Demirel, returned to politics with the True Path Party (Doğru Yol Partisi, DYP). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, both the centre right and the centre left were represented by two parties in a highly fragmented party system. Within the 1983–2002 era, two crucial developments that had a massive impact on Turkish party politics were the consolidation of nationalist parties (both by Turkish and Kurdish nationalists) and the resurgence and transformation of Islamist parties. In the 1980s, Kurdish nationalist ethnic parties entered the political scene. Within this conjuncture, the MHP, which returned to politics in 1983, succeeded – election by election – in increasing its vote percentage, and in the 1999 elections the party received 18 per cent of the total votes. In the meantime, political Islam also revived its cause through the establishment in 1983 of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP), which increased in popularity throughout the 1990s. In 1995, the RP received 21.5 per cent of the votes and won the election. Subsequently, on 28 February 1997, at a National Security Council meeting the

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148 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz military demanded several measures to be put into force to stem the rising power of the RP (Altunışık & Tür 2005: 60). Afterwards, the ANAP formed a coalition government and announced early elections to be held in 1999. Before the elections, the Constitutional Court closed the RP and its leader, Necmettin Erbakan, was banned from politics for a period of five years. The Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, FP), which was founded after the closure case opened, replaced the RP. Ecevit’s DSP won the 1999 elections, receiving 22 per cent of votes, and formed a coalition government with the MHP and the ANAP which ruled the country until the 2002 early elections. In the meantime, the FP was closed by the Constitutional Court. Two new parties emerged out of the ruins of the FP – the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi, SP), established under Erbakan’s auspices, and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), established by a reformist group composed of relatively young MPs from the FP. Table 11.4 The period 1983–2002 Actors

Processes

CHP (SODEP-HP-SHP) Kurdish resurgence

Outcomes Consolidation and transformation of political Islam

DSP

Neo-liberal restructuring Increasing power of ethnic nationalist groups (both Turkish and Kurdish)

ANAP

Relations with the EU

DYP

Increasing role of Constitutional Court Redefinition of security threat for military: political Islam and ethnic Kurdish movement

MHP RP Multi-party

The significant developments of the 1983–2002 era in Turkish politics were the consolidation and transformation of political Islam as an important political force, the increasing power of ethnic nationalist political groups, the accelerating role of the Constitutional Court, which closed down more than five political parties during this period, and a change in the military’s definition of ‘threat’, which identified political Islam and the ethnic Kurdish movement as the new main adversaries of the regime. The period from 1983 until 2002 was more one of transition in that the contraction caused by the military was not followed by a genuine expansion but rather a controlled one that was vigilantly monitored by the armed forces. We can claim that the rhythm of expansion and contraction was suspended within this period, to be reinitiated after the 2002 elections.

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party politics in turkey  | 149 2002–11: First Encounter In the 2002 general elections only two parties managed to enter the parliament: the AKP and the CHP. Owing to the election threshold, the AKP managed to gain 66 per cent of seats in parliament with only 34 per cent of the votes, and the CHP had 32 per cent of seats with 19 per cent of the total votes. The most significant issue in the 2002–7 era was harmonisation with the EU. The AKP managed to persuade the electorate by demonstrating a strong willingness to work for the further democratisation of the country in search of EU membership, which would also prove that the AKP no longer had an Islamist agenda. In the first term of the AKP government, particularly within the further democratisation process, dramatic fault lines appeared between the AKP and the CHP, all of which were related to the principles of the regime, namely secularism and nationalism. Disagreement over how to define these principles, together with the existence of non-accountable forces disturbing the balance of power within the political arena, limited the democratisation efforts of the country. As such, while the period after the 2002 elections initiated once again an expansion, this soon started to evolve into contraction as the AKP began to dominate the political system and diminish the military’s prerogatives. Table 11.5 The period 2002–11 Actors

Processes

Outcomes

AKP

EU harmonisation

Consolidation of the AKP’s rule

CHP

Presidential elections The loss of military’s dominance over civilian politics

Dominant

In the early elections of 2007, the AKP enjoyed another landslide election victory, garnering 47 per cent of the overall vote. The CHP, on the other hand, received 21 per cent of the vote, but this time, two other parties also managed to enter the parliament: the MHP, with 14 per cent of votes, and the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP), which bypassed the election threshold by nominating its candidates as independents. After the elections, the AKP government managed to elect Abdullah Gül, the second-highest figure in the AKP, to the highest echelons of the state. Following the AKP’s electoral victory in 2007 the EU process was significantly derailed, which also stagnated the democratisation process initiated by the golden carrot of EU membership. Nevertheless, the AKP continued to sustain its ‘cycle of dominance’ through maintaining economic growth, the initiation of both programmatic and nonprogrammatic distributive politics, a populist discourse that delegitimised the opposition,

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150 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz and selective usage of ideological flexibility and rigidity (Gümüşcü 2013). Moreover, the party initiated a referendum process in 2010 which aimed to change appointment and election procedures to the judiciary by increasing the legislature’s weight in these processes. Under a highly polarised process the AKP won the referendum with 58 per cent of the votes. This process further consolidated the AKP’s power as the dominant party. Such a consolidation of power through high levels of performance legitimacy and institutional control culminated into the AKP’s victory in the 2011 elections, in which the party received 50 per cent of the votes. The period between 2007 and 2011 can be delineated by the rise of AKP as the dominant party in the Turkish party system. The AKP’s dominance rested not only on electorally marginalising its main competitors but also on the effective construction of a cycle of dominance. During this period the Turkish party system experienced another phase of contraction not through an external shock on the party system but rather due to the success of a centre-right party and the failure of the opposition parties to initiate counter-mobilisation. Several centre-right and centre-left parties such as the ANAP and the DSP that were effective competitors during the 1990s disappeared from the map of the Turkish party system during this period. 2011–15: Intensification of the Democratic Backsliding Process and Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism Following the AKP’s landslide electoral victory, Turkey started to drift from a defective democracy to competitive authoritarianism due to the intensified politicisation of state institutions, a significant deterioration of fundamental rights and freedoms, increasing partisan rent distribution and political control over key independent regulatory agencies (Esen & Gümüşcü 2016; Somer 2017). Furthermore, elections, the minimal necessary but not sufficient condition of democracy, also ceased to become free and fair as the playing field tilted in favour of the incumbent. In the 2011–15 period, one of the most fundamental political clashes emerged due to the rift between Gülenists and the AKP, who were previously staunch allies (Taş 2017). This confrontation reached its peak with the initiation of judiciary processes and allegations against several top-ranking AKP members. Following this process, the AKP drastically increased its control over the judiciary and media, thereby worsening judiciary independence and media freedom. These developments further intensified the autocratisation process and the rise of competitive authoritarianism in the country (Özbudun 2015). In the 2014 presidential elections Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected, receiving 51.8 per cent of the votes in a campaign where he clearly stated his intention to remain politically active as president. Another important political development was the rise of the Peoples’ Democracy Party (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, HDP) which was founded by the Kurdish political movement.

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party politics in turkey  | 151 Under this severely polarised political climate Turkey once again headed to the polls in June 2015, when the AKP received its biggest electoral blow. Three political parties including the pro-Kurdish HDP managed to pass the 10 per cent threshold and gain representation in parliament, where the AKP received 41 per cent of the votes and lost its majority for the first time since 2002. However, the opposition parties’ failure to establish a coalition government and Erdoğan’s attempts to delay the coalition talks and pressurise his party not to enter a coalition with the opposition forces rendered this opportunity futile. Therefore, Turkey headed to the polls once again in November 2015, and this time the AKP received 50 per cent of the votes, the CHP recorded a similar performance to the June elections with 25 per cent, while the HDP (11%) and the MHP (12%) lost ground to the AKP. Between the June and November elections, following Erdoğan’s decision to halt the Kurdish peace (reconciliation) process, Turkey swiftly entered a phase of violence and intimidation (also targeted against the HDP) which further consolidated the nationalistconservative votes and led to the AKP’s victory on a skewed electoral playing field to the benefit of the incumbent party. Table 11.6 The period 2011–15 Actors

Processes

Outcomes

AKP

Intensification of autocratisation process

Rise of competitive authoritarianism

CHP

Intra-elite rivalry between the AKP and Gülenists

AKP’s declining electoral dominance

MHP

Gezi Park Protests

HDP

The rise of HDP

Quasi-hegemonic

The period from the 2011 elections to the November 2015 elections can be portrayed as a phase in which the autocratisation process in Turkey was intensified and therefore can be considered as an extension of contraction. Nevertheless, several developments such as the Gezi protests in 2013 and the results of the June 2015 elections also show that there was a growing resentment against the AKP’s authoritarian drift. The Turkish party system between 2011 and 2015 can be conceptualised as a polarised multi-party system with a quasi-hegemonic party. 2015–19: Fragile Stability Signalling Expansion in Party Politics Between 2015 and 2019, among the many important political events, the 2016 failed coup attempt initiated by Gülen supporters inside the military was the most prominent one. Following the failed coup attempt, the AKP government initiated an extensive purge

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152 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz under emergency rule in all state institutions, which further intensified the state capture process in Turkey (Somer 2017). Another important party systemic development was the establishment of a centre-right party with a nationalist tendency as a split from the MHP. The newly established Good Party (İyi Parti, İYİP) organised hastily and has become a staunch competitor for conservative votes against the AKP and the MHP. Following the failed coup attempt and initiation of emergency rule, the main polarising political debate between the incumbent AKP and the opposition was the transition to a presidential system. Following the MHP’s decision to support such a move, the Turkish people again headed to the polls in 2017, this time for a referendum to cast their decision on the presidential system. Despite a heavily skewed electoral playing field to the advantage of the incumbent AKP and its ally the MHP, the opposition managed to mobilise the ‘no’ vote, especially in urban centres such as Ankara and Istanbul (Esen & Gümüşcü 2017). Nevertheless, the Supreme Election Council’s highly debated decision to count unsigned and unverified votes as eligible tilted the balance to ‘yes’. The executive-presidential system significantly increased the executive’s powers against the judiciary, legislature and independent regulatory agencies which were critical for guaranteeing free and fair elections (Esen & Gümüşcü 2018). In 2018 Turkey once again headed to the polls both for presidential and legislative elections following the call from the People’s Alliance (an alliance between the AKP and the MHP) for snap elections. The failure of the opposition to unite behind a single candidate, and the heavily skewed electoral playing field, led to Erdoğan’s victory as the presidential candidate of the People’s Alliance (Esen & YardımcıGeyikçi 2020). Yet on the legislative side the AKP received only 43 per cent, which was a 7-point loss for the party. The 2019 local elections deserve specific attention as they have several ramifications for the AKP’s incumbency and the durability of competitive authoritarianism in Turkey. For the first time since 2002 the opposition parties effectively coordinated and initiated a depolarising election campaign which led to opposition wins in Istanbul, Ankara and several key metropolitan municipalities. Considering the role of local governments in the AKP’s ‘cycle of dominance’, the loss of these hubs significantly derailed the AKP’s non-programmatic distributive politics (Yavuzyılmaz 2021). Moreover, as a rapidly deinstitutionalising party, recording very low levels of value infusion further increased the declining agency of the AKP as an organisation (Yardımcı-Geyikçi & Yavuzyılmaz 2022). A symptom of this was the formation of two centre-right parties, the Democracy and Progress Party (Demokrasi ve Atılım Partisi, DEVA) and the Future Party (Gelecek Partisi, GP) as splits from the AKP. The last four years of the AKP era in Turkey look like a transition period from contraction to expansion in the party system. On the one hand, increasing oppression of the Kurdish political movement, intimidation of opposition forces, violations of human

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party politics in turkey  | 153 Table 11.7 The period 2015–19 Actors

Processes

Outcomes

AKP

Decreasing incumbent performance legitimacy

Further autocratisation

CHP

Transition to an executive presidential system

Increasing fragmentation of party system

MHP

AKP’s loss of key metropolitan municipalities

AKP’s loss of electoral dominance

HDP

Emergence of political alliances

IYIP DEVA GELECEK Quasi-hegemonic

rights and freedoms as well as media repression continue to limit the political space extensively and thereby signify contraction in the party system. On the other hand, several developments indicate the beginning of an expansion period in the coming years with an increasingly effective opposition as well as the declining legitimacy of the incumbent. Looking at the Party System through Volatility, Fragmentation and Polarisation Volatility Compared to western European countries’ mean volatility scores, the Turkish party system has persistently generated high levels of electoral volatility (Özbudun 2013; Sayarı 2002). Nevertheless, the pattern in volatility has been rather unstable, experiencing periodic ups and downs (see Figure 11.1). Delineating the root causes of this semi-persistent and fluctuating pattern is important to understand the dynamics of the Turkish party system. Three important factors stand out in helping us understand the nature of electoral volatility in Turkey throughout the multi-party era: (1) military interventions, (2) changing dynamics of voter alignment and realignment and (3) the poor economic performance and frequent corruption scandals of incumbent parties (Özbudun 2013: 84–7). One of the most prominent external shocks that affected the historical pattern of aggregate electoral volatility was the military interventions. Both in 1960 and in 1980 the military, while hastily reintroducing democratic elections, redesigned the mechanics of the party system by banning political parties, changing party regulation and the electoral system. For example, compared to the significant liberalisation of the 1961 constitution, which paved the way for increased party competition and rising volatility rates, the 1980 constitution severely limited the dynamics of party competition with the introduction of a 10 per cent electoral threshold and put severe restrictions on party activities.

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154 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz

Figure 11.1 Volatility in Turkey 1950–2018 Source: Authors’ own calculation. Election results from Supreme Electoral Council website, ysk.gov.tr

The impact of social cleavages and the changing dynamics of realignment and dealignment also affected the patterns of electoral volatility in Turkey. During the pre-1960 period the so-called centre–periphery cleavage was the main social cleavage. Following the military coup in 1980 this effective single cleavage diversified with the emergence of secular–religious, Turkish–ethnic Kurdish and to a lesser extent Alevi–Sunni cleavages. Concomitant with this process, the Turkish party system fragmented with the rise of pro-Islamic and ethnic Kurdish political parties. Thus, a tripartite social cleavage emerged which contributed to high volatility scores, especially during the 1990s (Özbudun 2013). Contrary to the relatively high volatility rates throughout the 1990s, the aggregate volatility levels decreased remarkably in the post-2002 period. The main reason behind this stabilisation is the AKP’s emergence as the predominant party (Gümüşcü 2013). Increasing electoral volatility levels have also been the result of poor performance of incumbent parties and severe corruption scandals, which further derailed the legitimacy of political parties among the electorate. This is a prominent explanatory factor for the high level of electoral volatility throughout the 1990s and the relative stabilisation experienced throughout the 2000s. When disaggregated into volatility generated between incumbent and opposition, the latter was significantly higher compared to the former throughout the 1990s. The main impetus behind this difference was poor economic performance and corruption scandals of the incumbent parties (Hazama 2007). This factor was at its peak in the 2002 and 2007 elections in which all previous partners of the coalition were severely punished by the electorate through performance-based retrospective voting (Çarkoğlu 2008). Through its economic performance and established ‘cycle of domination’, thepost 2002 period saw the emergence of a predominant party system which pulled down the aggregate volatility scores.

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party politics in turkey  | 155 Fragmentation Fragmentation is mostly related to the number of economic, social and political cleavages in a party system. As such changing dynamics of realignment and dealignment account for the fluctuations in fragmentation. Against the common wisdom that defines Turkish party system as a fragmented one, when we have a look at the effective number of parliamentary parties, from 1961 onwards, apart from the period from 1987 to 2002, party system fragmentation has been rather moderate, remaining around three. Moderate fragmentation is the result of the cleavage structure in Turkey, which involves both socio-cultural and economic cleavages, while the draconian 1980 military intervention explains the extreme fragmentation between 1987 and 2002. As discussed above, the Turkish party system is mostly divided along economic, religious and ethnic lines, the effects of which are more observable after the 1980s but which have been there since the early years of the Republic. The major socio-cultural cleavages in the country have been determined by attitudes towards religion (Sunni Islam versus secularism) and ethnicity (Kurdish versus Turkish ethnicities), which in turn have also described left–right self-placements (Kalaycıoğlu 2010: 31) Therefore, to reach a genuine representation of different cleavage constellations, the lowest fragmentation level for the party system has to be around three to four. As such, making a long-term assessment of party system fragmentation, we can say that moderate fragmentation is mostly preserved (see Figure 11.2).

Figure 11.2 Party system fragmentation in Turkey 1950–2018 ENEP: Effective number of electoral parties; ENPP: Effective number of parliamentary parties Source: Authors’ own calculation

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156 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz In the period from 1987 until 2002, party system fragmentation was relatively high, which primarily resulted from the effects of the 1980 coup. Killing all political activity in the country and preserving an suprapolitical role, in the beginning the military intervention had a dealignment effect. During the process of party system recovery, several different actors entered the system in the absence of banned political leaders. That is why, for instance, after the return of banned leaders both centre right and centre left started to be represented by two different actors, fragmenting the system. On the other hand, from the 1990s onwards the resurgence of Islamist and nationalist parties together with the emergence of Kurdish political parties created a realignment effect in the party system which led to a further fragmentation. However, in terms of the functioning of the party system, the real problem has not been related to the fragmentation levels but rather to the polarisation between different social groups. Not only type and strength but also the cross-cutting nature of the cleavages have affected the functioning of party system adversely. Dominance of religious and ethnic cleavages has obstructed not only party–regime relations, by making it difficult to reach agreement on the rules of the game, but also inter-party cooperation, by polarising elites and masses alike. The strength of ethnic and religious cleavages has also been higher than that of class cleavages, which has made it almost impossible for parties to cooperate on left–right dimensions. The cross-cutting nature of cleavages, furthermore, has complicated inter-party cooperation, since being close in one dimension is accompanied by irreconcilable differences in another (Casal Bértoa 2014). Thus, it is polarisation in the party system that has been mostly responsible for the erratic party system, not fragmentation. Polarisation While electoral volatility and fragmentation have fluctuated throughout the history of multi-party politics in Turkey, polarisation has been a persistent feature of the Turkish party system (see Figure 11.3) (Özbudun 2013: 87). Despite its roots in rifts created by Turkish political modernisation, the dynamics of polarisation have also experienced important changes. Ergun Özbudun (2013: 87) suggests that the dynamics of polarisation are not based on an ideological distance between parties that rests on left–right distinctions but have deeper cultural and psychological roots which are based on the foundational ‘centre–periphery’ cleavage (Mardin 1973). This rift at the societal level was initially utilised during the 1950s by the DP and became the fundamental political rift and polarising dynamic between the CHP and the DP until the 1960 military coup. Nevertheless, both the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ have become more diverse due to socioeconomic modernisation, and the cultural-ideological composition of the ‘centre’ has changed throughout the era of multi-party politics in Turkey (Bilgin 2018). Despite its changing characteristics, this cultural and psychological rift continued to have an impact

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party politics in turkey  | 157

Figure 11.3 Political polarisation in Turkey 1950–2020 Source: V-Dem (2022)

on polarisation throughout the post-1960 period. During the 1970s, notwithstanding the presence of formative rifts, the dynamics of polarisation took the form of left–right ideological polarisation. Yet, in terms of policy differences, the two blocs had not ossified and polarisation between the blocs was based on psychological distrust rather than policy-based differences derived from left–right distinctions. Thus, overall political polarisation has been persistently high except for the sudden drop following the 1980 military intervention in which all political parties were closed (see Figure 11.3). The post-1980 period saw the rise of new polarisation dynamics which rest on the solidification of secular–religious and Turkish–ethnic Kurdish cleavages. Alongside these polarising dynamics, the fragmentation of centre-left and centre-right parties further intensified polarisation and increased intra-bloc volatility in Turkey throughout the 1990s. The 2002 elections were another party systemic earthquake in which all political parties which were coalition partners in the previous government experienced drastic vote declines and a new political party with Islamist roots received 35 per cent of the votes and formed a single-party government. Although the Turkish party system showed stabilisation in terms of decreasing fragmentation and volatility, the old polarising dynamics based on the secular–religious cleavage re-emerged during this period. This inter-party polarisation (especially between the CHP and the AKP) was the main polarising dynamic throughout the first ten years of the 2000s. Both the obstinate reactions against the AKP’s policies from the opposition and the secular-state establishment and the AKP’s policies which intensified the democratic backsliding process led to a vicious cycle of polarisation. This vicious cycle transformed into a ‘pernicious polarisation’ which further intensified the autocratisation process in Turkey (Somer 2019). As a culmination of this process, Turkey split into two obstinate blocs

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158 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz both politically and socially. This brought political polarisation to similar levels as in the 1970s period (see Figure 11.3). Nevertheless, despite severe polarisation between leftand right-wing parties, during the 1970s political parties from left and right managed to enter into coalition. Today the prospects of such a collaboration between opposition and governing bloc seem improbable. This, in and of itself, shows the characteristic difference between the dynamics of polarisation during the 1970s and the pernicious polarisation that Turkey has been experiencing in the last decade (Somer 2019). Conclusion Looking at the extended history of party politics, overall, we observe that throughout the history of the Republic the relationship between parties and the state has been rather conflictual while inter-party relationships have suffered from extreme polarisation, creating an erratic party system. Our contention is that several features of the political system have been responsible for its instability such as the political exclusion of religious and ethnic groups, which consolidated the deep-seated socio-cultural divide, the development of constitutional rules by a small group of political elites and the emergence of nonaccountable power centres – particularly the military – as key political agents. Since 2002 the emergence of a dominant party system in a regime that already suffers from a lack of agreement on the rules of the game and inter-party trust (YardımcıGeyikçi 2018) has further disrupted the balance of power between Turkey’s social and political groups. As such, in a political environment wherein politics is framed as a zerosum game, the dominance of an excluded group, the AKP, led to overcentralisation of power as the party focused on capturing the state at the expense of all other social and political groups. Keeping in mind the fact that this cycle has repeated itself since the establishment of the Republic, we assert that institutions designed irrespective of social structure as well as political elites who failed to accommodate political and social conflicts but rather preferred to rely on existing divisions explain the troubles of the party system in Turkey. References Altunışık, Meliha Benli and Özlem Tur (2005), Turkey: Challenges of Continuity and Change. Abingdon: Routledge. Bilgin, Hasret Dikici (2018), ‘Social Conflicts and Politicized Cleavages in Turkey’, in Sabri Sayarı, Pelin Ayan Musil and Özhan Demirkol (eds), Party Politics in Turkey: A Comparative Perspective, New York: Routledge. Çarkoğlu, Ali (2008), ‘Ideology or Economic Pragmatism? Profiling Turkish Voters in 2007’, Turkish Studies 9(2): 317–44. Casal Bértoa, Fernando (2014), ‘Party Systems and Cleavage Structures Revisited’, Party Politics 20(1): 16–36.

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party politics in turkey  | 159 Esen, Berk and Şebnem Gümüşcü (2016), ‘Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey’, Third World Quarterly 37(9): 1581–606. Esen, Berk and Şebnem Gümüşcü (2017), ‘A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017’, South European Society and Politics 22(3): 303–26. Esen, Berk and Şebnem Gümüşcü (2018), ‘The Perils of “Turkish Presidentialism”’, Review of Middle East Studies 52(1): 43–53. Esen, Berk and Şebnem Yardimci-Geyikçi (2020), ‘The Turkish Presidential Elections of 24 June 2018’, Mediterranean Politics 25(5): 682–9. Gümüşcü, Şebnem (2013), ‘The Emerging Predominant Party System in Turkey’, Government and Opposition 48(2): 223–44. Hazama, Yasushi (2007), Electoral Volatility in Turkey: Cleavages vs the Economy. Chiba, Japan: Institute of Developing Economies. Kalaycıoglu, Ersin (2008), ‘Attitudinal Orientation to Party Organisations in Turkey in the 2000s’, Turkish Studies 9(2): 308–12. Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (2010), ‘Justice and Development Party at the Helm: Resurgence of Islam or Restitution of the Right-of-Centre Predominant Party?’ Turkish Studies 11(1): 29–44. Karpat, Kemal H. (1964), ‘Society, Economics, and Politics in Contemporary Turkey’, World Politics 17(1): 50–74. Mardin, Şerif (1973), ‘Center–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics’, Dædalus 102(1): 169–90. Özbudun, Ergun (2013), Party Politics and Social Cleavages in Turkey, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Özbudun, Ergun (2015), ‘Turkey’s Judiciary and the Drift toward Competitive Authoritarianism’, International Spectator 50(2): 42–55. Rustow, Dankwart A. (1966), ‘The Development of Parties in Turkey’, in Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds), Political Parties and Political Development, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sayarı, Sabri (2002), ‘The Changing Party System’, in Sabri Sayarı and Yılmaz Esmer (eds), Politics, Parties and Elections in Turkey, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, pp. 9–32. Somer, Murat (2017), ‘Conquering versus Democratizing the State: Political Islamists and Fourth Wave Democratization in Turkey and Tunisia’, Democratization 24(6): 1025–43. Somer, Murat (2019), ‘Turkey: The Slippery Slope from Reformist to Revolutionary Polarization and Democratic Breakdown’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681(1): 42–61. Tachau, Frank (2000), ‘Turkish Political Parties and Elections: Half a Century of Multiparty Democracy’, Turkish Studies 1(1): 128–48. Taş, Hakkı (2017), ‘A History of Turkey’s AKP–Gülen Conflict’, Mediterranean Politics 23(3): 395–402. V-Dem (2022), Country-Year/Country-Date, V-Dem Dataset, Version 12, March, https://www.v-dem. net/data/dataset-archive/, accessed 29 March 2023.

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160 | şebnem yardimci geyikçi and hakan yavuzyilmaz Yardımcı-Geyikçi, Şebnem (2018), ‘Party System Institutionalisation and Democratic Consolidation’, in Sabri Sayarı, Pelin Ayan Musil and Özhan Demirkol (eds), Party Politics in Turkey: A Comparative Perspective, New York: Routledge. Yardımcı-Geyikci, Şebnem and Hakan Yavuzyılmaz (2022), ‘Party (De)institutionalization in Times of Political Uncertainty: The Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey’, Party Politics 28(1): 71–84. Yavuzyılmaz, Hakan (2021), ‘When Local Becomes General: Turkey’s 31 March 2019 Elections and Its Implications for Dynamics of Polarization and Sustainability of Competitive Authoritarianism’. Journal of Balkan and Near East Studies, 23(4): 622–42.

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12 The Political-Economic History of Modern Turkey: Political Institutions, Economic Dynamics and Democratisation Taptuk Emre Erkoç (independent researcher on political economy) Introduction

R

esearches on the political economy of democratisation have been enriched by the plethora of works from Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, who have created a vast literature on the economic dynamics of the democratic system, focusing predominantly on the interplay between political and economic institutions (see for example Acemoglu & Robinson 2006; Acemoglu & Robinson 2012). They articulate the impact of economic institutions on political institutions and systems based on the struggle by elite citizens to reallocate resources for sharing political and economic power. The authors emphasise that ‘non-democracy is rule by the elite, democracy rule by the more numerous groups who constitute the majority, here the citizens’ (Acemoglu & Robinson 2006: xii). This chapter takes Acemoglu and Robinson’s arguments on the economic dimension of democracy to the centre of its theoretical background to provide a better understanding of the political-economic aspect of Turkish democratisation since the foundation of the Turkish Republic. This chapter takes a straightforward approach to exploring Turkey’s democratisation journey: this process can only be fully grasped if and only if the interactions between economic and political institutions are taken into consideration simultaneously. Therefore, any single political or economic event is investigated with respect to the relevant political-economic atmosphere behind it. Throughout the chapter, the reader will readily understand that this type of analysis is put forward by the author ad hoc, stemming from a mundane relationship between political dynamics and economic developments. To give an example based on the Turkish case, the economic difficulties that occurred after the Second World War were the driving forces behind the termination of single-party politics in Turkey. The Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) could not 161

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162 | taptuk emre erkoç have experienced a decisive victory in the 1950 elections without the dire consequences of the economic turmoil of 1940s. This chapter scrutinises the political-economic underpinnings of the democratisation process of modern Turkey by covering the time span from the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, to the recent years of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). That is to say, to map out the dynamics behind Turkey’s democratisation experience, there is a precise need to reveal the reciprocal causality between economic developments and political undercurrents. On one side of this reciprocal causality, politics has an impact on economics: • The idea of the nation-state at the foundation of Turkish Republic led Atatürk to initiate nationalist economic policies. On the other side, economics has an impact on politics: • Land reform at the beginning of the 1940s resulted in the emergence and rise of the DP. • The 2001 banking crisis motivated the AKP to win the 2002 elections with a landslide victory. The Early Years of the Modern Turkish Republic: Atatürk as the Founding Leader and İnönü as the Second Man The early years of the Turkish Republic’s economic policies went hand in hand with Atatürk’s overall views on economic systems (Aysan 2014: 65). First and foremost, fiscal policy had the lion’s share of his economic understanding, in which a ‘balanced budget’ must be maintained. Accordingly, fiscal rule was the most crucial issue for the first twenty years of the Republic in general. The second policy objective was to follow up tight monetary policy to secure the value of the Turkish lira. Atatürk took a very strict attitude towards printing money even under the most extreme circumstances. Third was to devise an appropriate trade policy that prevented the depreciation of the Turkish lira against foreign currencies, and finally, an investment policy that could be described as ‘moderate statism’, centred on public–private partnerships. To the founders of modern Turkey, the epitome of the nation’s economic independence was to have independent monetary policy instruments at the institutional level. The authority to utilise the monetary policy instruments was transferred to the Ottoman Bank in the course of the demise of the Ottoman Empire (Özdemir 2017: 142). This legal tender was given to the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey by the law put into effect in 1930. After the War of Independence, the Turkish Grand National Assembly took the power of printing money as its own responsibility since it is a sign of sovereignty, but temporarily transferred this authority to the central bank with the aforementioned

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the political-economic history of modern turkey  | 163 law. This can be seen as a declaration to the world that the new Republic would prioritise national independence in both the economic and the political spheres. Organised in 1923, the Izmir Economic Congress was a meeting where views based on the understanding of ‘economic nationalism’ were opened for discussion. Feroz Ahmad (2019: 11) reveals the ultimate goal of the congress as follows: ‘to advance the establishment of a national economy and to develop the economic forces that will soon form the socio-economic basis of the nascent Republican state’. The Kemalist cadre believed that a nation-oriented economic agent was indispensable for the realisation of this goal. Among the political economy priorities of the Turkish nation-state, which had just gained its political dominance, was the project of establishing a Turkish economic institutional structure. To be more precise, the goal intended by the nationalisation of the economy and/or nationalist economic policies was nothing but the ‘Turkification’ of the economy (Varlı & Koraltürk 2010). Beginning in 1930, the global depression had a severe impact on the Turkish economy (Yenal 2017: 12). First, there was a serious deterioration in foreign trade figures, especially a rapid contraction in import terms. In addition, due to the slowdown in economic activities, there was a remarkable decrease in the government’s budget revenues (due to the decrease in the taxes it collected). The sudden fall in the prices of agricultural products on a global scale, along with the increase in economic problems, caused a major contraction in the incomes of the commercial bourgeoisie and landowners, who were the ruling partners of the founding elite. In order to prevent this negative trend, it became necessary to take some measures. The first of these was the nationalisation of foreign companies with tax revenues and domestic borrowing instruments. The second prominent measure was to develop private and state capitalism, which was experiencing capital deficits, with credit allocations, and finally to support private enterprises with some concessionary laws to be enacted. İsmet İnönü served as the president between 1938 and 1950. During his tenure, he struggled with the harsh conditions in domestic politics as well as the dire conditions of the Second World War, which resulted in an increasing tension between European countries. İnönü, who was appreciated for keeping Turkey out of the war in those years, was also criticised for his harsh policies against the opposition, his failure to take adequate measures against economic difficulties, and his decisions targeting minorities including a wealth tax (Aktar 2008: 10). In addition to that, land reform, which was very difficult in both the legislative process in the parliament and the implementation process, was among the controversial issues of his period. The global increase in the price of agricultural products during the Second World War was a great advantage for Turkey, which earned a significant income from agricultural production. The government of the period, which was considering converting this

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164 | taptuk emre erkoç advantage into tax revenue, introduced a new tax in 1943 under the name of ‘agricultural products tax’ (Tezel 2002: 25). In a period when defence expenditures began to rise, the rulers of the state tried to find the solution in agriculture, but the return to the same point almost twenty years after the abolition of tithes had a great shock effect on peasant farmers. However, the tax also had some negative effects on the Turkish economy (Yenal 2017: 36). The tax imposed on soil crops reduced agricultural production by almost half and caused a serious decrease in export revenues. As predicted by the Laffer curve,1 the tax on land crops had a negative impact on agricultural production and Turkey could not turn this global economic development (the rise in the price of agricultural goods) into an opportunity. In a way, this tax was able to create an area of ​influence that paved the way for the defeat of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the 1950 parliamentary elections. The First Experience of the Multi-party System and the Democrat Party During İnönü’s presidency, it can be said that the Law on Providing Land to Farmers, which came into force in 1945, was at the forefront of the developments that would deeply affect the political dynamics of the CHP and the politics of the country. The law mainly aimed to expropriate large land holdings, especially in rural areas. Land reform, which had been on the agenda since the first years of the Republic, finally came to the agenda of the parliament and encountered strong resistance from the opposition within the party. A number of CHP deputies led by Adnan Menderes, who would become the prime minister in the 1950 elections, openly opposed this bill when it came to the parliament (Sarıbay 2016). The land reform debate in the parliament accelerated the announcement of the manifesto known as the ‘Memorandum of the Four’ (Dörtlü Takrir) in the political literature. Celal Bayar, Fuat Köprülü, Refik Koraltan and Menderes, who prepared this declaration, were either expelled or resigned from the CHP in the upcoming weeks. Land reform had a great impact on the creation of irreparable damage between the founding elite and the landowners that they included in the coalition at the foundation of the Republic (Kazgan 2005: 46). This reform, which is the most important motive accelerating the establishment process of the DP, has been recorded as one of the reference points in the separation of leftist politics from farmers and peasants in Turkey. In addition to socio-cultural and religion/belief-based factors, this break with the agricultural bourgeoisie also accounted for the CHP’s difficulty in getting votes from The Laffer curve is an approach in public economics arguing that an increase in tax rate may result in a reduction in tax revenue as people find ways not to share the higher proportion of their earnings with the government.

 1

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the political-economic history of modern turkey  | 165 rural areas (in the constituencies where agricultural production is intensive) for a very long time. When considered together with the consequences of the land crop tax, the law to land the farmer is among the main reasons for the political collapse that the CHP would experience in the 1950 elections. It would be very appropriate to put the economy in first place among the factors that brought the DP to power in the 1950 elections. Undoubtedly, it is not possible to ignore the political and social factors that won the DP by-elections, but the impact of economic dynamics needs to be examined as much as they do (Sarıbay 2016). The economic difficulties that started during and continued after the Second World War resulted in the CHP government losing its credibility in the eyes of the citizens. The cost of living and the consequent shrinkage of real income became the most important agenda item for voters. In addition, three laws enacted during İnönü’s presidency made the DP a worthwhile choice for voters from different segments of society. The first of these laws was the practice of ‘wealth tax’, which specifically targeted minorities. Most of the tax was collected from the wealth of non-Muslim merchants who led economic activity. This situation both caused the minorities to break away from the CHP and disrupted a part of the trade carried out (Mardin 1973). Both developments caused some voters to support the new formation for economic reasons. Although the share of minorities in the total population was small, their impact on business life went beyond their quantitative size. As a matter of fact, it is an undeniable possibility that the DP, which won at least half the votes of the voters in all major urban centres in Turkey, also enjoyed remarkable support among minorities (Aktar 2008: 28). The second legal change was the decision that came into force as the farmer’s land law (land reform) and resulted in the division of the land of the agricultural bourgeoisie. This law, which brought to light the unrest within the CHP, accelerated the establishment of the DP and enabled the leading names of the agricultural sector to gather around this party in the process leading up to the 1950 elections (Sarıbay 2016). It is impossible to overestimate the effect of this reform, which was put into practice in the formation of the DP’s senior management and the rapid organisation of local party organisations. As a result, Menderes, who became the prime minister of the nineteenth government, formed by the party that won the 1950 elections, was the owner of large agricultural lands in the Aydın area. In a way, the rural masses targeted by the land reform engaged their political anger to change the incumbent government of the country. The third legal regulation, which is considered among the factors that brought the DP to power, was the tax on land crops. The collection of this tax decreased agricultural production and caused the incomes of agricultural producers to shrink. The political rise of the DP, both the formation of party cadres and the increase in the number of voters supporting the party, was effected through the economic difficulties of agricultural

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166 | taptuk emre erkoç producers. Considering the votes the party received in the elections, it is striking that its significant support was the places where predominantly agricultural producers resided. By 1950, the rural population in Turkey was around 75 per cent. This meant that three out of four people were directly or indirectly affected by the output of agricultural production. In this sense, one can easily assume that the CHP could not predict the political costs of the decision taken to drop agricultural production dramatically. It is obvious that the additional tax introduced would affect a very large part of the population, which would reduce the popular support of the incumbent party. The period between 1960s and the onset of 1980s was noteworthy in the sense that Turkey opted for the implementation of ‘import substitution industrialisation’ as its core strategy for economic development (Pamuk 2020). As Şevket Pamuk (2020) has clearly figured out, huge infrastructure investments carried out by the public sector paved the way for private organisations to establish their economic existence particularly in the urban areas. Besides, thanks to these investments, private companies steadily took power in the economic sphere. Economic Liberalism and the Turgut Özal Era Turgut Özal’s political life as the prime minister of Turkey commenced in the aftermath of the 1980 military coup, which still has an influence on Turkish political life. The legacy of the coup on Turkish politics was strengthened and consolidated by the 1982 constitution, through which a variety of civil and democratic rights were banned and/ or restricted. As soon as the constitution was put into action after 92 per cent public support in a referendum, military officials gave legal permission for new political figures to set up new political parties and go through general elections. Özal’s party, the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), gained 45 per cent of the votes in the 1983 elections and consequently became the party in government with 211 seats out of 399. Although ANAP was a newly established party, the public in general already knew Özal from his years in the bureaucracy dealing extensively with the economic problems of Turkey. His recipe for the unhealthy Turkish economy was first and foremost to energise it ‘by making it free of regulations which discouraged enterprise and productivity and letting entrepreneurs take advantage of the country’s raw materials, able and increasingly educated labour supply, and managerial talent’ (Henze 2005). Besides this, the liberalisation of the Turkish economy was carried out on the basis of two fundamental areas consisting of trade and capital account liberalisation (Öniş 2004). Like Reagan and Thatcher, he sincerely believed in the classical assumptions and procedures of the free market mechanism, which rendered statist economic policies to be substituted by entrepreneurial spirit that became the engine of economic growth during the 1980s.

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the political-economic history of modern turkey  | 167 As a consequence of the global change in the ways of production, the economies of scale barrier for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to enter into the market almost disappeared. Thanks to that, even small firms with flexible and swift manufacturing technologies had a chance to compete with their giant counterparts mostly in domestic markets. This structural change in microeconomic production led SMEs to become an economically remarkable group, known as the Anatolian Tigers (Anadolu Kaplanlari). The Anatolian Tigers, who are mostly centred in the Kayseri, Konya, Ankara, Yozgat, Denizli, Corum, Aksaray and Gaziantep provinces of Anatolia, became the transformational power in implementation of liberal policies in human rights, democratisation, rule of law and active engagement in foreign policy (Demir et al. 2004). Özal’s liberal and export-oriented growth model can be shown as the main driving force of the emergence of this new business elite (Narli 1999). Cihan Tuğal (2009) even argues that the integration of the Anatolian Tigers into the capitalist mode of production as well as the neoliberal environment represents the first step of ‘passive revolution’ for pious Turkish Muslims in the Gramscian sense. To Oguz Işık and Güvenç (1999), those newly emerging entrepreneurs were highly successful in bypassing the traditional rules of the Istanbul market and capital, and accordingly they ‘managed to seize the opportunities to get directly integrated into the global network of production’. To Ömer Demir and colleagues (2004), the liberal economic and political setup (relatively more inclusive political and economic institutions) in Özal’s tenure triggered the accumulation of capital and production in the Anatolian cities even without direct government intervention. Kamil Yılmaz (2009) points out the importance of Özal’s international visits with businesspeople including the Anatolian Tigers and concludes that the ‘Özal era marked the transformation of these religious people from the lower class to the “middle class” stratum in Turkish society’. From a different angle, Metin Heper (2013) argues, ‘Islamic banks contributed to the establishment of an influential network of Islamist businessmen. These businessmen played an important role in the flourishing of the so-called Anatolian Tigers’, who took advantage of liberalisation policies in the financial system during the 1980s. The AKP Period in Turkish Political-Economic Life: From Carolingian Renaissance2 to Institutional Collapse During a turbulent period between 1989 and 2002, when the economic crisis of 2001 and social instability reached peak levels, Turkey was ruled by several coalition governments. The Carolingian Renaissance occurred from the late eighth century to the ninth century during the reign of Charlemagne. This new era was mainly focused on the rejuvenation of economic policies including the introduction of a currency system. For more details, see Trompf (1973).

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168 | taptuk emre erkoç This thirteen-year depression period in Turkey signifies a period of turmoil and turbulence for Turkish politics and economy. Within only ten years, Turkey saw nine different governments with various economic policies and political strategies (Öniş 2012). Furthermore, as Şevket Pamuk (2014: 281) points out, in this very short time span, the Turkish economy was devastated by four economic crises, in 1991, 1994, 1999 and 2001. It was amid this period of political instability that the AKP was founded, with Turkey’s current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as its leader. The 2001 banking crisis was highly detrimental to the economic actors not only in the financial sector but also in many others. The AKP’s unprecedented success in the 2002 elections was assumed to have stemmed from the Turkish public’s anger towards the parties in the government during this crisis. Thus, as the political party that won the elections, the AKP felt immense pressure from the public to take the necessary measures to overcome economic problems including inflation and unemployment (Erkoç 2019). The central question for the AKP’s economic team was whether to opt for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies initiated earlier by Kemal Derviş3 or devise a different set of policies. Both in the electoral campaign and in the post-election era, the AKP did not provide an alternative strategy to the ‘IMF-steered’ economic programme that had already been put into effect by the government of Bülent Ecevit (Patton 2006). The team preferred a liberal agenda as a continuation of the Derviş period, which included various dimensions of economic policymaking such as a ‘privatisation programme, promotion of foreign direct investment, fiscal discipline, tight monetary policies, maintenance of economic and political stability, political reforms related to European Union (EU) membership, a reform of the social security system, reforms in the area of health and education, as well as social aid and rural development projects’ (Acar 2009). The policy change after 2008 was also related to the AKP’s increasing tension with Turkey’s established capital class, who owned the biggest conglomerates that were represented under the organisation called the Turkish Industry and Business Association (TÜSİAD). To reduce the prominence of this potentially critical group in the economy, the AKP favoured another business association whose members had a similar worldview to AKP’s leadership, including its Islamist sensitivities. This business group, the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MÜSİAD), was also seen as the rising business elite of Anatolia, who had been more sceptical towards Western institutions (Öniş 2012). As E.  C. Gürakar (2016: 16) states, the members of MÜSİAD criticised the structure of the economy, in which most of the Kemal Derviş is a US-based economist who had a significant career in international institutions including the World Bank. He was invited by the Turkish government after the 2001 banking crisis to be a minister of finance.

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the political-economic history of modern turkey  | 169 large investment opportunities were ‘reserved’ for the Eurocentric entrepreneurs based in the western cities. The AKP government and its undisputed leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, took momentous steps in democratisation, economic development and proactive foreign policy throughout the first and second periods (Özerdem 2016: 66). Negotiations with the European Union, a strong resistance towards military tutelage and judicial oligarchy, optimistic steps in the solution of the Kurdish issue and the formulation of rational economic policies generated support and encouragement from intellectuals from a variety of ideological stances as well as the broader public. However, recently, there is a pervasive consensus that Erdoğan’s government has become oppressive and authoritarian following the Gezi Park protests that took place in the summer of 2013 (Öztürk, 2014). Bülent Gökay and Farzana Shain (2013) have argued that Erdoğan’s critics raised their concerns that being an elected leader does not justify silencing the dissidence as incrementally experienced after the Gezi protests. In their recent piece, Timur Kuran and Dani Rodrik (2018) revealed the fact that financial markets and institutions have been very generous in providing easy and cheap credit to the Turkish market during the AKP period under Erdoğan’s leadership. Throughout this period, economic growth has been highly dependent on foreign capital flow to Turkey, which has been used by the Turkish government to finance big-scale projects such as ‘housing, roads, bridges, and airports’. Besides, this capital inflow has boosted domestic consumption that helped the AKP to please its voters for winning the elections. To the authors, the recent developments in Turkey started to resemble to the ‘Ottoman circle of justice’ through which the taxpaying population financed the needs of a tax-exempt elite led by a sultan who was only accountable to God and Islamic law. Accordingly, they asserted, ‘nearly two centuries later, Erdoğan has taken Turkey back to a past that generations of reformers tried to leave behind’ (Kuran & Rodrik 2018). The Turkish economy’s recent problems resulted in the depreciation of the Turkish lira almost fourfold between 2018 and 2022. This was coupled with a diplomatic crisis with the United States, which further exacerbated the overall situation for those Turkish firms that shoulder a high burden of debt in US dollars. Islamic discourse became an effective tool for Erdoğan to alleviate the concerns among his supporters in relation to the status of the country’s economy (Öztürk 2016). In a speech after the dramatic fall of the Turkish lira against the US dollar, he made a contrast between the two countries, saying, ‘If they have their dollars, we have our people, our God’ (Riley-Smith & Jovanovski 2018). Moreover, he emotionally mobilised the Turkish public by claiming ‘there was no difference between attacks on the country’s economy and attacks on our call to prayer and our flag’ (Al Jazeera 2018). This attitude was a clear indication that the economic rationale has been substituted with an Islamist discourse to preserve popular support among the

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170 | taptuk emre erkoç Turkish public. In tune with Erdoğan’s stance on this very crisis, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs issued a sermon on 24 August 2018 about economic war against Turkey and advised worshippers that they should be brave and strong to nullify these economic attacks on the country (Diyanet 2018). Conclusion The essential motivation for putting the thoughts into this chapter is that the recent experience of the AKP in Turkey has pushed the majority of society, including the author of this piece, to understand the Kemalist state-building process once again. The severe complications that arose from the combination of Islamic elements with populist political jargon carried out by the AKP, prompted a significant proportion of Turkish society to reconsider the state-building process that took place in the early republican period. Even though the republican elite was famous for its harsh attitude towards religiosity in the founding years of the Republic, their policies have begun to be rediscovered even by some in the religiously conservative circles. An endeavour to understand the policies of the Kemalist cadre, who aimed to repair the institutional collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which showed the characteristics of a ‘failed state’ in its last years, became very much associated with overcoming the institutional failures of the new status quo in Turkey. That is to say, Turkey’s current political disorders sparked the idea that the AKP’s overt fight against the political, economic and social institutions whose foundations go back to the early years of the Turkish Republic can only be confronted by getting inspirations from the worldviews of the founding elite of Turkey. Although it would be considered highly hypothetical to confer on the possible scenarios for Turkey’s political economic landscape in the upcoming years, one needs to take into consideration the fact that post-AKP era is prone to be shaped by the secular dominance in policymaking. There is no doubt that turning back to the early years of the Turkish Republic is exceedingly improbable and irrational, yet AKP’s Islamist discourse in politics, economics and social life will be confronted with a backlash by which the AKP-constructed economic and political elite will vanish either through rising pressure from society or by voluntarily disappearing. References Acar, Mustafa (2009), ‘Towards a Synthesis of Islam and the Market Economy? The Justice and Development Party’s Economic Reforms in Turkey’, Economic Affairs 29(2): 16–21. Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2006), Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Acemoglu, Daron and James A. Robinson (2012), Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, New York: Crown.

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the political-economic history of modern turkey  | 171 Ahmad, Feroz (2019), İttihatçılıktan Kemalizme, Istanbul: Kaynak Yayınları. Aktar, Ayhan (2008), Varlık Vergisi ve Türkleştirme Politikaları, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Al Jazeera (2018), ‘Erdogan: Attack on economy same as attack on call to prayer’, 21 August, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/erdogan-attack-economy-attack-callprayer-180821084019118.html, accessed 26 January 2023. Aysan, Mustafa (2014), Atatürk Dönemi Ekonomi Politikaları, Istanbul: Minval Yayınları. Demir, Ömer, Mustafa Acar and Metin Toprak (2004), ‘Anatolian Tigers or Islamic Capital: Prospects and Challenges’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(6): 166–88. Diyanet (2018), ‘24.08.2018 Cuma Hutbesi: Gayret Muminden, Zafer Allah’tandır’, https:// dinhizmetleri.diyanet.gov.tr/Detay/152/24082018-cuma-hutbesi-gayret-müminden-zaferallah’tandır-(türkçe-arapça-almanca-ingilizce), accessed 29 March 2023. Erkoç, Taptuk Emre (2019), ‘Islam and Economics in the Political Sphere: A Critical Evaluation of the AKP Era in Turkey’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19(1): 139–54. Gökay, Bülent and Farzana Shain (2013), ‘Making Sense of the Protests in Turkey (and Brazil): Urban Warfare in Rebel Cities’, Journal of Global Faultlines 1(2): 58–68. Gürakar, Esra Çeviker (2016), Politics of Favoritism in Public Procurement in Turkey: Reconfigurations of Dependency Networks in the AKP Era, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Henze, Paul B. (2005), ‘Democracy and Development: Lessons from Turkish Experience Applied to Ethiopia’, International Conference on African Development Archives 94. Heper, Metin (2013), ‘Islam, Conservatism, and Democracy in Turkey: Comparing Turgut Özal and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’, Insight Turkey 15(2): 141–56. Işık, O. and M. Güvenç (1999), ‘The Changing Nature of Turkish Urbanization and Economic geography on the Eve of the 21st Century: New Challenges and New Opportunities’, in Cem Behar et al. (eds), Turkey’s Window of Opportunity: Demographic Transition Process and Its Consequences, Istanbul: TÜSİAD. Kazgan, Gülten (2005), Türkiye Ekonomisinde Krizler 1929–2001: ‘Ekonomi Politik’ Açısından bir İrdeleme. Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Kuran, Timur and Dani Rodrik (2018), ‘The economic costs of Erdoğan’, Project Syndicate, 24 August, https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/how-erdogan-caused-turkeycollapse-by-timur-kuran-and-dani-rodrik-2018-08, accessed 26 January 2023. Mardin, Şerif (1973), ‘Center–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?’ Dædalus 102(1): 169–90. Narli, Nilifer (1999), ‘The Rise of the Islamist Movement in Turkey’, MERIA Journal 3(3). Öniş, Ziya (2004), ‘Turgut Özal and His Economic Legacy: Turkish Neo-liberalism in Critical Perspective’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(4): 113–34. Öniş, Ziya (2012), ‘The Triumph of Conservative Globalism: The Political Economy of the AKP Era’, Turkish Studies 13(2): 135–52. Özdemir, Biltekin (2017), Osmanlı Devleti Dış Borçları: Yüz Yıl Süren Cendere, Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi. Özerdem, Alpaslan (2016), ‘Turkey as a Rising Power: An Emerging Global Humanitarian Actor’, in Zeynep Sezgin and Dennis Dijkzeul (eds), The New Humanitarians in International

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172 | taptuk emre erkoç Practice: Emerging Actors and Contested Principles, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 64–81. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2014), ‘The Presidential Election in Turkey: History and Future Expectations’, Contemporary Southeastern Europe 1(2): 110–18. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2016), ‘Turkey’s Diyanet under AKP Rule: From Protector to Imposer of State Ideology?’ Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4): 619–35. Pamuk, Şevket (2014), Türkiye’nin 200 Yıllık İktisadi Tarihi: Büyüme, Kurumlar ve Bölüşüm, Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. Pamuk, Şevket (2020), ‘Economic Policies, Institutional Change, and Economic Growth since 1980’, in Asaf Savaş Akat and Seyfettin Gürsel, Turkish Economy at the Crossroads: Facing the Challenges Ahead, Singapore: World Scientific, pp. 1–36. Patton, Marcie J. (2006), ‘The Economic Policies of Turkey’s AKP Government: Rabbits from a Hat?’ Middle East Journal 60(3): 513–36. Riley-Smith, Ben and Kristina Jovanovski (2018), ‘Trump’s new tariffs send Turkey’s currency crashing, as Erdogan tells people to “trust in God”’, The Telegraph, 10 August, https://www. telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/10/erdogan-tells-turkish-people-trust-god-lira-tumbles-usrow/, accessed 26 January 2023. Sarıbay, Ali Yaşar (2016), ‘The Democratic Party 1946–1960’, in Metin Heper and Jacob M. Landau, Political Parties and Democracy in Turkey, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 119–33. Tezel, Yahya Sezai (2002), Cumhuriyet Döneminin Iktisadi Tarihi 1923–1950, Istanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı. Trompf, G. W. (1973), ‘The Concept of the Carolingian Renaissance’, Journal of the History of Ideas 34(1): 3–26. Tuğal, Cihan (2009), Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Varlı, Arzu and Murat Koraltürk (2010), ‘II. Meşrutiyet’ten Erken Cumhuriyet’e Milli İktisadın Sürekliliği ve İzmir İktisat Kongresi’, Çağdaş Türkiye Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi, 9(20): 127–42. Yenal, Oktay (2017), Cumhuriyet’in İktisat Tarihi, Istanbul: İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. Yılmaz, Kamil (2009), ‘The Emergence and Rise of Conservative Elite in Turkey’, Insight Turkey 11(2): 113–36.

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13 Human Rights in Turkey Nate Schenkkan (Freedom House)

Introduction

I

n the second decade of the twenty-first century, ‘Turkey’ has become a metonym for autocratisation (Luhrmann & Lindberg 2019). President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s consolidation of power across nearly two decades in government has become a frequently invoked proxy for understanding the global ‘democratic recession’ since 2005 (Friedman 2015). Between 2009 and 2019, Turkey had the second-fastest ten-year decline of any country measured in Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World report, a global barometer of civil and political rights (Repucci 2020). Even before the coup attempt of July 2016, the government had already embarked on a harsh campaign of intimidation against the press and political opposition. In the early part of the 2010s, Turkey became the world’s leading imprisoner of journalists for several years running (Committee to Protect Journalists 2020), and a system of state pressure and inducement on major corporate media resulted in consolidation of private media under government influence (Corke et al. 2014). Turkey was also an early and aggressive pioneer in restricting internet access and persecuting regular internet users by the thousand (Freedom House 2020). The return to open war with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) in 2015 resulted in the death of 5,464 people, including 549 civilians, and the displacement of 355,000–500,000 people (International Crisis Group 2021; OHCHR 2017). The contemporaneous crackdown on the left-wing and minority-focused Peoples’ Democracy Party (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, HDP) shrank the space for political opposition. Therefore, that ‘Turkey’ now often appears as a shorthand for autocratisation is understandable. But this substitution obscures as well as illuminates. In fact, the major issues that Turkey faces now are consistent, though not constant, across the country’s 173

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174 | nate schenkkan 100 years of independence: the rights of minorities, freedoms of expression and belief, and the rights of the individual versus the privileges of the state. The manifestations of these issues stem from how the Turkish Republic formed, and how it instantiated in law and practice a narrative of enemies within and without that seek to divide and destroy the nation, and thus the state. The formation of the Republic as the legal and political expression of a monist idea, which equates loyal citizenship with ethno-religious Turkishness and commitment to the supremacy of the state, has formed the basis for recurring systemic violations of human rights. Addressing Turkey’s dire human rights problems in the twenty-first century will require transcending monism and statism in order to embrace the country’s religious, cultural, national and political diversity. Identity The core human rights dilemma that the Republic of Turkey faces as it enters its second century is how to reconcile its inherent diversity with the ‘indivisibility’ of Turkey. As Article 3 of the constitution states, ‘The State of Turkey, with its territory and its nation, is indivisible. Its language is Turkish’ (Constitution of the Republic of Turkey 2018).1 Although a state’s indivisibility does not inherently require suppression of multiple ethnic, religious and linguistic cultures, in law, practice and popular discourse, the hegemonic position in Turkey remains firmly monist, that is, denying the existence of multiplicity. Turkishness continues to be defined in terms of Turkish language and ethnic heritage and Sunni Muslim identity.2 This approach has its roots in Turkey’s transition into independence as a republic from the shell of the Ottoman Empire. The Republic was formed specifically out of an ideological commitment to ‘unity’, which was based in opposition to the centrifugal forces that the Republic’s founders believed had torn the Empire apart. The Empire’s mode of multi-ethnic governance had involved a variegated scheme of milletler (nations), in which Sunni Muslims stood above others, but each millet had a basic set of rights through selfgovernance, protected in part through the interference of foreign powers that had carved out concessions for their co-religionists over centuries of pressure.3 Following the collapse of the Empire, this model of multi-ethnic governance was replaced with an aggressive effort to create a ‘legible’ and homogenised nation-state that would be better able to compete and survive on the international stage (Al 2020). One of ‘Türkiye Devleti, ülkesi ve milletiyle bölünmez bir bütündür. Dili Türkçedir.’ Author’s translation. A strict definition of Turkish ethnic heritage is the factor that appears to have declined most in importance, as the openings of the 2000s and 2010s have produced wider, frequently public, discussions of the diverse ethnic origins of Turkish citizens.  3 The millet system officially ended in 1839, but it continued in practice through the collapse of the Empire.  1  2

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human rights in turkey | 175 the lessons of the end of the Empire for the Republic’s founders was that modern statehood demanded centralisation and homogenisation (Üngör 2011). As Behlül Özkan has written, ‘The notion of a Turkish vatan [homeland] was deployed to override differences within the society’ (Özkan 2012). ‘Official’ Minorities In the transition from a multi-ethnic empire to a republic, the existing Turkish millet was elevated above all others, to become the supra-identity of the new state, in Baskın Oran’s formulation (Oran 2021). In other words, a new overriding millet (Turkish) was made synonymous with a new overriding vatan (Turkey). Even more so than how the new nation was to be defined, it was clear what it was not to be (Üngör 2011). Under the Treaty of Lausanne, which ended the occupation of Anatolia and led to the formation of the Republic of Turkey, Turkey was to recognise the rights of ‘Turkish nationals belonging to non-Muslim minorities’. However, only the Armenian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox (Rum) and Jewish communities were recognised as official minorities within the Republic (Zürcher 2004). As such they were to be given special dispensations to practise their religions, to educate their co-religionists and to preserve community property. In practice, the Lausanne requirements were never enforced or upheld at the local level even for Armenians, Jews and Rums. Indeed, rather than holding special privileges, these minorities were marked as potential enemies, inherent threats to the new state despite their citizenship. Other non-Muslim minorities in Anatolia at the time of the treaty, like Syriacs, Yezidis and Arab Greek Orthodox, were not even included in the Republic’s definition of official minorities. Through the depredations of war in Anatolia, the genocide against Armenians in the eastern part of the Empire, and the ‘population transfer’ of Greek Orthodox from the western part of the new republic, the populations of the ‘official’ minority groups shrank drastically. As Erik Zürcher describes, Anatolia prior to the war had been multi-ethnic and multiconfessional; if before the war 80 per cent of the population had been Muslim, the figure was 98 per cent afterwards, and there were only two major linguistic groups, Turkish and Kurdish (Zürcher 2004). These shrunken non-Muslim communities faced intense discrimination, and worse, in the first decades of the Republic. The open-ended application of the November 1942 wealth tax, intended to act against war profiteering, resulted in the seizure of vast amounts of property from non-Muslims, as well as the deportation of some who were unable to pay (Bali 2012). The tax, as well as the 1955 pogroms against Greeks in Istanbul, further reduced the populations of ‘official’ minorities. These populations dwindled to vanishing point and continue to shrink to this day. According to Baskın Oran, as of 2020 only

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176 | nate schenkkan 65,000 Armenians, 20,000 Jews and 110,000 Rums remain in a country with a population of over 80 million (Oran 2021). Discriminatory practices continue in the present, as reflected in government interference in the selection of the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul (Minassian 2019), the refusal to reopen the Greek Orthodox Halki seminary, and refusal to grant legal recognition to minority religious communities, which is necessary for them to own property and represent their interests legally (USCIRF 2021). As recently as 2013, journalists exposed how Turkish ID cards contained unique secret codes identifying the holder as Armenian, Greek, Jewish, Syriac or belonging to another non-Muslim group (Cengiz 2013). The popular discourse reflects these official narratives, as annual hate speech monitoring reports by the Hrant Dink Foundation show (Hrant Dink Foundation 2020). In 2016, MPs physically assaulted an Armenian member of parliament from the opposition, Garo Paylan, and berated him with racist slurs (Armenian Weekly 2016). Non-Turkish and Heterodox Muslims Notably excluded from the definition of minorities established in the Treaty of Lausanne were non-Turkish Muslims, the largest group of which were Kurds, and heterodox Muslims, the largest group of which were Alevis. The formation of a Turkish identity centred on imposing a specific mode of ethno-religious identity that did not leave space for non-Turkish Muslims to express distinct ethnic identities, or for heterodox Muslim religious practices. These contradictions were evident from the earliest stages of the Republic, and the state’s response was overwhelming force. Some of the earliest challenges to the new republic came in regions where there was a high proportion of Kurdish and Alevi inhabitants. The rebellions of those early years, among them the Sheikh Sait rebellion of 1925 and revolts in Dersim, were spurred by reaction against the denial of Kurdish autonomy or independence, as well as the ending of the Caliphate and undermining of the previous Ottoman religious order (Zürcher 2004). Indicative of the complexity of this process of state formation, Alevi Kurds resisted the Sheikh Sait rebellion out of a perception that the new, secular state authorities would be less hostile than the Sunni rebels. In the 1960s, these pressures resulted in the formation of Kurdish cultural-political movements that sought to create room for Kurdish identity in Turkish society (Tekdemir 2021). The violent suppression of all forms of political activity in the 1980 coup, including Kurdish movements, and transnational influences from revolutionary communist movements in the Middle East and further abroad, led to the rise of the PKK in the 1980s, and then its gradual monopolisation of the so-called ‘Kurdish issue’. Thus the conflict between the PKK and the state became interwoven with the problem of Kurdish identity and representation.

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human rights in turkey | 177 Substantial progress occurred in the 2000s and first half of the 2010s, as successive AKP (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) governments sought to end the conflict and gradually liberalised constraints on the use of the Kurdish language and the right to expressions of Kurdish identity. Full liberalisation never occurred, however. What wound up being the final ‘package’ in the AKP’s liberalising period only offered opportunities for education in Kurdish in private schools. Most critically, it did not address the widespread abuses of Turkey’s arbitrary and overbroad anti-terrorism laws, which for decades had been used to imprison tens of thousands of Kurds. There was a brief window in which it appeared possible that the peace process might lead to a larger reordering of these underlying questions. The peace process between the PKK and the Turkish state reached its high point with the February 2015 ‘Dolmabahçe Understanding’, jointly announced by the government and the Imralı Committee.4 The announcement was little more than a declaration of principles, but it nonetheless marked the closest that Turkey’s government had come to publicly endorsing a vision for a pluralistic and multi-ethnic state. Dolmabahçe wound up dead on arrival, however – the victim of President Erdoğan’s political manoeuvring. Despite the fact that the agreement was endorsed by his party’s government, and followed a process largely conducted while he was prime minister, he never endorsed it. After the HDP came out against Erdoğan’s plan to establish a presidential system with himself at the centre, the prime minister increased rhetorical attacks on the HDP and the PKK. After a series of Islamic State suicide bombings against HDP and Kurdish gatherings, and the murder of two Turkish police officers that the PKK claimed in revenge, the PKK and the Turkish state returned to open war and Erdoğan officially denounced the agreement (Hurriyet Daily News 2015). The denunciation also followed Erdoğan’s party’s failure in the June 2015 general elections, when the party lost its majority in parliament for the first time since 2002. After the AKP failed to form a government, new elections were held in November 2015, in which the AKP rode its reaffirmed commitment to Turkish nationalism to a renewed majority. Since the collapse of Dolmabahçe and the November 2015 election, Erdoğan has leaned harder and harder into a rightward shift in his political alliances, embodied by the AKP’s electoral alliance with the far-right Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) in the 2018 general elections. The July 2016 coup attempt added fuel to the fire, generating a final break with liberal and Western-leaning elites, and empowering the return of the traditional national security state. Thus the hard-right turn in electoral The Imralı Committee was a group that was allowed to visit PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan on the island of Imralı, where he is serving a sentence of life imprisonment. The committee consisted of Kurdish leaders, among them leading members of the HDP.

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178 | nate schenkkan politics has come with an aggressive shift to prioritisation of statist policies in national security, economy and culture. These have also resulted in the renarrowing of political space for politicians overtly representing Kurds and Kurdish identity. Following each of the last two municipal elections, the government has appointed ‘trustees’ to replace dozens of HDP mayors from municipalities in the southeast; the mayors themselves are often arrested (Human Rights Watch 2020). Although the HDP remains in parliament, its co-leaders, Selahattin Demirtaş and Fiğen Yüksekdağ, have been imprisoned since 2016; several other MPs have also been arrested. At the time of writing, the Constitutional Court is considering a prosecutor’s petition for the closure of the party. The period of liberalisation also failed to produce conclusive results for Alevis. Although there have not recently been mass violent attacks by far-right nationalist radicals and Islamists like the massacres in Maraş in 1978, Çorum in 1980 and Sivas in 1993, the rights of Alevis remain circumscribed. One of the key issues for Alevis has been state recognition of the community’s houses of worship, or cemevis. Despite a variety of measures in the form of repeated ‘openings’, and even after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the state should recognise cemevis as houses of worship in 2016, Turkey has continued to deny them recognition and the benefits that would accompany it (Hallam 2016; Öğreten 2020). Turkish media continue to report regular hate speech and vandalism against Alevis and against their homes and institutions. More recently, the problem of indivisibility has been reflected in the treatment of LGBTI people. The state commonly treats non-conforming gender and sexual identities as being a threat to national strength and unity. Although LGBTI rights were not on the agenda in early republican Turkey, just as they were not elsewhere in Europe, the state’s response to rising activism and recognition of the right to sexual and gender identity over the last several decades has been consistent with its monist approach. As with other issues described in this chapter, there was a period of opening in the 2000s when these issues were more frankly discussed, and when the state appeared to be making room to accommodate different identities. But since at least the Gezi Park protests of 2013, the government has returned to a more conventional posture of limiting discussion and penalising activism as threats to the moral order underpinning the state. As ILGA-Europe’s research shows, Turkey ranks forty-eighth out of forty-nine countries in wider Europe for laws and policies affecting LGBTI people (ILGA-Europe 2021). Loyalty: Politics and the Media The other foundational area in which the formation of the Republic circumscribed human rights is civil and political rights. From the founding of the Republic, the continuity of the state has been held as a higher value than democratic practice. The precedent

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human rights in turkey | 179 was set early in the formation of the Republic, when Atatürk flirted with some forms of pocket opposition, but then immediately eliminated them when they showed the possibility of garnering popular support. At the same time, a pattern of opposition was established that, paradoxically, emphasised loyalty to the central project of the Republic in the form of the establishment of sovereignty and a singular national identity. As Christine Philliou has argued, opposition in Turkey became ‘a stance that is, at the end of the day, complicit with the bedrock contradictions of the Turkish Republic’ (Philliou 2021). The country moved to multi-party democracy after the Second World War under external pressure as its Western allies sought to sharpen distinctions with its communist rivals. The form of democracy that emerged was constrained – by loyalty to this geopolitical direction, and by coercion that placed outside politics both far-left and far-right tendencies in society (Ryan 2017). These boundaries were reinforced repeatedly through coercion, both of the quotidian sort and in the extraordinary form of the military’s repeated coups against elected governments. The result is that despite a long and competitive multi-party period that has produced a pluralistic political culture, Turkey’s permitted political space has remained organised around a fairly limited set of statist (devletçi), nationalist ideas. These ideas have been so powerful that they have now survived even the first successful outsider challenge of the Republic’s history, in the form of the AKP. Even after the AKP undermined and overcame the military’s and the courts’ constraints in the first decade of the 2000s, the result has been a reversion to a more consolidated form of nationalism and commitment to the state. Despite the fact that the military’s guardianship is no more, as the AKP and Erdoğan himself gained the centre of power, they came to replicate the way in which that power was traditionally practised, rather than transcending it. The failed 2016 coup attempt was the final turning point in this reversion to the mean. In purging the state and society of those it held responsible for the coup attempt, the AKP and Erdoğan rebuilt alliances with (and in some cases rehabilitated) those that had previously sought to protect the state from the AKP itself. Despite a complete lack of evidence that the coup attempt had mass support from civil society or the media, the government response included the summary closure of 162 media outlets and 1,412 civil society groups. Within a year and a half, 150,000 people had been detained and 62,000 arrested, among them two members of the Constitutional Court (İHOP 2018). Coupled with the shift to a super-presidential system completed in 2018, the judicial system was deprofessionalised (Reuters 2020) and came firmly under centralised control, with ripple effects across all aspects of society. Tellingly, despite two amnesties that freed 190,000 ‘non-political’ prisoners, Turkey as of 2021 held 280,000 people in jail, the highest per capita number in the Council of Europe and well outstripping the system’s capacity of

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180 | nate schenkkan 250,000. The government is building ever-larger prison complexes across the country to handle the overflow (Blaser 2021). This reversion to the mean has been reflected as well in the areas of freedom of the press and freedom of expression. The period of media liberalisation from the 1980s to the first decade of the 2000s produced staunch challenges to the government. The state’s response was to bring the press back to heel, albeit through more modern methods that mix coercion with inducement. Using its control of state coffers, the government pursued a long-term plan to shift ownership of private media to state-friendly holding companies that benefited from public procurement contracts. In exchange for the ‘pool media’ toeing the government line, contracts would continue to flow.5 On the coercive side, the government used the threat and practice of tax investigations to bring major private media into line. This process reached its logical conclusion in March 2018 with the sale of the Doğan Media Group, the country’s largest media holder and one that had frequently come into conflict with the government, to Demirören Holding, a company closely aligned with the government (New York Times 2018). Meanwhile, Kurdish and leftist journalists as usual faced stiffer penalties. Already in the early 2010s Turkey was the world’s leading jailer of journalists, with most of those in prison affiliated with these groups (Ellis 2011).6 Following the coup attempt of 2016, the number of journalists and media workers in prison ballooned to over 150.7 The government used emergency decrees to shutter 162 media outlets around the country. The majority of these outlets were affiliated with the Gülen movement, which the government held responsible for the coup attempt, but many were left-wing or Kurdish media outlets with no plausible connection to the movement. The government has also sought to impose previous stringent norms on political speech to the age of social media, when the number of voices with access to the public square has multiplied exponentially. The result has been an explosion of investigations, prosecutions and imprisonments for speech online. Since Erdoğan became president in 2015, there have been approximately 100,000 complaints filed regarding the crime of ‘insulting the president’. The Ministry of the Interior frequently announces the investigation or even detention of hundreds of social media users for online posts (Freedom House 2020). The phrase havuz medyası, or ‘pool media’, became popularised after the release of audiotapes in 2014 in which the owners of major holding companies discussed ‘pooling’ funds in order to purchase media at the direction of Erdoğan, then prime minister.  6 The diverging numbers of journalists imprisoned as counted by different organisations are due to varying definitions of who is a journalist or media worker, whether or how they must be considered ‘imprisoned for their work’ to be included, and the frequency of updates.  7 The Turkish organisation P24’s Expression Interrupted project maintains the most comprehensive and consistently up-to-date tally of journalists and media workers in prison in Turkey.  5

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human rights in turkey | 181 The government has also worked assiduously to limit public discourse online through website-blocking, content removal requests and, at times, platform shutdowns. Conclusion To explain is not to excuse. That Turkey has become a byword for autocratisation is the result of viewing its politics and governance through the lens of the last twenty years, in which the first AKP government embarked on some measures of liberalisation to meet demand for greater rights, only to be followed by dramatic reversals. In a longer perspective, this recent trend of autocratisation is a reassertion of long-standing practices deeply embedded in the republic’s laws, political culture and society. These practices contradict Turkey’s underlying diversity of ethnicity, religious belief and thought. That contradiction is what drives the extraordinary level of repression in Turkey. Yet the current government’s reversion to the core principles of statism and monism was not inevitable, but the result of choices made by political leaders, especially but not only President Erdoğan. The deepest irony is that Erdoğan and his governments in the first decade of the twenty-first century came closer than any of their predecessors to transcending these deep-seated contradictions, only to fall back on them when the political tides shifted against more self-interested political goals. Without a deeper reordering of priorities, these contradictions will only expand. In addition to the unresolved questions of the rights of ‘official’ minorities, Kurds, Alevis and LGBTI people; the strict regulation of speech in the age of the internet and social media; and the desire to monopolise political space in a politically diverse country, there is now also the severe dilemma of the integration of millions of refugees – predominantly Syrians, but also Afghans, Iranians and others. After years of government promises that Syrians in particular would return to their country after the conclusion of the war there, it has become clear to all sides in Turkey’s politics that very few will be going back. Millions of refugees will remain in Turkey for generations. The monist conception of identity described in this chapter offers no opportunity to create a sustainable solution for these new members of Turkish society. In addition to practical needs like housing, education and work programmes to encourage assimilation of these refugees, there is a need for Turkey’s political elites to construct a multi-ethnic, civic identity within which many different sub-identities can exist on an equal footing. Without such a framework, Turkey’s human rights future will again look more like its past. References Al, Serhun (2020), Patterns of Nationhood and Saving the State in Turkey: Ottomanism, Nationalism, and Multiculturalism. Abingdon: Routledge. Armenian Weekly (2016), ‘Paylan attacked in Parliament as AKP strips MPs of immunity’, 3 May.

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182 | nate schenkkan Bali, Rıfat N. (ed.) (2012), The Wealth Tax (Varlik Vergisi) Affair: Documents from the British National Archives, Istanbul: Libra. Blaser, Noah (2021), ‘“We fell off the face of the earth”: Opposition politicians are disappearing into Turkey’s massive new prison system’, Foreign Policy, 8 August. Cengiz, Orhan Kemal (2013), ‘Turkey’s secret “ancestry codes” track non-Muslim minorities’, Al-Monitor, 8 August. Constitution of the Republic of Turkey (2018). Corke, Susan, Andrew Finkel, David J. Kramer, Carla Anne Robbins and Nate Schenkkan (2014), ‘Democracy in Crisis: Corruption, Media & Power in Turkey’, Freedom House, January, https:// freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/SR_Corruption_Media_Power_Turkey_PDF. pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Ellis, Steven M. (2011), ‘OSCE report finds Turkey is holding 57 journalists in prison’, International Press Institute, 4 April. Friedman, Thomas L. (2015), ‘Democracy is in recession’, New York Times. 18 February. Freedom House (2020), ‘Freedom on the Net 2020: Turkey’, October. Hallam, Mark (2016), ‘Turkey discriminates against Alevi faith, ECHR rules’, Deutsche Welle, 26 April. Hrant Dink Foundation (2020), ‘Hate Speech and Discriminatory Discourse in Media: 2019 Report’, October. Human Rights Watch (2020), ‘Turkey: Kurdish mayors’ removal violates voters’ rights’, 7 February. Hürriyet Daily News (2015), ‘Erdoğan’s denial of “Dolmabahçe Agreement” sparks row’, 20 July. İHOP (Human Rights Joint Platform) (2018), ‘Olağanüstü Hal Tedbir ve Düzenlemeleri: Güncellenmiş Durum Raporu-Türkiye 21 Temmuz 2016–31 Aralık 2017’, January. ILGA-Europe (2021), ‘Annual Review 2021’, 16 February. International Crisis Group (2021), ‘Turkey’s PKK Conflict: A Visual Explainer’, 8 June. Lührmann, Anna and Staffan I. Lindberg (2019), ‘A Third Wave of Autocratization Is Here: What Is New about It?’ Democratization 26(7): 1095–1113. Minassian, Edvin (2019), ‘A Patriarchal election caught between the millet system and today’s realities’, Armenian Weekly, 19 December. New York Times (2018), ‘Turkish media group bought by pro-government conglomerate’, 21 March. Öğreten, Tunca (2020), ‘The Alevis’ fight for recognition’, DW, 26 January. OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights) (2017), ‘Report on the Human Rights Situation in South-East Turkey: July 2015 to December 2016’, February. Oran, Baskın (2021), Minorities and Minority Rights in Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Present State, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Özkan, Behlül (2012), From the Abode of Islam to the Turkish Vatan: The Making of a National Homeland in Turkey, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Philliou, Christine M. (2021), Turkey: A Past against History, Oakland: University of California Press.

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human rights in turkey | 183 Repucci, Sarah (2020), ‘Freedom in the World 2020: A Leaderless Struggle for Democracy’, Freedom House, January. Reuters (2020), ‘Special Report: How Turkey’s Courts Turned on Erdogan’s Foes’, 4 May. Ryan, James D. (2017), ‘The Republic of Others: Opponents of Kemalism in Turkey’s Single Party Era 1919–1950’, PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania. Tekdemir, Ömer (2021), Constituting the Political Economy of the Kurds: Social Embeddedness, Hegemony and Identity, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Üngör, Üğür Ümit (2011), The Making of Modern Turkey: Nation and State in Eastern Anatolia 1913–1950, Oxford: Oxford University Press. USCIRF (United States Commission on International Religious Freedom) (2021), ‘Turkey’, in Annual Report 2021, April. Zürcher, Erik J. (2004), Turkey: A Modern History, 3rd ed., London and New York: I. B. Tauris.

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14 Secularism and Islam in Turkey: A Century of Contention Ahmet T. Kuru (San Diego State University)

M

ustafa Kemal Atatürk and his cadre wanted to establish the new Turkish Republic as sharply different from the Ottoman Empire regarding its policies toward religion and ethnicity. The Kemalists wanted to create a secular Turkish republic, instead of the Empire, which had been multi-ethnic and had religious laws in its legal system. More specifically, the Kemalists tried to assimilate the Kurds within the Turkish nation and eliminate public roles of Islam in the secular public sphere. Their efforts and the reactions to them have constituted two main fault lines of Turkish politics for the last century. The Kurdish question is examined by several other chapters of this volume. The focus of this chapter is the ongoing debates about secularism and Islam in Turkey. Obviously, the debates between secularists and Islamists did not began with the Republic. They existed in the late Ottoman era, at least during and after the reign of Abdülhamid II (1876–1909) (Berkes [1964] 1998; Hanioğlu 2012; Karpat 2001; Mardin [1962] 2000). The Young Turks, who were the de facto rulers of the Empire after the 1908 revolution, included many secularists who thought that Islam was a barrier against socio-economic development. In 1913, Kılıçzade Hakkı Bey published the blueprint of a reform project in secularist Abdullah Cevdet’s journal, Ictihad. The blueprint was so radical that it could lead to prosecution; hence, the author presented it as a dream titled ‘A Very Vigilant Sleep’. It included the closure of madrasas and Sufi lodges, a ban on vows to the Muslim saints, the replacement of the traditional hat, the fez, with a new national hat, the prohibition of unmarried women’s veiling (especially during their education), a ban on wearing the turban and cloak for men other than certified ulema, the reformation of the Turkish language and alphabet, and the reconstruction of the legal system.1 The complete translation of Hakkı Bey’s article is in Hanioğlu (1997: 150–8).

 1

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secularism and islam in turkey | 185 A decade later, the Kemalist reforms began to make this secularist dream a reality. But it meant a nightmare for not only Islamists but also most Islamic conservatives. That is why the secularisation reforms were never fully embraced by about half of Turkish society. Even the Kemalists themselves admitted this fact and sought to maintain a military tutelage over Turkish politics during the periods of democratic elections. It was the discontents of Kemalism who brought Recep Tayyip Erdoğan into power twenty years ago. At that time, Erdoğan promised that he would be loyal to the constitutional principle of secularism and that he would not pursue Islamist policies. After 2012, however, he consolidated his authority, marginalised the Kemalists, and no longer needed to refer to secularism as a constitutional principle. Instead, Erdoğan has increasingly pursued a populist Islamist agenda. This chapter starts with the Kemalists’ assertive secularist reforms and their opponents from the 1920s to the 1990s. Then, it examines how Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) ruled Turkey during the last two decades. It particularly analyses the last decade when Erdoğan transformed state–Islam relations in Turkey by establishing a populist Islamist regime. The chapter concludes with some recommendations about how Turkey can solve its problems regarding the relationship between the secular state and Muslim society. Atatürk and Assertive Secularism Atatürk and his followers, or Kemalists, established the Republic as a reaction to the Ottoman ancien régime, which had depended on the alliance between the ulema (Islamic scholars) and the Ottoman monarchy. This reactionary history explains why the Kemalists chose French-type assertive secularism as their ideology. My 2009 book Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey explains the assertive type of secularism in contrast to the passive type. Passive secularism requires the state to play a passive role by tolerating both religious and secular symbols in the public sphere. It has been the dominant ideology in the United States. Assertive secularism, on the other hand, demands the state play an assertive role by excluding religious symbols. This ideology has been dominant in France, and it was dominant in Turkey until recently (Kuru 2009: 202–26; see also Kuru & Stepan 2012; Peker 2016; Peker 2020). In establishing a secular republic, the Kemalists’ primary source of inspiration was France. Even the Turkish term laiklik came from the French laïcité. Both French and Turkish assertive secularisms meant a reaction to a hegemonic religion and its clergy: Catholicism and its clergy in France, and Islam and the ulema in Turkey. But these two versions of assertive secularism also had some differences. In France, the idea of religion– state separation was taken relatively more seriously, whereas in Turkey state control over religion, through the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), was crucial.

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186 | ahmet t. kuru The assertive secularist ideology of the Kemalists was reflected in their reforms between 1924 and 1937. In 1924, they abolished the Caliphate and closed all madrasas. A year later, they banned all Sufi lodges (tekkeler and zaviyeler) as well as shutting down the saints’ tombs (türbeler). These reforms meant the elimination of Islam from education and associational life, except for a few imam-hatip (imam and preacher) schools under the Ministry of Education and the mosques controlled by the Diyanet under the Prime Minister’s Office. The Kemalists closed even the imam-hatip schools in 1930 and the Department of Theology at Darülfünun (Istanbul University) in 1933. From that time until 1949, they left no legally permitted education of Islam in Turkey, except for a few Quran courses in some villages. For the Kemalists, the Turkish public sphere should be not only secular, but also Western. In 1925, they made wearing the Western top hat obligatory for men. In the same year, they embraced the Western calendar. The Kemalists adopted the Swiss civil code in 1926 and the Latin alphabet two years later. In 1931, they replaced the Ottoman measurement system with the metric system. In 1932, the Kemalist reforms were even extended to Muslim worship. A new law banned the Arabic call to prayer (ezan), recited by Muslims worldwide five times a day. Also in the early 1930s, the Kemalists prohibited the usage of religious titles and the wearing of religious dress as part of their efforts to create an exclusively secular urban lifestyle. The culmination of secularisation reforms was the constitutional amendment that included secularism as a fundamental characteristic of the Turkish state in 1937.2 Although Atatürk died in 1938, his regime continued for over a decade through the party he founded – the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). In 1950, Turkey had its first free and fair parliamentary elections. The Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) won them; later, it also defeated the CHP in the two subsequent elections. During its decade-long rule, the DP did not reverse the Kemalist reforms, except for lifting the ban on the ezan. But that was not sufficient for the Kemalists, who perceived the DP as compromising too much on the ‘reactionary’ Muslim demands. Meanwhile the DP also pursued some authoritarian policies against the opposition. As a result, a group of Kemalist officers staged a coup in 1960. The CHP supported the coup. The junta closed the DP and had its right-wing leader, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, hanged. For the following half-century, Turkish politics became dominated by a cyclical relationship between Kemalist military officers and right-wing politicians. Five years after the coup, in 1965, a new right-wing politician, Süleyman Demirel, won the elections with a landslide. In 1971, the military removed him from office; but they did not execute him. In the late 1970s, Demirel was elected again as the prime minister. In 1980, however, another For a list of Kemalist reforms, see Turkey’s 1982 constitution, Article 174.

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secularism and islam in turkey | 187 military coup removed Demirel from office and banned him from politics. Nonetheless, another right-wing politician, Turgut Özal, won the elections in 1983. Besides their tensions with right-wing politicians, military generals had other excuses in these coups, especially their fight against communism (Kuru 2012). The 1980 coup was particularly anti-communist. Hence, the post-coup military rule – between 1980 and 1983 – crushed socialist groups, while making the instruction of Islam in schools obligatory. Özal undertook the premiership and then the presidency under these paradoxical conditions. Until his natural death in 1993, Özal had a tense relationship with the generals, but he did not face a direct coup. In 1996, the most unacceptable thing for the military happened – an Islamist, Necmettin Erbakan, was elected as the prime minister. The ‘soft coup’ came a year later: the generals effectively forced Erbakan to resign. They also indirectly got the young mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, imprisoned. That sentence meant that Erdoğan, who had been perceived to be Erbakan’s successor, was banned from political office. The generals thought that they successfully eliminated the two most powerful Islamist politicians. They could not be more wrong. In sum, secularism in Turkey had not only contested but also confusing characteristics in the twentieth century. On the one hand, secularisation of laws made women’s rights in Turkey better than those in countries with Islamic family law. On the other hand, secularism also meant the violation of rights of women wearing headscarves in Turkey. A similar paradox was visible in minority rights. A secular republic was supposed to maintain equal citizenship for Muslims and non-Muslims. Yet, Turkey, even under its most assertively secularist governments, never fully provided equal citizenship to its non-Muslim citizens; there were always exceptions, excuses and various degrees of discrimination. The early twenty-first century, however, experienced even more problematic religion–state relations in Turkey under Erdoğan’s rule. Erdoğan and Islamist Populism In November 2002, Erdoğan’s AKP won the elections by receiving the majority of the seats in parliament. Using the internal divisions within the Kemalists, the explicit support of Western countries, and his party’s parliamentary majority, Erdoğan managed to lift legal restrictions over his premiership. From 2003 to 2007, there existed a balance of power between Prime Minister Erdoğan, a former Islamist, and President Necdet Sezer, an assertive secularist. Sezer, the military generals and the high court judges were adamant that they would keep assertive secularist policies, such as the ban on headscarves, the restrictions over the imam-hatip schools, and the limitations to the seminars teaching how to recite the Quran. These policies were strictly imposed following the 1997 ‘soft coup’. Among them, the

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188 | ahmet t. kuru headscarf ban was particularly unpopular because about 60 per cent of Turkish women wore various types of headscarves. Moreover, it was so encompassing that it included schools, both private and public, and universities (Akbulut 2015; Göle 1996). It was even extended to other institutions such as military hospitals. The Kemalists adamantly preserved these policies to show that Erdoğan could be the prime minister, but he could not truly rule the country. Unintentionally, however, these authoritarian policies contributed to Erdoğan’s increasing popularity. In 2007, Sezer’s term ended, which meant the termination of the cohabitation between secularist president and pro-Islamist prime minister. The Kemalists tried all means, including a military ‘e-coup’ and a ‘judicial coup’, to prevent the AKP’s consolidation of power by holding both presidency and premiership. On 27 April, the process of electing the new president began in parliament. The AKP’s candidate Abdullah Gül, received 357 votes out of 361 from the parliamentarians present in the first round, when two thirds of the votes were necessary. He was expected to be easily elected in the next round, when a majority of the votes would be sufficient. Yet the CHP claimed that a quorum of two thirds (367 out of 550) of parliamentarians was required before the election could begin and this quorum rule was violated. On the same night, the military issued an ultimatum on its website warning about the dangers of Islamic reactionism and the importance of defending secularism. A few days later the Constitutional Court upheld the CHP’s application and cancelled the presidential election. In response, the AKP went to early elections, after which the quorum problem was solved and Abdullah Gül was elected as Turkey’s eleventh president. The Kemalists, however, did not give up. They tried another ‘judicial coup’. In 2008, they opened a closure case against the AKP by accusing it of being a centre for anti-secular Islamist activities. By just a single vote, the AKP was saved from being shut down and this coup attempt also failed. The AKP struck back by opening several court cases against military generals, judges and other Kemalists for being part of conspiracies against the government. The bestknown of these cases was the Ergenekon case. These cases helped Erdoğan weaken and eventually end the Kemalists’ bureaucratic domination. During these cases, Erdoğan’s most prominent partner was the community led by Fethullah Gülen. The Gülen community had thousands of followers in the military, judiciary and other bureaucratic institutions, as well as running dozens of universities, hundreds of schools, a large media network and numerous business associations. The Gülen community’s influence in the state structure, combined with its opaque and hierarchical internal management, contradicted basic principles of democracy and secularism. Nonetheless, the AKP perceived its partnership with the Gülenists as mutually beneficial, particularly against their common enemy – the Kemalists (Kuru 2017).

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secularism and islam in turkey | 189 In 2010, the AKP–Gülenist alliance further marginalised the Kemalists by imprisoning about 300 military officers, as well as succeeding in getting a set of constitutional amendments ratified by a referendum (Özbudun 2012). In the 2011 elections, the AKP consolidated its power. By 2013, there was no longer Kemalist domination in Turkey. The headscarf ban was lifted and restrictions over imam-hatip schools and Quran courses were removed. This was followed by a power struggle between Erdoğan and Gülen. In December 2013, a major corruption probe was launched against Erdoğan, his family members and several of his ministers, which was allegedly coordinated by Gülenist prosecutors. In response, Erdoğan declared the Gülen community a terrorist organisation and got thousands of Gülenists arrested, as well as seizing their properties (Kuru 2019a). On 15 July 2016, a failed coup attempt resulted in the death of 250 people. Erdoğan held Gülenists exclusively responsible for the attempt. He also defined the attempt as a ‘gift from God’ in order to expunge the Gülenists. Over 100,000 people affiliated with the Gülen community, including military and police officers, businesspeople, journalists, teachers, academics and housewives, were put in prison. Governmental decrees sacked over 150,000 public employees, over 16,000 of whom were military officers. Moreover, the Erdoğan regime confiscated more than $10 billion worth of Gülen-affiliated property, including numerous private companies.3 During this witch-hunt against the Gülenists, Erdoğan received the full support of both secularists, who regarded the Gülenists as an Islamist threat, and Islamic conservatives/Islamists, who saw the Gülenists as revolting against a caliph-style, good Muslim leader – Erdoğan. To satisfy his conservative/Islamist constituency, Erdoğan has recently pursued an increasingly religious agenda, such as turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque again. Beyond politics, Erdoğan has also pushed bureaucratic actors to embrace an Islamist discourse (see Oran 2017). This policy transformation has weakened certain liberties of religious minorities4 and women’s rights. In March 2021, the Erdoğan regime pulled Turkey out of the international accord designed to protect women against domestic violence (BBC News 2021). It did so to appeal to the patriarchal demands of Islamic conservatives. The irony is that this accord was signed ten years before in Istanbul. At that time, Erdoğan had a pro-democracy discourse and supported this agreement to protect women. He now has an Islamist discourse and abandoned the accord. During this recent Islamisation process, the Diyanet played a significant role.5 The Diyanet has been a government agency that pays the salaries of the imams and controls For the details of this seizure, see Ahval (2020). For the problems of non-Muslim minorities’ rights in Turkey, see Kılınç (2019).  5 For a legal and historical analysis of the Diyanet, see Gözaydın (2020).  3  4

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190 | ahmet t. kuru the contents of their sermons in over 80,000 mosques. The Kemalists established and maintained the Diyanet to keep Islam under control. Yet Erdoğan has taken it under his control – similar to other government agencies – and used it as a means for political propaganda. Moreover, the Diyanet’s president recently received a prestigious position in the Turkish state’s ceremonial protocol, comparable to the position of the chief of the General Staff. The Diyanet’s president now talks about any political issue he chooses, which never occurred in Turkish politics before to this degree (Öztürk 2016).6 Another dimension of Turkey’s recent socio-political Islamisation is the expansion of the public Islamic imam-hatip schools at the expense of other schools. As an imam-hatip graduate himself, Erdoğan has pointed to these schools as crucial for his project of creating a ‘pious generation’. The Erdoğan administration has increased the percentage of students attending secondary and high imam-hatip schools, which reached 14 per cent of all students in Turkey in 2017 (Gall 2018). The number of imam-hatip schools themselves also increased from 456 in 2008 to 5,138 in 2019 (Butler 2018; T24 2019). In a nutshell, Turkey has recently moved from assertive secularism to populist Islamism. Although Turkey still has a secular constitution and secular laws, its public sphere is dominated by a populist Islamist discourse. Does Secularism Have a Future in Turkey? For a century, secularism in Turkey has been formed and transformed through an action and reaction cycle. Kemalist assertive secularism emerged in reaction to the Ottoman ulema–state alliance. The Kemalists tried to turn Islam into exclusively an affair of ‘individual conscience’, by prohibiting its social and political roles. The reaction to the Kemalist reforms culminated in Erbakan’s Islamist government in 1996. In response, the Kemalists imposed new assertive secularist policies in the late 1990s. These policies, however, helped Erdoğan gain popularity among Muslim conservatives. Today, the Erdoğan regime is unintentionally creating its own demise – a secularist backlash. The followers of Erdoğan perceive him as comparable to Atatürk in terms of being a founding figure for the Turkish Republic, although they are deeply opposed to Atatürk’s secularist ideology and lifestyle. This is, however, a misleading comparison. Atatürk has a complex legacy: he left a political party, the CHP, and an ideology, Kemalism, based on Turkish nationalism and assertive secularism. Erdoğan, however, is not likely to have a long-term legacy, because he has turned the AKP into an instrument of one-man rule (rather than an institutionalised party) and used populist Islamism as a short-term discursive tool of popularity (instead of a consistent ideology). Thus, the post-Erdoğan Turkey The Diyanet has also served the Erdoğan regime’s efforts to influence Muslim-majority countries. For a recent analysis of the Diyanet’s such activities in the Balkans, see Öztürk (2021).

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secularism and islam in turkey | 191 may have a swift transition to secularism from Islamism. The question is then, what kind of secularism will Turkey embrace again? If Turkey moves from Islamism to assertive secularism, this will mean the continuation of a vicious cycle between Islamist and secularist types of authoritarianism. Both Islamism and assertive secularism are similarly state-centric and anti-liberal (Yılmaz 2021). That is why I have offered passive secularism as a middle ground between these two authoritarian and seemingly opposite alternatives (see Aksoy 2021). Assertive secularism is a comprehensive doctrine that competes with other ideologies and religions; it uses state power to marginalise its competitors. Passive secularism, however, does not claim to be a comprehensive doctrine itself; instead, it maintains the coexistence of multiple ideologies and religions in the public sphere. Many analysists are pessimistic about the possibility of passive secularism in Turkey and other Muslim-majority countries. They argue that if Islam is not controlled by an assertively secularist state, it will not allow any form of secularism. My recent book Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment refutes this argument by explaining that Muslims experienced a certain degree of religion–state separation between the eighth and mideleventh centuries. The alliance between the ulema and the state emerged during and after the mid-eleventh century due to certain economic, political and religious factors. Hence this alliance, which was deeply institutionalised by the Ottomans, was a historical construct, instead of being a characteristic of Islam. Historically and theologically, Islam is not inherently opposed to religion–state separation (Kuru 2019b; see also Kuru 2020). If this forthcoming secularist backlash establishes a true religion–state separation, it will be a major step forward for Turkey’s redemocratisation. Having experienced the extremes of secularism and Islamism, Turkey may finally find solutions to its problems by institutionalising religion–state separation and democratisation. The idea of the ‘Turkish model’ of democracy for the Muslim world was discussed throughout the twentieth century. If Turkey achieves the creation of a democratic system where the secular state and Muslim society have a harmonious relationship, then the ‘Turkish model’ can be discussed again in the twenty-first century. References Ahval (2020), ‘Can Dündar case is a new episode of Turkey’s tradition of violating property rights’, 20 September, https://ahvalnews.com/turkey-justice/can-dundar-case-new-episodeturkeys-tradition-violating-property-rights, accessed 26 January 2023. Akbulut, Zeynep (2015), ‘Veiling as Self-Disciplining: Muslim Women, Islamic Discourses, and the Headscarf Ban in Turkey’, Contemporary Islam 9(3): 433–53. Aksoy, Murat (2021), ‘Türkiye’nin ihtiyaci güçlü ama “pasif” laiklik’, Politikyol, 29 September, https://www.politikyol.com/turkiyenin-ihtiyaci-guclu-ama-pasif-laiklik/, accessed 26 January 2023.

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192 | ahmet t. kuru BBC News (2021), ‘Domestic violence: Turkey pulls out of Istanbul convention’, 20 March, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56467689, accessed 26 January 2023. Berkes, Niyazi ([1964] 1998), The Development of Secularism in Turkey, New York: Routledge. Butler, Daren (2018), ‘With more Islamic schooling, Erdoğan aims to reshape Turkey’, Reuters, 25 January, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/turkey-Erdoğan-education/, accessed 26 January 2023. Gall, Carlotta (2018), ‘Erdoğan’s plan to raise a “pious generation” divides parents in Turkey’, New York Times, 18 June, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/18/world/europe/Erdoğanturkey-election-religious-schools.html, accessed 26 January 2023. Göle, Nilüfer (1996), The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Gözaydın, İştar (2020), Diyanet: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Dinin Tanzimi, Istanbul: İletişim. Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü (1997), ‘Garbcılar: Their Attitudes toward Religion and Their Impact on the Official Ideology of the Turkish Republic’, Studia Islamica 86: 133–58. Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü (2012), ‘The Historical Roots of Kemalism’, in Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds), Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey, New York: Columbia University Press. Karpat, Kemal H. (2001), The Politicization of Islam: Reconstructing Identity, State, Faith, and Community in the Late Ottoman State, New York: Oxford University Press. Kılınç, Ramazan (2019), Alien Citizens: The State and Religious Minorities in Turkey and France, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2009), Secularism and State Policies toward Religion: The United States, France, and Turkey, New York: Cambridge University Press. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2012), ‘The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey: Fears of Islamism, Kurdism, and Communism’, Insight Turkey 14(2): 37–57. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2017), ‘Islam and Democracy in Turkey: Analyzing the Failure’, Montréal Review, December, http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Islam-And-Democracy-InTurkey.php, accessed 26 January 2023. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2019a), ‘How two Islamic groups fell from power to persecution: Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Turkey’s Gülenists’, The Conversation, 20 August, https://theconversation.com/how-two-islamic-groups-fell-from-power-to-persecution-egypts-muslimbrotherhood-and-turkeys-Gülenists-120800, accessed 26 January 2023. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2019b), Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison, New York: Cambridge University Press. Kuru, Ahmet T. (2020), ‘Islam, Catholicism, and Religion–State Separation: An Essential or Historical Difference?’ International Journal of Religion 1(1): 91–104. Kuru, Ahmet T. and Alfred Stepan (eds) (2012), Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey, New York: Columbia University Press. Mardin, Şerif ([1962] 2000), The Genesis of Young Ottoman Thought: A Study in the Modernization of Turkish Political Ideas, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

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secularism and islam in turkey | 193 Oran, Baskın (2017), ‘Şu anda en istirapli iş, vicdanli ve ahlakli Müslüman olmak’, T24, 22 December, https://t24.com.tr/yazarlar/baskin-oran/su-anda-en-istirapli-is-vicdanli-ve-ahlakli-musluman-olmak,18776, accessed 29 March 2023. Özbudun, Ergun (2012), ‘The Turkish Constitutional Court and Political Crisis’, in Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds), Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey, New York: Columbia University Press. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2016), ‘Turkey’s Diyanet under AKP Rule: From Protector to Imposer of State Ideology?’ Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4): 619–35. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2021), Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the TwentyFirst Century, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Peker, Efe (2016), ‘A Comparative-Historical Sociology of Secularisation: Republican State Building in France (1875–1905) and Turkey (1908–1938)’, PhD thesis, Simon Fraser University. Peker, Efe (2020), ‘Beyond Positivism: Building Turkish Laiklik in the Transition from the Empire to the Republic (1908–38)’, Social Science History 44(2): 301–27. T24 (2019), ‘Bir yilda 798 yeni imam hatip okulu açildi, dini eğitim alan öğrenci sayisi 1.3 milyona ulaşti’, 26 October, https://t24.com.tr/haber/bir-yilda-798-yeni-imam-hatip-okulu-acildidin-egitim-alan-ogrenci-sayisi-1-3-milyona-ulasti,845477, accessed 26 January 2023. Yılmaz, İhsan (2021), Creating the Desired Citizen: Ideology, State and Islam in Turkey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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15 The Presidency of Religious Affairs (the Diyanet) and the Organisation of the Secular State İştar Gözaydın (ELIAMEP) and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (London Metropolitan University)

M

odernity is one of those concepts on which there is not much consensus. It is a process in which the basic value in the economy turns from land to money, the leading economic activity from agriculture to trade, references turn from religion to the human mind, nationalist ideology rises, and political structures consist of nation-states. Modernity emerged in western Europe in the 1500s and influenced almost the whole world by the twentieth century. Since Enlightenment thought is the intellectual dimension of modernity, that is, the paradigm shifts to rationality and the human mind, an ambiguous position is always observed regarding the institution of religion, no matter what geography is looked at in this process. Modern political powers perceived religion as a rival and the solution was always to establish a kind of control mechanism as the common denominator. From this point of view, the United States of America can be considered the first direct application of the modern nation-state structure (modern republic). The founders of this political structure were weary of the religious wars in the lands they left behind; being aware of the drawbacks of preferring only one belief, they tried to embed the concept of secularism, roughly defined as the principle of keeping a distance from religious institutions and belief groups, into their legal and political systems. By contrast, France, one of the countries in continental Europe that was going through the process of transforming into a nation-state at the same time, introduced a similar understanding also to be called secularism, but this time a form of religious authority under the control of political power, into its legal and political systems. At this point, it is useful to keep in mind that each political formation has experiences produced by its own history and culture, that their anxieties and fears lead to different practices, and that there is no single truth. It was obvious that since the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, which is a project of modernity, a structure like Islam, in which religion and the state are intertwined, 194

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the organisation of the secular state  | 195 would be a great competitor for the Kemalist cadres, who tried to construct the ideology and consciousness of the nation and turn it into a doctrine. The Islamic understanding, which includes the acceptance that dominance in politics manifests itself in the caliph-sultan, contradicts the republican view, which argues that sovereignty belongs to the nation. The founding cadres, who wanted to get rid of this strong rival, made some attempts with a ‘reformist’ approach.1 Meanwhile, with Law No. 429 dated 3 March 1924, on the Abolition of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Foundations and the Ministry of General Staff, which also established the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı – hereinafter the Diyanet);2 the Law of Unification of Education, No. 430;3 Law No. 431 on the Abolition of the Caliphate and the Expulsion of Osman’s Dynasty outside the Turkish Republic;4 and the equivalent Law on the Abolition of the Religious Court and the Modified Judgement on the Religious Court Organisation dated 8 April 1924,5 the first important links of the legal and political structure of the Republic were formed.6 In addition to these regulations, the policy of removing religion into people’s consciences by claiming that it is a matter between the individual and God was implemented, and the law on the closure of lodges, zawiyas and tombs (30 November 1925)7 was enacted as one of the means of eradicating religion from the public sphere. What’s the Point of Using the Term ‘Laïcité’? It is clearly seen in the relevant legal and political literature of the period that the founding cadres of the Republic of Turkey used the term ‘laicism’ instead of ‘secularism’. When we look at the political structures in which laïcité is applied, it is seen that the minimum common denominator is closely related to the state’s regulation of the religious sphere. On the ‘reform project’ and its fate, which was prepared by the commission established in 1928 under the chairmanship of Fuat Köprülü at the Faculty of Theology within Istanbul University, see Albayrak (1990: 331–48); Dursun (1992: 186–7). On the religious reform declaration signed by the faculty teachers, see Aktay (1999: 182–7).  2 See Düstur, III, 5 (2nd ed., 1948), 320–1.  3 See Düstur, III, 5 (2nd ed., 1948), 322.7.  4 See Düstur, III, 5 (2nd ed., 1948), 323–4.  5 See Düstur, III, 5 (2nd ed., 1948), 403–4.  6 Stating the stages of establishing the legal structure required by adopting national sovereignty as a basic principle, Mustafa Kemal made the following statement regarding the Caliphate: ‘I accepted that after the abolition of the sultanate, the caliphate, which should have consisted of an office of the same nature as another title, was also abolished. I found it natural to pronounce it at the appropriate time and opportunity.’ See Atatürk (1934: 64).  7 Law No. 677 on the Exemption and Abolition of Setting of Lodges, Zaviyes and Tombs, and the Tomb Offices and Certain Titles. See Düstur III, 7 (2nd ed., 1944), 133; RG, 13 December 1925-243. In this respect, see Kara (1999: 268–91).  1

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196 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk As Talal Asad puts it, ‘The French word laicisme has its roots in the Jacobin experience – a stronger, more aggressive advocacy of secularism (including hostility to the presence of ‘religious symbols’ in state institutions) than its English counterpart’ (Asad 2003: 246). In addition to this attitude seen in modern political structures, the Republic of Turkey has grown in a geography where political power has dominated religious authority throughout history. The religion–state relations of the Ottoman political structure, which took over power from Byzantium, showed a continuity with its predecessor and extend to the Republic. The Shaykh al-Islam was appointed and dismissed by the caliph-sultan; matters related to religion were handled by the Shaykh al-Islam on behalf of the sultan.8 The fact that an authority has the power to dismiss as well as to appoint another authority is a clear indication of the nature of its power. The principle of secularism was included in the constitution for the first time in 1937. In the memorandum of the constitution committee working on the amendment, it is stated that this principle is one of those ‘that prevailed in the formation and establishment of the Turkish state, along with the shape of the Turkish state, and has developed so far in the field of practice’.9 Şükrü Kaya, minister of the interior, in the Assembly meetings on the process, which started with the proposal of the deputy for Malatya, İsmet İnönü, and his 153 friends, expressed his views on behalf of the government by saying: Friends, this country has suffered a lot from the influence of soothsayers and unaccountable people acting on consciences and in the affairs of the state and the nation affairs . . . If we are determinists in history, if we are pragmatic materialists in our actions, then we must make our own laws . . . We do not interfere in the slightest with the freedom of conscience of individuals and their adherence to the religions of their choice. Everyone’s conscience is free. The freedom we want, the purpose of laiklik is to ensure that religion does not influence the affairs of the country. This is the framework and the limits of laiklik in our country . . . We say that religions should remain in consciences and temples, and not interfere with material life and world affairs. We do not and will not interfere (‘Bravo!’, applause) Another mean legacy of the Turks is their adherence to a number of tarikats. We know that the only correct path and tarikat for the Turk is nationalism based on positive sciences. Following this path is the greatest strength for the material and spiritual life of the Turk (‘Bravo!’, applause).10

‘The final examination of the prepared fatwas by the sultan [shows that], instead of being the final word in the decisions taken, the Shaykh al-Islam’s fatwas are only a mechanism that confirms the validity of these decisions by the shari’a’ (Yakut 2005: 176). See also Akgündüz (2002: 165–83).  9 See TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, V, 16 (1937), issue S 89, 3. 10 See TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, V, 16 (1937), 60–1.  8

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the organisation of the secular state  | 197 The constitutional amendment was unanimously approved in parliament. Thus, the definition of ‘secular’ gained a constitutional basis with Law No. 3115 on the Amendment of Some Articles of the Constitution, adopted on 5 February 1937.11 Why Diyanet? In our opinion, first of all, the reason for the founders of the Republic of Turkey to include the Diyanet institution in the administration since 1924 should be sought in the system of rules and balances they put in the legal order so as to protect the political structure they were trying to create as a result of adopting the ideology that can be described as ‘secularism’ with their subsequent actions, even though it was not mentioned in the constitution from the beginning; paradoxically, the state uses the Directorate of Religious Affairs against religion and its possible influence in the socio-political sphere. The de facto understanding of secularism of the founders of the Republic was to use the institution as the spreader of the official Islam it produces, as well as to control unauthorised Islamic interpretations. However, unlike the policies to be seen in the coming years, the ultimate goal here is to cut off the religious institution’s interest in other social institutions and relations as much as possible, within the action plans for structural changes in society. In other words, in this context, a ‘state governed by non-religious rules’ was created with an understanding of secularism different from the classical meaning of the state’s impartiality towards religion. To empower the political regime, one more step was taken and an attempt was made to secularise society by ‘education’. In order to control the phenomenon of religion, which was seen as a threat to the secular state, an organisation within the administration was established; in other words, one of the public order and security providers in the period of the Republic of Turkey dating back to the 2000s is the armed forces and the other is the Diyanet. The issue to be examined here is the differences in the religious organisation of the Diyanet and the secular state throughout the history of the Republic. Considering that it is not possible to analyse religion–state relations like other structures of the Republican period in Turkey, without making comparisons with the Ottoman period and determining its points of continuity and change, starting from the preparatory conditions for the Republic, with a chronological approach but periodising the history with its political and social characteristics, we can focus on six different periods. The Pre-republican Situation Considering that there was both Sharia law and customary law in the Ottoman state structure (Barkan 1945: 203–4; Gerber 1994: 61–78; Hassan 2005: 159–242; Heyd See Düstur, III, 18 (1937), 307; R.G., 13.2.1937-3533.

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198 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk 1983; İnalcık 2005: 30–6; Ortaylı 1995: 154–7,12 Özbilgen 1985: 39–84; Zubaida 2003: 170–89), it can be argued that there was a separation between religion and the world even though there was certainly no secular structure in the Ottoman Empire, therefore, the roots of the developments in the reform process from the Tanzimat to the Republic, and the secular system that was finally established, are found in this dual structure of the Ottoman Empire. According to the view that argues that it is not possible for the structure in the Ottoman Empire to have a dual separation – on the contrary, religion and the world should be considered as a whole in the person of the caliph-sultan – the Ottoman Empire is a religious state and the entire state structure, starting with the sultan, is shaped according to religious rules. The fact that the caliph-sultan has both a religious and political identity, and the vizier and the Shaykh al-Islam are the sultan’s deputies in political and religious affairs, supports the thesis that there is no distinction between religion and worldly affairs, and therefore there is a management style shaped to comply with the holistic view of religion (Akgündüz 1990: 63–4; Akgündüz 1992; Başgil 2007: 193–5; Kara 2017: 63–4; Karaman 2007: 260–1 Özdenören 2006: 144–5). A third approach to the subject is that in the period from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic, there was always a structure based on the state’s control over religion (Zubaida 2000: 63). The Shaykh al-Islam was appointed and dismissed by the caliph-sultan, religious matters were handled by the Shaykh al-Islam on behalf of the sultan. The fact that the sultan did not allow religion to institutionalise as a separate power from the state, and that the power of the church in the West was not in the hands of the religious authority in the Ottoman order are the factors supporting this thesis. Examining religion–state relations at the institutional level and revealing the elements of continuity and change requires an examination of the institutional structure ranging from the Sheikh al-Islam to the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Foundations, and finally to the Diyanet. While the Shaykh al-Islam had legal, judicial, scientific, administrative and political duties as well as being responsible for religious affairs, established by the Ankara government on 4 May 1920, the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Foundations was a ministry-level institution, responsible only for religious affairs and foundations, but highly effective in terms of administrative hierarchy. İsmail Kara describes this institution as ‘an experience unique to Ankara and the new state, even though it seems like the projection of the Şeyhülislamism in Istanbul in Ankara at first glance’ (see Kara 2018: 57, 62). Ortaylı refrains from being an open party to the opinions grouped on this issue, and also discusses the issue on the axis that the Ottoman order cannot be described as secular; see Ortaylı (2007).

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the organisation of the secular state  | 199 The Single-party Period Law No. 429 dated 1924 on the Abolition of the Ministry of Religious Affairs and Foundations and Ministry of General Staff states that the Diyanet was established ‘for the administration of religion, the organisation and establishment of all the rules and regulations regarding the faith and practice of the religious believer of Islam’. In other words, the duties of the Diyanet, according to this law, are to carry out the affairs of the religion of Islam regarding belief and worship, and to administer mosques and other Islamic temples. The name of the institution was changed from Diyanet İşleri Reislığı to Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı with Additional Law No. 3665 on Making Some Amendments to Law No. 2800 on the Organisation and Duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs,which entered into force on 29 April 1950 (Article 1). One of the most important duties and functions of the Diyanet has been to enlighten society on religious issues. This duty has been fulfilled since the first special legal regulations of the Diyanet,13 on the one hand by answering questions directed to it, and on the other hand through publishing activities. This duty, which is carried out under Law No. 633 on the Establishment and Duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs dated 1965 and Law No. 6002 of 1 July 2010, which are still in effect, is essentially to produce the official religious understanding of the Republic of Turkey through the Diyanet institution.14 Adjectives such as ‘the most accurate’, ‘the most faithful’, ‘the authentic’, ‘the healthy’, which are frequently used by the authorities for the information produced by the Diyanet, reveal an essentialist approach in which legitimate and illegitimate religious approaches are distinguished. The declaration by Ali Bardakoğlu, in his 2010 compilation, that ‘the public dimension of the Diyanet is not about how to produce religious information or enlighten people on religious matters. Its public structure is related to the fact that the institutional structure and policies are provided for the religious services needed by the public order’ (Bardakoğlu 2010), which at first glance seems to contradict the above statements, in fact, underlines the Diyanet’s mission as a security tool. In terms of administrative law, the Ministry, which is technically the highest hierarchical authority of the central administration (state legal entity), is also a unit of the executive in the political sense. It was consistent with the policies that the first political decisionmaking cadres of the Republic, who were trying to establish a secular state, and moreover, Law No. 2800 on the Organisation and Duties of the Directorate of Religious Affairs and Regulation No. 7647 Specifying the Duties of the Organisation of the Directorate of Religious Affairs dated 11 November 1937. 14 According to a 2004 statement by Prof. Ali Bardakoğlu, one of the former presidents of the institution, ‘as a public institution, Diyanet has a special role in the production and transmission of religious knowledge . . . it produces sound religious knowledge’ (Bardakoğlu 2004: 367, 369). 13

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200 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk the social structure, did not prefer to assign religious affairs to a unit within the Council of Ministers. The aforementioned cadres have given religious affairs to the management of an organisation within the technical administration in the context of service related to worship; on the one hand, they have taken religion under their control by considering its place in social life, and on the other hand, they have ensured that its function has a worldly character by including it in the secular structure. Contrary to Christianity, the absence of a church in Islam is one of the most important reasons that legitimises the state’s fulfilment of what is necessary by accepting religion as a public service. In accordance with the principles of administrative law, in cases where there is an unsatisfied and long-term social need and there is a strong possibility that there will be unrest in society if this need is not met, the state may include the subject field among its duties as a public service. What is at stake here is the satisfaction of a collective need in religion, as in any other field of public service. In line with the policies of the New Republic, the Turkish Quran was read for the first time in the Yerebatan Mosque in Istanbul by Hafız Yaşar (Okur) on 22 January 1932, and on 18 July 1932, with the special letter numbered 636 sent from the Diyanet to the Mufti of Istanbul, it was reported that the adhan and iqama would begin to be read in Turkish after a short time.15 On 2 June 1941, with Law No. 4055 Amending Some Articles of the Turkish Penal Code, a penal sanction stating that ‘Those who recite the prayer call and iqamah in Arabic are sentenced to a light prison sentence of up to three months, and a light fine of 10 to 200 liras’, added to the second paragraph of Article 526 of the Turkish Penal Code, was introduced and a legal regulation was made.16 The perception of the multi-ethnic, multi-faith, multilingual and multicultural nature of empires, which are considered to be pre-modern political structures, as a weakness in the modern state conception gave birth to imagined communities, as Benedict Anderson (1991) called them.17 Nationalism, as the ideology on which the modern nation-state is built, was envisioned as the cement for the founders of the Republic of Turkey to build a secular and modern political structure: ‘Within the framework of this project, the function of nationalism was to create a secular reference of social identity to replace traditionalreligious references of loyalty’ (Mert 2007). However, as Soner Çağaptay determined in his analysis of Kemalist politics on the understanding of Turkishness, the acceptance

It has been claimed that Rıfat Efendi (Börekçi), the head of religious affairs at the time, stated that the Turkicization of the adhan was ‘more appropriate for national policy’. See Dumont (1986: 165). 16 See Düstur, III, 22 (1944), p. 1296; Official Gazette, 6.6.1941-4827. 17 In addition, in the nation-building process, if the necessary cohesion between different groups in society is not achieved, identity polarisation may emerge and the parties that have political power may engage in the engineering of society in their own imagination; see Şar (2019). 15

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the organisation of the secular state  | 201 of the Balkan and Caucasian Muslim peoples into the citizenship of the Republic of Turkey on the condition of speaking Turkish reveals the existence of the priority of Islam as a common denominator since the foundation of the Republic (see Cagaptay 2006). Moreover, the fact that Christian Gagauz were not given the right to immigrate to Turkey indicates that religion played an important role in defining Turkish national identity, even in the early Republican regime (see Grigoriadis 2013). On 24 July 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. While some positive rights were provided for non-Muslim minorities in Turkey, negative situations also arose: It was interpreted that the non-Muslim part consisted of only three large communities; Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox and Jewish.18 Therefore, the rights of Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Chaldean, Latin Catholic and other non-Muslim groups with Baha’i faiths were not considered subject to the Lausanne protection plan by Turkey.19 Moreover, even with regard to the three major communities, implementation has been inadequate, particularly in matters relating to property issues and religious/educational institutions. In this context, it should not be ignored that government policies and politics interact with perceptions and attitudes in society: ‘At the popular culture level, there is a strong tendency to view non-Muslim Turkish citizens not as equal citizens but as foreigners whose allegiance to the Turkish state is questionable’ (Özbudun 2012: 68). Detecting Turkish citizenship and Turkish nationality were the priorities of modern 1920s Turkey.20 The intense debates in parliament regarding the 88th article of the 1924 constitution, which defines Turkishness, contain many discriminatory expressions, some of which can be described as hate speech.21 Attempts to Turkify and marginalise the non-Muslim population were heated in the 1920s.22 In the 1930s, there were events in Thrace in which the Jewish population was harmed.23 As a result, the wealth tax, enacted in 1942 with the aim of rightly taxing profits from war speculation and black market transactions, was applied in a completely discriminatory manner only against citizens of the Jewish and Christian faith and those called apostates.24 When the Free Republican Party (Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası, SCF) was founded in 1930, although President Atatürk stated that he would remain neutral between the two For rights under the Treaty of Lausanne, see Yıldırım (2015: 167–73). Today, newer non-Muslim groups, such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Protestants, are also not recognised as non-Muslim minorities protected under the Treaty of Lausanne. 20 For the deficiencies in practice of the rights granted by the Treaty of Lausanne, see Aydın-Düzgit (2014: 319). 21 TBMM Zabıt Ceridesi, period II, vol. 8/1: 908–11. 22 For ‘Speak Turkish’ campaigns and other negative activities against the non-Muslim population in the 1920s and 1930s, see Çagaptay (2006). 23 On the 1934 Thrace Jewish incidents and Turkish nationalism, see Aktar (2021: 279–311). 24 On the wealth tax, see Bali (1999: 424–95). 18 19

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202 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk parties, the fact that he only kept the ‘secular Republic’ principle out of this neutrality shows that the principle of secularism, alongside and with republicanism, was determined by the founding elites of the new state order as one of its foundations. Mustafa Kemal’s policy on secularism was that religion was stripped of its public affairs and social duties and pushed into the conscience, and brought people into a state that did not overflow from their inner worlds. Thus, religion was intended to be reduced to an individual work of belief and worship, and freedom of religion and conscience protected only such practices. Religion would remain in the personal sphere and would invite the intervention of the state only to the extent that it concerned and objectified the social order. Mustafa Kemal’s words clearly reveal the political structure that was trying to be established: ‘We get our inspiration directly from life, not from heaven or the unseen’ (Atatürk 1945: vol. 1, 389). The aim in this period was to secularise not only the state or the ‘political’ but also society and the ‘social’; in other words, the Republic of Turkey, as a modernisation project, mobilised all kinds of legal and political tools to transform not only its state but also its society into a modern structure. In our opinion, the biggest difference between the Republic and Ottoman Westernisation lies at this point. The Transition to the Multi-party era From July 1945 to 22 May 1950, when the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) came to power, as in the experiences of the Progressive Party of 1924 and the SCF of 1930, with the multi-party regime that opened with the National Development Party, which was founded on 10 July 1945, most of the twenty-four political parties and organisations that were established, by stating a conservative line to be followed in terms of religion and traditions in their programmes, made an effort to make the voice of religious resistance heard in the political arena. With the beginning of the democratisation process in 1945, the effectiveness of religion increased day by day (Aktay 1999: 172). Even Atatürk’s party, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), had to renew its interpretation of religion and secularism and follow a softer policy.25 The first focus was on ‘religious education’, which was discussed in parliament on 24 December 1946.26 However, in the meantime, with an amendment to Article 163 of the Turkish Penal Code, making propaganda for the establishment of a state based on religion and forming an organisation was reregulated as a crime.27 Ali Yaşar Sarıbay, quoting Feroz Ahmad, evaluates this situation as Islam becoming a political issue with the transition to multi-party life following the alienation of the government and the party from the people, and the competition for votes. See Sarıbay (2000: 367). 26 For detailed information on this, see Gözaydın (2020: 32–4, 37–8, 13–9). 27 See Law No. 5434 of 10 June 1949 on the Amendment of Certain Articles of the Turkish Penal Code, Düstur, III, 30 (1949), p. 1431; Official Gazette, 16.6.1949-7234. 25

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the organisation of the secular state  | 203 Despite the fact that the DP governments acted more compromisingly on the social role and function of religion, it is seen that they basically tried to protect the Kemalist understanding of secularism. According to Şerif Mardin, the great resonance of the DP’s application to Islam, taking into account the ethos of the environment, becomes even more important in the light of the determinations made by Behice Boran, based on the village of Adiloba, which she examined in the early 1940s. Boran found that as the villages formed a more intense relationship with the towns, the villagers began to despise their own village life. The DP’s election campaigns came in just in time to instil a belief in many rural areas in change and transition that their way of life is no small thing; thus, the DP relegitimised Islam and traditional rural values. Beyond that, the DP’s closeness to Islam consisted of using religion as a symbolic and cultural accessory in the electoral platform (see Mardin 1975: 29). As a result of the pressure from the grassroots, with Law No. 5665 dated 16 June 1950,28 the Arabic adhan ban was lifted. Religion classes were made part of the programme, although still optional, with an amendment made in October 1950. Tarık Zafer Tunaya quotes some dailies following the survival of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes in a plane crash at London in 1960; he was said to have been saved ‘by the grace of divine salvation . . . ‘thanks to the glory of God’ (Hür Adam 1959: 1–4; Laç 1959: 5) It is claimed that such remarks were among the reasons that led the armed forces to take action on 27 May 1960 (Tunaya 1962). The Period 1960–80 The 1961 constitution regulated freedom of religion in detail; the right to worship, to education, to express religious ideas and to refrain from expressing religious belief was expressly recognised. The right to religious demonstration was recognised within the general rules of the constitution regarding freedom of assembly and demonstration. On the other hand, as a balancing act of the system, rules regarding exploitation of freedom of religion and abuse of religion were also included in the constitution. The Diyanet was also given the status of a constitutional institution within the General Administration. The regulation on the Diyanet, which was included as an ‘additional article’ in the Draft Bill, was accepted as Article 154 as a result of the discussions in the House of Representatives. Law No. 633 on the Establishment and Duties of the Diyanet was published in the Official Gazette dated 2 July 1965 and entered into force on 15 August 1965. 29, Its duties were determined as ‘to carry out works related to the beliefs, worship and moral Law on Amending Article 526 of the Turkish Penal Code. See Düstur, III, 31 (1950), p. 2116; Official Gazette, 17.6.1950-7535. 29 Düstur, V, 4 (1965), p. 2911; Official Gazette, 2.7.65-12038. 28

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204 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk principles of the religion of Islam, to enlighten the society about religion and to manage places of worship’. The expression used by the Constitutional Court in the decision of the annulment case filed with the allegation of the unconstitutionality of Law No. 633 is meaningful in that it expresses the understanding of the political and bureaucratic elite regarding the religious organisation of the secular state, which has been in effect since the first years of the Republic and still remains valid in this period: The Diyanet is not a religious organisation, but an administrative organisation within the general administration as determined in Article 154 of the Constitution . . . There is no doubt that the fact that the Diyanet [is] to be included in the Constitution and its members [are] to be considered as civil servants. . . is the result of necessity caused by many historical reasons, facts and country conditions and needs . . . It is based on reasons such as the execution of the state control of religion, the prevention of religious bigotry by educating talented people who will work in religious affairs, ensuring that religion is a spiritual discipline for the society, and thus the achievement of the main goal of the Turkish nation to reach the level of contemporary civilisation and exaltation . . . The state’s assistance in this area and the fact that the officials of the Diyanet are considered civil servants do not mean that the state carries out religious affairs, but it means to find a solution suitable for the needs made compulsory by the country’s conditions.30

On 31 March 1975, Süleyman Demirel formed a right-wing coalition with the National Salvation Party and the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Action Party, known as the ‘Nationalist Front’. Thus, ‘right-wing militants now saw themselves as part of the state as their leaders led the coalition, which gave them protection and allowed them to terrorize their political opponents. They attacked the Alevis . . . because they supported secular and ultranationalist Republicans’ (Ahmad 2003: 142). In 1978, there were more than a hundred dead and hundreds of injured in the seven-day attacks against the Alevis in Kahramanmaraş. Some 210 homes and 70 offices were destroyed (Özcan 2007; BIA 2015). The seeds of the claims and policies of ‘Neo-Ottomanism’ were planted at this time: the expression ‘With Allah’s will and the wishes of 800 million Muslims, the era of “being a master” opens up to us’, used by Ahmet Kabaklı, one of the founders of the association, in a newspaper column can be considered as one of the first steps on this path (Kabaklı 1923). This ideological infrastructure, which is in line with the green belt policy of the USA, which tries to balance the Soviet influence with supporting Islamisation, was carried into politics with the 1980 military regime. E. 1970/53, K. 1971/76; R. G. 15.6.1972

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the organisation of the secular state  | 205 The Period 1980–2002 The most important regulation brought by the 1982 constitution in religious matters, different from the 1961 constitution, is the inclusion of ‘religious culture and moral education’ in the compulsory courses taught in primary and secondary education institutions. This is included in the third paragraph of Article 24, titled ‘Freedom of Religion and Conscience’. While it was necessary to give information about all religions in the context of this arrangement, in practice the lessons generally focused only on the religion of Islam and even turned into applied religious education.31 In the 1982 Constitution, the Diyanet was included in the ‘Executive’ section, and unlike the 1961 Constitution, it was foreseen that it would fulfil the duties specified in its special law ‘in line with the principle of laïcité, staying out of all political views and thoughts and aiming at national solidarity and integration’. Thus, the Diyanet institution was constitutionally mandated to protect the Turkish national identity. With the 89th article of the Political Parties Law No. 2820 dated 22 April 1983, the place of the Diyanet in the system was preserved; the principle that political parties cannot pursue goals contrary to the provision of Article 136 of the constitution, that is, they cannot engage in activities aimed at their abolition, was introduced.32 Founded in 1970, Aydınlar Ocağı formed the ideological infrastructure of the TurkishIslamic synthesis that rose politically in the 1980s. Gökhan Çetinsaya, from a historical perspective, bases his claim that there is no fundamental contradiction between religion (Islam) and nationalism (Turkism) and that the emergence of the Turkish-Islamic synthesis is very understandable on three grounds: (1) Turkism and Islam were closely linked from the beginning in the development of Turkish nationalism and modernist Islam; (2) those who rejected Islam among the Turkists and nationalism among the Islamists were in the minority; (3) all of these groups were fed by the same intellectual sources, namely the works and ideas produced between 1950 and 1970. According to Çetinsaya, Islam and nationalism had been a couple since Ottoman times (Çetinsaya 1999). According to Rogers Brubaker, who examines the relationship between religion and nationalism in four approaches by examining ‘the ways of interpenetration and intertwining’, the case of Turkey is one of the unique nationalisms in which religion goes through the process of nationalisation (Brubaker 2012: 12–13). Following the transition to multi-party politics, Islam began to be seen not as the reason for the decline of the Ottoman state and the Turkish nation’s lagging behind the political, economic, military and intellectual developments of the West, but as a source of social solidarity and an important element of

For the issues in this regard, see Gözaydın (2009); Özçelik (2015); Yaman (2021). Düstur, V, 22/1 (1984), p.290; R.G., 24.4.1983-18027.

31 32

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206 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk Turkish national identity. The role assigned to the Diyanet with the 1982 Constitution is the legal/political reflection of these developments. The Diyanet’s services were limited to Turkey from its establishment in 1923; after the 1980s, activities for citizens of Turkish origin residing in Europe were also undertaken. The fact that some religious communities originating in Turkey, especially in Germany, have been operating for a long time, has led to the transfer of religious services to the relevant people through the structures established as an extension of the Diyanet in these countries. The motive here was to be able to convey the information accepted as correct by competing with the religious approaches deemed harmful by the Turkish state. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) Period When we look at the situation of Diyanet after 2002, that is, taken over by the AKP government, we encounter a quite different picture. The continuity between the preand post-AKP periods is the use of the Diyanet as the ideological apparatus of the state; but one difference is that the AKP grassroots gave consent to these policies by giving legitimacy. The new regulations brought into the Law on the Establishment and Duties of the Presidency of Religious Affairs with Law No. 6002 of 1 July 2010 became, in a sense, the enactment of the provisions regarding the organisation and duties regulated by a number of decree laws, decrees of the Council of Ministers and other administrative acts. In other words, with the new legal regulation on the Diyanet in 2010, there was no dramatic change in its structure on paper. It has been confirmed by Article 2 that the central organisation, the provincial organisation and the foreign organisation are the three pillars of the Diyanet. In Article 3, provision is made whereby The President of Religious Affairs, who is the highest supervisor of the Diyanet, represents the Presidency. The President takes the necessary measures for the effective and efficient delivery of religious services. For this purpose, he ensures effective use of resources, performs the duties of regulation, execution, coordination and supervision of services, determines and implements strategy, goals and performance criteria, cooperates with national and international institutions and organisations related to religious services. The President assigns tasks to the units according to the developments and needs in the matters falling within the scope of duty of the Diyanet.

On 24 June 2018, as a result of the early presidential and parliamentary general elections held together, as stated in the new Constitution, the regime called the ‘presidential government system’ was passed. On 2 July 2018, Decree Law No. 703 on the Amendment of Certain Laws and Decrees in Order to Adapt to the Amendments Made in the Constitution was made. Pursuant to Article 141 of this decree law, first of all, the phrase

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the organisation of the secular state  | 207 ‘Prime Ministry’ in the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Law on the Establishment and Duties of the Diyanet was changed to ‘Presidency’; in other words, the institution was affiliated to the presidency. With the affiliation to the presidency, there was a complete change in the procedure for the appointment of the president of the Diyanet, and pursuant to Article 8 of Law No. 6771 dated 16 April 2017 made in the Constitution, among the duties laid down in Article 104, the president ‘appoints and dismisses senior public officials and regulates the procedures and principles regarding their appointment with a presidential decree’. The president of religious affairs became one of the public administrators appointed and dismissed by the president of the Republic. Together with the AKP and Ahmet Davutoğlu, the Diyanet’s activities in the international arena began to go beyond the geographies where people of Turkish origin live.33 The statement on the website of the Turkish Diyanet Foundation, ‘We are running to the aid of the oppressed and victims wherever they are in the world, especially in countries such as Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Arakan, Palestine, Yemen and Somalia, and we try to relieve their pain with the humanitarian aid works we carry out’, is a result of this understanding.34 On 6 April 2010, an administrative structure was established under the name of Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) regarding citizens residing outside Turkey and groups called ‘sister communities’. This administration has undertaken the task of coordinating the studies for international scholarship students studying in Turkey, and developing the services and activities in these fields. Within this framework, the Diyanet gives about 1,000 scholarships every year. Although the Diyanet’s activities, especially in the Balkans, cause a critical approach for some of its interlocutors in these geographies, it is observed that the religious representatives here prefer cooperation with Turkey (Öztürk & Gözaydın 2018). In the budget of the Diyanet, which expanded its services especially after 2010 in the fields of providing guidance services to citizens in penitentiary institutions and detention houses, juvenile detention centres, nursing homes, health institutions and similar places, enlightening and guiding religious issues for families, women, youth and other segments of the society, it is seen that large shares are allocated to the items of ‘broadcasting activities to prevent moral corruption’, ‘taking an active role in solving social problems’, ‘creating an objective perception of Islam in the world and spreading this understanding’, ‘delivering religious services to all segments of society and increasing its effectiveness’, ‘overseas activities’ and ‘religious education activities’. In this period, it is observed that the Diyanet has undertaken the mission of enlightening and guiding families and women on religious issues more intensely than in previous For Davutoğlu and foreign policy, see Gözaydın (2013). https://tdv.org/tr-TR/faaliyetlerimiz/

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208 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk periods. The services that were previously carried out mainly through the women’s branches established within the Diyanet Foundation were undertaken by female officials who were employed in the institution. The number of female employees within the Diyanet, which was 2,696 in 2004, reached 18,593 in 2014. These employees, most of whom are in the preaching staff, have also started to take their place in the administrative decision-making staff of the institution (see Maritato 2020). In Place of a Conclusion Every religious understanding other than the Sunni-referenced acceptances preferred by the state since the Ottoman period, and different interpretations of Islam, especially Alevism, despite the equality and freedom regulations in the constitutions and related legal regulations throughout the entire history of the Republic, are excluded from the Diyanet and thus the political power/administrative structure, de facto and politically, if not legally, and are not accepted by the Turkish state as a belief system. In this regard, the most important subject of dispute is related to the legal status of cem houses. Cem houses have been the subject of definitions such as ‘culture house’, ‘a richness that has an original, cultural and mystical identity and mission and should be protected’, and it has been discussed whether they are an alternative or equivalent to mosques (see Güntekin & Işık 2005: 10–11). However, with its decisions on this issue, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled that the right to freedom of religion, as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, does not include a margin of appreciation for the state regarding the legitimacy of religious beliefs or the legitimacy of the means of expression of those beliefs. In other words, following three decisions directly related to the issue, pursuant to Manoussakis et al. v. Greece (26 September 1996),35 Hasan & Chaush v. Bulgaria (26 October 2000)36 and Bessarabia Metropolitan Church et al. v. Moldova (13 December 2001),37 no state is capable of arguing against the definitions of faith of those concerned. Indeed, on 26 April 2016, the ECtHR ruled that Articles 9 and 14 of the Convention were violated with the decision numbered 6269/10 of İzzettin Doğan et al. Thus, it has been confirmed by the international jurisdiction that their demands for allocating a share from the general budget every year are acceptable for providing services as a public service related to the fulfilment of the Alevi Islamic faith, which the plaintiffs allege against the Republic of Turkey; for giving cem houses, which are places of worship for Alevis, the status of places of worship; for opening schools to train faith leaders in order No. 59/1995/565/651 Application no. 30985/96 37 Application no. 45701/99 35 36

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the organisation of the secular state  | 209 to transfer the Islamic beliefs of Alevi citizens to future generations; and for performing other religious services.38 Despite all the existing problems, the Diyanet is a structure that seems suitable for real politics within the framework of the republican conditions. No matter where they may lie on the political spectrum, it seems unlikely that a political actor who comes to power can give up a powerful organisation like Diyanet. For this reason, in our opinion, it should be preserved as a public institution, but it should be reorganised in a way to ensure the representation of other faith circles that see themselves outside the prevailing belief understanding and want to be represented in the administration. In the restructuring of the institution, it is necessary to approach the issue within the framework of a rightsbased understanding and to take the opinions of different belief groups. In addition, legal obstacles to the establishment of parallel institutions by belief groups that do not want to be represented within the Diyanet should be removed. To emphasise once again, the problem is that a structure that claims to provide religious services continues to exist as a monopoly. When a public service institution loses monopoly status, the receivers of the service can obtain the services they need from different structures in the market in line with their own preferences. When the subject of the service is religion, it is the law enforcement forces of the state in the context of politics that must deal with the problems that may threaten the possible order. However, it should not be overlooked that the power that will mark the rule of law in this process should be an independent judiciary. References Ahmad, Feroz (2003), Turkey: The Quest for Identity, Oxford: Oneworld. Akgündüz, Ahmet (1990), Osmanlı Kanunnameleri ve Hukuki Tahlilleri, I. Kitap: Osmanlı Hukukuna Giriş ve Fatih Devri Kanunnameleri, Istanbul: Fey Vakfı Yay. Akgündüz, Ahmet (1992), ‘Osmanlı Hukukunda Şer’i Hukuk-Örfi Hukuk İkilemi ve Yasama Organının Yetkileri’, İslâmi Araştırmalar 12(2): 117–22. Akgündüz, Murat (2002), Osmanlı Devleti’nde Şeyhülislâmlık, Istanbul: Beyan. Aktar, Ayhan (2021), Varlık Vergisi ve ‘Türkleştirme Politikaları, Istanbul: Aras. Aktay, Yasin (1999), Türk Dininin Sosyolojik İmkanı, Istanbul: İletişim. Albayrak, Sadık (1990), Türkiye’de İslâmcılık–Batıcılık Mücadelesi, Istanbul: Risale. Alevi Düşünce Ocağı (2020), İnanç Özgürlükleri Eşit Haklar: Uygulamada AİHM Kararları İzleme Raporu 1, Istanbul: Zinde Yayıncılık. Anderson, Benedict (1991), Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed., London: Verso. On this decision and the decisions regarding Alevism given by the ECtHR (Hasan & Eylem Zengin v. Turkey, Mansur Yalçın et al. v. Turkey, Republican Education and Culture Foundation v. Turkey), see Alevi Düşünce Ocağı (2020).

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210 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk Asad, Talal (2003), Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1934), Nutuk, Istanbul: Devlet Matbaası. Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1945), Söylev ve Demeçler (TBMM ve CHP Kurultayı’nda): 1919–1938, Istanbul: Türk İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü Yayınları. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem (2014), ‘Human Rights in Turkey’, in Carmen Rodríguez, Antonio Ávalos, Hakan Yılmaz and Ana I. Planet (eds), Turkey’s Democratization Process, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Bali, Rıfat N. (1999), Cumhuriyet Yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri: Bir Türkleştirme Serüveni (1923–1945), Istanbul: İletişim. Bardakoğlu, Ali (2004), ‘“Moderate Perception of Islam” and the Turkish Model of the Diyanet: The President’s Statement’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 24(2): 367–74. Bardakoğlu, Ali (2010), 21. Yüzyıl Türkiye’sinde Din ve Diyanet I, Ankara: Diyanet İleri Başkanlığı Yayınları. Barkan, Ömer Lütfü (1945), ‘Osmanlı İmparatorluğu Teşkilat ve Müeseselerinin Şer’iliği Meselesi’, İstanbul Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Mecmuası 11(3–4): 203–24. Başgil, Ali Fuat (2007), Din ve Laiklik, 9th ed., Istanbul: Kubbealtı. BIA (2015), ‘37 years after Maraş massacre’, Bianet, 18 December, https://bianet.org/english/ politics/170324-37-years-after-maras-massacre, accessed 27 January 2023. Brubaker, Rogers (2012), ‘Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches’, Nations and Nationalism 18(1): 2–20. Çagaptay, Soner (2006), Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who Is a Turk?, London and New York: Routledge. Çetinsaya, Gökhan (1999), ‘Rethinking Nationalism and Islam: Some Preliminary Notes on the Roots of “Turkish–Islamic Synthesis” in Modern Turkish Political Thought’, Muslim World, 89(3–4): 350–75. Dumont, Paul (1986), ‘Türkiye’de İslâm Yenilik Öğesi mi?’, Türkiye Sorunları, September, pp. 163–76. Dursun, Davut (1992), Din Bürokrasisi: Yapısı, Konumu ve Gelişimi, Istanbul: İşaret. Gerber, Haim (1994), State, Society and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective, Albany: State University of New York Press. Gözaydın, İştar (2009), ‘Türkiye’de Din Kültürü ve Ahlak Bilgisi Ders Kitaplarına İnsan Hakları Merceğiyle Bir Bakış’, in Gürel Tüzün (ed.), Ders Kitaplarında İnsan Hakları II: Tarama Sonuçları, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları. Gözaydın, İştar (2013), ‘Ahmet Davutoğlu: Role as an Islamic Scholar Shaping Turkey’s Foreign Policy’, in Nassef Manabilang Adiong (ed.), Islam and International Relations: Diverse Perspectives, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Gözaydın, İştar (2020), Diyanet: Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Dinin Tanzimi, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Grigoriadis, Ioannis N. (2013), Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A ‘Sacred Synthesis’, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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the organisation of the secular state  | 211 Güntekin, Ahmet Kerim and Yüksel Işık (2005), ‘Diyanet İşleri Başkanı Ali Bardakoğlu ile Söyleşi’, Kırkbudak 3: 10–11. Hassan, Ümit (2005), Osmanlı: Örgüt-İnanç-Davranış’tan Hukuk-İdeoloji’ye, 5th ed., Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Heyd, Uriel (1983), ‘Eski Osmanlı Ceza Hukukunda Kanun ve Şeriat’, Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 26: 633–85. Hür Adam (1959), ‘O’ Hazreti Muhammed’in Emaneti’, Hür Adam, 24 February. İnalcık, Halil (2005), Osmanlı’da Devlet, Hukuk, Adalet, 2nd ed., Istanbul: Eren. Kabaklı, Ahmet (1923), ‘Değerlerimizin İdrakine Doğru’, Tercüman, 23 April. Kara, İsmail (2017), Cumhuriyet Türkiye’sinde Bir Mesesle Olarak İslâm 1, 8th ed., Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları. Kara, Mustafa (1999), Din Hayat Sanat Açısından Tekkeler ve Zaviyeler, 4th ed., Istanbul: Dergâh Yayınları. Karaman, Hayrettin (2007), İslâm Hukuk Tarihi, 5th ed., Istanbul: İz Yayıncılık. Laç, Abdurrahman Şeref (1959), ‘İlahi Hikmet Yönünden Kaza’, Büyük Doğu, March, pp. 1–6. Mardin, Şerif (1975), ‘Center–Periphery Relations: A Key To Turkish Politics?’ in Engin D. Akarlı and Gabriel Ben-Dor (eds), Political Participation in Turkey, Istanbul: Boğaziçi University, pp. 7–32. Maritato, Chiara (2020), Women, Religion and the State in Contemparary Turkey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mert, Nuray (2007), Merkez Sağın Kısa Tarihi, Istanbul: Selis Kitaplar. Ortaylı, İlber (1995), İmparatorluğun En Uzun Yüzyılı, 3rd ed., Istanbul: Hil Yayın. Ortaylı, İlber (2007), ‘Osmanlı Devletinde Laiklik Hareketleri Üzerine’, in Ersin Kalaycıoğlu and Ali Yaşar Sarıbay (eds), Türkiye’de Politik Değişim ve Modernleşme içinde, Bursa: AlfaAktüel, pp. 157–170. Özbilgen, Erol (1985), Osmanlı Hukuku’nun Yapısı, Istanbul. Özbudun, Ergun (2012), ‘Turkey – Plural Society and Monolithic State’, in Ahmet T. Kuru and Alfred Stepan (eds), Democracy, Islam, and Secularism in Turkey, New York: Columbia University Press. Özcan, Emine (2007), ‘Remembering the Maras massacre in 1978’, Bianet, 26 December, https:// bianet.org/english/english/103813-remembering-the-maras-massacre-in-1978, accessed 27 January 2023. Özçelik, Sevgi (ed.) (2015), Türkiye’de Zorunlu Din Dersleri: Yurttaşın Devletle Karşılaştığı Yer, Istanbul: Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği. Özdenören, Rasim (2006), Kafa Karıştıran Kelimeler, 7th ed., Istanbul: İz Yayıncılık. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi and İştar Gözaydın (2018), ‘A Frame for Turkey’s Foreign Policy via the Diyanet in the Balkans’, Journal of Muslims in Europe 7(3): 331–50. Şar, Edgar (2019), ‘Laiklik and Nation-Building: How State-Religion-Society Relations Changed in Turkey under the Justice and Development Party’, in Rasim Özgür Dönmez and Ali Yaman (eds), Nation-Building and Turkish Modernization: Islam, Islamism, and Nationalisam in Turkey, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 111–45.

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212 | Iştar gözaydın and ahmet erdi öztürk Sarıbay, Ali Yaşar (2000), ‘Demokrasi ve İslâm İlişkisinde Türkiye Tecrübesi: Çok Partili Hayata Geçiş’, in İslâm ve Demokrasi, Istanbul: Ensar Neşriyat. Tunaya, Tarık Zafer (1962), İslâmcılık Cereyanı: Meşrutiyet’in Siyasi Hayatı Boyunca Gelişmesi ve Bugüne Bıraktığı Meseleler, Istanbul: Baha Matbaası. Yakut, Esra (2005), Şeyhülislâmlık: Yenileşme Döneminde Devlet ve Din, Istanbul: Kitap Yayınevi. Yaman, Ali (2021), ‘Education about Alevism in Turkish Public Schools’, in Ednan Aslan and Marcia Hermansen (eds) Religious Diversity at School: Educating for New Pluralistic Contexts, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, pp. 417–38. Yıldırım, Mine (2015), The Collective Dimension of Freedom of Religion or Belief in International Law: The Application of Findings to the Case of Turkey, Åbo, Finland: Åbo Akademi University Press. Zubaida, Sami (2000), ‘Trajectories of Political Islam: Egypt, Iran and Turkey’, in David Marquand and Ronald L. Nettler (eds), Religion and Democracy, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 60–78. Zubaida, Sami (2003), İslâm Dünyasında Hukuk ve İktidar, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları.

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Part IV Turkey’s Conflicts and Protracted Political Fault Lines

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16 Non-Muslims in Turkey as the ‘Founding Other’ Elçin Aktoprak

T

he term ‘minority’ in Turkey is the one that many people know more about the meaning of than about being a Turk. Although it is sometimes confusing to define the term ‘Turk’ due to assimilation policies towards Muslim ethnic groups, the only clear boundary has been set by religious differences that stigmatise non-Muslims as the only group that cannot be ‘a Turk’ in any case. Even though Kurds and other Muslim ethnic groups are accepted as minorities on an unofficial level on the social ground as they resist assimilation over time, the non-Muslim citizens of Turkey have never lost their status as the ‘founding others’ of Turkish nationalism for more than 100 years at every official and unofficial level. They are still the only minorities officially recognised by the state according to the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne. In this chapter, I argue that this status of the ‘founding other’ is the main reason for the continuous violation of rights and discriminatory and exclusionary policies towards them since 1923, despite changing governments and political regimes in the Republic of Turkey.1 I choose to refer to non-Muslims in Turkey as the ‘founding other’ for two reasons. The first reason is that non-Muslims were the first ‘other’ in the construction of Turkishness as a national identity during the transition period from the Ottoman state to Turkey. This ‘otherness’ intensified with the establishment of the Republic as a nation-state and in the Lausanne Treaty it was clear that the newly established secular nation-state recognised non-Muslims only as official minorities, as a remnant of the millet system in the Ottoman state. The second reason is closely related to the non-Muslim perception of nationalist movements in Turkey. The tension between the modernist-enlightened segment and This argument was first published in Aktoprak (2010).

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216 | elçin aktoprak the traditional-Islamic segment has been known in Turkish political history since the nineteenth century (Yörük 2008: 46). It is also possible to understand the development of the two main nationalist movements in Turkey through this simplified tension. The first, which we might call Kemalist nationalism, is an enlightened, secular nationalism developed by the founding elite of the Republic and endowed with the mission of civilising the people from the top down. The second, which we might call conservative-religious nationalism, defined Turkish identity by making tradition and Islam the core of identity. Although we cannot degrade and/or simplify the various Turkish nationalists into these two segments, we also cannot overlook the fact that almost all of them were nurtured by these two. But the crucial point for this chapter is that non-Muslims are the common ‘other’ for each of these movements. Although the dose of Islam in defining national identity is different in each, Turkish nationalism claims unity like any other nationalism, and Islam lays the ground for unity for each segment of it. Being Muslim is the key element to being or being able to be Turkish, while being non-Muslim is a natural obstacle (Yeğen 2002: 210). It is the reason that while Kurds, Laz and other Muslims have been subjected to assimilation, non-Muslims have always been subjected to exclusion and discrimination in the history of the Republic. In sum, the concept of the ‘founding other’ for non-Muslims in Turkey is based on being the first and common ‘other’ of Turkish nationalism; and the continuity of discrimination against them despite different governments and/or regimes in Turkey gains ground on this basis. I will emphasise my argument by drawing a path that highlights important milestones from the late Ottoman period to the present. From the Millet System to Official Recognition Religion was the primary criterion for describing identities in the Ottoman state until the nineteenth century, and social life was organised according to Islamic law within the millet system from the mid-fifteenth century onwards, based on two religious identifications: Muslims and non-Muslims. The term millet (plural milletler) in this period was far from its current meaning and was used to designate a specific religious community, as is still valid in Islamic terminology. The non-Muslims were divided into three main milletler in this system: Greek Orthodox Christians (Rums), Armenian Orthodox Christians and Jews. Although this classification of milletler increased in the nineteenth century, the acceptance of these three groups as minorities and ignoring other non-Muslims is a social and political legacy in the Republic. The millet system offered non-Muslims extensive autonomy in the areas of faith, worship and education, which in retrospect could be described as a kind of cultural autonomy (see Nimni 2018). Each millet had a religious leader, called a millet başı, who came to this role for life. He was responsible for managing religious affairs, property and educational

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non-muslims in turkey | 217 matters, and resolving private law issues of his community. He was also able to collect taxes from his community to cover the necessary expenses for all these matters and had the power to judge and punish in religious matters. One of his most important duties was to act as a bridge between his community and the Ottoman administration. In summary, the millet başı was the sole authority of his community and responsible for its all actions; and the sultan was the head of all milletler (Bozkurt 1993; Soykan 2000; Yumul 2005). Thus, the essential difference between cultural autonomy and the millet system is that the millet system was not based on any legal principles, but on the will of the sultan. The first wave of nationalism emerged among the non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman state in the nineteenth century. The state’s first prescription against rising nationalism was Ottomanism, which legally ended the millet system and designated all subjects as Ottomans. It was a late and insufficient attempt and Pan-Islamism followed as the second recipe to save the Empire by clearly excluding non-Muslims from the unity of Islamic brotherhood. Turkish nationalism, as one of the last nationalisms of the Empire, developed in this environment with a defensive reflex and has retained this ‘defensiveness’ as an embedded characteristic until today. The representative of Turkish nationalism was the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, İTC), and their hope to keep at least Anatolia under their control was in line with the need for a homeland as one of the basic dynamics of nation-building. It should be underlined that their nationalist movement was also in the service of ‘the interests of the state (which they served as soldiers and bureaucrats) and the Muslim majority’ (Zurcher 2010: 69). The result was the Turkification of Anatolia and the first target was the ‘enemy within’: non-Muslim subjects of the Ottoman state. The stigmatisation of non-Muslim subjects as the ‘enemy within’ in Turkish nationalism had its roots in the nineteenth century and continues today. Alongside and parallel to their rising nationalism, these communities gained wealth and status, especially after the second half of the nineteenth century, in line with the internationalisation of the Ottoman economy. Modern trade and industrial sectors were in their hands (Karpat 1996: 84–6; Zurcher 2010: 69). The widening economic gap between Muslim and non-Muslim subjects became more of a problem under the political conditions of the First World War and the nationalist demands of non-Muslim communities, including Armenians. Under these conditions, two instruments were taken up for the Turkification of Anatolia. The first was the nationalisation of the economy by excluding non-Muslims from economic life with various laws that supported Turkish entrepreneurs against foreign companies in order to create a native Turkish bourgeoisie (Ahmad 1995: 65–7; Karpat 1996: 87; Zurcher 2010: 220). The second instrument of Turkification was the Armenian genocide in 1915. It was one of the first milestones in the Turkification of Anatolia through the elimination of non-Muslims. Many were killed and many more were forced to migrate.

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218 | elçin aktoprak The use of violence against the common people was a means and a threat that the Republic adopted, not always as an official means by law, but through indirect support, as could be seen in the 1934 Thrace events, 6/7 September Pogrom and the Hrant Dink murder. Moreover, emigration, whether compulsory or voluntary, became a significant tool for the elimination of non-Muslims from Turkey (İçduygu et al. 2008: 359) and has always played an important role in the construction of Turkish national identity since 1915. During the War of Independence after the First World War, most of the subjects of the Ottoman state were peasants and had no identity other than Islam. Under these conditions, the cadres of the War of Independence set the goals of saving the SultanateCaliphate, resisting occupation by Christian states, and preventing the establishment of an Armenian and Greek state in Anatolia to gain their support. The modernists’ discourse of secularisation shifted under these circumstances and Muslims called for war against ‘infidels’, by which was meant non-Muslims in Islamic terminology (Bora 1999: 116; Yıldız 2001: 128). Even after this mobilisation was successfully completed with the establishment of the Republic of Turkey as a secular nation-state, the cement of the mobilisation, Islam, could not be immediately abandoned and retained its crucial role in defining the nation. The nationalist movements of non-Muslims in the Ottoman period, and especially the experience of the Treaty of Sèvres, had become a point of reference for Turkish nationalists, making it difficult for them to accept non-Muslims as equal and ‘acceptable’ citizens of the newly established state (İçduygu & Kaygusuz 2004: 37). The territorial, national and political boundaries of Turkey were established in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne before the Republic was founded three months later (İçduygu & Kaygusuz 2004: 29). This was also the first document that established the legal status of non-Muslims as minorities in Chapter 3: Protection of Minorities, Articles 37–45. Thus, with an international act, it was revealed that the mentality of the millet system would persist in the newly established nation-state. What changed was the construction of this status with an international legal document in the national legal framework in light of international standards for minority rights and protection instead of Islamic law and the will of the Sultan. These rights were granted to all non-Muslim citizens of Turkey: not only Rums, Armenians and Jews, but also Assyrians, Chaldeans and other groups. In practice, however, because of the memory of the millet system, it is mostly the first three groups that have benefited from these rights, and moreover, they have been and continue to be subject to violations of these rights.2 Apart from the Lausanne law, there are no other laws in Turkey that directly address minorities. However, the treaty was transposed into national law by Law No. 340 in 1923, and furthermore, due to Article 90/5 of the constitution of 1982, ‘international For a more detailed analysis of the Treaty of Lausanne on minority rights, see Oran (2020: 79–95).

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non-muslims in turkey | 219 conventions duly enacted have the force of law’ and according to a constitutional amendment in 2004, ‘in case of conflict between international conventions duly enacted concerning fundamental rights and freedoms and the laws due to differences in provisions on the same matter, the provisions of the international conventions shall prevail’. Therefore, we should deal with the violations of minority rights and human rights in Turkey within this legal framework. The Founding Years of the Republic The 1920s and 1930s were a classic example of the Kemalists’ nation-building and modernisation project (Zurcher 2010: 136). Against all the crises of legitimacy, as occurred with the Sheikh Said Rebellion or the Free Republican Party, Turkish nationalism with all its instruments (Bora 1999: 21–2) was at work against minorities. After the War of Independence, there were new borders and a huge demographic change. The population of about 13 million was now 98 per cent Muslim, up from 80 per cent before the war (Zurcher 2010: 140). While Muslims, including Kurds and others, were subjected to assimilation, the dwindling non-Muslims, almost all of whom lived in the cities, were again the first group to be excluded. The stigmatisation of non-Muslims as traitorous was still effective and the persistent anger in the population towards non-Muslims facilitated the republican elites in their policies towards them. The press was also instrumental in creating dangerous and undesirable ‘others’ with its campaigns against non-Muslims and incitement to violence towards them (Tansuğ 2021: 656). In this framework, the one-party regime did not pursue different policies towards nonMuslim minorities than the previous İTC regime, except for ethnic cleansing through official use of force. In order to homogenise Anatolia, two policies were again at the forefront: the nationalisation of the economy through the exclusion of non-Muslims and emigration. The economy was nationalised by excluding non-Muslims from the chambers of commerce and making it a condition to be Turkish in various fields of business, from traders to chemists or from entrepreneurs to bureaucrats (Aktar 1996: 11; Aktar 2004: 115; Çağaptay 2003: 603). Therefore, Lausanne Clause 39/3 was violated from the beginning and religious difference emerged as the main reason for discrimination. The other two milestones in this period were the Population Exchange Agreement of 1923 and Law No. 1151 of 1927 regarding the islands of Imroz (Gökçeada) and Tenedos (Bozcada). After the 1923 exchange, there were no more Rums in Turkey except in Istanbul, Imroz and Tenedos. Although Lausanne Article 14 gives territorial autonomy to Imroz and Tenedos, neither this autonomy nor the minority rights at Lausanne were implemented and through the laws enacted since 1927, like No. 1151 lifting autonomy, the local Greek population of the two islands was also forced to migrate (Akbulut 2019; Oran 2020: 133).

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220 | elçin aktoprak The 1930s were crucial years in which the government employed intensive mechanisms of control and surveillance in the construction of Turkish national identity. In accordance with this, history began to be rewritten (Ersanlı 2003: 26, 52–3). While the Kurds and/or Alevis were not mentioned in the new history books of the time, in line with the assimilation policy, the new generations were warned about non-Muslims as ‘enemies within’ (Copeaux 2000: 32). Alongside history, the concept of homeland was also constructed in the 1930s. The argument that Anatolia had always been a Turkish homeland played a crucial role in labelling the autochthonous non-Muslim population of Anatolia as ‘guests’. The use of violence by ordinary people against non-Muslims, without being stopped by security forces, happened in the 1934 Thrace events in this atmosphere, just before the Second World War. It was the first anti-Semitic attack in the Republic (Levi 1998). After the events, a large proportion of the Jews in the region of Thrace left and migrated to Istanbul, and this migration turned abroad after the introduction of the 1942 wealth tax. The 1942 wealth tax was another milestone for non-Muslims in Turkey, affecting mostly Jews but others as well. Once again, the economic well-being of non-Muslims made them a target and the Turkish press inflamed public opinion against them. In his speech in parliament, Prime Minister Saraçoğlu described the wealth tax as a revolutionary law that would put the Turkish market in the hands of Turks, and on the day the collection of the law was finished, he clearly said that the law was applied to those who benefited from the hospitality of this country (Aktar 2004: 148, 61). The non-Muslim citizens were again ‘guests’ and ‘foreigners’ who had to pay their burden to the ‘hospitable’ state. From the 1950s to the 1980s Since the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) was the only opposition that rose against the one-party regime of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) in the late 1940s, it was initially supported by non-Muslim communities during Turkey’s transition to a multi-party system. However, the prosperity created by the economic expansions of the DP began to decline in a few years, and when unemployment increased in the cities, non-Muslims living mainly in large cities such as Istanbul and Izmir were once again targeted (Kuyucu 2005: 371–2). The DP also found the solution to the economic crises by resorting to nationalism and non-Muslims, who were the ‘other’ of Kemalist nation-building, found themselves this time as the ‘other’ of rising conservative-religious nationalism. The crises in domestic and foreign policies in the 1950s and 1960s intensified discrimination against them, and the Rums in particular were victims of faltering relations with Greece over the Cyprus issue. The Turkish– Islamic synthesis also began to develop in those years under the Cold War conditions as a kind of antidote to the emerging left. Unlike in the 1930s, the discussion was not about

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non-muslims in turkey | 221 the contribution of Turkish culture to Islam, but about Islam playing a special role in identifying Turkishness. While the continuity of Turkishness was linked to Islam, the Ottoman past was blessed. In this context, the non-Muslims were always ‘prominent others’ who were unreliable and had a great potential to be agents of foreigners (Aktar 2004: 43; Copeaux 2000: 55–6; Taşkın 2007: 58). The government’s images of the enemy developed during those years and official discourse also often defamed leftists and other potential opposing identities as Rum or Armenian (Bora 2002: 913). The 6–7 September pogrom took place in the wake of the rise of religious-conservative nationalism in the 1950s. An evening newspaper, Istanbul Express, published the news on the evening of 6 September 1955 that Atatürk’s house in Thessaloniki had been bombed. A large group of people led by the newly formed Turkish Cypriots Association gathered in Taksim Square, in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, and began looting the homes and businesses of Greeks and other non-Muslims. The events were not limited to Beyoğlu, but also took place in other parts of Istanbul and in Izmir. In the discussions in parliament after the events, it became clear that for almost all deputies, non-Muslims were secondary citizens temporarily staying in Turkey as ‘guests’. After the pogrom, almost 5,000 people emigrated to Greece (Dosdoğru 1993;Güven 2006: 170; Koçoğlu 2003: 69–70; Zorbay 2019). The major motivation for expelling non-Muslims in the 1960s was Turkey’s unilateral withdrawal from the 1930 Agreement in September 1964 to put pressure on Greece over the Cyprus issue. The 1930 Agreement allowed Turkish and Greek citizens to reside, own property, work and engage in economic activities in each other’s country (Oran 2020: 122–3). After the termination, Rums in Istanbul with Greek citizenship were deported with only 200 lira and 20 kilograms of luggage. These people were also forbidden to keep hold of their properties and their incomes were blocked by a secret decree of November 1964. The remaining population of Greeks in 1965 was 48,000 and a significant number of them migrated to Greece over time (Karimova & Deverell 2001: 143; Koçoğlu 2003: 128–9). It should also be mentioned that in 1964 morning prayers were banned in Greek schools and the Fener Patriarchate printing press and the orphanage in Büyükada were closed. In the same year, the property of the Greek schools in Imroz and Tenedos was confiscated and the lands of the locals were expropriated for the construction of a military airport, a state farm and a semi-open prison. As a result of the Muslim population brought to the islands from the Black Sea region, the autonomous local government, which was never implemented, also lost all its importance as the Greek population of these two islands gradually decreased (Özözen Kahraman 2005: 36–7). While the total population of Rums in both islands was 8,200 in 1934 (Alexandris 1992: 143), this number had fallen to around 200 people in 2000 due to these discriminatory policies and violations (Akbulut 2019: 238).

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222 | elçin aktoprak All these policies of the various governments towards non-Muslims, but especially towards Rums, have been legitimised by the principle of reciprocity from the first years of the Republic until the most recent government. By ‘reciprocity’ the governments mean that if Greece puts pressure on the Turks of western Thrace, Turkey has the right to put pressure on Rums in Turkey. However, Article 45 of the Treaty of Lausanne, on which this argument is based, brings ‘parallel obligation’, not ‘reciprocity’. According to the ‘parallel obligation’, rights that would be granted to the non-Muslim minorities in Turkey should also be granted to the Muslim minorities of Greece. One should also add that reciprocity is already prohibited in the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and there can be no negative understanding of it in relation to human rights (Oran 2020: 94, 102). But this mentality of reciprocity has kept its meaning for all governments in Turkey since the establishment of the Republic and has been a prominent indicator of common non-Muslim perception for all regimes. The closure of the Heybeliada seminary in 1971 was one of the last outrages against non-Muslims in Turkey in this era and is still legitimised by the principle of ‘reciprocity’ in 2023. From the 1980s to the Present After the 1960 military coup and the 1971 memorandum, the army went to work again on 12 September 1980 with the mission of ‘protecting and defending’ the country. This ‘protect and defend’ included economic integration into neoliberalism and political reconstruction of ‘loyal’ and ‘depoliticised’ citizens. The Turkish–Islamic synthesis, a movement nurtured by the conditions of the Cold War and supported by the state in the background, came to power with the military coup of 1980. The Kemalist dynamic of the nation was still present, underlining the legitimacy of the Republic; but educational and cultural institutions became spaces where a nationalism articulated with Islam was taught and expressed (Copeaux 2002: 47). As a result, the mentality that allowed people to say ‘They are Christians, we are Turks’ became more deeply ingrained during this period.3 The description of non-Muslims as ‘native foreigners’ was officially made in 1988 in the Protection against Sabotage decree and they are openly defined as ‘people who could carry out sabotage’ (Tansuğ, 2021: 643). The condition, which is still valid in 2023, that the deputy headmaster in minority schools must be a Turkish citizen of Turkish descent should also be interpreted in this context.

In a case in which some suspects were on trial after the murder of three people of Protestant faith at the Zirve Publishing House in Malatya, one of the suspects, Kürşat K., referred to the murder victims as the ‘other party’. When the intervening lawyers asked what the term meant, he said, ‘They are Christians, we are Turks. That’s what I meant when I said the other party’ (Oya & Pelit 2008).

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non-muslims in turkey | 223 The attitude of ‘Turk versus Christian’ gained prominence during the EU candidacy process. The argument that Christian Europe excludes Muslim Turkey began to be exploited in parallel with the Western powers’ goal of dividing Turkey. The disparate support of various Western countries, organisations and/or civil society for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) and accusations of genocide against Armenians embittered anti-Western sentiment among both modernist-secular and conservative-religious nationalists, who expanded their common ground in the 1980s with the Turkish–Islamic synthesis. Moreover, given the importance both ascribed to the nation-state, the neoliberal transformation and its implications for identity politics aroused unease among the electorate, especially among Kemalists. In this atmosphere of fear, the external enemy is usually highlighted as the EU and sometimes the US, while non-Muslims, Kurds and other minorities who raise their demands and arguments in the context of developments in Europe and/or in the context of EU regulation are also stigmatised as ‘internal enemies’, tools of the external ones. Non-Muslims are once again coded as an internal extension of the occupying powers with references to the First World War and Sèvres Treaty and marginalised as scapegoats for instability and poverty. In the 2000s, Freemasonry, Sabbateans and missionaries were more than ever on the agenda of Turkish nationalists, and non-Muslims in Turkey had starring roles in these conspiracy theories (Toprak & Çarkoğlu 2006: 80). On the other hand, we should also emphasise that the legal steps taken by the AKP government in the framework of the EU harmonisation process during its first years in power have indirectly contributed to the development of rights for all minorities in Turkey. Outstanding in this context are the enabling of publication and learning in different languages and dialects, the amendment of the Law on Foundations, and the enabling of non-Muslim foundations to acquire property through the decision of the Council of Ministers (Oran 2020: 172–5). These legal steps during the first period of AKP rule brought non-Muslim support for the AKP in the 2007 elections.4 However, the coming years showed that these legal steps were far from changing the political and social mentality towards minorities, neither in public opinion nor among AKP cadres. Under the rule of the AKP, where conservative religious nationalism became the official ideology, the historical perception of non-Muslims as ‘others’ became entrenched in the increasing emphasis on Ottoman history. The ‘guest’ concept and the According to Agos, an Armenian newspaper published in Istanbul, about 60 per cent of the 70,000 Armenians in Turkey supported the AKP in this election and the Armenian patriarch of the time, Mesrob Mutafyan, also stated that the AKP was preferred over the CHP because it had a less nationalistic attitude towards minorities. The editor of the Apoyevmatini newspaper, Michail Vasiliadis, also stated that the Greek community, with a population of 2,000, also supported the AKP in the 2007 elections (Rabasa & Larrabee 2008: 67; Schleifer 2007; Turkish Daily News 2007).

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224 | elçin aktoprak ‘principle of reciprocity’ towards non-Muslim citizens were preserved, and this could be traced in various speeches of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.5 The perception of non-Muslims as a threat to national security also remained. While their rights given by the Lausanne Treaty are still violated, discriminatory practices and hate speech against them also remain valid in political and social life. The Heybeliada seminary is still closed. The AKP government stated that there was no legal obstacle to reopening it, but it also set the condition of opening a mosque in Athens in order to do so (Haberler 2013; Hürriyet 2003). Although the first mosque in Athens was opened in 2020, no steps have been taken to reopen the seminary. The establishment of temporary solutions to issues regarding non-Muslim foundations in accordance with ECtHR rulings is still preferred by the government.6 The establishment of new foundations by non-Muslim communities is not possible in 2023 and it should also be noted that the only legal entities in which the state has interfered in board elections since 1940 are nonMuslim foundations. The obstacles that Protestant congregations experience in opening houses of worship and attacks on existing houses of worship are still leading current issues. The killings of the priest Andrea Santoro in October 2006 and Hrant Dink in January 2007, as well as the massacre of missionaries at the Zirve Publishing House, took place under AKP rule. Moreover, there are still many verbal and physical acts of violence against non-Muslims against which no necessary action has been taken. The killing of Hrant Dink is unfortunately the most obvious example that shows the contradictions between the facts and the rhetoric of the AKP. On the one hand, there are promises to investigate, on the other hand, state officials who are implicated with the assassination are protected and/or promoted (see Çetin 2013). Conclusion As can be traced in this chapter, no matter which political party and/or regime has come to power in Turkey since 1923, non-Muslims have appeared as an ‘other’ beyond the political divide. The distinction between ‘citizen’ and ‘nation’ has applied primarily to non-Muslims in this political history. He reminded the Jewish community that ‘we are the grandchildren of the Ottoman Empire, who took them in when their grandfathers were expelled’ (Radikal, 8 January 2009) and he did not refrain from threatening to deport Armenians with Armenian citizenship working in Turkey, emphasising Turkey’s hospitality (Radikal 2010).  6 The problem is based on the Foundation Act, which came into force in 1936. In 1972, the VGM (Vakıflar Genel Müdürlüğü, General Directorate of Foundations) demanded from non-Muslim foundations their foundation statutes and since these foundations, established by an edict of the sultan, did not have them, the 1936 declarations were counted as foundation statutes and properties acquired thereafter were confiscated. However, the legal steps taken in accordance with the EU harmonisation policy in 2004 to overcome this problem by allowing them to acquire property did not go further (Oran 2021: 158–61).  5

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non-muslims in turkey | 225 Religious nationalism has been nurtured in Turkey since the nineteenth century, but came to power as an official ideology under AKP rule. The status of non-Muslims as a ‘founding other’ did not change during this period either, but became more entrenched with the increased emphasis on Ottoman history and the Islamic past. The stigmatisation of non-Muslims as ‘foreigners’, ‘guests’ and/or ‘potential traitors’ was preserved. NonMuslim citizens continued to be seen as trump or colour, depending on the course of relations between Turkey and the West. Although a policy of tolerance towards non-Muslims was on the agenda under AKP rule, it was a rhetoric based not on the legal framework but on their ‘good relations’ with the regime, as was the case under the millet system. The restoration of churches and synagogues is repeatedly highlighted as an indicator of this tolerance by the AKP. Although this is a positive step, it will be incomplete and insufficient without facing the question of why these restored churches and synagogues have no congregation. The principle of reciprocity was also never abandoned despite the national and international legal framework. The main weakness of this point is that it does not put the political struggle of non-Muslim communities in relation to their rights and problems on legal ground, but makes it a condition to establish good relations with the regime. This unofficial condition also resonates with the judge/prisoner dilemma and makes non-Muslims a target in any crisis related to the West. Whenever a government is in a legitimacy crisis, nationalism is there as a remedy for it, and the first ‘other’ of emerging nationalism in new conditions is always the ‘founding other’ of Turkish nationalism: non-Muslims. Within this framework, the hate speech against them never stopped, and continued under AKP rule. The ‘Western powers are playing tricks on Turkey’ rhetoric, which has been on the rise since the Gezi protests in 2013 and especially after the coup attempt in July 2016, forms the current backdrop of discrimination and hate crimes against nonMuslims in Turkey. The opening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque in July 2020 is an obvious and final symbol of the unchanged position of non-Muslims as a ‘founding other’ for Turkish nationalism and official discourse after a hundred years. It showed all Turkish nationalists and non-Muslim citizens who is the superior and who is the inferior. But beyond that, the act by the head of religious affairs of climbing into the pulpit with a sword (DuvarEnglish, 2020) reminded non-Muslims what could happen if ‘good relations’ with the ‘superior’ are not maintained. References Ahmad, Feroz (1995), Modern Türkiye’nin Oluşumu, Istanbul: Sarmal Yayınevi. Akbulut, Olgun (2019), ‘Legal Background of Autonomy Arrangements in Turkey from Historical Perspectives’, in Olgun Akbulut and Elçin Aktoprak (eds), Minority Self-Government in Europe and the Middle East: From Theory to Practice, Leiden: Brill Nijhoff, pp. 228–45. Aktar, Ayhan (1996), ‘Cumhuriyetin ilk yıllarında uygulanan “Türkleştirme” politikaları’, Tarih ve Toplum 156: 4–18.

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226 | elçin aktoprak Aktar, Ayhan (2004), Varlık Vergisi ve Türkleştirme Politikaları, Istanbul: İletişim. Aktoprak, Elçin (2010), ‘Bir “Kurucu Öteki” Olarak: Türkiye’de Gayrimüslimler’, İnsan Hakları Merkezi Çalışma Metinleri 16, https://www.academia.edu/354188/Bir_Kurucu_%C3%96teki_ Olarak_T%C3%BCrkiye_de_Gayrim%C3%BCslimler, accessed 28 January 2023. Alexandris, Alexis (1992), The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek–Turkish Relations 1918– 1974, 2nd ed., Athens: Center for Asia Minor Studies. Armutçu, Oya and Mikail Pelit (2008), ‘İnanç için öldürdü ama ibadete zayıf’, Hürriyet, 15 January, https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/inanc-icin-oldurdu-ama-ibadete-zayif-8027652, accessed 28 January 2023. Bora, Tanıl (1999), Türk Sağının Üç Hali, Istanbul: Birikim Yayınları. Bora, Tanıl (2002), ‘“Ekalliyet Yılanları . . .”: Türk Milliyetçiliği ve Azınlıklar’, in Tanıl Bora (ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce, Cilt 4: Milliyetçilik, Istanbul: İletişim, pp. 911–18. Bozkurt, Gülnihal (1993), ‘Türk Hukuk Tarihinde Azınlıklar’, Ankara Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Dergisi 43(1–4): 49–59. Çağaptay, Soner (2003), ‘Citizenship Policies in Interwar Turkey’, Nations & Nationalism 9(4): 601–19. Çetin, Fethiye (2013), Utanç Duyuyorum! Hrant Dink Cinayetinin Yargısı, Istanbul: Metis. Copeaux, Etienne (2000), Tarih Ders Kitaplarında (1931–1993) Türk Tarih Tezinden Türkİslam Sentezine, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları. Copeaux, Etienne (2002), ‘Türk Milliyetçiliği: Sözükler Tarihler, İşaretler’, in Tanıl Bora (ed.), Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce, Cilt 4: Milliyetçilik, Istanbul: İletişim, pp. 44–52. Dosdoğru, M. Hulusi (1993), 6/7 Eylül Olayları, Istanbul: Bağlam Yayınları. DuvarEnglish (2020), ‘Turkey’s top religious authority head delivers Friday sermon at Hagia Sophia with a sword in hand’, 24 July, https://www.duvarenglish.com/politics/2020/07/24/ turkeys-top-religious-authority-head-delivers-friday-sermon-at-hagia-sophia-with-a-swordin-hand, accessed 28 January 2023. Ersanlı, Büşra (2003), İktidar ve Tarih, Türkiye’de ‘Resmî Tarih’ Tezinin Oluşumu (1929–1937), Istanbul: İletişim. Güven, Dilek (2006), Cumhuriyet Dönemi Azınlık Politikaları ve Stratejileri Bağlamında 6/7 Eylül Olayları, Istanbul: İletişim. Haberler (2013), ‘Külünk: Atina’da camii açilmadan ruhban okulu açilmayacak’, 1 December, https://www.haberler.com/ak-parti-li-kulunk-atina-da-fethiye-camii-5374821-haberi/, accessed 28 January 2023. Hürriyet (2003), ‘Ruhban Okulu’na karşı Atina’da cami açın’, 7 September, https://www.hurriyet. com.tr/gundem/ruhban-okuluna-karsi-atinada-cami-acin-169866. accessed 28 January 2023. İçduygu, Ahmet and Özlem Kaygusuz (2004), ‘The Politics of Citizenship by Drawing Borders: Foreign Policy and the Construction of National Citizenship Identity in Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(6): 26–50. İçduygu, Ahmet, Şule Toktaş and B. Ali Soner (2008), ‘The Politics of Population in a NationBuilding Process: Emigration of Non-Muslims from Turkey’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(2): 358–89.

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non-muslims in turkey | 227 Karimova, Nigar and Edward Deverell (2001), Minorities in Turkey, Stockholm: Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Karpat, Kemal H. (1996), Türk Demokrasi Tarihi, Sosyal, Ekonomik ve Kültürel Temeller, Istanbul: Afa Yayınları. Koçoğlu, Yahya (2003), Hatırlıyorum: Türkiye’de Gayrimüslim Hayatlar, Istanbul: Metis. Kuyucu, Ali Tuna (2005), ‘Ethno-religious “Unmixing” of “Turkey”: 6–7 September Riots as a Case in Turkish Nationalism’, Nations & Nationalism 11(3): 361–80. Levi, Avner (1998). Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Yahudiler, Istanbul: İletişim. Nimni, Ephraim (2018), ‘Liberal Nation States and Antinomies of Minority Representation. The impact on the Republic of Turkey’, in Ephraim Nimni and Elçin Aktoprak (eds), Democratic Representation in Plurinational States: The Kurds in Turkey, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 11–39. Oran, Baskın (2021), Minorities and Minority Rights in Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Present State, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Özözen Kahraman, Selver (2005), ‘Geçmişten Günümüze Gökçeada’da Yerleşmelerin Dağılışında Etkili Olan Faktörler’, Coğrafya Dergisi 14: 25–42. Rabasa, Angel and F. Stephen Larrabee (2008), The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, Pittsburgh: Rand. Radikal (2010), ‘Erdoğan: 100 bin Ermeniyi sınır dışı edebiliz’, 16 March, http://www.radikal. com.tr/politika/erdogan-100-bin-ermeniyi-sinir-disi-edebiliriz-986044, accessed June 2021. Schleifer, Yigal (2007), ‘Turkey: religious minorities watch closely as election day approaches’, Eurasianet, 19 July, https://eurasianet.org/turkey-religious-minorities-watch-closely-as-electionday-approaches, accessed 28 January 2023. Soykan, T. Tankut (2000), Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Gayrimüslimler: Klasik Dönem Osmanlı Hukukunda Gayrimüslimlerin Hukuki Statüsü, Istanbul: Ütopya Kitabevi. Tansuğ, Feryal (2021), ‘“Native Foreigners” of Turkey: The Non-Muslim Minority as An Instantiation of Homo Sacer’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 23(4): 643–66. Taşkın, Yüksel (2007), Anti-Komünizmden Küreselleşme Karşıtlığına Milliyetçi Muhafazakâr Entelijansiya, Istanbul: İletişim. Toprak, Binnaz and Ali Çarkoğlu (2006), Değişen Türkiye’de Din, Toplum ve Siyaset, Istanbul: TESEV Yayınları. Turkish Daily News (2007), ‘Veteran diplomat, Armenian patriarch lend support to AKP’, 5 June, http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=75000, accessed June 2021. Yeğen, Mesut (2002), ‘Yurttaşlık ve Türklük’, Toplum ve Bilim 93: 200–17. Yıldız, Ahmet (2001), ‘Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyebilene’ Türk Ulusal Kimliğinin Etno-Seküler Sınırları (1919–1938), Istanbul: İletişim. Yörük, Zafer F. (2008), ‘Türk Siyasetinin Yapısal Analizi’nin Siyasal Analizi: “Tarihsel Blok”, “Merkez-Çevre” ve Bastırılmışın Geri Dönüşü’, Mesele 24: 45–51. Yumul, Arus (2005), ‘Azınlık Mı, Vatandaş Mı? Türkiye’de Çoğunluk ve Azınlık Politikaları’, in Ayhan Kaya, Turgut Tarhanlı (eds), AB Sürecinde Yurttaşlık Tartışmaları, Istanbul: TESEV Yayınları: 103–4.

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228 | elçin aktoprak Zorbay, Taner (2019), ‘6/7 Eylül Olaylarına TBMM ve Kamuoyu Tartışmaları Çerçevesinde Yeni Bir Bakış”, Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi 35(99): 253–96. Zürcher, Eric (2010), The Young Turk Legacy and the National Awakening: From the Ottoman Empire to Atatürk’s Turkey, London and New York: I. B. Tauris.

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17 Alevis in Turkey: Past, Present and Future Nukhet A. Sandal (Ohio University)

Introduction

A

levis constitute the second largest denomination after the Sunni community in Turkey. The name ‘Alevi’ roughly means ‘pertaining to Ali’ or ‘follower of Ali’ in Turkish, referring to the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, and linking the Alevi tradition to Shia Islam by recognising Ali as the only legitimate successor to the Prophet. The family of the Prophet Muhammad (including Ali, Fatima, Hassan and Hussein) are venerated by the Alevis, and their enemies (like the Umayyad) are seen as having distorted Islam by imposing a level of orthodoxy that did not originally exist in the Quran or during the days of the Prophet. Alevis focus instead on the deeper spiritual meanings of Islam and have mystical approaches that differ from the mainstream Shia rituals and belief. Alevis believe in the Twelve Imams, and their beliefs have overlaps with Sufism (Islamic mysticism with an emphasis on being close to the Creator). The roots of Alevism go back to the Babai dervishes of the twelfth century, and the followers of Safavid Sufi Orders, who were pejoratively called Kızılbaş (‘Redhead’) (Dressler 2008: 284). Alevism, due to its syncretic nature, has been challenging to define sociologically and politically. Both in the literature and in the public sphere, Alevism has been called ‘faithbased collective activism, an ethnic identity, a transnational social movement, a socioreligious community, or even true humanism’ (Borovalı & Boyraz 2014: 479). Although sometimes defined in the literature as the ‘largest minority’ in Turkey, Alevis are not legally categorised as a ‘religious minority’ in the country. Accordingly, some scholars (Açıkel & Ateş 2011; Erdemir 2005; Köse 2013) have defined the Alevis’ place in contemporary Turkey as ‘ambivalent’, with their rights and status constantly under negotiation with the state and a Sunni-majority society. 229

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230 | nukhet a. sandal Alevis make up around 15 per cent of Turkey’s population; the exact numbers are difficult to determine for two reasons. First, there is no census data on their numbers, since, unlike the Armenian, Greek and Jewish populations in Turkey, Alevis are not officially recognised as a minority group. Second, Turkey’s Alevis have not been forthcoming with their identity in the public sphere for a long time due to the history of persecution against the Alevi communities that started during the Ottoman Empire years. In a predominantly Sunni public landscape, many Alevis have been forced to assimilate; they have even changed their names and hidden their pasts during migrations from villages to cities to avoid discrimination. The Alevi tradition as it is practised in Turkey is syncretic and heterogeneous, and its canon and observance have undergone significant change in recent decades. Many Alevis are ethnically Turkish and use Turkish as a language in their rituals. There are also Kurdish- and Zazaki-speaking Alevis. Kurdish Alevis are estimated to constitute 20 per cent of the Alevi population in Turkey. Çiğdem Şirin (2013) finds that ‘Kurdish Alevis are less likely to prioritise their religious identity over their ethnic identity and express lower levels of identification with their religious identity as compared to Turkish Alevis’. One should also mention the Alawites of Arab ethnicity who are citizens of Turkey; the redrawing of the Syrian–Turkish border in 1939 separated many families, both Sunni and Alevi/Alawite. There are around 400,000 Alawites of Arab ethnicity in southeastern Turkey, including in Hatay, a Turkish city on the Syrian border. However, this does not change the fact that Alevism and the Alawite tradition have distinct origins and have followed separate trajectories over the centuries. In line with the theme of this companion, this chapter will focus on the political experience of the Alevis of Turkey, and will not cover the religious beliefs, rituals and theological precepts of Alevism. The chapter is divided into two main sections. The next section will discuss the political experience of Alevi communities before the AKP period; due to limitations of space, this section will focus on the Alevis after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, and not the Ottoman Empire period. The second section will then cover developments after 2002. The chapter concludes with a summary of the ongoing concerns of the Alevi community and future possibilities. Alevis in Pre-AKP Turkey Alevis were persecuted throughout the Ottoman era because of their deviation from the Sunni tradition. In the sixteenth century, under the Ottoman sultan Yavuz Selim, a fatwa was issued mandating the killing of Alevis, who were seen as potential agents of the rival Shia Safavid Empire in Iran. The systematic massacres that followed led to takiyye (dissimulation, concealing one’s religious identity) becoming the norm among the Alevis. Driven underground, no Alevi public theology was able to develop on crucial matters

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alevis in turkey | 231 ranging from governance to citizenship. Towards the end of the Ottoman Empire, attempts at assimilating Alevi communities into the Sunni Muslim majority were made through the distribution of Sunni reading materials in predominantly Alevi neighbourhoods and the building of mosques in Alevi villages (Deringil 1998: 82). When the Republic of Turkey was established in 1923, the political elite ostensibly embraced secularism yet also created the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) with the aim of controlling the type of Islam that could be practised publicly and privately. Sufi orders and smaller religious fraternities were banned in 1925, and religion was further centralised under the Directorate of Religious Affairs. Alevi communities were left with no choice but to conduct their religious rituals and services with few resources and mostly through an oral tradition, and to hide their identities to avoid discrimination. Markus Dressler (2015: 47) notes that the state’s refusal to accept the Alevis’ religious premises on an equal footing with those of Sunni Islam ultimately draws on normative Islamic arguments which characterise Alevis as ‘Muslim but. . .’. Zeynep Özgen (2015), in her study of inter-ethnic marriage in Turkey, confirms the existence of durable boundaries between the Alevis and the Sunnis (among others) at a societal level. Having said that, most Alevis historically embraced Kemalist secularism with the hopes that it would curb the influence of Sunni Islam in the public sphere (Zurcher & Linden 2004: 127). The prejudice against the Alevis during the Ottoman Empire years continued into the modern Republican era. In the Alevi tradition, women and men have prayed together for many centuries, which led to accusations of impropriety and heresy by conservative Muslims, especially during the years of Safavid–Ottoman tensions. In modern Turkey, prejudice and stereotypes still manifest themselves in expressions that are used among the Sunni community, like ‘He is an Alevi but he is a good person’ or ‘He is an Alevi but an honest guy’, even in circles where the prejudice is regarded as minimal; not eating what is offered by Alevis (because it is deemed to be ‘unclean’) is another common discriminatory practice that has been reported (Toprak et al. 2009: 41). One study shows that such personal experiences of discrimination lead to prioritisation and strengthening of individual Alevi identity (Şirin 2013). Due to these dynamics, the Alevi issue – like other minority issues – has ‘challenged both the limits and sustainability of the secularism and citizenship regimes in Turkey’ and has increasingly become a ‘matter of international contention’ (Boyraz 2019: 778). While the core Alevi doctrines and rituals developed in rural Anatolia, rapid urbanisation and migrations to cities made Alevi communities more visible and politically active with the resources and access that the urban centres provided. During the 1960s and the 1970s, Alevis published journals (such as Cem, which was first published in 1966) and worked on establishing Alevi political parties. These initiatives did not develop into larger movements at the time, as many Alevis affiliated themselves with socialist

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232 | nukhet a. sandal ideology (Ertan 2019) instead of constructing a distinct Alevi political identity. ‘With religion having become a major point of reference for political identity formations’ in Turkey after 1980, Alevis began to assert their identity ‘within a universalistic human rights discourse and secularist rhetoric of religious freedom and self-determination’ (Dressler 2008: 286). There is also a significant number of Alevis who migrated to Europe, first for economic reasons, and then for political reasons ranging from the left– right polarisation in the 1970s to the war between the Turkish army and the Kurdish political movement in the 1980s. The estimated number of Alevis in Turkey and abroad is 20 million. Ayfer Karakaya-Stump (2018: 54) notes that the number will likely decrease in long term due to lower birth rates, assimilation and the greater propensity of the Alevi population to emigrate to other countries. Celia Jenkins and Ümut Çetin (2018) draw attention to how the long history of exclusion, forced assimilation and persecution has had implications even in the diaspora after generations. Some Alevis called for the abolition of the Diyanet and demanded the state withdraw from the religious sphere altogether, so that Turkey could become a genuinely secular country. The revival of Alevi identity led to the establishment of Alevi organisations and networks, Alevi religious services being conducted openly, and publications by Alevi scholars addressing issues of identity. In an interview with the author in 2016, Namık Kemal Dinç, a prominent Kurdish journalist and historian, noted that in the initial stages of the common identity assertion, Alevism was firmly embedded in discourses of Turkish nationalism. Only later in the 1980s and early 1990s did mainstream Alevi theology become strategically more inclusive, recognising the existence of the Kurdish Alevis. The 1980 military coup, and the Turgut Özal administration, which promoted a ‘Turkish–Islamic synthesis’, continued to stoke Alevi fears. The liberalisation in the late 1980s and post-Cold War identity politics enabled Alevis to become more politically active in the public sphere. At that point, Alevis also started to support the Kurdish and Laz communities, and their cultural and political claims. The 1990s witnessed Alevi revivalism, partly as a response to the increasing public salience of Sunni identity. Bedriye Poyraz (2005) argues that one reason for this revivalism was the collapse of the socialist bloc at the end of the 1980s; at this time, many Alevis began to count Alevism, with its principles of justice and egalitarianism, as an alternative to socialist ideology. By the early 1990s, there were periodicals, cultural festivals, lodges, political parties and foundations that openly expressed Alevi identity (Kaleli 2001). Alevis also wanted their tradition to be recognised separately from Sunni Islam and they wanted it represented in textbooks and school curriculums as such (Zeidan 1999: 81). In 1998, Alevis started to be able to use the word ‘Alevi’ openly and officially in the naming of associations. The European Court of Human Rights has heard multiple cases on such issues as compulsory religious education

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alevis in turkey | 233 that excludes Alevi beliefs and traditions, and the existence of the religion section on national identity cards. While talking about the Alevi experience in Turkey, it is critical to discuss the massacres against the community. The revival of Alevism notwithstanding, the exclusion of Alevis from the dominant public theologies of belonging and citizenship in Turkey has also involved terror and violence. The 1970s especially saw a rise in attacks against the Alevi community by ultranationalists and Islamists, which at the time was cast as a rift between the political right and the left. In 1978, in the southeastern Turkish city of Maraş, at least 111 people (mostly Alevis) were killed, their houses and businesses destroyed, ‘amid provocations of “Communists are burning mosques” and “Our religion is at stake”’ (Taştekin 2014). In July 1993, in the city of Sivas, during the annual festival celebrating the legacy of the Alevi poet Pir Sultan Abdal, thirty-five intellectuals, most of whom were Alevis, were killed by a mob of Islamist extremists. Two years later, a gunman attacked shops in a predominantly Alevi working-class neighbourhood, triggering protests that led to twenty Alevis being killed. Multiple cases of violence against Alevi households have been documented in the past couple of decades, even before the AKP administration. With the increasing tensions, some Turkish politicians tried to show their recognition of Alevi communities. In 1997, for example, President Süleyman Demirel and Prime Minister Mesut Yılmaz attended Alevi/Hacıbektaş festivities. The Alevi diaspora has also been critical in securing the rights of the Alevis in Turkey and providing the needed financial resources. There are over half a million Alevis just in Germany, constituting the largest Alevi community outside Turkey. Since their arrival in Germany, Alevis have been politically active despite not forming religion-based associations (Sökefeld 2003: 141). They have lobbied Turkish officials and helped integrate Alevi rights into Turkey’s EU accession process, which helped the recognition of Alevi identity in Turkey at the turn of the century (Soner & Toktaş 2011: 422). Before closing this section, it is important to mention the formal Alevi representation in Turkey. There are sizeable organisations that represent Alevis. The Federation of Alevi Foundations (Alevi Vakıfları Federasyonu) and the Alevi-Bektashi Fedaration (Alevi Bektaşi Federasyonu) are two main examples. Although they have many common demands, these organisations also differ in their visions. According to Rana Birder Çorbacıoğlu and Zeynep Alemdar (2012: 123), while the Federation of Alevi Foundations has a more traditional view of the State, elevating it to a place where it can use Aleviness as a ‘combining element’ for its purposes overseas, the Alevi Bektashi Federation focuses on the values of Aleviness as internationally permissible moral standards, and has a more, in the words of the Federation of Alevi Foundations representative, ‘radical’ view, which translates into being leftist.

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234 | nukhet a. sandal Although these differences are natural and reflect the political diversity of the Alevis of Turkey, they have the potential to make unified claim-making more challenging. Alevis under the AKP Administration The coming to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in 2002 led to a concern on the part of secular circles, including most Alevis. Although the AKP’s authoritarian identity was not particularly evident during the first years of its coming to power, its emphasis on Sunni Islam raised questions about how party officials would approach the Alevi question. While Kemalism emphasised the Turkic identity of Alevis (excluding the Kurdish Alevis with this definition), which resulted in many Alevis identifying with the secular, establishment, Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), the AKP tried to establish a unified Islamic identity that would encompass Alevis as well, refusing to define Alevism as separate from Sunni Islam (Aktürk 2018: 536; Grigoriadis 2006). Despite this attempt, Alevis also have been ‘portrayed as impressionable and as coming under the influence of Iranian culture and “Khomeinism”, masons, Christians and atheists’ (Lord 2017: 58; Sezgin 2012: 270). Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarian policies affected all segments of society (Başer & Öztürk 2017). Alevis were no exception. Selahattin Özel, the former chair of the Federation of Alevi Associations in Turkey, agrees: ‘Mr Erdoğan’s discourse and policies keep us [Alevis] united and vigorous. His discourse on the Alevis has been very divisive, very ostracising. Thanks to his attitude, we came to realize how untimely our petty arguments are; that we are in fact struggling for our survival. And thus, we closed ranks’ (quoted in Başaran 2013). In terms of discourse and behaviour, Erdoğan consistently denigrated the Alevi identity and rituals. During his stint as the governor of Istanbul, he referred to Alevi places of worship (cemevis) as ‘houses of festivity’; in 2012, when Alevis opened a cemevi in the Karacaahmet district in Istanbul, he called it a ‘monstrosity’ (Milliyet 2012). He has also frequently remarked on the supposed ‘atheist elements’ within the Alevi tradition, expressing the view that if Alevis really see themselves as Muslims, they should come to the mosque like other Muslims (Milliyet 2012). On 29 May 2013, Erdoğan and the then president, Abdullah Gül, attended the opening ceremony of the third bridge over the Bosphorus, announcing together that it had been named in honour of Yavuz Sultan Selim, who oversaw the notorious sixteenth-century fatwa mandating the killing of Alevis, as mentioned in the introduction to this chapter. On one occasion, Erdoğan remarked, ‘Don’t forget that a person’s religion is the religion of his friend. Tell me who your friend is, and I’ll tell you who you are,’ referring to the opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu’s Alevi identity and implying he supported Syria’s President Assad because of kinship. In an interview in which he discussed the

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alevis in turkey | 235 Gülen community, Erdoğan implied that Shiite communities lack integrity: ‘They [the Gülen community] practise takiyya [religiously sanctioned dissimulation], they lie, they slander. As a result, they are involved in sedition, malice. They are far ahead even of Shiites. Shiites cannot compete with them’ (quoted in Taştekin 2014), using the stereotypes frequently employed towards the Alevi community. That said, during the initial years of AKP rule, officials did pay some lip service to giving Alevis equal rights and made symbolic gestures, such as apologising for the Dersim massacre of 1938, when the state brutally suppressed a rebellion by Alevi Kurds. Institutionally, the state continued to privilege Sunni identity and dismiss Alevi needs. Although the number of cemevis increased under the AKP’s administration, the state has been active in constructing mosques in the vicinity of newly built cemevis, and in some cases even within them (Kingsley 2017). The Directorate of Religious Affairs assumed an even more active role in both internal and external affairs under the AKP’s administration (Öztürk 2016). Even though the Directorate is funded by taxes paid by all Turkish citizens regardless of their religious affiliation, it has continued to provide services to only Sunni Muslims and has not funded Alevi places of worship. Alevi religious leaders (dedes) are not trained by the Directorate either. The leadership of the Directorate assumes the political attitude of the AKP towards the Alevis, and claims that Alevis are not distinct enough to warrant their own houses of worship and resources. Ali Erbaş, the president of the Directorate of Religious Affairs, refused to grant equal status to cemevis, and stated that ‘due to the unitary nature of the Turkish state, mosques are the houses of worship for all Muslims, mosques should be regarded as a house of worship by both Sunnis and Alevis’ (Odatv 2018). Alevi leaders condemned this statement, called Erbaş ignorant, and stated that these declarations once again show that the Directorate is an exclusively Sunni establishment. Due to the increasing activism of the Alevi organisations and the pressure coming from the diaspora communities especially through European channels, the AKP announced a new ‘Alevi opening’ in 2007. There were meetings which brought Alevi leaders and policymakers together, with the intention to address various Alevi demands. The deputy head of the Directorate of Religious Affairs at the time acknowledged that the Directorate had neglected Alevism up until then. There were government-initiated workshops with Alevi community leaders in 2009 and 2010, after which a government minister, Faruk Çelik, told reporters he hoped ‘everybody appreciates the efforts of the government’ (Today’s Zaman 2010). The ‘opening’ was a public relations stunt and did not attempt to change any of the existing societal and political dynamics that structurally disadvantaged the Alevi community. To the contrary, the report’s language represented Alevis as a clear ‘other’. Some prominent Alevi leaders saw the workshop as a front for assimilation and accused the government of trying to control the community in the guise

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236 | nukhet a. sandal of a democratic decision-making process. For example, Ali Balkız, the chair of the Hacı Bektaş Veli Anadolu Culture Foundation at the time, called the workshop’s preliminary report a ‘fraud’ (Hürriyet 2010). In 2013, the Alevi leadership in Turkey released demands including the recognition of cemevis as official houses of worship; the abolition of the religion category on identity cards; the abolition of the Diyanet; the criminalisation of threats and assaults against Alevis; the elimination of derogatory terms for the Alevis from school textbooks and dictionaries; the extension of a formal apology for the various massacres in Republican history; and the establishment of investigation commissions (HaberSol 2013). Unsurprisingly, most of these demands were dismissed by the AKP administration. Although the opening did not work out in terms of easing the tensions between the administration and the Alevis and the subsequent demands of the Alevis continued to fall on deaf ears, the Alevi community did have victories in the international arena in terms of recognition of their identity and rights. In 2014, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) handed down a verdict that Alevi houses of worship should be officially recognised. Turkey continues to ignore the ECtHR decision on the cemevis, although in 2018, the Higher Court of Appeals of Turkey approved recognition of cemevis as houses of worship, and hence they are entitled to free utilities. Hüseyin Güzelgül, an Alevi religious leader and the chair of the Alevi Bektashi Federation, expressed his frustration that while Alevis carry out all their citizenship responsibilities, they are not given equal rights: ‘When we pay taxes or do military service, we’re treated exactly like Sunni citizens. But when it comes to the costs for our houses of worship – no. Here, we’re discriminated against’ (Öğreten 2020). Regional events that involved Shia communities also brought challenges for the Alevi community. Arguably, the Syrian Civil War created the highest level of tensions. The war, along with the anti-Shia discourse of the AKP government and the rise of extremist Sunni movements in the region, brought the Alevis of Turkey and the Alawites of Syria closer, despite the two having different traditions and practices throughout history (Sandal 2021). In a 2016 interview with the author, Alevi journalist and activist Ferhat Aktaş stated that the salience of the political and religious (rather than cultural and ethnic) dimensions of Alawite identity has increased, especially after the systematic threats to the Alawites during the civil war, and this increasing political orientation has led the Alawites to emphasise theological commonalities with Alevis, rather than their differences. It is also a concern that the plight of the Alawite refugees and the problems they face are not represented in the mainstream Turkish media, and that these refugees feel politically exposed and vulnerable in Turkey (Tremblay 2013). The sectarian foreign policy of the AKP government has always concerned minorities in Turkey. Selahattin Özel (in Albayrak & Parkinson 2012) clarified this fear in the

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alevis in turkey | 237 context of the Syrian War and the Alevi community: ‘As Turkish Alevis, we do not support an anti-democratic, an anti-humanist regime, but we cannot understand why the prime minister so suddenly became an enemy of the Syrian administration.’ Soner Çağaptay (2012) also warned at the time that ‘should Ankara intervene in Syria against the Assad regime, some in the Turkish Alevi community might be inclined to view this as a new “Sunni attack” against a fellow minority’. Indeed, the Turkish government’s divisive politics have had implications, especially for the communities living in the border cities. Many Alawites in Hatay noted that until the war there was little to no animosity between Alawites and Sunnis in the city, but the Turkish government’s policies have since prompted tension and segregation (Letsch, 2013). Conclusion This chapter has outlined the political experiences of Alevis in modern Turkey. The Alevis, with their distinct tradition, have been part of Anatolian history for centuries. Due to the closeness of the community’s tradition to Shia Islam, discrimination against them started during the Ottoman Era. Although many Alevis saw the establishment of a secular republic as a welcome development, the Sunni identity of the society and its institutionalisation within the Diyanet helped perpetuate stereotyping and discrimination. As a result, the community continued to be subjected to political violence, and even massacres. Towards the end of the twentieth century, the Alevi community became politically more active, both within Turkey and in the diaspora. The AKP’s coming to power constituted a challenge due to its emphasis on Sunni Muslim identity. Although there were moments of ‘opening’, the demands of the Alevis were not met. The Syrian War made the tensions even more severe by bringing the rift between the Syrian Alawite and Sunni communities within Turkish borders. Although there are occasional disagreements among the different Alevi representative organisations, the community will no doubt continue to fight for equal treatment in a Sunni-majority society, and the Alevi diaspora will probably continue its active involvement in advocacy for recognition and rights for the foreseeable future. It is very unlikely that any meaningful changes will take place under the AKP administration. Even when a new political party or a coalition of parties takes over, the improvement of Alevi rights will likely not be immediate given the decades – even centuries – of exclusion the community has faced. Any regional incident that involves Iran and/or other Shia actors can also create additional challenges for the Alevi community. This is a dynamic which started during the years of the Ottoman Empire – religious minorities were especially seen as potential agents of foreign powers in the country – and will probably continue under future administrations.

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238 | nukhet a. sandal References Açıkel, Fethi and Kazım Ateş (2011), ‘Ambivalent Citizens: The Alevi as the “Authentic Self” and the “Stigmatized Other” of Turkish Nationalism’, European Societies 13 (5): 713–33. Aktürk, Şener (2018), ‘One Nation under Allah? Islamic Multiculturalism, Muslim Nationalism and Turkey’s Reforms for Kurds, Alevis, and Non-Muslims’, Turkish Studies 19(4): 523–51. Albayrak, Ayla and Joe Parkinson (2012), ‘Turkey’s Shiites fear contagion’, Wall Street Journal, 9 April. Başaran, Ezgi (2013), ‘Kürt hareketinin Aleviler icin ne yaptiğini bilmiyorum’, Radikal, 6 May. Başer, Bahar and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (2017), Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP, London: I. B. Tauris. Borovalı, Murat and Cemil Boyraz (2014), ‘Turkish Secularism and Islam: A Difficult Dialogue with the Alevis’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 40(4–5): 479–88. Boyraz, Cemil (2019), ‘The Alevi Question and the Limits of Citizenship in Turkey’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 46(5): 767–80. Çağaptay, Soner (2012), ‘Will Syria’s sectarian divisions spill over into Turkey?’, New Republic, 14 April. Deringil, Selim (1998), The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876–1909, London: I. B. Tauris. Dressler, Markus (2008), ‘Religio-Secular Metamorphoses: The Re-making of Turkish Alevism’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76(2): 280–311. Dressler, Markus (2015), ‘Turkish Politics of Doxa: Otherizing the Alevis as Heterodox’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 41(4–5): 445–51. Erdemir, Aykan (2005), ‘Tradition and Modernity: Alevis’ Ambiguous Terms and Turkey’s Ambivalent Subjects’, Middle Eastern Studies 41(6): 937–51. Ertan, Mehmet (2019), ‘The Latent Politicization of Alevism: The Affiliation between Alevis and Leftist Politics (1960–1980)’, Middle Eastern Studies 55(6): 932–44. Grigoriadis, Ioannis N. (2006), ‘Political Participation of Turkey’s Kurds and Alevis: A Challenge for Turkey’s Democratic Consolidation’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 6(4): 445–61. HaberSol (2013), ‘Alevi örgütlerinden ortak açiklama: Cami-cemevi projesi kabul edilemez’, 10 September, http://haber.sol.org.tr/devlet-ve-siyaset/alevi-orgutlerinden-ortak-aciklamacami-cemevi-projesi-kabul-edilemez-haberi-79400, accessed 28 January 2023. Hürriyet (2010), ‘Alevi çaliştayi ön raporuna sert tepki’, 12 February. Jenkins, Celia, and Ümit Çetin (2018). ‘From a “Sort of Muslim” to “Proud to Be Alevi”: The Alevi Religion and Identity Project Combatting the Negative Identity among SecondGeneration Alevis in the UK’, National Identities 20(1): 105–23. Kaleli, Lütfi (2001), ‘Örgütlenme ve Iletişim Organları’, in Ismail Engin and Erhard Franz (eds), Aleviler/Alewiten, Hamburg: Deutsches Orient-Institut, pp. 23–40. Karakaya-Stump, Ayfer (2018), ‘The AKP, Sectarianism, and the Alevis’ Struggle for Equal Rights in Turkey’, National Identities 20(1): 53–67.

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alevis in turkey | 239 Kingsley, Patrick (2017), ‘Turkey’s Alevis, a Muslim minority, fear a policy of denying their existence’, New York Times, 22 July. Köse, Talha (2013), ‘Between Nationalism, Modernism and Secularism: The Ambivalent Place of “Alevi Identities”’, Middle Eastern Studies 49(4): 590–607. Letsch, Constanze (2013), ‘Syrian conflict brings sectarian tensions to Turkey’s tolerant Hatay province’, The Guardian, 3 September. Lord, Ceren (2017), ‘Between Islam and the Nation; Nation‐Building, the Ulama and Alevi Identity in Turkey’, Nations and Nationalism 23(1): 48–67. Milliyet (2012), ‘Karacaahmet Cem Evi bir ucubedir’, 6 August. Odatv (2018), ‘Diyanete Cemevi yaniti’, 14 March. Öğreten, Tunca (2020), ‘The Alevis’ fight for recognition in Turkey’, Deutsche Welle, 26 January. Özgen, Z. (2015), ‘Maintaining Ethnic Boundaries in “Non-ethnic” Contexts: Constructivist Theory and the Sexual Reproduction of Diversity’, Theory and Society 44(1): 33–64. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2016), ‘Turkey’s Diyanet under AKP Rule: From Protector to Imposer of State Ideology?’ Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4): 619–35. Poyraz, Bedriye (2005), ‘The Turkish State and Alevis: Changing Parameters of an Uneasy Relationship’, Middle Eastern Studies 41(4): 503–16. Sandal, Nukhet A. (2021), ‘Solidarity Theologies and the (Re)definition of Ethnoreligious Identities: The Case of the Alevis of Turkey and Alawites of Syria’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 48(3): 473–91. Sezgin, Abdülkadir (2012), Hacı Bektaş Veli ve Bektaşilik, Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı. Şirin, Çiğdem V. (2013), ‘Analyzing the Determinants of Group Identity among Alevis in Turkey: A National Survey Study’, Turkish Studies 14(1): 74–91. Sökefeld, Martin (2003), ‘Alevis in Germany and the Politics of Recognition’, New Perspectives on Turkey 29: 133–61. Soner, Bayram Ali and Şule Toktaş (2011), ‘Alevis and Alevism in the Changing Context of Turkish Politics: The Justice and Development Party’s Alevi Opening’, Turkish Studies 12(3): 419–34. Taştekin, Fehim (2014), ‘The massacre Turkey hopes Alevis will forget’, Al-Monitor, 24 December, http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/12/turkey-alevis-massacre-memorialno-grave.html#, accessed 28 January 2023. Today’s Zaman (2010), ‘Alevi workshop submits roadmap to government’, 1 February. Toprak, Binnaz, İrfan Bozan, Tan Morgül and Nedim Şener (2009), Being Different in Turkey: Religion, Conservatism and Otherization, Istanbul: Boğaziçi University Press. Tremblay, Pinar (2013), ‘Syrian Alawites hope for change in Turkey’, Al-Monitor, 15 November. Zeidan, David (1999), ‘The Alevi of Anatolia’, Middle East Review of International Affairs 3(4): 74–89. Zurcher, Erik-Jan and Heleen van der Linden (2004), ‘Searching for the Fault-Line’, in Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy, The European Union, Turkey and Islam, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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18 Relations between Turkey and Armenia Pinar Sayan (Beykoz University)

Introduction

D

espite being one of the first countries to recognise its independence in 1991, Turkey has continued to close its borders with Armenia since 1993 and there are no formal diplomatic relations between the two countries. While the official reason for this is connected to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan,1 the historical enmity between the two countries remains an important factor that keeps their societies apart. With the new reality after the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 having opened the way for a new diplomatic normalisation effort between Armenia and Turkey, this chapter briefly discusses the course of Armenia–Turkey relations and the issues on the agenda. I begin by introducing the ‘Armenian question’ within the Ottoman Empire during its last century as the issue of genocide remains the most controversial topic between Armenia and Turkey. Following that, I cover the developments after the independence of Armenia, which include the impact of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on Armenia–Turkey relations and official and unofficial attempts at normalisation. Lastly, I summarise the main problems derived from the lack of diplomatic relations and closed borders and conclude the chapter with a discussion on the ongoing normalisation efforts.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan is mainly over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions. The First Nagorno-Karabakh War ended in 1994; however, deadly escalations continued, and the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War (also called the 44-Day War) took place between September and November 2020 (see International Crisis Group 2022).

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relations between turkey and armenia | 241 Attempts at Building and Normalising Relations under the Shadow of a Painful Past To understand the current dynamics between Armenia and Turkey, one has to go back to before the establishment of the Turkish Republic, particularly to the last century of the Ottoman Empire, when the ‘Armenian question’ emerged as an important issue within the geopolitical, socio-economic, administrative, territorial and ideational transformations that the Ottoman Empire experienced (Cora 2015). When the Ottoman Armenians started to express their discontent within the deteriorating Empire, suppression by force and involvement of foreign actors became more widespread and fatal (Deringil 2015). The treaties of San Stefano and Berlin in 1878, the massacres during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the consequences of the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913, the Yeniköy Accords in 1914, mass immigration from the Caucasus and Balkans, and finally the First World War and the loss of the Battle of Sarıkamış are often quoted as the major events leading to the policies of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti, İTC) (Akçam 2012; Dadrian & Akçam 2011; Deringil 2015; Eldem 2015; Kurt 2021; Pehlivan 2015; Suny 2015). For the leaders of the İTC, the Armenian question entailed the threat of a foreignimposed, independent Armenian state within the eastern provinces of the Empire, where the Armenian population was concentrated.2 Starting from 1914, they put forward various policies to prevent that from happening. On the night of 24 April 1915, Armenian leaders in Istanbul were arrested and deported to the provinces of Ayaş and Çankırı. Further measures were taken including travel restrictions and the closure of Armenian political parties, organisations and newspapers. Although deportations and confiscations had begun earlier, on 27 May 1915, the Relocation and Resettlement Law (Sevk ve İskan Kanunu) was passed, followed by Laws on Abandoned Properties (Emval-i Metruke Kanunları) between May and November 1915 (Akçam & Kurt 2012; Kurt 2021; Üngör & Polatel 2011). As a result of these policies, thousands of Armenians were deported or killed, faced violence and forced assimilation, and lost their properties (Akçam 2012; Akçam & Kurt 2012; Bloxham 2011; Suny 2015; Suny et al. 2011; Üngör & Polatel 2011). On 8 January 1918, US president Woodrow Wilson announced his famous fourteen principles that would constitute the basis for peace negotiations to end the First World War. For the Ottoman Empire, he suggested that the Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured The provinces of Sivas, Bitlis, Mamuretülaziz, Van, Erzurum and Diyarbekir, known as the Six Vilayets (Vilayat-ı Sitte) (Deringil 2015).

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242 | pinar sayan an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees. (Wilson 1918)

The Armistice of Mudros, signed on 30 October 1918, ended the First World War for the Ottoman Empire. Being on the defeated side, the Ottomans had to accept that the Allies had the right to occupy six Armenian-populated provinces in case of disorder (Article 24); that the Allies had the right to occupy any place if they felt insecure (Article 7); and the retreat of the army from some parts of the Caucasus (Article 11) in addition to other serious concessions. During the Armistice period – and under the occupation of the Allies – investigations were initiated, and between 1919 and 1922, the Military Tribunals (Divan-ı Harb-ı Örfi) tried the leaders of the İTC and their provincial representatives for crimes committed between 1908 and 1918. As a result, eighteen defendants were condemned to death, of whom three were executed (Dadrian & Akçam 2011). The remaining fifteen, including the minister of the interior, Talat Pasha, the minister of war, Enver Pasha, and the minister of the navy, Cemal Pasha, were in absentia (Dadrian & Akçam 2011). Between 1921 and 1922, several fugitive Ottoman leaders including Talat Pasha and Cemal Pasha were assassinated by an operation (known as Operation Nemesis) coordinated by the Dashaksutyun (Armenian Revolutionary Federation), while Enver Pasha was killed on the battlefield in central Asia (Suny 2015). Due to the strengthening of the national resistance movement, the trials came to an end and those wartime Ottoman leaders imprisoned in Malta by the British were released (Suny 2015). In addition to the investigations and trials, starting from 1918, deportees were allowed to return, their properties were to be restituted, and orphans were to be returned to their relatives (Kévorkian 2011; Polatel 2015; Turan & Öztan 2018). However, the return process was full of complications and local conflicts, and the relevant laws were reversed during the Republican era (Akçam & Kurt 2012; Kévorkian 2011; Kurt 2021; Polatel 2015; Turan & Öztan 2018). Two years after the Armistice of Mudros, the Treaty of Sèvres, which was signed on 10 August 1920, finalised the conditions of the Ottoman defeat in the First World War. Articles 88–93 concerned Armenia, through which the Ottoman Empire recognised Armenia as a free and independent state and accepted leaving the decision about the borders of the eastern provinces of Erzurum, Trabzon, Van and Bitlis to the president of the United States. In addition, Article 144 affirmed that those who had had to leave the country from 1 January 1914 could come back and their properties would be returned, while Articles 226–230 dealt with war crimes. The Sèvres Agreement was never recognised by the Ankara government, and therefore never implemented. Military forces led by Kazım Karabekir seized Sarıkamış,

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relations between turkey and armenia | 243 Kars and Gümrü between October and November 1920. On 2 December 1920, the Gümrü (Aleksandropol) Agreement was signed with Armenia. However, the agreement was deemed invalid as the Armenian government that signed it lost power. On 16 March 1921, the Ankara government signed the Moscow Agreement with Soviet Russia, and on 13 October 1921, the Kars Agreement with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. With these agreements, the signatories recognised the borders of Turkey. After the success of the national resistance movement, when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed on 24 July 1923, no mention of an Armenian land was made; only the status and rights of non-Muslim minorities were regulated through Articles 37–45 (Oran 2009: 222). The relationship between the Ankara government and the İTC was complicated. Although trying to distance themselves from the İTC leadership and condemning the crimes attributed to them in the early post-war period (Turan & Öztan 2018), the national resistance was joined and assisted by İTC networks (Zürcher 2011). After the foundation of the Republic, pensions were granted to the families of those who were assassinated during Operation Nemesis or executed by the Military Tribunal (Zürcher 2011). On the other hand, several İTC members were executed during the 1926 Independence Tribunals (İstiklal Mahkemeleri) (Dadrian & Akçam 2011; Zürcher 2011). With the Treaty of Lausanne, the possibility of an Armenian state within the Turkish borders seemed to be eliminated. However, to this day, the legacy of the Treaty of Sèvres,3 controversy over the history and, particularly since the second half of the twentieth century, referring to them as genocide continues. Accordingly, the İTC’s policies regarding Armenians involved annihilation, and its orders were implemented by the machinery of the state, hence the violence and deaths that occurred during the process were intentional and constitute a genocide as defined by the Convention

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As Ronald Suny claims, ‘The Treaty of Sèvres was never implemented, but it remains to the present day a specter in both the Armenian and Turkish imaginations. For Armenians it represents a dream unfulfilled, the end of their vain hope that President Woodrow Wilson would use his considerable powers to create a large Armenian state in eastern Anatolia. For Turks Sèvres is a nightmare, a “complex”, the perpetual fear that Turkey might be divided up by its foreign or domestic enemies’ (Suny 2015: 341). So much so that it is common to call this phenomenon a syndrome in Turkey. Fatma Göçek defines it thus: ‘The Sèvres syndrome refers to those individuals, groups or institutions in Turkey who interpret all public interactions – domestic and foreign – through a framework of fear and anxiety over the possible annihilation, abandonment or betrayal of the Turkish state by the West. Hence the most important element the syndrome has inherited from the treaty is that of compounded fear and anxiety about the imputed intentions of the West toward Turkey’ (Göçek 2011b: 99).

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244 | pinar sayan on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948 (Akçam 2012; Kévorkian 2011; Suny 2015).4 From the official position of Turkey, on the other hand, the İTC decided to deport the Armenians as a result of wartime conditions including collaboration with the Russian army, attacks on Ottoman provinces, the possibility of a revolt, and mass immigration from the Caucasus and Balkans (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı 2016). From this perspective, the violence and deaths were unintended consequences of the war but were not ordered by the state; the deaths were mostly caused by natural reasons or carried out by rogue local actors, and the state tried and punished those responsible within the limitations of war conditions (Gürün 1983; Lewy 2005; McCarthy 2015; Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı 2016). Therefore, Turkey denies the existence of genocidal intent, which is an important factor in the formulation of genocide according to the Genocide Convention. Additionally, the applicability of the Genocide Convention, the responsibility, the number of casualties, the transfer of wealth and property, forced assimilation, sexual violence and the destruction of cultural monuments are among other controversial topics (Akçam 2004; Akçam 2012; Akçam & Kurt 2012; Dadrian & Akçam 2011; Gözel Durmaz 2015; Kurt 2021; Üngör & Polatel 2011). Until the 1970s, the issue was mostly forgotten in public debates in Turkey in line with the official policy (Turan & Öztan 2018). The Armenian question entered the Turkish public debate again mostly with the actions of the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (Göçek 2011a). Their assassinations and attacks started with the killing of two Turkish diplomats in Los Angeles in 1973 and continued until the late 1980s. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, they took the lives of seventy-seven people, of whom fifty-eight were Turkish citizens and thirty-one were diplomats or their families (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı 2019). Particularly since the early 1980s, the policy of international recognition of genocide has been more visible. Consequently, several states passed bills recognising the Armenian genocide. Turkey has put diplomatic and political efforts into preventing these bills from passing, such as by restricting the activities of foreign companies, cancelling foreign visits or meetings, or suspending certain trade or military interactions (Oran 2010). Hence, the shadow of this painful past has always been present in attempts to build and normalise relations between Armenia and Turkey. Nevertheless, it has not been the The convention defines genocide as ‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’.

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relations between turkey and armenia | 245 official reason for the lack of diplomatic relations. Turkey recognised the independence of all states after the collapse of the Soviet Union, including Armenia, on 16 December 1991. However, the Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan prevented the development of further relations, due to Turkey’s position in support of Azerbaijan. UN resolutions were quoted as legitimising factors for these acts but kinship ties with Azerbaijan undeniably carried importance. Yet Turkey favoured a diplomatic solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in the early stages. Since the early 1990s, there have been various diplomatic efforts between Armenia and Turkey largely encouraged by the US and several European states. One of the first was the visit of Volkan Vural, the Turkish ambassador to Moscow, to Armenia in April 1991 before its independence. During this visit, a draft agreement for establishing good neighbourly relations was prepared between Vural and the Armenian president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan (Görgülü 2008). In addition to the attempts under the roof of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the formation of the Minsk Group in 1992, the Organisation of Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) was established in 1992 and became a venue for diplomatic exchange between Armenian and Turkish representatives. During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Turkey and Armenia continued to have contact. In fact, Turkey agreed to wheat and electricity aid to Armenia but these actions were met with the opposition of Azerbaijan and some political parties in Turkey. At the same time, the question of a military operation to Nahçıvan was raised by the opposition parties in Turkey. When the conflict escalated in Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions and Armenia seized the Kelbecer region of Azerbaijan, Turkey made the unilateral decision to close land borders with Armenia in April 1993 and, despite recognising its statehood, no official diplomatic relations have since been established. After that point, Turkey provided more support to Azerbaijan in economic and military terms, but occasional diplomatic attempts to normalise relations between Armenia and Turkey have resurfaced. For example, the Turkish–Armenian Business Development Council was established on 3 May 1997, following a summit of the BSEC held in Istanbul. The idea came from businesspeople to enhance the business relations between two countries. As a result, Armenia has had a permanent mission in Istanbul since 2001. The major normalisation efforts in the early 2000s were encouraged by the United States. As a part of it, the Turkish–Armenian Reconciliation Commission (TARC) was launched on 9 July 2001, consisting of members from Turkey, Armenia and the Armenian diaspora (Phillips 2015). The initiative aimed to improve relations between Armenia and Turkey. After a series of meetings, in 2002, TARC asked to facilitate a legal opinion from the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) for understanding the applicability of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of

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246 | pinar sayan Genocide to the events of 1915.5 On 4 February 2003, the memorandum drafted by independent legal experts was published, stating that ‘the Events, viewed collectively, can thus be said to include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention’ (ICTJ 2003: 17). However, the Convention cannot be applied retroactively, ‘therefore, no legal, financial or territorial claim arising out of the Events could successfully be made against any individual or state under the Convention’ (ICTJ 2003: 4). TARC announced its dissolution on 14 April 2004 in Moscow with a series of recommendations for Turkish–Armenian reconciliation (Phillips 2015). Another attempt was the letter exchange between then Prime Minister Erdoğan and President Robert Kocharian after a series of talks in Vienna between the representatives of the two countries (Görgülü 2008). In his letter to Kocharian on 10 April 2005, Erdoğan suggested ‘establish[ing] a joint group consisting of historians and other experts from our two countries to study the developments and events of 1915 not only in the archives of Turkey and Armenia but also in the archives of all relevant third countries and to share their findings with the international public’ (Erdoğan 2005). In his reply to Erdoğan, on 9 May, Kocharian stated that the opening of borders and diplomatic ties should be unconditional and bilateral relations should be established by politicians, not historians (Görgülü 2008). Hence, the attempt has failed to produce concrete results. The next crucial normalisation attempt was mediated by Switzerland between 2008 and 2009 due to the concerns over the increasing role of Russia in the region. President Abdullah Gül sent a message to the new Armenian president, Serj Sargisian, to congratulate him after his election in 2008. Following that, Sargisian invited Gül to watch a football match between Armenia and Turkey in Yerevan. Gül accepted this invitation and became the first Turkish president to visit Armenia. Likewise, Gül invited Sargisian to watch the next match between the two teams in Turkey, which Sargisian also accepted, visiting Turkey in October 2009. These attempts, known as ‘football diplomacy’, led to the signing of the Protocol on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the Republic of Turkey and the Republic of Armenia and the Protocol on Development of Relations between the Republic of Turkey and the Republic of Armenia, or the Zurich protocols, on 10 October 2009. The protocols confirmed the mutual recognition of borders, the opening of those borders, and the establishment and development of bilateral relations, as well as the implementation of historical dialogue. However, the inability to ratify the protocols led to the failure of the process. As stated by themselves, the ICTJ is a non-governmental organisation issuing non-binding opinions by legal experts; this particular analysis is legal, not factual or historical and prepared by independent experts, not by the ICTJ (ICTJ 2003, 1).

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relations between turkey and armenia | 247 Nevertheless, the failure of ratification did not prevent civil society initiatives from flourishing. First supported by USAID-Armenia between 2010 and 2012, then by the European Union and its member states from 2014, normalisation efforts between Armenia and Turkey were largely carried out by various civil society actors. The actions included fellowships, travel grants, joint publications, visits and expert dialogues among others (Çuhadar & Gültekin Punsmann 2012; Gamaghelyan & Sayan 2018). Between 2016 and 2020, escalations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 once again had a negative impact on Armenia– Turkey relations. Turkey’s diplomatic and military support to Azerbaijan for a military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict caused tension between Armenia and Turkey and deepened the distrust of the former towards the latter (Sayan 2020). Since the end of the war in 2020 in favour of Azerbaijan, two parallel sets of peace talks have been initiated; the first between Armenia and Turkey in 2021, and the second between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2022. After a series of diplomatic exchanges, Armenia and Turkey agreed to appoint special representatives to discuss the normalisation of relations. However, as the lack of diplomatic relations and closed borders are directly tied to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the second process between Armenia and Azerbaijan carries the utmost importance for the course of relations between Armenia and Turkey. For the ongoing negotiations, one of the main issues on the agenda is, without a doubt, the closed borders and establishing diplomatic relations. The lack of diplomatic relations and closed borders between Armenia and Turkey create problems in trade, banking services, postal services, transportation, the mobility of citizens, and urgent problems and rights of travellers and migrants. Although Armenia has been experiencing the negative impact more as a landlocked country with closed borders with two of its neighbours, the border regions of Turkey have been similarly influenced negatively (BETAM & SAM 2014). One of the most important impacts of closed borders and lack of diplomatic relations is on trade relations. Turkey does not implement a trade embargo on Armenia; however, it prevents imports from Armenia from entering Turkey, including at ports and highways and goods for transit (Ayunts & Kose 2019; İnan & Yayloyan 2018). Therefore, while trade between Armenia and Turkey exists, it is mostly from Turkey to Armenia through third countries, usually Georgia. Moreover, several Turkish companies have been operating in Armenia (Ayunts & Kose 2019). During the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenia decided to block Turkish exports but this blockade is currently not in effect. There are also restrictions on bank transfers and postal services (Ayunts & Kose 2019: 38). Previous analyses have suggested that opening Armenia’s borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey would be a less costly alternative compared to the Georgian route, and it would also decrease Armenian dependence on Russia and contribute to the development

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248 | pinar sayan of Turkey’s border regions and transportation lines (BETAM & SAM 2014; Çağlar et al. 2014; İnan & Yayloyan 2018). Another impact is on transportation. Turkey closed its airspace to Armenia in 1993 but opened it in 1995. Since 1996, there have been charter flights between Armenia and Turkey. Between 2016 and 2020, Turkish company AtlasGlobal operated regular flights between Yerevan and Istanbul; however, the company’s bankruptcy interrupted direct flights for a while. Since 2022, two companies have operated direct flights between the two cities. The flights and air traffic are coordinated through a bilateral protocol between the relevant authorities (Ayunts & Kose 2019: 32). However, there have been restrictions on the use of highways and ports as discussed above. While it is possible to travel directly between Armenia and Turkey as both countries provide visas to each other’s citizens upon entry, albeit with some restrictions, the lack of diplomatic relations and consular services creates problems for travellers and immigrants. The Turkish and Armenian embassies in Tbilisi fulfil the duties of providing services and the exchange of official letters but the citizens of neither country can easily reach their embassy in case of an emergency or a problem (Ayunts & Kose 2019). The lack of diplomatic relations creates additional problems for irregular Armenian immigrants in Turkey. In 2019, it was assumed the number of migrants from Armenia is between 10,000 and 40,000, most of whom are labour migrants and women (Ayunts & Kose 2019; Grigoryan 2018; Körükmez 2014). The issuing of birth, marriage and death certificates and the education of their children are among their major concerns (Ayunts & Kose 2019). There are cases of children who have not been registered in either Armenia or Turkey, and their education constitutes an important problem. Since 2003, an Armenian church has been informally offering education but this has not been recognised in Armenia or Turkey. Although some of the children are allowed by the Ministry of National Education of Turkey to be accepted as ‘guest students’ to Armenian schools, they cannot receive a diploma (Ayunts & Kose 2019; Grigoryan 2018). Conclusion: Will it be Possible to Achieve Normalisation? As this chapter briefly summarises, Armenia and Turkey have failed to build good neighbourly relations due to several issues. The official reason of closed borders and lack of diplomatic relations is connected to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the NagornoKarabakh conflict; however, the issue of genocide has always been an important factor preventing the building of trust-based relations between the two societies. The chapter also demonstrates, despite all the problems, that neither social or economic interactions nor diplomatic efforts of normalisation have been absent between Armenia and Turkey. Once again, the two countries have been engaged in an effort to normalise their relations since 2021. These efforts, though, largely rely on the

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relations between turkey and armenia | 249 peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. If Azerbaijan removes its veto for normalisation between Armenia and Turkey, it is possible that diplomatic relations can be established and borders can be opened. This would lead to increasing trade, travel and interactions among the societies. The official steps are necessary for normalising relations between Armenia and Turkey but not sufficient. The official peace process should be complemented with confidence-building among the societies through transitional justice mechanisms that would necessitate more grassroots and bottom-up actions. If the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan will not produce results to convince Azerbaijan to remove its opposition to normalisation between Armenia and Turkey, then it is possible to observe another failed official attempt. However, as the past has shown us, even in that case, the interactions will continue, albeit limitedly. References Akçam, T. (2004), From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide, London and New York: Zed. Akçam, T. (2012), The Young Turks’ Crime against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Akçam, T. and Ü. Kurt (2012), Kanunların Ruhu: Emval-i Metruke Kanunlarında Soykırımın İzini Sürmek, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Ayunts, A. and T. Kose (2019), Armenia and Turkey: An Overview of Relations and Prospects for Normalisation, Istanbul: Hrant Dink Foundation. BETAM (Bahçeşehir Üniversitesi Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Araştırmalar Merkezi) and SAM (Sosyal Araştırmalar Merkezi) (2014), Türkiye–Ermenistan Sınırı Sosyo-Ekonomik Etkiler Araştırması, Istanbul: Hrant Dink Vakfı Yayınları. Bloxham, D. (2011), ‘The First World War and the Development of the Armenian Genocide’, in R. G. Suny, F. M. Göçek and N. M. Naimark (eds), A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 260–76. Çağlar, E., U. Şahbaz, A, Sökmen, F. İnan, İ. Benli and I. Kızılca (2014), ‘Strengthening Connections and Business Synergies between Turkey and Armenia: Towards a Roadmap for Confidence Building through Economic Cooperation’, Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), November, available at https://www.tepav.org.tr/upload/ f iles/1420818799-5.Strengthening_Connections_and_Business_Synergies_Between_ Turkey_and_Armenia.pdf, accessed 28 January 2023, Cora, Y. T. (2015), ‘Doğu’da Kürt-Ermeni Çatışmasının Sosyoekonomik Arkaplanı’, in F. Adanır and O. Özel (eds), 1915: Siyaset Tehcir Soykırım, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, pp. 126–39. Çuhadar, E. and B. Gültekin Punsmann (2012), Reflecting on the Two Decades of Bridging the Divide: Taking Stock of Turkish–Armenian Civil Society Activities, Ankara: TEPAV. Dadrian, V. N. and T. Akçam (2011), Judgement at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials, Oxford: Berghahn.

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250 | pinar sayan Deringil, S. (2015), ‘Abdülhamit Döneminde Ermeni Meselesi’, in F. Adanır and O. Özel (eds), 1915: Siyaset Tehcir Soykırım, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, pp. 95–108. Eldem, E. (2015), ‘“Banka Vakası” ve 1896 İstanbul Katliamı’, in F. Adanır and O. Özel (eds), 1915: Siyaset Tehcir Soykırım, İstanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, pp. 176–98. Erdoğan, R. T. (2005), letter to President Robert Kocharian of Armenia, 10 April, available at https://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/text-of-the-letter-of-h_e_-prime-ministerrecep-tayyip-erdogan-addressed-to-h_e_-robert-kocharian.pdf, accessed 28 January 2023. Gamaghelyan, P. and P. Sayan (2018), ‘The State of Armenia–Turkey Relations’, Heinrich Böll Stiftung Tbilisi, 1 October, https://ge.boell.org/en/2018/10/01/state-armenia-turkeyrelations, accessed 28 January 2023. Göçek, F. M. (2011a), ‘Reading Genocide: Turkish Historiography on 1915’, in R. G. Suny, F. M. Göçek and N. M. Naimark (eds), A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 42–52. Göçek, F. M. (2011b), The Transformation of Turkey: Redefining State and Society from the Ottoman Empire to the Modern Era, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Görgülü, A. (2008), Turkey–Armenia Relations: A Vicious Circle, TESEV, November. Gözel Durmaz, O. (2015), ‘The Distribution of the Armenian Abandoned Properties in an Ottoman Locality: Kayseri (1915–18)’, Middle Eastern Studies 51(5), 838–53. Grigoryan, I. (2018), Armenian Labor Migrants in Istanbul: Reality Check, Migration Research Center at Koç University, 7 October. Gürün, K. (1983), Ermeni Dosyası, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. ICTJ (International Center for Transitional Justice) (2003), The Applicability of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to Events Which Occurred during the Early Twentieth Century, https://www.ictj.org/sites/default/ files/ICTJ-Turkey-Armenian-Reconciliation-2002-English.pdf, accessed 28 January 2023. İnan, F. and D. Yayloyan (2018), New Economic Corridors in the South Caucasus and the Chinese One Belt One Road, TEPAV. International Crisis Group (2022), ‘The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Visual Explainer’, https:// www.crisisgroup.org/content/nagorno-karabakh-conflict-visual-explainer, accessed 28 January 2023. Kévorkian, R. (2011), The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Körükmez, L. (2014), ‘Göç Sürecinde Etnik Sınırların Yeniden Çizilmesi: Ermenistanlı Göçmenler ve Türkiyeli Ermeniler’, in Mühürlü Kapı: Türkiye–Ermenistan Sınırının Geleceği Konferans Tebliğleri, Istanbul: Hrant Dink Vakfı Yayınları, pp. 172–84. Kurt, Ü. (2021), The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Lewy, G. (2005), The Armenian Massacres in Turkey: A Disputed Genocide, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. McCarthy, J. (2015), Turks and Armenians: Nationalism and Conflict in the Ottoman Empire, Madison: Turko-Tatar Press.

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relations between turkey and armenia | 251 Oran, B. (2009), ‘1919–1923: Kurtuluş Yılları’, in B. Oran (ed.), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt I: 1919–1980, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Oran, B. (ed.) (2010), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt II: 1980–2001, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Pehlivan, Z. (2015), ‘Bayezid 1877: Egemen Anlatıda Görünmeyen Katliam’, in F. Adanır and O. Özel (eds), 1915: Siyaset Tehcir Soykırım, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, pp. 84–91. Phillips, D. L. (2005), Unsilencing the Past: Track Two Diplomacy and Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation, New York: Berghahn. Polatel, M. (2015), ‘Geri Dönüş ve Emval’i Metruke Meselesi’, in F. Adanır and O. Özel (eds), 1915: Siyaset Tehcir Soykırım, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, pp. 488–504. Sayan, P. (2020), Dağlık Karabağ’da Yeni Durum: Kapsayıcı Bir Barış İnşa Etmek, İstanbul Political Research Institute. Suny, R. G. (2015), ‘They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else’: A History of the Armenian Genocide, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Suny, R. G., F. M. Göçek and N. M. Naimark (eds) (2011), A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Oxford University Press. Turan, Ö. and G. G. Öztan (2018), Devlet Aklı ve 1915: Türkiye’de ‘Ermeni Meselesi’ Anlatısının İnşası, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı (2016), ‘1915 Olaylarına Dair Uyuşmazlığın Arkaplanı’, available at https://www.mfa.gov.tr/data/DISPOLITIKA/2016/1915-olaylarina-dair-turk_ ermeni-uyusmazliginin-tarihi-arka-plani-_turkce.pdf, accessed 28 January 2023. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı (2019), ‘18 Mart Şehitler Günü kapsaminda Dışişleri Şehitliği’nde düzenlenecek tören ve şehit diplomatlarimiza ilişkin bilgi notu’, https://www. mfa.gov.tr/18-mart-sehitler-gunu_nde-disisleri-sehitliginde-duzenlenecek--toren-hk-bilginotu.tr.mfa, accessed 21 February 2023. Üngör, U. Ü. and M. Polatel (2011), Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property, London and New York: Continuum. Wilson, W. (1918), address to Congress, 8 January, ‘President Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points (1918)’, National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/presidentwoodrow-wilsons-14-points, accessed 28 January 2023. Zürcher, E. J. (2011), ‘Renewal and Silence: Postwar Unionist Kemalist Rhetoric on the Armenian Genocide’, in R. G. Suny, F. M. Göçek and N. M. Naimark (eds), A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 306–16.

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19 The Kurdish Question: A Century Later Mehmet Gurses (Florida Atlantic University)

Introduction

A

nalysing any ethno-nationalist conflict over a long period is a daunting task. This difficulty is multiplied in the Kurdish case because the Kurds are divided among four key Middle Eastern states, have a high capacity both for rebellion and for statehood, having engaged in dozens of armed insurrections in the past century, and have recently become part of an intricate web of regional and global politics. This chapter focuses on the Kurdish question in Turkey, a regional power and home to more than half of the total Kurdish population worldwide. Additionally, Turkey has been locked in a stalemated conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), arguably the most potent Kurdish insurgent group. An analysis of the Kurdish question in Turkey can thus help illustrate the rise and evolution of the broader Kurdish question in the Middle East, as well as suggest possible avenues to resolving this question. The trans-border nature of the Kurdish question, however, necessitates the argument to expand beyond Turkish–Kurdish relations and address regional as well as intraKurdish dynamics over the past century. To do so, as illustrated in Figure 19.1, I draw on a tripartite interactive model of ‘issues’, ‘actors’ and ‘contexts’ to provide a broad theoretical tool aiming at an extensive synopsis of the continuities and changes in Turkey’s Kurdish question. Issues As with other adversarial state–minority relations, Kurdish–Turkish relations involve various social, economic and political dimensions. These issues include anti-Kurdish views and attitudes that have become integral to Turkish culture (Çelik 2005; Tutkal 252

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the kurdish question | 253 2022), underdevelopment or rather devolution of Kurdish regions to prevent Kurds from developing an indigenous economic base (Yadirgi 2017), and their political marginalisation. Without dismissing the importance of socio-economic and other issues around Kurdish–state relations, the core of the problem lies in the political sphere revolving around the outright rejection of Kurds as a separate nation. Modern Turkey, inspired by the French model of a centralised Jacobin nation-state, embarked on a nation-building project centred on a great deal of forced cultural engineering. Having rid Anatolia of its large non-Muslim community, the ‘gunman successors’ to the Ottomans ‘imposed the nationalist principle of “cuius regio, eius lingua”’ (whose realm, his language) to harmonise culture, language and polity (Gellner 1983: 45–6). In 1925, as the new state increasingly assumed a Turkish character, İsmet İnönü, a key member of the Kemalist elite and Atatürk’s successor as leader of the ruling CHP, declared the official position regarding non-Turks: ‘We are frankly nationalist[s] . . . and nationalism is our only factor of cohesion. In the face of a Turkish majority other elements have no kind of influence. We must Turkify the inhabitants of our land at any price, and we will annihilate those who oppose the Turks or “le turquisme’” (Barkey & Fuller 1998: 10). This rigid and exclusionary tone embraced by the founding fathers resulted in a ruthless campaign that included population transfers and criminalisation of the Kurdish language to suppress anything that suggested a distinct identity (Üngör 2012). Securitisation of Kurdishness was also accompanied by a myth that the Kurds did not constitute a distinct nation. Originating in the late Ottoman era, this bogus claim aimed at planting doubts that the Kurds were a people worthy of equal representation or rights. In the mind of Turkey’s founding elites, Kurds were future Turks who needed to be brought into civilisation and assimilated into Turkish culture (Yeğen 2007). This argument was propagated by the state, largely accepted by the public, and tacitly endorsed if not broadcast within Turkey’s intellectual and scholarly circles. In the 1960s, struggling to make sense of ‘non-existent’ Kurds led to the hollow signifier of Doğulular (Easterners). This pejorative and dismissive characterisation meant to obfuscate Kurdishness by replacing a national identity with a geographical direction. When these measures proved unsuccessful, the state elites turned increasingly to Islam as a means to bind the nation together after the 1980s. The use of Islam as an overarching identity has reached both its peak and its conceptual limits under the current rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP), which took power in late 2002. While on a theoretical level this approach aimed at unifying Muslim Turks and Kurds by providing a supra-identity, in practice it blurred the conceptual ethno-national boundaries of Kurdishness by turning it into an ambiguous sub-cultural identity that could not stand alone. The futility of this approach aside (Sarigil 2010; Gurses & Ozturk

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254 | mehmet gurses 2020; Türkmen 2021), this so-called Islamic brotherhood thesis is further indication of the state’s inability or unwillingness to recognise the core issue mentioned earlier. In both its secular and Islamist variants, modern Turkey appears to be stuck in a transitory phase of nation-building that has positioned Kurdishness as the ultimate ‘other’. Regardless of whether this stems from the Turkish state’s lack of institutional or cultural depth, or the ruling elite’s unwillingness to tackle the issue properly, it mirrors Antonio Gramsci’s (1971: 276) well-known definition of crisis. As the ‘old is dying and the new cannot be born’, the country is deadlocked with ‘a great variety of morbid symptoms’. The most recent is the AKP’s policy of effectively forcing Kurds to choose between ‘the mosque’, ‘the prison’ and ‘the mountains’. That is, they must choose between accepting their fate as secondary co-religionists to the Turks, imprisonment for resisting the state’s handling of the issue, or taking more radical means to deal with the situation. To apply Albert Hirschman’s (1970) exit, voice and loyalty model, while the mosque and the prison preach ‘loyalty’, literally and metaphorically, the mountains represent both the ‘exit’ and ‘voice’, given the lack of meaningful democratic alternatives. While the Turkish state and society have grudgingly given up, though not necessarily moved away from, their original position of denying that Kurds are a distinct people, the most tangible outcome of the century-long dispute has been a reluctant acceptance of the Kurds, aptly termed by others as ‘exclusive recognition’ (Saraçoğlu 2009) or ‘racialisation’ of Kurdishness (Engin 2014). Rather than treating the Kurds as a national minority deserving rights and recognition, the Turkish state seeks to reduce Kurdishness to a token museum exhibit displayed at its discretion. Modern Turkey has undergone important changes, evolving from a radically secular, single-party regime to a multi-party electoral democracy, and most recently to a form of competitive authoritarianism (Esen & Gumuscu 2016). AKP rule has transmuted a forward-looking state traversing the edge of authoritarianism into a stultifying hybrid regime infused with Islamic nostalgia. Despite these noteworthy changes, the crux of the story as it relates to the Kurds has remained the same, with no substantive progress on the three main issues surrounding the Kurdish question identified above. Actors Kurds are spread across a vast swathe of the Middle East. This proliferation across international borders has resulted in a variety of roles for state and non-state actors over the past century. For the sake of brevity, I focus on three key actors that I consider the most prominent players in the rise, evolution and future of the Kurdish question. In spite of important differences between the ‘high Kemalism’ of the 1930s (Çağaptay 2002), its dilution into Atatürkism in the 1980s and the high Islamism of the AKP, the Turkish state has been the dominant actor in the rise and evolution of the Kurdish

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the kurdish question | 255

Figure 19.1 An analytical summary of the Kurdish question in Turkey (and beyond)

question. While the Kurdish socio-political field includes several groups of various sizes and influences (Çiçek 2017), the PKK has emerged as the leading political actor representing Kurdishness in Turkey (Karakoç & Özen 2020; Gunes 2021) and potentially beyond. What began as a feeble movement of college students in the 1970s has since transformed itself into a ‘social movement industry’ (McCarthy & Zald 1977), giving birth to several non-violent socio-political organisations in Turkey and inspiring PKK-like entities in Syria, Iran and, to a lesser degree, Iraq. Of these PKK-oriented entities, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat, PYD) deserves special attention, having been at the forefront of Syrian Kurdish resistance against the Islamic State (IS, also known as Daesh or ISIS), the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad and others. The complex, trans-border nature of the Kurdish question is illuminated by the geographical and cultural proximity between Kurds in northern Syria and their co-ethnics in southeastern Turkey, coupled with the ideological affinity between the PKK and the PYD. The Turkish state’s attempt to portray the PYD as a mere extension of the PKK is at best a half-truth that demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Kurdish question’s intricate nature. Intertwined as they may be, the PYD is more of a reflection of the PKK than an extension. Regardless, Kurdish gains in Syria have contributed to the PKK’s allure. They have helped it develop a more positive image internationally, due in part to its progressive ideals and emphasis on women’s rights. The PYD may have provided a stage for Kurds to reach out to a global audience, but it was the PKK that originated that content.

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256 | mehmet gurses This newly acquired power has exacerbated the Turkish state’s antagonism and fuelled the rivalry between the PKK and its Kurdish competitors, including the third key actor: what I have termed the Barzanis Bloc in Figure 19.1. Contrary to the PKK, which includes both armed and non-violent groups at least loosely affiliated with it, the Barzanis Bloc is mainly represented by the dominant political party in the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) of Iraq: the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and its armed militia, known as Peshmerga. The Barzanis Bloc also has links to neighbouring Kurdish communities in Syria, Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey. The rivalry between these two Kurdish blocs stems from more than petty competition over simple politics of representation and distribution. Amir Hassanpour (2003) separates the phenomenon of post-1940s middle-class nationalism from earlier feudal attempts to reinforce Kurdishness as a separate identity dating back to the seventeenth century. Hassanpour’s categorisation helps paint a broad picture of Kurdish nationalism, but the use of the 1940s as a benchmark is rather arbitrary and may fail to capture continuity with the feudal nationalism of the earlier centuries led by influential tribal and/or religious leaders of the time. One such leader was Sheikh Ubeydullah of Nehri, whose rebellion in the 1880s against the Ottoman and Iranian empires is often cited as the first Kurdish rebellion with clear nationalist goals. The sheikh, through his letters to the British consul in Tabriz, argued for self-rule based on Kurds being ‘a people apart’ with ‘distinct religion, laws and customs’ (Miller & Soleimani 2019: 407; Ateş 2014). Three decades later, in 1909, Sheikh Abdussalam Barzani, an uncle of Massoud Barzani, advanced similar demands with an emphasis on the Kurdish language and Shafi sect as two key pillars of Kurdish identity (McDowall 2003; Eppel 2016). It is worth noting that the Barzanis are descendants of a khalifah (deputy) of Sheikh Ubeydullah’s father (Bruinessen 1996). Of the two main contemporary forms of Kurdishness, the Barzanis-led Kurdishness is more in sync with the above-mentioned feudal form and is thus better positioned to be the cultural inheritor of traditional Kurdish identity. The PKK bloc has long put a greater premium on liberating Kurds not only from their ‘oppressors’ or ‘colonisers’, but also from their ‘interiorised colonialism’. With its revolutionary emphasis on creating a new identity and moving beyond what PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan calls ‘primitive nationalism’, the PKK bloc is distinguished from the Barzanis by both its diagnosis of the problem and its strategy to address it. Without rejecting earlier forms of Kurdishness and its cultural signifiers – such as a language that has historically served as a clear distinguishing marker between Kurds and their neighbours – the PKK has multiple goals of liberating and transforming the society it claims to represent. An analysis of primary school textbooks used in the de facto autonomous region of Syria led by the PYD, which reflects the PKK, and those used in

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the kurdish question | 257 the KDP-led KRG in Iraq shows that elements of Kurdish identity, such as language and geography, feature prominently in both. However, the textbooks in northern Syria, reflecting the secular and feminist aspects of PKK ideology, have a considerable emphasis on the Kurds’ pre-Islamic myths while taking a radically modern approach to gender equality (Bengio 2020). The juxtaposition of these two blocs helps illustrate the PKK’s unique modern character. The Barzanis Bloc emphatically calls for a Kurdish nation-state under the banner of self-determination, essentially using justifications not dissimilar to those advanced by leaders of Kurdish revolts in the nineteenth century. The PKK, however, puts a greater emphasis on societal transformation and aims to move beyond the confines of the nationstate. Seeking to offer an alternative to ‘capitalist modernity’, the PKK Bloc calls for a broader and more inclusive framework: ‘democratic modernity’, with a considerably decentralised state (Öcalan 2009). The Barzanis-led Kurdishness calls for a seat at the table with representation within the existing order whereas the PKK-led Kurdishness demands serious socio-political changes to the very nature of the system. Another distinguishing aspect of the PKK Bloc is its heavy emphasis on human autonomy in bringing about change, reflecting what Alex Inkeles and David Smith (1974) call ‘individual modernity’. While the Barzanis may be better situated as the cultural successors of traditional Kurdishness in its modern form, the PKK Bloc is better able to carry Kurds to modernity, both in the form and in the essence. The competition between the two blocs over the soul of Kurdishness is likely to affect the future of the Kurdish question. This rivalry, however, should be examined within the context of the vast Kurdish lands partitioned between four states, which necessitated the rise of different Kurdish movements. For example, the relative strength and success of the Turkish state in keeping outward calm while penetrating the Kurdish-majority east contrasts with Iraq’s weakness and failure to assimilate its Kurdish north. The varying success of these two countries’ nation-building projects has significantly determined the rise, type and evolution of Kurdishness. Setting aside important ideological differences between the PKK and the Barzanis, the former cannot be properly examined without considering its dialectical interaction with the modernising Kemalist state, while the latter is partly the product of the Iraqi state’s failure to weaken traditional aspects of Kurdish society in the north. As I discuss below, the rivalry and power balances between the two main Kurdish actors are closely tied to changing domestic, regional and global contexts. Contexts This last aspect of my tripartite model provides context for the issues and actors discussed above. I begin with the immediate post-First World War period during

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258 | mehmet gurses which the Ottoman Empire was dismembered and the resulting successors embraced an age of nationalism. While this current had begun within the declining Empire in the nineteenth century, it reached its zenith towards the end of the First World War, with Muslim Turks, Kurds and Arabs increasingly resorting to nationalism to carve out spaces for themselves. As with the Empire’s other Muslim subjects, the Kurds advocated for an independent state to make sense of these dramatic changes. This early twentieth-century project was led primarily by descendants of the influential Kurdish aristocratic (mir) and religious (sheikh) families of the previous century, who had revolted against Ottoman rule to preserve their autonomous status or gain independence. These advocates included members of the famed Bedirkhan family, whose autonomous Botan Emirate was destroyed in 1847 following a war with the Ottoman state, and descendants of the aforementioned Sheikh Ubeydullah. Debates over the nature of the nineteenth-century Kurdish revolts and campaigns can be found elsewhere (Özoğlu 2004; Kardam 2011); suffice it to say that they served as a reservoir for the Kurdishness that the post-First World War Kurdish nationalist project was built on. Equally, although these (religio)-political elites’ efforts failed to create an independent state, they were the antecedents to a modern Kurdish identity by attempting to pour the traditional Kurdishness of the nineteenth century into a modern form. This period ended with the failed armed campaigns of the Sheikh Said Uprising of 1925, the Agri Revolt of 1930 and the Dersim Revolt of 1938. The failure of these rebellions, essentially remnants of nineteenth-century revolts, sealed the fate of mir- or sheikhled Kurdishness and resulted in a long, coerced tranquillity in what Hamit Bozarslan (2008: 333) calls the ‘period of silence’ in Kurdish regions of Turkey. This outward calm, which lasted throughout most of the Cold War period, ended with the PKK’s rise in the late 1970s and its armed campaign from 1984. The PKK rebellion replaced the age of mir and sheikh with that of the guerrilla. Starting after the Cold War, but gaining momentum with the capture of the PKK’s leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in 1999, the PKK Bloc underwent a wide-ranging transformation. Distancing itself from its initial goal of partitioning Turkey, the reformed PKK began to advance ‘democracy for all’ through such concepts as ‘democratic autonomy’ within Turkey’s existing borders. The PKK used the non-violent groups and parties it inspired, such as the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halklarin Demokratik Partisi, HDP), to gain significant political influence in Turkey. During this interregnum, the PKK became a mass movement with wings in the neighbouring Kurdish regions of Syria, Iran and Iraq as well as the large Kurdish diaspora in Europe (Gunes 2012; Gurses 2020). In addition to this notable transformation in the PKK Bloc, the Kurds in Iraq, most notably the Barzanis-led KDP, gained unprecedented recognition during this period.

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the kurdish question | 259 What began as de facto autonomy in the 1990s acquired official status in Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s overthrow. The US-led 2003 invasion led to a more robust and comprehensive Kurdish–US partnership that added an extra layer to the transnational aspect of the Kurdish question. While these years helped the Barzanis Bloc rise to prominence, the Arab Spring and its aftermath brought the PKK Bloc to the forefront of regional and global politics. The PYD and its militia in Syria ultimately emerged as the local force most capable of working with the US in its war against IS. What began in late 2014 as a tactical or even accidental alliance between the US and the PYD has grown beyond the mere necessity to eliminate IS (Knights & Wilgenburg 2021). This indirect connection between the US and the PKK may prove more significant in future if the Turkish state chooses to engage with the PKK to find a political resolution of the Kurdish question. Conclusion Approaching its centennial as a republic, Turkey faces a constellation of social, economic and political crises. These cannot be examined in isolation from the Kurdish question, which, in the words of one astute observer, has become ‘the mother of all questions in Turkey’ (Çandar 2020). Even a cursory glance at socio-economic statistics shows that Kurdish regions are noticeably underdeveloped. However, the fundamental challenge for the Turkish state lies in the political sphere. A caveat is in order, however. After a century spent internalising anti-Kurdish views and attitudes in Turkish socio-political culture, addressing these problems may require extra care and prove more challenging than dealing with the economic issues. Although the vast and fertile Kurdish regions are less developed on average than other regions in Turkey, they may not need much assistance from the state to overcome their economic underdevelopment once political barriers are removed. Rather, the Turkish camp may need more help to overcome its social biases against the Kurds and experience what Tim Jacoby and Alpaslan Özerdem (2013: 125) call a ‘demilitarization of minds’ for the two peoples to live together in dignity and harmony. Despite the heavy psychosocial costs incurred over forty years of off-and-on conflict, the Kurds have also shown that suffering can coexist with growth. Decades of armed conflict have both fractured and transformed Kurdish society (Gurses 2018). Just as the Turkish majority may need help to overcome its anti-Kurdish biases, the Kurds need social and psychological healing, having borne the brunt of the conflict. The PKK Bloc has shown that it can ‘learn from defeat’ and adapt to changing contexts (Jongerden 2019), which makes it best suited to guide the Kurdish masses through this process. If the PKK is brought into the political fold, it could serve as a peacemaker and strengthen the Turkish Republic’s secular and democratic foundations. To do

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260 | mehmet gurses otherwise is likely to further damage Turkish–Kurdish relations and weaken these already strained foundations. The fourteenth-century Muslim philosopher Ibn Khaldun estimated that dynasties (his contemporary states) rose and fell in around 200 years, or after four or five generations. States begin to decline after the third generation, reach their weakest point by the end of their fourth generation, and then collapse. Khaldun’s definition of a generation was partly inspired by the Jewish people’s forty years of wandering in the desert. According to Khaldun, this process served as a purifying force that helped shed old habits and practices (Khaldun 2005: 136). If, as Khaldun argues, it takes roughly 200 years for the cycle of change to complete, two main conclusions are in order. First, the Turkish state may be starting to decline. Second, it may require another 100 years for the state to successfully assimilate the Kurds or for the Kurds to give up their claim of nationhood. Using a more contemporary definition of generational change as approximately twenty years, with Turkey approaching its centennial, it is facing a crux in its handling of the Kurdish question. If it does not come to terms with Kurdishness, Turkey at best faces another century of costly and repressive assimilationist policies that cannot succeed because the Kurds both constitute a large proportion of society that have mobilised en masse to demand a change in their relationship with the state and also inhabit a large territory that spreads into neighbouring countries. Just as the Turkish state is quickly approaching a climactic moment, the two main Kurdish blocs face similarly difficult challenges, albeit of a different nature. With the Barzanis’ claim to Kurdishness gradually stalling, they face pressure to provide jobs for a new generation of Kurds born and raised under a practically independent Kurdish state. This faction also needs serious political recalibration to renew its claim to Kurdishness (Salih & Fantappie 2019; Fazil & Baser 2021). While politically creative, the PKK bloc has yet to recognise changing circumstances to sustain the hold over the Kurdish masses that it has mobilised for decades. Having generated high levels of political capital among the Kurdish youth in Turkey, the PKK needs to overcome the uneven distribution of human capital to move to the next stage of mounting a sustained challenge to the state. The PYD’s experience in northern Syria indicates that the PKK Bloc could indeed adapt, but it also suggests that the PKK’s Kurdishness is yet to transition from insurrection to governance. Recent developments in Syria and Iraq, most notably the rise of de facto and de jure Kurdish political entities and their integration into changing regional and global dynamics, have rendered old state policies obsolete. Even in Turkey, Kurds no longer face a total denial of their identity. Kurdish people’s relations with their own states or neighbouring Turkish and Arab peoples will soon revolve not around whether Kurds deserve rights, but instead who gets to represent them in national and global forums.

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the kurdish question | 261 The main outcome of the ongoing intricate web of regional politics that Kurds are increasingly involved in will be shaped by the larger fight between forces of tradition and modernity as well as the Western commitment to broader regional dynamics. Just as Kurdish gains in Syria have primarily been a result of Kurdish preparedness reinforced by US support, their sustainability in one form or another is likely to have repercussions for the Kurds themselves, for Turkey and for other states involved. Without a radical change in the Turkish state’s overall approach to the Kurds, that is, a political solution to the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, the Syrian Kurdish entity is likely to increase the Turkish state’s threat perception and exacerbate conflict dynamics in the years to come. The vast size of the Kurdish geography, coupled with key ideological differences between the two main Kurdish blocs, is likely to contribute to the intra-Kurdish rivalry. This competition may even intensify, drawing in additional regional and global powers, such as the US, Russia and Iran. However, the size and division of the Kurdish lands could also help mitigate this rivalry and allow for multiple Kurdish political entities to emerge, however defined. References Ateş, Sabri (2014), ‘In the Name of the Caliph and the Nation: The Sheikh Ubeidullah Rebellion of 1880–81’, Iranian Studies 47(5): 735–98. Barkey, Henri J. and Graham E. Fuller (1998), Turkey’s Kurdish Question, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bengio, Ofra (2020), ‘Reclaiming National Identity in Kurdish School Textbooks’, Middle East Journal 74(3): 359–78. Bozarslan, Hamit (2008), ‘Kurds and the Turkish State’, in Reşat Kasaba (ed.), The Cambridge History of Turkey, Vol. 4: Turkey in the Modern World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 333–56. Bruinessen, Martin van (1996), ‘Sufis and Sultans in Southeast Asia and Kurdistan: A Comparative Survey’, Indonesian Journal for Islamic Studies 3(3): 1–20. Çağaptay, Soner (2002), ‘Reconfiguring the Turkish Nation in the 1930s’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 8(2): 67–82. Çandar, Cengiz (2020), Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds, Lanham, MD: Lexington. Çelik, Ayşe Betul (2005), ‘“I Miss My Village!” Forced Kurdish Migrants in Istanbul and Their Representation in Associations’, New Perspectives on Turkey 32: 137–63. Çiçek, Cuma (2017), The Kurds of Turkey: National, Religious and Economic Identities, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Eppel, Michael (2016), A People without a State: The Kurds from the Rise of Islam to the Dawn of Nationalism, Austin: University of Texas Press.

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262 | mehmet gurses Ergin, Murat (2014), ‘The Racialization of Kurdish Identity in Turkey’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 37(2): 322–41. Esen, Berk and Sebnem Gumuscu (2016), ‘Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey’, Third World Quarterly 37(9): 1581–606. Fazil, Shivan and Bahar Baser (eds) (2021), Youth Identity, Politics and Change in Contemporary Kurdistan, Sale, England: Transnational Press London. Gellner, Ernest (1983), Nations and Nationalism, Oxford: Blackwell. Gramsci, Antonio (1971), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and tr. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, London: Lawrence & Wishart. Gunes, Cengiz (2012), Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance, Abingdon: Routledge. Gunes, Cengiz (2021), The Political Representation of Kurds in Turkey: New Actors and Modes of Participation in a Changing Society, London: I. B. Tauris. Gurses, Mehmet (2018), Anatomy of a Civil War: Sociopolitical Impacts of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Gurses, Mehmet (2020), ‘The Evolving Kurdish Question in Turkey’, Middle East Critique 29(3): 307–18. Gurses, Mehmet and Ahmet Erdi Ozturk (2020), ‘Religion and Armed Conflict: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 59(2): 327–40. Hassanpour, Amir (2003), ‘The Making of Kurdish Identity: Pre-20th Century Historical and Literary Discourses’, in Abbas Vali (ed.), Essays on the Origins of Kurdish Nationalism, Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda. Hirschman, O. Albert (1970), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Inkeles, Alex and David H. Smith (1974), Becoming Modern: Individual Changes in Six Developing Countries, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Jacoby, Tim and Alpaslan Özerdem (2013), Peace in Turkey 2023: The Question of Human Security and Conflict Transformation, Lanham, MD: Lexington. Jongerden, Joost (2019), ‘Learning from Defeat: Development and Contestation of the “New Paradigm” within Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)’, Kurdish Studies 7(1): 72–92. Karakoç, Ekrem and Ege H. Özen (2020), ‘Kurdish Public Opinion in Turkey: Cultural and Political Demands of the “Kurdish Street”’, in Mehmet Gurses, David Romano and Michael M. Gunter (eds), The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 21–47. Kardam, Ahmet (2011), Cizre-Bohtan Beyi Bedirhan: Direnis ve Isyan Yillari, Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları. Khaldun, Ibn (2005), The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, ed. N. J. Dawood, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Knights, Michael and Wladimir van Wilgenburg (2021), Accidental Allies: The US–Syrian Democratic Forces Partnership against the Islamic State, London and New York: I. B. Tauris.

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the kurdish question | 263 McCarthy, John D. and Mayer N. Zald (1977), ‘Resource Mobilization and Social Movements: A Partial Theory’, American Journal of Sociology 82(6): 1212–41. McDowall, David (2003), Modern History of the Kurds, 3rd ed., London: I. B. Tauris. Miller, Owen Robert and Kamal Soleimani (2019), ‘The Sheikh and the Missionary: Notes on a Conversation on Christianity, Islam and Kurdish Nationalism’, Muslim World 109(3): 394–416. Öcalan, Abdullah (2009), Demokratik Uygarlik Manifestosu: Maskeli Tanrilar ve Ortuk Krallar Cagi, Diyarbakir: Aram Yayınları. Özoğlu, Hakan (2004), Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries, Albany: State University of New York Press. Salih, Cale and Maria Fantappie (2019), ‘Kurdish Nationalism at an Impasse’, Century Foundation, 29 April, https://tcf.org/content/report/iraqi-kurdistan-losing-place-center-kurdayeti/, accessed 30 January 2023. Saraçoğlu, Cenk (2009), ‘“Exclusive Recognition”: The New Dimensions of the Question of Ethnicity and Nationalism in Turkey’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 32(4): 640–58. Sarigil, Zeki (2010), ‘Curbing Kurdish Ethno-nationalism in Turkey: An Empirical Assessment of Pro-Islamic and Socio-economic Approaches’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 33(3): 533–53. Türkmen, Gülay (2021), Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity, New York: Oxford University Press. Tutkal, Serhat (2022), ‘Dehumanization on Twitter in the Turkish–Kurdish Conflict’, Media, War & Conflict 15(2): 165–82 Üngör, Uğur Ümit (2012), ‘Untying the Tongue-Tied: Ethnocide and Language Politics’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 217: 127–50. Yadirgi, Veli (2017), The Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yeğen, Mesut (2007), ‘Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 30(1): 119–51.

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20 The Turkish–Kurdish Peace Process: Reasons for Failure and Future Prospects Alpaslan Özerdem (George Mason University) and Bahar Baser (Durham University)

Introduction

T

he Turkish state has faced several Kurdish rebellions, but the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), particularly its armed resistance, has proved the most tenacious and made the greatest impact (Gurses 2018). Although there had been political movements rallying for Kurdish rights and rights of self-determination before the foundation of the PKK, they were suppressed by a variety of means in Turkey, from mass arrests to military coups. Starting from the 1960s and accelerating in the 1970s, Kurdish activists have voiced their demands for political, social and economic equality in Turkey. The Turkish state’s response has been further securitisation coupled with repression, which reached its peak with the military coup in the early 1980s. This constituted a seminal moment for Kurdish political history and after this date, the PKK has become the dominant Kurdish voice in the Turkish and also the global political scenes (Baser 2015). Since its inception in 1984, the conflict between the Turkish state and the PKK has become of the world’s most enduring civil wars, albeit with intermittent PKK ceasefires (Gurses 2010). To date, the conflict has cost some 40,000 lives and has displaced a million people or more. Thousands of Kurdish people have also been internally displaced by forced deportations from some 3,000 villages (Jongerden 2007). The conflict has also done significant damage to the environment, agriculture and heritage of the region where the fighting took place (Gurses 2012). Starting in 2006, the two sides began ‘secret negotiations’, mainly via backchannel communications in Oslo, and after various domestic democratisation packages, Turkey finally entered what was described at the time as the ‘resolution process’ (Baser & Ozerdem 2021; Kadıoğlu 2019). The pre-talks as well as other developments throughout 264

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the turkish–kurdish peace process | 265 the process indicated that the Turkish–Kurdish peace process would not lead to a substantial settlement agreement between the two parties as we know it, but rather would focus on a top-down democratisation process in Turkey which would eventually pave the way for the accommodation of all minority groups in Turkey, including the Kurds (Köse 2017). As a result of these assumptions, the pre-talks and negotiations usually revolved around the constitutional recognition of Kurdish rights and paid less attention to societal transformation or reduction of prejudices between the two groups. The peace initiative ultimately proved too vulnerable to regional affairs and day-to-day domestic politics (Ozpek 2017). In the summer of 2015, the process collapsed, and armed clashes soon resumed. A recent Crisis Group report claims that since 2015, more than 5,000 people have been killed either in clashes or in terror attacks. More than 3,000 of them were PKK militants and more than 1,300 were state security force members (International Crisis Group 2022). As the conflict continues, it destabilises Turkey and it not only affects the national and international politics of the country, but also has a major impact on many neighbouring countries with Kurdish populations such as Iran, Iraq and Syria. As the Syrian civil war unfolded, Turkey’s Kurdish politics gained a transnational nature. This chapter provides an overview of the main dynamics at play during the Turkish–Kurdish peace process and the fundamental reasons behind its collapse. The Resolution Process in Turkey What lies at the heart of the conflict is the suppression of the Kurdish identity and culture and the denial of the fact that the Kurds were a separate nationality (Gurses 2018). Starting in 1923, the Turkish state’s engagement with the Kurdish question stood on three pillars: assimilation, repression and containment. But come the 1990s, this strategy started to fail. Kurdish resistance was reaching uncontainable proportions, and the PKK had turned into a fully fledged insurgent group with the capacity to fight a low-level war without recruitment problems (Yeğen 2015). This could explain why the Turkish state then opted for a harsher security policy across the region (Yavuz 2001; Yavuz & Özcan 2006). This does not mean, however, that the Turkish state had never tried to negotiate with the PKK before. On the contrary, previous attempts were made during the tenure of President Turgut Özal, with negotiations starting after the PKK announced a unilateral ceasefire in 1993. The ceasefire could have been a great chance for both sides to end the war, but the opportunity was ultimately wasted; while Özal was an open-minded leader by his predecessors’ standards, he died shortly after talks began and the violence immediately returned (Ozkahraman 2017; see also Çandar 2020). Up until the 2000s, Kurds struggled to open a political space for representation in Turkish politics, but their attempts were pushed back by the state. Just as the conflict reached its peak at the end of the 1990s, PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured in

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266 | alpaslan özerdem and bahar baser Kenya. After he was imprisoned, the Kurdish movement rapidly transformed itself into a political power in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated regions. The movement dropped the idea of a separate Kurdish state and instead began calling for a semi-federal solution, demanding the decentralisation of the Turkish state. In 2002, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP), led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, came to power. Once elected, the AKP set about implementing a conservative agenda, and at the same time, ‘taboo’ topics such as the Kurdish identity and peace negotiations were suddenly open to discussion. This tactic attracted Kurdish votes that had previously gone to other parties, and it helped the AKP secure victory in the 2007 elections. This in turn enabled the party to further consolidate its power, but at the same time gave its leaders enough confidence to proceed with a reform process.1 Also, various external dynamics encouraged the government to pursue some sort of resolution. Firstly, it was clear that the Kurdish autonomous region in Iraq was there to stay; its leaders were willing to collaborate with the Turkish government, which began to imagine that their own country’s Kurdish region could become an ally rather than a perpetual security threat. At the same time, Turkey was cultivating its status as a ‘rising power’ in the Middle East with a view to securing a bigger role in the future politics of the region. This aspiration made solving domestic security problems a major priority. Moreover, despite the outrage of opposition parties such as the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) and the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), public opinion had turned in favour of peace. The conflict had been going on for nearly two decades; it had become obvious that Turkey could not win the war by conventional military methods, since the PKK had no problems of recruitment or arms supply and was steadily attracting more and more popular support. Considering the conflict had taken a huge human toll and the Turkish state had set aside an annual US$15 billion over the past twenty years to tackle it, negotiations were obviously considered as a rational thing to do (Ensaroğlu 2013: 7). With all these circumstances finally aligned, the mid-2000s seemed like a propitious moment to establish covert or secret communication channels between the two warring sides. Starting with the 2007 elections, the AKP began to take advantage of the ripeness of the overall political environment. By trying to change the discourse on the Kurdish question, the AKP managed to keep increasing its popularity among religious Kurds and enhancing its voter base while at the same time retaining the approval of the international community, legitimising itself as a force for peace. The PKK also instrumentalised the peace process to gain international legitimacy. The PKK has long been listed as a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union, heavily curtailing its political options For more information see Çandar (2020).

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the turkish–kurdish peace process | 267 abroad. By willingly entering negotiations with Turkey, the movement would appear more docile and less warlike, hopefully paving the way for the removal of the ‘terrorist’ label. The prospect of peace negotiations was thus too attractive for either side to pass up; the moment was ripe. Initial Negotiations and the ‘Kurdish Opening’ When the AKP decided to implement a new policy of negotiation with the PKK, the resolution process started with secret talks, completely away from the public eye. The initial talks were conducted with extreme caution, and there is no credible source that gives the exact start date of the secret negotiations (Yegen 2015, 5; Ensaroglu 2013, 13). It is said that several meetings occurred in Europe, but these talks are usually referred to as the ‘Oslo talks’. The exact number of people involved and their statuses and roles were not shared with the public. Just as opaque is what these talks were even intended to achieve. Although it is hard to draw a definitive conclusion about both sides’ intentions, it is fair to say that they both took a risk simply by agreeing to backchannel communications in the first place. In a highly securitized environment where the PKK had been framed as a terrorist group for many years, the government was essentially putting its political survival on the line; for its part, the PKK risked losing the goodwill of supporters who might have rejected anything that looked like a compromise with the Turkish state. In almost any peace process that begins with backchannel discussions, the general public will become aware of the secret talks sooner or later; sure enough, the transcriptions of Oslo meetings were later leaked to the public in 2011, making it clear that the Turkish state was now treating the PKK as the Kurdish movement’s lead actor. In parallel with the Oslo talks, in 2009, the AKP government declared the beginning of a process of reforms with the potential to help resolve the conflict. Officially named the ‘Democratic Opening: National Unity and Fraternity’ in January 2010, this programme is now known as the ‘Kurdish Opening’ (Kose 2017). A state TV channel (TRT 6) broadcasting in Kurdish was opened, several departments at universities started teaching in Kurdish, and the existence of a Kurdish question was openly acknowledged by politicians, including then-prime minister Erdoğan himself. The AKP also ended the state of emergency as ‘a gesture of goodwill’ and prepared an amnesty law for PKK fighters. The government was clearly signalling that it treated these reforms as public diplomacy, but these initiatives were exclusively elite-driven and top-down, and the public remained sceptical about the whole process (Yegen 2015: Ensaroglu 2013: Kose 2017). Meanwhile, despite these ‘gestures’, the PKK and Kurdish activists more generally were still questioning the government’s sincerity. During the rapprochement period, Kurdish identity and freedom of speech were still visibly curbed; Kurdish politicians and journalists were arrested, pro-Kurdish parties were outlawed, or criminalized, Turkish opposition

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268 | alpaslan özerdem and bahar baser politicians constantly referred to the Kurdish movement as ‘terrorists’, and ceasefires were violated (albeit on a fairly small scale). Yet at the same time, the ‘peace project’ still seemed to be viable. With the outraged mainstream opposition too weak to derail the process, the AKP and PKK proved determined to continue with public gestures of peacemaking. One such move was the return to Turkey of 34 PKK fighters in October 2009, from both the PKK’s base in the Qandil Mountains and the Maxmur refugee camp, both of which are in neighbouring Iraq. This unusual scene was shown on every TV station; intended as a spectacle of peacemaking, it backfired, rekindling Turkish nationalist ‘sensitivities’ and compelling the government to take a step back from the process. Shortly afterward, the process came to a deadlock, and violence resumed in southeastern Turkey (Yegen 2015, 6–7). The elite-driven process had ultimately proven vulnerable to everyday politics, and to the events that had continued even as the talks proceeded: the banning of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party, the Roboski incident of 2011, the Kurdistan Communities Union (Koma Civakên Kurdistanê, KCK) trials and the assassination of three Kurdish activist women in Paris in 2013. The Gezi protests in 2013 also outraged the government, which then started implementing ever more authoritarian policies to curb the opposition. As Turkey was becoming less and less democratic under the elected AKP government, the space in which civil society could openly support the peace process also began to disappear (Baser & Öztürk 2017). These and other events conspired to widen the gap between the two sides. Particularly divisive were the hunger strikes initiated by Kurdish political inmates in Turkish prisons in 2012. The striking prisoners demanded that Abdullah Öcalan be allowed to see his lawyers and convey messages to the PKK. It is said that the then minister of justice, Sadullah Ergin, held individual meetings with prisoners to end the strike, something not shared with the public at the time (Ensaroğlu 2013: 14). As a result of the hunger strikes, among other developments, the communication channels with Öcalan were opened again to rejuvenate the process. Öcalan’s Road Map and the İmralı Meetings While Öcalan had prepared a road map for the resolution process well before it hit its stride, that plan was not made public until early 2011 (Yeğen 2015: 7). He even met the chief of the Turkish National Intelligence Organisation, Hakan Fidan, in December 2012, a meeting that was confirmed by Erdoğan himself (Köse 2017: 143). But Öcalan really came to the fore when he began receiving regular visitors to his prison cell. A committee established by the deputies of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, BDP),2 visited Öcalan at the İmralı Island prison in the Sea The BDP was active on the political scene between 2008 and 2014. It was succeeded by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, HDP).

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the turkish–kurdish peace process | 269 of Marmara on a number of occasions and mediated between the different segments of the Kurdish resistance movement. As Mesut Yeğen explains, ‘the state and Öcalan would keep talking, Öcalan would inform the PKK headquarters in Kandil and be informed by them through the BDP deputies visiting İmralı’ (Yeğen 2015: 8). On 3 January 2013, two Kurdish MPs went to İmralı Island to visit Öcalan, which officially started the peace talks, known as the ‘İmralı meetings’. Other Kurdish MPs visited throughout February and April. After those meetings, BDP officials then visited the leadership of the PKK and KCK. That same year, the Turkish state officially admitted that negotiations were underway. Another major taboo was broken when the government let Kurdish MPs convey Öcalan’s messages to the symbolically important Newroz celebrations in the city of Diyarbakır that March. In his letter, read out loud in public, Öcalan declared that armed struggle should be a thing of the past and called on the Kurdish movement to opt for a democratic struggle instead. He suggested that PKK fighters retreat from Turkey, that the government make democratic reforms, and that the PKK be integrated into civic and political circles in Turkey. The PKK duly declared a ceasefire on 23 March. Peace processes only flourish after ceasefires, and when both actors put confidencebuilding measures in place (Tonge 2014: 18). Öcalan’s Newroz call did a lot to soothe the tensions between the Turkish military and the PKK. As Cemal Özkahraman argues, ‘the Turkish government and many of the Turkish and Kurdish public saw Öcalan’s announcement on Newroz and the withdrawal of the PKK as a welcome move. For the first time in its history, Turkey was serious and confident regarding making peace with its Kurds’ (Özkahraman 2017: 58). In late 2013, the PKK stated that it had done its share by withdrawing from Turkey and that it was time for the Turkish state to make good on its promises (Özkahraman 2017: 58); by that, it meant legal reforms to guarantee Kurdish rights under the constitution and make them irrevocable, rather than mere democratisation rhetoric unsupported by laws or regulations. There was obviously still deep mutual distrust between the two parties, which the Newroz declaration could not erase. During the peace process, the Turkish state continued building military posts in southeastern Turkey and increasing the number of village guards, indicating that the state was actually considering going back to fighting and increasing its security presence just in case (Gunter 2014). After two years of dialogue process following Öcalan’s Newroz declaration, a pivotal encounter took place on 28 February 2015. Known as the Dolmabahçe meeting, this was the first time that representatives from both sides attended a press conference on the peace process. HDP MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder read from the report of the İmralı Committee and relayed a message from Öcalan to the PKK, calling on the party to hold an extraordinary meeting in spring 2015 and end the armed struggle to arrive at a democratic solution to

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270 | alpaslan özerdem and bahar baser the Turkish–Kurdish conflict. AKP representatives also made declarations underlining that resolution was in sight (Çiçek & Çoşkun 2016). However, less than a month after the Dolmabahçe meeting, Öcalan’s annual Newroz declaration introduced a precondition for the gathering of the extraordinary PKK congress: the convening of a truth and reconciliation commission, its members to be selected from among the members of parliament and the monitoring commission. To complicate matters further, Erdoğan declared that he did not agree with the declaration, and he strongly opposed the formation of any sort of monitoring commission for the negotiations. Elections in 2015 and the HDP’s rise as a competitor to the AKP completely changed the political atmosphere. As the AKP needed a parliamentary majority for its agenda to change the parliamentary system to a presidential one, it started prioritising its election success over peace. During this tense political atmosphere, the PKK killed two policemen on 22 July and the Turkish military started bombing PKK camps in northern Iraq. This incident is now accepted as the official moment the peace process fell apart. It completely derailed the process and brought back violence that has been more intense than before. Why the Peace Process Failed There are several reasons that contributed to the collapse of the peace process; first among them, it was an elite-run process that failed to make connections between the top level of governance and the general population. In April 2013, Erdoğan appointed sixty-three ‘wise people’ in order to formulate a fact-finding commission that would be responsible for the seven different regions of Turkey. Dispatched to make observations on trips to various locations, they were expected to report back to Erdoğan about their findings after two months. The wise people committee included journalists, authors, actors, academics and public intellectuals who were thought to have the capacity to understand the people’s expectations of the peace process. Each commission wrote a report on the public’s expectations, but such a strategy could not do much apart from emphasising how confused people were by the process (Oran 2014). These reports still have not been shared with the public, and there is significant doubt about their impact. It was never clear whether the government was genuinely interested in making the peace process participatory by incorporating the public’s views on peace-building, but the mere fact that such commissions were formed indicated that the state was able to think outside its usual mindset of security and counter-terrorism. The Turkish parliament also founded a ‘resolution commission’ that included ten MPs from the ruling AKP and one member from the BDP. Again, a variety of civil society organisations, political parties, academics, and intellectuals were invited to share their thoughts on the resolution process.3 At the end of the commission One of the authors of this article was among those academics who took part in this commission’s proceedings.

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the turkish–kurdish peace process | 271 meetings, the AKP and the BDP (BDP, 2015) published their own interpretations of the process, along with a joint report.4 The other opposition parties, such as the CHP and MHP, refused to nominate members to this commission. On the other hand, at the middle level, a great many initiatives popped up in all areas of society, with Turkish and Kurdish civil society actors alike entering the political arena to support the peace process. Numerous fact-finding missions were mounted by NGOs, dozens of peace process reports were written, and conferences and seminars were organised within and outside Turkey. If we look at organisations such as the Women for Peace Initiative or the Turkey Peace Assembly, we see activists of all stripes – academics, journalists, artists and other public intellectuals – who wanted to have a say in the process (Sunca 2016). Most of these civil initiatives took a lessons-learned approach, looking at other successful and unsuccessful peace-building projects from all around the world and putting significant time and effort into understanding what mechanisms bring sustainable peace. But while these initiatives organised many activities such as prejudice reduction workshops, and peace and human rights training seminars, they ultimately ended up preaching to the choir. Second, the process proved very fragile in the face of day-to-day politics and international developments. Turkey held several elections during the peace process, all of which pushed both sides to put their electoral performance first rather than surrendering some popularity to help reach an agreement. The AKP charted its policy course not according to the need for peace, but in relation to its successes and failures at the ballot box. While a few confidence-building measures were established throughout the process, the mistrust between both sides was never fully dissipated. With regard to strategic focus, the process’s elite participants were fundamentally concerned with security rather than conflict transformation; the stress was on the disarmament of a ‘terrorist organisation’ and going back to ‘normal’ by ending violence. Structural violence, deep-rooted identity-related problems, human rights violations and truth-seeking efforts were constantly swept under the carpet by the Turkish authorities, even as they were frequently brought up by middlelevel actors and Kurdish actors at all levels. Meanwhile, from early in the process, the situation of the Kurds in Syria and Iraq shaped both sides’ vision of the resolution and a potential settlement. The Kurdish side naturally paid close attention to the rising international interest in the Kurdish–ISIS conflict, which increased the popularity of Kurdish fighters around the world and improved the image of the Kurdish movement overall. Meanwhile, the Turkish side’s perception of the Kurds did not change. It stepped out of the security perspective on a few occasions, The report was available until 2019; however, currently it has been removed from the Turkish Parliament’s website.

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272 | alpaslan özerdem and bahar baser but all in all, it stayed loyal to the official policy that has been in place for the last forty years. The Kurdish side, on the other hand, was sceptical of every Turkish step towards a resolution, and always made a show of its caution for fear of appearing weak. Each and every concession from both sides, then, was shaped by short-term needs and interests rather than long-term. Third, in protracted conflicts whose opposed parties are highly polarised, issues such as justice, societal integration and reconciliation are more important for peace to be established. The idea is not just to eliminate the conflict, but to construct something better in the process. The top-level actors in the Turkish–Kurdish process did not see this as a priority. Although mainstream media was utilised to create a positive atmosphere, deeply embedded structural inequalities went unaddressed, meaning it was only a matter of time before a more polarised atmosphere returned. For instance, starting with the elections of June 2015, Turkish nationalist groups mounted dozens of attacks against Kurdish individuals and HDP party buildings and property (O’Connor & Baser 2018). As for transforming relationships, it should also be underlined that this whole process was conducted by AKP and the PKK at the top level via proxy negotiators. With major political parties such as the CHP and MHP refusing to take part, to nominate members to investigatory parliamentary commissions, or to engage with middle- or local-level actors who wanted to make their voice heard at the top levels, around 30–40 per cent of the society were denied political representation in the whole process. This meant that horizontal gaps contributed to the process’s failure just as much as vertical ones. Finally, after the collapse, human security deteriorated sharply in the Kurdish-populated areas of southeast Turkey, and thousands more people were displaced by the resurgent violence between the Turkish state and the PKK. This is all testament to a sad reality: during the peace process, the policymakers involved failed to grasp the importance of structural and political violence, and completely ignored the impact of such traumatic events on the Kurdish people’s collective memory. Turkey was back to square one. The Aftermath of the Failed Peace Process and Future Prospects Within the policymaker circles as well as among the public, many criticised the peace process at the time, with some complaining that the Turkish state was compromising itself by negotiating with the PKK, while for others the PKK’s demands were too minimal to meet the needs of the Kurdish people. Both negotiating parties put forward demands that were perceived as unrealistic by the other side. More importantly, there was a lack of trust between the parties throughout the process. The international and regional conjuncture did not push the two sides towards a mutually hurting stalemate either. The PKK believed that it had much to gain from the developments in Rojava (northern Syria) and potential Kurdish self-rule in the region, and the Turkish state believed that it could

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the turkish–kurdish peace process | 273 opt for the so-called ‘Sri Lankan model’, which entails complete annihilation of the rebel group and ending the insurgency with a victor’s peace. Turkey’s failed resolution process included only token gestures of democratisation initiatives and was highly vulnerable to the self-serving political interests and priorities of the main participants. The segments of society who could have played the role of connector were given no room to influence the process, instead acknowledged only in superficial references to their peace work activities. The process was opaque, and because it was planned mostly in relation to short-term interests, it never benefited from a clear road map to a sustainable long-term settlement. The most critical issues were not addressed, and by the end of the process, the identity politics and structural inequalities that lie at the heart of the problem remained just as solid, if not even more so. The fallout has been appalling. Once clashes between the PKK and the Turkish Armed Forces resumed after the process collapsed, the government simultaneously began to put more pressure on opposition groups. As observers remarked that Turkey was becoming more and more authoritarian (Baser & Öztürk 2017), the clashes reached a peak when the urban wing of the PKK declared self-rule in certain districts of southeastern Turkey, digging trenches and building barricades to defend territory against the security forces. The authorities responded by imposing 24-hour curfews in many cities, measures that prevented people from leaving their homes and obtaining supplies such as food and medicine. It was reported that many civilians lost their lives during the security operations. Starting from 2017, both sides have returned to a posture of ‘total war’, and what traces of the peace process remained have gradually disappeared. Moreover, the aftermath of the collapse of the peace process was full of critical events for Turkey. The country experienced numerous terrorist attacks, unrest, and an escalation of armed conflict and communal violence. The attempted coup of 15 July 2016 was undoubtedly one of the most significant events in Turkey’s modern history. Had the coup succeeded, the result would certainly have been a deep regression as regards the gains made in Turkish political democracy in the last century, something that would have been incredibly difficult to recover from. However, the current picture does not give the impression that Turkey is moving towards further democratisation either. This coup attempt could have been an opportunity for the ruling party and the president to restore trust between Turkey’s various ethnic and religious communities, begin anew the peace process, and continue the reformation process for further democratisation in Turkey. Instead, the post-putsch period brought chaos and enmity as well as a total crackdown on groups and individuals, including academics, journalists, teachers, lawyers and judges. There had already been a trend of growing authoritarianism in Turkey and 15 July became a turning point that enabled the rulers of ‘New Turkey’ to implement even harsher policies in order to cling to power. Only five days after the

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274 | alpaslan özerdem and bahar baser attempted coup, the AKP government declared a state of emergency for three months, which was subsequently extended for further periods. Although, on paper, the state of emergency seems to be related to the putsch, it is fair to argue that it has been used to crack down on most opposition groups and potential social and political targets. Although HDP politicians repeatedly emphasised that they were not the political wing of the PKK, they could not shrug off the label that was given to them by a significant section of the public and the mainstream media. The post-putsch period only accelerated the criminalisation process, even though the HDP constantly made declarations condemning the coup attempt. Realistically, one can immediately comprehend that a successful coup would have been a disaster for the Kurds. A quick look at Turkish political history would reveal that every coup in Turkey has aimed primarily at crushing the Kurdish movements, whether they were armed or unarmed. But somehow, the rulers of ‘New Turkey’ managed to direct the anger and frustration felt towards the coup attempt in the direction of the Kurds. Right after the coup attempt was thwarted, political parties organised events to celebrate democracy and condemn the coup attempt. The HDP was completely excluded from these meetings, even though it repeatedly stressed that the coup would have been a disaster for the Kurds and the rest of the country. Hence, no place was given to them in this picture of the post-putsch ‘New Turkey’, which indicated what was yet to come. The parliamentary immunity of the HDP MPs had already been lifted in May 2016. After 15 July, under the state of emergency, many HDP politicians, including parliamentarians and mayors, were detained and remanded in custody. The co-chair of the party, Selahattin Demirtaş, was also arrested in November 2016. The HDP politicians are accused of making terrorist propaganda according to Turkey’s counter-terrorism law. Conclusion One thing is clear, the contemporary rulers of the Turkish state are not following a lessonslearned approach. More than thirty years of armed conflict with the PKK have revealed that Turkey’s security approach is not a solution to this problem and that the Kurdish movement cannot be eliminated by intimidation and an escalation of cultural and structural as well as physical violence. Many pro-Kurdish political parties had been formed and banned before the emergence of the HDP and most probably new ones will emerge in the future. Prolonging the conflict will mean the loss of more lives, including civilians. The state is sending a very strong signal to the followers of the Kurdish movement: ‘There is no room for political representation.’ Anyone who is even a little bit familiar with peace and conflict studies literature will immediately guess what this could bring: further radicalisation! This is how non-violent resistance movements lose power and means of violent resistance gain legitimacy in the eyes of the members of the oppressed groups. There is a high possibility that the current state policies will backfire in this regard in the future.

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the turkish–kurdish peace process | 275 References Baser, Bahar (2015), ‘Komkar: The Unheard Voice in the Kurdish Diaspora’, in Anastasia Christou and Elizabeth Mavroudi (eds), Dismantling Diasporas: Rethinking the Geographies of Diasporic Identity, Connection and Development, Farnham, England, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, pp. 113–28. Baser, Bahar and Alpaslan Ozerdem (2021), ‘Conflict Transformation and Asymmetric Conflicts: A Critique of the Failed Turkish–Kurdish Peace Process’, Terrorism and Political Violence 33(8): 1775–96. Baser, Bahar and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (2017), Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP, London: I. B. Tauris. BDP (2015), ‘Toplumsal Bariş Yollarinin Araştirilmasi ve Çözüm Sürecinin Değerlendirilmesi Komisyonu Raporu’, November, available at https://serdargunes.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/bdpkurt-sorunu_komisyonu_raporu.pdf, accessed 30 January 2023. Çandar, Cengiz (2020), Turkey’s Mission Impossible: War and Peace with the Kurds, Lanham, MD: Lexington. Çiçek, Cuma and Vahap Çoşkun (2016), The Peace Process from Dolmabahçe to Present-Day: Understanding Failures and Finding New Paths, Istanbul: Peace Foundation. Ensaroğlu, Yılmaz (2013), ‘Turkey’s Kurdish Question and the Peace Process’, Insight Turkey 15(2): 7–17. Gunter, Michael M. (2014), ‘The Turkish–Kurdish Peace Process Stalled in Neutral’, Insight Turkey 16(1): 19–26. Gurses, Mehmet (2010), ‘Partition, Democracy, and Turkey’s Kurdish Minority’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 16(3–4): 337–53. Gurses, Mehmet (2012), ‘Environmental Consequences of Civil War: Evidence from the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey’, Civil Wars 14(2): 254–71. Gurses, Mehmet (2018), Anatomy of a Civil War: Sociopolitical Impacts of the Kurdish Conflict in Turkey, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. International Crisis Group (2022), ‘Turkey’s PKK Conflict: A Visual Explainer’, https://www. crisisgroup.org/content/turkeys-pkk-conflict-visual-explainer Jongerden, Joost (2007), The Settlement Issue in Turkey and the Kurds: An Analysis of Spatial Policies, Modernity and War, Leiden: Brill. Kadıoğlu, İ. Aytaç (2019), ‘The Oslo Talks: Revealing the Turkish Government’s Secret Negotiations with the PKK’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 42(10): 915–33. Köse, Talha (2017), ‘Rise and Fall of the AK Party’s Kurdish Peace Initiatives’, Insight Turkey 19(2): 139–66. O’Connor, Francis and Bahar Baser (2018), ‘Communal Violence and Ethnic Polarization before and after the 2015 Elections in Turkey: Attacks against the HDP and the Kurdish Population’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 18(1): 53–72. Oran, Baskın (2014), Kürt Barışında Batı Cephesi: ‘Ben Ege’de Akilken . . .’, Istanbul: İletişim.

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276 | alpaslan özerdem and bahar baser Ozkahraman, Cemal (2017), ‘Failure of Peace Talks between Turkey and the PKK: Victim of Traditional Turkish Policy or of Geopolitical Shifts in the Middle East?’, Contemporary Review of the Middle East 4(1): 50–66. Ozpek, Burak Bilgehan (2017), The Peace Process between Turkey and the Kurds: Anatomy of a Failure, Abingdon: Routledge. Sunca, Yasin (2016), Infrastructures for Peace in Turkey: A Mapping Study, Berlin: Berghof Foundation. Tonge, Jonathan (2014), Comparative Peace Processes, Cambridge and Malden, MA: Polity. Yavuz, M. Hakan (2001), ‘Five Stages of the Construction of Kurdish Nationalism in Turkey’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 7(3): 1–24. Yavuz, M. Hakan and Nihat Ali Özcan (2006), ‘The Kurdish Question and Turkey’s Justice and Development Party’, Middle East Policy 13(1): 102–19. Yeğen, Mesut (2015), ‘The Kurdish Peace Process in Turkey: Genesis, Evolution and Prospects’, Istituto Affari Internazionali, May, https://www.iai.it/en/pubblicazioni/kurdish-peace-processturkey, accessed 30 January 2023.

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Part V Turkish Foreign Policy

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21 A Pragmatic Approach to Turkish Foreign Policy (1923–48) Ayla Göl (York St John University)

Introduction

T

he Republic of Turkey was established on 29 October 1923 with a revolutionary ethos of breaking away from the absolutism of the Ottoman Empire. While Istanbul represented the legacy of the Ottoman past and a theocratic state, the new capital in Ankara symbolised the planning and centralised bureaucracy of a nation-state based on Western modernity. During the 1920s and 1930s, Ankara was a symbol of not only modernisation and Westernisation but also the new Turkey. This chapter highlights the significance of the interplay between domestic and foreign policies during this period. In internal affairs, the primary goal was to construct a modern state with one nation, one united language and one national army within territorial sovereignty. In external affairs, Turkish foreign policy was shaped by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s vision and the modernisation project (Göl 2013: 1). Many scholars describe this era as Atatürk’s Turkey and the foreign policy between the two world wars as ‘Kemalist’ (Çalış & Bağcı 2003: 196; Gönlübol 1982: 259; Hale 2013; Kinross 1993; Matran 2004: 130).1 This chapter argues that the new Turkey under Atatürk’s vision implemented foreign policy pragmatically to resolve national identity, sovereignty and security concerns. Turkish foreign policy’s pragmatism meant dealing with the issues realistically, based In the orthodox literature, this era was defined mainly by the principles of ‘Kemalism’, which is often summed up as ‘six principles’: republicanism, secularism, progressivism, populism, statism and nationalism. However, I argue that Kemal Atatürk was not a ‘Kemalist’, and his views were turned into the ideology known as ‘Kemalism’ after his death. Throughout the twentieth century, ‘Kemalism’ became an empty rhetoric, implying various ideologies depending on the circumstances. Moreover, ‘Kemalism’ was the Turkish army’s motto when military leaders intervened into politics in 1971 and 1980.

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280 | ayla göl on practical considerations. Its pragmatism was first tested by the Treaty of Lausanne, through which the new state’s territory, sovereignty and legitimacy were recognised by the international society in 1923. After that, the new Turkey’s borders with Europe, the Soviet Union and the Middle East increased its geostrategic importance. The treaty, however, left the Ankara government with unresolved issues regarding the Mosul question, the status of the Turkish Straits and Hatay (Alexandretta). Ankara’s domestic and foreign policy had three interrelated objectives: • the homogenisation of national identity (the exchange of population with Greece), • the consolidation of internal and external sovereignty (the issues of Mosul with Great Britain and Hatay with France), and • the protection of national security (the Montreux Convention and the straits) through peaceful coexistence in regional and international affairs. The first part of the chapter argues that the new Turkey’s structural reforms to modernise the state and society in domestic policies explicitly shaped its foreign relations to consolidate its territorial sovereignty and legitimacy by resolving the issues left at Lausanne with the Western powers (Greece, Great Britain and France). The second part focuses on the non-aggression norms of a nationalist foreign policy that represented a radical break with the Ottoman past and expansionist policies of pan-Islamism. The abolition of the Caliphate is particularly highlighted to explain Turkey’s pragmatic foreign policy to balance between its Western and Eastern alliances, including the Soviet Union. The last part analyses the narratives and policies of Turkey’s allegiance to the rule of law, international diplomacy and world peace that secured its membership first of the League of Nations in 1932 and then the United Nations (UN) in 1945. The chapter’s conclusion suggests that Turkish modernisation in domestic politics and Atatürk’s vision shaped foreign relations to resolve national identity, sovereignty and security issues, which positioned Turkey in the Western liberal international order for the rest of the twentieth century. The New Turkey and Atatürk’s Vision In domestic politics, the crucial objective of creating one nation meant both homogenising people and leaving the territories populated by non-Turks (Arabs, Greeks and Armenian Christians). This policy explicitly renounced the previous claims of pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism to unite all Turkic-speaking peoples and all Muslims within and outside the Ottoman Empire (Göl 2013: 61–4). In essence, the process of modernisation was about transforming an Islamic empire into a nation-state: national homogeneity against multi-ethnicity, a centralised state and territorial sovereignty against an absolutist sultanate and the Islamic Caliphate. These objectives shaped Turkish foreign policy. When the Turkish Grand National Assembly ratified the Treaty of Lausanne, which was signed

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turkish foreign policy (1923–48) | 281 on 24 July 1923 with the Allied powers, the Ankara government declared to the world that it was the legitimate representative of the newly founded state of Turkey. One of the successes of the new government was the Lausanne Treaty, unique among the post-First World War agreements, for it was based on mutual negotiations between the Entente powers and Turkey, the only defeated country to achieve this. Turkish nationalists negotiated the peace terms based on the goals of a National Pact (Misak-i Milli), which declared the independence of the Turkish people to domestic and foreign public opinion (Göl 2013: 94, 200). Their significant achievement was that the international community recognised the new Ankara government. The new Republic had borders with the critical powers of Europe, for example Britain in Mosul, France in Syria and Italy in the Aegean Sea, as well as the Soviet Union in the east. However, three key issues were unresolved between Turkey and the Entente powers at Lausanne: the Mosul question, the problem of the Turkish Straits and the Hatay question. The Allied forces left Istanbul after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne. As the first step of homogenising the nation, the exchange of population between Turkey and Greece was already agreed on 30 January 1923. When the Greek minority wanted to stay in Istanbul, it created further problems. It was clear that implementing the convention between Greece and Turkey concerning the exchange of Greek and Turkish minorities would be more difficult than anticipated due to different interpretations of minorities in both countries.2 The Ankara Accord of 1925 resolved the disagreements between the two countries and settled financial and legal issues regarding the exchange of populations. Despite the agreement, meaningful relations between the two governments did not start before 1930. Eleftherios Venizelos and Atatürk shared an anti-revisionist vision for an improvement in Greek–Turkish relations. Both visionary leaders symbolised the idea of peaceful Greek–Turkish coexistence, which has not been matched since. Thus negotiations resumed in 1928 and led to an agreement in June 1930. As Olivier Roy states (2004: 13–14), Turkey accepted borders with Greece as imposed by the Treaty of Lausanne and never challenged them, but it ‘systematically pleaded (and continues to do so) that the Aegean Sea not become a “Greek lake”’. Peaceful relations between the two countries culminated in the Neutrality, Reconciliation and Arbitration Agreement in October 1930, which was followed by the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in 1933. As will be discussed later, these bilateral agreements laid the path for establishing the Balkan Pact in 1943 (Váli 1971: 224–6; Volkan & Itzkowitz 1984: 120–4). Article 2 of the exchange convention stipulated: ‘The following persons shall not be included in the exchange provided for in Article 1: The Greek inhabitants of Constantinople and the Muslim inhabitants of Western Thrace’.

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282 | ayla göl British–Turkish relations tested the next phase of claiming Turkey’s territorial sovereignty, centred on the Mosul question. For Ankara, the issue of Mosul was within the boundaries of the National Pact, but the Treaty of Lausanne left it to be resolved between Turkey and Britain as a trustee of Iraq. According to Article 3, the Turkish–Iraqi border would be settled by mutual negotiations within nine months. Talks started in Istanbul in May 1924. When both sides failed to reach an agreement, the issue was referred to the League of Nations. After two years of negotiations, Turkey accepted the conditions that a neutrality treaty would be signed between Ankara and London, and the sovereignty of Mosul would be transferred to Iraq as a ‘fully self-governing state’. From Ankara’s perspective, the League resolved the Mosul question in favour of Great Britain. Nevertheless, the British–Turkish Treaty was signed in June 1926. Turkey consented to receive 10 per cent of all the oil royalties from the Mosul oil fields for twenty-five years but then settled for a one-off payment of £500,000 within a year. It is essential to highlight that Ankara agreed when Britain promised to refrain from agitation on behalf of Kurds and Armenians in Turkey (Göl 1993: 61–2). Based on Atatürk’s vision to improve relations with the West, France was next. Paris has always been a source of inspiration for military modernisation, arts and general culture for Turkish politicians and intellectuals. The Ankara Agreement of 1921 between France and Turkey was crucial in determining the Turkish–Syrian border and the status of Hatay. Diplomatic negotiations continued until the French–Turkish Treaty of Friendship and Good Neighbourhood was signed in February 1926. Interestingly, the Turkish Grand National Assembly ratified this treaty on the same day it ratified the British–Turkish Agreement on the Mosul question, 8 June 1926 (Göl 1993: 64). Nevertheless, two primary issues remained unresolved between Turkey and France: the question of Hatay and the issue of the Capitulations.3 In progressing relations with the West after resolving the Mosul dispute with Great Britain, a bilateral Turkish–Italian Treaty of Friendship, Conciliation and Neutrality was also signed in May 1928. Both parties agreed that in the event of an attack on one of them by one or more other powers, the other signature country would remain neutral. In fact, Italy aimed to achieve a tripartite pact with Greece and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean. After the Italian–Turkish pact, a Greco–Italian treaty was signed in September 1928. The Capitulations were the system of privileges granted by sultans to foreigners in the Ottoman Empire since 1535. Under the system of Capitulations, foreigners were not subject to Ottoman law. Although the Treaty of Lausanne abolished the Capitulations, Turkey accepted paying the Ottoman Empire’s remaining debts to the Western states, especially France, since it had more privileges than the other powers. On 13 June 1928, Turkey and France made a separate agreement to terminate this issue. Turkey continued to pay the instalments until the world recession of 1930.

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turkish foreign policy (1923–48) | 283 Similarly, Ankara signed the Briand–Kellogg Pact, which renounced ‘war as an instrument of national policy’ in international relations in 1928, while the Greco–Turkish agreement followed in 1930 (Carr [1981] 1995: 160). After that, Turkish–Italian friendship, primarily based on trade relations, remained relatively good but was threatened by Benito Mussolini’s (prime minister 1922–43) irredentism in the Mediterranean, leading to the Second World War (Göl 1993: 64). After resolving issues with the major European powers that recognised Turkey’s territorial sovereignty and legitimacy, Ankara decided to improve relations with the East. To a certain extent, Turkish foreign policy returned to the pragmatism of the postFirst World War era. Foreign policy as a tool was tactfully implemented to maintain friendly relations with the Soviet Union. Following the rapprochement between the two revolutionary governments of Ankara and Moscow, a Pact of Non-Aggression and Security was subsequently signed in December 1925, one day after the League of Nations decided on the Mosul question. The new pact was an extension of the Treaty of Moscow of 1921, which included the original principle of ‘non-intervention’ as well as those of non-aggression and neutrality (Göl 2013: 191). I argue that this policy orientation was also a response to Italy’s expansionist policies towards Asia Minor and mistrust in England over the Mosul dispute. To further complicate international politics, when the Great Recession of 1929– 30 hit the world economy it divided Western powers into two camps, the revisionists (Germany and Italy) and the anti-revisionists (Britain and France), that would become the basis for the two opposing alliances of the Second World War, the Axis and the Allied powers. Amid this changing political landscape, the new leaders of Turkey remained committed to the non-aggression norms of nationalist foreign policy, which followed its pragmatic approach. As the next section explains, the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 was particularly significant for Turkey’s efforts to implement a pragmatic foreign policy that balanced both its Western and Eastern alliances. Turkey and Regional Peace: The Balkan and Saadabad Pacts Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s statement of ‘peace at home, peace in the world’ encapsulated his vision of Turkish foreign policy in 1931 (Gönlübol 1982: 269; MFA n.d.). This statement particularly highlighted how domestic and foreign policies were intertwined. A year later, Turkey’s participation in the League of Nations showcased the new Turkish foreign policy vision. Establishing good relations with Turkey’s neighbours was the departure point that led to two regional pacts in the West (the Balkan Pact) and the East (the Saadabad Pact). One of the legacies of the Ottoman Empire’s collapse was the situation of minorities in the context of their cultural and legal rights. All these issues complicated relations between Turkey and the Balkan countries. As explained earlier,

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284 | ayla göl the Greek–Turkish Agreement of 1930 resolved the exchange of population and their rights. This was followed by the Neutrality, Reconciliation and Arbitration Agreement. Consequently, Greek–Turkish friendship played a crucial role in establishing the Balkan Entente in February 1934 when Italy and Bulgaria asserted themselves as two aggressive states in the region. Atatürk’s vision was clear: establishing a Balkan federation was one of the ultimate goals of a pragmatic foreign policy. The implementation of this goal included Ankara’s separate treaties with all the Balkan states, Yugoslavia (1925 and 1933), Bulgaria (1929), Hungary (1927) and Romania (1933). After many attempts and conferences among the Balkan states to establish a regional pact, the Balkan Entente was signed between Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia and Turkey. The signatory states guaranteed each other’s frontiers and promised collective security for the Balkans to prevent a war in the region. In the event of a non-Balkan country’s attack against any of the signatories, that state under attack would be assisted, and the other allies were obliged to declare war against the aggressor (Çalış & Bağcı 2003: 206). The Entente was, however, ineffective in achieving regional stability and peace because Albania and Bulgaria did not participate, making the regional frictions apparent. In addition to the Bulgarian objection to the pact, Turkey feared Italian aggression in the region. Although Turkey maintained good relations with Italy between 1928 and 1932, Ankara was suspicious of Mussolini’s expansionist policies in the Mediterranean. Following the Treaty of Friendship, Conciliation and Neutrality, Rome’s relations with Ankara did not proceed peacefully. In particular, Mussolini’s statement of Italy’s historical objectives in Asia and Africa, even though he declared that he had never included Turkey in these plans, was enough to alarm Turkish leaders. When Italy attacked Ethiopia in 1935 (occupied until 1941), it lent further support to Turkey’s concerns and increased Ankara’s fear of Italian irredentism in the Mediterranean. Moreover, the Italians objected to the Montreux Convention, thus relations between the two countries remained unfriendly until 1939. The imminent threat of Italian aggression in the eastern Mediterranean also alarmed Greece directly and Britain indirectly. Italy’s irredentism in the region would inevitably jeopardise the commercial interests that Britain had established, especially with the trade agreement with Turkey in 1930. The imminent Italian threat managed to bring Ankara and London closer (Evans 1982: 97–101). Moreover, inspired by the ‘spirit of Locarno’, which promoted a political climate of relative peace in western Europe, Greece and Turkey proposed a Mediterranean pact. This was suggested by the French as a means of détente with Italy.4 Initially, though, Britain did not encourage the proposal because The Treaties of Locarno were the result of a series of treaties signed between Germany, France, Belgium, Great Britain and Italy in 1925 to guarantee peace in western Europe mutually.

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turkish foreign policy (1923–48) | 285 London did not want to undertake further commitments beyond those in the Treaties of Locarno and the League of Nations (Hale & Bağış 1984: 5). Nevertheless, international politics changed dramatically very soon. Germany rearmed the Rhine area, Japan – a signatory of the Treaty of Lausanne – invaded Manchuria (and subsequently withdrew from the League of Nations), and Italy invaded Ethiopia. London had little choice but to accept the Ankara–Athens proposal. Great Britain, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Turkey signed the Mediterranean Pact in July 1936. The British government declared that in the event of an attack on one of the signatories in violation of the Covenant of the League of Nations, London would at once assist the victim of unprovoked aggression. Although the pact was far from establishing long-lasting security in the Mediterranean, given the lack of participation from Italy and France, it did serve as a platform for a trilateral alliance between Greece, Turkey and Great Britain for securing stability in the region. More importantly, Turkey’s concerns about Mussolini’s irredentism in the Mediterranean turned Ankara’s attention to the security of the Turkish Straits. The possible threat of an Italian attack on the straits would endanger international peace and the status quo in the region. Ankara decided to take diplomatic action to change the demilitarised status of the Turkish Straits, determined by the Straits Convention of the Treaty of Lausanne. Although the convention recognised Ankara’s sovereignty over the straits, their defence was given to an international commission operating under the umbrella of the League of Nations. Turkey presented a formal note to the signatories of the Treaty of Lausanne, given that the League was powerless to stop German, Italian and Japanese expansionism, to organise a new conference. Turkey’s pragmatic diplomacy was effective in that Britain and the Balkan Entente states supported Turkish claims. On 20 July 1936, Bulgaria, Britain, France, Japan, Romania, Turkey and the Soviet Union signed a convention in Montreux. At the Montreux Conference, Turkey’s sovereign right to remilitarise the zone was recognised and the international commission was terminated on 1 October 1936. ‘Like the Lausanne Convention, the Montreux Convention recognised and affirmed “the principle of freedom of transit and navigation by the sea in the Straits”, which was to “continue without limit of time”’ (Howard 1974: 152). From Ankara’s perspective, the most important achievement was that the passage of warships was left to the discretion of the Ankara government, if Turkey considered itself to be in ‘danger of imminent war’ (Göl 1993: 68). In short, the Montreux Convention was the zenith of Ankara’s pragmatic foreign policy that reaffirmed its internal and external sovereignty. Unsurprisingly, Italy did not sign the Montreux Convention until 1938, but AngloTurkish bilateral relations improved. One year after King Edward VIII visited Istanbul in 1936, Turkish prime minister İsmet İnönü (in office 1925–37) paid an official visit

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286 | ayla göl to London. Before Atatürk’s death in 1938, relations with England were at the centre of Turkey’s foreign affairs with the West because Ankara urgently needed to counter German and Italian political pressures and irredentism. Following the improvement of Turkey’s relations with the West, Ankara’s attention turned to its eastern neighbours. In particular, Russian–Turkish relations developed in a friendly direction between 1933 and 1936. When Turkey declared the implementation of a five-year economic development programme, inspired by the Soviet model, Ankara also accepted Moscow’s loans and technical assistance. Another sign of a pragmatic foreign policy was Turkey’s effort to diversify and balance its dependence on Nazi Germany as its leading trading partner during the mid-1930s. The legacy of the Ottoman–German alliance of the First World War contributed to the popularity of German business partners, but Atatürk did not accept the spread of an exclusive German monopoly over the Turkish economy. More importantly, the Berlin–Rome collaboration and their negative attitude towards Ankara’s claims during the Montreux Convention raised Turkey’s concerns. Germany’s inclination to include Turkey in the ‘revisionist’ camp was resisted by Turkish leaders, who established trade relations with Britain and the Soviet Union. Moscow supported the Turkish proposals in the Montreux Convention but was suspicious of Ankara’s increasingly closer relations with the West, particularly with Britain, with which Turkey had signed a credit agreement in 1938. Similarly, Turkish leaders had concerns about the real intentions of the Soviets towards the Turkish Straits. Consequently, Ankara–Moscow relations had begun to deteriorate after 1936 following Joseph Stalin’s statement about joint Soviet and Turkish control of the straits (Jung & Piccoli 2001: 136). The pragmatic implementation of Turkish foreign policy was evident in its gradual engagement in the Middle East. The initial relations with the Soviet Union played a crucial role in consolidating friendlier ties between Turkey and Eastern countries. The first such country was Afghanistan, with which Turkey signed a pact of friendship in 1921, just one day after the signing of the Soviet–Afghan agreement. Turkish–Afghan friendship was further consolidated by a new Treaty of Friendship and Economic Cooperation in May 1928. Under the initiative of the Soviet leaders, Iran was the next country to contribute to the amelioration of Turkey’s relations with the East. Turkey’s border with Iran had been determined in 1639 and was one of the oldest borders in the world, and ‘the only boundary of the Ottoman Empire not to change with the emergence of the modern Turkish state’ (Robins 1991: 21). Since the abolition of the Caliphate, relations between Arab Muslims and Turks had been based on mutual distrust due to the bitter memories of the First World War and Atatürk’s vision of Westernisation. Hence, Turkish independence proceeded by cutting ties not only with the Ottoman past but also with the Islamic world. For example, Ankara did not participate in the Islamic Congress between 1926 and 1931. While Turks and

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turkish foreign policy (1923–48) | 287 Arabs grew apart given the increasingly vigorous regional nationalisms and the divergent approach towards the West, Iran seemed to be a natural ally in the Middle East. In particular, Shah Reza Pahlavi’s (r. 1925–41) visit to Turkey in 1934 led to a friendship pact between Iran, Iraq and Turkey. Following the Balkan Entente of 1934, Turkey decided to pursue a similar deal in the East. On the one hand, the Turkish–Iranian border was the least problematic to demarcate, and was settled by a treaty between the two states in 1932 and modified in 1937. On the other hand, as mentioned earlier, the Turkish–Iraqi border had been determined by a treaty between Turkey and Britain as the guarantor of Iraq in 1926 following the recommendation of the Council of the League of Nations and the decision of its Permanent Court of International Justice in 1925 (Göl 2013: 183 fn.113). Consequently, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan signed the Saadabad Pact in 1937. It was not a military alliance but a pact of friendship and solidarity. ‘The pact called for non-aggression, consultation among the signatory states in case of a threat, and cooperation in stopping subversive activity. Turkey was now the stable link between East and West as the pivotal member of Balkan and Eastern agreements’ (Volkan & Itzkowitz 1984: 325). For some, the Saadabad Pact raised concerns about Turkey’s possible return to panIslamism in the East as part of the legacy of the Ottoman Caliphate (Lewis 1965: 117). Historically, the nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire declared the Turkish sultan as the head of the Muslims and the caliph the successor of the Prophet Muhammad. The title of Caliphate was used to unite the Ottoman Muslims inside the Empire and all other Muslims outside the Empire under the flag of Islam. Therefore, the emphasis on the Ottoman sultan as caliph and protector of all Muslims throughout the world was a foreign affairs rhetoric that might have resonated with the new Turkey following the signature of the Saadabad Pact (Göl 2013: 60–1). However, Ataturk’s vision was clear. Ankara first separated the sultanate from the Caliphate, and then abolished both institutions strategically and separately in 1922 and 1924. I argue that the new Turkey abandoned the previous expansionist policies of the Ottoman Empire and the Saadabad Pact was merely a response to increasing German and Italian irredentism in pre-Second World War international politics. It is also reasonable to argue that it was an indication of the development of more equal relations between Turkey and the newly Muslim sovereign states in the East, and of the effort to protect regional security through peaceful coexistence in international affairs. Turkish Foreign Policy and the Second World War The last challenge of Turkish foreign policy was its border with Syria, which was under the French protectorate. As explained earlier, Hatay’s status had been the crux of contention between Ankara and Paris. After resolving the issue of the Capitulations and the Ottoman debt with the signature of the Paris Agreement in 1933, the next

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288 | ayla göl outstanding issue was the Turkish–Syrian border. The Ottoman sanjak, or province, of Hatay was within the National Pact frontiers. When the Ankara Accord was signed in 1921, France agreed to retreat from Ottoman territory, where the Treaty of Sèvres established French control. By accepting the border between Turkey and its Syrian mandate to its present line, Paris recognised the National Pact, while Turkey accepted the trusteeship of France in Hatay. When France announced in 1936 that it had decided to include Hatay in the newly independent Syrian state, the Turkish government objected to this decision for security reasons. For Ankara, this announcement raised concerns because of Hatay’s strategic importance. Turkey, therefore, stated that the issue had to be referred to the League of Nations. An international commission in 1937 concluded that the Turks were the majority in Hatay. ‘In September 1938, elections were held, and the Turks gained a majority in the assembly which promptly proclaimed autonomy under the name of Hatay’ (Göl 1993: 69). The short-lived independent Republic of Hatay announced its decision to unite with Turkey. France remained silent because securing Ankara–Paris cooperation was crucial against Berlin and Rome’s increasing Mediterranean irredentism. The modern Turkish state reached its current borders with the annexation of Hatay in 1939. Diplomatic negotiations over Hatay were Atatürk’s last political act because he died on 10 November 1938. Hatay’s participation in Turkey was the only exception to the pragmatic vision of Turkish foreign policy during Atatürk’s era: protecting the status quo and establishing peace with its neighbours. After resolving the issues of Mosul with Britain in Iraq and Hatay with France in Syria, Ankara signed the Treaty of Mutual Assistance with London and Paris in 1939 (Hurewitz 1958: 226). Thus, Turkish leaders found themselves in a neutral position between Germany and the West during the Second World War. After Atatürk died in 1938, a real challenge to Turkish foreign policy came from the Soviet Union. During the Montreux Convention, differences between Ankara and Moscow had already resurfaced. The traditional Russian policy towards the Turkish Straits hardly changed. The Soviets desired access to ‘warm seas’ and substantial – if not direct – control of the straits, closing them to the naval forces of other powers. They eventually accepted the Turkish demands because of Western pressure, but were unhappy with the outcome (Çalış & Bağcı 214). When Stalin asked for an alternative arrangement for Turkish–Soviet joint control of the straits in 1939, neither the Turks nor the Western powers accepted. Tensions in Ankara–Moscow relations increased when Turkey allowed non-Black Sea countries’ vessels with civilian crews to navigate the straits during the Second World War. In the post-Atatürk era, the nationalist leaders continued implementing Turkish foreign policy pragmatically in response to Second World War circumstances. While Turkey remained neutral, Ankara declared war against Nazi Germany in February 1945

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turkish foreign policy (1923–48) | 289 as a formality that enabled the new Turkey to participate in the Potsdam conference and to become one of the UN founding members (Roy 2004: 14). Meanwhile, after the defeat of Germany by the Allied powers, Stalin returned to the issue of the Turkish Straits. He wanted to expand the Soviet sphere of influence in the Near East after the end of the Second World War. In 1946, Stalin put diplomatic pressure on Turkey to return Kars and Arhadan (Batum had been left to the Bolsheviks in 1921) to the Soviet Union. It was not a historical coincidence that in 1947 Ankara accepted the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan against the imminent threat of the Soviet Union. When Ankara recognised the establishment of Israel in 1948, it was another pragmatic decision to cut its ties with the Arab world and disengage in the Middle East. In the 1950s, ‘Turkey, by sending troops to Korea to fight alongside the Americans under the UN flag (1950) and then by joining NATO (1952), clearly chose sides – in favour of the West, in opposition to the USSR’ (Roy 2004: 14). Thereafter, Turkey’s pro-Western orientation was determined by the logic of the Cold War. Conclusion The findings of this chapter highlight the interrelations between domestic and foreign policies during the Atatürk era. Constructing a new state with territorial and national unity in domestic affairs shaped the need for a pragmatic Turkish foreign policy as part of Atatürk’s vision and his modernisation project. New Turkey’s territorial sovereignty and legitimacy were consolidated after resolving the issues left at Lausanne with the Western powers (Greece, Great Britain and France). The non-aggression norms of nationalist foreign policy constituted a radical break with the Ottoman past and its expansionist policies of pan-Islamism, which first became evident with the abolition of the Caliphate. The establishment of the Balkan and Saadabad pacts was instrumental in demonstrating Turkey’s pragmatic foreign policy efforts to maintain balanced relations with both its Western and Eastern alliances, including the Soviet Union. The narratives and policies of Turkey’s allegiance to the rule of law, international diplomacy and world peace secured its membership first of the League of Nations in 1932, and then of the UN in 1945. In the final analysis, Turkey’s pragmatic foreign policy had two pillars. On one hand, Turkish modernisation and structural reforms in domestic politics shaped foreign relations to resolve national identity, sovereignty and security issues. On the other hand, Atatürk’s vision of regional peace positioned Turkey squarely in the Western liberal international order and succeeded in doing so for the rest of the twentieth century. References Çalış, Şaban and Hüseyin Bağcı (2003), ‘Atatürk’s Foreign Policy Application and Understanding’, Sosyal Ekonomik Araştırmalar Dergisi 3(6): 195–228.

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290 | ayla göl Carr, E. H. ([1981] 1995), The Twenty Years’ Crisis 1919–1939: An Introduction to the Study of International Relations, London: Macmillan. Evans, Stephen F. (1982), The Slow Rapprochement: Britain and Turkey in the Age of Kemal Atatürk 1919–1938. Beverley, England: Eothen Press. Göl, Ayla (1993), ‘A Short Summary of Turkish Foreign Policy 1923–1939’, Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi 48: 57–71. Göl, Ayla (2013), Turkey Facing East: Islam, Modernity and Foreign Policy, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Gönlübol, Mehmet (1982). ‘Atatürk’s Foreign Policy: Goals and Principles’, in Turhan Feyzioglu (ed.), Atatürk’s Way, Ankara: Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi. Hale, William (2013), Turkish Foreign Policy since 1774, 3rd ed., Abingdon: Routledge. Hale, William and Ali İhsan Bağış (1984), Four Centuries of Turco-British Relations: Studies in Diplomatic, Economic and Cultural Affairs, Beverley, England: Eothen Press. Howard, Harry N. (1974), Turkey, The Straits and US Policy, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hurewitz, J. C. (1958), Diplomacy in the Near and the Middle East: A Documentary Record, Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand. Jung, Dietrich and Wolfango Piccoli (2001), Turkey at the Crossroads: Ottoman Legacies and a Greater Middle East, London: Zed. Kinross, Patrick (1993), Atatürk: Rebirth of a Nation, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Lewis, Geoffrey (1965), Turkey, 3rd ed., London: Ernest Benn. Mantran, Robert (2004), ‘Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’, in Olivier Roy (ed.), Turkey Today: A European Country? London: Anthem Press. MFA (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) (n.d.), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy during Ataturk’s Era’, https:// www.mfa.gov.tr/turkish-foreign-policy-during-ataturks-era.en.mfa, accessed 30 January 2023. Robins, Philip (1991), Turkey and the Middle East, New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press. Roy, Olivier (2004), ‘Turkey – A World Apart, or Europe’s New Frontier?’ in Olivier Roy (ed.), Turkey Today: A European Country? London: Anthem Press. Váli, Ferenc A. (1971), Bridge across the Bosporus: The Foreign Policy of Turkey, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Volkan, Vamik D. and Norman Itzkowitz (1984), The Immortal Atatürk: A Psychobiography, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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22 Turkish Foreign Policy during the Cold War: The Cyprus Issue and Other Determining Factors Ahmet Sozen (Eastern Mediterranean University)

Introduction

D

uring the Cold War that was ushered in after the Second World War and lasted until late 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed, geopolitical parameters were shaped according to a bipolar structure. This covered the two wide-ranging alliances in which the security of non-communist allies and communist allies ultimately relied on collaboration with their respective superpower mentor/sponsor rather than risk the go-it-alone isolation that taking an independent foreign policy line might entail. Thus, the two superpowers were able to play a determinative role in shaping the foreign policy decision-making of their respective allies by encouraging and promoting those allies’ support and admiration for United States and Soviet foreign policy decisions and demands. Turkey was among the non-communist allies and a vital one at that because of what it brought to the effective defence of western Europe on the southern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the political and military alliance committed to providing mutual security to its North American and European member states. As a newly established nation-state with few available resources, Turkey’s relationships with other countries were largely dictated by its abiding preoccupation to protect its national sovereignty and territorial integrity, which marked Turkish foreign policy priorities (Aydın 2019: 6). Besides containing the geographical and ideological expansion of the Soviet Union, Ankara attached priority on quelling armed Kurdish groups that battled for autonomy, deterring Armenian claims that the Ottoman Empire’s offences against its citizens during the First World War amounted to ‘genocide’, and negotiating a favourable settlement with regard to Cyprus and Aegean issues (Dicle 2019: 89). Ankara’s perception of these threats to Turkey’s territorial integrity pressured Turkish decision makers to set out to realise the country’s own political and socio-economic 291

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292 | ahmet sozen transformation in the aftermath of the Second World War by penetrating the US-led liberal international order and entering Western institutions. By acting in line with US priorities, Turkey was able to gain political support from US foreign policymakers, including those at the Pentagon, who invariably supported Turkey’s positions on Cyprus and matters related to the Armenian, Kurdish and Aegean issues during the Cold War. While there is a well-established alliance between the US and Turkey regarding security cooperation and intelligence issues, this relationship has been subject to ups and downs since the early 1960s. First, the Cuban missile crisis and then developments regarding the Cyprus issue led Turkey to question its one-dimensional policy, which had in some respects put it at odds with the non-Western world. Turkey, instead, started to favour a multi-vectored foreign policy as a basis for a more flexible approach in its dealings with Third World countries and the region as it sought to gain bargaining power for its foreign policy priorities by establishing economic and military relationships (Aydın 2019). Remaining reactive (and priority limited) because of systemic pressures, Turkish foreign policy during the Cold War was shaped by ‘conjunctural determinants’ including shifts in domestic politics such as the diminishing degree of influence exerted by military control over the civil authorities and shifts in international politics such as an easing of systemic pressures stemming from the bipolar structure (Aydın 2019: 11–12). While external factors tended to outweigh domestic concerns in the formation of Turkish foreign policy, the degree of domination differs according to the period. These variations include the era of strict bipolarity from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s; the détente era from the early 1960s to 1980; and the new strict bipolarity era from 1980 to the 1990s. The rest of this chapter analyses Turkish foreign policy in these three periods with special attention paid to the Cyprus issue, which emerged as one of the most significant determinants during and then after the Cold War. The Mid-1940s to the Early 1960s Turkey’s foreign policy choices from its establishment in 1923 to the early 1960s had a strictly pro-Western stance that was learned from the West and fully embraced Western civilisation (Sander 1982: 105). While relations with the West were a priority in Turkish foreign policy until the end of the Second World War in 1945, the country then adapted a strict one-dimensional foreign policy which aimed to attach itself to the Western polarity of the newly emerging bipolar world in order to withstand the threat of Soviet expansionism. During the first two decades following its establishment, Turkey had opted primarily for a policy of isolationism. The country turned inward and stood back from regional developments and influences, particularly those of the adjacent Middle East neighbourhood. Turkey, of course, has strong historic and political ties with the Middle East and

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turkish foreign policy during the cold war  | 293 played a significant role in the geographic structure of the region through population expansion. Thus, a country like Turkey, with its fluid borders, had no other option but to continue to isolate itself within the region in order to avoid the enveloping sense of regional insecurity and the increasingly complex conflicts of the Middle East. A few exceptions to Turkey’s preferred foreign policy isolationism include the reactive policies that were developed against specific threats to Turkish foreign policy priorities. A case in point is the Saadabad Alliance, which Turkey established together with Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan in 1937 as a measure taken against the uprising of Kurdish armed tribes who were refusing to recognise borders – especially those within the triangle of Turkey–Iraq–Iran. The mid-to-late 1940s were not the best of times for Turkey. The Soviet Union demanded Kars and Ardahan as well as a revision of the Montreux Convention of 1936 plus a military base in the Turkish Straits (Oran 2009). These pressing Soviet territorial demands served to push Turkey towards the US-championed Western alliance and the evolving internationalist system based on international regimes and organisations such as the United Nations. At that time, Turkey’s ruling Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyetçi Halk Partisi, CHP), which had promoted a single-party system and a policy of isolationism since Turkey was established, was quite concerned about its ability to measure up to the democratic standards demanded by the external alliance, which was so opposed to undemocratic regimes. On the one hand, the policy of isolationism was adjusted to show Turkey’s affinity to the Western alliance and its institutions with a show of pro-Western policies such as its support for the establishment of the Palestinian Conciliation Commission in 1948. On the other hand, Turkey also took steps to democratise in order to enhance its ability to gain membership of Western institutions like NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the Council of Europe as well as to acquire the financial and material support offered by the US within the scope of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan. It was in these political circumstances that Turkey’s Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) was established in 1945, a period during which Turkey shifted to a multi-party system in a limited democracy, the general understanding being that politicians would engage solely with economic problems. According to the bureaucratic limitations of Turkey’s governance system, the politicians would not challenge the state ideology of Turkish national identity or military control over civil authorities. This understanding of democracy under custody imposed strict limitations on extending the political rights of conservative religious groups, such as political and economic Islam, and ethnic minorities, such as Kurds and Armenians, as well as religious minorities, such as Alevis. While the DP failed in the 1945 parliamentary elections, which were held based on explicit voting and closed counting, the party did succeed in winning against the CHP

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294 | ahmet sozen in 1950 with the support of young military officers. The DP’s foreign policy approach approximated continued participation in the Western alliance against the Soviet threat. However, so pronounced was Turkey’s determination to follow and support US policies that the policy was called ‘active Americanism’ (Balcı 2013: 79). As it pursued such a USdominated proactive foreign policy, Turkey’s relationship with Middle Eastern and Third World countries was seen as less than primary and more like a tool for consolidating and strengthening its relations with the West. During the DP-run administration, Turkey sent armed forces to fight alongside US troops in the 1950 Korean War. In 1953, the country joined NATO, becoming the second largest military force in the alliance. The DP also implemented policies to protect Western interests by supporting the 1951 Middle East Command Project, pioneering the establishment of the Baghdad Alliance in 1955, while it opposed the non-aligned movement advocated by the Third World countries that came together at the 1955 Bandung Conference. Furthermore, Turkey sided with France on the 1954 Algeria issue, with the UK and France in the 1956 Suez Crisis, and with the US in the 1957 Syrian–US diplomat crisis, and it opened its bases so that the US could land troops in Lebanon in 1958 (Oran 2009: 616). As a result of these policies, Turkish foreign policy became strictly one-dimensional, prioritising Turkey’s relations with the West at the expense of getting any closer to the Middle East and Third World countries that were emerging in the 1950s to form a united front against colonisation. Decolonisation followed the end of the Second World War as the victorious allies ratified the principle of ‘self-determination of peoples’ and a measure of institutionalisation through the UN. One of the notable decolonisation movements in the 1950s was the struggle by Greek Cypriots for independence from British colonial rule and the unification of Cyprus with Greece. Turkey, on the other hand, being a part of the Western alliance, initially raised no criticism against the continuation of the colonial status of Cyprus. When it became probable that one day the UK would withdraw from the island, Ankara for a while (briefly) advocated the return of the island to Turkey in its role as successor and inheritor of the old Ottoman Empire. Yet, Turkey was to quickly shift from this policy to one favouring taksim (partition) once it became evident that the former was not likely to be viable, given that the majority of the island’s population was Greek Cypriot. Turkey adopted the policy of taksim, according to which if self-determination was to happen in Cyprus, it was going to happen not as a singular event but rather as two separate acts of self-determination in which Greek Cypriots would unite with Greece and Turkish Cypriots would unite with Turkey. The emergence of the Greek Cypriot National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters from 1955 onwards and subsequent conflicts raised alarm that if taksim were to be pursued this might precipitate a war between

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turkish foreign policy during the cold war  | 295 Greece and Turkey if the conflicts on the island extended to include the two countries. Under the prevailing international circumstances of the strict bipolarity period, it was intolerable to the US and other Western countries for two NATO allies to be clashing. So, the US and other Western allies played a significant role to bring the two NATO members, Turkey and Greece, together in order to motivate them to arrive at a compromise solution. The drive for self-determination soon led to decolonisation when in 1960 the Republic of Cyprus was born of the London–Zurich Agreement as a functionalist federation characterised by its bi-communal nature. Despite being a unitary state, the constitutional functions of the republic protected the political equality of Turkish Cypriots, seen to be a protected minority. While the establishing treaties authorised Turkey as the guarantor power responsible for the safety and political rights of the newly independent island’s Turkish Cypriots, Ankara was also having a say on developments in the eastern Mediterranean that related to its national interests. From the outset, the Cyprus issue was to prove an important determinant in Turkey’s foreign policy. It was evident when Turkey applied to join the European Economic Community (EEC) following Greece’s application in 1959, if only as a move to prevent Greece from acquiring support within the EEC on the Cyprus issue. The Early 1960s to 1980 From the early 1960s to 1980, there was a détente in the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union that provided the superpower allies with room for manoeuvre in their foreign policies (Dicle 2019: 96). Apart from the 27 May 1960 coup and the 12 March 1971 memorandum, Turkish foreign policy underwent a shift from its one-dimensional approach to a multi-vectored policy by gradually embracing rapprochement within its immediate regional sphere as well as with Third World countries. The shift came as a response to US and European policies mostly to do with the Cyprus issue, although the Cuban missile crisis also played an important part. When the Soviets placed nuclear missiles on Cuba in 1962, it brought the world to the brink of a nuclear war. To prevent such a disaster, the two superpowers held negotiations that led to the US being required to dismantle the Jupiter missiles based in Turkey in exchange for Moscow’s removal of the Soviet missiles from Cuba (Dicle 2019: 97). The fact that the US took this decision without consulting Turkey and without its involvement in any way added to Ankara’s sense of mistrust that Washington might not be its staunch ally when it came to matters of US self-interest and that Turkey might find itself left standing alone against the Soviet Union in some circumstances (Oran 2009: 684). What made Turkey even more ambivalent was the attitude of its Western allies to the Cyprus issue, which was starting to become a significant Turkish foreign policy issue and

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296 | ahmet sozen ranking higher too on the international community’s agenda following a surge of ethnic violence on the island in 1963. A singular event that generated an outcry in Turkey was the so-called ‘Johnson letter’ of 5 June 1964. Almost everyone in Turkey was shocked by the language in the letter, which US president Lyndon B. Johnson sent to Turkey’s Prime Minister, İsmet İnönü, warning him off any military intervention on the island of Cyprus. The letter stressed that a military intervention by Turkey on the island could ignite a war between NATO allies Turkey and Greece, and that in doing so, it would damage the alliance. But the crucial point was that the letter warned Turkey not to use the weapons donated by the US through the Marshall aid programme and made clear that NATO would not protect Turkey in the event that an intervention in Cyprus generated a Soviet response (Aydın 2019: 19–20). While Turkey tackled the Soviet expansion threat within the context of the NATO alliance, NATO was not a solution for the violent events provoked by the thirteen constitutional amendments introduced by the Greek Cypriot President Makarios on 30 November 1963. The amendments were driven by Greek Cypriot ambition to rid the 1960 constitution of bi-communal provisions such as the Turkish Cypriots’ rights of veto, a separate majority and a separate municipality. Once the Turkish Cypriot side and Turkey rejected the proposed amendments. which would further reduce the Turkish Cypriot community to the status of an obvious ethnic minority, the Greek Cypriots resorted to an extensive and systematic campaign of violence, which led to Turkish Cypriot officials departing their appointed and elected offices. To remedy the political turmoil in the island, the UK and the US decided to take up the issue at the UN Security Council. That resulted in Resolution 186 dated 4 March 1964, which has since formed the legal basis of the Cyprus issue in the international context. Through the resolution, the Security Council decided to deploy an international peacekeeping force to the island for three months to prevent further violent actions while citing the ‘government of Cyprus’ as the legal authority. Over time, Resolution 186 proved also to be the basis for what became the island’s status quo, as the term ‘government of Cyprus’ used in the resolution became synonymous with a de facto Greek Cypriot republic, following the expulsion of Turkish Cypriot representation from the 1960 Republic of Cyprus. Greek Cypriots, moreover, speeded the departure of Turkish Cypriots from representative office by accusing them of being insurgents. They also invoked the doctrine of necessity, claiming that an abnormal situation existed on the island yet maintaining that the state of affairs needed to be preserved (Nedjati & Leathes 1976: 68). With the help of this principle the Greek Cypriots unilaterally amended the constitution several times and established their capacity to enter into legal relationships. Turkey, on the other hand,

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turkish foreign policy during the cold war  | 297 found it unacceptable that the UK and the US increasingly acknowledged the Cyprus status quo based on Resolution 186 and the doctrine of necessity as the de facto situation. Another significant development that made Turkey reconsider its approach was the UN General Assembly Resolution 2077(XX) dated 18 December 1965, which called on UN members to refrain from any interference with the independence and sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus (Aydın 2019: 21). What alarmed Turkey more was not the decision itself but the way it was taken. A group of countries within the non-aligned movement submitted the draft resolution, which many non-aligned countries voted in favour of, with most Western states and Islamic countries abstaining. Turkey was left alone during the voting with a few exceptions including Albania, the US, Iran and Pakistan (Sönmezoğlu 1984: 223). Turkey’s isolation on the Cyprus issue was the inevitable outcome of the USdominated, one-dimensional foreign policy approach it had followed after the Second World War. This isolation made it all the more urgent to expand Turkish foreign policy. Convinced that the Western alliance was not on its side in the matter of the Cyprus issue as much as it should be, Turkey started to seek partners who would take its side on the issue and so it reacted by looking to strengthen its relations with the Eastern bloc and with Third World countries. The Cyprus issue had thus become a significant and important determinant in Turkish foreign policy (Dicle 2019: 94). The prolonged Cyprus negotiations started after 1963, when ethnic violence resulted in the expulsion of Turkish Cypriot representation from the structures of the 1960 Republic of Cyprus. Throughout the negotiations, Turkey accepted to negotiate some part of the thirteen proposed amendments in exchange for regional autonomy for Turkish Cypriots, which would have allowed the Republic of Cyprus to continue as an entity. Yet in 1974, a coup d’état initiated by Greece’s military junta and Turkey’s subsequent military interventions were to bring about the de facto division of the island. Under the new circumstances, Turkey shifted its position on the Cyprus issue to a bi-communal and bi-zonal federation by ratifying two high-level agreements in 1977 and 1979. 1980 to 1990 Turkish foreign policy from 1980 to 1990 was determined by two fundamentally important phenomena. One involved important domestic political developments that included the 1980 military coup (1980–3) and the subsequent economic liberalisation programme of Turgut Özal, Turkey’s prime minister from 1983 to 1989 and its president from 1989 to 1992. The other concerned development was the renewed strict bipolar international system which was marked by increased tensions and the arms race between the Soviet Union and the West, especially after President Ronald Reagan came to office in 1980.

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298 | ahmet sozen In 1979, the Iranian Islamic Revolution and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan both triggered further changes. These changes brought the return of Greece to NATO, and the political and economic stability of Turkey became indispensable to the US. Greece had withdrawn from NATO membership after Turkey’s 1974 intervention in Cyprus, maintaining that the alliance had failed its obligation to protect. Even if Greece later wanted to return to NATO, it was vetoed by Turkey. On 12 September 1980, a coup was carried out in Turkey led by General Kenan Evren, the chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces. Despite acknowledgment that it was a coup, the military administration declared its loyalty to NATO and its support of the Western alliance. Following the coup, the National Security Council, comprising Evren and his force commanders, assumed all critical decisions regarding Turkey up until the general elections of 1983. A key decision was the council’s approval of Greece’s return to NATO. Turkey’s political and military cooperation with the US continued after the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP) led by Özal took over the administration from military rule in 1983. Although he came to power with the support of the military bureaucracy, Özal was to become more and more interested in addressing the issue of the civilian and military bureaucracy’s custody of the army. Özal maintained that foreign policy should change structurally and that the traditional approach should make way for a new approach designed to foster mutual interdependence based on economic fundamentals (Kirişci 2009; Oran 2010). As the Özal-inspired shift to an economically oriented foreign policy pushed beyond the narrower focus of the more traditional policymaking frame of reference, the economic aspects of the political and military rapprochement between Turkey and the US reached a peak (Aydın 2003). Turkey’s relations with the EEC were more or less severed during the military regime of 1980–3, to the enormous detriment of the Turkish economy. To offset this, Turkey turned increasingly to the Middle East in the 1980s. Turkey’s new Cold War era role proved to be an ideal opportunity to do so. Turkey threw its weight behind US policies supporting moderate Islam in the Middle East region. The new US policy sprang from US national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s so-called ‘Green Belt’ advocacy of bolstering the role of religion in societies neighbouring the Soviet Union, the intention being to undermine Moscow’s sphere of influence. Turkey played its part in the ‘New Cold War’ struggle between the US and the Soviet Union by pursuing a similar policy as it sought closer relations with conservative Arab countries in order to block Iranian influence in the Middle East. One limitation of Özal’s multi-vectored foreign policy concerned the issue of the Kurdistan Workers Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), which was waging a decades-long armed conflict in Turkey that would result in the deaths of an estimated

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turkish foreign policy during the cold war  | 299 40,000 people over the course of the conflict. Perceived by Turkey as a terrorist organisation that posed a significant threat to its security and integrity, the PKK issue became a determinant in shaping Turkish foreign policy during the 1980s. This was amply illustrated when, for example, Turkey’s relationship with Syria was strained beyond breaking point because of the latter’s backing of the PKK. Attempts to build close relations with Iraq and efforts to ensure open borders between the states were disrupted when the PKK departed from Syria to settle in northern Iraq, and the ensuing security issue then became the salient factor in determining Ankara’s relations with Baghdad. The Cyprus issue was another limiting factor that impeded Turkey’s efforts to pursue a multi-vectored foreign policy approach during the 1980s. Özal was ready to attempt to solve the problem but just before he came to power, the Turkish north of the divided island of Cyprus declared independence on 15 November 1983, under the name of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), a development that was to present serious problems throughout his time in office. The Cyprus problem also played a role in disputes within NATO since it prevented any collaboration between Turkey and Greece, as it was one of the most contentious issues between the two. Another major foreign policy factor influencing post-1980 Turkish policy concerned the Aegean issue, which, since it was about the concept of national territorial integrity, was of major security significance. The issue intensified as the newly emergent political party PASOK and its leader. Andreas Papandreou, took office in Greece, remaining in power from 1981 to 1989. The PASOK administration’s foreign policy move to sign the 1983 Defence and Economic Cooperation Agreement while remaining a NATO and EEC member was driven by what Papandreou repeatedly termed the ‘Turkish threat’. Citing the ‘Turkish threat’, Papandreou, throughout his leadership, sought alliances with the Western powers, continuing Greece’s military cooperation with the US in order to gain diplomatic advantage over Turkey on the Aegean issue. Just as the previous government had done during the Cold War, Özal’s administration pursued US support for Turkey’s foreign policy priorities – that is, the economy, the Cyprus issue, the Aegean issue, the PKK issue and the Armenian issue – all the while, aligning Turkish foreign policy with US policies. While the US demand for concessions by Turkey on these political issues in exchange for assurances of its assistance disturbed the Özal government, the Western alliance offered Ankara a level of predictability and regional stability. Özal had now opted to seek EEC membership as a balancing strategy against Turkey’s dependence on the US, a move which was in keeping with his mutual interdependence strategy. Turkey officially applied to be a candidate for EEC membership on 14 April 1987. On 27 September 1989, President Özal proposed a democratisation plan to the Council of Europe. The plan became a manifesto that promised to amend the constitutional laws

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300 | ahmet sozen that criminalised the exercise of thought as well as the right to freedom of expression, association and religious belief. Özal’s manifesto also promised to acknowledge the authority of the European Court of Human Rights. Although the EEC concluded that Turkey had yet to achieve the level required in order to be considered a consolidated democracy, the reforms Özal initiated moved Turkey closer to a parliamentary democracy that was in line with EEC membership and other democratic transformations. By the late 1980s, Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost (openness) policy reform and perestroika (reformation) within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had triggered the chain of events that was to bring the Cold War to an end. Subsequent to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Yugoslavia followed suit in 1992 and Czechoslovakia did likewise in 1993. The collapse of these federal structures encouraged domestic opposition to a federal solution in Cyprus, while in the post-Cold War era, Turkey found itself in the middle of a series of political crises and ethnic conflicts that threatened the country’s security and stability. Conclusion During the Cold War, Turkey formulated and implemented reactive foreign policies based on concerns primarily about issues such as the Soviet threat, Cyprus, armed Kurdish groups, the Armenian controversy and, more recently, matters related to the Aegean. What was common to all of these was the fact that they were rooted in the country’s abiding preoccupation about its territorial integrity. While the country isolated itself from its chaotic region in the first two decades after its establishment in 1923, the Soviet territorial demand from the mid-1940s on drove Turkey into the US-dominated Western alliance and its one-dimensional policy within the strict polarities of the newborn postwar international system. While Turkey was dealing with the Soviet threat within the context of the NATO alliance, it also came to realise that its specific security concerns would not necessarily be addressed under the NATO umbrella. Turkey’s mistrust of the Western alliance following the Cuban missile crisis, coupled with its fears about the uncertainty of the outcome of the Cyprus problem, combined to convince the policymakers to move beyond the onedimensional policy in search of something more proactive. This shift in behaviour meant stating a preference for establishing regional relations and closer ties with Third World countries in order to surmount problems associated with the initial, more narrowly defined, foreign policy. It was to lead to the multi-vector approach that was to become the hallmark of Turkey’s foreign policy in the 1970s. This novel approach was a significant change from how Turkey had formerly managed its relations with non-Western countries, which had featured reactive measures against specific threats (such as the 1937 Saadabad Pact) and the strategic approaches that evolved

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turkish foreign policy during the cold war  | 301 in this regard. The multi-vectored approach, on the other hand, was based on a wider scale of interests and strategic choices. These periods coincided with times when a conservative party had become the ruling administration (like Özal’s Turkey in the 1980s) and then challenged the military custodial role that constrained internal dynamics from exerting a greater influence on foreign policy. What characterised the 1980s under Özal’s administration in Turkey was the growing use of the term ‘mutual interdependence’ plus a focus on economic activism, and a willingness to pursue dialogue in order to solve regional problems and to generate economic interdependence within the region. Yet it should be noted that these proactive policies were not propounded merely as an alternative to the US-led Western alliance or as a shift from a reactive approach to a vision-based one. Instead, they were designed as part of a strategy to raise Turkey’s profile, especially in the eyes of the US, and by doing so to acquire stronger US backing for Turkey’s foreign policy priorities that had previously served to limit the country’s foreign relations just as the bipolar system once had. References Aydın, Mustafa (2003), ‘The Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy and Turkey’s European Vocation’, Review of International Affairs 3(2): 306–31. Aydın, Mustafa (2019), ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy’, in Nejat Doğan and Ahmet Sözen (eds.), Turkish Foreign Policy, Vol. I: History and Strategy, Eskişehir: Anadolu University. Balcı, Ali (2013), Türkiye Dış Politikası: İlkeler, Aktörler, Uygulamalar, Istanbul: Etkileşim Yayınları. Dicle, Betül (2019), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy during the Cold War’, in Nejat Doğan and Ahmet Sözen (eds.) Turkish Foreign Policy, Vol. I: History and Strategy, Eskişehir: Anadolu University. Kirişci, Kemal (2009), ‘The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy: The Rise of the Trading State’, New Perspectives on Turkey 40: 29–56. Nedjati, Zaim and Geraint Leathes (1976), ‘A Study of the Constitution of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus’, Anglo American Law Review 5(1): 67–92. Oran, Baskın (2009), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt I: 1919–1980, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Oran, Baskın (2010), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt II: 1980–2001, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Sander, Oral (1982), ‘Türk Dış Politikasında Sürekliliğin Nedenleri’, Ankara Üniversitesi SBF Dergisi 37(3): 105–24. Sönmezoğlu, Faruk (1984), ‘Kıbrıs Sorunu ve Birleşmiş Milletler: 1954–1975’, İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 38(3): 223–55.

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23 The Crisis of Turkish–American Relations Ömer Taşpınar (National War College)

Introduction

T

here has been no shortage of ups and down in Turkish–American relations since Turkey became a NATO member in 1953. But the partnership has entered a much more unstable and challenging phase since the end of the Cold War and it is hard to avoid the sense that the last two decades have been particularly daunting. The US decision to arm a Syrian Kurdish militia group which Turkey considers a terrorist organisation, the 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey allegedly perpetrated by followers of a Pennsylvaniabased Turkish cleric, Ankara’s purchase of a Russian missile defence system in 2018, Turkey’s ejection from the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter programme and finally Washington’s imposition of sanctions on Turkey’s defence industry in 2020 are clear indicators that we are in no ordinary times. Daunting as they may be, these recent developments are not the causes but rather the symptoms of the malaise in this important bilateral security partnership. The real source of divergence between the two allies goes much deeper. A historical approach can shed more light on what went wrong. As this chapter will illustrate, there are in fact two fundamental problems that have exacerbated tensions between Ankara and Washington since the demise of communism and the end of the Cold War. First and foremost is the absence of a common enemy. As soon as a post-Soviet regional and global order emerged in the early 1990s, Turkey and the United States realised that they lost what was truly essential in their strategic partnership: a shared existential threat perception. Terrorism was the most promising candidate to replace Soviet communism as a common threat. But it proved to be a poor substitute for a nuclear-armed ideological and imperial enemy of the West. In the bipolar context of Cold War dynamics Turkey was unambiguously anchored in the ‘West’ and the ‘free world’ by virtue of its NATO 302

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 303 membership. Compared to this picture of clarity, today, Ankara and Washington cannot even agree on their identification of terrorist groups. For Ankara, the top priority remains ethnic terrorism in the form of Kurdish nationalism and separatism. For Washington, ideological terrorism, with its radical Islamist variant, is the existential threat. Syria, as we will see in this chapter, is where this divergence turned into a strategic nightmare: Turkey joined jihadist groups while the US partnered up with Kurdish fighters. In addition to the absence of a common enemy, the second issue that came to haunt post-Cold War Turkish–American relations is the shift in the centre of gravity in the partnership from Eurasia to a much more difficult region: the Middle East. After the demise of the Soviet Union, Turkey’s geostrategic relevance for the US increasingly came to seen in the context of its borders with the Arab world and Iran. Washington was bureaucratically and strategically ill prepared for this new era in its relations with Turkey. As a former ambassador to Turkey, Mark Parris, has perceptively observed Turkey’s place within the American system is based on Cold War legacy: For reasons of self-definition and Cold War logic, Turkey is considered a European nation. It is therefore assigned, for purposes of policy development and implementation, to the sub-divisions responsible for Europe: the European Bureau (EUR) at the State Department; the European Command (EUCOM) at the Pentagon; the Directorate for Europe at the NSC [National Security Council], etc. Since the end of the Cold War, however, and progressively since the 1990–91 Gulf War and 9/11, the most serious issues in US– Turkish relations – and virtually all of the controversial ones – have arisen in areas outside ‘Europe’. The majority, in fact, stem from developments in areas which in Washington are the responsibility of offices dealing with the Middle East: the Bureau for Near East Affairs (NEA) at State; [CENTCOM] at the Pentagon; the Near East and South Asia Directorate at NSC. (Parris 2008)

Given this bureaucratic dilemma, American officials who focus on Turkey are often experts on western Europe, NATO, Russia, the EU and the Mediterranean. With high expectations and mental habits established during the Cold War, they often tend to look at Turkey exclusively as a Western member of the transatlantic alliance. Their level of disappointment is therefore much stronger when Turkey acts in defiance of these transatlantic and Western norms. In alarmist circles such Turkish deviation from Cold War norms is often perceived as a neo-Ottoman Islamisation rather than nationalism, an understandable pursuit of Turkey’s own national security interests or a quest for ‘strategic autonomy’. In short, not only did Turkey and the United States have diverging threat perceptions in the post-Cold War era but the centre of gravity also shifted towards the Middle East. These new dynamics created ample room for faulty analysis and mutual misunderstanding based on identity politics (Aydıntaşbaş & Shapiro 2021).

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304 | ömer taşpınar Several problems began to emerge in this new Middle Eastern paradigm challenging the stability of Turkish–American strategic partnership. These challenges can be categorised in three large categories. First and foremost was the emergence of the Kurdish question as a major bone of contention. As we will analyse shortly, Iraq and Syria were the external epicentres of Turkey’s Kurdish threat perception, due to the presence of ethnic separatist safe havens in both countries. For Washington, however, the Kurdish presence in these countries presented opportunities rather than liabilities. Kurds in both countries became an ally against common Kurdish–American threats: Saddam Hussein in Iraq and ISIS in Syria. Such divergence in threat perception became impossible for Turkey to tolerate in Syria, where US partners were no longer just Kurdish nationalists as in the case of Iraq, but this time members of what Ankara considered a terrorist group, fighting for autonomy since the early 1980s in the Turkish southeast. A second aspect of the Middle East that caused major problems in Turkish–American relations was Turkey’s deteriorating relations with Israel. Shortly after coming to power the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pursued excellent relations with Tel Aviv. Yet the Palestinian issue and Erdoğan’s perception of Hamas not as a terrorist group, but as a legitimate resistance movement subject to disproportionate Israeli military aggression in Gaza changed everything. The Mavi Marmara flotilla incident of 2010 proved to be a historic turning point from which Turkish–Israeli relations never fully recovered.1 Not surprisingly the Turkish– Israeli divergence had strong implications for Turkey’s image in the US Congress where the powerful pro-Israel lobby used to be a strong supporter of Ankara against the Greek, Armenian and Kurdish lobbies. A third dimension of Turkish–American problems emerged in the context of the Arab Spring in 2011 and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood, particularly in Egypt. The fact that the United States failed to call the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood government by the Egyptian military in 2013 a coup created deep resentment in Ankara. In turn, Turkey’s support for Muslim Brotherhood-oriented political parties came to represent a neo-Ottoman pan-Islamist turn in Turkish foreign policy (Özkan 2014). In the meantime, the limits of Turkish–American counter-terrorism cooperation become abundantly clear. When Turkey faced a failed coup attempt in 2016 and accused the US-based Fetullah Gülen of being the mastermind of a terrorist network, Washington refused Ankara’s demand for extradition on legal grounds. Around the same time, Washington contemplated designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and actively began to arm the Syrian Kurdish militia, which Ankara considered a terrorist For an overview of deteriorating Turkish–Israeli relations see Arbell (2014); Balcı & Kardas (2012); Oğuzlu (2010).

 1

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 305 entity. The idea of terrorism as a shared Turkish–American national security threat was failing miserably. Finally, partly due to its frustration with Washington, Turkey embarked on the purchase of a Russian missile defence system in 2017. Given all this drama, it is no wonder that many today remember the Cold War with nostalgia as the ‘Golden Age’ of Turkish–American cooperation against a truly existential common threat. Yet, as mentioned earlier, even during the Cold War Turkish–American relations witnessed their fair share of ups and downs, mostly in the form of Cyprus-centred episodes. These problems occasionally escalated to crisis level, as in the case of the ‘Johnson letter’ in 1964 and the American military embargo imposed between 1974 and 1978 in response to Turkey’s invasion of the northern part of the island (Bölükbaşı 1993). However, it is important to remember that these problems all took place in the larger context of the stability and predictability provided by the bipolar rivalry. To be sure, there was abundant drama and posturing. One can hardly forget the words uttered by Prime Minister İsmet İnönü in reaction to Lyndon B. Johnson’s letter (warning Ankara not to count on NATO assistance against a potential Soviet retaliation in case Turkey invaded Cyprus): ‘If conditions change and events make a new order necessary, Turkey will certainly find its place in this order’ (Oran 2013). Yet Turkey stayed in NATO and anti-Americanism in Turkey never reached its contemporary levels. This is an additional reason why the focus of this chapter is on the last two decades of Turkish–American relations, rather than the earlier era covered elsewhere. Suffice to say that during the Cold War, the bipolar context provided guardrails for bilateral divergence between Ankara and Washington. These were times when both the world and Turkey were still divided into ideological camps. In this bipolar world, Turkey was a neighbour of the Soviet Union and virulent anti-Americanism belonged mainly to the realm of the left. Despite its nationalism, the civilian and military security bureaucracy of Turkey was strongly anti-communist and closer to the transatlantic alliance. In this political and social context, the anger of young students against ‘imperialist Yankees’ never galvanised large segments of Turkish society (Taşpınar 2005). These were also times when the means for mass public opinion mobilisation had not reached current levels. Social media, the 24-hour news cycle and the cornucopia of talk shows often fuelling disinformation and conspiracy theories had yet to be invented. Until the mid-1980s Turkey was a country with only one TV channel, which was officially controlled by the government. No such thing as the internet existed. And perhaps most importantly, the most polarising contemporary issue of the Turkish–American agenda – the Kurdish question – had yet to make an appearance. The Kurdish Predicament between Ankara and Washington Of all the factors poisoning this once-strategic partnership the Kurdish issue is by far the most significant for Ankara. The challenging nature of the problem for Turkish–

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306 | ömer taşpınar American relations first emerged in the context of the First Gulf War of 1990–1. Soon after the liberation of Kuwait, the UN-established no-fly zone in northern Iraq gradually undermined Turkey’s security. Lack of central authority in northern Iraq allowed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) to establish training grounds and stage operations against Turkey from a safe haven in the Qandil Mountains. By the late 1980s, the PKK had already emerged as a formidable enemy for the Turkish military in southeastern Anatolia, within Turkey’s own borders. The national security establishment in Ankara considered this Kurdish insurgency as the most existential terrorist threat the republic had faced since its foundational decades. And the protection America provided for Iraqi Kurds exacerbated Ankara’s sense of political and diplomatic insecurity. Things went from bad to worse as the 1990s turned into a ‘lost decade’ with worsening civil–military relations, drastic security measures in the southeast, weak coalition governments, growing fiscal problems, high inflation and diplomatic crises with Europe and the United States. The conspiratorial belief that Washington was behind Kurdish terrorism also gained popularity during this first decade of the post-Cold War era. Such suspicion of the West came naturally to the nationalist instincts of Turkish strategic culture, which traditionally blamed British imperialism for the Kurdish insurrections of the 1920s and 1930s (Olson 1989). Similar Turkish concerns about US–Kurdish cooperation played a significant role in 2003 when Ankara decided not to grant the George W. Bush administration access to Turkish soil and airspace for the invasion of Iraq. This debacle turned into a major disappointment for Washington’s war plans. The ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) nevertheless tried hard to maintain good relations with Washington and the Bush administration did not punish Turkey for its failure to cooperate. To punish the only Muslim democracy in the Middle East would in any case have been counter-productive for the neoconservative ‘freedom agenda’ of Washington at the time. One incident in northern Iraq, however, served as a strong reminder that the Kurdish question remained a major bone of contention in Turkish–American relations and was in many ways the harbinger of what would unfold in Syria more than a decade later. On 4 July 2003, US forces in northern Iraq detained eleven Turkish special forces members suspected of planning to participate in the assassination of a local Kurdish politician. The soldiers were released after forty-eight hours, but not before they were hooded and treated as prisoners by the American military, causing great humiliation and resentment in Turkey. The Turkish General Staff spoke of ‘the worst crisis of confidence’ between Ankara and Washington in more than fifty years, and foreign minister Abdullah Gül warned that ‘this harm cannot be forgotten’ (Howard & Goldenberg 2003). The post-invasion chaos in Iraq drove Turkey more deeply into the Middle East. Shortly after the American occupation Ankara’s worst fears were realised. Iraq became a

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 307 breeding ground for jihadist terrorism and descended into sectarian and ethnic violence. The influence of Tehran greatly increased in Iraq and in the region. The Iraqi Kurds’ drive for autonomy – and quest for formal independence – gained momentum. And most importantly, once believed to have dissolved, the PKK took up arms again by 2005 and once more began launching attacks on Turkish territory, killing several hundred Turkish security forces. Although the PKK maintained the bulk of its guerrilla and urban presence in Turkey and had large pockets of support among Turkey’s 15–20 per cent Kurdish minority, most Turkish observers continued to blame external actors in the West and in the Middle East for the tenacity of the Kurdish insurrection in Turkey. While Ankara was frustrated with the US, it did not take very long for American public opinion to turn against the invasion of Iraq as well. The arrival of the Obama administration and the new president’s decision to end America’s military presence in the country came as a shock to Iraqi Kurds. With the departure of the United States, the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Erbil now had to find ways to improve relations with Ankara. With the Americans out of the way, the Erdoğan government was happy to engage with the KRG from a position of strength and with an eye on lucrative energy projects. Ankara recognised the KRG and opened a consulate in Erbil in 2010. Diplomatic relations were followed by lucrative economic engagements. In a few years Turkey became a major importer of Kurdish oil and an investor in energy and civilian infrastructure with its highly competent construction companies. The PKK’s presence in this region, however, had the potential to poison the growing economic and political ties between Ankara and Erbil. For many reasons having to do with domestic politics, such as the military–civilian balance rapidly moving in favour of the AKP as well as the hope of securing Kurdish support for his presidential agenda, Erdoğan decided to engage in secret negotiations with the PKK as early as 2009, in what later came to be known as the Oslo process. During the talks, both the Turkish security forces and the PKK scaled back their offensive operations. The road to peace between Ankara and the PKK proved predictably complicated with several downturns between 2009 and 2014. The broad outlines of the process included ceasefire declarations by the PKK, the release of hostages and prisoner activists and the withdrawal of PKK militants into northern Iraq after laying down their arms. In return, the Turkish government was expected to craft legislation to overhaul the definition of terrorism and move forward with a new democratic constitution improving minority rights and administrative decentralisation (Yeğen 2015). As part of settlement talks, the PKK declared a ceasefire in March 2013 and began its withdrawal from Turkey towards its camps in northern Iraq. Turkey appeared for the first time in its modern history close to a democratic solution to its deeply rooted Kurdish problem.

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308 | ömer taşpınar While Turkey pursued a Kurdish peace process at home, the Middle East witnessed significant upheaval with the Arab Spring. The revolution in Tunisia led to a wave of mass mobilisation in Egypt and the unimaginable happened in a few months as the regime of Hosni Mubarak collapsed after a tenure that had lasted thirty years. The regime of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi also disintegrated as the country descended into civil war. Ankara embraced the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions without reservation. After some hesitation due to financial interests and investments there, Erdoğan also decided to support regime change and NATO-led operations in Libya. Problems with Israel For decades, Turkey had the closest relations of any Muslim state to Israel. Shortly after the Cold War came to an end, in 1996, the Turkish military further deepened its partnership with Israel by signing a strategic cooperation agreement allowing the Israeli Air Force to train in Turkey. It is also important to note that through its strategic relationship with Israel, the Kemalist establishment hoped to gain a ‘back door’ to Washington via the powerful pro-Israel lobby (Arbell 2014). This continues to be perceived by Ankara as the best way of countering the influence of the Greek and Armenian lobbies in the United States. During the 1990s, the Oslo peace process and agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel sheltered the Turkish military establishment from domestic and Arab criticism in forging such open military cooperation with Tel Aviv. Moreover, Ankara was in search of assistance from a country that would not attach human rights conditions to its weapon sales. Turkish military cooperation with Israel was also supposed to pressure Syria to withdraw its support for the PKK. Seen in this light, the strategic reasons for Turkey’s rapprochement with Israel appeared to be sound. Yet beyond all the strategic factors, the alliance with Israel had also an important domestic ideological and identity dimension since it above all signalled the autonomy and political determination of the Turkish military to follow a ‘secularist’ foreign policy at a time when political Islam appeared to be on the rise in Turkey. Indeed, Turkey’s relationship with Israel brought into sharp relief the preponderant role of the military in Turkey’s foreign policy, as it appeared that the civilian government led by Turkey’s first Islamist prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP), did not know the exact details of the military cooperation and training agreement. By forging closer links with Israel, the generals turned foreign policy into a domestic political show of force, partly in retaliation against Erbakan’s prior foreign policy openings to countries such as Iran, Sudan and Libya. At the height of the standoff between the Erbakan government and the Turkish General Staff, the military went as far as consolidating Turkey’s relationship with Israel without informing the Ministry of Defence (Yavuz 1997: 32). Although Prime Minister Erbakan was an avowed opponent of a free trade

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 309 agreement with Israel, he was forced by the military to sign this agreement during the Israeli foreign minister David Levy’s official visit to Ankara in April 1997. When the AKP came to power in 2002 it wanted to prove its secularist and proWestern credentials to the generals to avoid the fate of the RP, which was ousted from power in 1998 and banned by the Constitutional Court on the grounds of the challenge it posed for the secular principles of the Republic. Under the AKP, Erdoğan even mediated briefly between Israel and Syria during 2007 and 2008. Once again, as in the 1990s, the semblance of peace between Israel and the Palestinians provided domestic legitimacy for strong relations with Israel. Dynamics rapidly changed after Hamas came to power in Palestinian territories and violence in Gaza resumed in 2009. As the AKP strengthened Turkey’s ties to Iran and the Hamas government in Gaza – including AKP efforts to facilitate humanitarian aid to Gaza – tensions deepened with Israel. Relations went from bad to worse in 2010 after the Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli soldiers boarded a Turkish flotilla and killed nine civilians. Despite steady trade relations in the last ten years, full diplomatic reconciliation between Turkey and Israel remains elusive until today. It remains to be seen whether the relative rapprochement after Benjamin Netanyahu lost power in 2021 will fundamentally improve dynamics. In many ways Turkey’s worsened relations with Israel also continue to represent a challenge for the image of Turkey in Washington. It is hard to avoid the sense that in the eyes of most of the US Congress, the state of relations between Ankara and Jerusalem is a major litmus test for Turkey’s secular and Western identity. The Syrian Quagmire in Turkish–American Relations Israel was certainly a critical problem for the Turkish–American bilateral agenda. Syria, however, became where the rubber hit the road for Turkey in relations with Washington. Damascus was the jewel in the crown of the AKP’s ‘zero problems’ policy of economic, political, diplomatic and cultural engagement with the Middle East. Despite considerable problems in the 1990s during which the Assad regime supported the PKK, relations between Ankara and Damascus began to improve after Syria expelled Abdullah Öcalan in 1999, paving the way to his arrest and imprisonment by the Turkish authorities. Between 2003 and 2010 trade, tourism, cultural and diplomatic relations between Erdoğan’s Turkey and Bashar al-Assad’s Syria witnessed a tremendous growth. Erdoğan and Assad saw each other as strategic, economic and diplomatic partners (Bishku 2012). During this first decade of the AKP in power, Erdoğan led a positive agenda of democratisation, economic growth and good relations with the West and the Middle East. Ankara even mediated between Syria and Israel to secure a lasting peace to the Golan Heights dispute. When violence erupted in Syria, Turkey initially approached

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310 | ömer taşpınar the situation with caution. After months of demonstrations, a brutal crackdown by the regime and Erdoğan’s failure to convince Assad to adopt a reformist course, Turkey finally began supporting the Islamist opposition with the hope of rapid regime change. The Turkish expectation was that what had happened in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya would also end up happening in Syria with the arrival in power of a government oriented towards the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria, however, proved very different. Sectarian dynamics that did not exist in other Arab Spring countries of north Africa soon began to dominate a proxy power struggle. Iran, Arab Gulf countries and Russia, in addition to Turkey, had high stakes in Syria, which entered a protracted civil war. And Turkey soon found itself deeply involved in a major quagmire. By 2012, especially after Syria shot down a Turkish fighter and killed two of its pilots, Turkey began to voice support for an international military intervention. To its dismay, however, neither the US nor the EU were interested in that option. Turkey, with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, had to rely on its own resources to change the balance of power on the ground. It did not take long for Ankara to turn into a major military and logistical supporter of Syrian Islamist insurgents. By 2013 Turkey was already a major hub for Syria’s exiled opposition and a conduit for the steady stream of foreign jihadi fighters making their way into Syria. Eventually, Ankara turned a blind eye even to members of ISIS, who slipped in and out of the country and sometimes sought medical treatment there (Stein 2016). All the while, Turkey opened its borders to millions of refugees fleeing the fighting and built vast camps to hold the new arrivals. The gesture was expensive but morally just, Erdoğan argued – an act of Sunni compassion and solidarity in the face of the Assad regime’s atrocities. That narrative struck a chord with the public, and opposition to the refugee influx remained relatively muted during the first years of the civil war. By 2019, however, Turkey was hosting close to 4 million Syrian refugees and many analysts argued the issue had turned into a major liability for Erdoğan’s popularity (Tol 2019). In the meantime, Turkey’s frustration with the Western reluctance to get militarily involved in Syria continued to grow. Neither the US nor European countries were interested in establishing a safe zone in northern Syria to support the opposition against Damascus. The lion share of Turkey’s frustration was with Washington. For several years, the Obama administration resisted calls to play a direct role in the Syrian war, preferring instead to provide funding and training for some anti-Assad rebel groups. But President Barack Obama changed his mind as ISIS took advantage of the chaos to capture vast swathes of Syrian and Iraqi territory. By mid-2014, the US military decided to airdrop weapons to Kurdish militias, the strongest of which were the People’s Protection Units, known by their Kurdish initials, YPG. From the US perspective, the action came after months of failed efforts to convince

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 311 Ankara to do more against ISIS and at a critical juncture when the YPG was waging a war against ISIS in the northern Syrian town of Kobane on the Turkish border. In the eyes of Washington, the YPG was by far the most effective local force and the most reliable partner against ISIS. From the Turkish perspective, however, Washington was now officially in bed with the PKK. The YPG was nothing less than the Syrian affiliate of the terrorist movement Turkey had been fighting since the early 1980s. Under these conditions, any hope of pursuing the Kurdish peace process at home naturally vanished. By mid-2015, the AKP returned to the old paradigm of an alarmist security-first approach, feeling betrayed by its NATO ally’s decision to arm its arch-enemy. The frustration was mutual since Washington knew Ankara was in bed with jihadist networks close to ISIS.2 In short, Syria now represented not only the near death of the Turkish–American alliance but also the termination of any prospect of Turkish peace with the PKK. Up until this point it was arguably possible for Ankara and Washington to compartmentalise their problems in the Middle East. Erdoğan was already furious with the Obama administration for not properly condemning the military coup in Egypt and officially cutting US military and economic assistance to the country in accordance with American legal requirements (Kirkpatrick 2018). Erdoğan quickly blamed the West and probably feared that in the unlikely event that the military intervened in Turkey, Washington would stay silent as it did in the case of Egypt. When the Obama administration began supporting the Kurds in Syria the next year, things went from bad to worse in terms of antiAmericanism in Turkey. Differences on issues such as the Israeli–Palestinian dispute, the military coup in Egypt toppling the Muslim Brotherhood, or even differences vis-àvis Iran and Iraq paled into insignificance when compared with Syria, where the problem was no longer that Ankara and Washington did not share the same threat perception. They were now actively supporting each other’s existential enemies. The pretence of a strategic partnership was no longer possible. Enter Russia The Russian entry into the Syrian civil war in 2015 made things worse for Turkey, as Moscow came to the rescue of Damascus. The risk of a Turkish–Russian confrontation came perilously close after Turkey downed a Russian jet for violating its airspace in late 2015. Shortly after the incident, as Moscow vowed to retaliate, a panicked Turkey called for a NATO emergency meeting, hoping for contingency plans in preparation for collective defence. What it received instead was some token words of solidarity and a call to calm and de-escalation. Ankara felt even more neglected when Germany and the United For

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Turkey’s relations with ISIS see Gürsel (2015); Jenkins (2018); Talley (2019); Zaman (2015).

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312 | ömer taşpınar States declared they would not change their earlier plans to withdraw batteries of Patriot missiles deployed in Turkey for scheduled maintenance (Ottens 2015). Turkey understandably felt sidelined as its security concerns were not being taken seriously, just when it feared Russian military retaliation. All this strengthened the view in Ankara that the US-led alliance was not committed to Turkey’s defence. In the meantime, Russia announced economic sanctions against Turkey. Moscow ended commercial and charter flights between the two countries, imposed a ban on Russian businesses hiring any new Turkish nationals, and placed restrictions on the importing of certain Turkish goods and Russian tourists’ travel to Turkey. Bilateral relations between the two countries showed some signs of improvement in June 2016 but only after Erdoğan expressed his regrets for the downing of the Russian jet in a letter that Vladimir Putin accepted as an apology (Luhn & Black 2016). Just one month after the relative improvement in Turkish–Russian ties, things went from bad to worse on the Turkish–American front when the Erdoğan government survived a bizarrely botched coup attempt by a clique within the Turkish military which apparently acted in defiance of the chain of command. Erdoğan immediately blamed the US-based cleric Fethullah Gülen for orchestrating the coup and launched a massive purge not only within the military and civilian bureaucracy but throughout civil society, business and educational institutions as well. In Ankara’s view, the US was not fast or clear enough in its condemnation, while Putin called Erdoğan immediately and offered the use of Russian special forces deployed on a nearby Greek island (Yavuz & Balci 2018). Ankara has been demanding Gülen’s extradition ever since. The US has refused the request so far on the grounds that the decision is up to the judiciary and that the Turkish authorities have failed to produce hard evidence tying Gülen to the coup attempt. To Turks, this US stance on Gülen only confirms the conspiratorial view that Washington itself was behind the coup. Shortly after the failed coup, the Turkish military launched its first operation into northern Syria with the goal of clearing a border area of both ISIS and YPG forces. At the same time, Erdoğan turned increasingly autocratic and nationalistic by using the failed coup as a pretext to purge all his opponents. He changed the Turkish political system into a one-man-rule presidentialism with the 2017 referendum and intensified his crackdown on Kurdish, liberal and Gülenist opposition forces as the backsliding in Turkish democracy reached unprecedented levels. The Turkish army continued to launch military operations into northern Syria in 2018 and 2019, dealing a blow to Kurdish aspirations for self-administration and coming close to a military confrontation with US special forces training their YPG partners against ISIS (Khalifa & Tsurkov 2020). In the meantime, Turkish–American relations continued to worsen. In 2018 Ankara purchased a Russian missile defence system, the S-400, despite clear warnings

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 313 from the US that such batteries would not be not interoperable with NATO systems and that Turkey would face economic and military sanctions if it moved ahead with the delivery. After the delivery of the S-400 missiles to Turkey in 2019, Turkey was officially cut out of the F-35 warplane programme and the same year, when Ankara launched its third and most comprehensive military operation in northern Syria, the US Treasury imposed targeted and temporary sanctions against the Turkish Ministry of Defence (Stein & Hamilton 2020). Finally, in December 2020 the departing Trump administration imposed military sanctions on Turkey’s defence industry in the framework of the Countering America’s Adversaries through Sanctions Act. Turkish– American relations are likely to hit a new low point under the Biden administration. As a candidate, President Joe Biden called Erdoğan an autocrat, criticised his policy towards Kurds and advocated working with the Turkish opposition (Champion & Wadhams 2020). Following a similar trend of criticism, secretary of state Antony Blinken called Turkey a ‘so-called strategic ally’ during his confirmation hearings in early 2021 (Reuters 2021). Conclusion Delivery of the S-400 missiles and Turkey’s decision to test the system in the summer of 2020 was indeed a watershed moment in Turkey’s relations with both NATO and the United States. Turkey is now trying to purchase F-16 fighters from the United States to modernise its ageing fleet and to substitute for the F-35 project. There is, however, considerable resistance in the US Congress to this sale. If current trends between Ankara and Washington continue, Turkey–Russia relations could evolve into what looks like a strategic partnership due to Ankara’s growing military and energy dependence on Moscow. Ankara is not there yet since its relations with Moscow remain fragile. Despite cooperation in Syria, Turkey and Russia are on opposing fronts, with Russia backing the Assad regime and Turkey still supporting what is left of the Syrian opposition. The Syrian province of Idlib, which is the last remaining Islamist stronghold, remains a flashpoint in Turkey–Russia cooperation. Turkey and Russia may today only have a marriage of convenience. Yet it is hard to avoid the impression that Ankara and Washington are heading towards divorce. Given the growing level of distrust between the two on critical issues ranging from the S-400s to the Syrian Kurds and Fetullah Gülen, it would be naïve for analysts not to take seriously the potential for an anti-Western, Eurasianist Turkish foreign policy, favouring stronger strategic relations with Russia, China and India (Tobakov 2017). Recent public opinion polls show validation for this trend in Turkish society (Kuru 2022). This Turkish quest for strategic autonomy does not bode well for Turkey’s relations with Washington, the European Union and NATO.

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314 | ömer taşpınar Today, Syria, the Kurdish question and ISIS have turned into a nightmare for the Turkish–American alliance. Only time will tell if the two countries will again find ways to restore a once-strategic partnership. At the moment crisis management and damage control appears the most realistic scenario. As Erdoğan declared at the third anniversary of the failed coup of July 15, ‘Despite our political and military pacts with the Western alliance, the fact is that once again the biggest threats we face are from them’ (Gazete Duvar 2019). As long as Turkey continues to perceive Kurdish separatism as a threat and the US maintains its support to Syrian Kurds, there is no realistic reason to be optimistic. The reason is simple: if there is one issue that creates more alarm than Kurdish nationalism in Turkey it is Kurdish nationalism with Washington’s military support behind it. And Syria is the place where this Turkish nightmare turned into a Kurdish dream. As we look into the future, it is hard to avoid the sense that the Sèvres syndrome, which defined the Republic at its inception (Jung 2003), is still shaping Turkey’s future in 2023. References Arbell, Dan (2014), ‘The US–Turkey–Israel Triangle’, Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, October, https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-u-s-turkey-israel-triangle/, accessed 23 January 2023. Aydıntaşbaş, Aslı and Jeremy Shapiro (2021), ‘Biden and Erdoğan are trapped in a double fantasy’, Foreign Policy, 6 January, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/01/06/biden-america-and-Erdoğanturkey-are-trapped-in-a-double-fantasy/, accessed 31 January 2023. Balcı, Ali and Tuncay Kardas (2012), ‘The Changing Dynamics of Turkey’s Relations with Israel: An Analysis of “Securitization”’, Insight Turkey 14(2): 99–120. Bishku, Michael (2012), ‘Turkish–Syrian Relations: A Checkered History’, Middle East Policy 19(3): 36–53. Bölükbaşı, Süha (1993), ‘The Johnson Letter Revisited’, Middle Eastern Studies 29(3): 505–25. Champion, Marc and Nick Wadhams (2020), ‘Erdoğan is getting ready for four rocky years of Biden’, Bloomberg, 24 November, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-24/ erdogan-gets-ready-for-a-rocky-four-years-of-biden, accessed 31 January 2023. Gazete Duvar (2019), ‘Erdoğan: S-400 tarihimizin en önemli anlaşması’, 14 July, https://www. gazeteduvar.com.tr/gundem/2019/07/14/erdogan-s-400-tarihimizin-en-onemli-anlasmasi, accessed 31 January 2023. Gürsel, Kadri (2015), ‘Turkish daily exposes weapons transfer to ISIS’, Al-Monitor, 1 September, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2015/09/turkey-syria-daily-exposes-transfer-weaponssupplies-to-isis.html, accessed 31 January 2023. Howard, Michael and Suzanne Goldenberg (2003), ‘US arrest of soldiers infuriates Turkey’, The Guardian, 7 July, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/jul/08/turkey.michaelhoward, accessed 31 January 2023. Jenkins, Gareth (2018), ‘Yesterday’s Wars: The Cause and Consequences of Turkish Inaction against the Islamic State’, Turkey Analyst 7(18).

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the crisis of turkish–american relations | 315 Jung, Dietrich (2003), ‘The Sevres Syndrome: Turkish Foreign Policy and Its Historical Legacies’, American Diplomacy, August, https://americandiplomacy.web.unc.edu/2003/08/thesevres-syndrome/, accessed 31 January 2023. Khalifa, Dareen and Elizabeth Tsurkov (2020), ‘Has Turkey’s incursion into Syria opened the door for an Islamic State comeback’, War on the Rocks, 21 February, https://warontherocks. com/2020/02/has-turkeys-incursion-into-syria-opened-the-door-for-an-islamic-state-comeback/, accessed 31 January 2023. Kirkpatrick, David (2018), ‘The White House and the strongman’, New York Times, 27 July, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/27/sunday-review/obama-egypt-coup-trump.html, accessed 31 January 2023. Kuru, Nezih Onur (2022), ‘Türkiye’de Avrasyacılık neden yükselişte?’, Gerçek Gündem, 27 January, https://www.gercekgundem.com/yazarlar/nezih-onur-kuru/3958/turkiyede-avrasyacilikneden-yukseliste, accessed 31 January 2023. Luhn, Alec and Ian Black (2016), ‘Erdoğan has apologised for downing of Russian jet, Kremlin says’, The Guardian, 27 June, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/27/kremlinsays-erdogan-apologises-russian-jet-turkish, accessed 31 January 2023. Oğuzlu, Tarik (2010), ‘The Changing Dynamics of Turkey–Israel Relations: A Structural Realist Account’, Mediterranean Politics 15(2): 273–88. Olson, Robert W. (1989), The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion 1880–1925, Austin: University of Texas Press. Oran, Baskin (ed.) (2013), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt I: 1919–1980, İletişim Yayınları. Ottens, Nick (2015), ‘Why did the US remove Patriot missiles from Turkey?’, Atlantic Sentinel, 18 August, https://atlanticsentinel.com/2015/08/why-did-the-united-states-remove-patriotsfrom-turkey/, accessed 31 January 2023. Özkan, Behlül (2014), ‘Turkey, Davutoglu and the Idea of Pan-Islamism’, Survival 56(4): 119–40. Parris, Mark (2008), ‘Toward a Successful Turkey Policy: Suggestions for the Next Administration’, unpublished manuscript. Reuters (2021), ‘US secretary of state nominee calls Turkey a “so-called strategic partner”’, 19 January, https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-biden-state-turkey/u-s-secretary-of-state-nominee-calls-nato-ally-turkey-a-so-called-strategic-partner-idUSL1N2JU2Z6, accessed 31 January 2023. Stein, Aaron (2016), ‘Islamic State Networks in Turkey: Recruitment for the Caliphate’, Atlantic Council, October. Stein, Aaron and Robert Hamilton (2020), ‘How America’s experience with Pakistan can help it deal with Turkey’, War on the Rocks, 25 August, https://warontherocks.com/2020/08/ how-americas-experience-with-pakistan-can-help-it-deal-with-turkey/, accessed 31 January 2023. Talley, Ian (2019), ‘US blacklists four Turkish companies for aiding ISIS’, Wall Street Journal, 18 November, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-blacklists-four-turkish-companies-for-aidingisis-11574110776, accessed 31 January 2023.

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316 | ömer taşpınar Taşpınar, Ömer (2005), ‘The Anatomy of Anti-Americanism in Turkey’, Brookings, 16 November, https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-anatomy-of-anti-americanism-in-turkey/, accessed 31 January 2023. Tobakov, Igor (2017), ‘Neo-Ottomanism versus Neo-Eurasianism? Nationalism and Symbolic Geography in Postimperial Turkey and Russia’, Mediterranean Quarterly 28(2): 125–45. Tol, Gonul (2019), ‘Turkey’s endgame in Syria’, Foreign Affairs, 9 October, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2019-10-09/turkeys-endgame-syria, accessed 31 January 2023. Yavuz, M. Hakan (1997), ‘Turkish–Israeli Relations through the Lens of the Turkish Identity Debate’, Journal of Palestine Studies 27(1): 22–37. Yavuz, M. Hakan and Bayram Balci (2018), Turkey’s July 15th Coup: What Happened and Why, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. Yeğen, Mesut (2015), ‘The Kurdish Peace Process in Turkey: Genesis, Evolution and Prospects’, Istituto Affari Internazionali, May, https://www.iai.it/en/pubblicazioni/kurdish-peace-process-turkey, accessed 30 January 2023. Zaman, Amberin (2015), ‘Captured fighter details Islamic State’s Turkey connection’, Al-Monitor, 17 June, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2015/06/turkey-syria-iraq-isis-new-turkishunit-lures-kurds.html, accessed 31 January 2023.

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24 Turkey’s Relationship with the Soviet Union and Russia Paul Kubicek (Oakland University)

Introduction

T

urkey and Russia/the Soviet Union have been historic rivals, experiencing much confrontation and conflict. However, they have also witnessed periods of cooperation, including in the initial years of the Turkish Republic in the 1920s. They were on opposing sides in the Cold War (1945–91), but its end opened up greater prospects for cooperation, particularly on economic issues, as well as new areas for conflict, including in the post-Soviet space and the Middle East. By 2021, after a period of ups and downs, relations had become rather paradoxical. While they were on opposite sides of several regional conflicts, most notably in Syria, both countries also had become more nationalistic and critical of the West and had strong relations in numerous areas. Some observers even speculated about a Turkish–Russian partnership or alliance. This chapter will trace the course of their relationship over the hundred years of the Turkish Republic as well as addressing some of its driving factors. One theme is that Turkish–Russian/Soviet ties improve when Turkey feels threatened by or is alienated from Western countries, which have long been the top priority of Turkish foreign policy. Another important marker is the end of the bipolar international environment in the early 1990s, which freed Turkey from the constraints of the Cold War and allowed it to pursue more independence in its foreign policy, including greater engagement with Russia. By the 2010s and into the 2020s, a more pronounced ideological shift in Turkish thinking that argued for distancing Turkey from the West also created more space for Ankara to pursue closer ties with Moscow.

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318 | paul kubicek Soviet–Turkish Relations: From Independence to the Second World War Both the Soviet Union and the Republic of Turkey emerged from defeat in the First World War and imperial collapse as well as from victory over domestic opponents backed by foreign powers. Both, in markedly different ways, embarked upon stateand nation-building, as well as economic modernisation. Despite several centuries of conflict between Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire – they fought thirteen wars from 1677 (Váli 1971: 167) – their successor states, at least initially, pursued a path of comity. Early in the Turkish War of Independence (1919–22), Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk), leader of the self-declared Turkish nationalist government, made overtures to the Soviets. These culminated in the March 1921 Turkish–Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Brotherhood, which affirmed ‘solidarity in their struggle against imperialism’ and ‘the desire always to have a cordial understanding and relations of continued sincere friendship’ (Sadak 1949: 451). Among other items, this treaty provided Soviet recognition of Kemal’s government, returned territory to Turkey that was seized by Tsarist Russia in 1878, renounced any further claims on Turkey, abolished all prior capitulations, and committed both sides to resolve issues of access through the Turkish Straits into the Black Sea.1 Although not included in the treaty, the Soviets also pledged to provide the nationalist government with military and financial aid. Although there is some obscurity about the amount of this aid, Bülent Gökay (2006: 29) estimates it totalled 10 million gold roubles, and Ferenc Váli (1971: 19) suggests that Soviet aid was important in Kemal’s ultimate victory over the Allied forces. Turkish–Soviet ties were further strengthened by the 1925 Treaty on Friendship, Neutrality and Non-Aggression, which was updated and extended several times prior to the Second World War. In the economic realm, the Turkish turn towards statism in the 1930s spurred further cooperation. In 1932, Turkey asked for Soviet assistance in developing its first five-year plan for industrialisation. The Soviets responded by offering the Turks industrial equipment through interest-free loans as well as technical training (Wallace 1990: 95). Turkstroi, founded in 1933 as part of the Soviet Commissariat of Heavy Industry, even constructed textile plants in Kayseri and Nazilli (Hirst 2013). What explains this early Turkish–Soviet entente? Although the Soviets made some effort to justify it ideologically by referring to the ‘progressive’ or ‘anti-imperialist’ aspects of Kemalist Turkey and both states exhibited aspects of ‘anti-Westernism’ (Hirst 2013), Realpolitik provides a more compelling explanation for both Soviet and Turkish

The two straits (the Bosphorus, which bisects Istanbul, and the Dardanelles) form a geostrategic chokepoint, serving as the only connection between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.

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turkey and the soviet union/russia | 319 motivations. More specifically, in the early 1920s each side had a common enemy: the British. Great Britain was supporting both the Greeks, who were fighting Turkish nationalists, and White Russian forces, who were fighting the Soviets in the Russian Civil War and were being supplied through Istanbul and the Black Sea. Their common, oftcontested border also presented a security dilemma. The governments in both countries were also internationally isolated, and during the Great Depression Turkey had little choice but to turn to the Soviets for economic assistance. Working together was mutually beneficial. Evidence that Turkish–Soviet cooperation is this period was highly conditioned by geopolitical considerations includes the facts that the 1925 treaty was signed one day after the League of Nations awarded (to Ankara’s consternation) the disputed territory of Mosul to Iraq, then under British mandate, and that Ankara gave renewed praise to its relationship with the Soviets after Italian leader Benito Mussolini reanimated Italian claims on Anatolia (Giritli 1970: 6). However, the early Turkish–Soviet relationship was not an alliance; it was based far more on ‘convenience rather than on sincere cordiality’ (Váli 1971: 169). Tensions and suspicions remained. Kemal feared communist subversion in Turkey, and in January 1921 fifteen leading Turkish communists were murdered on a boat off the Black Sea coast after being ordered to return to Russia. Afterwards, the Turkish Communist Party, along with several trade unions and leftist newspapers, was banned. Surprisingly, however, these developments did not significantly damage incipient Turkish–Soviet ties, reflecting the non-ideological and more pragmatic motivations of both parties (Gökay 2006; White 1984: 229). As Turkey began to develop ties with Western powers such as Great Britain and France in the late 1920s and 1930s, the Soviets began to have doubts about Ankara’s commitments in case of an international conflict. Notably, when Turkey finally joined the League of Nations in 1932, it had to offer reassurances to Moscow that League membership would not threaten their mutual relationship (Güçlü 2003: 200). These developments occurred at the same time as Soviet leader Joseph Stalin was becoming more critical both of Turkey and of Kemalism’s revolutionary potential (Ter-Matevosyan 2019: 185). Finally, one significant irritant – which dated from Tsarist and Ottoman times – was the status of the Turkish Straits. The temporary agreement regarding the straits in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne (which the Soviets abided by but never ratified) was replaced in 1936 by the Montreux Convention. This new agreement allowed Turkey to fortify the straits, but Turkey refused to support the Soviet position to prohibit all warships from nonBlack Sea powers from entering the straits, which would be henceforth be allowed (with limitations). Significantly, the Montreux Convention gave the Soviets no direct control or say over the straits, an issue that would later cause the most significant crisis in Turkish–Soviet relations.

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320 | paul kubicek Return to Animosity: The Second World War and the Cold War Years The Second World War represented a key turning point.2 In the autumn of 1939, a proposed Turkish–Soviet alliance fell apart over Soviet demands to give them greater say over the Turkish Straits. After Turkey signed a mutual assistance pact with Great Britain and France in October 1939, Soviet policy towards Turkey became more hostile. Stalin proposed joint German–Soviet management of the straits, and in 1940 the Soviets publicly implicated Turkey in Allied designs on Soviet oilfields along the Caspian Sea (Cutler 1991: 189). While Turkey stayed neutral for much of the war, its close relationship with Germany in 1941–2, after Germany had attacked the Soviet Union, further angered the Soviets, who accused Turkey of letting German warships and materiel through the straits as well as harbouring pan-Turkist aspirations on Soviet territory (Ter-Matevosyan 2019: 210–16). By 1944–5, the tide turned against the Germans, and Soviet forces pushed westward and southward. Sensing new opportunities in the Balkans and Middle East, the Soviets put more pressure on Turkey, Stalin broached the topic of the straits at the February 1945 Yalta Conference, and on 19 March 1945, Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov, citing the changed international environment, announced that Moscow would pull out of its 1925 treaty with Ankara. Three months later, he offered to renew the treaty, but only if the Montreux Convention were replaced with a bilateral Soviet–Turkish agreement that would grant the Soviets bases on the straits and if Turkey would return the long-contested territories of Kars and Ardahan in eastern Turkey, which the Soviets had handed over in 1921. Turkey’s leaders rejected these demands, fearing they would make Turkey a Soviet satellite state. However, Turkey, by itself, could not counter potential Soviet aggression. It turned to Great Britain and the United States for assistance. Both supported Turkey’s position against Soviet demands, with the Americans even sending the battleship USS Missouri to Istanbul in June 1946 to send a clear message (Váli 1971: 173). Britain, however, acknowledged it was unable to assist Turkey. Consequently, in February 1947, US president Harry Truman announced US military and financial support to both Greece and Turkey, framing such action as necessary to counter Soviet ambitions. This event is often seen as the beginning of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Turkey made further overtures to Western countries, including participating in the Marshall Plan and, in 1950, seeking membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), a year after the alliance’s formation. After some hesitation from some NATO members and the subsequent Turkish dispatch of over 20,000 troops to support United Nations efforts in Korea, Turkey was accepted into NATO in 1952. The Second World War and its aftermath is a significant topic in Turkish–Soviet relations. Useful sources include Giritli (1970), Kuniholm (1980), Sadak (1949) and Váli (1971).

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turkey and the soviet union/russia | 321 The US established military bases in Turkey. While NATO membership can be seen as the culmination of Turkey’s path of Westernisation that dates back to the foundation of the Republic, it is worth emphasising that it was geopolitical considerations that cemented it as part of the West. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey’s NATO membership constituted both the main pillar of its security policy and the primary factor in its relationship with the Soviet Union. Until the death of Stalin in 1953, the Soviets regularly demonstrated hostility towards Turkey, declaring the country a stooge of Washington (Ter-Matevosyan 2019: 217–19). However, after 1953, the Soviets renounced claims on the straits. Soviet writers waxed nostalgic of earlier days of friendship (Ter-Matevosyan 2019: 221) and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev even acknowledged that Stalin’s policy towards Turkey had been ‘idiotic’ (Váli 1971: 176). Soviet leaders tried to improve relations, including making offers of economic assistance. The clear goal was to decouple Turkey from NATO and secure Turkish neutrality in the Cold War. However, there was initially little enthusiasm from the Turkish side. Moreover, the Soviets were not entirely amicable. They made rhetorical attacks against Turkey during crises over Syria (1957) and Iraq (1958), and the 1960 crash on Soviet territory of an American U-2 spy plane, which was based in Turkey, also negatively affected Soviet–Turkish relations (Váli 1971: 175–6). The 1960s witnessed some ‘thaw’ in the Cold War, and Turkey was able to use this to pursue a more independent foreign policy. In addition, Turkish–US relations suffered two serious setbacks. The first occurred after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when Washington removed Jupiter missiles from Turkey (a Soviet demand during the crisis) without even consulting Ankara. The second occurred in 1964 when US president Lyndon Johnson sent his infamous letter to Ankara in which he instructed Turkey not to intervene in the sectarian conflict in Cyprus and declared that NATO would not guarantee Turkey’s security if Turkish action in Cyprus prompted Soviet reprisals. One Turkish writer suggested this ‘removed what had remained of Turkish inhibitions about undertaking rapprochement with her Soviet neighbor’ (Eren 1977: 17). Significantly as well, the Soviets offered some support for Turkey’s political goals in Cyprus (Gökay 2006: 104). Over the next three years, there were several high-level visits between Turkish and Soviet leaders. While these did not fundamentally change Turkey’s pro-Western orientation, in 1967 they culminated in an economic and technical cooperation agreement, which included Soviet support, on generous terms, for several nascent Turkish industries. According to the then Turkish prime minister Süleyman Demirel, Turkey’s turn to the Soviets was not ideological; it reflected Turkey’s needs and the fact that Western countries were unable or unwilling to provide such assistance (Wallace 1990: 110). Soviet assistance continued into the 1970s. Turkey was the largest recipient of Soviet aid among all non-communist countries; from 1965 to 1979, Soviet largesse

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322 | paul kubicek topped $3 billion (Sezer 1985: 121). However, Turkish leaders largely rebuffed Soviet efforts to significantly expand the relationship, including rejecting a Soviet offer to renew the 1925 treaty. In addition, some development projects discussed with the Soviets were scrapped due to political instability within Turkey. The emergence in Turkish politics of more conservative actors, who feared Soviet meddling given growing leftist agitation in Turkey, also augured poorly for closer ties with Moscow (Wallace 1990: 118). The greatest opportunity for improved Turkish–Soviet relations in the Cold War period came after Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus in 1974, which resulted in American and European condemnation, including imposition of an arms embargo. Moscow initially approved Turkish actions to prevent Cyprus from unifying with Greece (Cutler 1985: 66) and reinvigorated its economic aid programme to Turkey. In 1978 Turkey and the Soviet Union signed an Agreement on Principles of Good-Neighbourly and Friendly Cooperation. However, relations later deteriorated. The Soviets supported UN resolutions calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Cyprus, and by the early 1980s pulled closer to Greece on the Cyprus question (Cutler 1991; Sezer 1985: 125). For its part, Turkey strongly condemned the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Turkish leaders also suggested that Moscow may have been behind leftist violence before and after Turkey’s 1980 military coup. The most significant development in the final years of the Cold War was the signing of new economic agreements in 1984. As with previous accords, Turkey was motivated to turn to the Soviets because of lack of Western economic support. In addition to trade and technical assistance, the Soviets agreed to build a natural gas pipeline to Turkey. This pipeline became operational in 1987, and, as it turned out, was but the first of many instances of cooperation in the energy sector. New Dynamics after the Cold War The Cold War played a crucial role in defining Turkish–Soviet relations as well as the overall international order. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 changed both global and regional dynamics. The overarching threat of Soviet communism was gone. Russia, the primary Soviet successor state, was economically and militarily weaker and faced great political uncertainty. For Turkey, the end of the Cold War both meant that it could abandon the ideological obstacle of anti-communism, which had impeded relations with Russia, and opened up new opportunities to assert itself regionally, including in the Balkans and Middle East as well in the post-Soviet space in the Caucasus and central Asia (Fuller 1992). One feature of the immediate post-Cold War years was a flurry of diplomatic activity between Moscow and Ankara. Meetings of political leaders yielded fifteen agreements and protocols on issues such as security, trade, economic cooperation and education

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turkey and the soviet union/russia | 323 (Aktürk 2006: 340). A 1992 treaty on the principles of relations between the two countries had echoes of the previous 1925 treaty, as each pledged goodwill and noninterference in the other’s internal affairs. In the same year, Russia and Turkey took the lead in establishing the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization, which is headquartered in Istanbul. In 1993 Turkey became the first NATO country to purchase military equipment from Russia, reflecting in part its inability to obtain weapons from Western countries due to human rights concerns (Kelkitli 2017: 25). Economic and cultural relations between Russia and Turkey also began to grow. However, in the early 1990s Turkey and Russia did not see eye to eye on a number of foreign policy issues (Ekinci 2017; Kelkitli 2017). Russia felt threatened by expressions of pan-Turkism that seemed to be behind Turkish ambitions in central Asia and the Caucasus. Another issue was competition over energy resources in the Caspian basin, with Turkey (and other Western states) supporting the creation of new oil and gas pipelines that would bypass Russia. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (1992–4) between Armenia (backed by Russia) and Azerbaijan (a Turkic-Muslim country backed by Turkey) prompted Moscow to threaten war if Turkey sent in its own forces to support Azerbaijan. Turkish sympathy and support for Chechnya, which sought to secede from Russia, prompted Russia to lend support to the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), which was fighting Turkish forces in southeastern Turkey. By the end of the 1990s, however, there was significant improvement in Turkish– Russian relations. One observer contended that whereas the early 1990s saw cooperation in certain fields, the end of the decade witnessed ‘intense cooperation’ and ‘strategic partnership’ (Aktürk 2006: 341). One watershed occurred in 1997 with an agreement to build the Blue Stream gas pipeline, which would run under the Black Sea and supply Turkey with more Russian natural gas. The signing of this agreement was accompanied by calls from leaders of both countries to move beyond issues of divisiveness and focus on building economic ties (Kelkitli 2017: 20). Notably, in 1998 Russia refused to grant the leader of the PKK political asylum, and Turkey quietly dropped Chechnya from its foreign policy agenda. In central Asia, Turkish leaders began to realise that Turkey lacked the power to compete with Russia, and they began to work together with Russia on issues of regional security. In 2001, Moscow and Ankara signed an Action Plan for Cooperation in Eurasia, which envisioned both sides working together on numerous issues. Various factors have been invoked to explain this warming of ties between Russia and Turkey (Balta 2019). Şener Aktürk (2006) suggests that realist explanations rooted in power are most persuasive, as Russia no longer posed a serious threat to Turkey and both sides were better able to identify common interests. In contrast, Didem Ekinci (2017) suggests that growing economic ties throughout the 1990s acted as a ‘centripetal force’

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324 | paul kubicek that allowed Turkey and Russia to overcome geopolitical challenges. Fatma Kelkitli agrees that economic concerns and ‘complex interdependence’ compelled Turkey to seek avenues of cooperation with Russia, but she notes (2017: 20) that the Turkish–Russian rapprochement in the late 1990s and early 2000s occurred at a time when Turkey’s relations with the European Union and Middle Eastern countries were poor and when both countries were experiencing economic crises. Similarly, noting that both Russia and Turkey began to experience disappointment with the West in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Fiona Hill and Ömer Taşpınar (2006) characterise their growing relationship as the ‘axis of the excluded’. Relations continued to improve in the 2000s (Warhola & Mitchell 2006; Yanık 2007). In 2004 and 2006 the two countries signed Joint Declarations of Friendship and Partnership. The 2008 Russian attack on Georgia posed a geopolitical crisis, but Ankara managed to successfully navigate the situation, restraining harsh criticism of Russian actions, calling for multilateral solutions, and even placating Moscow by denying entry into the Black Sea to two US warships offering humanitarian assistance to Georgia. However, by far the most notable development was the deepening of economic ties. This was most noticeable in trade figures. Whereas in 1992 total bilateral trade between Russia and Turkey was only $1.5 billion and reached only $4.5 billion by 2000, by 2010 it was $26.2 billion.3 Overall trade, however, was dominated by Russian exports to Turkey, which accounted for roughly 80 per cent of the total (for example $21.6 billion in 2010). By the mid-2000s, Russia became the top source of Turkish imports, creating a situation of ‘asymmetrical interdependence’ (Öniş & Yılmaz 2016). Most of these imports were oil and gas, metals and raw materials, whereas Turkish exports – by 2010 Russia was Turkey’s sixth-largest export market – featured textiles, agricultural products and consumer goods. While several important service sectors (such as construction, finance, tourism and education) also made up the growing Turkish–Russian economic relationship, the energy sector was by far the most notable. Thanks to the Blue Stream pipeline, which went online in 2005, Russia supplied Turkey with over half of its natural gas needs. Furthermore, one outcome of the first Turkish–Russian High-Level Cooperation Council meeting in 2010 was a Russian agreement to build, own and operate Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which is scheduled to become operational in 2023. Contemporary Turkish–Russian Relations Turkish–Russian relations have been subject to dramatic developments in the 2010s and early 2020s, and they have captured the attention of many observers. Some have These figures come from the UN Comtrade Data Base, available at comtrade.un.org. A useful source on the economic dimension of Turkish–Russian relations in this period is Özdal et al. (2013).

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turkey and the soviet union/russia | 325 expressed the belief that as both states, for various reasons, turn away from the West and espouse ‘revisionist’ policies to support self-conceptions as ‘rising’ or ‘post-imperial’ powers, their relationship is likely to grow (Alaranta 2015; Kubicek 2021). Others are more sceptical, suggesting that despite growing economic ties, Turkey and Russia remain ‘neighbors with suspicion’ (Özcan et al. 2017) and that the best that might be expected is an ‘ambiguous partnership’ given the two countries’ conflicting geopolitical ambitions and long-standing mistrust (Baev 2019: 48). The civil war in Syria ranks as one of the most important issues in Turkish–Russian relations, as Moscow (supporting the Syrian government) and Ankara (backing various rebel groups) are on opposite sides of the conflict. While for several years the two sides managed to downplay their differences and avoid direct conflict, this became impossible after Turkey shot down a Russian aircraft along the Syrian border in November 2015. Vladimir Putin described the incident as a ‘stab in the back delivered by terrorists’ accomplices’, launched a propaganda campaign against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his family, and imposed economic sanctions that ultimately cost the Turkish economy $9–$11 billion (Erşen 2017: 91–2). The sanctions – which significantly did not include Russian gas supplies or construction of the nuclear power plant – were partially lifted in the summer of 2016 after Erdoğan apologised for the incident, a tacit admission that Turkey needed Russian help to accomplish its own objectives in Syria. Since then, Putin and Erdoğan have worked more closely to avoid conflict, and have not allowed potential flashpoints (for example, the December 2016 murder in Ankara of the Russian ambassador to Turkey by an extremist and the deaths of three Turkish soldiers in a Russian air attack in northern Syria in February 2017) to morph into a larger crisis. Notably, since 2016 Russia has providing intelligence and air support for Turkish operations in northern Syria against terrorists and Kurdish groups (Kubicek 2021). Turkish–Russian cooperation in Syria remains significant – particularly after the US withdrawal from northern Syria in 2020 – but tensions and risks remain, highlighted by the deaths in February 2020 of thirty-four Turkish soldiers in an attack by Syrian air forces using Russian-made jets. Russian–Turkish economic ties, which were briefly harmed by the sanctions, remain robust, the ‘linchpin’ of the relationship (Ekinci 2017: 167). Total bilateral trade in 2019 (prior to Covid-19) was $27.3 billion, a significant jump from 2016 ($17.2 billion), when many sanctions were in place.4 Notably, Turkey did not place sanctions (as most of its NATO allies did) on Russia in 2014 for its actions in Ukraine, and at the end of that year Putin announced creation of a ‘Turkish Stream’ gas pipeline that would supply even more Russian gas to Turkey. Although delayed by the sanctions, Turkish Stream went online in 2020. Data from UN Comtrade Data Base, available at comtrade.un.org

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326 | paul kubicek Another notable development was Turkey’s decision to acquire a S-400 air defence system from Russia, after the US refused to sell Turkey its Patriot system. Erdoğan heralded the purchase as ‘the most important agreement in our modern history’ (TASS 2019). The decision to buy from the Russians was controversial because the Russian system is not compatible with NATO networks. It was also costly as it led the US to place sanctions on the Turkish defence sector. One factor that has contributed to improved Turkish–Russian relations is Putin’s support for Erdoğan after the failed coup attempt in Turkey in July 2016. In contrast to several Western leaders, whose support for Erdoğan was hesitant or cautious – which subsequently fed both anti-Westernism among Turkish leaders and allegations that Western states either instigated the coup or at least knew about it in advance – Putin offered immediate support. After the coup, Putin and Erdoğan met several times to strengthen their countries’ relationship. Numerous observers have pointed both to their personal affinity and to their ideological similarities, particularly their antiWesternism, authoritarian inclinations and post-imperial nostalgia.5 Meanwhile, proRussian or ‘Eurasianist’ views have grown more pronounced both in Turkish public opinion and among political actors, particularly those in the security forces (Alaranta 2015; Erşen 2019). Even as Turkish–Russian ties have grown in many areas, there are areas for potential conflict (Baev 2019; Idiz 2020). Syria remains a flashpoint. They are also at odds in Libya, where Turkey provides political and military support to the country’s UNrecognised government, whereas Russia (along with several other countries) backs rebel groups seeking its overthrow. Turkey has expressed concern about Russia’s military build-up in the Black Sea and has quietly boosted relations with Ukraine. In autumn 2020, fighting broke out again between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as Turkey supplied equipment to bolster Azerbaijani forces while Armenia relied on Russian support. A peace settlement was brokered by Russia and Turkey, but a reanimation of fighting could draw both countries into conflict. Conclusion Turkish–Russian relations remain dynamic and have both regional and global significance. While the two countries have had, and continue to have, competing interests, they have also managed, at times, to cooperate. Turkey has often turned towards Russia when relations with Western countries have soured. This appears to be the case in the 2020s. However, Evren Balta (2019) notes that improved Russian–Turkish ties are subjected to both push and pull factors and cannot be explained by a single cause. She cites changing See, for example, Economist (2021). For a more sceptical view, see Baev (2019).

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turkey and the soviet union/russia | 327 power dynamics, relations with the West, changing conceptions of national interests, and economic and social networks as important determinants in their relationship. What remains to be seen is whether Russia and Turkey can continue to compartmentalise their relationship, working together when they can and not allowing disagreements or crises to undermine their more profitable ties. In the early 2020s, one sees much economic, political, diplomatic and security interaction, even as they oppose each other in various regional conflicts. One can understand the benefits of such a transactional, pragmatic, cost–benefit approach, particularly given that both countries have been trying to distance themselves from the West. Whether these ties can be institutionalised into a larger strategic partnership or whether lingering mistrust or diverging interests will overwhelm them remains to be seen. References Aktürk, Şener (2006), ‘Turkish–Russian Relations after the Cold War (1992–2002)’, Turkish Studies 7(3): 337–64. Alaranta, Toni (2015), ‘Turkey’s New Russia Policy: Towards a Strategic Alliance’, Finnish Institute for International Affairs, March, https://www.fiia.fi/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/ bp175.pdf, accessed 1 February 2023. Baev, Pavel (2019), ‘Turkey’s Ambiguous Strategic Rapprochement with Russia’, in Emre Erşen and Seçkin Köstem (eds), Turkey’s Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 48–63. Balta, Evren (2019), ‘From Geopolitical Competition to Strategic Partnership: Turkey and Russia after the Cold War’, Uluslararasi İliskiler 16(63): 69–86. Cutler, Robert (1985), ‘Domestic and Foreign Influences on Policy Making: The Soviet Union in the 1974 Cyprus Conflict’, Soviet Studies 37(1): 60–89. Cutler, Robert (1991), ‘Soviet Relations with Greece and Turkey: A Systems Perspective’, in Dimitri Constas (ed.), The Greek–Turkish Conflict in the 1990s, London: Macmillan, pp. 183–206. Economist (2021), ‘The odd couple’, The Economist, 27 February, pp. 39-41. Ekinci, Didem (2017), ‘Russia–Turkey Relations (1991–2016): Diverging Interests and Compelling Realities’, in Pinar Gözen Ercan (ed.), Turkish Foreign Policy: International Relations, Legality and Global Reach, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 151–72. Eren, Nuri (1977), Turkey, NATO, and Europe: A Deteriorating Relationship? Paris: Atlantic Institute for International Affairs. Erşen, Emre (2017), ‘Evaluating the Fighter Jet Crisis in Turkish–Russian Relations’, Insight Turkey 19(4): 85–103. Erşen, Emre (2019), ‘The Return of Eurasianism in Turkey: Relations with Russia and Beyond’, in Emre Erşen and Seçkin Köstem (eds), Turkey’s Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World Order, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 31–47. Fuller, Graham (1992), Turkey Faces East: New Orientations toward the Middle East and the Old Soviet Union, Santa Monica, CA: Rand.

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328 | paul kubicek Giritli, Ismet (1970), ‘Turkish–Soviet Relations’, India Quarterly 26(1): 3–19. Gökay, Bülent (2006), Soviet Eastern Policy and Turkey 1920–1991: Soviet Foreign Policy, Turkey and Communism, Abingdon: Routledge. Güçlü, Yücel (2003), ‘Turkey’s Entrance into the League of Nations’, Middle Eastern Studies 39(1): 186–206. Hill, Fiona and Ömer Taşpınar (2006), ‘Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?’ Survival 48(1): 81–92. Hirst, Samuel J. (2013), ‘Anti-Westernism on the European Periphery: The Meaning of Soviet– Turkish Convergence in the 1930s’, Slavic Review 72(1): 32–53. Idiz, Semih (2020), ‘Cracks in Turkish–Russian ties begin to show’, Al-Monitor, 23 October, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/10/turkey-russia-s400-tested-cracks-ankaramoscow-ties-show.html#ixzz6rvZvuwua, accessed 1 February 2023. Kelkitli, Fatma A. (2017), Turkish–Russian Relations: Competition and Cooperation in Eurasia, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Kubicek, Paul (2021), ‘Strictly Pragmatism? Prospects for a Russian–Turkish Partnership’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 23(2): 233–50. Kuniholm, Bruce Robellet (1980), The Origins of the Cold War in the Near East: Great Power Conflict and Diplomacy in Iran, Turkey, and Greece, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Öniş, Ziya and Şuhnaz Yılmaz (2016), ‘Turkey and Russia in a Shifting Global Order: Cooperation, Conflict and Asymmetric Interdependence in a Turbulent Region’, Third World Quarterly 37(1): 71–95. Özcan, Gencer, Evren Balta and Burç Beşgül (2017), Türkiye ve Rusya İlişkilerinde Değişen Dinamikler: Kuşku ile Komşuluk, Istanbul: Iletişim. Özdal, Habibe et al. (2013), Turkish–Russian Relations in the Post-Cold War Era, Ankara: USAK. Sadak, Necmeddin (1949), ‘Turkey Faces the Soviets’, Foreign Affairs 27(3): 449–61. Sezer, Duygu B. (1985), ‘Peaceful Coexistence: Turkey and the Near East in Soviet Foreign Policy’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 481: 117–26. TASS (2019), ‘Erdogan says S-400 deal with Russia is major agreement in Turkey’s modern history’, 14 July, https://tass.com/world/1068494, accessed 1 February 2023. Ter-Matevosyan, Vahram (2019), Turkey, Kemalism, and the Soviet Union: Problems of Modernization, Ideology and Interpretation, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Váli, Ferenc (1971), Bridge across the Bosporus: The Foreign Policy of Turkey, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wallace, Cissy E. G. (1990), ‘Soviet Economic and Technical Cooperation with Developing Countries: the Turkish Case’, PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science. Warhola, James and William Mitchell (2006), ‘The Warming of Turkish–Russian Relations: Motives and Implications’, Demokratizatsiya 14(1): 127–43. White, Stephen (1984), ‘Soviet Russia and the Asian Revolution 1917–1924’, Review of International Studies 10(3): 219–32. Yanık, Lerna (2007), ‘Allies or Partners? An Appraisal of Turkey’s Ties to Russia 1991–2007’, East European Quarterly 41(3): 349–70.

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25 Greece–Turkey Relations Mustafa Aydın (Kadir Has University)

Introduction

G

reek–Turkish relations have been marred by disputes and disagreements with occasional flaring of conflicts dotting long periods of gloomy relations separated by short-lived rapprochements. The problematic issues between them are well known and minutely delineated. Though both have been members of NATO since 1952, a state of ‘security dilemma’ on the brink of the next crisis with ‘populations truly educated’ to distrust each other continues to exist (Aydın & Ifantis 2004). Although a thaw in relations in 1999 and the following rapprochement heightened hopes for a comprehensive reconciliation, aided by the European Union membership process of Turkey, it did not reach a point where the security dilemma could be overcome to make way for the peaceful development of their relationship. One of the obstacles that prevents not only the solution but even the discussion of the problems is the distrust between the two nations created by their ‘living history’, in that both in Greece and Turkey, ‘history is not past . . . the past continues to live in the present’ (Gürel 1993: 10). This stems from the fact that Turkey and Greece obtained their national identities by fighting against each other. While the popular Turkish image of the Greek ‘Independence War’ is a rebellion, instigated and supported by the Great Powers of the nineteenth century, who used the Greeks for their purposes to break up the Ottoman Empire (Gökay 2000), the Turkish ‘War of National Liberation’, fought against the occupying Greek armies in its later stages, is still remembered by the Greeks as the ‘Asia Minor catastrophe’ (Jensen 1979). Although they share a common heritage, that is, a Byzantine-Ottoman-Levantine history that has shaped their daily lives and choices, neither country is willing to accept it wholly. Not acknowledging Ottoman rule as a genuine part of Greek history, Greek 329

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330 | mustafa aydın historiography jumps over centuries to ancient Greece and the Byzantine state to create a lineage and a comfortable past (Millas 2004). Similarly, Turkish historiography employs a selective reading of its Ottoman past, where non-Turks do not appear in principal roles (Ersanlı 1992). To compensate for this, both nations remember their national struggles for independence and cling to the best-delineated parts of their identities, defined in terms of opposition to the other (Groom 1986: 152). By pushing their common heritage into a forgotten past and creating a living history through confrontation and conflict (Clogg 1983: 141), the two countries have created a challenging psycho-political environment, where overcoming the mistrust, stereotypes and fears that are fundamental to their national identities becomes very difficult. As is often the case between neighbours locked in long-chronicled enmity, the history of the relationship between Greece and Turkey is littered with past failures and deceptions. This leads to a situation where, in the absence of a common external threat to their existence forcing them closer for cooperation, ‘neither lacks examples to cite of the other’s perceived intransigence’ (Spencer 1993: 17), continually reinforcing the shared distrust that the living history has created. The threat perceptions on both sides of the Aegean have not been symmetrical. Given the disparity between the two countries’ resources and population, the fact that most Greeks consider Turkey as a ‘threat’ but that most Turks do not attribute a priority to the ‘Greek threat’ stands to reason. However, distrust is a sense that is equally shared on both sides of the Aegean. Nevertheless, it is impossible to reduce the existing Greek–Turkish problems to mutual distrust and misunderstandings, as there are various issues that relate to concepts of sovereignty and national interests. However, it should also be emphasised that there have been three cooperative periods between Greece and Turkey in modern times: the 1930s, the first half of the 1950s and the early 2000s. During the first period, there was a common threat from Italy’s ‘mare nostrum’ policy and encouragement from Britain to cooperate against it. The two countries engaged in friendly relations which culminated in establishing the Balkan Entente in 1934. During the second period, there was the Soviet threat and American encouragement to cooperate, and the two countries joined NATO together in 1952 and were able to put aside their disagreements, often downplaying ‘their national interests to the dictates of alliance cohesion and the need for collective action’ (Larrabee 1990: 175). In the latest iteration, the threat was a different type – being left out of the deepening European integration and thus the material benefits it accorded – and both the EU and the US provided encouragement. In the absence of a common external threat and inducement supplied by outside powers that have leverage over them, the two states simply revert to their normal behaviour.

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greece–turkey relations | 331 Most of the current problems between Greece and Turkey date back to the 1960s and 1970s, when ‘the security consensus that had characterised the early post-war period began to erode’ (Larrabee 1990: 175). What initially tipped the disagreements between the two states into a conflictual atmosphere was the developments related to the 1963–4 Cyprus crises. Over the next decade, relations were exacerbated by various issues ranging from ownership of the continental shelf to the treatment of minorities. Bilateral Issues Since 1974, Greek–Turkish relations have been handicapped by the disagreements over two geographies: the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean. Although the regions and related issues are quite separate politically and legally, they are psychologically linked. It is felt that a weakening of one’s position in one area would affect the other. Of the two, disputes over the Aegean appear to be more critical as it directly touches upon vital national interests in connection with territorial sovereignty and security for both countries. Then, there are other thorny issues that are occasionally remembered, such as the treatment of national minorities in each other’s territory and occasional intransigent behaviour in various international organisations to block each other’s engagements. Most of these issues are immensely complex, intertwined and hotly disputed. Since much has been written in describing the problems and the national perspectives (see Aydın & Ifantis 2004; Bahcheli 1990; Couloumbis 1983; Sezer 1981; Wilson 1980), only a summary will be provided below. Confrontation in the Aegean The Aegean issue is, in fact, a set of five separate issues. They are (1) breadth of territorial waters; (2) delimitation of maritime boundaries and continental shelf; (3) control of airspace; (4) militarisation of the eastern Aegean islands; and (5) sovereign rights over several small islets and rock formations. As the Aegean is a semi-closed sea with unique geographical features and equal strategic, economic and political importance for both states, finding a mutually acceptable solution to these disputes is not as easy as it seems at first glance. Territorial Waters This dispute relates to Greece’s claim that, though currently operating a limit of 6 nautical miles, it is entitled to 12 miles of territorial seas for its mainland and islands as stipulated in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Arguing that the Aegean Sea’s unique characteristics must be considered when determining the width of the territorial waters, Turkey opposes this and has declared Greece’s possible unilateral adoption of a 12-mile limit in the Aegean as a casus belli since 1995.

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332 | mustafa aydın Under the current 6-mile limit, Greece controls approximately 43.5 per cent of the Aegean Sea and Turkey 7.7 per cent, the remaining 48.8 per cent being high seas. Should the 12-mile limit be applied, the Greek territorial seas in the Aegean will increase to 71.5 per cent, whereas Turkey’s share will increase to only 8.7 per cent, and the area of high seas will be reduced to 19.7 per cent, which will also be fragmented due to the existence of Greek islands, thus forcing Turkish – and other nations’ – ships to pass through Greek territorial waters to reach international waters (Wilson 1980: 36–7). While UNCLOS foresaw the possibility of extending territorial waters to 12 miles as a right to all states, it does not automatically follow that every state would gain this extension, especially in narrow seas whose width does not provide enough space. Diplomatic negotiations and international arbitration are foreseen as ways to solve the problem. In this context, while Turkey prefers diplomatic negotiations, Greece favours taking the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for arbitration. A further disagreement divides the countries in this regard as Greece declares that there is only one problem in the Aegean – determining the width of territorial waters – and there is only one way of solving it – through the ICJ – while Turkey points out several other disputes between them and sees the ICJ as a last resort if diplomatic negotiations fail. Continental Shelf This dispute arises from the fact that Greece and Turkey have never had a delimitation agreement in the Aegean and was initially linked to the possibility of the existence of oil reserves in the Aegean continental shelf, the coastal state being allowed to exercise exclusive rights of exploration and exploitation of resources under the seabed. While it emerged in the aftermath of the Cyprus debacle in the mid-1970s when Greece unilaterally started a seismic search in the international waters of the Aegean Sea, it has died down since the mid-1990s as the Greek discoveries turned out to be much smaller than initially estimated and Turkish explorations located no oil at all (Wilson 1980: 36–7; Couloumbis 1983: 118). While the existing resources are hardly worth fighting a war over, the continued non-delimitation of the Aegean Sea has led to disputed claims by both sides and brought the two countries on the verge of a military conflict at least twice, in 1976 and again in 1987. Airspace-related Problems Two related issues – Greece’s unusual claim of 10-mile national airspace over its existing 6-mile territorial waters and responsibility for the Aegean Sea Flight Information Region (FIR) – make most of the headlines as the countries regularly accuse each other of violations.

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greece–turkey relations | 333 While Greece’s claim of 10-mile national airspace over its 6-mile territorial waters is also not recognised by other interested parties, Turkey’s clear rejection of the claim and its frequent show of force in terms of sending its air force into the 4-mile disputed airspace to register its continued objection prompt Greece to launch regular diplomatic protests, leading to counter-protests by Turkey. Although the confrontation over the Aegean in the past led at times to dog-fights – that is, facing off fighter jets with live ammunition – the thaw in relations since 1999 has provided mechanisms to prevent a repetition of this dangerous practice. A related problem emerges in Turkey’s demand for modification of the Aegean FIR responsibilities on the grounds of equity and Greece’s refusal and insistence that Turkish state aircraft file flight plans with the Athens FIR, contrary to internationally accepted practice. While the FIR system only relates to the management of international air traffic for the security of commercial flights, it has acquired a significance related to national security over the Aegean Sea as Greece attempted to use the Aegean FIR in the aftermath of Turkey’s Cyprus intervention to determine Turkish plans by insisting on seeing Turkish fighter flight plans. This led Turkey to complain that Greece was abusing its FIR responsibility and was attempting to use it ‘as if it entails sovereign rights’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs n.d.). Greece, on the other hand, fearing that any kind of responsibility given to Turkey in the air to the west of the Greek islands might later be used as an infringement of its sovereignty over these islands, remains adamant in not sharing Aegean FIR responsibility. Fortification of Islands This problem dates back to the Greek decision after the 1974 Cyprus debacle to fortify the Aegean islands, demilitarised by earlier international treaties. While Turkey accuses Greece of violating its international legal obligations, Greece alternately either denies the validity of such commitments or the fact of any violations. Beyond the legal arguments, however, after Greece had fortified these islands in practice, Turkey decided to establish its Fourth Army in Izmir, dubbed the ‘Aegean Army’, contributing to Greek apprehensions about Turkish intentions. It is a typical vicious circle in which Turkey points to the need for such a force due to the Greek fortification of the islands, and Greece talks of the need for fortification because of the ‘Aegean Army’. However, a NATO report showed long ago that the ‘Aegean Army’ serves only training purposes and has no combat-ready units (NATO Assembly 1984: 29–30). While dormant for years after the rapprochement in the 1990s, the dispute was reviewed in the summer of 2020 when the two countries came to head to head over the sea control lines in the eastern Mediterranean. As the president of Greece, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, visited Kastellorizo on 3 September 2020, with accompanying warships

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334 | mustafa aydın and military helicopters, Turkey protested that the island, which is situated only 2 kilometres (1.2 miles) away from the Turkish coast but some 600 kilometres from the Greek mainland, was left to Greece by the Treaty of Paris in 1947 at the end of the Second World War with a clear demilitarised status. Greek moves to bring warships to and station soldiers on the island violated that stipulation (Daily Sabah 2020). Turkey then recalled Greece’s other violations in the Aegean Sea and lodged a written complaint with the UN (Hernandez 2021), which revived fears and public debate in Greece about Turkey’s intentions to challenge Greek sovereign rights by opposing its remilitarisation of the Aegean islands. The primary motivation behind the dispute is the general mistrust between the two countries. Turkish intervention in Cyprus and the prevention of Greek oil explorations in the Aegean led to Greek fears of ‘Turkish designs’ on their sovereign rights. Turks, in turn, saw disrespect for the rule of law and an attempt to undermine the status quo between the two countries established by the Treaty of Lausanne. In reality, neither the Greek fortification of the islands nor the Turkish Aegean Army represents a significant military threat to the other side. While the few soldiers Greece is able to station on these remote islands do not add value to the security of the islanders beyond acting as more of a police force, their mere existence is deciphered as a Greek intention to challenge the status quo established between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean in the 1920s, thus calamitous to Turkish national security. Sovereignty over Islets and Rock Formations This issue came about in the aftermath of the Kardak/Imia crisis in 1996, when a Turkish vessel ran aground in the vicinity of these uninhabited rocks near the island of Kos in the Aegean (for details, see Aydın 2003). What followed was a near-war situation between the two countries while their NATO allies scrambled to develop a diplomatic intervention. In the end, Turkish SAT commandos raised the Turkish flag on neighbouring rocks to where the Greek soldiers were protecting their planted flag, thereby equalling claims of sovereignty over the rocks. A US diplomatic intervention successfully cooled the two sides to allow simultaneous withdrawal of their forces, thus preventing a loss of face. The struggle was then moved to the diplomatic stage, where the countries have since argued about the ownership of many uninhabitable islets and rock formations all over the Aegean. In the dispute, Turkey argues that those islands, islets and rock formations that are not explicitly left to Greece under international treaties belong to Turkey by its being the successor of the Ottoman state. Greece argues the opposite and sees Turkey’s position as challenging its sovereignty. While the land size of these formations is not very significant and all of them are uninhabited, what elevates them into a position of importance is their

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greece–turkey relations | 335 possible connection with the territorial sea and continental shelf disputes as Greece argues that all its islands – and other similar formations – in the Aegean have rights to the full extent of their territorial seas and sections of the continental shelf. As this would diminish the corresponding Turkish zones considerably since most of these formations are much closer to the Turkish coast than the Greek mainland or even the Greek islands, Turkey objects both to Greece’s ownership and to the argument that all the islands and other formations have the right to full territorial waters/continental shelves. The Cyprus Dispute and the Eastern Mediterranean The conflicting interests of the two countries over Cyprus – and the eastern Mediterranean by extension – remain a substantial stumbling block in the way of a broader Greek– Turkish rapprochement. Although intercommunal talks since the mid-1970s have contributed to the bridging of the gaps on some issues, the many diplomatic initiatives conducted under the purview of the UN have so far run aground, while the positions have solidified, making any return to the status quo ante difficult. After many rounds of negotiations under the auspices of the UN secretary general, a deadlock set in shortly after the EU agreed in July 1993 to consider the membership application of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), which in effect is made up only of Greek Cypriots and effectively rules only the southern part of the island. While Greek Cypriots, encouraged by the EU’s decision, started to entertain aspirations to return to the status quo ante of July 1974, Turkish Cypriots, enraged and frustrated, became less cooperative and argued for the recognition of the existence of two states as a solution to the problem. A decade of inactivity with mutual accusations and a failure to achieve substantial progress followed. In the meantime, the death of President Özal of Turkey in 1993 removed one of the few proponents of a speedy resolution to the conflict. As a severe economic downturn then engulfed the country, leading to Islamic revivalism, Kurdish insurgency and a series of weak coalition governments, any new initiative had to wait until after the general elections of 3 November 2002 that brought the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) to power with a promise to change Turkey’s traditional foreign policy stances. The EU Copenhagen summit in December 2002 decided to accept the RoC as a full member by April 2003, without the solution of the Cyprus problem, immensely complicating the issue. Nevertheless, the sense of urgency felt by the Turkish side to find a solution before the RoC’s membership officially began led to a new round of negotiations under the UN’s auspices and finally to the ‘Annan Plan’, which was submitted to simultaneous referendums on 24 April 2004 on both sides of the island. Although the Turkish Cypriots accepted it, the Greeks Cypriots, who had now become emboldened

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336 | mustafa aydın by the earlier unconditional acceptance by the EU of the RoC as a full member, rejected it. Despite various EU promises to open direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots and to normalise their connections with the outside world, Greece and the RoC have prevented any moves by the EU. Turkey has long argued that the Cyprus problem is not a dispute between Greece and Turkey but an intercommunal conflict between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. It should therefore be resolved through intercommunal talks with UN mediation. During the negotiations, the Turkish Cypriots have increasingly emphasised a solution to keep the two communities essentially separate in a bi-zonal federation of two autonomous republics that restricts contact between the two communities. Meanwhile, the Greek Cypriots favour a unitary state but, failing that, continue to negotiate for a tightly knit federation, emphasising the three freedoms anywhere on the island, which would in practice stifle all pretences of political equality between the two communities. As the Turkish Cypriots correctly understand that implementing these freedoms would render the idea of bizonality meaningless and lead to practical Greek Cypriot administrative domination, they object to this position (Laipson 1990). On the other hand, the Greek Cypriots see the proposal for a ‘bi-communal, bi-zonal federation’ as the ‘de jure recognition of a de facto partition’ and have been trying to back down. This was once again on the agenda the last time the two sides came together to find common ground with UN mediation, in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, between 2015 and 2017. The talks failed in July 2017, with the Turkish Cypriot president accusing his Greek counterpart of ‘maximalist demands’ (Smith 2017). The latest failure and a change of government in Northern Cyprus have led to a shift in position for Turkish Cypriots and Turkey, which now argue for a two-state solution if the Greek Cypriots are not sincere in negotiating for a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation but prefer a unitary state with a Greek majority and Turkish minority. The latest twist in the eastern Mediterranean came as a result of unilateral moves by the RoC after the failure of the Crans-Montana talks to move for unilateral exploration of energy resources in what it considers its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Turkey objects to these moves, made without consultation or a sharing agreement with Turkish Cypriots, since there has been no agreement on sharing the EEZ in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey should have a big chunk due to its lengthy shoreline, and any riches found in the Cyprus EEZ should jointly belong to Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Moreover, seeing bids by RoC, Greece and other regional countries to create an Eastern Mediterranean Energy Forum as an attempt to corner it and leave it out of the region, Turkey reacted in November 2019 with an agreement with Libya to share the sea between them and also declare its continental shelf in the eastern Mediterranean, which clashes with the claims of Greece and the RoC (Tarhan 2021). This led to strong condemnation

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greece–turkey relations | 337 by Greece, the RoC and the EU, and raised tensions in the region as Turkey sent seismic search vessels to the disputed areas under the protection of the Turkish navy. The ensuing crisis in the summer and autumn of 2020 was eventually cooled down with subtle diplomacy by Germany, and the two countries returned to the negotiating table in January 2021 (Smith 2021). Manoeuvring in Multilateral Forums As the disputes over Cyprus and the Aegean were contained by the end of the 1970s, both countries attempted to outflank each other in the EEC/EU and NATO. While the EEC’s engagement in Greek–Turkish disputes was not strong until the late 1980s, showing that it lacked the political will to play a substantive role (Melakopides 1992: 67), it gradually gravitated towards Greece as the latter first became a candidate and then a member. Although EEC officials felt obliged to dispel the impression that they would be drawn into the Greek–Turkish disputes and favour Greece after it started negotiations in June 1975, it was perhaps inevitable that it replaced its hitherto hands-off policy with a more active yet still ‘balanced’ stance. Nevertheless, a dramatic shift occurred in the two states’ position after Greece joined the then EEC in January 1981. Notwithstanding the Community’s attempt to stay clear of Greek–Turkish disputes, Greece’s membership has profoundly altered the equation as the EU has found itself increasingly at odds with Turkey because of the variety of ways Greece has tried to utilise the Union’s backing in its disputes with Turkey. Paradoxically, Greece has a stake in the success of Turkey’s European aspirations as the latter’s membership ‘process would tend to strengthen [its] democratic institutions and minimise its assertiveness in its relations with its Western neighbors’ (Veremis 1982: 129). With such a calculation and believing that allure of the membership would entice Turkey to a more amenable position vis-à-vis Greece, it moved to support Turkey’s membership negotiations in the 2000s, though it also tried to utilise EU’s solidarity principle to create a united front against Turkey whenever tensions flared up in the Aegean and beyond. The further breaking point came with the membership of the Republic of Cyprus, representing the whole island though not controlling it, in 2004. Although the European Commission brokered a deal at the time with promises to Turkey and Turkish Cypriots that the RoC’s membership would not be reflected in Turkey’s EU negotiations and that Turkish Cypriots would be able to trade directly with EU members through special deals, in the event, the RoC, together with Greece, prevented the application of the trade and aid promises to Turkish Cypriots and eventually blocked the opening of various negotiating chapters with Turkey. Since then, Turkey has distanced itself from the EU as an honest broker in Cyprus and resisted calls for compromise on issues related to the Turkey–EU–Greece–Cyprus quadruple.

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338 | mustafa aydın In contrast to the EU, Turkey enjoyed a temporary advantage in NATO between 1974, when Greece withdrew from its military structure, and October 1980, when it was allowed to reintegrate under the Rogers Plan. It should be remembered that both countries’ relations with NATO have changed from the Cold War through détente to the post-Cold War era. During the Cold War, the southern periphery was a source of instability and turmoil, and both Turkey and Greece vigorously cooperated with the NATO Alliance, putting their national interests behind Alliance cohesion. Accordingly, NATO had more leverage than the EEC over both countries during the Cold War and put considerable pressure on Greece and Turkey to shelve, if not settle, their various disputes, becoming a valuable forum for conflict resolution and mediation, as well as a safety valve. However, in the post-Cold War era, several extra-regional issues in contiguous areas and the growing potential for instability in the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus have affected the threat perceptions of both countries. Most importantly, the collapse of the Soviet Union reduced the sense of threat felt by Turkey and Greece from the north. This sense of reduced threat, in turn, underscored ‘the centrifugal trends on the southern periphery, which . . . have made both countries . . . less willing to contribute to collective defense’ (Larrabee 1990: 177). On a broader plane, when the EU raised the possibility of increasing its security role within the transatlantic system after the end of the Cold War, Turkey, being a member of NATO but not of the EU, argued for the indivisibility of security, meaning that the NATO should be the primary organ for European security, and failing that tried to avoid the possibility of planned EU forces being used in any way to endanger Turkish interests. Turkey has also been demanding a more influential position within proposed European security initiatives, from the European Security and Defence Policy to Permanent Structured Cooperation, refusing at the same time to allow indiscriminate use of NATO sources by the EU. As a result, the RoC is effectively blocked by Turkey from participating in NATOled initiatives. Similarly, Turkey’s partnership with the EU on the security aspect has been hampered by various obstacles raised by the Greece–RoC duo from within the EU. Finally, while hopes were raised in the early 1990s when Greece was invited to join the Black Sea Cooperation Organization, which Turkey initiated, and the two countries cooperated within it for some time on the mainly non-political agenda of the organization, with the gradual declining importance of the latter due to broader geopolitical developments in the region, that cooperation also proved to be ephemeral. Conclusions Greek–Turkish differences are not new, but as long as they remain unresolved, there is a chance that some unforeseen incident could touch off a conflict. Continuing disputes over Cyprus, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean can threaten bilateral and regional

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greece–turkey relations | 339 security. Yet, none of the issues is insoluble, and in most cases, a modus operandi has evolved since the rapprochement days of the late 1990s and early 2000s. For example, though far from ideal, the situation in Cyprus represents a sort of uneasy modus vivendi that lessens the likelihood of direct military confrontation between Greece and Turkey. The Aegean disputes are also soluble and have been within reach for so long, and the resolution of the air traffic control dispute in 1980 showed that they could cooperate when rationality rules. What is more, most of the disputes between the two countries have become less important since the ending of the Cold War, the evolving of both countries and the moderating influence of the EU, and as a result of the cooperation developed so far in various rapprochement processes. Moreover, both countries have become much more experienced in managing their disagreements and finding ways of confidence-building when necessary. Irrationality, of course, is always a present element, and war may still break out between the two countries, or relations may deteriorate sharply. The experiences of January 1996, when the two countries almost came to blows over the tiny and uninhabited Aegean rocks, and the summer of 2020, over the sea control lines in the eastern Mediterranean, have raised concerns not only about the two countries’ ability to prevent differences from escalating into a major crisis but also about their ability to resolve them without engaging in a direct military confrontation. Nevertheless, despite frequent flares, the current trends tend to indicate that the two countries are doomed to cooperate. However, enticing both countries to take the last step in breaking the deadlock and reaching a final settlement will not be easy. Turkey is not as preoccupied with Greece as Greece is with Turkey. Indeed, the feud with Greece is peripheral to Turkey’s primary concerns. The broader Middle Eastern issues, developments in the Caucasus and Black Sea region, and US and EU relations assume greater prominence. The general belief in Turkey, both among decision makers and in the people at large, is that a bilateral dialogue is necessary, and the issues are not irreconcilable provided Greece can acknowledge Turkey’s legitimate fears and rights in the Aegean and is ready to engage in dialogue with Turkey without, at the same time, trying to score points against it in the EU, NATO, the UN or any other medium in which Turkey temporarily relaxes its vigilance. In general, the sovereignty of Greece in the Aegean is not challenged by Turkey, though the argument is made frequently that Greek sovereignty is not absolute as international agreements limit it, and it has been even upgraded recently with two letters sent to the UN after the latest tensions in the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. While Greece does not even come close to admitting that Turkey might have a case, any moves, even diplomatic, by Turkey heighten Greek fears based on the concern that Turkish claims for equity could circumscribe its sovereignty over its islands in the Aegean. It is evident that, whether or not justified, fear of Turkey rules the minds of Greeks. Thus, instead of coming to a mutual understanding with Turkey based on joint equity and reciprocity as

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340 | mustafa aydın the Turks demand, Greece tries to cling to a vigorous defence of its positions with legal arguments. This then creates a suspicion in Turkey that Greece does not wish to negotiate, that its main aim is to enlarge its hold in the Aegean and the Mediterranean, that it tries to undermine Turkey’s relations with other countries, especially in Europe, and that it tries to encircle Turkey through various deals with any country that happens to have complicated relations with Turkey. In general, Greece officially advocates that there is no problem in the Aegean between itself and Turkey other than the delimitation of the continental shelf, which should be resolved through the ICJ. Against this ‘one problem, one solution’ position, Turkey argues that there exist various disputes in the Aegean, which should be solved mainly through bilateral negotiations. Since 1998, Turkey has broadened this approach and now agrees to employ a whole range of means for a peaceful solution as appropriate (including recourse to the ICJ), though it maintains that all the problems should be addressed as a whole. It is generally accepted that the existing problems between the two countries cannot be solved easily any time soon. Although the improvement of Greek–Turkish relations depends on mutually sustained efforts to this end, at any one time, one side or the other seems reluctant to rise to the challenge, either because it considers the existing status quo in its favour or because it is constrained by domestic or international pressures. While the groundwork has already been laid down since 1999, especially with the proximity talks between high-level officials since March 2002, and the gap between Greek and Turkish positions has somewhat narrowed, they have not yet reached the final political deal. References Aydın, Mustafa (2003), ‘Crypto-Optimism in Greek–Turkish Relations: What Is Next?’ Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 5(2): 223–40. Aydın, Mustafa and Kostas Ifantis (eds) (2004), Turkish–Greek Relations: Overcoming the Security Dilemma in the Aegean, London: Routledge. Bahcheli, Tozun (1990), Greek–Turkish Relations since 1955, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Clogg, Richard (1983), ‘The Troubled Alliance: Greece and Turkey’, in Richard Clogg (ed.), Greece in the 1980s, New York: St Martin’s Press, pp. 123–49. Couloumbis, Theodore A. (1983), The United States, Greece, and Turkey: The Troubled Triangle, New York: Praeger. Daily Sabah (2020), ‘Turkish defense minister slams Greek president for visiting Kastellorizo amid tensions’, 13 September, https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/turkish-defenseminister-slams-greek-president-for-visiting-kastellorizo-amid-tensions, accessed 1 February 2023. Ersanlı, Büşra (1992), Iktidar ve Tarih: Turkiye’de ‘Resmi Tarih’ Tezinin Olusumu 1929–1937, Istanbul: Afa. Gökay, Bülent (2000), ‘Angels and Demons: Construction and Representations of the Enemy Image in Greece and Turkey’, in Necdet Kuran Burçoğlu (ed.). The Image of the Turk in Europe from the Declaration of the Republic in 1923 to the 1990s, Istanbul: ISIS Press, pp. 395–411.

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greece–turkey relations | 341 Groom, A. J. R. (1986), ‘Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey: A Treadmill for Diplomacy’, in John T. A. Koumoulides (ed.), Cyprus in Transition 1960–1985, London: Trigraph, pp. 362–83. Gürel, Şükrü Sina (1993), Tarihsel Boyut İçinde Türk–Yunan İlişkileri 1821–1993, Ankara: Ümit. Hernandez, Michael (2021), ‘Turkish envoy raises Greece’s “flagrant violations” with UN chief ’, Anadolu Agency, 16 July, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/turkish-envoy-raises-greecesflagrant-violations-with-un-chief/2307159, accessed 1 February 2023. Jensen, Peter Kincaid (1979), ‘The Greco-Turkish War 1920–1922’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 10(4): 553–65. Laipson, Ellen B. (1990), Cyprus: Status of UN Negotiations, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Larrabee, Stephen F. (1990), ‘The Southern Periphery: Greece and Turkey’, in Paul S. Shoup (ed.), Problems of Balkan Security: Southeastern Europe in the 1990s, Washington, DC: Wilson Center Press, pp. 175–204. Melakopides, Constantine (1992), ‘Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey from the European Community Perspective’, in Christos P. Ioannides (ed.), Cyprus: Domestic Dynamics, External Constraints, New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, pp. 65–86. Millas, Hercules (2004), ‘National Perceptions of the “Other” and the Persistence of Some Images’, in Mustafa Aydın and Kostas Ifantis (eds), Turkish–Greek Relations: Overcoming the Security Dilemma in the Aegean, London: Routledge, pp. 53–66. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (n.d.), ‘Background Note on Aegean Dispute’, https://www.mfa.gov. tr/background-note-on-aegean-dispute.en.mfa, accessed 10 April 2023. NATO Assembly (1984), Political Committee, Interim Report of the Sub-Committee on the Southern Region (Rapporteur: Ton Frinking), AB 206 PC/SR(84)2, November. Sezer, Duygu B. (1981), Turkey’s Security Polices, Adelphi Paper No. 164, International Institute for Strategic Studies. Smith, Helena (2017), ‘Cyprus reunification talks collapse amid angry scenes’, The Guardian, 7 July 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/07/cyprus-reunification-talks-collapseamid-angry-scenes, accessed 1 February 2023. Smith, Helena (2021), ‘Greece and Turkey resume talks to try to avert military escalation’, The Guardian, 25 January, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/25/greece-andturkey-in-talks-to-try-to-avert-military-escalation, accessed 1 February 2023. Spencer, Claire (1993), Turkey between Europe and Asia, London: HMSO. Tarhan, Muhammet (2021), ‘Turkish–Libyan maritime deal secure rights, balances in Eastern Mediterranean’, Anadolu Agency, 27 November, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/turkey/turkish-libyanmaritime-deal-secure-rights-balances-in-eastern-mediterranean-turkish-expert/2431979, accessed 20 February 2022. Veremis, Thanos (1982), Greek Security: Issues and Politics, Adelphi Paper No. 179, International Institute of Strategic Studies. Wilson, Andrew (1980), The Aegean Dispute, Adelphi Paper No. 155, International Institute of Strategic Studies.

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26 The Eastern Mediterranean in Turkish Foreign Policy: From the Defensive to the Assertive Zenonas Tziarras (University of Cyprus)

Introduction

I

n the twenty-first century the eastern Mediterranean, just like other regions of the world, acquired new significance and emerged as a distinct geopolitical space (see Adamides & Christou 2015; Buzan & Waever 2003; Fawn 2009; Lake & Morgan 1997; Stivachtis 2019; Tziampiris 2019; Tziarras 2018). This was the result of multiple developments, including global power shifts that created cracks in American hegemony, new foreign policy activism and international interactions at the regional level, as well as the discovery of natural gas resources. During the same time, Turkey emerged as a central player, pursuing an ambitious geopolitical agenda that included great openings in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and the broader region (Tziarras 2021). For almost two decades a lively debate was stirred about whether Turkey’s ‘new’ foreign policy orientation since 2002, under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), constituted a fundamental break from or a continuation of the traditional foreign policy paradigm that was largely based on Kemalist-nationalist ideas and values. By the mid-2010s, it became clearer that the shift was deeper than once thought as the changes in Turkish foreign policy were felt on a number of levels and geographical areas. Not least, they were informed by historic transformations domestically as well. The eastern Mediterranean offers a good case study for the examination of changes and continuities in Turkish foreign policy and geopolitical thinking more broadly. The question, then, would be: How has the strategic significance of the eastern Mediterranean changed, if at all, for Turkey since the Republic’s establishment, and why? To address this question, I first look at the importance and role of the eastern Mediterranean for Turkey during the first years after its establishment (1923), the Cold War and the postCold War period, until the election of the AKP. The second section focuses on the period 342

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the eastern mediterranean | 343 of AKP governance, and accounts not only for the changes in Turkish foreign policy but also for the transitions in the region’s balances of power. The general argument is that, despite some ideological and strategic fluctuations, the eastern Mediterranean during the twentieth century was seen as a key geopolitical space for the defence of Turkey’s borders, sovereignty and national security. In the twenty-first century, under the AKP, things have changed significantly. While the eastern Mediterranean remains important for Turkish national security, it has also become an area where Turkish foreign policy activism has expanded and revisionist aspirations have been manifested, as well as a means for power projection further abroad. Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean in the Twentieth Century: Defending Sovereignty At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Ottoman Empire experienced the devastating defeat of the First World War and the shock of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), which, although never enforced, would have entailed its dismemberment and the dramatic decrease of its territories. The new Turkish Republic, established in 1923 with the more favourable Treaty of Lausanne, was birthed under conditions of uncertainty, anxiety and insecurity, with the phobia of new territorial losses – the so-called Sèvres syndrome. Against this background, during the first years of the Republic, the first president and historic leader of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal, followed a largely status-quo-ist and isolationist foreign policy that was averse to imperialism and adventurism abroad as well as proWestern (Mufti 2009: 20–1). İsmet İnönü, who succeeded Kemal, followed a similar but more elaborate foreign policy approach. Malik Mufti defined the ‘İnönü Doctrine’ as one of reserve, neutrality, maintenance of the status quo and compartmentalisation – namely, the isolation of Turkey’s regional policies from its relations with the great powers (Mufti 2009: 31–2). These leader images and strategic drivers had an impact on Turkey’s state behaviour and geopolitical vision – specifically, on its self-perception and perception of external actors and spaces. Turkey’s view of and policy towards the eastern Mediterranean was not an exception. But Turkish policy in the eastern Mediterranean (or lack thereof), as a maritime space, was also affected by the capabilities and objectives of the Turkish navy. With a small and obsolete force, the capabilities of the Turkish navy in the mid-1920s were limited and had to be developed almost from scratch. In a September 1924 speech, during a Black Sea tour on the historic Hamidiye cruiser, Kemal stated that the control of Asia Minor required a large fleet, that a strong fleet was necessary for the pertinent goal of national defence, that the navy would become the main support of Turkey’s future foreign policy, and that it was necessary to first form a core for the navy (Güvenç & Barlas 2003: 5–7; Sarris 1992: 164).

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344 | zenonas tziarras To be sure, the Greek navy was still dominant in the eastern Mediterranean – and particularly the Aegean – at the time. Yet the importance of that space was clear for Kemal from early on. As Şükrü Elekdağ (1996) records: [Kemal] Atatürk had explained to the staff officers that the only coastal opening and supply route of Turkey surrounded by islands in the Aegean coast which were under the sovereignty of foreign states was in the south. He also added that opposite the southern coast of Turkey was the island of Cyprus and consequently, if Cyprus was in the hands of a hostile country all supply routes to Anatolia would be cut off and Turkey’s security would be threatened.

So, although Turkey was aware of the strategic imperatives in the Aegean, its ability to pursue them was limited and faced various constraints. Rather, between 1920 and 1940 the Turkish navy moved from being a small force that operated ‘as an extension of the army in territorial defence’ to making cooperative openings against emerging revisionism (from Italy) as its mission expanded to ‘tasks beyond coastal waters’ (Güvenç & Barlas 2003: 2–3). After the Second World War, the eastern Mediterranean acquired new significance for Turkey, which in 1952 entered NATO – along with Greece – and emerged as an important pillar for the containment of the Soviet Union, which was increasing its regional influence, and for regional security in the context of the Cold War (Lundesgaard 2011: 6). Also important was that, despite Turkey’s objections, the Dodecanese island complex in the Aegean was transferred to Greece with the 1947 Treaty of Peace with Italy, creating a point of contention between Turkey and Greece that manifested itself in more tangible terms during the 1970s with various escalation milestones along the way. During the 1950s things got worse when Cyprus emerged as a major problem for Turkey and Greek–Turkish relations. After ethnic clashes broke out on the island in 1963 – persisting throughout the 1960s – with the involvement of the two ‘motherlands’, Greece and Turkey, a Greek–Turkish war that would endanger NATO’s southeast flank became more plausible. At the start of the Cold War, Turkey’s shipbuilding efforts, which started in 1937 and were interrupted by the Second World War, resumed, and further matured in the 1980s (DefenseNews 2021). These developments and improvements came against the background of the Soviet threat, the growing threat perception of Greece and of course financial and military assistance from the United States through the Truman Doctrine (1947) and the Marshall Plan (1948) (Shaw & Shaw 1977: 400). Therefore, Turkey’s approach towards the eastern Mediterranean became more aligned with Kemal’s early declared aspirations and concerns, both out of necessity and by dint of its growing capabilities. Furthermore, from the 1970s onwards the Greek–Turkish rivalry increased

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the eastern mediterranean | 345 rapidly as a result of the Cyprus conflict (the 1974 coup by the Greek junta and the subsequent Turkish invasion and occupation of the island’s north)1 and the Aegean disputes over maritime zones and sovereignty. From a Turkish point of view, the eastern Mediterranean became a space to defend national security and sovereignty. Threat perceptions were more imminent but now Turkey was in a better position to face them. At the same time, Turkish governments were interested in projecting the image of a capable and willing Western ally, despite the American–Turkish crises of the time (such as the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, and the 1963–4 and 1974 Cyprus crises). The 1974 invasion of Cyprus was an offensive act that was, however, based on defencerelated imperatives and perceptions. The fear was that Cyprus would become a ‘Greek island’ under the full control of Greece – through enosis, or unification. The 1974 coup by the Greek junta with the assistance of the Greek Cypriot nationalist organisation EOKA B against the government of Archbishop Makarios exacerbated this fear and rendered the threat much more imminent. From a strategic point of view, invading Cyprus would alleviate the threat of enosis, prevent Turkey’s encirclement and geopolitical/geo-economic blockade by the ‘Hellenic element’, protect the Turkish Cypriots, and ensure access to the island and the eastern Mediterranean more broadly. To be sure, Ankara invoked the restoration of constitutional order as well. Indicatively, the then Turkish prime minister, Bülent Ecevit, explained and justified the Turkish operation thus: The Turkish Armed Forces started this morning an operation of peace in Cyprus in order to put an end to struggle of decades of years [sic] brought about by extremist elements. During the last steps of the Cyprus tragedy, these extremist elements started massacring their own people, the Greeks. It is admitted by everybody that the last coup has been staged by the dictatorial regime of Athens. As a matter of fact it was more than a coup: it was a violent and flagrant violation of the independence of the Republic of Cyprus and of the international treaties on which the Republic was founded. Turkey is co-guarantor of the independence and the constitutional order of Cyprus. Turkey taking action is fulfilling her legal responsibility. The Turkish Government has not resorted to the armed action until after all the other means were tried and proved unsuccessful. This is not an invasion but an act to put an end to invasion. The Turkish Armed Forces will not open fire unless being fired at. I am addressing all the Greeks in Cyprus who have been the From the Turkish point of view, this was a peace operation that aimed to restore constitutional order and protect the Turkish Cypriots against the background of the Greek junta coup. De facto, the constitutional order was never restored given that a Turkish Cypriot statelet (recognised only by Turkey) was established in the island’s north. However, Turkey maintained that this was a way of safeguarding the rights of Turkish Cypriots and a means to renegotiate their participation in a shared state with the Greek Cypriots on the basis of political equality. Ever since, Greek Cypriots have invoked the systematic violation of international law and the decades-old disruption of the constitutional order due to the Turkish occupation.

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346 | zenonas tziarras victims of atrocities, of terrorism and dictatorship: bury in the past the dark days of intercommunal enmities and strife which were resorted to by the terrorists themselves. Join hand in hand with your Turkish brothers to speed up the victory and together build up a new free and happy Cyprus. (Quoted in Kareklas 2011: 4)

Unsurprisingly, the Cyprus crisis was connected to the status of the Dodecanese as well; it was one of the reasons why the Turkish stance on the Aegean shifted significantly towards revisionism during the 1970s (Mufti 2009: 45–6, 174). From the 1970s onwards Greece, the Aegean Sea and by extension Cyprus became central to Turkish strategic calculations in the eastern Mediterranean, even as the Kurdish issue was flaring up domestically and spilling over into Turkey’s relations with Syria and Iraq. The Kurdish issue was seen as a major vulnerability and stirred feelings of insecurity connected to Sèvres syndrome. Things became even more uncertain after the Cold War, as both Turkey and NATO were seeking a new role. In 1992, the then commander of the Turkish Naval Forces, İrfan Tınaz, who had also served as an admiral during the 1974 invasion of Cyprus (Erickson & Uyal 2020: 135–40), articulated what he thought should be the common maritime objectives of NATO’s Mediterranean states in NATO’s Sixteen Nations magazine: the security of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and freedom of navigation in open seas, as well as the protection of shipping and control of sea lines of communication (SLOCs) (Tınaz 1992: 65). Clearly, maritime strategic thinking in Turkey was still driven by defence imperatives. At the same time, Ankara was trying to attract NATO’s support for its own concerns in the region, during fluid and uncertain times. The tensions of the 1990s culminated in the 1996 Greek–Turkish naval standoff over the Imia/Kardak islets in the Aegean. It was around the same time that Şükrü Elekdağ, previously Turkish ambassador to Japan and the United States and later a Republican People’s Party MP, proposed the ‘Two and a Half Wars Doctrine’. Elekdağ’s proposal was based on a phobic reading of regional dynamics and developments. He was reflecting the Turkish government’s concern that the military balance was tilting in Greece’s favour and that its geographical position allowed Athens to ‘follow an external lines strategy, while at the same time providing her with the ability to cut off Turkey’s maritime lines of communication’ (Elekdağ 1996: 2). These concerns seem to reflect Tınaz’s earlier proposals to NATO perfectly as well. Overall, Elekdağ saw Greece and Syria, which signed a defence cooperation agreement in 1995, as significant threats, arguing that both countries laid claims over Turkish interests and territory while supporting each other against Turkey (referring, for example, to the Aegean, Cyprus, Hatay and Syria’s support of Kurdish autonomists in Turkey). Moreover, Elekdağ was concerned about the impact that a Syria–Israel peace deal might have on Turkey: ‘When peace is struck between Syria and Israel, Damascus can be expected to pursue her objectives concerning

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the eastern mediterranean | 347 Syrian demands over Hatay and the waters of the Euphrates much more actively. This would inevitably lead to strong tensions in Turkish–Syrian relations’ (Elekdağ 1996: 52). Against this background, Elekdağ suggested that Turkey should develop a strategy of ‘two and a half wars’; namely, the ability to fight Greece, Syria and Kurdish autonomists domestically at the same time. The formation of the 1996 Turkish–Israeli alliance was to a large part a result of these fears and a new approach to Eastern Mediterranean geopolitics (Bolukbasi 1999). Naturally, Turkey’s greater attention to naval forces during the 1990s became evident as well. Ankara sought to upgrade its navy and expand the horizons of its operations. According to a 1997 document by the Turkish Naval Forces Command, Turkey aspired to a naval force that would be able to operate and ‘achieve control’ in the open seas, far beyond its coastlines. Specific mention was made of Turkey’s need to have a decisive presence in the Black Sea, the Aegean and the Mediterranean to secure its vital interests (Mufti 2009: 91). As the Turkish navy became more powerful and faced more threats, its operational horizons expanded and Turkish ‘vital interests’ were broadened. These aspirations were affirmed in the white papers of the Turkish Ministry of Defence published from 1998 onwards. The 2000 version, clarifies, among other things, that the mission of the Turkish navy involves the protection of SLOCs, naval blockades, humanitarian aid, peace support, search and rescue operations, environmental protection, and operations against terrorism and organised crime. Moreover, it affirms Ankara’s desires to create a blue-water navy with expanded capabilities and role, as well as to become an energy transit state; something that entails significant naval support for the surveillance and security of maritime energy and trade routes (see MoD 2000). Overall, Turkey’s eastern Mediterranean view and policy during the twentieth century remained largely focused on the nation’s defence and security as well as the preservation of the status quo, as perceived by Turkish elites. However, as the Turkish navy became stronger and international threat perceptions increased, Turkey pursued a greater role and presence in the eastern Mediterranean. It seems that the post-Cold War period in particular played a transitional role for Turkish foreign and naval policy in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. It was a period during which Turkey was looking for a new role and setting the foundations for a more extrovert and capable policy in the future without, however, diverting – at least in principle – from the fundamental objective of defending national security. Turkey and the Eastern Mediterranean under the AKP: Projecting Power The rise of the AKP to power ushered Turkey into a new era, both domestically and in foreign affairs. The geopolitical environment of Turkey during the 2000s, despite the security threats that the Iraq War brought about, was rather benign. This enabled

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348 | zenonas tziarras the AKP government to make significant openings to the Middle East and the Muslim world more broadly, on the basis of both material benefits and the civilizational-cultural identity of Islam (Duran 2014; Habibi & Walker 2011). Indeed, during its first and second terms, the AKP pursued an extrovert foreign policy that already demonstrated signs of a broader conception of Turkey’s role and its external environment. However, the AKP had to simultaneously deal with the domestic challenges of democratisation, Europeanisation and the Kemalist establishment that controlled the state mechanisms and was uneasy with the AKP’s ideological identity and policies. Much of the democratic reforms that the AKP introduced were aimed at weakening the power structure of the Kemalist establishment within the state bureaucracy and military. This was achieved slowly and not without troubles. By the end of the 2000s, the AKP had managed to bring about significant changes in the country’s civil–military relations, weakening the role of the military and the Kemalist bureaucracy more generally (Bakıner 2017; Zahedi & Bacik 2010;). The AKP and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, had to make sure that they would not face the danger of a coup, as had happened repeatedly in the past, and especially in 1997 against Necmettin Erbakan, who was the prime minister at the time. As soon as the first victories against the previous order were accomplished, Turkish foreign policy started to become more outward and assertive. Although the preconditions for a more assertive foreign policy were there from the beginning of the twenty-first century, they were not by themselves catalytic. Not only was Turkey now a powerful country, but it also had a leadership that wanted to expand its influence to the broader Middle East and the Muslim world. One of the first examples of Turkey’s ‘new’ foreign policy was seen in relation to the Palestinian issue. Turkey has always been a supporter of the Palestinians but, arguably, never before with such fervour. The Turkish–Israeli relationship was the first one to break down as a consequence of the AKP’s foreign policy orientation. One could trace signs of tension even from 2004 when Israel killed Hamas’s leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. But the 2008 Gaza war, the 2009 Davos incident between Erdoğan and Israeli president Shimon Peres, and lastly the Mavi Marmara incident of 2010 were the decisive milestones in the deterioration of bilateral relations (Uzer 2020). From there on, the dynamics in the eastern Mediterranean changed fundamentally. It is worth noting that the AKP’s view of the eastern Mediterranean had similarities but also differences with twentieth-century Turkish views of the region. Ahmet Davutoğlu, a key AKP figure, former foreign minister and prime minister, and the intellectual behind the articulation of the AKP’s foreign policy, saw the Aegean and Cyprus as being ‘located in the space of ​interaction and passage of the areas of the Balkans and the Middle East’, thus increasing the importance of the eastern Mediterranean (Davutoğlu 2010: 266).

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the eastern mediterranean | 349 Turkey, he added, ‘is not only a country of the Aegean but also a country of the eastern Mediterranean included in a broader framework, within an area that begins from the Adriatic and extends to the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Suez Canal’ (Davutoğlu 2010: 266–7). He reiterates threat perceptions of the time (the late 1990s, when the book was written), arguing that ‘a Turkey that has been excluded from the Aegean and has been encircled in the south by the Rum Administration of southern Cyprus [referring to the Republic of Cyprus] means that its room for an opening to the world has been significantly restricted’ (Davutoğlu 2010: 267). But at the same time, by discussing Cyprus, he expresses more grandiose aspirations: It is impossible for a country that neglects Cyprus to have a decisive role in global and regional policies. It cannot be effective in global policies, because that small island holds a position that can directly affect the strategic links between Asia and Africa, Europe and Africa, and Europe and Asia. And it cannot be effective in regional policies because Cyprus with its eastern end looks like an arrow turned towards the Middle East, and with its western end composes the cornerstone of the strategic balances of the eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans and north Africa. (Davutoğlu 2010: 267–70, 275)

There are therefore similarities between AKP and nationalist-republican views of the eastern Mediterranean. But there are also differences in that the AKP looks at the eastern Mediterranean not only as a space of defence, but also as a means to broader strategic aims. In addition, it appears unsatisfied with the region’s status quo and desires to revise it. As such, the eastern Mediterranean falls within a broader foreign policy framework that, under the AKP, is much more ambitious and assertive (Tziarras 2022). The culmination of the AKP’s eastern Mediterranean foreign policy came after the mid-2010s with the concept of Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland). ‘Blue Homeland’ was first coined in 2006 by retired admiral Cem Gürdeniz, then director of the Planning and Policy Division of the Turkish Naval Forces Command Headquarters. According to him, the aim was to identify the maritime areas where he thought Turkey had jurisdiction (Yinanç 2019). In February 2019, Turkey conducted the largest naval drill in its history under the Blue Homeland name. In an interview on the event, Gürdeniz stated that the drill ‘has taken place as a manifestation toward the enlarging blocks against Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean’ while emphasising that the three main geopolitical issues ‘involving Turkey’s future in the 21st century are energy resources in the seabed, the future of the so-called Kurdistan with a sea port, and the future of Northern Cyprus’ (Yinanç 2019). Indeed, the 2010s was a time of great developments in the eastern Mediterranean. After the breakdown of Turkish–Israeli relations, the breakdown of Turkish–Syrian relations followed (in the context of the Arab uprisings) and then the deterioration of

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350 | zenonas tziarras Turkish–Egyptian relations after General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi’s coup against the Muslim Brotherhood government of Mohamed Morsi. At around the same time, in 2011, the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) discovered its first natural gas reserve (the Aphrodite field), which along with Israel’s natural gas discoveries during the 2000s and Egypt’s discovery of the giant Zohr reserve in 2015 created entirely new dynamics. The geopolitical tensions that developed between these states (including Greece and the RoC) vis-à-vis Turkey and the prospective benefits from the joint exploitation of the area’s natural resources created fertile ground for the formation of new networks of cooperation that excluded Turkey. Gürdeniz presents the power that was projected through the Blue Homeland drill – and later, in 2021, the Seawolf drill – as a response to the partnerships of Cyprus–Greece–Israel and Cyprus–Greece–Egypt when, in fact, these partnerships came as a response to Turkey’s new foreign policy and, at least partly, as a product of common threat perceptions among collaborating states with regard to Turkey (Shama 2019; Tziarras 2016; Tziarras 2021). Interestingly, Gürdeniz argued that ‘Blue Homeland has become Turkey’s maritime doctrine and it shows Turkey is becoming a maritime power . . . For the first time in centuries, Turks are saying, “We are now in the sea and we have a strong navy”’ (Yinanç 2019). This new vision materialised, for example, through illegal – according to the EU – hydrocarbon surveys and drillings off Cyprus (Council of the EU 2020)2 as well as the 2019 Libyan campaign that strengthened Turkey’s power projection in Africa (Ioannou & Tziarras 2020). It is for this reason that Turkey’s naval openings in the eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere should be seen neither as limited, nor as a response to actions of other states, but rather as part of a broader, revisionist geopolitical strategy. After all, as mentioned earlier, the naval preconditions for a more powerful navy were there at least since the 1990s, but an assertive foreign policy was only implemented when informed by the AKP’s new ideological framework. Therefore, Turkey’s naval power projection under the AKP should be examined in conjunction with the creation of forward military bases (Kasapoğlu 2017) in the Horn of Africa, north Africa, and the Persian Gulf (for example, Somalia, Libya, Qatar), not to It should be noted that Turkey does not consider these actions illegal. It rather claims that the maritime space in which it operates belongs to its own continental shelf and prospective exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This view derives from a particular interpretation of the international law of the sea which contends that islands, especially in the eastern Mediterranean (including those of the Aegean and Cyprus), should not be allowed to have a continental shelf or EEZ. Ankara bases this argument on the principle of equity, saying in support that as a state with a long coastline it should not be confined to limited maritime rights because of the islands’ disproportionate maritime zones. Turkey is not a signatory of the Law of the Sea Convention (1982), based on which other maritime boundary delimitations were made in the eastern Mediterranean (including with Israel, which is also not a signatory). For more on the Turkish and Turkish Cypriot position see İpek (2019) and Olgun (2019).

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the eastern mediterranean | 351 mention the country’s military presence in Syria, Iraq and Cyprus. Moreover, the growing role of the navy in Turkish foreign policy contributes, as foreseen in the white papers of the Ministry of Defence from the late 1990s, to how the country responds to geopolitical and energy competition, naval diplomacy, and the agenda-setting role that it desires to play in the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. It should be added that this foreign policy orientation was strengthened as the AKP and President Erdoğan consolidated their power domestically, and particularly after the failed coup of July 2016 that allowed Erdoğan to accelerate the political system’s autocratic turn and dominate decisionmaking mechanisms (Başer & Öztürk 2017; Yilmaz et al. 2020). The geopolitical aspirations, however, were there from the start. Davutoğlu was speaking about the importance of the eastern Mediterranean and a broader role for Turkey almost twenty years prior to the Blue Homeland drill: For Turkey to become a true regional power, it has to increase its political and economic influence over the maritime arteries that extend from the Aegean to the Adriatic and from Suez to the Red Sea. It is inevitable for Turkey to follow a proactive policy at every point that takes the Black Sea and the Aegean to the open seas. (Davutoğlu 2010: 270)

These objectives seem more achievable today than ever before. Conclusions The big picture of Turkish foreign policy shows that Ankara is pursuing a more global role. This objective can only be achieved with the development of its naval power and maritime presence, in addition to the strengthening of other national power components. The eastern Mediterranean is inevitably part of this strategy as it is the immediate maritime space to Turkey’s south and one that is connected with exits to the Black Sea, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. As Davutoğlu argued, a state with grand aspirations cannot ignore these facts. From this perspective, it is also obvious that Turkey’s strategic objectives in and through the eastern Mediterranean are much more elaborate in the twenty-first century compared to previous periods in history. Without neglecting the need for national defence and security, Ankara’s policy in the eastern Mediterranean under the AKP has moved towards assertiveness, revisionism and power projection far away from the bounds of its immediate neighbourhood and the eastern Mediterranean itself. This is a result of both a stronger naval and military force (national power) and the emergence of a political elite with much more willingness to take risks and follow an adventurous foreign policy in the context of an ambitious grand strategy. The third decade of the twenty-first century will find Turkey wrestling with the results of and reactions to its openings, presence and influence abroad as it faces social, political and economic challenges domestically as well.

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352 | zenonas tziarras References Adamides, Constantinos and Odysseas Christou (2015), ‘Energy Security and the Transformation of Regional Securitization Relations in the Eastern Mediterranean’, in Savvas Katsikides and Pavlos I. Koktsidis (eds), Societies in Transition: The Social Implications of Economic, Political and Security Transformations, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 189–206. Bakıner, Onur (2017), ‘How Did We Get Here? Turkey’s Slow Shift to Authoritarianism’, in Bahar Başer and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (eds), Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP, London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 21–46. Başer, Bahar and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (2017), ‘In Lieu of an Introduction: Is It Curtains for Turkish Democracy?’ in Bahar Başer and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (eds), Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP, London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 1–20. Bolukbasi, Suha (1999), ‘Behind the Turkish–Israeli Alliance: A Turkish View’, Journal of Palestine Studies 29(1): 21–35. Buzan, Barry and Ole Wæver (2003), Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Council of the EU (2020), ‘Turkey’s illegal drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean: EU puts two persons on sanctions list’, press release, 27 February, https://www.consilium.europa. eu/en/press/press-releases/2020/02/27/turkey-s-illegal-drilling-activities-in-the-easternmediterranean-eu-puts-two-persons-on-sanctions-list/, accessed 2 February 2023. Davutoğlu, Ahmet (2010), To Stratīgikó Váthos: Ī Diethnīs Thésī tīs Tourkías, Athens: Poiotita. DefenseNews (2021), ‘The rise of the Turkish naval industry’, 21 September, https://www. defensenews.com/native/turkish-defence-aerospace/2020/09/21/the-rise-of-turkish-navalindustry/, accessed 2 February 2023. Duran, Burhanettin (2014), ‘The Davutoğlu Government and civilization discourse’, SETA. 26 August, https://www.setav.org/en/the-davutoglu-government-and-civilization-discourse/, accessed 2 February 2023. Elekdağ, Sükrü (1996), ‘2½ War Strategy’, Perceptions 1(4): 33–57. Erickson, Edward J. and Mesut Uyal (2020), Phase Line Attila: The Amphibious Campaign for Cyprus 1974, Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University Press. Fawn, Rick (2009), ‘“Regions” and Their Study: Wherefrom, What for and Whereto?’ Review of International Studies 35(S1): 5–34. Güvenç, Serhat and Dilek Barlas (2003). ‘Atatürk’s Navy: Determinants of Turkish Naval Policy 1923–38’, Journal of Strategic Studies 26(1): 1–35. Habibi, Nader and Joshua Walker (2011), ‘What Is Driving Turkey’s Reengagement with the Arab World?’ Middle East Brief No. 49, April, Crown Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Ioannou, Ioannis Sotirios and Zenonas Tziarras (2020), ‘Turning the Tide in Libya: Rival Administrations in a New Round of Conflict’, Policy Brief 1/2020, PRIO Cyprus Centre, https:// www.prio.org/utility/DownloadFile.ashx?id=2074&type=publicationfile, accessed 2 February 2023.

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354 | zenonas tziarras Tziarras, Zenonas (2018), The Eastern Mediterranean: Between Power Struggles and Regionalist Aspirations, Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Tziarras, Zenonas (2021), ‘International Competition and Cooperation in the New Eastern Mediterranean’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.654, accessed 2 February 2023. Tziarras, Zenonas (2022), Turkish Foreign Policy: The Lausanne Syndrome in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Uzer, Umut (2020), ‘The Downfall of Turkish–Israeli Relations: A Cold Peace between Former Strategic Allies’, Israel Affairs 26(5): 687–97. Yilmaz, Ihsan, Mehmet Efe Caman and Galib Bashirov (2020), ‘How an Islamist Party Managed to Legitimate Its Authoritarianization in the Eyes of the Secularist Opposition: The Case of Turkey’, Democratization 27(2): 265–82. Yinanç, Barçın (2019), ‘Blue Homeland “shows Turkey has become a maritime power”’, Hürriyet Daily News, 4 March, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/blue-homeland-shows-turkeyhas-become-a-maritime-power-141624, accessed 2 February 2023. Zahedi, Dariush and Gokhan Bacik (2010), ‘Kemalism Is Dead, Long Live Kemalism’, Foreign Affairs, 23 April, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/turkey/2010-04-23/kemalismdead-long-live-kemalism, accessed 2 February 2023.

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27 The Cyprus Conundrum in Turkish Foreign Policy Cihan Dizdaroğlu (Başkent University)

Introduction

T

he Cyprus conundrum has long been a hot topic in Turkish foreign policy due to its repercussions on several other issues. The unresolved Cyprus problem and the divided status of the island have continued to cause problems not only for Turkey, but for all parties involved. Owing to its geostrategic proximity to the Anatolian peninsula, the island has been a vital and indispensable issue for Turkey’s security. It manifests itself in the Turkish elites’ identifications of the island as a ‘national cause’, ‘babyland’ or ‘floating military base’, which are all in line with the traditional discourse on security (Bilgin 2005; Kaliber 2005). As Pınar Bilgin (2005: 185) stated, Turkey’s geographical location has always been utilised by the decision makers to point to its unique security needs and interests. This understanding has clearly been reflected in Turkey’s policies towards Cyprus and has always been at the forefront, even though there have been some transformations in Turkish foreign policy. This chapter focuses on the investigation of the Cyprus problem in Turkish foreign policy with a particular focus on the mid-1950s and onwards when the issue formally emerged as a problem for Turkey. Following a brief historical background, the chapter delves into Turkey’s ways of handling the issue by focusing on major changes in time and its complicated implications in Turkey’s foreign and domestic politics. Cyprus has been considered as an integral part of Turkey’s security since the beginning; however, over time there have been changes in Turkey’s policy towards Cyprus especially in parallel with Turkey’s accession process to the European Union in the early 2000s. The chapter provides a detailed analysis of breakthroughs in Turkish foreign policy towards Cyprus. 355

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356 | cihan dizdaroğlu A Never-ending History of Deteriorations and Improvements Turkey’s engagement with Cyprus dates back to the sixteenth century when Sultan Selim III conquered the island in 1571 to gain full control over the eastern Mediterranean. Following three centuries of rule over the island, the Ottoman Empire handed over its administration to the United Kingdom in return for diplomatic and military aid against Russia in 1878. Temporary British rule became permanent with British annexation in the wake of the First World War, and this was confirmed during the Treaty of Lausanne (1923). While the delegation from the newly founded Republic of Turkey relinquished its rights over the island, it raised concerns with a particular emphasis on the ‘vital importance’ of the island for the protection of Turkey’s southern coast (Dodd 2010: 3). After that, Turkey considered all issues related to Cyprus as the UK’s domestic politics and did not attempt any involvement as long as the UK maintained its rule. The statement by the then Turkish foreign minister, Necmettin Sadak, in the early 1950s confirmed Turkey’s stance: ‘The Cyprus problem isn’t a problem. I made this clear to journalists a long time ago. Cyprus is today under British sovereignty and rule.’ (Yeni İstanbul 1950). The Cyprus problem emerged as an issue in Turkish foreign policy in the mid1950s when the Greek Cypriots’ desire for enosis, which refers to political unification with Greece, increased, and intercommunal violence began. Turkey’s policy was mainly shaped around the continuation of the status quo in Cyprus, but the government, led by Adnan Menderes, also raised its security concerns by stating that ‘Cyprus is the continuation of Anatolia and constitutes one of the pivotal elements for its security’ (quoted in Ayın Tarihi 1955: 170). Thus, Ankara supported returning the island to Turkey if there was any change in its status. Menderes’s statement can be considered a turning point in Turkey’s formal recognition of the issue. It should also be noted that the British administration drew Turkish politicians’ attention to the issue through its encouragement and its invitation to the Tripartite Conference in London regarding the fate of the island in 1955. Accordingly, Turkey attended the conference, during which the Turkish delegation reminded the other parties, Greece and the UK, of the vital importance of Cyprus in the protection of Turkey’s southern coast, pointing out that if the power that controlled Cyprus also controlled the Aegean islands (as Greece did) then Turkey would be surrounded (Armaoğlu 1963). When the Turkish foreign minister, Fatin Rüştü, had difficulties during the negotiations, he wanted to use the Turkish public’s national sentiment towards the topic as evidence for the cause of the 6–7 September riots against the nonMuslim community, particularly the Greeks, of Turkey. This was also an early indicator that the Cyprus problem would become one of the most controversial issues in bilateral relations between Greece and Turkey.

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the cyprus conundrum | 357 Turkey realised that the return of the island was not possible, then it started to advocate the policy of taksim (partition), which would also give self-determination rights to Turkish Cypriots. Prime Minister Menderes reflected this shift in his statement on 18 December 1956, by stating that ‘we are in favour of the partition of the island’ (Armaoğlu 1963: 288). Accordingly, the slogan ‘Taksim or Death’ became the main thesis of Turkey that was also widely supported by the Turkish public. However, when violence between the two communities of the island intensified in 1958, the NATO powers encouraged Turkey and Greece to negotiate the issue in order to prevent any instability within the Western alliance. Following Zurich and London conferences in 1959, the Republic of Cyprus (RoC)1 was established in 1960 under the auspices of Greece, Turkey and the UK in their capacity as guarantor powers to maintain the territorial integrity, independence and sovereignty of the emergent state. Moreover, both Greece and Turkey deployed military units to the island based on the 1960 Treaty of Alliance. The Treaty of Guarantee, also made in 1960, paved the way for further involvement of the motherlands, Turkey and Greece, in the Cyprus problem. Whenever there have been problems between Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities, as seen during the crises of 1964, 1967 and 1974, the motherlands have played active roles. In other words, the Cyprus problem became one of the decisive factors in Turkish foreign policy (Kazan 2002: 59). For instance, when the RoC’s constitutional order was disrupted and intercommunal violence once more erupted after President Archbishop Makarios requested constitutional amendments in late 1963, Turkey decided to conduct a military operation. US president Lyndon Johnson’s letter to the Turkish prime minister prevented military action by Turkey and the events culminated in the political division of the island. The US involvement also showed that the Cyprus problem was not limited to Greece, Turkey and the UK, but included the US as well. The prolongation of the intercommunal violence in 1967 and Turkey’s military intervention on 20 July 1974 – five days after a coup by the Greek junta administration against Archbishop Makarios – further exacerbated the situation and triggered the complete physical partitioning of the island after the second operation by Turkey on 14 August 1974 (Papadakis 1998; Sözen 2007). Turkey justified its military operation through its rights arising from the Treaty of Guarantee, which gave any one of the guarantors powers – either unilaterally or jointly – to intervene. Turkey has continued its military presence on the northern part of the island ever since. This has been seen as a necessity for the security of both the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus (TRNC) and Turkey itself, as reflected by the former prime minister Bülent Turkey does not recognise the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus due to the exclusion of Turkish Cypriots from the state in 1963. As such, Turkey does not engage in diplomatic relations with the RoC and calls the administration in the island’s south the Greek Cypriot Administration of Southern Cyprus.

 1

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358 | cihan dizdaroğlu Ecevit’s statement: ‘We now believe that not only is Turkey guarantor of the security of the TRNC, but at the same time we consider the existence of the TRNC to be a necessity for the security of Turkey’ (quoted in Kazan 2002: 61). After Turkey’s military operation, the United Nations attempted to start negotiations between the parties when Turkish Cypriots declared the establishment of the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in February 1975 to gain equal footing during the negotiations. According to Rauf R. Denktaş (Denktash 1988: 80), who was first the leader of the federated state, and then became the president of the TRNC until 2005, ‘the Turkish Cypriot action was merely to establish the Turkish wing of the envisaged Federal Republic of Cyprus’, which had been accepted ahead of the negotiations. The intercommunal negotiations, which aim to produce a federal state based on a bi-communal and bi-zonal federation arrangement, a tenet of the 1977 and 1979 summit agreements and, subsequently, the main UN parameter for a comprehensive settlement, have continued (Sözen 2017). Amid the deadlock on the principles of a federal system, the Turkish Cypriot administration unilaterally declared the formation of the TRNC on 15 November 1983. The newly established TRNC was considered as ‘legally invalid’ by the UN Security Council with its Resolution 541(1983). Although Turkey’s priority was to find a solution to the problem around the intercommunal negotiations, the TRNC’s formation was a kind of fait accompli by the Turkish Cypriot administration to the newly formed government in Turkey as well (Denktash 1988: 119–21; Uzgel 2004: 338–44). Nevertheless, Turkey supported the TRNC’s independence through formal recognition, and the TRNC became both economically and militarily dependent upon Turkey from then on. The formation of the TRNC had several implications for Turkey and most of these implications are still in place: the TRNC is still only recognised by Turkey, the Cyprus problem continues to occupy the agenda of international politics, the issue stands as one of the main confrontation points between Greece and Turkey, and it presents one of the stumbling blocks in Turkish–EU relations. The Cyprus problem dominated Turkish foreign policy in various aspects during the 1990s. The early indicators of the problem’s existence in Turkish-EU relations began to appear when the RoC applied for membership of the European Union on 4 July 1990. The European Commission recommended to the Council of Ministers to start accession negotiations with the RoC on 30 June 1993. These decisions coincided with Turkey’s inclusion in the customs union in mid-1995. In March 1995, Turkey signed a customs union agreement with the EU that raised domestic debates in Turkey regarding the Cyprus problem as the opposition parties accused the government of giving concessions from its ‘national cause’ (Kaliber 2003: 171). In response to the accusations and the concerns among Turkish Cypriots, Turkey signed two joint declarations with the TRNC on 28 December 1995 and 20 January 1997. According to the first declaration (Ministry

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the cyprus conundrum | 359 of Foreign Affairs 1995), Turkey declared its support of ‘a bi-zonal and bi-communal federal settlement’, reaffirmed its support of ‘the security of the TRNC’ and confirmed that the customs union ‘does not include any provisions that hinders commercial and economic relations between Turkey and the TRNC’. In the second declaration, Turkey showed its opposition to the RoC’s quest for EU membership by warning that ‘each and every unilateral step to be taken by the Greek Cypriot Administration towards the EU membership will accelerate the integration process between Turkey and the TRNC’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1997a). Accordingly, an Association Council was established between Turkey and the TRNC in August 1997 with the objective of gradually achieving integration –which has never been realised– between the two countries in the economic, financial, security and defence fields, on the basis of a special partnership (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1997b). It should be noted that Turkey’s policies and reactions were also a consequence of Greece’s policy of signing a Joint Defence Doctrine with the RoC, Greece’s intention to build an air base in Paphos, and the RoC’s desire to acquire S-300 missile systems from Russia. Another significant development in this period caused Turkey’s alteration of its policy regarding Cyprus as well as a deterioration of the positive atmosphere in Turkish–EU relations. At the Luxembourg summit of 1997, Turkey was not included in the forthcoming enlargement, whereas the EU leaders acknowledged Cyprus along with other countries as prospective candidates and decided to launch accession talks with some of these countries, including the RoC, in 1998. Since then, Turkey has departed from its support towards a solution in Cyprus based on the bi-zonal, bi-communal federation, and started calling for the recognition of the political equality of the Turkish Cypriots for any possible progress in the talks. Moreover, Turkey began to support the Turkish Cypriot thesis of confederation, which would create two politically equal and sovereign states, as suggested by Rauf Denktaş as the final basis on 31 August 1998 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1998). The tension in the Turkey–EU relationship eased with the 1999 Helsinki summit, where Turkey was declared a candidate ‘destined to join the union on the basis of the same criteria as applied to the other candidate states’ (Council of the European Union 1999, para. 12). After Helsinki, Turkey reiterated its policy towards the Cyprus problem by saying that there had been no change following Turkey’s candidacy status (Kazan 2002: 61). However, it soon became clear that Turkey’s EU membership process was inseparably linked with the Cyprus problem and this triggered a major shift in Turkish foreign policy. In parallel with Turkey’s desires for membership of the EU, Turkey’s foreign and security policy behaviours have also experienced a significant revision as a result of the decrease in the military’s role and the involvement of non-state actors in decision-making (Özcan 2010). Accordingly, representatives from the business and industry sectors began to ask for changes in traditional policies to advance Turkey’s integration with the EU.

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360 | cihan dizdaroğlu The Turkish Industry and Business Association and the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey played a major role by highlighting the significance of resolution in Cyprus, a condition for Turkey’s membership to the EU. In the first Accession Partnership document submitted by the EU in 2001, Turkey was asked to ‘support the UN Secretary General’s efforts to bring to a successful conclusion the process of finding a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus problem’ (Council of the European Union 2001). This request by the EU coincided with Turkey’s eagerness to solve or at least move beyond its main security problems with regional countries for economic prosperity in the early 2000s (Aydın & Dizdaroğlu 2018: 92). The new Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government took power after the elections on 3 November 2002 and adopted a new line of foreign policy. The first AKP government gradually consolidated its position through the subsequent EU reforms and challenged traditional foreign policy issues, like Cyprus, by implementing more conciliatory policies to improve relations with neighbours. Within this scope, the government began to support the Annan Plan, the most comprehensive solution for the Cyprus problem, brokered by the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, rather than consolidating the approach of ‘the solution is no solution’ endorsed by the military. This was reflected by the then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘Cyprus has become an issue causing trouble for Turkey in all areas . . . the Annan Plan is an opportunity to continue negotiations and to reach a lasting solution’ (quoted in Özcan 2010: 35). This policy change caused a deterioration of the relationship between the Turkish government and Rauf Denktaş as well as with the military elites. Thus, it is possible to argue that the repercussions of the Cyprus problem were not limited to Turkey’s foreign policy, but to domestic politics as well. The debate over Cyprus ended with the AKP government’s encouraging Turkish Cypriots to cast a ‘Yes’ vote at the simultaneous referendum which was held on 24 April 2004 on both sides of the island. Although the Greek Cypriots rejected the Annan Plan, its membership of the EU without any settlement of the Cyprus problem has created a set of problems in Turkey–EU relations, Turkey–Greece relations, EU–NATO relations and so on (Akgül Açıkmeşe & Dizdaroğlu 2014; Eralp 2009). In the post-referendum period, the Cyprus problem continued to dominate Turkey’s foreign policy through Turkey–EU relations, and domestic politics through civil–military relations. In particular, the AKP government’s initiatives to solve the Cyprus problem around new proposals were heavily criticised by the military elites. In early 2006, the then Turkish foreign minister and deputy prime minister Abdullah Gül suggested opening up Turkish ports and airports to RoC traffic in return for lifting international embargoes on the TRNC’s airport and ports along with sports, cultural and social activities to pave the way for restarting the peace talks (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2006). The AKP government’s solution-oriented stance got a reaction from the chief of the General

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the cyprus conundrum | 361 Staff, Yaşar Büyükanıt, since the government had not consulted the military before the proposal (Özcan 2010: 35). A confrontation at the Turkey–EU level appeared when the EU demanded from Turkey an extension of the customs union agreement to the new member states, including the RoC. Turkey’s resistance to implementing the protocol amending the customs union to the RoC and admitting RoC’s aircraft and ships to its ports caused the EU to suspend eight negotiation chapters in Turkey’s accession process. Moreover, the EU also decided to not even provisionally close any chapter until Turkey met its obligations, thereby linking any prospects to the Cyprus problem. With the prospect of EU membership, Turkey’s policy towards Cyprus has evolved from a traditional stance to a more conciliatory mode, which accommodates options open to dialogue, cooperation, win–win solutions, activism and multilateralism (Aydın & Açıkmeşe 2007). However, Turkey’s policies to meet the EU’s accession criteria did not bear fruit and Turkey–EU relations gradually began to slow down. Despite the deadlock in Turkey–EU relations, Turkey continued its constructive role in Cyprus by supporting subsequent initiatives for the solution of the problem, as seen in 2008, 2014 and 2017. Following the joint statement on 23 May 2008 by Mehmet Ali Talat and Demetris Christofias, Turkish and Greek Cypriot community leaders, that reaffirmed the parties’ commitment to a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation on the basis of political equality, Erdoğan repeated Turkey’s support by saying that ‘the Turkish government had displayed remarkable efforts in order to find a fair and lasting solution to the Cyprus issue’ (Hürriyet 2008). Likewise, the joint declaration of Cypriot leaders Derviş Eroğlu and Nicos Anastasiadis on 11 February 2014 was welcomed by Turkey. Turkey hailed the resumption of negotiations by declaring its hope ‘that the aim of a just, lasting and viable settlement of the Cyprus issue is achieved as soon as possible’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014). Turkey’s most recent support towards a comprehensive solution appeared during the Crans-Montana Summit in July 2017, which was the culmination of negotiations started in 2015. Ahead of the summit, the Turkish minister of foreign affairs, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, wrote an article in which he repeated Turkey’s and the TRNC’s determination ‘to reach a settlement in Cyprus’ and added: ‘Now is the time for our sustained efforts to be reciprocated. The time has come to go the extra mile, which is the hardest mile of all’ (Çavuşoğlu 2017). Despite the revival of hopes towards a solution, the negotiations once more failed because of disagreements over security and guarantees. This was a turning point in Turkey’s policy on Cyprus since right after the summit Turkey signalled for alternative solutions. Accordingly, Turkey altered its policy in late 2020 by openly supporting Ersin Tatar’s candidacy against the incumbent Mustafa Akıncı during the presidential election in the TRNC. Since Tatar’s election as the fifth president of the TRNC on 11 October 2020, Turkey has changed its policy from a solution based

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362 | cihan dizdaroğlu on a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation and has instead begun to support a two-state solution. Turkey’s return to its factory settings of status quo in Cyprus was reflected by Erdoğan’s statement at a joint press conference following his meeting with the newly elected president of the TRNC: Following the conclusion of the Crans-Montana talks in July 2017, we underscored that federation could no longer be a valid model for a solution under these circumstances, and that new ideas were needed . . . At this stage, we for sure think it will be a loss of time to start negotiations exclusively on the basis of a federation. We therefore believe a two-state solution must also be brought to the table with a realistic approach. (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 2020)

Aside from the political solution to the Cyprus problem, the discovery of offshore hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean added a new layer to the already existing problems in Turkey’s policy on Cyprus and its relationship with the EU, Greece and regional countries. Since the early 2000s, the RoC’s delimitation agreements with coastal countries, and licence and exploration agreements with international energy companies had hit a nerve for the Turkish side. When the RoC signed exclusive economic zone agreements with Egypt, Lebanon and Israel in 2003, 2007 and 2010 respectively, Turkey made several demarches with these countries despite not being able to prevent any of these agreements (Aydın & Dizdaroğlu 2018). The RoC also adopted a law to identify thirteen oil exploration fields around the island and launched its first international tender for offshore exploration on 15 February 2007, prompting Turkey to warn all interested parties to act responsibly and not harm the prospects for a comprehensive Cyprus solution (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2007). In response, Turkey concluded a continental shelf delimitation agreement with the TRNC on 21 September 2011 and authorised the Turkish Petroleum Company to begin offshore drilling in disputed regions around the island in 2012 (Aydın & Dizdaroğlu 2018: 95). Tensions were raised particularly following the consecutive discoveries of energy resources off the coasts of Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt (the Tamar field in 2009, Leviathan in 2010, Aphrodite in 2011, Zohr in 2015, Calypso in 2018 and Glaucus in 2019). Right after the discoveries initial prospects regarding the triggering of a solution in the Cyprus problem and fostering cooperation among regional countries quickly faded away. The emergence of new alliances in the region, such as the Israel–Greece–RoC triangle, pushed Turkey to adopt a more cautious stance in its foreign policy. Turkey’s reactions mainly stemmed from the RoC’s claims to represent the entire island and to exclude the Turkish Cypriot community from these agreements, therefore Turkey argues that the use of natural resources in the region has to wait until a comprehensive solution is found. Moreover, Turkey has opposed the RoC’s activities by insisting on preserving its own rights and

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the cyprus conundrum | 363 those of Turkish Cypriots. Therefore, all these developments have paved the way for the securitisation of eastern Mediterranean energy resources in Turkish foreign policy (Baysal & Dizdaroğlu 2022). When the littoral states including Egypt, Israel, the RoC, Greece, Italy, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority decided to create the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum (EAST-MED) in January 2019, Turkey responded to its isolation in the region by increasing its military presence through exercises and drilling ships (Milliyet 2019). In reaction to the gatherings of the EAST-MED countries, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated Turkey’s stance in the region by declaring: ‘Turkey’s determination to protect its rights within its continental shelf and the equal rights of the Turkish Cypriots over the hydrocarbon resources of the Island continue as before, and Turkey has taken necessary steps to this end and will not hesitate to do so’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2019). Turkey’s policies of securitisation can be viewed as the reactions to the political manoeuvres of both Greece and the RoC. However, these securitisations are aligned with the traditional Turkish foreign policy stance towards Cyprus as well (Christofis et al. 2019). Tensions between the parties escalated with the involvement of Greece through Turkey’s regional isolation, thus once more causing the securitising of Turkish–Greek relations as well. Conclusion: What Does the Future Hold? Turkey’s consideration of Cyprus has been mainly shaped around security concerns by Turkish elites, even when there were no concrete policies towards the Cyprus problem. When the issue began to emerge as an issue in foreign policy, it was primarily evaluated on the basis of its geostrategic importance for Turkey’s security. Accordingly, the problems and discussions related to Cyprus have dominated Turkey’s foreign policy for many long years, and the unresolved status of the problem continues to create problems for Turkey. After Turkey’s candidate status for the EU was granted in 1999, Turkey switched its policy towards Cyprus not just to eliminate one of the stumbling blocks in its relations with the EU, but also to prioritise economic aspects of foreign policy. This transformation in parallel with major reforms for the EU process helped the newly established AKP government to consolidate its power by changing the foreign policy decision-making process through weakening the role of the military in political life. Turkey’s eagerness for a solution to the Cyprus problem has been insufficient to trigger improvements and changes, as clearly reflected during the Annan Plan referendum in 2004. The subsequent efforts either by Turkey or by international actors have not yet produced the desired solution to the problem, thus it still has significant repercussions for Turkey both in its foreign and its domestic policies.

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364 | cihan dizdaroğlu Starting from its relations with Greece and the EU, as this chapter demonstrates, Turkey’s relationships with several other countries have been affected by the continuation of the Cyprus problem. As Turkey’s EU membership process is inseparably linked with the Cyprus problem, which is still prevalent at the time of writing, this has caused a waning of eagerness for reform as well as Turkey’s distancing itself from the EU. The EU’s backing of the RoC in the tensions over the eastern Mediterranean further exacerbates the Turkey–EU relationship. As the prospects for the solution of the Cyprus problem are still bleak considering the parties’ current positions, there is a need for new approaches to trigger a change in the conundrum. Hydrocarbon resources in the eastern Mediterranean might play a catalyser role for all involved actors to initiate a collaborative spirit that will gradually pave the way to easing tensions in each deadlock. References Akgül Açıkmeşe, Sinem and Cihan Dizdaroğlu (2014), ‘NATO–AB İlişkilerinde İşbirliği ve Çatışma Dinamikleri’, Uluslararası İlişkiler 10(40): 131–63. Armaoğlu, Fair (1963), Kıbrıs Meselesi 1954–1959, Ankara: Sevinç. Aydın, Mustafa and Cihan Dizdaroğlu (2018), ‘Levantine Challenges on Turkish Foreign Policy’, Uluslararası İlişkiler 15(60): 89–103. Aydın, Mustafa and Sinem A. Açıkmeşe (2007), ‘Europeanization through EU Conditionality: Understanding the New Era in Turkish Foreign Policy’, Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 9(3): 263–74. Ayın Tarihi (1955), ‘Statement by Prime Minister Adnan Menderes’, Ayın Tarihi 261: 170–3. Baysal, B. and Cihan Dizdaroğlu (2022), ‘Turkish–Greek Relations after the Cold War: Changing Dynamics of Securitisation and Desecuritisation’, in Birsen Erdoğan and Fulya Hisarlıoğlu (eds), Critical Readings of Turkey’s Foreign Policy, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 235–56. Bilgin, Pınar (2005), ‘Turkey’s Changing Security Discourses: The Challenge of Globalisation’, European Journal of Political Research 44(1): 175–201. Çavuşoğlu, Mevlüt (2017), ‘Turkey’s Cyprus policy an unstable situation’, Washington Times, 19 March, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/19/turkeys-cyprus-policy-anunstable-situation/, accessed 2 February 2023. Christofis, Nikos, Bahar Baser and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (2019), ‘The View from Next Door: Greek– Turkish Relations after the Coup Attempt in Turkey’, International Spectator 54(2): 67–86. Council of the European Union (1999), ‘Presidency Conclusions: Helsinki European Council, 10–11 December 1999’, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/ pressdata/en/ec/ACFA4C.htm, accessed 2 February 2023. Council of the European Union (2001), ‘Council Decision of 8 March 2001 on the Principles, Priorities, Intermediate Objectives and Conditions Contained in the Accession Partnership with the Republic of Turkey’, 2001/235/EC, Official Journal of the European Communities L 85: 13–24. Denktash, Rauf R. (1988), The Cyprus Triangle, London: K. Rustem & Brothers.

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the cyprus conundrum | 365 Dodd, Clement (2010), The History and the Politics of the Cyprus Conflict, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Eralp, Atilla (2009), ‘Temporality, Cyprus Problem and Turkey–EU Relationship’, Discussion Paper 2009/2, EDAM, July. Hürriyet (2008), ‘Turkish PM and Talat stress a “two state” solution in Cyprus under UN’, 19 July, https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/turkish-pm-and-talat-stress-a-two-state-solutionin-cyprus-under-un-9472966, accessed 2 February 2023. Kaliber, Alper (2003), ‘Rearticulation of Turkish Foreign Policy: Its Impacts on National/State Identity and State–Society Relations in Turkey’, PhD thesis, Bilkent Üniversity. Kaliber, Alper (2005), ‘Securing the Ground through Securitized “Foreign” Policy: The Cyprus Case’, Security Dialogue 36(3): 319–37. Kazan, Işıl (2002), ‘Cyprus and the Eastern Mediterranean: Seen from Turkey’, in Thomas Diez (ed.), The European Union and the Cyprus Conflict: Modern Conflict, Postmodern Union, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, pp. 54–72. Milliyet (2019), ‘103 gemi Mavi Vatan’a açıldı’, 27 February, https://www.milliyet.com.tr/ gundem/103-gemi-mavi-vatan-a-acildi-2834189, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1995), ‘Turkey–TRNC Joint Declaration’, 28 December, https:// www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey-trnc-joint-declaration-december-28_-1995.en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1997a), ‘Turkey–TRNC Joint Declaration’, 20 January, https:// www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey-trnc-joint-declaration-january-20_-1997.en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1997b), ‘Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Turkey and the Government of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on the Establishment of an Association Council’, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/agreement-betweenthe-government-of-the-republic-of-turkey-and-the-government-of-the-turkish-republic-ofnorthern-cyprus-on-the.en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998), ‘Call for Peace from the Turkish Side Rauf Denktas Proposes Confederation in Cyprus’, 31 August, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/_p_call-for-peace-from-theturkish-side_br_rauf-denktas-proposes-confederation-in-cyprus_br_31-august-1998__p_. en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2006), ‘New Initiative by Turkey on Cyprus’, 24 January, https:// www.mfa.gov.tr/new-initiative-by-turkey-on-cyprus.en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2007), ‘Statement of the Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey in Response to a Question’, 14 August, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/_p_qa_32--statement-of-the-spokesman-of-the-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-of-turkey-in-response-to-aquestion-_unofficial-translation___p_.en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2014), ‘Press Release Regarding the Comprehensive Settlement Negotiations in Cyprus under the Supervision of the UN’, 11 February, https://www.mfa. gov.tr/no_-45_-11-february-2014_-press-release-regarding-the-comprehensive-settlementnegotiations-in-cyprus-under-the-supervision-of.en.mfa, accessed 2 February 2023.

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366 | cihan dizdaroğlu Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2019), ‘Press Release Regarding the Conclusions Adopted by the EU Foreign Affairs Council’, 16 July, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/no_206_-ab-disiliskiler-konseyinin-aldigi-kararlar-hk.en.mfa, accessed 10 April 2023. Özcan, Gencer (2010), ‘The Changing Role of Turkey’s Military in Foreign Policy Making’, UNISCI Discussion Papers 23: 23–45. Papadakis, Yiannis (1998), ‘Greek Cypriot Narratives of History and Collective Identity: Nationalism as a Contested Process’, American Ethnologist 25(2): 149–65. Presidency of the Republic of Turkey (2020), ‘The Turkish side favors a fair, lasting and sustainable solution in Cyprus’, 26 October, https://www.tccb.gov.tr/en/news/542/122511/-the-turkishside-favors-a-fair-lasting-and-sustainable-solution-in-cyprus-, accessed 2 February 2023. Sözen, Ahmet (2017), ‘A Common Vision for a Way out of the Cyprus Conundrum’, Turkish Policy Quarterly 15(4): 27–36. Uzgel, İlhan (2004), Ulusal Çıkar ve Dış Politika, Ankara: İmge Yayınevi. Yeni İstanbul (1950), ‘Kıbrıs meselesi diye bir mesele yoktur’, 24 January.

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28 A Century of Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Balkans: Imperial Legacy, Geography and Humanitarian Ties1 Birgül Demirtaş (Turkish-German University)

T

he Balkans have always been an important region for Turkish decision makers from the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 until today, for several reasons. First of all, Turkey is part of the Balkan region historically, culturally and geographically. The Ottoman Empire was an important state in the Balkans for long centuries, and played an important role in the construction of the Balkan region due to its demographic, political, economic and social policies. The Ottoman sultans made Balkan cities the capital of their Empire from the second half of the fourteenth century onwards. The fact that Adrianople and Istanbul hosted the Ottoman administration for long centuries is proof of how the Ottoman sultans must have perceived the Balkans as the core of the Empire. The Balkans, in other words Ottoman territories on the European continent, constituted the heart of the Ottoman Empire in many respects. A good example of the priority of the Balkans over Anatolian lands is that on the protocol list of the Empire officials working in the Balkans came before those assigned to other regions (Sugar 1977: 35). Furthermore, most of the architectural masterpieces of the Ottoman Empire were built in the Balkan territories, not in any other regions. Meanwhile, Balkan conquests turned the Ottoman state and society into a multicultural and multireligious one. In addition, a substantial number of Balkan-origin people served as Ottoman sadrazamlar (grand viziers) throughout the history of the Empire, and the intellectual movements and cadres in the Ottoman Balkans created the origins of the Republic of Turkey. The fact that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk himself was born and raised in the Balkans, having been affected by the intellectual climate there in constructing the Turkish nation-state, should be remembered as well. The author has benefited from some of her earlier works in writing this article (Demirtaş-Coşkun 2006; Demirtaş 2015; Demirtaş 2019).

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368 | birgül demirtaş Second, the humanitarian ties between Turkey and Balkan countries have always affected the relationship. The existence of Turkish and Muslim peoples in the region on the one hand, and Balkan-origin Turkish citizens on the other, have kept the humanitarian dimension of the mutual relationship alive throughout history. Third, geography should be taken into account in considering Turkish–Balkan ties. Balkans is not a faraway region from Turkey. On the contrary, Turkey is geographically a part of the Balkan region. That means whatever happens in Turkey and in other Balkan countries has an impact on other actors in the region. Assimilation policies and conflicts lead to migration waves as well as harm trade relationships. This chapter provides a historical sketch of Turkey’s foreign policy towards the Balkan countries. It aims to shed light on the main dynamics of the mutual ties, changes and continuities in the relationship as well as the impact of global politics on Turkish–Balkan interactions. It consists of five sections. First of all, it examines the state of the relationship from the establishment of the Republic in 1923 until the end of the Second World War. The second part analyses the dynamics of Turkish–Balkan ties during the Cold War. The third part focuses on the new dynamics of the relationship after the end of the Cold War between 1990 and 2002. Turkish foreign policy toward the Balkans during the era of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) will be the topic of the fourth section. The last part will summarise the main parameters of Turkish–Balkan relations between 1923 and 2023. Since the bilateral relations between Turkey and Greece will be analysed in a more comprehensive way in other chapters of this book, this chapter primarily focuses on Turkey’s foreign policy towards other Balkan countries. The Turkish Republic and the Balkans in the Interwar Period Republican Turkey’s foreign policy can be characterised by its anti-revisionism and neutralism, which Atatürk carefully pursued during his rule (Váli 1971: 24–7). The top priority of the new Republic’s foreign policy towards Balkan countries was to strengthen its relations with them, to prevent any claim of irredentism on its own territories and to prove that it did not covet any piece of land within their borders. The first step in this regard was the signing of friendship agreements with the Balkan states: Turkey and Albania signed a friendship agreement in 1923, followed by similar agreements with Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in 1925 (Gönlübol et al. 1982: 103). Ankara was careful to emphasise that it did not want to grab control of any land from any country in the region, but it was also against any irredentist aims of neighbouring countries towards itself. Bulgaria was a major revisionist country in the Balkans in the interwar era whose foreign policies were making other regional countries, including Turkey, suspicious of their aims (Türkeş 1994: 124–5). The threats that they perceived from the irredentist regional countries turned the former arch-enemies Turkey

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turkish foreign policy towards the balkans | 369 and Greece into new friends. The 1930s became years of Turkish–Greek rapprochement under the leaderships of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Eleftherios Venizelos, who had fought against each other during the Turkish War of Independence between 1919 and 1922. In October 1930 the two leaders put their signatures to the Treaty of Friendship, Arbitration and Conciliation. They went a step further in September 1933 by signing the Entente Cordiale, guaranteeing their common border and agreeing to exchange opinions on international problems, and stated their intention to represent the other side in international summits (Türkeş 1994: 130). Turkish–Greek détente of the 1930s was complemented by an improvement in relations with other Balkan countries. Four Balkan conferences held between 1930 and 1934 set the ground for the signing of a Balkan Pact between the four status quo powers in the region; Turkey, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia, on 9 February 1934, whereby contracting countries undertook to guarantee each other on the security of their Balkan borders (Archiv der Gegenwart 1934). The Balkan Pact was an important international treaty in the history of cooperation between Balkan countries, because it was of Balkan origin and did not come into being through the encouragement of any great power (Özcan 1995: 285). Meanwhile, the main countries encouraging signature of the pact were Turkey and Greece and they succeeded in persuading the other two countries to become part of it (Gönlübol et al. 1982: 105). With the conclusion of the Balkan Pact, it was seen that Atatürk’s policy of neutralism was flexible enough to include regional cooperation agreements (Zimová 1988: 201–15). By 1937 the pact lost its importance for the contracting parties, because of two main reasons. First, it did not mention the probability of what would happen if a non-Balkan country attacked a regional state. Thus, it did not cover the threat coming from Italy. Second, the Treaty of Friendship signed between Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in January 1937 harmed the essence of the treaty (Sander 1966: 107–8). As a summary, it can be stated that Turkish foreign policy towards Balkan countries in the interwar period was characterised by its neutralism, non-revisionism and regional cooperation schemes. Whether it remained so in the succeeding periods is the topic of the next section. Turkey and the Balkans during the Cold War Turkey was able to keep its de facto neutral position intact throughout the Second World War, although both war alliances tried to get Ankara to join their side. After the war, Turkey, faced with Soviet claims on its territories and the Turkish Straits since the late 1930s, chose to be a part of the Western bloc by becoming a member of NATO in 1952. Thus, it left the neutral foreign policy of the Atatürk years and joined the military alliance of the Western countries. Its membership of NATO has had a lasting impact on

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370 | birgül demirtaş its general foreign policy, including its attitude towards Balkan countries. The fact that the majority of the Balkan countries became part of the opposing socialist bloc made the possibility of cooperation with them much more difficult in comparison to the interwar era because of the systemic factors. The US government encouraged the establishment of a close partnership between non-aligned Yugoslavia and the Balkan countries within NATO, namely Turkey and Greece. Belgrade, Athens and Ankara signed the Agreement on Friendship and Cooperation in Ankara on 28 February 1953, according to which the foreign ministers would meet at least once every year in order to exchange opinions on the international political situation and chiefs of staffs would continue to cooperate (Archiv der Gegenwart 1953). Cooperation between Turkey, Greece and Yugoslavia was turned into a military alliance by the conclusion of the Treaty of Bled on 9 August 1954. With the signing of the treaty the parties undertook to solve any international problem by peaceful means and to avoid using force or the threat of force in their foreign policies. The most important article was concerned with the probability of an attack on any of the parties. It stated that any attack on any one of the three states would be regarded as an attack on all of them and they would help the attacked party individually or together. Why did the three countries undertake such a comprehensive military cooperation? There were two main reasons: (1) all of them were concerned about Moscow’s international attitudes and worried about new adventures that the Soviet Union would embark on; (2) encouragement from the US administration was also an important element that led Ankara and Athens to cooperate with Belgrade in various ways. However, because of the Tito– Khrushchev rapprochement and the Turkish–Greek conflict over Cyprus, the military alliance among the three Balkan countries ended in the early 1960s (Sander 1966: 112). There were important differences between the Balkan Pact of 1934 and the Treaty of Bled of 1954. In the Balkan Pact the signatory states undertook to guarantee only their Balkan frontiers and carefully abstained from offering any military help to each other in case of a conflict. However, in the latter treaty they went further and decided to take more responsibility towards each other’s security. The article of the treaty stipulating that an attack on any one of them would be considered as an attack on all of them was a significant step ahead compared to the pact. Another difference was that whereas the Balkan Pact was the product of a ‘pure’ regional initiative, the Treaty of Bled probably could not have come about without the support of the US government. Why were both agreements abolished after a short period of time and unable to endure? The main reason is that despite all their common security concerns toward revisionist states, the signatory parties had quite different national interests that pulled them apart in the end. The Cold War witnessed the emergence of bilateral problems between Turkey and Greece. The appearance of the Cyprus issue in the mid-1950s led to a radical change in

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turkish foreign policy towards the balkans | 371 bilateral relations. The friendly ties of the interwar years were transformed into a hostile relationship. Although both countries were members of the Western bloc under the bipolar global order, they perceived each other as enemies. The inability to solve the Cyprus issue led to the emergence of new problems with regard to the Aegean Sea. After the dissolution of the Treaty of Bled Turkey’s Balkan policy became passive (Sander 1966: 118) in opposition to Greece, which tried to improve its relations with the countries of the region, mainly because it wanted to gain their support concerning the Cyprus issue on international platforms. In the 1950s Turkey had a difficult problem with Bulgaria over the fate of the Turkish minority living in that country. The socialist regime of Bulgaria, except during a short period of time after the Second World War, pursued a policy of assimilation towards the Turkish minority by limiting Turkish education in schools and the use of Turkish in the press. Moreover, in order to reduce the Turkish minority in the country Sofia expelled about 150,000 Turks to Turkey in the early 1950s, which led to further disagreement between the two countries. As the inter-bloc relations entered a period of détente after the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, Turkey tried to pursue a more active policy towards the Balkans, because it wanted to get the support of Balkan countries over the Cyprus issue, as Greece was already doing. One of the most important signs of the improvement in Balkan ties was the conclusion of the Agreement on Migration and Family Unification between Sofia and Ankara in 1968 with the aim of bringing families together that had been separated because of the expulsion in the 1950s (Váli 1971: 288). As a result of the 1968 agreement 130,000 Turks left Bulgaria for Turkey. However, this rapprochement with Bulgaria came to an end in the 1980s because of a new anti-Turkish campaign by the Bulgarian government led by Todor Zhivkov. From 1983 there were some rumours that Bulgarian officials were forcibly trying to change the names of the Turkish minority. Although the Turkish government was suspicious of these claims, after a while it became clear that Bulgaria had indeed started implementing a new wave of assimilation by forcing Turks to take Bulgarian names, abolishing Turkish education and prohibiting the Turkish press. Ankara, despite a strong reaction among the public, remained calm by not taking any unilateral measures against Sofia. Instead, it brought the issue to the attention of international organisations and urged especially the US and other Western governments to take measures in order to end the humanitarian tragedy. The crisis between Turkey and Bulgaria reached its peak in 1989 with the expulsion of about 300,000 Turks in a period of just a few months to Turkey.2 The event undermined Bulgarian prestige in the international environment further and increased domestic For comprehensive accounts of the Bulgarian assimilation campaign see Ataöv (1990); Foreign Policy Institute (1989); Höpken (1994); Lütem (2000); Lütem (2006); Şimşir (1986).

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372 | birgül demirtaş criticism inside the country. The end result was a coup carried out by the reformist wing of the Communist Party against Zhivkov’s leadership in 1989. With the formation of the new government Bulgaria started reversing its policy of assimilation and the necessary ground was thereby set for the betterment of Turco-Bulgarian relations in the period ahead as well as Bulgaria’s Europeanisation process. Meanwhile, during the Cold War years there were some proposals coming from socialist Balkan countries for making the region nuclear-free: for example Romania initiated a campaign in the second half of the 1950s to withdraw all nuclear weapons from the area. Turkish decision makers were suspicious of plans for the establishment of a ‘nuclearfree zone’ and did not commit to cooperation on the issue, as they were of the opinion that Soviet Union was behind these proposals and was aiming to provoke withdrawal of American nuclear facilities from southeastern Europe for its own security. In fact, this was not just the policy of Turkey, but the general attitude of NATO countries, whose position Turkey was complying with (Sander 1966: 113–15). After the abolition of the Treaty of Bled until the end of the Cold war era, Turkey enjoyed good relations with Yugoslavia and did not have any significant political problems (Váli 1971: 206). Ankara took part in the Balkan conference initiated by Yugoslavia in 1988, although the conference did not achieve any lasting results because of the radical changes that took place in the world in the succeeding years. But the Balkan conference has a significant place in the history of Balkan cooperation, for it brought together all the Balkan countries, including Albania, which usually did not take part in regional cooperation schemes. In brief, the main parameters of Turkish Balkan policy after the Second World War were set by the inter-bloc relations and Turkey’s ties with Moscow. When there was a détente period between the two superpowers and Turkey had good relations with the Soviet Union, Turkey could have better relations with its socialist Balkan neighbours. Any independent policy outside the NATO framework was not pursued. ‘After Soviet claims and threats in 1945–1946 Turkey improved its relations with the Western countries to such an extent that it founded its whole philosophy of foreign policy on cooperation with the West’ (Gönlübol et al. 1982: 258). During those years the main problem for Turkey was the situation of Turkish minorities in Balkan countries, especially Bulgaria, but even on that sensitive issue Turkey was careful enough not to act alone and to maintain its calmness. Moreover, Turkey’s attitude towards regional cooperation schemes was also affected to a great extent by the policies of the US. Republican Turkey aimed at establishing friendly relations with all the region’s countries and based its policy on principles of maintenance of the status quo and prevention of any revisionist policies. It has been sensitive to maintaining common borders and has been in favour of regional cooperation schemes in general. In the interwar period it could

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turkish foreign policy towards the balkans | 373 develop these initiatives for regional cooperation together with Greece without needing any encouragement from any great power; however, after the Second World War its ties with Balkan countries and attitude towards Balkan cooperation plans were to a great extent determined by its membership of the Western bloc. Thus, it began to act in its international relations not as a neutral country, but as a member of NATO. Turkey and the Balkans after the Cold War During the Cold War, hegemonic relations at the global level heavily affected the relations between Ankara and its Balkan neighbours, themselves divided along Eastern, Western and non-aligned lines. However, following the end of bipolar world politics, Turkey found greater manoeuvrability in its foreign policy and could launch important diplomatic initiatives. On the one hand, Turkey supported the Europeanisation process of the formerly socialist Balkan countries and their membership of international organisations, like NATO and the EU. As soon as the socialist government in Bulgaria was toppled and the assimilation campaign against the Turkish minority ended in 1989, the Turkish leadership was more than ready to open a new page in its relations with Bulgaria. In a short period of time the relations between Ankara and Sofia improved rapidly (DemirtaşCoşkun 2001). The most important challenge in the region after the end of the Cold War was the wars in Yugoslavia. When the conflicts started in 1991, Turkey supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia. However, after the Western states recognised the newly independent republics, Turkey also extended its diplomatic recognition to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia. During the Bosnian War, Turkey pursued an active foreign policy to end the war as well as trying to assume the role of guardianship over the Bosniak people. Turkey developed proposals for the resolution of the war, including preparation of an action plan, and aimed to become a bridge between the Bosniaks and the international community. This resulted in Turkey having greater weight in international affairs, as a result of which international actors, like the US and the EU, contacted Turkish officials frequently during the Yugoslav succession wars, especially when the Bosnian War was continuing. During the Bosnian War, Turkey, together with the US, helped to broker a cooperation between Bosniaks and Croats in 1994. As the war started in Kosovo, Turkey’s main policy was to urge the parties to stop the bloodshed and start a political dialogue to solve the problem. Ankara’s diplomatic initiatives concentrated on the Serbian and Albanian sides as well as on the countries of the region and the international institutions. The then president, Süleyman Demirel, paid an official visit to Albania in the summer of 1998 and presented a plan for the solution of the Kosovo conflict. Turkish policy towards Kosovo diverged from its attitude during the

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374 | birgül demirtaş war in Bosnia. Emphasising their different legal statuses, Turkey did not undertake the role of guardianship of the Kosovo Albanians and did not support the independence of Kosovo. Therefore, Turkey pursued a rather low-profile policy compared to the Bosnian case. After the NATO intervention started in 1999, Turkey took an active part in it first by conducting monitoring flights, then directly participating in the bombardment. Considering the zeitgeist of the Balkans in the turbulent 1990s, Turkey’s foreign policy focused mainly on political and security issues as it tried to play an active role in the solution of the Yugoslavian crises. In the aftermath of the wars it contributed to the establishment of a new regional order by sending soldiers to the peacekeeping missions. Turkey sent soldiers to the NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR), the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia and the Kosovo Force (KFOR) in Kosovo. By taking an active role in international peacekeeping missions Ankara wanted to contribute to the construction of security and peace in the region after a turbulent decade. The quest for a role in the new security architecture of the Balkans was accompanied by civilian policies in which different state institutions contributed to the reconstruction efforts. The role of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), the Yunus Emre Institute and the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities as soft power components of Turkey must be underlined. Turkish–Balkan Relations during the AKP Era The Balkans have continued to be an important item in Turkish foreign policy during the AKP era. For the AKP leadership the Ottoman legacy and existence of Muslim populations in the region have been important reasons to pursue an active foreign policy in the region. In addition, as soon as the wars of Yugoslav succession were over, the European Union as well as NATO speeded up the process of enlargement towards the Balkans. Turkish governments always supported the membership of the Balkan countries in transatlantic and European organisations from the very beginning, even at times when there was tension in Ankara’s relations with these organisations. Turkey’s decision makers argued that membership of NATO and the European Union would contribute to stability and security in the region. Since 2009 Bosnia-Herzegovina has been one of the main regional countries on the Turkish foreign policy agenda mainly because of the fragility of the inter-ethnic relations in the country. The AKP initiated trilateral mechanisms with other countries in the region, Serbia and Croatia, to help solve the problems in Bosnia. (Türbedar 2011). In the meantime, the most astonishing improvement in relations between Turkey and Serbia occurred during this period. Although the Ankara–Belgrade relationship had hard times in the 1990s, soon after the conflicts on the Yugoslav territories were over,

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turkish foreign policy towards the balkans | 375 both sides tried to mend the relationship. Although there are points of disagreement in Ankara–Belgrade relations like the independence of Kosovo, both countries focus on issues on which they can cooperate. An important feature of Turkey’s Balkan policy in the first decade of the 2000s has been its emphasis on soft power. Economic diplomacy, cultural diplomacy and investment in human capital in the countries of the region are among the main characteristics of Turkey’s Balkan policy. A ‘trading state’ approach in Turkish foreign policy has become visible, especially in the first decade of the AKP’s rule (Kirişci 2009). Besides benefiting more from the economic ties, Turkish foreign policy has also started to use another element of soft power, namely culture, and primarily language. The Turkish cultural organisation the Yunus Emre Institute was established in 2007 and began its activities in 2009, contributing extensively to Turkey’s cultural diplomacy. Fourteen Yunus Emre Cultural Centres have been opened in eight Balkan countries so far: Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia. At these centres, Turkish language courses are offered at affordable prices. Other cultural activities, like Turkish arts courses, are organised as well. In some countries, Yunus Emre centres have also been active in spreading the teaching of the Turkish language in public schools. The centre in Sarajevo is a good example; thanks to its efforts, some primary and secondary schools have started to offer Turkish as an optional course. There is no other country in the region that is making such an ambitious attempt to increase cultural relations. Furthermore, one can note the influence of increasing number of Turkish universities in various Balkan countries, such as the International Balkan University in North Macedonia and the International University of Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Benefiting from culture has certainly been part of the foreign policy of Western countries before now, but it seems that Turkish decision makers have also become aware of the increasing salience of soft-power instruments as a result of globalisation. The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) is another Turkish institution that has become an integral component of Turkish foreign policy under AKP rule. The AKP government increased not only the budget of the Diyanet, but also its personnel and the scope of its activities. The Diyanet started to hold annual meetings with heads of religious institutions of the countries in the Balkans. Meanwhile, it has been sending envoys to Turkey’s diplomatic representations. Its aim is to spread the AKP’s version of Islam across the Balkans and increase the religious ties between Turkey and other countries of the region. However, there are certain challenges in Turkey’s relations with its regional neighbours. First of all, the use of neo-Ottomanist discourse creates problems and revives historical prejudices. As an example, Ahmet Davutoğlu’s speech in Sarajevo in 2009, full

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376 | birgül demirtaş of neo-Ottomanist references, led to many criticisms in the region. Second, the AKP leadership has started to pursue an assertive foreign policy towards some regional countries.3 The attempted coup and change of political system in Turkey from the parliamentary system to a sui generis presidential governmental system have affected Turkish foreign policy. The overcentralisation of the political system and rise of populism have had repercussions on Turkish foreign policy. Turkey’s struggle against the Fethullah Terrorist Organisation (Fethullahçı Terör Örgütü, FETÖ) creates problems in some of the Balkan countries. According to pro-government Turkish media outlets, there are still FETÖ-related schools and institutions in Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Kosovo. Despite Turkish attempts, it has not been possible so far to shut them all down. The Turkish policy to deport six Turkish citizens from Kosovo in 2018 created a political crisis in Kosovo (Sabah 2018). Another instance in which Turkey’s assertiveness was evident occurred during the Bulgarian general elections in May 2013 and in March 2017. Because of problems between the AKP and the Bulgarian Movement for Rights and Freedoms party (Dvizhenie za prava i svobodi, DPS), the AKP leadership supported the Freedom, Honour and People’s Party as opposed to the DPS in the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria in 2013. At the next elections in March 2017, the AKP supported the newly established DOST party in Bulgaria, with a similar result of failure. These events are again examples of assertive Turkish foreign policy that tries to involve itself in the internal affairs of neighbouring countries. Hence, the AKP’s policy towards the Balkans has been affected by its neo-Ottomanist and religious-oriented tendencies. Although soft-power elements have been part of the AKP’s Balkans policies, the rise of populist politics has had repercussions on its regional policies as well. Especially after the coup d’état attempt of 2016 and the accompanying authoritarian policies, the AKP’s attempts to intervene in internal politics have created further problems. Conclusion The Balkans have always had a special position in Turkey’s international relations since the foundation of the Republic. The geographical closeness, humanitarian ties and Ottoman legacy have always affected the relations between Ankara and other countries of the region. In addition, the dynamics of the global system and domestic politics have also had an impact on Turkish–Balkan ties. The structure of the global system is an important determinant of foreign policy. Whether the international system is unipolar, bipolar or For a comprehensive work on how religion has been used by the AKP as an instrument of assertive foreign policy, see Öztürk (2021).

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turkish foreign policy towards the balkans | 377 multipolar has had an impact on Turkish foreign policy. In addition, whether domestic politics has democratic or authoritarian characteristics has played an important role in the formulation of foreign policy as well. This chapter has analysed a century of Turkish foreign policy towards the Balkan countries. The main findings can be summarised as follows. First of all, Turkey tried to be a regional actor in Balkan politics in the period between 1923 and 2023. How this engagement took place and which methods it used were determined through the dynamics of the global system and the characteristics of the domestic politics. The main problem that Turkey has perceived in the region has been revisionism. Whenever a country tried to change its borders, Turkish decision makers acted against it. Bulgarian revisionism in the 1930s and Serbian revisionism in the 1990s created anxiety in Ankara. In order to be able to act against the revisionist policies of the region’s countries Turkish governments tried to cooperate with those actors in favour of the status quo. These actors were sometimes regional countries, as was the case in the 1930s, and sometimes they also included Western states, as was the case in the 1990s. Another priority for Turkey was the safety and well-being of Turkish and Muslim peoples in the region. Whenever their safety was endangered, Turkey pursued active policies to put an end to it. Turkey’s active diplomacy in the late 1980s to stop the Bulgarian assimilation policies and Turkey’s assertive policy during the Bosnian War to end the conflict are examples of this. In addition to these continuities, one can also mention changes in Turkish foreign policy in the recent years under the AKP. Although the first decade of AKP policies towards the region was characterised by soft-power politics, the second decade witnessed unilateral policies that involved intervention in the internal affairs of other countries. How Turkey’s interaction with the Balkan countries evolves will mainly depend on developments in Turkish internal politics. The next parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled to take place in 2023, will be crucial not just in terms of internal politics, but also in terms of the future course of Turkish foreign policy. However, the current tendency is that Turkey would continue to be an important regional actor and support stability and security in the region. The future course of Turkey–EU relations as well as Balkan countries’ accession process will also play an important role in Turkish– Balkan interactions. One can assume that Turkey’s decision makers will focus on softpower instruments, try to maintain the Ottoman legacy, and keep special relations with Muslim peoples and Turkish minorities in the foreseeable future. References Archiv der Gegenwart (1934), 9 February. Archiv der Gegenwart (1953), 28 February.

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378 | birgül demirtaş Ataöv, Türkkaya (1990), The Inquisition of the Late 1980s: The Turks of Bulgaria, Washington, DC: Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. Demirtaş, Birgül (2015), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy toward the Balkan Neighborhood: A Europeanized Foreign Policy in a De-europeanized National Context?’ Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 17(2): 123–40. Demirtaş, Birgül (2019), ‘Reconsidering Dilemmas of Turkish Foreign Policy: The Case of the Balkans’, Südosteuropa Mitteilungen 2019(5–6): 64–81. Demirtaş-Coşkun, Birgül (2001), Bulgaristan’la Yeni Dönem, Soğuk Savaş Sonrası Ankara–Sofya İlişkileri, Ankara: ASAM. Demirtaş-Coşkun, Birgül (2006), Turkey, Germany and the Wars in Yugoslavia: A Search for Reconstruction of State Identities? Berlin: Logos. Foreign Policy Institute (1989), The Tragedy of the Turkish Muslim Minority in Bulgaria: Documents, Ankara: Foreign Policy Institute. Gönlübol, Mehmet et al. (1982), Olaylarla Türk Dış Politikası, Cilt 1: 1919–1973, Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi, Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayınları. Höpken, Wolfgang (1994), ‘Zwischen Kulturkonflikt und Repression: Die Türkische Minderheit in Bulgarien’, in Valeria Heuberger et al. (eds), Nationen, Nationalitäten, Minderheiten Probleme des Nationalismus in Jugoslawien, Ungarn, Rumänien, der Tschechoslowakei, Bulgarien, Polen, der Ukraine, Italien und Österreich 1945–1990, Vienna: Verlag für Geschichte und Politik. Kirişci, Kemal (2009), ‘The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy: The Rise of the Trading State’, New Perspectives on Turkey 40: 29–56. Lütem, Ömer Engin (2000), Türk–Bulgar İlişkileri 1983-1989, Cilt 1: 1983–1985, Ankara: Avrasya Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi. Lütem, Ömer Engin (2006), Türk–Bulgar İlişkileri 1983–1989, Cilt II: 1986–1987, Ankara: Avrasya Stratejik Araştırmalar Merkezi. Özcan, Gencer (1995), ‘Continuity and Change in Turkish Foreign Policy in the Balkans’, in Günay Göksu Özdoğan and Kemal Saybaşılı (eds), The Balkans: A Mirror of the New International Order, Istanbul: Eren Yayınları. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2021), Religion, Identity and Power: Turkey and the Balkans in the TwentyFirst Century, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Sabah (2018), ‘FETÖ ile mücadele Balkanlar’da  . . .’, 13 July, https://www.sabah.com.tr/ dunya/2018/07/13/feto-ile-mucadele-balkanlarda, accessed 3 February 2023. Sander, Oral (1966), ‘The Balkan Cooperation in Perspective’, Turkish Yearbook of International Relations 7: 107–8. Şimşir, Bilal (1986), ‘The Latest Bulgarian Coup: (Forced) Changing of Turkish Names’, Turkish Review Quarterly Digest 1(6). Sugar, Peter F. (1977), Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule 1354–1804, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Türbedar, E. (2011), ‘Turkey’s New Activism in the Western Balkans: Ambitions and Obstacles’, Insight Turkey 13(3): 139–58.

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turkish foreign policy towards the balkans | 379 Türkeş, Mustafa (1994), ‘The Balkan Pact and Its Immediate Implications for the Balkan States 1930–34’, Middle Eastern Studies 30(1): 123–44. Váli, Ferenc A. (1971): Bridge across the Bosporus: The Foreign Policy of Turkey, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Zimová, Naďa (1988), ‘Kemalist Turkey’s Concept of Foreign Relations and Its Value in the Contemporary Context: Turkey and the Balkans in the Early 1930s’, Archív Orientální 56: 201–15.

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29 Turkey’s Policy towards Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Expectations, Failures and Achievements Bulent Aras

Introduction

T

urkish political thought during the latter part of the Ottoman era was dominated by three schools: Ottomanism, Islamism and Turkism (Akçura [1904] 1991). After the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, following the Turkish defeat in the First World War, and the establishment of the Turkish Republic, a fourth school came to outdo the others. This new school was Europeanisation or modernisation on the basis of the European model of social, economic, political and cultural development. After the end of the Second World War, and the global rise of the United States, Europeanisation was transformed into what is generally known as Westernisation. For several decades – the 1930s to the early 1990s – the idea of modernisation and Westernisation trumped the other three schools of thought, and became the dominant political discourse in the country and the principal ideational underpinning of many of Turkey’s internal policies as well as its post-Ottoman foreign policy. The republican state that emerged with the proclamation of the founding of the Turkish Republic in October 1923 faced several daunting tasks, including building a modern nation-state in lieu of the Ottoman imperial order and instilling a sense of nationhood and national identity in a population whose consciousness was essentially religious and imperial/multicultural. Moreover, this population included many diverse ethnic groups who had migrated to Turkey from neighbouring regions which once were part of the Ottoman Empire, such as the Balkans and the Middle East, as well as from both the north and the south Caucasus. In view of the many internal and external challenges faced by the young Republic, the overriding goals of its leaders were first to stabilise and consolidate the Republic, and then to build a modern nation and state. In order to achieve these goals, the country’s new political leadership needed to focus on domestic issues, and to the extent possible avoid 380

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central asia and the south caucasus | 381 unnecessary external distractions, in particular any kind of political or military entanglement. The famous dictum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey, ‘Peace at home, peace in the world’, effectively sums up the new Republic’s overriding priority to focus on domestic consolidation. One consequence of this new order of priorities of the Turkish state and its desire to avoid external entanglements was that the issue of the so-called ‘external Turks’(dış Türkler) was no longer viewed as a priority of Turkish foreign policy. This situation continued until approximately the end of the Cold War. Exceptions to this rule were the Turks of Hatay province, bordering Syria (the sanjak of Alexandretta), and Cyprus (Uzer 2011). However, the shifting priorities did not mean that Turkey had lost all interest in the Turks living outside its territorial borders. Rather, the changing regional and international conditions made it difficult for Turkey to interact with other peoples of Turkic origin even if it had wanted to. The main reason for Turkey’s inability to effectively interact with other Turks was that the Turks of central Asia and the Caucasus – despite earlier promises of the Bolsheviks to the Muslims of the Empire that they would be given a sort of autonomy – had been put into the rigid straitjacket of the newly established Soviet Union, hence their labelling as ‘esir Türkler’ (Turks under the Soviet yoke). In the following decades, the harsh Soviet fold engendered an almost impenetrable barrier between Turkey and the Turkic community, which was also true for the Turks in the Balkans under communist rule. In fact, for nearly seventy years, Turkey’s relations with the Turkic communities of the Russian Federation, central Asia and, in particular, those of the south Caucasus, were largely frozen. It was only in the late 1980s, when Mikhail Gorbachev initiated perestroika and glasnost, eventually leading to the fall of various iron curtains in Europe and Asia, that Turkey was able to resume its contacts with external Turks. However, until the official disintegration of the USSR, Turkey acted cautiously not to antagonise Moscow even while increasing its contacts with Soviet Turks. Once the USSR was dissolved, however, and all of the current independent Turkic republics emerged from its demise, Turkey’s cautious and defensive approach towards the so-called Turkic world gave way to the euphoric expectation of reclaiming a new Turkish sphere of influence. Thus, Turkey acted swiftly to recognise the newly independent Turkic republics and developed a rhetorical resuscitation in the prospects of the Turks as a global force. President Turgut Özal declared the twenty-first century as belonging to the Turks and his successor, Süleyman Demirel, sustained efforts to strengthen relations with the new republics. Turkey Rises to the Challenge Despite the magnitude and precipitousness of the geopolitical shifts as well as Turkey’s apparent unpreparedness for dealing with the emerging post-Soviet order, the Turkish

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382 | bulent aras leadership succeeded in formulating a new framework for the country’s foreign policy, which envisaged Turkey as an active geopolitical actor (Aral 2001). In this context, Ankara made a bold attempt to claim ‘the Turkic world’ as Turkey’s possible backyard. To that end, first, a new political rhetoric was adopted to set the tone for Turkey’s new orientation;1 second, official channels were utilised to develop personal relations with the post-Soviet leaders of the Turkic republics; third, political, economic, military and cultural tools were applied as Turkey invested in these emerging countries.2 Earlier, as part of a strategy of balancing its relations with Turkic states, Turkey had set up the Organisation of Black Sea Economic Cooperation and had included Russia, Armenia and even Serbia and Greece in it. This effort was also partly aimed at dispelling any fears that these countries might have had about Turkey’s ambitions. In particular Turkey made it clear that it did not harbour any territorial designs on any state either in the Balkans or elsewhere. Turkey’s engagement with the Turkic republics, as well as with countries bordering the Black Sea, was built on a broader attempt to optimise the demonstrative effect of the Turkish model (Ulusoy 2002). This strategy had the explicit support of Western powers. They saw the Turkish model as a shield against the potential attraction of Iran’s Islamic model of government and hence also as a barrier to Iranian influence in the post-Soviet Muslim-majority Turkic republics (Hunter 2001). In fact, the West actively promoted Turkey as a model of secular democracy and market economy in a Muslim-majority country that the newly independent republics in Central Asia could emulate. They seemed to assume that by emphasising secularism and nationalism instead of Islam, they could ensure the smooth transition of the Turkic republics to post-Soviet socio-economic and political systems and protect them from the threat of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’. The promotion and projection of the concept of Turkishness was in fact a reflection and extension of this particular understanding of Turkey’s role as a model of development. In this context, secular nationalism was seen as being able to fill a possible identity vacuum which might emerge in the newly independent states, and thus prevent other concepts and ideas based on religion – Islam – to shape the post-Soviet identities of these republics. Turkey’s policy towards central Asia and the south Caucasus has been focused on a broader ‘Turkic’ worldview, which carries clear ethnic-cultural tones. As such, Turkey gave priority to forging close relations with Azerbaijan, which was both culturally and geographically closest to Turkey among the new republics. In the early 1990s, for the first As well as declaring the twenty-first century ‘the century of the Turks’, Özal also made frequent references to the new geographical space ‘from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China’.  2 Turkey offered broad-scale scholarships and provided military assistance and economic investment, and Turkish Airlines started direct flights to regional capitals: see Robins (1993).  1

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central asia and the south caucasus | 383 time the Turkish public got the opportunity to watch interviews with ‘brothers’ speaking a language by and large mutually intelligible with Turkish and singing deeply affecting Azeri Turkish songs, which were internalised by the Turkish public as Turkish folklore. The end result was the intensification of Turkish interest in close ties with Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Turkey’s enthusiasm to become Azerbaijan’s patron was embraced by the Azerbaijani leadership, especially during the Abulfaz Elçibey presidency (June 1992– August 1993.) However, Elçibey’s Pan-Turkist tendencies and his advocacy of close Turkish–Azerbaijani military cooperation, especially against Armenia, aroused Russia’s fears and increased the possibility of Russian pushback.3 In addition, Iran’s influence in Azerbaijan by virtue of proximity, history and religious ties, and its close ties with Armenia, acted as a barrier for the realisation of Turkish ambitions. With Heidar Aliyev’s rise to power in 1993, Ankara had to make a sober assessment about the Russian legacy in the region. Even while Aliyev was initially seen as ‘Moscow’s man’ (Hunter 2001:12), as a statesman he largely helped define a stable course for Turkish–Azerbaijani relations by introducing a more realistic policy based on maximum cooperation with Turkey without antagonising Russia and putting pressure on Armenia for a return to the status quo ante. The Azerbaijani leadership, which faced geostrategic pressures from Russia, Iran and Armenia, also desired a cooperative outlet to the West as part of its balancing act. In this context, Azerbaijan saw Turkey as a useful conduit to link to the West. In fact, this particular function of Turkey largely underpinned bilateral Turkish–Azerbaijani relations until the late 2000s. Turkey’s relations with other central Asian and south Caucasian states followed a similar course. A euphoric beginning to establish a Turkish sphere of influence with the Turkic world gradually gave way to a more realistic economic and cultural cooperative framework. To that end, Turkey espoused a two-pronged approach. First, multilateralism was promoted to overcome the divergences between Turkish and respective central Asian states’ political cultures. The Turkish-Speaking Countries’ Summit, held from 1992, which evolved into the Turkish-Language-Speaking Countries’ Cooperation Council (Turkic Council) in 2009, indicated the political quest to invigorate a common ‘Turkic’ voice in the international arena. Even this most visible forum, however, failed to bring together all the central Asian republics as Uzbekistan was missing and Turkmenistan opted for active neutrality after 1995. As such, Turkish efforts to unify the Turkish brethren amounted to a limited engagement effectively with Kazakhstan and Bülent Aras (2000: 47) reminds us that ‘tensions between Turkey and Russia peaked in 1992 when Turkey maneuvered forces at the same time that it appeared that Armenian units might attack the Azerbaijani autonomous region of Nakhichevan. At the time, Russian commander Marshal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov declared that Turkish military intervention could result in the outbreak of a third world war.’

 3

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384 | bulent aras Kyrgyzstan besides a willing Azerbaijan, with Tajikistan kept out due to its closeness to Iran. Turkey also led efforts for closer cultural cooperation through the establishment of the International Organization of Turkic Culture (TURKSOY) as well as parliamentary cooperation via the Turkish Parliamentary Assembly (TURKPA). Ankara also advocated the entry of five central Asian republics into the Economic Cooperation Organization in 1992, but this has also failed to yield concrete results towards high levels of economic cooperation. Second, Turkey sought to develop bilateral ties particularly in economic and cultural areas. Even if the region accounted for just 1 per cent of overall Turkish foreign trade in the 1990s (Solak 2003), it has been a new market for Turkish companies and entrepreneurs. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were leading trading partners, followed by Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Turkey also provided scholarships, whereby more than 10,000 students were able to study in Turkey via state and private funding. The Turkish military also provided training and technical programmes for Turkic officers, who were supposed to lead the establishment of strong military and political links with Turkey. Efforts to close the language gap through TV channels such as TRT-Avrasya and TRT-INT failed to make substantial returns, even if Turkey has been able to improve its lot through cultural and economic exchanges, which have enabled the creation of a pro-Turkish elite within the new republics’ administrations. Yet even this framework failed to make the full potential of ties with the central Asian republics. The dispute with Uzbekistan over the political direction of the country as well as the new republics’ concerns about losing their long-awaited chance for independence had to give pause to Turkish aspirations for broader cooperation and even integration. In the case of Uzbekistan, Turkey’s hosting of the opposition leader Mohammad Salih was a challenge in relations, which were hit hard by the assassination attempt on Uzbek president Islom Karimov in 1999 and Tashkent’s pursuant decision to withdraw all students on scholarship programmes in Turkey. Despite later attempts, the Andijon events and Turkey’s clear public stance against Tashkent’s policies led to a low level of engagement until 2014 (Al Jazeera Türk 2016). Turkey as Energy Export Hub As a result of its pragmatic approach and Western support, Turkey has turned into one of Azerbaijan’s primary trading partners and a top exporter to that country (Kardaş & Macit 2015: 27). Turkey has also succeeded in expanding its economic ties with Georgia. Most importantly, Turkey turned the so-called pipeline wars to its favour in the 1990s, against other more economic routes for the export of Azerbaijani energy including a direct link through the Black Sea to Europe or through Iran to Asia. The Baku–Tbilisi route, which bypasses Armenia proper, became the norm for grand projects such as energy pipelines

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central asia and the south caucasus | 385 and railways, including the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline. Turkey’s energy cooperation with Azerbaijan has benefited the country itself as well as Georgia, by providing it with another source of energy supply besides Russia. Moreover, through the export of Azerbaijani energy to Europe, the south Caucasus has acquired greater security importance for the West, thus enhancing the region’s European and even transatlantic links. Although these connections have not yet been underlined by concrete Western security commitments to the states in the region, clearly the security of the energy routes has been of significance for the West. A missing link in this network of energy and security framework has been Armenia. Armenia’s inclusion in these schemes would have been both practical and geostrategically beneficial for overcoming the extant polarisation in the region. It might also have helped in the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, so far, this conflict has acted a serious barrier to Armenia’s inclusion in regional energy and transport networks. To offset this link, Turkey has extended military aid to Georgia and Azerbaijan and has advocated their integration within the transatlantic community. Turkey also sought a trans-Caspian link through Azerbaijan to the central Asian republics. This link basically provided an alternative for transporting Turkmen and Kazakh natural gas to Europe via Azerbaijan and Turkey, as part of the so-called Southern Gas Corridor. Yet obstacles such as the ongoing legal disputes on demarcation of the Caspian Sea and Russian and Iranian opposition, as well as the growing appeal of Chinese market and Turkmenistan’s overcontracted gas market, limited prospects for the projects discussed in this period. Turkey’s Central Asia and South Caucasus Policy under the AKP The domestic political transition in Turkey after the rise to power of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in 2003 led to a revision of Turkish foreign policy. As such Turkey’s declared foreign policy goals became minimising confrontation, especially with neighbours, and maximising cooperation with all possible actors, owing largely to Turkey’s unprecedented isolation due to the security establishment’s overarching role in setting foreign and security policy (see Özcan & Kut 1998). Geopolitical shifts also helped Turkey to pursue its goals more vigorously. In particular, American unilateralism in the post-9/11 era as well as the revitalisation of Turkey’s European aspirations helped Turkey to pursue its quest for soft power in its neighbourhood, which was articulated as a ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy (Davutoğlu 2010). This policy aimed to transform Turkey’s neighbours into potential partners. The main objectives of the AKP’s policies in the broader Central Asian region were: to seek accord with Russia, in order to de-securitise competition; to give new impetus to

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386 | bulent aras trade relations and pipeline diplomacy; to consolidate Azerbaijan’s position as ‘the most important strategic ally’ (Davutoğlu 2001: 127), with Georgia as the junior partner; and to ‘introduce new initiatives to fend off counter-alliances between Armenia, Russia, and Iran’ Davutoğlu 2001: 144). Overall this amounted to an emphasis on the south Caucasus and, relatively speaking, putting relations with the central Asian republics on the back burner. As such, relations with Russia gained primacy as Turkey’s primary trading partner in the region and post-1999 Turkey’s so-called EU vocation trumped the earlier enthusiasm about Turkic republics. Meanwhile, America’s focus on ‘the war on terror’ in the aftermath of 9/11 affected the geopolitics of the south Caucasus and opened up new opportunities for regional powers, particularly Turkey. Ankara thus intensified its energy cooperation with Baku and Tbilisi, and sought new ground for reconciliation with Yerevan, while largely limiting relations with the central Asian republics to trade interests and possible energy contracts. The Turkish–Armenian reconciliation process was built on Turkey’s wider ambition of enhancing its influence in the neighbourhood. Efforts at reconciliation with Armenia were also prompted by Turkey’s desire to eliminate unnecessary barriers to its accession to the EU, as well as to highlight its value to the US as a regional ally. Moreover, a reconciliation with Armenia would open up new possibilities for further regional integration in accordance with the Turkish quest for new export markets. The protocols signed in October 2009 between Turkey and Armenia essentially hit the insurmountable wall of nationalist reaction in both countries and also got further complicated by pressure from Baku to prioritise the resolution of territorial disputes before normalisation between Ankara and Yerevan. Beyond these determining factors, Russian and Iranian interests in the region, which could have been complicated by a possible Armenian–Turkish reconciliation, as well as a lack of US and EU interest in backing the process also sustained the status quo of non-peace. US inaction during the 2008 Georgian–Russian War, which demonstrated to Russia the limits of Western commitment to regional security, also symbolised a significant shift in the geopolitics of the region. Due to this shift, the Turkish strategy to establish a solid and secure connection between Azerbaijan and Georgia on the one hand, and the West on the other, was largely deprived of its transatlantic dimension. This tripartite link has been mostly limited to energy and commercial ties. At times, Turkey has faced tensions in its bilateral relations with its closest allies. Examples include Azerbaijan’s reaction to the Armenian protocols, including the closure of the Martyrs’ Mosque in 2009 (reopened in 2016) and the lowering of the Turkish flags in Baku’s Turkish cemetery, which undermined the oft-quoted ‘one nation, two states’ motto. In Georgia’s case, the Abkhaz minority’s political pressures to establish links with Turkey caused serious disagreements, which led Georgia to seize Turkish ships navigating

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central asia and the south caucasus | 387 to Abkhazia (TASS 2013). In general, Turkey found itself in the unenviable position of framing its national interests in accordance with the foreign policy priorities of its regional partners rather than enjoying a freer hand to open up new channels for cooperation with state and non-state actors. Despite Turkey’s growing interest in the south Caucasus, the early position of the AKP was characterised by a visible neglect of relations with the Turkic republics of central Asia. Turkey’s intensified efforts to finalise EU membership talks excluded the Turkic republics from Ankara’s priorities. As such, the Turkish-Speaking Countries’ Summit was not held between 2001 and 2009, except for the Antalya Summit in 2006. Yet Turkey instrumentalised its growing developmental aid projects to keep up its ties with the republics through the activism of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA), particularly in Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Growing commercial ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, however, were not reflected in political ties, particularly with the ongoing controversies with Tashkent. Turkish–Azerbaijani relations were also following this route. As such, Ankara saw fit to move away from a US-based approach to the south Caucasus to a more independent course. In the last decade, Turkey’s role as a military advisor has been visibly on the rise, while Azerbaijan has invested in Turkey to the tune of US$20 billion. The motto of ‘one nation, two states’ became closer and closer to reality due to the increasing accord between Baku and Ankara. As a result, Turkey sharpened its tone against Armenian encroachments on the fragile ceasefire, especially after the April 2016 clashes, which occasionally led to Russian accusations of Turkish ‘appeals . . . for war’ (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 2016). Turkish public opinion also stood firmly behind the Azerbaijani case to liberate Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) from Armenian occupation. From another angle, the NK conflict has proved an insurmountable barrier against Turkish efforts for normalisation and possible integration with the region. Turkey thus has sought to strengthen its position in the south Caucasus, which seemed only feasible through overcoming the roadblock of NK. While the Armenian assault in July 2020 effectively gave both Azerbaijan and Turkey an opportunity to go ahead with the long-awaited plan for liberating NK from Armenian control, things were also expedited by the diversion of attention from the region due to the pandemic and the watershed moment of the 2020 US presidential elections. Turkey’s assertive role in the NK war of September–November 2020 symbolised yet another Turkish decision to go it alone, again transcending its NATO membership and arguably seeking geopolitical clout while taking into account Russian reservations. The Russian–Armenian disagreements played their part in letting Turkey enter the fray, and the Turkish defence industry’s growing autonomy together with explicit Israeli support enabled Azerbaijani forces to break down Armenian fortifications in NK. Turkey

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388 | bulent aras implicitly acted in line with Israel to give Iran a bitter taste of disempowerment and defeat on its immediate border, which was also construed as a tit-for-tat for Iranian intervention in Syria. Despite later Russian attempts to own the ceasefire and deploy troops in NK, many analysts appeared dumbfounded by Turkish encroachment into the Russian sphere of influence. The Russians, far from pleased to see Turks expanding on the ground, convinced Armenia to acknowledge defeat and settle for new facts on the ground, that is, the emboldened Turkish role in the south Caucasus, and moved to manage peace at the Turks’ expense. Turkey smartly tried to allay fears through offering a common vision for peace. President Erdoğan quickly revived the Six-Country Regional Cooperation Platform to include Iran and Georgia as stakeholders (Reuters 2020; see also Seskuria 2021). This platform was established during the Russian–Georgian conflict in 2008 for the purpose of peaceful settlement, at Turkey’s initiative. As such, Georgian–Russian and Turkish–Armenian disputes were to be put on the back burner in favour of economic and commercial cooperation. The Russians did not oppose such a comprehensive scheme and confirmed their readiness to support Turkish–Armenian reconciliation. While Tbilisi appeared reticent on overcoming Georgia’s differences with Russia, in Yerevan Nikol Pashinyan, re-elected prime minister, seemed willing to consider opening up channels for Armenia’s normalisation with Turkey (Hürriyet Daily News 2021). Indeed, Turkey has ample grounds for cooperation with Russia and Iran in this region, given the shift of the main axis of geostrategic rivalry – between the US and China – to the Pacific, in that both central Asia and the south Caucasus are critical links in the north–south and east–west trade, transport and energy corridors. As such Turkey stands at the crossroads of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), beyond its significance for all three countries’ security and commercial links. Potential areas of cooperation are above all energy and transportation projects; keeping Azerbaijan and Armenia from engaging in further military adventures; and reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia, and between Russia and Georgia. However, the six-party format sounds quite ambitious and matters might rather proceed in bilateral or more limited formats. In any case, these six countries have complicated relations in the South Caucasus and such cooperation would not necessarily overcome regional differences. Should it materialise, this prospective cooperation would further limit the US role in the region. This might also result in a weakening in the pro-Western inclinations of regional states. Turkey’s emerging realism in foreign policy means that it would in any case opt for upholding its growing partnership with Azerbaijan and seek a direct route to central Asia, while coordinating with Russia and not alienating Iran. Ankara would avoid taking sides if a probable US–Russia or US–China crisis erupted so that it could preserve its interests in the region.

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central asia and the south caucasus | 389 The recent era also saw a further boost of Turkish interest in relations with the four Turkic republics. In fact, this came about first with the increasing role of Turkish nationalism in the Turkish government, which culminated in the de facto AKP coalition with the Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). The MHP has been a proponent of closer ties with the Turkic world and advocated a Pan-Turkist agenda in the region. Second, the Turkish government in this era tried to overcome its growing isolation through its closer relations with Russia. One element of this rapprochement was Turkish endeavours to benefit from the Russian sphere of influence from Belarus to Venezuela, Moldova and Serbia alongside managed geopolitical rivalry from Syria to Libya, the eastern Mediterranean, Ukraine and the south Caucasus. This approach was also extended to the central Asian republics, where Russian perceptions of Turkey as a ‘Western lackey’ were minimised. Third, Central Asia was in the midst of a possible transformation, whereby the East–West (Russia–US) rivalry was being superseded by Chinese efforts to project economic and infrastructural power. As such, association with Turkey appeared more a complementary and a safer option than a risky choice against Russia. One element of Turkish accommodation to the emerging realities in the region was Turkey’s effort to align the Middle Corridor, an initiative to connect Turkey to China through the Caucasus and central Asia, with the BRI, which was sealed in a Memorandum of Understanding in 2015 (see Guo & Fidan 2018). As such, Turkey aimed to connect the BTK railway, which was inaugurated in 2017, to Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan, while planning to integrate Turkmen gas into the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and Kazakh oil into the BTC pipeline. To that end, Ankara was involved in mediation talks between Baku and Ashgabat to overcome their differences on the Caspian Sea, which was seen as key to the prospects of trans-Caspian energy and transport corridors. Last but not least, successions in the republics also played into Turkish hands to develop relations. Above all in Uzbekistan, the leadership change ended low-key relations and gave a boost to exchanges and trade. Tashkent also joined the Turkic Council in 2019 and emerged as a target country for Turkey for improving political ties (Taldybaeva 2020). Turkey also employed its bilateral capacities to develop military and cultural ties with the central Asian republics. The growing Turkish defence industry developed sales to the republics, above all to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Turkey also provided technical and education support to modernise the Turkic republics’ militaries. In the cultural arena, Turkey opened up Yunus Emre Cultural Centres in Baku and Astana, took significant steps to replace Gülenist schools with ones run by the Maarif Foundation (a state body to establish educational institutions outside Turkey) and sent Turkish preachers among the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet). On a similar note, one major development in the cultural arena for further cooperation is Kazakhstan’s decision

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390 | bulent aras to overcome ‘Moscow’s political and cultural hegemony’ (Higgins 2018) and replace the Cyrillic alphabet with the Latin alphabet, like Azerbaijan, Turkey and Uzbekistan. Conclusions and Outlook for the Future In the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, there was a high degree of hope and enthusiasm among Turkish policymakers regarding Turkey’s prospects and opportunities in the broader central Asian region. Turkish policymakers hoped that the Turkic world would offer a chance for Turkey to resolve its eroding role in the transatlantic alliance. In other words, these high hopes entertained by Turkish foreign policymakers reflected Turkey’s search for a new orientation in its foreign policy as well as a new role within the emerging post-Soviet international order. Even though this thinking did not yield immediate results in the first two decades, it would not be a stretch to say that earlier moves laid the foundations of ever-growing ties with the Turkic republics and Turkish clout in the broader central Asian region. Following the realisation of energy and transportation projects, the change in the balance of power after the six-week clash in NK effectively sealed Turkey’s major stakeholder role. It is irrefutable that the Turkish–Azerbaijani partnership has hollowed out the Russian and even Iranian protective shield over Armenia. Despite question marks over the terms and prospects of the ceasefire and peace settlement, there has been a visible opening for normalisation between Turkey and Armenia, which would overall lead to a broader cooperation to include Azerbaijan and Russia. The possibility of a broad normalisation in the south Caucasus would also pave the way for strengthening Turkish–central Asian ties. First, the Turkish–Azerbaijani strategic partnership has broken the long-held belief in the futility of Turkic solidarity to alter geopolitical balances without arousing Russian backlash. Second, the possibility of opening up a direct land route between Turkey and Azerbaijan through the Zangezur corridor might set the stage for the long-awaited trans-Caspian link between Turkey and central Asia. Last but not least, Russian expansionism in its ‘near abroad’ from Georgia to Ukraine ended the relative comfort of authoritarian stability and induced new political leaderships in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan to hedge against a looming return of Russian hegemony. In that, eroding Western ties might, arguably, better enable Ankara to adopt to the seismic changes in the geopolitics of the region provided it could stay above growing US–China rivalries and espouse a more realistic approach to seek pragmatic ties with regional states in favour of trade and development. Yet such attempts at normalisation would also have to address five standing issues against Turkish commitment to comprehensive cooperation in the south Caucasus and central Asia. First and foremost is Turkey’s historically moulded and problematic relations with Armenia. These relations are affected by hostility between Armenia and

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central asia and the south caucasus | 391 Azerbaijan and Turkey’s close relations with the latter, and the bitter legacy of the 1915 massacre of Armenians under Ottoman rule. Such a background has excluded Armenia from regional energy and transport projects and networks, while structurally setting the stage for improved Russian and Iranian ties with Yerevan. Second is the ongoing hurdles in Russian–Georgian relations and the need to come to terms with the de facto situations in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in a broader view of Georgian territorial integrity. Third is Turkey’s complicated relations with the Russian Federation and Iran, which overshadow the current mood of cooperation. These countries also have influence in the region and therefore hold the key to the political dynamics of central Asia and the south Caucasus. In particular, the Iranian disappointment at Turkish–Azerbaijani advancements needs to be addressed not to let Iran play its traditionally well-equipped role as a spoiler. Fourth is the lack of a common border with Azerbaijan, and thus reach to central Asia, which amounts to a significant barrier for regional cooperation. Turkey is just barely connected to Azerbaijan’s autonomous region of Nakhichevan, by virtue of a border swap arrangement with Iran in the 1930s. The implication that the recent Russian-led ceasefire would open up this link needs to be seen in concrete action. Last but not least is the fact that the issues related to central Asia and the south Caucasus cannot be separated from other questions, that is, Russia’s relations with Syria and also Libya, which affect Turkey’s relations with those two countries. On that note, the Western and to a lesser extent Chinese commitment to regional peace and cooperation is yet another question mark. Provided the US, China and the EU could develop a supportive case for peace and cooperation in the south Caucasus, it would further enable Russian and Turkish initiatives to figure out regional schemes, which would ultimately form a stable ground for East–West cooperation. Despite ongoing challenges, Turkey is determined to retain a stronghold in central Asia and the south Caucasus, largely through energy cooperation and close relations with Azerbaijan. References Akçura, Yusuf ([1904] 1991), Üç Tarz-ı Siyaset, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. Al Jazeera Turk (2016), ‘Özbekistan’la inişli-çıkışlı ilişkiler’, 1 September, http://www.aljazeera. com.tr/haber/ozbekistanla-inisli-cikisli-iliskiler, accessed 3 February 2023. Aral, Berdal (2001), ‘Dispensing with Tradition? Turkish Politics and International Society during the Özal Decade 1983–93’, Middle Eastern Studies 37(1): 72–88. Aras, Bülent (2000), ‘Turkey’s Policy in the Former Soviet South: Assets and Options’, Turkish Studies 1(1): 36–58. Davutoğlu, Ahmet (2001), Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu, Istanbul: Küre Yayınları. Davutoğlu, Ahmet (2010), ‘Turkey’s Zero-Problems Foreign Policy’, Foreign Policy, 20 May, https:// foreignpolicy.com/2010/05/20/turkeys-zero-problems-foreign-policy/, accessed 3 February 2023.

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392 | bulent aras Guo, Xiaoli and Giray Fidan (2018), ‘China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Turkey’s Middle Corridor: “Win–Win Cooperation”?’ Middle East Institute, 26 June, https://www.mei.edu/ publications/chinas-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-and-turkeys-middle-corridor-win-win-cooperation, accessed 3 February 2023. Higgins, Andrew (2018), ‘Kazakhstan cheers new alphabet, except for all those apostrophes’, New York Times, 15 January, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/world/asia/kazakhstanalphabet-nursultan-nazarbayev.html, accessed 3 February 2023. Hunter, Shireen (2001), ‘Turkey, Central Asia and the Caucasus: Ten Years after Independence’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 1(2): 1–16. Hürriyet Daily News (2021), ‘Armenia acknowledges “positive signals” from Turkey’, 27 August, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/armenia-acknowledges-positive-signals-fromturkey-167412, accessed 3 February 2023. Kardaş, Şaban and Fatih Macit (2015), ‘Turkey–Azerbaijan Relations: The Economic Dimension’, Journal of Caspian Affairs 1(1): 23–46. Özcan, Gencer and Şule Kut (eds) (1998), En Uzun Onyıl: Türkiye’nin Ulusal Güvenlik ve Dış Politika Gündeminde Doksanlı Yıllar, Istanbul: Boyut Kitapları. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (2016), ‘Lavrov calls Turkish statements on Nagorno-Karabakh “unacceptable”’, 22 April, https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-lavrov-nagorno-karabakh-armeniaazerbaijan/27690053.html, accessed Friday, 3 February 2023 Reuters (2020), ‘Erdogan says Caucasus platform can turn new page in Turkey–Armenia ties – NTV’, 11 December, https://www.reuters.com/article/armenia-azerbaijan-turkey-idUSKBN28L21G, accessed 3 February 2023. Robins, Philip (1993), ‘Between Sentiment and Self-Interest: Turkey’s Policy toward Azerbaijan and the Central Asian States’, Middle East Journal 47(4): 593–610. Seskuria, Natia (2021), ‘Challenges of a six-country regional cooperation platform for Georgia’, Middle East Institute, 3 February, https://www.mei.edu/publications/challenges-six-country-regional-cooperation-platform-georgia, accessed 3 February 2023. Solak, Fahri (2003), ‘Türkiye–Orta Asya Cumhuriyetleri Dış Ticaret İlişkilerinin Gelişimi’, Marmara Üniversitesi İİBF Dergisi 18(1): 69–96. Taldybaeva, Dinara (2020), ‘Türkiye-Özbekistan ilişkilerinin yeni dönemi’, Eurasian Research Institute, Akhmat Yassawi University, 25 October, https://www.eurasian-research.org/publication/turkiye-ozbekistan-iliskilerinin-yeni-donemi/?lang=tr, accessed 3 February 2023. TASS (2013), ‘Sukhum accuses Georgia of seizing Turkish merchant ships sailing from Abkhazia’, 16 July, https://tass.com/russia/697231, accessed 3 February 2023 Ulusoy, Hasan (2002), ‘A New Formation in the Black Sea: BlackSeaFor’, Perceptions 6(4): 97–106. Uzer, Umut (2011), Identity and Turkish Foreign Policy: The Kemalist Influence in Cyprus and the Caucasus, London and New York: I. B. Tauris.

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30 Turkey and the Middle East: From Defensive-Pragmatic Engagement to Offensive-Ideological Interventionism Serhun Al (Izmir University of Economics)

Introduction

T

he psyche of state- and nation-building of modern Turkey was and has always been a critical reflection and juxtaposition of the imperial legacies and experiences of the once-glorious yet inescapably disintegrated Ottoman Empire. The formerly self-confident empire that survived more than five centuries with the control of vast territories across southeastern Europe, the Middle East and north Africa was ultimately confronted with the question of survival and sovereignty under the stress of all-encompassing European modernity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In addition, the defeats in the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 and the First World War paved the way to almost a semi-colonial status for the Ottomans with very limited sovereignty. The Treaty of Sèvres, signed between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman Empire in August 1920, was the last nail in the coffin; under it the remaining Ottoman territories would be further carved up by the Greeks, British, French and Italians along with the establishment of Armenian and potential Kurdish states in eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia. The War of Independence (1919–23) under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal rejected the terms of Sèvres and the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne in July 1923 mostly recognised the territorial sovereignty of modern Turkey (except the question of Mosul). Despite this accomplishment, anxieties, insecurities and suspicions with regard to the Western powers on the one hand and Kurds and Arabs on the other continued throughout the Republic (Al 2019). In other words, the ways in which Ottoman Empire collapsed very much informed the Republican raison d’état. Defensive logic over territorial integrity and national sovereignty along with cautious foreign relations based on international and regional balances of power generally defined Republican statecraft. 393

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394 | serhun al Hence, modern Turkey’s engagement with the Middle East was largely driven by defensive Realpolitik until the end of the twentieth century. This is why scholars have been puzzled by the increasing militarisation and offensiveness of contemporary Turkish foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East in the twenty-first century. The debates have been mostly centred on the ideological choices (neo-Ottoman and Islamist) of the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) since 2002 under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. This chapter will broadly outline Turkey’s engagement with the Middle East since the early Republic and discuss the main continuities and ruptures until today. The Interwar Years, the Second World War and the End of the Multipolar World British and French colonial rule reached the Middle East and north Africa in the nineteenth century. While the British took control of Egypt and Yemen, the French were in control of Algeria and Tunisia. The quest for Arab self-determination from the Ottomans mostly failed as well with the establishment of British and French mandates in the post-Ottoman political order in the Middle East. The secret Sykes–Picot agreement between Britain and France in 1916 had already dashed the hopes of Arab nationalists and carved up the post-Ottoman Middle East based on the colonial powers’ spheres of influence and control. In the aftermath of the First World War, while Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan became British mandates, Syria and Lebanon became French mandates. In addition, Kurdish hopes for self-determination also failed with the breaking down of the Treaty of Sèvres (Bajalan 2019). For Turkey, the post-Ottoman order entailed radical nation- and state-building in the 1920s and 1930s. Turkish nationalism and secularism along with a strong centralised state became the main pillars of Mustafa Kemal’s modernisation project. In terms of international relations and regional politics, early Republican Turkey’s main aspiration was to protect the newly established borders after Lausanne and pursue a cautious and defensive engagement with the outside world. For the particular Middle East policy of Turkey in the interwar years, the conventional scholarly narrative has mostly been disengagement and isolation since Kemalist Turkey turned its face politically and culturally towards the West. However, more revisionist studies show that Turkey in fact did not fully turn its back to the Middle East; instead ‘Turkey’s engagement with the Middle East in the interwar period was in fact much more multifaceted, intricate, purposeful, and intriguing than the dominant narrative of disengagement and disinterest allows’. (Bein 2017: 6). For instance, the ruling intelligentsia harboured the idea of Kemalist modernisation as a model for the Arab states and broader non-Western societies through the mechanisms of public diplomacy. Yet this did not necessarily turn into a policy of exporting Kemalism via offensive or belligerent means. Iran, for example, under the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi

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turkey and the middle east | 395 openly aspired to the secular institutions and socio-economic progress of Turkey in the 1930s (Hintz 2020). The strong Turkish nationalist ethos of the early Republic also resonated with the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist movements in the Middle East and elsewhere (Kuyumcuoğlu 2019: 117). However, the ongoing post-Ottoman territorial disputes and uncertainties shaped mutual doubts and suspicions with regard to Turkish–Arab relations and the broader regional geopolitics. There were two significant incidents in the early Republic that created and carried contested memories and territorial anxieties, and still do so today. The first one was the Mosul dispute between Turkey and Iraq under British mandate. Mosul was included in the Turkish National Pact borders of 1920 due to the dominating Kurdish and Turkmen population in the region, to which the Kemalist movement felt a demographic affinity. It was argued to be a non-Arab territory and thus should belong to Turkey. On the other hand, the British wanted the Sunni-dominated Mosul to be part of Iraq in order to offset the majority Shiite population and benefit from the oil trophy. The dispute was taken to the League of Nations and Mosul was granted to Iraq in 1926 (Coşar & Demirci 2006). Although Turkey resentfully accepted the Mosul decision, it has remained a potential future Turkish territory in the minds of many policymakers and diplomats (Bein 2017). The second incident was the territorial disintegration of Alexandretta/Hatay from Syria in 1937 and its integration with Turkey in 1939 through a referendum. Syrian Arab nationalists in particular and Arab nationalists in the broader region were angered with the loss of Hatay and bred distrustful perceptions with regard to Turkey’s potential territorial and political ambitions in the Middle East. Particularly, Turkish–Syrian relations after the Hatay dispute were mostly uneasy and resentful throughout the twentieth century (Bein 2017: 216; Kuyumcuoğlu 2019: 119–20). However, one should note that Turkey’s engagement with the Middle East has always been set within the broader regional geopolitics and the international balance of power. In the multipolarity of the 1930s, fascist Italy under the rule of Mussolini and Hitler’s Nazi Germany were in pursuit of aggressive, belligerent and expansionist policies which alarmed Britain, France and the USSR. Turkey was particularly concerned about Italy’s ambitions in the Mediterranean and the Balkans, which raised its security concerns as well as the ideological distresses with regard to the Kemalist modernisation project. Turkey mostly had a cordial and cooperative relationship with Britain and France on the one hand and the Soviets on the other in those alarming days of fascist expansion (Hale 2013: 250). In the days of increasing political anxieties and high tensions towards the eve of the Second World War, the Treaty of Saadabad – a non-aggression pact – was signed in 1937 by Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan. The fascist aggression and revisionist policies

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396 | serhun al eventually led to the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 and Turkey had to reposition itself in this multipolar (im)balance of international relations. The increasing Soviet territorial claims over eastern Anatolia and the Turkish Straits during and after the Second World War – the 1925 Soviet–Turkish Treaty of Friendship and Non-Aggression was not renewed due to these conditions – also deepened Turkey’s threat perceptions and ultimately pushed Turkey to align itself with the US-led Atlantic alliance in the late 1940s and 1950s (Aydın 1999). Thus, Turkey benefited politically from the Truman Doctrine in 1947 and economically from the Marshall Plan against the increasing Soviet threat as the new era of the Cold War was about to change the strategic value of the Middle East and Turkey in world politics (Bein 2017: 221–2; Hale 2013: 250–1). The Cold War, Bipolar World and New Rules of Engagement in the Middle East In the early days of the Cold War, Turkey was in the process of transformation both in domestic politics and in international relations. While the end of the single-party regime introduced multi-party elections and the election of an opposition leader, Adnan Menderes from the Democrat Party, in 1950, almost thirty years of nonalignment policy in world politics ended with it. First, Turkey deployed military troops to the Korean War in 1950 on the side of the UN with the US against North Korea aided by communist China. This was a ticket for Turkey to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952 and officially became a member of the US-led anti-communist alliance (Vander Lippe 2000). The strategic value of Turkey for the West was its broader potential for the defence of the Middle East against the spread of Soviet communism. In turn, Turkey would benefit from economic and military support by the West against an ideology (communism) that the founding Republican worldview was not fond of. While Turkey in the 1950s was rapidly integrating into the Western alliance with limited autonomy in the global power rivalry, many Arab states in the Middle East were in the process of decolonisation and independence from European powers and some such as Egypt and Syria became subject to greater political and ideological influence from the Soviet Union despite their nonalignment. The main task of Adnan Menderes’s government in the 1950s was to enlarge the pro-Western alliance in the Middle East and reduce the spread of Soviet engagement in the region. One significant example of Turkish diplomatic efforts in the region was the establishment of the Baghdad Pact in 1955 (Hale 1992: 681–2). The Baghdad Pact (also known as the Middle East Treaty Organization, later renamed the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) in 1959) was initially signed by Turkey and Iraq in order to prevent the spread of communism in the region. Iran, Pakistan and the UK also joined later and the US participated as an observer in this anti-Soviet defence

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turkey and the middle east | 397 alliance (Hintz 2020). The Menderes government proposed Jordan and Lebanon to join as well but they declined (Bein 2017: 222–3). Turkey’s pro-Western and anti-Soviet initiatives in the Middle East were opposed by Egypt following the Free Officers Movement-led revolution in 1952 along with the political ascendancy of Gamal Abdel Nasser as a fiercely anti-Western and Arab nationalist leader. Syria, after its 1954 coup d’état with socialist and Arab nationalist influence, also depicted Turkey as an arm of Western imperialism (Bein 2017: 223). Under these ideological and geopolitical rivalries of the Cold War context, Turkey was not hesitant to recognise the independence of Israel in 1949, being the first Muslimmajority state to acknowledge the main nemesis of Arab nationalists. As the two major US allies in the region, Turkey and Israel quickly developed, albeit covertly, a strategic relationship including economic and security-based cooperation in the 1950s and 1960s (Uzer 2020). Nasser’s popularising political discourse based on pan-Arab unification and anti-Westernism in the Middle East was threatening for Turkey and Israel as well as most of the Gulf monarchies. The unification of Egypt and Syria as the United Arab Republic in 1958 (which lasted until 1961) was indeed an alarming incident for Turkey and Israel. The Turkish efforts to hold a front against Soviet penetration in the Middle East had another major blow when the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq, under British influence, was overthrown in 1958. Iraq was out of the Baghdad Pact and the headquarters moved to Ankara. When the Islamic Revolution took over Iran in 1979, CENTO collapsed fully (Hintz 2020). The relative assertiveness of Turkey in the Middle East under the rule of Adnan Menderes began to decline after the military coup of 1960, which overthrew Menderes, who was later executed in 1961 (Bein 2017: 229). Although Turkey was part of NATO and the Western alliance, the relationship was not seamless and Turkey did not necessarily act like a satellite state. The major dispute in the Turkish–Western alliance centred on the Cyprus conflict in the 1960s and peaked with the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974 under the prime ministry of Bülent Ecevit, a rarely seen leftist leader in the modern history of Turkey. In this conflict between two NATO members (Greece and Turkey), the US applied an arms embargo and put significant economic pressures on Turkey (Aydın 1999). This pushed Turkey to build a more cordial relationship with Arab states in the 1970s for economic opportunities and energy access in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. In addition, Turkey needed diplomatic support from Arab states on Cyprus (Hale 1992: 681–2). In these days of the Soviet threat on the one hand and the nationalist concerns over Cyprus on the other, the Iranian Islamic Revolution in 1979 and its potential spillover effects added a new threat for Turkey, particularly for the military, which traditionally embraced the role of guardian of the Kemalist secular reforms and modernisation project. Besides, domestic polarisation and urban civil conflicts between left-wing groups and

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398 | serhun al right-wing organisations along with the emerging ethnic challenges of pro-Kurdish activism led to the notorious military coup on 12 September 1980. In the transition process to civilian rule in 1983, a centre-right leader, Turgut Özal, was elected as prime minister (until 1989, then continuing as president until 1993), and his neoliberal economic policies along with his political desires to make Turkey a greater power in its broader hinterland defined the Turkish vision and increasing assertiveness in the post-Cold War international and regional order. Post-Cold War Order, American Hegemony, New Opportunities and Threats for Turkey in the 1990s The end of the bipolar world and the elimination of the Russian threat introduced new economic and political opportunities for Turkey across the Balkans, Caucasus and the Middle East where Turkey had religious, ethnic and Ottoman-imperial ties. As the Turkish economy was becoming more integrated with the global and regional markets under Özal’s liberal policies, economic priorities and financial interests particularly pushed for multilateralism in Turkey’s international relations. The capitalisation of cultural aspects (such as shared history, religion, customs and so on) with regard to Ottoman heritage was instrumental in the rising engagement of Turkey with the Balkans and the Middle East. This is why Turgut Özal is conventionally framed as one of the leading actors in the mounting neo-Ottoman reimagination of Turkey’s regional engagement in the 1990s (Hale 2013: 254–5). Despite new opportunities, the immediate post-Cold War era unfolded with new threats and geopolitical risks on the southern borders of Turkey. First, the Gulf War of 1990–1, where the US-led coalition sought to stop the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq’s tyrannical leader Saddam Hussein, put Turkey under great stress. While the war and the unfolding humanitarian crisis led to tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurdish refugees fleeing to Turkey’s southeastern border for help, the subsequent establishment of a no-fly zone in northern Iraq by the US-led coalition led to de facto Kurdish autonomy in that region (Olson 1992). Since Kurdish self-determination inside and outside Turkey was perhaps one of the biggest security threats for the Republic, this was a puzzling moment. While Özal was more supportive of US intervention in Iraq and establishing closer ties with the Iraqi Kurdish leaders, such as Jalal Talabani and Mesud Barzani, the Turkish military was more uneasy about the new Kurdish autonomy in Iraq and how it could potentially lure the Turkish Kurds (Olson 1992; Tuğdar & Al 2018). In fact, the late 1980s and early 1990s were troubling years for the Turkish military as the armed Kurdish insurgency by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) became very powerful and popular among the Kurds of Turkey. The easy mobilisation of PKK militants across the southern borders limited Turkey’s counter-

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turkey and the middle east | 399 insurgency efforts and frequent Turkish military incursions in Iraqi Kurdistan became a standard procedure throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The second significant crisis that emerged in the 1990s was again related to Turkey’s Kurdish question. Syria under the rule of Hafez al-Assad had become a significant refuge for the PKK’s training and political activities under the command of its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, since the 1980s. Öcalan first fled Turkey for Syria in 1979. As Turkish– Syrian relations were historically tense due to the Hatay dispute and other issues such as Turkey’s control of water resources flowing to Syria, Öcalan’s refuge in Syria pushed Turkey to consider military options against Assad. Yet, thanks to coercive pressures from Ankara, Damascus expelled Öcalan from Syria in 1998 and later he was captured with the help of US intelligence in Kenya and returned to Turkey, where he still remains in the island prison of İmralı today (Al 2021; Kardaş 2010: 117; Özkan 2019). Despite economic relations, Turkey remained mostly guarded against Iran in the 1990s as well. First, Iran was becoming one of the most important focal points of US foreign policy in the 1990s as it was believed to have nuclear ambitions, to support antiUS armed groups in the Middle East such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and to be willing to export the Islamic Revolution throughout the region. As a significant US ally and a member of NATO, Turkey also shared many of these concerns. The protection of the Kemalist secular state was a top priority for the Turkish military. In addition, there was a widespread conviction that Iran was also supporting the PKK against Turkey. The anti-Israeli discourse and policies of Iran and Syria as well as Turkey’s need for reliable intelligence on the PKK led to closer strategic ties between Turkey and Israel in the 1990s, and in February 1996 the two countries signed the Military Training and Cooperation Agreement (Hale 2013: 227–8). Economic relations and trade activities increased as well in the 1990s. But Turkey was also seeking greater economic transactions with the Arab states in the region, particularly the Gulf states, and turning a blind eye to the Palestinian question was not an easy task for it (Uzer 2020). Although Turkey walked this tightrope with some success until the 2000s, the ideological engagement with the Palestinian cause by the AKP and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in the 2000s led to significant crises with Israel as well as many Arab states. The Rise of AKP Hegemony in the Early 2000s and the So-called ‘New Turkey’ in the Middle East Coming to power in 2002 with claims of being an anti-establishment party against the Kemalist bureaucratic and military dominance in Turkish politics, the AKP branded itself as a conservative Muslim-democratic party with the political agenda of EU membership, democratisation, liberal economic development, and broader political and civil rights for the wider segments of society. The US and many European states warmly

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400 | serhun al welcomed the rule of the AKP and Erdoğan as an example and model of ‘moderate Islam’ and ‘Muslim democracy’ in the chaotic days of the War on Terror in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Still, Turkey’s 2003 parliamentary rejection of support for the US invasion of Iraq led to an American disappointment. This idea of ‘being a model’ resonated with the AKP’s regional outlook as well, particularly under the increasing influence of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who was Erdoğan’s foreign policy advisor from 2003 to 2009, minister of foreign affairs from 2009 to 2014 and finally prime minister from 2014 to 2016. Like Özal in the early 1990s, Davutoğlu too had a vision of Turkey as a regional and rising power and a centre of gravity across the former Ottoman territories and beyond. Yet, while Özal was perhaps more transactional and pragmatic in his outlook of Turkey as a regional power, Davutoğlu laid his understanding of foreign affairs on a more ideological and civilisational aspect. He emphasised the Sunni Islamic character of Turkey along with Ottoman nostalgia in his search for Turkish leadership in the Muslim World and even beyond (Dalacoura 2021: 1129). Thus, sympathy with Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated groups was one of the underlying approaches in the Middle East (Özkan 2019). However, this ideological tone was more restrained before the Arab uprisings of 2011 and Turkey was able to develop a more pragmatic approach under its ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy, where economic cooperation, visa-free arrangements, security partnerships and friendly leadership visits mostly created a positive and peaceful environment (Kutlay & Öniş 2021). Particularly, the close relations between the Assad and Erdoğan families, considering the long history of Turkish–Syrian disputes and tensions, created a very optimistic political atmosphere. Capitalising on mostly soft-power diplomacy, Turkey even attempted to be a mediator state between Syria and Israel before Erdoğan became more vocal about the Palestinian cause and criticised Israel’s war on Gaza in 2008 (Kutlay & Öniş 2021: 1086). Erdoğan’s heated temper with Israeli President Shimon Peres at the 2009 Davos meeting caused a major rupture in the Turkish–Israeli strategic alliance, and this later deteriorated with the Mavi Marmara crisis in May 2010, when the Israeli armed forces raided a Turkish flotilla seeking to break a blockade of Gaza, killing ten Turkish citizens. Turkey’s relations with Israel have remained bitter since, then despite a reconciliation agreement in 2016 (Dalacoura 2021: 1136). The economic engagement with the Gulf states in the 1990s continued in the early 2000s, when Saudi Arabia and others became enticing markets for the expanding Turkish construction and consumer goods industries (Hintz 2020). Although Turkey’s rejection of support for the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was welcomed by Iran and trade relations remained steady, the growing Shia influence of Tehran on Baghdad concerned Ankara and Turkey instead built a more strategic relationship with the Kurdistan region of Iraq

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turkey and the middle east | 401 to balance Iran as well as to directly access the oil resources in Kurdistan. Considering Turkey’s historically hostile approach to the Iraqi Kurds, the AKP’s rapprochement with Mesud Barzani in Erbil was one of the most significant positive outcomes of the ‘zero problems with neighbours’ policy (Tuğdar & Al 2018). Overall, the idea of making Turkey a major regional hub for economic, diplomatic and cultural activities was to some extent achieved in the AKP’s first decade. Interestingly, Amit Bein (2017: 234) argues that this was in fact the realisation of the Kemalist vision in the interwar years of the twentieth century, only on a much larger scale. Yet the unforeseen Arab uprisings of 2011 against economic difficulties and authoritarian rule across the Middle East unprecedentedly changed the geopolitical dynamics and international balance of power in the region. Turkey’s increasing ideological engagement and militarist interventionism in the region after 2011 transformed the heyday of ‘zero problems with neighbours’ into a more turbulent era (Altunışık 2020). The Post-Arab Spring Era, New Regional Disorder and Turkey’s Ideological Engagement in the Middle East The popular civilian uprisings, known as the Arab Spring, that started in Tunisia in late 2010 and spread across the region in 2011 were in demand of better economic prospects and the end of long-lasting dictatorial regimes in the region. While the tyrannical leaders of Egypt and Tunisia stepped down peacefully, the demonstrations in Yemen, Syria and Libya ended with civil wars and failed states. In Turkey, the AKP under Erdoğan, with Davutoğlu’s plans for regional design, perceived this moment as an opportunity to expand Ankara’s political influence in the Middle East. The political and ideological calculation was to support the Islamist opposition movements, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, against the mostly secular-authoritarian regimes. If these Islamist groups were the ruling parties in their states, Turkey would easily become the long-desired ‘Big Brother’ of the Muslim world. The fulcrum of this intention was Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohammed Morsi, was elected as the president in 2012 and warmly congratulated by Turkey. Yet the military coup against the Morsi government by General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in July 2013 and the suspension of the 2012 Egyptian constitution was a major setback to Turkey’s ideological calculation. In fact, the American reluctance to oppose Sisi’s military takeover deeply upset Erdoğan and his political rhetoric gradually turned anti-Western. This was also a domestic fear for Erdoğan since he had been in an ideological confrontation with the Turkish military since the 1990s. Turkey’s support of popular Arab uprisings and desires for political transitions towards Islamist governments significantly disrupted the relations with the Gulf monarchies, whose regimes were under direct threat from these widespread protests.

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402 | serhun al Qatar has remained perhaps one of the very few states in the region that today continues its friendly and strategic cooperation with Turkey. Since Qatar has built warm relations with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist groups in the region (as well as Iran), it has been on the same page as Turkey and resented by the other Gulf countries, most importantly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Turkey has established a military base in Qatar and has been providing military training for the Qatari armed forces. When Qatar was under Saudi blockade in 2017, Turkey also provided food assistance and economic support (Altunışık 2020). Meanwhile, as Libya turned into a spiral of civil wars after the death of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, it gradually became a site for geopolitical rivalry over the Eastern Mediterranean, with Turkey and Qatar on one side and Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the other. Turkey even decided on a direct military intervention in 2019–20. While these crises did not necessarily create direct military and security threats on the immediate borders of Turkey, the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – a Salafist terrorist organisation – in 2014 was a game changer in Turkey’s threat perceptions and security needs. ISIS was quickly able to capture large territories across Iraq (such as Mosul and Sinjar) and Syria (such as Raqqa, Deir al-Zour and Tal Abyad). The first resistant military encounter against ISIS was carried by Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria. The liberation of Kobane in northern Syria by the PKK-affiliated YPG fighters (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, People’s Protection Units) with US air defence support was a major setback for ISIS. As Turkey’s peace process with the PKK was becoming volatile by early 2015, the US-supported Kurdish victories and the de facto Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria were tremendously frustrating for President Erdoğan and his regional calculations (Al 2021). The result was a loss for Erdoğan in the June 2015 Turkish elections and renewed military clashes with the PKK in the major cities of eastern Turkey. Since a coalition government could not be formed, Erdoğan was able to win a governing majority in November 2015 re-elections. By May 2016, Erdoğan forced Davutoğlu to resign from the prime ministry. Although Erdoğan wanted to topple the Assad regime with his support for Islamist opposition armed groups, Russian and Iranian military support to Damascus changed the dynamics by September 2015. Instead, Turkey has focused on establishing a safe zone across northern Syria against the YPG and ISIS threat. Thus, military incursions in northern Syria started with Operation Euphrates Shield (August 2016), later continuing with Operation Olive Branch (January 2018) against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin; and the final intervention took place in October 2019 with Operation Peace Spring. Although the US–Kurdish alliance in northern Syria severed ties between Ankara and Washington, the US did not strongly oppose the Turkish invasion of northern Syria. All of this offensive militarisation of Erdoğan’s regional politics also served his consolidation of

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turkey and the middle east | 403 authoritarian rule backed by Turkish nationalists inside Turkey (Kutlay & Öniş 2021: 1087). Today, the Turkish military under Erdoğan’s command has active duties and presence in countries such as Qatar, Somalia, Libya, Iraq and Syria. Conclusion When one reviews the centennial of Turkey’s engagement with the Middle East since the founding of the Republic, one can easily come to the conclusion that defensive Realpolitik until the end of 1990s gradually shifted towards a more offensive-militarist engagement with ideological motivations from the 2000s. However, it would perhaps be too crude to say this has been a major rupture in the century of the Republic since many different governments and leaders from the early Republic onwards entertained the idea of Turkey playing a greater role in the region. Turning this idea into an action was always dependent on an abundance of resources domestically and ripe conditions regionally and globally. Consequently, the recent change in the global balance of power in the twenty-first century, from US hegemony towards a more multipolar and uncertain world where Russia and China have become more assertive, has definitely contributed to Turkey’s vague multilateralism and search for autonomy from the Atlantic alliance. Erdoğan’s autocratic assertiveness and agency further enabled offensive militarisation and interventionism under such conditions. In the post- Erdoğan era, Turkey is more likely to ease the offensive and ideological engagement in the Middle East and return to more defensive-pragmatic Realpolitik, especially if the more secular and proWestern political groups come to power. Yet Turkey’s military and political posture as a regional power will continue to exist beyond the different political orientations of Turkish governments. References Al, Serhun (2019), Patterns of Nationhood and Saving the State in Turkey: Ottomanism, Nationalism and Multiculturalism, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Al, Serhun (2021), ‘Kurdish Politics in the Global Context’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of International Studies, Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.659, accessed 5 February 2023 Altunışık, Meliha B. (2020), ‘The New Turn in Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East: Regional and Domestic Insecurities’, in Silvia Colombo and Andrea Dessi (eds), Fostering a New Security Architecture in the Middle East, Brussels: Foundation for European Progressive Studies / Rome: Istituto Affari Internazionali, pp. 91–114. Aydın, Mustafa (1999), ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy: Historical Framework and Traditional Inputs’, Middle Eastern Studies 35(4): 152–86. Bajalan, Djene Rhys (2019), ‘The First World War, the End of the Ottoman Empire, and Question of Kurdish Statehood: A “Missed” Opportunity?’ Ethnopolitics 18(1): 13–28.

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404 | serhun al Bein, Amit (2017), Kemalist Turkey and the Middle East: International Relations in the Interwar Period, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Coşar, Nevin and Sevtap Demirci (2006), ‘The Mosul Question and the Turkish Republic: before and after the Frontier Treaty 1926’, Middle Eastern Studies 42(1): 123–32. Dalacoura, Katerina (2021), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East: Power Projection and Post-Ideological Politics’, International Affairs 97(4): 1125–42. Hale, William (1992), ‘Turkey, the Middle East and the Gulf Crisis’, International Affairs 68(4): 679–92. Hale, William (2013), Turkish Foreign Policy since 1774, 3rd ed., Abingdon: Routledge. Hintz, Lisel (2020), ‘Turkey’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East: An Identity Perspective’, in Güneş Murat Tezcür (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 563–84. Kardaş, Şaban (2010), ‘Turkey: Redrawing the Middle East Map or Building Sandcastles?’ Middle East Policy 17(1): 115–36. Kuyumcuoğlu, Ozan (2019), ‘Geç Osmanlı’dan Erken Cumhuriyet’e Siyasal Seçkinlerin Suriye’ye Bakışı: Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın ve Falih Rıfkı Atay Örnekleri’, Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 16(4): 107–26. Kutlay, Mustafa and Ziya Öniş (2021), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy in a Post-Western Order: Strategic Autonomy or New Forms of Dependence?’ International Affairs 97(4): 1085–104. Olson, Robert (1992), ‘The Kurdish Question in the Aftermath of the Gulf War: Geopolitical and Geostrategic Changes in the Middle East’, Third World Quarterly 13(3): 475–99. Özkan, Behlül (2019), ‘Relations between Turkey and Syria in the 1980s and 1990s: Political Islam, Muslim Brotherhood and Intelligence Wars’, Uluslararasi Iliskiler 16(Special Issue): 5–25. Tuğdar, Emel E. and Serhun Al (2018), ‘Iraqi Kurdistan Independence Aspirations and the NeoOttomanist Turkey’, in A. Danilovich (ed.), Federalism, Secession, and International Recognition Regime, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 127–45. Uzer, Umut (2020), ‘The Downfall of Turkish–Israeli Relations: A Cold Peace between Former Strategic Allies’, Israel Affairs 26(5): 687–97. Vander Lippe, John M. (2000), ‘Forgotten Brigade of the Forgotten War: Turkey’s Participation in the Korean War’, Middle Eastern Studies 36(1): 92–102.

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31 Turkey and Africa: Once Miles Apart, Now Reliable Allies? Elem Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu (Social Sciences University of Ankara)

Introduction

T

urkey’s African involvement is not new. The presence of the Ottoman Empire, predecessor of the Turkish Republic, in Africa goes back to the early sixteenth century when the Ottomans conquered Egypt, which had been governed by the Mamluk dynasty since the mid-thirteenth century (Kavas 2007; Palabıyık 2021). The Ottoman Empire had direct or indirect rule (‘virtual Ottoman authority’) over north Africa while it had caliphal encounters (‘nominal caliphal authority’) over the African Muslim community outside Ottoman sovereignty (Palabıyık 2021: 38). Turkey’s Africa discourse is built around this Ottoman heritage and the lack of a colonial record while Turkey is often defined as Africa’s ‘friend’ or ‘partner’ (see, for example, Erdoğan 2016). Despite those promising historical links, especially with northern and eastern parts of Africa, Turkey almost entirely disengaged from the region following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923. Domestic priorities of the period overlapping with entrenched international dynamics explain this neglect or indifference towards African affairs. When the Turkish Republic was founded in the early 1920s, only a few African countries were free from the colonial yoke. Meanwhile, the newly established republic had more imminent concerns at home while putting most of its efforts into integrating with the Western world. The Cold War dynamics and perceived Soviet threat coupled with its allegiance to its Western partners defined Turkey’s relationship with Africa in a later period. Still, there were exceptional rapprochement efforts with African countries, first in the 1960s when Turkey looked for international support for specific policy lines such as its Cyprus cause, and then in the 1970s and 1980s when Turkish elites sought to diversify Turkey’s external relations so as to reduce its dependency on a few partners (Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu & Tepeciklioğlu 2021: 3). Yet it would be fair to note that these 405

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406 | elem eyrice-tepeciklioğlu short periods of interest towards Africa were followed by longer periods of disengagement until the 2000s when Turkey redefined its interests towards the continent. Turkey’s ‘rise’ in Africa is mostly attributed to the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), which assumed power in 2002. During this period, it was mostly Turkey’s soft-power push that transformed the dynamics of the relationship. Turkey turned to Africa both for its market potential and again for external support to promote its foreign policy moves. This coincides with Africa’s ascendance in world politics and Turkey’s own economic recovery accompanied by its ambitions for a larger international status and a greater say in the United Nations and other international platforms. Here, Turkey’s aspirations to become a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) dovetailed with its vision of a multipolar international system. In other words, Turkey’s engagement in Africa aims at serving its wider international goals. This study first explores how Turkey–Africa relations have evolved since the establishment of the Turkish Republic. It then discusses the motivating factors underlying Turkey’s renewed interest in the continent in order to probe the various dimensions of its Africa strategy. It concludes by discussing the likely impediments that might slow down Turkey’s African involvement, albeit not in a radical direction. Early Period: One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic, the heir to the Ottoman Empire, the major concern of the policymakers was to complete the nation-making process and protect the national boundaries. As Turkey aligned itself with the West and emphasised its role in the Western bloc (Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu 2017), it also distanced itself from its Ottoman legacy. The literature is almost united in accepting that Turkish foreign policy of the time rested on two principles: ‘maintenance of status quo and a Western orientation’ (Oran 2010: 18–19). This was a ‘rational’ foreign policy considering the country’s military and economic weakness (Ministry of Foreign Affairs n.d.). ‘Combined with the vulnerability of the country in [the] international system, Ankara’s low material capabilities restricted its ability to make “adventurous” foreign policy moves,’ a recent study notes (Hazar & Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu 2021: 57). Understandably, relations with Africa were accorded low priority in foreign policy. Still, Turkey opened its first embassy on the continent, in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, in 1926, followed by the opening of an Ethiopian embassy in Ankara in 1933. The Cold War period was again characterised by Turkey’s limited diplomatic engagement with the continent. During the early years of the Cold War, Turkey was seeking to ally itself to security alliances in order to counter the Soviet threat. That is to say, Turkish foreign policy was primarily dominated by Turkey’s alliance with Western countries and

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turkey and africa | 407 security perceptions. This, coupled with its membership of NATO in the following years, shaped Turkey’s attitude towards the anti-colonial movements unfolding across the continent. Turkey’s distant relationship with African countries during the decolonisation period was further challenged by the fact that those countries were struggling to gain their independence from Turkey’s NATO allies in Europe. Turkey’s policy stance towards the non-aligned movement (NAM), its overt support for British interests during the Suez crisis, its leading role in the establishment of the Baghdad Pact and the missed opportunity to support the independence of Algeria in an earlier period all contributed to its disengagement from the region. Turkey’s pro-Western attitude towards key issues in the continent not only riled its regional rivals including Egypt but also ruptured its relations with the newly independent African countries in the following years. The bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published in March 1965 elaborates Turkey’s Asia-Africa policy as follows: ‘Turkey, a member of the Western community, committed to its NATO alliance, should gain the “sympathy” of those newly independent countries that are in the process of developing their foreign policies.’ However, this policy was confined to the cultural sphere while economic or technical assistance towards those new countries was not even on the agenda. It was also noted that Turkey should avoid taking part in the NAM and not be dragged into this bloc in order to preserve its status within the Western alliance (Bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1965: 23–4). Ironically, while Turkey’s self-isolating Africa policy brought its further alienation with African countries, now forming the majority in some international organisations, those countries also emerged as potential allies to support Turkish foreign policy priorities. This was in the mid-1960s when the Turkish government attempted to gain international support for the Cyprus issue and sent goodwill delegations to African, Asian, Middle Eastern and Latin American countries.1 Those delegations aimed to explore opportunities to cement Turkey’s relations with those countries and explain Turkey’s view on Cyprus (Bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1964: 5). Yet African countries voted in favour of the Greek argument when UN Resolution 2077, calling on all countries to ‘respect the sovereignty, unity, independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus’ was adopted at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in December 1965 (see United Nations 1965). When Turkey sought rapprochement with Africa during this period, its priorities towards the continent were exclusively about getting external support for such particular foreign policy causes and ensuring African votes in the UNGA. This attempt failed for obvious reasons. Suffice it to say that political motives were again at the forefront in Turkey’s Africa strategy – if there was any – during the new isolationism of the 1970s. More precisely, three of those seven goodwill delegations were sent to African countries.

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408 | elem eyrice-tepeciklioğlu Relations with the West were severely strained over the Cyprus dispute and the following US arms embargo created new tensions between the two countries. This explains Turkey’s search for foreign policy alternatives in an attempt to decrease reliance on its Western allies and escape from the reality of its tumultuous relations with the US. As noted before, foreign policy activism towards Africa is often associated with the AKP era while there is barely any reference to the earlier attempts of rapprochement with African countries including the 1978 policy of outreach to Africa. Despite being less well known in the literature, it was the predecessor of the 1998 document, now accepted as the road map for Turkey’s Africa strategy. The 1978 opening was adopted under the leadership of Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit and the tenure of Gündüz Ökçün as minister of foreign affairs. This coincided with the attempts to reorganise the administrative units under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the creation of a desk system within the ministry. It is interesting to note that the African desk was the first of those new units (Karaca 2000). Turkey also offered technical assistance to a number of African countries in 1978 while Turkish embassies in Mogadishu (Somalia) and Dar es Salaam (Tanzania) were inaugurated in the following year (İpek & Biltekin 2013). The late 1970s also saw the dissolution of the incumbent coalition government and deteriorating economic conditions. What followed was the abandonment of the desk system and the closure of embassies in Africa in a later period. As noted by Salih Zeki Karaca (2000), the head of the African desk, this system was abandoned largely because of financial constraints, but those units were already understaffed and had difficulty in fulfilling the duties they were assigned. Turkey’s transition to a liberal economy symbolised a new era in Turkish foreign policy where economic considerations were given higher priority. Turgut Özal was the architect behind Turkey’s neoliberal transformation in the 1980s and acted as Turkey’s deputy prime minister after the 1980 military coup (1980–2). Özal also assumed office as prime minister after the 1983 general elections (1983–9) and then eighth president of Turkey (1989–93). The Özal period saw the following of a more assertive foreign policy in in the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Balkans and the Black Sea basin as well as an increasing but cautious involvement in regional affairs (Sayarı 2000; Ünay 2010). Meanwhile, the liberalisation process and the promotion of an export-led growth strategy in this period resulted in the rise of a new bourgeoisie in the small cities of Anatolia, popularly defined as ‘Anatolian tigers’. This new business class, formed mainly from small and middle-sized enterprises (SMEs), sought an expansion beyond Turkey’s traditional trading markets of the US and the EU as they had already been penetrated by TÜSİAD (the Turkish Industry and Business Association), established in an earlier period. With Turkey’s neoliberal economic transformation and pro-activist foreign policy, which started in the 1980s and continued throughout the 1990s (Öniş 2004), business

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turkey and africa | 409 groups increasingly engaged in the country’s foreign policy (Atlı 2011), which became more oriented towards economic motives. Here, the overlap of interests between the state and the business groups paved the way to Turkey’s new rapprochement with Africa. As the government strived to cultivate new partnerships with different regions, state support became even more evident in elevating the private sector. While these new business associations, representing conservative businesses, took advantage of the liberalisation wave and openings in foreign policy, they also supported Islamist parties. Not only did they play a significant role in the foundation of the AKP in a later period but their electoral support to the party in the 2002 general elections was instrumental in carrying it to political power (Atiyas et al. 2016; Karaoğuz & Gürbüz 2021). Not surprisingly, the state–business partnership accelerated under AKP rule. Lured by Africa’s consumer market potential, the Islamic/devout/pious bourgeoisie supported the AKP’s multidimensional foreign policy approach, inherited from the previous governments. Here, it should be noted that the opening plan for Africa was adopted in 1998 under the tenure of İsmail Cem as the minister of foreign affairs. However, as the relevant literature agrees (Bayram 2021; Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu 2017; Özkan 2010), the interlinked domestic problems, especially the deteriorating economic conditions, hindered the implementation of this strategy as with its predecessor, the 1978 plan.2 The AKP government had both the financial resources and the political willingness to sustain a proactive foreign policy that would also enhance Turkey’s profile in international affairs and give Turkey further leverage for its economic expansion. The following part of this chapter will elaborate the major tools and strategies that have facilitated Turkey’s increasing engagement with Africa over the last two decades. Late Period: A New Player in Africa? In mid-October 2021, President Erdoğan paid a four-day visit to three African countries, namely Angola, Nigeria and Togo. The visit aimed to secure contacts for Turkish companies, operating especially in the energy and defence industry sectors, and boost Turkey’s security cooperation with African countries. Speaking to journalists on his flight home from these countries, Erdoğan said: ‘We have a lot of work to do in Africa’ (Directorate of Communications 2021), as a testimony of Turkey’s aspirations for a larger presence across the continent. The visit garnered huge media attention although it was not the first of its kind. Erdoğan has paid fifty visits to thirty African countries under his tenure both This does not necessarily mean that its implementation was completely renounced. A year later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published the second edition of the action plan and reviewed the progress made a year after its adoption. See Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı (1999).

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410 | elem eyrice-tepeciklioğlu as prime minister and as president (Bozdoğan et al. 2021). What is perhaps most appealing about the visit was that it was ahead of the Third Turkey–Africa Partnership Summit, which took place in Istanbul on 16–18 December with participants from thirty-eight African countries including sixteen heads of state or government (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı 2021). Producing a declaration and a joint action plan for the period 2022–6, the summit was a clear confirmation of Turkey’s ‘focus’ on security cooperation given that the first theme of the joint action plan commended the ongoing cooperation between Turkey and Africa in areas pertaining to peace and security (Third Africa–Türkiye Partnership Summit 2021). Erdoğan also reiterated Turkey’s support for Africa on international platforms and highlighted Turkey’s alignment with the continent on issues related to global governance. In addition to this ‘summit diplomacy’ and intensified high-level exchanges, Turkey has expanded its African engagement with a massive diplomatic offensive. The number of Turkish embassies in the continent increased from twelve to forty-three in the last two decades with an aim to open embassies in six more African countries (TRT Haber 2021). During this period, trade exchanges, investments, development assistance, scholarships and religious diplomacy initiatives have all been parts of Turkey’s soft-power outreach in the continent. Turkish–African trade saw a steady growth in the last two decades with Turkish companies expanding their operations into several key areas including infrastructure, energy, arms and mining. According to the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Turkish foreign direct investments in the continent exceeded $6 billion while Turkish companies undertook several projects in African countries worth $70 billion (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2021: 23). This includes a multi-million-dollar railway project in Tanzania and Ethiopia (Yapı Merkezi n.d.), an events and indoor sports facility in Rwanda (the Kigali Arena, the largest stadium in Rwanda) (Hürriyet Daily News 2019), a mega-housing project in Angola (Bayar 2019) and an iron and steel complex in Algeria (Tosyalı Holding n.d.). Turkey’s cultural and educational exchanges with Africa have also intensified especially through the cultural centres attached to the Yunus Emre Institute, Turkish schools inaugurated by the Turkish Maarif Foundation and scholarship opportunities provided by the Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) under the Turkey Scholarships programme. Meanwhile, Turkish soap operas have proved popular in Africa, which in turn increases interest in Turkish culture and language. This period has also seen the increasing salience of religion in Turkish foreign policy, with the Diyanet (Presidency of Religious Affairs) and Turkish non-governmental organisations (NGOs) with religious backgrounds emerging as integral parts of Turkey’s religious soft power. The use of religious rhetoric has served to promote Turkey’s political, economic and geostrategic interests and legitimise its presence in Africa (Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu 2021a;

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turkey and africa | 411 Oğuz-Gök 2021). This is also evident in Turkey’s aid pattern as religious and cultural affinity plays an important role in the delivery of Turkish aid in the continent (EyriceTepeciklioğlu 2021a). After being an aid recipient country for many long years, Turkey has emerged as a donor country in the last few years. This is illustrated in its aid activities across Africa with overt coordination between public institutions including TİKA (the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency), Turkey’s official aid agency, (religiously motivated) NGOs and business groups. This is perhaps most visible in Somalia, which was the largest recipient of Turkish official development assistance in 2011 after Erdoğan’s prominent visit to the country. On the other hand, a defining feature of Turkish aid is its bilateral nature. Turkey’s aid contribution to multilateral institutions decreased after 2005 while its bilateral aid increased in the same period (Cihangir-Tetik & Müftüler-Baç 2021). This also applies to its aid policy towards Africa, while the direct delivery of aid without the assistance of any intermediaries increases Turkey’s visibility. Much like China or other emerging powers such as Brazil, India and Russia, Turkish aid also comes with no political conditions. Turkey’s aid policy appeals to African countries given that it implies no interference in their domestic affairs while it also reduces their dependency on a few donor countries. Yet, while the Turkish approach is pragmatic, it appears to neglect recipients’ governance standards. It aims at complementing Turkey’s overall Africa strategy and concentrates mostly on Muslim-majority countries with few exceptions. Turkey’s aid activities also facilitate business expansion and the access of Turkish business groups to African consumer markets. Although the Turkish government does not impose ‘explicit’ (political) criteria or any other constraints, its aid policy towards African countries is not devoid of political objectives. Turkey uses its aid practices in a bid to promote its foreign policy actions and expand its diplomatic partners. This was especially the case in the early years of Turkey’s opening to Africa when it approached African countries for its candidacy endeavours for UNSC non-permanent membership. Turkey and Africa also have similar concerns and interests on key international issues which translate into their struggle for reform in international governance institutions. As discussed, Turkey’s African outreach relied heavily on its soft-power investment while its engagement in the military domain was less visible. Tellingly, a significant aspect of Turkey’s recent involvement in the continent has been the integration of hard-power resources with those soft-power attributes. However, Turkey’s engagement in Africa’s security landscape can be traced back to the early 1990s when Turkish military experts started to provide training to Gambian armed forces, police officers and gendarmerie as part of a military cooperation agreement signed between the two countries and a Turkish commander, Çevik Bir, assumed the command of United Nations Operation in Somalia

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412 | elem eyrice-tepeciklioğlu II (UNOSOM II) (Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu 2021b: 1). Turkey has been dispatching troops to other UN peacekeeping missions deployed in African countries. However, its contributions to those UN missions are merely symbolic and very small when compared with its involvement in non-UN operations including NATO- or EU-led missions. Turkey has also been deploying its naval forces in anti-piracy operations off the Somalia coast, in the Gulf of Aden and in the Red Sea since 2009 as a member of CTF-151, a multinational counter-piracy task force designed as a response to piracy attacks and armed robbery incidents in the region. Turkey has assumed the command of this force six times since its establishment. As Turkey struggles to present itself as a security provider, it has also been engaged in mediation and peace-building efforts in several African contexts. The military/defence cooperation agreements and arms deals concluded with numerous African countries have allowed it to enhance its military foothold on the continent, as was the case in Libya. The military cooperation agreement signed between Turkey and the Tripoli-based Libyan government (Government of National Accord, GNA)3 back in 2019 stipulates that Turkey can sell weapons, equipment and vehicles to the GNA. In addition to its military intervention in Libya and support for Libyan armed forces, Turkey’s military training facility and comprehensive peace-building activities in Somalia amplify its overall presence in Africa. Again, Turkey’s security cooperation initiatives, be they in the form of military training or arms sales, are intertwined with its trade and strategic interests as Turkish firms seek to insert themselves into highly competitive markets. These companies are looking for ways to return to Libya and compensate themselves for the billions they invested in the country prior to the outbreak of the civil war in 2011. Similarly, Turkey’s military involvement in Somalia enabled Turkish businesses to penetrate the Somalian market. Several Turkish companies invest in the country with two of them managing Somalia’s airport and port operations. However, it was the provision of Turkish UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles, or more popularly, drones), to some African countries that sparked much debate and raised questions about Turkey’s military ambitions and capabilities. Following the growth of Turkey’s defence industry, Turkish arms imports decreased by nearly 60 per cent in the last decade as Turkey started to produce its own major arms (Wezeman et al. 2021). The success of Turkish drones in conflicts including Azerbaijan’s victory in Nagorno-Karabakh increased interest in them. Turkish drones, armed or unarmed, are now very popular in African countries partly because they are affordable and of high quality. Perhaps more importantly, Turkey does not tie its arms sales to any conditions, which is welcomed by African countries (Tavşan 2021). For example, referring to Now the Government of National Unity (GNU).

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turkey and africa | 413 Turkey’s arms sales to Angola, President Erdoğan said at a joint news conference with his counterpart, João Lourenço, the Angolan president: ‘As you know, we are not conservative about such issues, and I told them we are ready to give all kinds of support.’ As Turkish companies are after securing arms contracts, Turkey’s increasing involvement in this domain enables African countries to diversify their sources and reduce their dependency on established suppliers such as France, Russia, China or the USA (Tavşan 2021). However, this also poses a risk of undermining Turkey’s soft-power outreach and raises concerns that Turkey may be moving towards a hard-power-oriented policy towards Africa. Conclusion Over the last two decades, Turkey built strong relationships with African countries and enhanced its presence in different domains including religion, media, education, development assistance and more recently, security cooperation. Although the Ottoman legacy features in the official narrative along with a non-colonial past, Turkish involvement in Africa was severely limited during the early years of the Turkish Republic. Turkey’s security concerns and its adherence to its Western/NATO allies determined the course of its relations with African countries in most of the Cold War period. The exceptional rapprochement efforts with Africa throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s did not represent a deviation from the general course of Turkey’s Africa policy. This chapter has attempted to review the historical developments of this relationship, and how Turkey’s interests in the continent evolved tremendously over time. Several factors explain Turkey’s mounting interest towards the continent including Africa’s consumer market potential, investment opportunities and the quest for new partners amid souring relations with its traditional allies. Turkey expanded its footprint in Africa especially through soft-power currencies including economic connections, humanitarian aid and religious diplomacy efforts while its security engagements were rather minimal until very recently. However, the last few years have seen Turkey expand its military foothold in the continent by supporting African armies and through its increasing arms deals with several African countries. Despite Turkey’s growing military deployment in the continent, I do not think that the military agenda dominates its Africa policy. Another question, here, is if Turkey’s ambitions to play a larger role in Africa’s security landscape exceed its material capabilities given that it currently lacks the financial resources to get involved in multiple conflict zones. It also appears unlikely that Turkey’s African engagement will maintain its pace amid current economic difficulties. At the time of writing, the Turkish lira has hit a record low against the US dollar while economic prospects overall do not seem very promising. So, it would be reasonable to expect that the declining

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414 | elem eyrice-tepeciklioğlu economic conditions will curb Turkey from bolstering its African involvement especially in the humanitarian domain. Turkey’s economic woes are coupled with the criticisms of the opposition highlighting that Turkey should focus on more imminent domestic problems rather than expanding its African outreach. Turkey’s granting of more than $3 million to the International Monetary Fund in 2020 for Somalia’s debt is one of the most loudly criticised actions in this realm. A lack of knowledge towards African issues among ordinary citizens also prevails. Still, it is too soon to make bold predictions for the long run while there is great potential to enhance cooperation with African countries in several areas. References Atiyas, Izak, Ozan Bakış and Esra Ceviker Gurakar (2016), ‘Anatolian Tigers and the Emergence of the Devout Bourgeoisie in the Turkish Manufacturing Industry: An Empirical Analysis’, Working Paper 1064, Economic Research Forum. Atlı, Altay (2011), ‘Businessmen as Diplomats: The Role of Business Associations in Turkey’s Foreign Economic Policy’, Insight Turkey 13(1): 109–28. Bayar, Gozde (2019), ‘Turkish firm to launch mega-housing project in Angola’, Anadolu Agency, 31 May, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/turkish-firm-to-launch-mega-housing-project-inangola/1493747, accessed 5 February 2023. Bayram, Mürsel (2021), ‘Türkiye–Afrika İşbirliği: Üçüncü bir Yol Mümkün mü?’ SETA Analiz 358. Bozdoğan, Kaan, Hanife Sevinç, Berk Özkan, Zeynep Rakipoğlu and Sefa Mutlu (2021), ‘Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Bugün alacağımız kararlar ile Türkiye–Afrika ilişkilerinin geleceğine damga vuracağız’, Anadolu Ajansı, 18 December, https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/ gundem/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-bugun-alacagimiz-kararlar-ile-turkiye-afrika-iliskileriningelecegine-damga-vuracagiz/2450666, accessed 5 February 2023. Bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1964), Issue 3, October–December. Bulletin of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1965), Issue 6, March. Cihangir-Tetik, Damla and Meltem Müftüler-Baç (2021), ‘A Comparison of Development Assistance Policies: Turkey and the European Union in Sectoral and Humanitarian Aid’, Journal of European Integration 43(4): 439–57. Directorate of Communications (2021), ‘President Erdoğan speaks to journalists following visits to Angola, Togo and Nigeria’, Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye, 21 October, https:// www.iletisim.gov.tr/english/haberler/detay/president-erdogan-speaks-to-journalists-following-visits-to-angola-togo-and-nigeria, accessed 5 February 2023. Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip (2016), ‘Turkey: Africa’s friend, compatriot and partner’, Al Jazeera, 1 July, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/6/1/turkey-africas-friend-compatriot-andpartner, accessed 5 February 2023. Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu, Elem (2017), ‘Economic Relations between Turkey and Africa: Challenges and Prospects’, Journal of Sustainable Development Law and Policy 8(1), article 2.

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turkey and africa | 415 Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu, Elem (2021a), ‘Turkey’s Religious Diplomacy in Africa’, in Elem Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (eds), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power? Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 199–216. Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu, Elem (2021b), ‘Turkey’s Strategy in Africa’, Research Brief 8/2021, Security Institute for Governance and Leadership in Africa, http://www.sun.ac.za/english/ faculty/milscience/sigla/Documents/Briefs/Briefs%202021/SIGLA%20Brief8-%20 Turkey%20in%20Africa%20%282%29.pdf, accessed 5 February 2023. Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu, Elem and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (2021), ‘Introduction: Contextualizing Turkey’s Africa Policy’, in Elem Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (eds), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power? Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–15. Hazar, Numan and Elem Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu (2021), ‘Turkey–Africa Relations: A Retrospective Analysis’, in Elem Eyrice-Tepeciklioğlu and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (eds), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power?, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 56–74. Hürriyet Daily News (2019), ‘Turkish company constructs Rwanda’s indoor stadium’, 10 August, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkish-company-constructs-rwandas-indoor-stadium-145678, accessed 5 February 2023 İpek, Volkan and Gonca Biltekin (2013), ‘Turkey’s Foreign Policy Implementation in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Post-International Approach’, New Perspectives on Turkey 49: 121–56. Karaca, Salih Zeki (2000), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy in the Year 2000 and Beyond: Her Opening up Policy to Africa’, Dis Politika 25(3–4): 115–19. Karaoğuz, Hüseyin Emrah and Selman Emre Gürbüz (2021), ‘The Political Economy of Turkey– Africa Relations’, in Elem Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (eds), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power? Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 93–108. Kavas, Ahmet (2007), ‘Ottoman Empire’s Relations with Southern Africa’, Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi 48(2): 11–20. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (n.d.), ‘Turkish foreign policy during Ataturk’s era’, https://www.mfa. gov.tr/turkish-foreign-policy-during-ataturks-era.en.mfa, accessed 5 February 2023 Oğuz-Gök, Gonca (2021), ‘Turkey’s Development Assistance in Africa in the 2000s: Hybrid Humanitarianism in the Post-Liberal Era’, in Elem Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (eds), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power? Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 182–98. Oran, Baskın (2010), ‘The Guiding Principles of Turkish Foreign Policy’, in Baskın Oran (ed.), Turkish Foreign Policy 1919–2006: Facts and Analyses with Documents, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 18–24. Öniş, Ziya (2004), ‘Turgut Özal and His Economic Legacy: Turkish Neo-liberalism in Critical Perspective’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(4): 113–34. Özkan, Mehmet (2010), ‘What Drives Turkey’s Involvement in Africa?’ Review of African Political Economy 37(126): 533–40. Palabıyık, Mustafa Serdar (2021), ‘Ottoman Empire and Africa in the Age of Colonial Expansion: Appreciating the Loyalty of African Muslims, Debating Colonial Rupture’, in Elem Eyrice

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416 | elem eyrice-tepeciklioğlu Tepeciklioğlu and Ali Onur Tepeciklioğlu (eds), Turkey in Africa: A New Emerging Power? Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 38–55. Sayarı, Sabri (2000), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era: The Challenges of MultiRegionalism’. Journal of International Affairs 54(1): 169–82. Tavşan, Sinan (2021), ‘Turkey unleashes hard power wave in Africa with drone sales’, Nikkei Asia, 3 November, https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Turkey-unleashes-hard-power-wave-in-Africawith-drone-sales, accessed 5 February 2023. Third Africa–Türkiye Partnership Summit (2021), Declaration: ‘Enhanced Partnership for Common Development and Prosperity’, 16–18 December, Istanbul, available at https://au.int/ sites/default/files/newsevents/reports/41270-rp-E_Africa-Turkiye_Summit_2021_Declaration.pdf, accessed 5 February 2023. Tosyalı Holding (n.d.), ‘Tosyalı Iron Steel Industry Algerie’, https://www.tosyaliholding.com. tr/en/our-scope-of-activity/group-companies/international-subsidiaries/tosyali-iron-steelindustry-algerie, accessed 5 February 2023. TRT Haber (2021), ‘Türkiye’nin 43 Afrika ülkesinde büyükelçiliğ var’, 16 October, https://www. trthaber.com/haber/gundem/turkiyenin-43-afrika-ulkesinde-buyukelciligi-var-617606. html, accessed 5 February 2023. Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Dışişleri Bakanlığı (2021), ‘Türkiye’nin Girişimci ve İnsani Dış Politikası’, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/dis-politika-genel.tr.mfa, accessed 5 February 2023. Ünay, Giray (2010), ‘Economic Diplomacy for Competitiveness: Globalization and Turkey’s New Foreign Policy’, Perceptions 15(2): 21–47. United Nations (1965), ‘Question of Cyprus’, Resolution No. A/RES/2077(XX), https:// undocs.org/en/A/RES/2077(XX), accessed 5 February 2023. Wezeman, Pieter D., Alexandra Kuimova and Siemon T. Wezeman (2021), ‘Trends in International Arms Transfers 2020’, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, March, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/fs_2103_at_2020_v2.pdf, accessed 5 February 2023. Yapı Merkezi (n.d.), ‘YM in Ethiopia for a Giant Project’, https://yapimerkezi.com.tr/En/News/ YM-IN-ETHIOPIA-FOR-A-GIANT-PROJECT, accessed 5 February 2023.

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32 Turkish Foreign Policy and the Arab Spring: Opportunities and Challenges Nur Köprülü (Near East University)

Introduction

T

he onset of the 2011 protests in the Arab streets uncovered various opportunities as well as challenges for Turkish foreign policy at large, and Turkey’s policy towards Middle East in particular. The public demonstrations that first kicked off in Tunisia with the self-immolation of street vendor Muhammad Bouazizi then swiftly caused a domino effect, leading to street demonstrations in most of the countries in the region. Some observers described these protests in the Arab streets a ‘Spring’ (Lynch 2011) and some used the term ‘uprisings’ (Dalacoura 2012; Pace & Cavatorta 2012) or ‘revolts’ (Barany 2011). The demonstrators’ collective call for economic reform and political change resonated primarily in Egypt, Syria, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain, Morocco and Yemen. Later on, sporadic protests gave rise to turmoil in Syria and Yemen, stimulated NATO intervention in Libya and broadly polarised the countries in the region into two camps, pro- and anti-Arab Spring. One of the non-Arab countries in the Middle East, Turkey was also caught by public protests at a time when Turkey’s Middle East policy had already begun to change, precisely with the ascendancy of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) beginning in 2002. Turkey’s policy towards its neighbours, in fact, had begun to be transformed initially with the Refah-Yol government, a coalition between the True Path Party (Doğru Yol Partisi) and the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi), which resulted in building close economic and military ties with Israel during the mid-1990s, as well as the signing of the Adana Agreement, which ended the hostility with Syria by the late 1990s during İsmail Cem’s tenure as the minister of foreign affairs of Turkey. The majoritarian government formed by the AKP then stimulated Ankara to take a more vigorous role in its region. In doing so, the AKP launched its foreign policy objectives, which revealed themselves both in discourse and in courses of action. 417

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418 | nur köprülü Prior to the uprisings, Turkey had begun to transform its traditional foreign policy, particularly towards its neighbours, and opted to develop a norm-driven as well as economic approach towards the region (Altunışık 2011). Despite the fact that the onset of the Arab protests initially paved the way for calibrating Turkey’s central role in the region as a whole, the Arab Spring uncovered ‘the inherent tension between the normative and realpolitik dimensions of Turkish foreign policy’ (Tocci 2012: 65). Within this context, this chapter aims to analyse the implications of the Arab uprisings and the regional quagmires in the context of Turkey’s foreign policy. As the corollary of this objective, this chapter will discuss what sorts of opportunities and challenges Turkey has experienced since 2011. Turkey and the Arab World in a Nutshell: A Historical Perspective Turkey, as one of the key actors in the Middle East, had historically cultivated limited and timid ties with the Arab world. This conventional policy began with the Republic of Turkey’s establishment in 1923, and was a derivative of Turkish foreign policy objectives under the founder of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The fundamental principles of this foreign policy were based both on preserving the status quo and on Westernisation (Oran 2013). With the motto ‘Peace at home, peace in the world’, Atatürk aimed ‘to preserve the status quo, [and also] sought a deliberate break with the Ottoman past in virtually every aspect of life’ (Aydın 1999: 156). In line with these foreign policy objectives, Turkey opted to approach the Arab world with caution and prudence. What is more, the Arab revolt of 1916 by the Sharif of Mecca, which escalated the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, generated resentment in the eyes of Turkish political elites vis-à-vis the Arab world. Accordingly, Turkey’s position towards the Middle East as a whole was also a derivative of its ties with the Western world, which was underpinned by Ankara’s move towards joining NATO in 1952 and its critical position in countering Soviet-derived communism during the Cold War era (Sinkaya 2011). Turkey began to shift its traditional foreign policymaking towards rebuilding its ties with its neighbourhood by the late 1990s. The end of the Cold War bipolarity with the collapse of the Soviet Union brought new opportunities and challenges to Turkey as well as its neighbourhood. As set out by İbrahim Kalın, the chief advisor to Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (since 2014 president of Turkey), these new regional security challenges and geopolitical realities encouraged Turkey to redefine and reconstruct its expectations and priorities within its region and cultivate its economic relations with the aim of achieving political dialogue worldwide (Kalın 2011). In doing so, these principles underpinned the key aspects of AKP foreign policy options, which would enable Turkey to reinforce its leading role on a regional scale through portraying its ‘new’ power capabilities, cultivating soft power at the expense of hard-power capabilities.

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turkish foreign policy and the arab spring | 419 The Arab Spring seized Turkey during this new era of building closer economic and political ties with the Arab Middle East. It caught Turkey entirely by surprise, but brought with it new opportunities and expanded horizons with respect to its perception of and position within its neighbourhood. New Parameters of Turkish Foreign Policy Prior to the Arab Spring With the rise of the AKP government, Turkey opted to reconfigure its traditional foreign policy based on Kemalist-Republican principles. One clear manifestation of this change in Ankara’s foreign policy was the inauguration of its ‘zero problems with neighbours’ paradigm, which aimed to end political discord with countries in the region with which it shares a deeply rooted history (MFA 2013). Its foreign policy corollary is marked by the stemming of spillover effects from regional conflicts across Turkey’s borders. This would allow it to redefine and reassert its centrality in the region by identifying and readdressing historical, ideological, cultural and geographical opportunities. Furthermore, Ankara embraced the idea that prolonged conflicts in the Middle East such as the Arab–Israeli dispute, the ongoing unravelling of Iraq, and later on the war in Syria would enable Turkey to enhance its central role in the region. Ahmet Davutoğlu, who first served as Erdoğan’s chief foreign policy advisor and then became minister of foreign affairs, was the key ideational designer of the AKP’s changing foreign policy (Oğuzlu 2008; Sözen 2010), specifically with regard to its neighbours. In Meliha Altunışık’s words: Turkey has been actively engaging its regions and increasingly utilizing tools such as soft power, dialogue, mediation, economic interdependence rather than military power in doing so. Parallel to its regional roles, Turkey seems to be aspiring to increase its importance in global politics, aiming to be considered as one of the ‘emerging powers’. Turkey’s activism in international organizations, such as the UN or the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC), is a case in point (Altunışık 2011: 199).

In fact, the ‘zero problems with neighbours’ paradigm that has marked Turkey’s external relations since then was not restricted to the Arab world. It also aimed to strengthen close ties with the European Union, which would eventually open the door for accession negotiations for EU membership. One expression of Turkey’s changing approach can be detected in Ankara’s full pledge to the United Nations-sponsored Annan Plan for the settlement of the Cyprus conflict during 2003 and 2004 (Oğuzlu 2008). Similarly, Turkey sided with the Arab countries during the United States’ war in Iraq and did not allow the US to launch its intervention from Turkish territory (İncirlik air base). During his tenure as prime minister, Abdullah Gül also urged the necessity to consult on the situation in Iraq prior to the US intervention. With this aim, Gül paid a series of visits

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420 | nur köprülü to Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. This revealed Ankara’s new approach in the wake of the Iraq War, which was also defined as the ‘Europeanisation’ of Turkish foreign policy (Oğuzlu 2010; Özcan 2008). In light of these developments, some argued that Turkish foreign policy choices during the first phase of the AKP government empowered Turkey to be now seen as a ‘trading state’ (Kirişci 2009), and this shift in identity attracted regional investors and guaranteed market access to Turkish products. Simultaneously, Turkey also developed ties with NGOs such as TÜSİAD (the Turkish Industry and Business Association), MÜSİAD (the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association) and TOBB (the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey), which then enabled Ankara to consider the economic demands and interests of the economic and business sector too. It is imperative to point out here that these new paradigms were noticed in other countries of the region. For instance, public opinion surveys conducted by the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) clearly demonstrated that, at the time of the uprisings, 60 per cent of the Arab people perceived Turkey as ‘a model and believed that Turkey could contribute positively to the transformation of the Arab world’ (Akgün & Gündoğar 2014; Kirişci 2013).  Turkey and the Arab Uprisings The tectonic protests that swiftly engulfed most of the Arab countries opened a Pandora’s box for the incumbent authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and north Africa (MENA). The public demonstrations first erupted in Tunisia, then quickly spread to Egypt, Syria, Libya, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen. Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution and Egypt’s ‘Day of Revolt’ on 25 January 2011 at Tahrir Square attracted different segments of each country’s population, with cross-ideological classes merging to march against authoritarian rule. The toppling of Zeyn el-Abidin bin Ali in Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt paved the way for the reconfiguration of power and policy alternations in the region. This new political landscape would bring Turkey some benefits at a time when the AKP was postulating a new regional role with its soft-power capabilities, but this was not without challenges. Opportunities: Turkey as ‘a Model’ for a More Democratic Middle East? One of the most striking opportunities for Turkey with the Arab uprisings was the newly emerging regional political sphere that would allow Turkey to assertively perform its new ideational soft-power capacity across the region. As stated by İbrahim Kalın during the early days of the uprisings, a democratic and prosperous Arab world would make Turkey’s standing in the region stronger, not weaker (Kalın 2011). In addition, Turkey’s support for the countries affected by the Arab Spring as well as the Palestinians

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turkish foreign policy and the arab spring | 421 (Shenker 2011) led to a ‘perception among Arab publics that Erdogan’s ruling [AKP] could serve as the model for their own democratic transition’ (Tol 2011). Erdoğan was the most popular leader in Arab public opinion prior to the uprisings after he showed support for Palestinians at the Davos summit in 2009 and during the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when relations between Turkey and Israel began to weaken. As the main architect of Turkey’s Middle East policy, Davutoğlu focused on economic ties and democratic values as the key driving forces of Ankara’s position towards its neighbours. With the outbreak of the public rallies mainly in Egypt, Erdoğan, then prime minister, stressed that the Arab Spring had intensified the transition to democracy in the region, and that these developments were an indication of the understanding that sovereignty belongs to the nations and is gradually being established (Hürriyet 2011). In addition, Erdoğan targeted the president of Egypt, saying, ‘Mr Hosni Mubarak: I want to make a very sincere recommendation, a very candid warning . . . Listen to the shouting of the people, the extremely humane demands. Without hesitation, satisfy the people’s desire for change’ (Reuters 2011). In line with this, Davutoğlu also stated: Turkey has always been encouraging the administrations to address the legitimate expectations of their people and undertake the necessary reforms. However, now, given the homegrown and irreversible march toward more democracy in the region, Turkey has stepped up its efforts to support this process. Consolidation of democracy in these countries in a way that will empower the people and strengthen stability is in the best interests of the entire region. (MFA 2012)

Considering the importance of regional order, Ankara also stressed that the territorial integrity of every country in the region be protected and respected (Hürriyet 2011). The Cases of Egypt and Tunisia With the toppling of authoritarian rulers (if not the rules) Turkey wanted to take advantage of the power alternations primarily in Tunisia and Egypt and backed the protests, as well as the popular call for political change in the region. It was specifically with Egypt’s Spring that Turkey became predominantly involved in the Arab protests. The AKP government ultimately called on Mubarak to ‘listen to the voice of people’ and step down (Altunışık 2013: 3). After ousting bin Ali from power in 2011, Tunisians also embarked on a political change, which was marked by the return of the exiled leader of Tunisia’s Islamist Ennahda Party, Rachid Ghannouchi, after twenty-two years. In light of these developments, Ankara opted to develop close ties particularly with Egypt’s Muhammad Morsi – the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Justice and Freedom Party – and Ghannouchi and his Ennahda Party in Tunisia. During this period, Erdoğan often reiterated that the new era in Tunisian politics would demonstrate that

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422 | nur köprülü ‘Islam and democracy can co-exist’ as they did in Turkey (Jerusalem Post 2011). Similarly, Ghannouchi also referred to the policies of Erdoğan and the AKP’s Islamist lineage, underscored by the pragmatism rooted in Erdoğan’s policies and his loyalty to Atatürk’s secular Turkey (France 24 2011). Likewise, Davutoğlu’s approach towards Egypt was underpinned by Egypt’s determining role regarding the regional order, and he underlined the fact that while ‘some people may think Egypt and Turkey are competing . . . This is our strategic decision. We want a strong Egypt now’ (Shadid 2011). Following the toppling of Mubarak and subsequent election of Morsi in June 2012 – as the first popularly elected president of Arab Republic of Egypt –relations between Egypt and Turkey reached a historic peak. One of the dividends of these amicable relations with Morsi’s government was US$2 billion in aid and loans given by Ankara to Cairo, at a time when Morsi’s regime was having difficulties signing an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Another dividend of this growing special relationship was reached during Erdoğan’s visit to Cairo in November 2012, when twenty-seven agreements were finalised between the two countries (Yeşilyurt 2017: 71). The increased role and activism of Turkey specifically with the new incumbents in Egypt and Tunisia was a clear manifestation of how the AKP (as a ‘Muslim democrat’ party) was to be interpreted as a model for the transformation of the regional politics, as well as how Islamist actors, the Muslim Brotherhood parties in particular, would function within a liberal democratic system (Altınışık 2013). Meanwhile, Ghannouchi was one of the leaders who described Turkey under AKP rule as a ‘model for the transformation’ of the region (Kirişci 2013) and often reiterated ‘his excellent relationship with Prime Minister Erdoğan’ (Altınışık 2013: 9). Having said that, these proactive moves by Ankara also swiftly attracted attention from some of the Gulf monarchies, who were concerned by the popular demands called for by the Arab uprisings (Aydıntaşbaş & Bianco 2021). Turkey in the Post-Arab Spring Era: Implications and Challenges By the onset of the Arab uprisings, Ankara had aimed to cultivate its ties with the Arab countries and also take the opportunity to expand its influence over the entire region (Al-Anani 2020). Despite increasingly close relations with the Morsi government, Turkey’s ties with Egypt were heavily strained by the coup d’état led by General AbdelFattah al-Sisi on 3 July 2013. Erdoğan condemned the ousting of President Morsi by the military coup, and took the side of the Muslim Brotherhood movement. One of the critical moments during this period was the Rabaa massacre, when security forces killed hundreds of demonstrators backing Morsi in Cairo’s Rabaa al-Adawiya Square on 14 August 2013 (Human Rights Watch 2014). Simultaneously, Egypt downgraded its diplomatic ties with Ankara, recalling its ambassador to Turkey and expelling the Turkish ambassador, Hüseyin Avni Botsalı. Erdoğan criticised these moves by the Sisi regime in

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turkish foreign policy and the arab spring | 423 Trabzon, Turkey, in the following words: ‘I will never respect those who come to power through military coups . . . we always have to respect those who respect the people’s will. The steps adopted against our ambassador have triggered similar steps from our side’ (Hürriyet Daily News 2013). Three years after the 2011 uprisings, Turkey’s ‘zero problems with neighbours’ paradigm began to be challenged by the floating regional environment and power alternations. One of the primary factors making Turkey’s role in its region more fragile was the AKP government’s proactive policy during the uprisings in the form of backing popular protests and the Brotherhood movement. As a political party that grew out of the Islamist Milli Görüş (National Vision) movement, the AKP opted to develop closer ties with the Islamist movement following the rise in public rallies where Islamist actors found a vigorous platform to mobilise and gather more swiftly than any other group at the time (Dayıoğlu & Köprülü 2019). This also led to the emergence of the rhetoric of ‘Islamists hijacked the Arab Spring’ (Bradley 2012), later nullified with Morsi’s 2013 ousting and the movement’s subsequent marginalisation by some regional and global actors. Eventually, the end of the Brotherhood-affiliated government in Egypt by a military coup led to the declaration of the movement as a ‘terrorist’ organisation by both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Thus, the marginalisation of the Ikhwan movement by the actors in the region, as well as extra-regional actors such as the US, put Turkey in a delicate position relative to its pursuit of amicable relations with its neighbouring countries. As Khalil al-Anani states, ‘After the Arab Spring, Turkey’s regional role created fears and concerns among Arab authoritarian regimes, which began to view Ankara as an ideological and strategic threat to them, in light of Erdoğan’s support of Arab Islamists’ (Al-Anani 2020). Thus, the ideological and geopolitical rift between Egypt and Turkey has had spillover effects onto regional security and stability. In this realm, one of the significant upshots of the Arab uprisings and Turkey’s strained relations with Egypt was the two countries’ rivalry over two critical regional issues. In Libya, Cairo sided with Khalifa Hafter’s Libyan National Army, backed by the UAE and Russia, while Ankara gave support to the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), led by Fayez al-Sarraj (Reuters 2020). Furthermore, the rift between these actors has become apparent in their positions vis-à-vis the eastern Mediterranean. Gas exploitation across the eastern Mediterranean Sea by Egypt, Greece, Israel and Cyprus has escalated the region’s perennial conflicts. Within this realm, the divergences in delineating the maritime borders (exclusive economic zones, EEZs) of the littoral states, and also discord over transportation routes of the gas to Europe can be considered as the significant basis of this regional quagmire (Altunışık 2020). Strain in the relations between Turkey

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424 | nur köprülü and Egypt consequently became more visible with the 2019 launch of the Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, which besides Egypt embraced Cyprus, Israel, Greece, Italy, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority. Although the forum was founded to reinforce natural gas production, as well as setting up a regional market that would export gas to Europe, the deterioration of Ankara’s ties with both Egypt and Israel led to the exclusion of Turkey from this regional platform. This isolation from such a regional collaboration moved Ankara to conclude a military and maritime agreement with the Libyan Sarraj government,1 which culminated in Cairo’s refusal to recognise this agreement and its call to the UN Security Council to nullify this act (Al-Anani 2020). The formation of the so-called ‘anti-Turkey’ camp, comprising Egypt, Israel, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus, enhanced relations between Ankara and Tripoli that went back to 2011. The Turkish authorities believed Ankara’s collaboration with the GNA in Libya would allow it ‘a legal counter-claim to contest the EEZs established by Greece’s bilateral understandings with Egypt and Cyprus, upon which much of the development of the Eastern Mediterranean’s offshore natural gas depends’ (Tanchum 2020: 9). Relations with Syria Turkey’s relations with the Syrian Arab Republic began to be strained by the outbreak of protests in the southern town of Deraa in 2011. Relations between the two countries had been underpinned by positive attempts to strengthen their collaboration, such as signing a cooperation agreement combating illegal migration titled the Readmission Agreement in 2001, as well as the Military Cooperation Agreement on 19 June 2002 (Oran 2013: 402) and the Visa Exemption Agreement. What is more, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon jointly declared the Quadripartite High-Level Cooperation Council in 2010 (MFA 2010). Despite deepened political and economic ties, Ankara took a stand against Bashar al-Assad and primarily in favour of regime change in the country with the onset of the Syrian Spring. This led Turkey to become critical of the Ba’ath regime, which was easily observed after Davutoğlu’s visit to Damascus immediately after the uprising at Deraa. Ankara wanted to persuade the Assad regime to inaugurate a democratic reform programme, but the refusal of the Syrian government led to the deterioration of relations between the two sides at the expense of the increased cooperation achieved in the last decade. Ankara then gave open support to the Syrian opposition, which became apparent when Turkey closed down its embassy in Damascus, and a week later hosted a meeting Turkey and Libya signed two agreements, Delimitation of Maritime Jurisdiction Areas in the Mediterranean and Security and Military Cooperation, in 2019.

 1

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turkish foreign policy and the arab spring | 425 of the Friends of Syria – a coalition established in Antalya, Turkey, on 1 April 2012 by both Arab and Western countries to back the Syrian opposition against Assad rule (Balcı 2012). One of the main challenges that Turkey had been confronted with since the Arab uprisings directly resulted from the AKP government’s miscalculation of ‘the resilience of the Bashar regime’ (Altunışık 2013: 5–6). In other words, Turkey’s critical position towards the Syrian regime led it to contest with regional and extra-regional actors, primarily the US and the Russian Federation. For the AKP, the days of the Ba’ath regime were numbered, and the international community would take a course of action to bring a solution to the conflict and human rights suffering in Syria, as had been the case in Libya. The Obama administration, however, departed from its Syrian ‘red line’ policy, which was the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime. Barack Obama said that using these weapons ‘would change my calculus’ over Syria, and Assad would be accountable to the international community (Rhodes 2018). Thus, both the US position towards the Ba’ath regime and its policy of backing the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat, PYD) and the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG) – which the Turkish authorities considered to be affiliated with the PKK – against radical jihadist groups such as ISIS and al-Nusra shifted, and Turkey was left without any solid leverage over the Syrian regime. In other words, the outbreak of war in Syria also uncovered the emergence of Kurdish groups fighting against these radical jihadist groups, which urged Turkey to continue to support the opposition groups fighting against the Assad regime. As stated by Özlem Tür, the war in Syria, then, led to the reinvigoration of discourse around ‘the Kurdish threat’ from ‘Turkey’s south across the Syrian border which has led to the securitization of its foreign policy’ (Tür 2019: 593). The war in Syria is now in its thirteenth year, which has both limited Turkey’s policy towards the region and prompted Ankara to establish a coalition with Russia and Iran over the political future of Syria. One of the key limitations that has affected Turkey in this period is the Russian Federation’s backing of Assad’s rule with the full support of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Therefore, Turkey became involved in a series of negotiations with both Russia and Iran, and aimed to divert the challenges it faced into opportunities through the Geneva as well as Astana processes(Sevencan 2022; Wintour 2017).2 Eventually, Ba’ath rule covered the majority of Syrian territory, which to a great extent restricted Turkey’s policies across its southern borders. Assad was recently re-elected for his fourth seven-year term with 95.1 per cent of the votes cast in regime-controlled areas; the elections held were renounced by Western countries and opponents of the Syrian regime as ‘illegitimate’ (Al Jazeera 2021). Launched in 2017 in Kazakhstan, the Astana peace process is led by Turkey, Russia and Iran and paved the way for the inauguration of diplomatic process run by the United Nations in Geneva.

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426 | nur köprülü Another vital spill-over effect of the Syrian conflict was the entry of millions of Syrian refugees across Turkey’s southern borders. Turkey, with Jordan and Lebanon, has become the country hosting the largest number of refugees. Turkey has pursued a policy of nonrefoulement, and has accepted the responsibility of hosting refugees from its southern frontiers with the onset of the uprisings. The Foreign Ministry recently announced that Turkey is hosting 3.7 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world (Anadolu Agency 2021). With this huge flow of refugees, Turkey struck a deal with the EU that securitised the issue of migration and shaped its external relations with the Union as well. As indicated by Ercan Çitlioğlu, with the aim of de-escalating the conflict in Idlib and mitigating the Hayat Tahrir al Sham group, which controls the bulk of the area, Ankara also pursued a policy of stemming a potential further influx of refugees (Çitlioğlu 2020: 2). The Arab uprisings, which led to a NATO intervention in Libya, as well as the outbreak of the war in Syria and the ongoing unravelling of Iraq, triggered structural tumult in the region. By 2021 Turkey moved towards normalising its ties specifically with Egypt and Israel. This move can also be detected in Turkey’s response to recent events in Tunisia, when Ankara denounced the dismissal of the prime minister and suspension of the parliament as a ‘coup’ by the Tunisian president, Kais Saied. Despite the fact that the AKP government denounced the incident, according to some analysts, ‘Ankara’s language was markedly less incendiary than when Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi overthrew the country’s popularly elected president in 2013’ (Zaman 2021). This stance by Turkey marks a slight change in reformulating Turkish foreign policy in the last decade, which would be intertwined with Turkey’s recent attempts to repair its ties primarily with Egypt and Israel. Conclusion Despite a shared past and deep historical ties with the Arab Middle East since Ottoman times, the Turkish Republic has not developed long-standing institutional and amicable relations with the region. This conventional policy of Turkey’s had begun to shift by the early 2000s and peaked in 2010. The 2011 Arab uprisings that spread across the region would, however, undermine the opportunities that Turkey had acquired with its changing Middle East policy. In the years following the uprisings, Turkey’s policies towards its neighbourhood continued to face substantial challenges, particularly the escalation of the proxy war in Syria and the rapid toppling of the Morsi regime in Egypt. Thus, in the fluctuating regional environment and the emergence of a new geopolitical order in the region, Turkey found itself to some extent isolated by some of the Arab camp who were aligned with Israel, which could not have been imagined a decade before. Furthermore, Israel’s normalisation of its ties with Gulf countries – the UAE and Bahrain – through the Abraham Agreements (after peacemaking with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994) allowed it to be seen as a normal actor in the region, which would

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turkish foreign policy and the arab spring | 427 also reduce its political reliance on Jordan and to some extent on Turkey regionally. Furthermore, the Gulf states – the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain – have strengthened their ties with the Assad regime (Quilliam 2021), and both the UAE and Saudi Arabia have called for Syria’s return to the Arab League almost ten years after its membership was suspended due to the Syrian conflict (Gomaa 2021). Turkey’s growing regional role as well as its ideological centrality, then, were also undermined by the coup in Egypt and Assad’s refusal to democratise Syria, which culminated in Ankara severing ties with Sisi’s rule and the Syrian Ba’ath regime. As a matter of fact, the transition which has been underway in Tunisia since 2011 has been considered the most successful case in scholarly debates, displaying an increased democratic endeavour. Freedom House reports that Tunisia, which was characterised as a ‘not free’ country during the Arab Spring, rapidly shifted to a ‘free’ country (Freedom House 2021). Having said that, despite the existing demands of the people for both economic change and democratisation in the region (Haerpfer et al. 2022), the majority of the countries are still governed by authoritarian regimes, which has precluded the opening of a democratically inspired form of governance in the MENA region and Turkey’s achievement of its goal to act as a ‘model’ for the entire region. References Akgün, Mensur and Sabiha Senyücel Gündoğar (2014), ‘The Perception of Turkey in the Middle East 2013’, TESEV, January, https://www.tesev.org.tr/en/research/the-perception-of-turkeyin-the-middle-east-2013/, accessed 6 February 2023. Al-Anani, Khalil (2020), ‘Egypt–Turkey Strained Relations: Implications for Regional Security’, Arab Center Washington DC, 18 March, https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/egypt-turkeystrained-relations-implications-for-regional-security/, accessed 6 February 2023. Al Jazeera (2021), ‘President Bashar al-Assad sworn in for 4th term in war-hit Syria’, 17 July, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/7/17/syrias-assad-sworn-in-for-4th-term-inwar-torn-country, accessed 6 February 2023. Altunışık, Meliha Benli (2011), ‘Turkish Foreign Policy in the 21st Century’, in CIDOB International Yearbook 2011, Barcelona: CIDOB, pp. 195–9. Altunışık, Meliha Benli (2013), ‘Turkey after the Arab Uprisings: Difficulties of Hanging On in There’, Analysis No. 223, ISPI, December, https://www.ispionline.it/sites/default/files/ pubblicazioni/analysis_223_2013_0.pdf, accessed 6 February 2023 Altunışık, Meliha Benli (2020), ‘Turkey’s eastern Mediterranean quagmire’, Middle East Institute, 18 February, https://www.mei.edu/publications/turkeys-eastern-mediterranean-quagmire, accessed 30 March 2023. Anadolu Agency (2021), ‘13.4M Syrians need humanitarian aid, 2.4M children lack education, 5.9M people are homeless, says Foreign Ministry’, 14 March, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/ turkey/turkey-marks-10-years-of-syrian-civil-war/2175680#

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428 | nur köprülü Aydın, Mustafa (1999), ‘Determinants of Turkish Foreign Policy: Historical Framework and Traditional Inputs’, Middle Eastern Studies 35(4): 152–86. Aydıntaşbaş, Aslı and Cinzia Bianco (2021), ‘Useful Enemies: How the Turkey–UAE Rivalry Is Remaking the Middle East’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 15 March, https:// ecfr.eu/publication/useful-enemies-how-the-turkey-uae-rivalry-is-remaking-the-middle-east, accessed 6 February 2023. Balcı, Bayram (2012), ‘Turkey’s Relations with the Syrian Opposition’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 13 April, https://carnegieendowment.org/2012/04/13/turkey-s-relations-with-syrian-opposition-pub-47841, accessed 6 February 2023. Barany, Zoltan (2011), ‘Comparing the Arab Revolts: The Role of the Military’, Journal of Democracy 22(4): 24–35. Bradley, John R. (2012), After the Arab Spring: How Islamists Hijacked the Middle East Revolts, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Çitlioğlu, Ercan (2020), ‘A Turkish Perspective on Syria’, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 26 September, https://www.kas.de/documents/283907/10528725/A+Turkish+Perspective+on+Syria_ Short+Summary.pdf/9d7d991b-ebda-819d-5595-9ea00d742028?version=1.1&t= 1603876494456, accessed 6 February 2023. Dalacoura, Katerina (2012), ‘The 2011 Uprisings in the Arab Middle East: Political Change and Geopolitical Implications’, International Affairs 88(1): 63–79. Dayıoğlu, Ali and Köprülü, Nur (2019). ‘Turkey’s New Identity Revisited and Its Islamist Reflections in North Cyprus’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19(4): 605–23. France 24 (2011), ‘Turkey’s Erdogan makes case for Islam and democracy in Tunisia’, 15 September, https://www.france24.com/en/20110915-turkey-erdogan-visits-tunisia-second-leg-arabspring-tour-israel, accessed 6 February 2023. Freedom House (2021), ‘Freedom in the World 2021 – Tunisia’, https://freedomhouse.org/country/tunisia/freedom-world/2021, accessed 6 February 2023. Gomaa, Ahmed (2021), ‘Egypt, UAE call for rethink of Syria’s expulsion from Arab League’, Al-Monitor, 15 March, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/03/egypt-uae-callssyria-arab-league-return-war-region.html, accessed 6 February 2023. Haerpfer, C., R. Inglehart, A. Moreno, C. Welzel, K. Kizilova, J. Diez-Medrano, M. Lagos, P. Norris, E. Ponarin & B. Puranen (eds) (2022), World Values Survey: Round Seven – Country-Pooled Datafile Version 5.0, Madrid and Vienna: JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat. Human Rights Watch (2014), ‘All According to Plan: The Rab’a Massacre and Mass Killings of Protesters in Egypt’, 12 August, https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/08/12/all-accordingplan/raba-massacre-and-mass-killings-protesters-egypt, accessed 6 February 2023. Hürriyet (2011), ‘Erdoğan: Arap Baharı demokrasiye geçişte ivme yarattı’, 6 December, https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/erdogan-arap-bahari-demokrasiye-geciste-ivmeyaratti-19404022 Hürriyet Daily News (2013), ‘PM Erdoğan says he won’t back down from stance that led to row with Egypt’, 24 November, https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/pm-erdogan-says-

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turkish foreign policy and the arab spring | 429 he-wont-back-down-from-stance-that-led-to-row-with-egypt-58419, accessed 6 February 2023. Jerusalem Post (2011), ‘Islam can exist with democracy, says Turkish PM’, 15 September. www. jpost.com/Breaking-News/Islam-can-exist-with-democracy-says-Turkish-PM, accessed 30 March 2023. Kalın, İbrahim (2011), ‘Turkey and the Arab Spring’, Middle East Institute, 24 March, https:// www.mei.edu/publications/turkey-and-arab-spring, accessed 6 February 2023. Kirişci, Kemal (2009), ‘The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy: The Rise of the Trading State’, New Perspectives on Turkey 40: 29–56. Kirişci, Kemal (2013), ‘The Rise and Fall of Turkey as a Model for the Arab World’, Brookings, 15 August, https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/the-rise-and-fall-of-turkey-as-a-model-forthe-arab-world/, accessed 6 February 2023. Lynch, Marc (2011), ‘Obama’s “Arab Spring”?’ Foreign Policy, 6 January, https://foreignpolicy. com/2011/01/06/obamas-arab-spring/, accessed 6 February 2023. MFA (2010), ‘Türkiye, Suriye, Ürdün ve Lübnan Arasında Yüksek Düzeyli İşbirliği Konseyi Tesis Edilmesi Hakkında Ortak Siyasi Bildirge’, 10 June, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/turkiye_-suriye_urdun-ve-lubnan-arasinda-yuksek-duzeyli-isbirligi-konseyi-tesis-edilmesi-hakkinda-ortaksiyasi-bildirge.tr.mfa, accessed 6 February 2023. MFA (2012), ‘Interview by Mr Ahmet Davutoğlu published in AUC Cairo Review (Egypt)’, 12 March, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/interview-by-mr_-ahmet-davutoğlu-published-in-auc-cairoreview-_egypt_-on-12-march-2012.en.mfa, accessed 6 February 2023. MFA (2013). ‘Zero Problems in a New Era’, 21 March, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/zero-problems-ina-new-era.en.mfa, accessed 30 March 2023. Oğuzlu, Tarık (2008), ‘Middle Easternization of Turkey’s Foreign Policy: Does Turkey Dissociate from the West?’, Turkish Studies 9(1): 3–20. Oğuzlu, Tarık (2010), ‘Turkey and Europeanization of Foreign Policy?’ Political Science Quarterly 125(4): 657–83. Oran, Baskın (2013), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt III: 2001–2012, Ankara: İletişim Yayıncılık. Özcan, Mesut (2008), Harmonizing Foreign Policy: Turkey, the EU and the Middle East, Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Pace, Michael and Francesco Cavatorta (2012), ‘The Arab Uprisings in Theoretical Perspective: An Introduction’, Mediterranean Politics 17(2): 125–38. Quilliam, Neil (2021), ‘The Middle East is preparing for the United States’ exit from Syria’, Foreign Policy, 25 August, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/25/assad-middle-east-preparingunited-states-exit-syria/, accessed 6 February 2023 Reuters (2011), ‘Turkey tells Mubarak to listen to the people’, 1 February, https://www.reuters. com/article/idINIndia-54562520110201, accessed 6 February 2023. Reuters (2020), ‘Turkey dismisses Egyptian proposal for Libya ceasefire: Hurriyet’, 10 June, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security-turkey-idUSKBN23H1OU, accessed 6 February 2023.

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430 | nur köprülü Rhodes, Ben (2018), ‘Inside the White House during the Syrian “Red Line” crisis’, The Atlantic, 3 June, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/06/inside-the-white-houseduring-the-syrian-red-line-crisis/561887/, accessed 6 February 2023. Sevencan, Seda (2022), ‘Meeting on Syria in Astana held in Kazakhstan’s Nur Sultan’, Anadolu Agency, 16 June, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/meeting-on-syria-in-astana-process-heldin-kazakhstans-nur-sultan/2615478, accessed 30 March 2023. Shadid, Anthony (2011), ‘Turkey predicts alliance with Egypt as regional anchors’, New York Times, 18 September, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/world/middleeast/turkeypredicts-partnership-with-egypt-as-regional-anchors.html, accessed 6 February 2023. Shenker, Jack (2011), ‘Turkey’s PM rallies Arab world in Cairo with call for UN to recognise Palestine’, The Guardian, 13 September, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/ 13/turkey-rallies-arab-world, accessed 6 February 2023. Sinkaya, Bayram (2011), ‘Geçmişten Günümüze Türkiye’nin Ortadoğu Politikası ve Batı Etkisi’, Adam Akademi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 1(1): 79–100. Sözen, Ahmet (2010), ‘A Paradigm Shift in Turkish Foreign Policy: Transition and Challenges’, Turkish Studies 11(1): 103–23. Tanchum, Michaël (2020), ‘Libya, energy, and the Mediterranean’s new “Great Game”’, Real Instituto Elcano, 23 September, https://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/en/analyses/libya-energy-andthe-mediterraneans-new-great-game/, accessed 6 February 2023. Tocci, Nathalie (2012), ‘Turkey’s Neighbourhood Policy and EU Membership: Squaring the Circle of Turkish Foreign Policy’, International Journal 67(1): 65–80. Tol, Gönül (2011), ‘Erdoğan’s Arab spring tour’, Middle East Institute, 21 September, https:// www.mei.edu/publications/erdogans-arab-spring-tour, accessed 6 February 2023. Tür, Özlem (2019), ‘Turkey’s Role in Middle East and Gulf Security’, Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 13(4): 592–603. Wintour, Patrick (2017), ‘Syria peace talks: rebels appear to rule out ceasefire role for Iran’, The Guardian, 23 January, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/23/syria-peace-talksshaky-start-rebels-refuse-negotiate-face-to-face-astana, accessed 30 March 2023. Yeşilyurt, Nuri (2017), ‘Explaining Miscalculation and Maladaptation in Turkish Foreign Policy towards the Middle East during the Arab Uprisings: A Neoclassical Realist Perspective’, All Azimuth 6(2): 65–83. Zaman, Amberin (2021), ‘Turkish officials condemn Tunisian “coup” but keep it measured’, Al-Monitor, 26 July, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/07/turkish-officialscondemn-tunisian-coup-keep-it-measured#ixzz762lIA9Qc, accessed 6 February 2023.

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33 A Curious Love Affair? EU–Turkey Relations Senem Aydın-Düzgit (Sabancı University)

Introduction

T

urkey and the EU are bound by a curious love affair. Turkey has been an integral part of Europe’s centuries-long history and has enjoyed structured relations with the European Union and its predecessor, the European Community, almost since its inception. Both Turkey and the EU have aimed at cultivating a closer relationship. The depth and breadth of the economic, societal, cultural and political connections that the two have been able to establish over the years clearly testify to this. Although both sides have always aimed at deepening relations, the precise interpretation of what this would entail has been highly contested. It is this odd mix of a shared commitment to each other and widely varying interpretations within (and between) both sides as to what this should mean that explains Turkey’s tortuous path to Europe, characterised by various ebbs and flows since the early decades of the Republic. This chapter will provide an assessment of Turkey’s relations with the EU from its application for associate membership in 1959 to date by focusing in particular on the Cold War years and Turkey’s second application for membership in 1987; the 1990s as an era in which both sides redefined their identities and interests in the aftermath of the Cold War; the 2000s, which comprised the golden age of relations between the two sides (2001–5) as well as a period of stagnation; and the post-2016 era, characterised by mostly conflictual relations and limited transactional cooperation which lasts up to the present day. The chapter will also focus on the factors explaining the tumultuous nature of the relationship, which lie both in Turkey and in the EU as well as in the interaction between the two sides. It will conclude by discussing the current state of and the potential future scenarios for EU–Turkey relations. 431

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432 | senem aydın-düzgit A Tumultuous History: From a Potential Member to Adversary? Turkey applied for associate membership of the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1959. The application was mainly driven by Turkey’s goal of Westernisation, which entailed belonging to all Western institutions in the context of the Cold War, as well as specific political considerations, such as the Greek application to the EEC the same year, which raised Turkish concerns of receiving unequal treatment from the Community. To a lesser extent, economic factors such as the need for foreign economic aid in the face of declining assistance from the US also played a role (Müftüler-Baç 1997: 53–6). The EEC welcomed the Turkish application on the grounds of the country’s strategic significance in Cold War conditions, the Community’s competition with the European Free Trade Association over new members, and its wish to treat Greece and Turkey on an equal footing. The six founding members of the Community already enjoyed close economic relations with both Greece and Turkey and wanted to ensure their long-term commitment to the Western alliance. The EEC thus took into consideration Turkey’s application as an associate and official negotiations between the two started on 29 September 1959. The negotiations finally ended in 1963 with the signing of the EC–Turkey Association Agreement, better known as the Ankara Agreement, which constitutes the first contractual relationship between the two sides. The agreement envisaged the establishment of a customs union and opened the door to full accession through its Article 28, which stated the following: ‘As soon as the operation of this Agreement has advanced far enough to justify envisaging full acceptance by Turkey of the obligations arising out of the Treaty establishing the Community, the Contracting Parties shall examine the possibility of the accession of Turkey to the Community’ (Council of the European Communities 1977b: 35). Hence, the agreement was very carefully worded in the sense that it did not foresee full membership but only the customs union as a definite outcome, while not wholly ruling out the possibility of full accession in the future. The mechanics of the agreement consisted of a preparatory stage (five years), a transition stage (twelve years) and a final stage, where a full customs union would be established. The agreement also established an Association Council where top-level official representatives of both sides would regularly meet, an Association Committee to assist the works of the Association Council, and a Joint Parliamentary Committee, through which Turkish parliamentarians and members of the European Parliament would meet. However, relations did not proceed as smoothly as was envisaged on paper. The preparatory stage did not come to an end until 1970 due to Turkey’s failure to adjust economically in the given period. Nevertheless, this was the least problematic phase of Turkey’s association due to the fact that Turkey in this period began to receive

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eu–turkey relations | 433 economic support and extended trade access from the EU without having to assume heavy obligations (Müftüler-Baç 1997: 57–60). Following the end of the preparatory stage, both sides signed the Additional Protocol on November 1970, which marked the beginning of the transition stage. The Additional Protocol established a programme of trade liberalisation that was meant to culminate in a customs union by the end of 1994, after which the Community would consider Turkey’s full membership (Council of the European Communities 1977a). However, relations largely deteriorated in the 1970s due to the political turmoil in Turkey and the 1973 oil crisis, which crippled the Turkish economy. Relations in this period were further complicated by Turkey’s July 1974 intervention in Cyprus. Turkey’s second offensive, in August 1974, was met with severe criticism by EEC member states. Furthermore, between the first and the second Turkish attacks, the Greek junta collapsed and the new premier, Konstantinos Karamanlis, immediately voiced the intention to apply for EEC membership, which he did in 1975. Despite the European Commission’s negative opinion, the Council of the EEC overruled the Commission’s decision in February 1976 and in January 1981 Greece entered the Community. This can be considered as a turning point in the history of EU–Turkey relations since it introduced the much disputed ‘Greek factor’ into the relationship (Arıkan 2006). The 1980 military coup in Turkey dealt another blow to the relationship, after which the EC maintained the freeze on political dialogue. In 1982, the European Parliament passed a resolution that suspended the joint European Community (EC)–Turkey Parliamentary Committee and meetings of the Association Council until the country held general elections and convened a parliament. Civilian rule was institutionally restored in 1983 and the new government took various steps towards economic and political liberalisation. In April 1987, following the gradual political stabilisation and economic liberalisation after the 1980 military coup, Turkey, under Prime Minister Turgut Özal, submitted a formal request for full EC membership. This second application was mainly driven by the need to revitalise Turkey–EC relations at a time when the economic liberalisation programme of the Özal government necessitated foreign economic assistance for the much-needed structural reforms of the Turkish economy (Uzgel 2004). Another reason for Turkey’s application was the desire to compensate for the strategic disadvantage generated by Greece’s membership of the Community, which weakened Turkey in its bilateral disputes with Greece as the Greek governments were constantly using the EC as a platform to pursue national interests and obstruct Turkey’s relations with the EC. The Community’s response to Turkey’s application to full membership came in December 1989. Partly because of the Community’s internal task of completing the single market and partly because of the problematic state of the Turkish economy and democracy as well as the mounting violence in Turkey’s southeast at the time, Ankara’s

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434 | senem aydın-düzgit application was rejected by the European Commission and Turkey’s European future was put on hold. While However, the door for Turkey was left open as the Commission in its opinion confirmed Turkey’s eligibility for membership. It also recommended the conclusion of a customs union agreement with Turkey, which would give the Community the opportunity to associate with the country more closely (European Commission 1989). The end of the Cold War brought about radical changes to Turkey’s environment. Turkey’s role as a Western bulwark against Soviet expansionism ended, ushering the way to a new period of mounting instability in the Middle East and Eurasia (Larrabee & Lesser 2001). Turkey consequently underwent an intense period of soul-searching, assessing alternative geostrategic options such as pan-Turkism or regional leadership in the Middle East and Eurasia (Landau 1995). In the meanwhile, Greece continued to obstruct Turkey’s relations with the EU well into the 1990s and actively advocated membership for the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). In 1993, the Commission recommended to the Council to start accession negotiations with the RoC. Although there was initial reluctance on the part of the member states to conduct accession negotiations without a political settlement on the island, the Greek governments were adamant on this policy, which they used to hold hostage both the Turkey–EU customs union agreement and, later, the eastern enlargement of the EU. Accession negotiations with the RoC were finally opened in 1998 and Cyprus became a member in 2004, which further complicated the dynamics of EU–Turkey relations in the future years. Despite the problematic nature of the relations, Turkey continued to lobby for its inclusion in the EU customs union in the 1990s. Turkey’s pressures were matched by the Clinton administration in the United States, which also pressed member states to deepen ties with Turkey. The Union yielded, and in 1996 the EU–Turkey customs union entered into force, marking the beginning of higher levels of economic integration. The customs union agreement went further than the abolition of tariff and quantitative barriers to trade between the parties, envisaging harmonisation with EU policies in virtually every field relating to the internal market (Erdemli 2003: 5–6). However, the positive atmosphere created by the conclusion of the customs union agreement deteriorated rapidly in 1997. Despite strong pressure from Ankara and Washington to upgrade EU–Turkey relations into the accession process, the 1997 European Council meeting in Luxembourg underlined that Turkey did not meet the standards for candidacy and excluded it from the list of prospective members, which consisted of the states of central and eastern Europe together with Cyprus and Malta. It offered instead a ‘European strategy’ based on the exploitation of the integration prospects foreseen under existing contractual relations (the Association Agreement). Unlike in 1989, this second rejection, together with the EU’s finger-pointing at Turkey’s democratic deficiencies, was perceived in Ankara

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eu–turkey relations | 435 as a clear case of discrimination, given the problematic political and economic situation in the eastern European candidate countries at the time. This was also the first time that opposition to Turkish accession on cultural and religious grounds began to be voiced in the EU. In response, Turkey froze its political dialogue with the Union, and threatened to withdraw its membership application and integrate with the unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (Tocci 2004: 65–93). The tide turned with the December 1999 Helsinki European Council meeting, when Turkey’s long-sought candidacy was recognised (Öniş 2003). Given the downturn in EU–Turkey relations in the 1997–9 period, the member states acutely felt the need to move forward, and there was a growing sense within the Union of the need to not to lose Turkey given the severe instability in southeast Europe. Turkey’s efforts in the Balkans had been appreciated as an important contribution to the stabilisation of the European continent. They lent credibility to the arguments of European stakeholders which highlighted the assets that Turkey’s security and defence capabilities would bring to bear on the fledging Common Security and Defence Policy. Alongside and in relation to this, strong pressure was exerted by the Clinton administration to grant Turkey EU candidacy. There were also significant political changes in the EU in those years, most notably in Germany, where the Social Democrat and Green coalition, supportive of Turkish accession, replaced the Christian Democrats, who were largely against Turkish membership. The most notable shift, however, happened in the case of Greece, which changed its position on Turkish accession in the late 1990s, from being a firm veto player to a more strategic actor that relied on EU conditionality for the solution of its bilateral disputes with Turkey but in principle accepted Turkey’s full membership. This change was a result of the profound transformation that Greece underwent as an EU member state, and particularly the Greek socialist party PASOK as a governing party from the late 1990s, with the replacement of the late Andreas Papandreou by Costas Simitis in 1996. The transformation of Greece’s attitudes towards EU–Turkey relations was also linked to the Greek– Turkish rapprochement from August–September 1999 (Tocci 2004: 127–8). The European Council in Helsinki recognised Turkey’s candidacy, but stopped short of opening accession negotiations, arguing that the country first had to fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria for membership. In turn, the Commission was given a mandate to monitor progress and to draft a first Accession Partnership for Turkey, recommending areas for Turkish domestic reform. The EU also adapted its financial assistance to Turkey, redirecting aid to provide more explicit support for Turkey’s political, social, administrative and economic reforms. In line with the Helsinki decision, in November 2000, the European Commission adopted the first Accession Partnership document for Turkey. It outlined the short- and medium-term measures

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436 | senem aydın-düzgit necessary to ensure that Turkey met the criteria for membership. The Accession Partnership was followed by the preparation of the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis by the Turkish authorities in March 2001, setting out the political and economic reforms that Turkey was prepared to pursue. Immediately following the approval of the National Programme, the silence on political reform was broken in Turkey with thirty-four amendments made to Turkey’s constitution in October 2001, to be followed by three harmonisation packages adopted after the Copenhagen Summit of 2002. The Greek–Turkish rapprochement also continued into the 2000s. Greece and Turkey had signed various bilateral agreements on ‘low politics’ issues and joint task forces were established to explore how Greek know-how could help Turkey’s harmonisation with the acquis. Both sides had agreed to engage in talks regarding the Aegean continental shelf in March 2002. Greek support for Turkey’s EU membership also facilitated the upgrade of EU–Turkey relations at the Copenhagen European Council meeting in December 2002, which concluded that it would determine whether and when to open accession negotiations with Turkey, depending on whether Turkey fulfilled the Copenhagen political criteria, in December 2004 (Müftüler-Baç 2005; Verney & Ifantis 2009). The EU also decided to increase the amount of its financial and technical assistance to Turkey. The approaching green light for the opening of negotiations set the target and the timeline in the reform programme of the new Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government elected in November 2002. Four subsequent democratic reform packages and two sets of constitutional amendments were adopted by the Turkish parliament in this period in addition to institutional efforts undertaken to implement the new regulations. Turkey’s progress in reforms under the first AKP government meant that the Commission’s Annual Progress Report in 2004 and the December 2004 European Council meeting concluded that Turkey had ‘sufficiently’ fulfilled the political criteria and that accession talks could begin in October 2005. Nonetheless, there were also worrying signs from the EU front as to how sustainable this process would be. The years 2004 and 2005 witnessed intense debates on the issue of Turkey’s accession to the Union. Most of the debates centred on whether Turkey should, in principle, become an EU member. The notions of cultural difference and identity were also a major theme in these heated discussions on Turkish membership (Aydın-Düzgit 2012; Rumelili 2011). Up until the very last minute, the Austrian presidency stated that the goal of accession negotiations should not be full membership, even though the ‘possibility’ of eventual membership could not be ruled out. A month before winning the German election, Angela Merkel sent a letter to conservative heads of government in the EU, underlining that accession negotiations with Turkey should not lead to membership but should instead lead to a ‘privileged partnership’ and be ‘open ended’. This was in line with the French attempt to introduce

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eu–turkey relations | 437 the recognition of Cyprus as a novel condition to begin accession negotiations prior to 3 October 2005, in a reversal of its previous stance and commitments. The Conservative and Christian Democrat factions in the European Parliament lobbied intensively throughout the year to introduce a ‘privileged partnership’ with Turkey, rather than full membership. These attitudes were finally reflected in the negotiating framework with Turkey, which invited reflection on alternative outcomes such as the ‘privileged partnership’ and enabled the introduction of suggesting permanent derogations in the fields of free movement of persons, structural policies or agriculture were Turkey to eventually join the Union (European Council 2005). In the first half of the 2000s, global developments also left their lasting mark on the EU–Turkey relationship. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 consolidated the designation of Islam(ism) as a threat to Western values, interests and ways of life, and reinforced the associated notion of an ineluctable ‘clash of civilisations’. Prior to the late 1980s, Islam was rarely viewed as a threat in the West, but was rather perceived as having compatible values with the Christian West, as opposed to communism’s aesthetic materialism and hostility to all religious values. With the end of the Cold war, Islam was catapulted into the category of the ‘other’ and started being discussed in the West in a manner not dissimilar to the Cold War debates about communism and the best ways to ‘contain’ it. This larger discursive frame was used in arguing both for and against Turkey’s EU membership in the 2000s. While those who argued against Turkish accession focused on the incompatibility of Islam and Western values, those who were in favour of it emphasised Turkey’s potential to be a ‘model’ for its Muslim neighbours and enhance the EU’s effectiveness as an external actor in its near abroad. Another key global development that had a major impact on EU–Turkey relations at this time was the 2003 war in Iraq and the US’s failure to achieve its declared goals that were largely perceived in Europe as the trigger for destabilisation on Europe’s borders. This led to two opposing views on Turkish accession: one which perceived Turkey as a potential importer of the instability in its troubled vicinity into the EU and another which saw Turkey as a valuable partner that effectively promoted the goals and spirit of the European Neighbourhood Policy in the shared EU and Turkish neighbourhoods. Since the opening of accession talks, Turkey’s accession negotiations have proceeded at a snail’s pace, with sixteen (out of thirty-five) chapters opened by July 2021 and only one chapter (science and research) provisionally closed. No new chapter has been opened since June 2016. While part of this has to do with the Cypriot vetoes to the opening of six negotiation chapters, the main technical blockage lies in the Union’s December 2006 decision to suspend the opening of negotiations with Turkey on eight chapters of the acquis and not to provisionally close any of the chapters until Turkey meets its obligations towards Cyprus, on the grounds of Turkey’s non-implementation of the protocol

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438 | senem aydın-düzgit amending the customs union agreement to allow Greek Cypriot-flagged flights and vessels into Turkish air- and seaports. The de facto freezing of accession negotiations in 2016 also coincided with the souring of the overall political relations between the EU and Turkey. The political reform momentum within Turkey had already began to wane after 2005. Even reform initiatives which were applauded by EU actors, such as the 2009 ‘Kurdish Opening’, were initiated and pursued by Turkey largely independently of the EU accession process (Aydın-Düzgit & Tocci 2015). Especially after its second electoral victory in 2007, the AKP became much stronger both in society and also against the secularist establishment, and thus became less dependent on the EU and its democratisation agenda (Noutcheva & Aydın-Düzgit 2012). The deterioration of Turkish democracy took a rapid turn after the Gezi uprisings in June 2013, when the government clamped down harshly on demonstrators, and reached its peak with the failed coup attempt in July 2016. As the transformative impact of the EU membership goal weakened, the process of Europeanisation was replaced by a policy of de-Europeanisation in Turkey (Aydın-Düzgit & Kaliber 2016). While Turkey’s move away from democracy towards a highly authoritarian, hierarchical and centralised regime consolidated the de facto frozen status of its accession negotiations, its waning accession prospects meant that the EU had little leverage left over the trajectory of Turkish democracy. This also meant that Turkey–EU relations were now increasingly entering an era of transactional relations that were devoid of an at least partly values-based accession agenda. This era of transactionalism was best signified in the EU–Turkey migration deal agreed between the two sides on 18 March 2016. In the summer of 2015, close to 1 million Syrian refugees transited through Turkey and risked their lives crossing the Aegean Sea in the hopes of finding protection in Europe. The debate over the arrival of refugees in Europe was leading to a political crisis in the EU as no agreement could be reached on how or where to distribute inflows of refugees within European territory to ease the burden on border countries. Therefore, efforts turned to addressing the issue with countries of transit and origin, most notably Turkey, as the country was facing a huge refugee influx. Formally referred to as the ‘EU–Turkey Statement’, the deal detailed cooperation in supporting Turkey in hosting this vast refugee population, curbing irregular migration flows to Europe, promoting legal channels for protection and resettlement in Europe, accelerating visa liberalisation for Turkey, and re-energising Turkey’s EU accession process (Aydın-Düzgit et al. 2019: 4). Progress on these different components of the agreement has varied significantly. On the one hand, the Statement had an immediate and rather drastic impact in terms of reducing the volume of irregular migration flows across the Aegean, as well as the loss of migrant lives at sea (Aydın-Düzgit et al. 2019: 8). On the matter of visa liberalisation, however, progress has been stalled because of five (out of seventy-two) requirements

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eu–turkey relations | 439 listed in the road map that Turkey has been unable to fulfil. Out of these five, those that necessitated amendments to the Anti-Terror Law proved particularly contentious in an era of rising nationalism in Turkey. The funding component was initially hampered by some delays in payments and political negotiations over how they would be utilised (Kale et al. 2018). Eventually, the first €3 billion was contracted through seventy-two projects. Furthermore, in March 2018, the European Commission agreed on the mobilisation of an additional €3 billion for the Facility for Refugees in Turkey. Regarding bilateral relations, the migration deal has been heavily criticised for giving the Turkish government leverage for maintaining illiberal and undemocratic internal politics, particularly in the wake of the April 2017 constitutional referendum which abolished the parliamentary system and replaced it with a hyper-centralised presidential system with little regard for checks and balances (Kfir 2018; Okyay & Zaragoza-Cristiani 2016). It can be argued that the migration deal also instilled a new source of mistrust into the bilateral relationship where mutual trust was already low. The Turkish president and ministers have referred to ‘opening the gate if need be’ on various occasions (AydınDüzgit et al. 2019: 14) and briefly did so in February 2020, following the death of thirtythree Turkish soldiers in Syria. The increasing conflictual nature of the relationship, despite limited transactional cooperation focused on migration, was most recently witnessed in the disputes concerning the eastern Mediterranean. The power vacuum left by the United States by the Trump administration in Turkey’s immediate neighbourhood opened up more room for manoeuvre for Turkey, along with other regional actors such as Russia. Coupled with rising nationalism at home and having also alienated potential allies in the Mediterranean such as Israel and Egypt – mostly for domestic political reasons – and thus feeling isolated in the eastern Mediterranean, Turkey increasingly resorted to unilateralism and a militarised foreign policy in its regional operations and actions, creating a deeper rift with the EU (Arısan-Eralp et al. 2020). Its seismic exploration vessels off the coast of Cyprus and later Kastellorizo led the EU to accuse Turkey of illegal actions that ran counter to international law and the sovereign rights of EU member states. Greece and Cyprus had formed closer ties with Egypt and Israel, leaving Turkey feeling increasingly cornered. France, which was on a collision course with Turkey over strategic interests in the eastern Mediterranean as well as the Libya conflict, supported the Cypriot and Greek positions against Turkey, calling for harsh sanctions on Ankara. Germany, on the other hand, adopted a conciliatory position and acted as a facilitator and mediator to start dialogue and reconciliation between the parties. The divergent positions of the member states ultimately led to a compromise, where the EU decided in a European Council summit in December 2020 to impose limited sanctions targeting certain individuals and companies involved in gas-drilling activities in the eastern Mediterranean. In response to Turkey’s

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440 | senem aydın-düzgit withdrawal of the gas exploration vessels and its reconciliatory tone towards the EU, the Union refrained from adopting a more comprehensive sanctions regime towards Turkey in the subsequent Council summits and proposed potential areas of further cooperation consisting of a modernised customs union, a revised migration deal and enhanced peopleto-people contacts. Conclusion: Can the Vicious Circle Be Reversed? The historical ebbs and flows in EU–Turkey relations attest to the cyclical nature of this relationship. The vicious circle in EU–Turkey relations was reversed into a virtuous one after the December 1999 Helsinki European Council meeting, when Turkey was recognised as a candidate for membership and began preparing for the opening of accession talks. As and when Turkey switched from the framework of association and the customs union to that of the accession process, EU incentives for Turkey’s domestic transformation magnified. Concomitantly with the opening of accession negotiations, however, the virtuous dynamic lapsed again into a vicious one. As European debates on the desirability of Turkey’s membership became more vocal, acrimonious and detached from objective assessments of Turkey’s reform process, Turkish incentives to reform in line with EU standards waned. Turkey’s de-Europeanisation and de-democratisation coupled with a more unilateral and assertive foreign policy have fed into a spiral of antagonism together with a distancing between the two sides. Over the past two decades, Turkey’s status in relation to the EU has gradually transformed from a candidate country on the path to full accession, to a neighbour and, finally, to an adversary. At the time of writing, this continues to be the prevalent dynamic between the EU and Turkey. Some scholars have referred to the current state of the relationship as a form of ‘conflictual cooperation’, where the parties acknowledge the centrality of conflict to their relationship, yet choose to cooperate in certain policy areas (Saatçioğlu et al. 2019). This, however, is easier said than done as even the upgrading of the customs union agreement between the two sides cannot yet be negotiated due to politically motivated vetoes on the part of key EU member states such as Germany. However, as this chapter has demonstrated, the history of the relationship suggests that this may well not be the case in future. As and when a different constellation of actors and factors within the EU and Turkey interlocks and interacts, a virtuous dynamic may well be set in motion again. Recent public opinion polls and studies in Turkey suggest that despite the downturn in relations, the vast majority of the Turkish public, and most prominently Turkish youth, supports Turkey’s EU accession and holds favourable views of the EU (German Marshall Fund 2021). In the case that Turkey returns to democracy and normalcy, there is significant potential for deepened cooperation in various policy fields including migration, a customs union and the economy, green transformation,

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eu–turkey relations | 441 security and energy. This could take the form of differentiated integration of Turkey to the EU, where accession prospects would not be abandoned but complemented by advanced convergence with the norms and standards of EU governance. References Arıkan, Harun (2006), Turkey and the EU: An Awkward Candidate for EU Membership?, 2nd ed., Aldershot and Burlington, VA: Ashgate. Arısan-Eralp, Nilgün, Senem Aydın-Düzgit, Atila Eralp, Fuat Keyman and Çiğdem Nas (2020), ‘EU–Turkey Relations after the Council Summit: A Chance for Reengagement or Facing a Complete Breakdown?’ Istanbul Policy Center, November. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem (2012), Constructions of European Identity: Debates and Discourses on Turkey and the EU, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem and Alper Kaliber (2016), ‘Encounters with Europe in an Era of Domestic and International Turmoil: Is Turkey a De-Europeanising Country?’ South European Society and Politics 21(1): 1–14. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem and Nathalie Tocci (2015), Turkey and the European Union, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Aydın-Düzgit, Senem, E. Fuat Keyman and Kristen S. Biehl (2019), ‘Changing Patterns of Migration Cooperation: Beyond the EU–Turkey Deal?’ Istanbul Policy Center, December. Council of the European Communities (1977a), ‘Additional Protocol and Financial Protocol’, Official Journal of the European Communities L 361: 60–123. Council of the European Communities (1977b), ‘Agreement Establishing an Association between the European Economic Community and Turkey’, Official Journal of the European Communities L 361: 29–43. Erdemli, Özgül (2003), ‘Chronology: Turkey’s Relations with the EU’, Turkish Studies 4(1): 4–8. European Commission (1989), ‘Commission Opinion on Turkey’s Request for Accession to the Community’, SEC (89) 2290 Final, 20 December, https://www.cvce.eu/obj/avis_ de_la_commission_sur_la_demande_d_adhesion_de_la_turquie_a_la_communaute_ 20_decembre_1989-fr-4cc1acf8-06b2-40c5-bb1e-bb3d4860e7c1.html, accessed 6 February 2023. European Council (2005), ‘Negotiating Framework (Turkey)’, 3 October, https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2018-12/st20002_05_tr_framedoc_en.pdf, accessed 6 February 2023. German Marshall Fund (2021), ‘Turkish Perceptions of the European Union’, 29 April, https://www.gmfus.org/publications/turkish-perceptions-european-union, accessed 6 February 2023. Kale, Başak, Angeliki Dimitriadi, Elena Sanchez-Montijano and Elif Süm (2018), ‘Asylum Policy and the Future of Turkey–EU Relations: Between Cooperation and Conflict’, Online Paper No. 18, FEUTURE, April, https://feuture.uni-koeln.de/sites/feuture/pdf/FEUTURE_ Online_Paper_No_18_final.pdf, accessed 6 February 2023.

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442 | senem aydın-düzgit Kfir, Isaac (2018), ‘A Faustian Pact: Has the EU–Turkey Deal Undermined the EU’s Own Security?’ Comparative Strategy 37(3): 207–19. Landau, M. Jakob (1995), Pan Turkism: From Irredentism to Cooperation, London: Hurst. Larrabee, F. Stephen and Ian O. Lesser (2001), Turkish Foreign Policy in an Age of Uncertainty, Santa Monica, CA: Rand. Müftüler-Baç, Meltem (1997), Turkey’s Relations with a Changing Europe, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Müftüler-Baç, Meltem (2005), ‘Turkey’s Political Reforms and the Impact of the European Union’, South European Society and Politics 10(1): 17–31. Noutcheva, Gergana and Senem Aydın-Düzgit (2012), ‘Lost in Europeanization: The Western Balkans and Turkey’, West European Politics 35(1): 59–78. Okyay, Aslı and Jonathan Zaragoza-Cristiani (2016), ‘The Leverage of the Gatekeeper: Power and Interdependence in the Migration Nexus between the EU and Turkey’, International Spectator 51(4): 51–66. Öniş, Ziya (2003), ‘Domestic Politics, International Norms and Challenges to the State: Turkey– EU Relations in the Post-Helsinki Era’, Turkish Studies 4(1): 9–34. Rumelili, Bahar (2011), ‘Turkey: Identity, Foreign Policy, and Socialization in a Post-Enlargement Europe’, Journal of European Integration 33(2): 235–49. Saatçioğlu, Beken, Funda Tekin, Sinan Ekim and Nathalie Tocci (2019), ‘The Future of EU– Turkey Relations: A Dynamic Association Framework amidst Conflictual Cooperation’, FEUTURE, March, https://feuture.uni-koeln.de/sites/monteus/user_upload/FEUTURE_ Synthesis_Paper.pdf, accessed 6 February 2023. Tocci, Nathalie (2004), EU Accession Dynamics and Conflict Resolution: Catalysing Peace or Consolidating Partition in Cyprus? Aldershot: Ashgate. Uzgel, İlhan (2004), Ulusal Çıkar ve Dış Politika, Ankara: İmge. Verney, Susannah and Kostas Ifantis (eds) (2009), Turkey’s Road to European Union Membership: National Identity and Political Change, Abingdon: Routledge.

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34 Turkey’s Seven Decades of Ebb and Flow within NATO Sinem Akgül Açıkmeşe (Kadir Has University) and Ali Şevket Ovalı (Dokuz Eylül University)

Introduction

S

ince the 1990s, NATO’s ability to adapt to a highly unpredictable and changing security landscape has been and still is subject to debates in both academic and policy circles. Despite the Afghanistan debacle and the current impasse on how to respond to Russian aggression in Ukraine since February 2022, the alliance would not have survived the post-Cold War era without enhancing a common sense of solidarity and mutual trust among its members. Contrary to its successful record of providing solidarity and also security guarantees with the famous Article 5 mutual self-defence clause, NATO has never been able to create complete harmony on a variety of issues, mostly because of the divergence of threat perceptions among its members on certain security matters, specifically with the demise of the Soviet Union as the unifier threat. Likewise, these convergence and divergence dynamics of NATO reflect Turkey’s position within NATO, which has manifested crisis-prone and cooperative characteristics simultaneously since Turkey became a member in February 1952. During the Cold War, the imminent Soviet threat prevented NATO allies from engaging in any diplomatic, political or military confrontations against each other, out of concern that such an act could weaken the alliance. Despite its strained bilateral relations with Greece and the US over the Cyprus issue, Turkey maintained its cooperative approach within NATO. The demise of the USSR removed the strategic imperatives for cooperation and Turkey lost much of the geostrategic advantage it had held during the Cold War rivalries, since when the relations between Turkey and NATO have been tested by various crises, most of which stemmed from the divergent threat perceptions and priorities. In fact, only a few of these crises erupted during and in the immediate aftermath 443

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444 | sinem akgül açıkmeşe and ali şevket ovalı of the Cold War years between Turkey and NATO per se, and they were were mostly reflections of souring relations and confrontational statements between Turkey and an individual NATO member state, such as Greece, France or the US. However, regardless of the turbulent bilateral relations between Turkey and its allies, both NATO and Turkey managed to keep their relations somewhat on track until the outbreak of the recent S-400 crisis. Ankara’s procurement of Russian S-400 air defence systems not only exacerbated the tensions between Turkey and the US but also caused deep concerns within NATO. Despite all tensions, Turkey’s relations with NATO in the post-Cold War period mostly encompass recurrent patterns of cooperation. Turkey’s active involvement in and substantial contributions to NATO missions and operations undoubtedly display Ankara’s significance for the alliance in a highly challenging strategic environment. In other words, NATO was a determinant in Turkey’s security identity throughout the Cold War by deterring the USSR; and it remains so in the post-Cold War era through Turkey’s participation in NATO’s out-of-area operations (Kınacıoğlu 2017), NATO’s contributions to Turkey under the consultation mechanisms of Article 4 and Turkey’s hosting of some NATO facilities. Overall, Turkey has the second largest standing army in NATO. This chapter departs from the argument that Turkey’s relations with NATO should be evaluated through the conflict–cooperation nexus and only this approach can provide substantial evidence about the roots of conflict and motives for cooperation. Moreover, this approach would also display the limits of Turkey’s position within NATO, with a focus on potential areas and/or issues that are likely to produce conflict, as well as future opportunities for collaboration in the conflict-prone regions. Against this background, this chapter merely focuses on the cases that have had direct implications for the alliance rather than the external bilateral disputes between Turkey and the fellow members of NATO. Within the context of conflict dynamics, the divergent interests of Turkey and its NATO allies in the Syrian civil war, Turkey’s decision to purchase S-400 missile systems and Ankara’s veto bargain over NATO’s defence plan for Poland and the Baltics as well as Turkey’s concerns over NATO’s expansion to Finland and Sweden will be examined. The motives for cooperation will be scrutinised through Turkey’s several contributions to NATO, including its participation in selected missions and field operations. Turkey: A Collaborative and Loyal Ally of NATO With the end of the Second World War, as the keystone of Turkey’s Westernisation intentions as a result of the fear of Soviet domination, Turkey became destined to join the transatlantic military alliance which was established in April 1949. From NATO’s

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turkey’s seven decades of ebb and flow within nato  | 445 viewpoint, the advantage of Turkey’s accession has been accurately reflected in its official website: ‘For NATO, Türkiye’s capacity to provide land and sea bases, its strong military forces and its strategic importance on the south eastern flank of the Alliance, meant that the country would be a solid ally in the region’ (NATO n.d.). With the aim of joining NATO, Turkey modernised and transformed its armed forces in a way to harmonise its military structures with the alliance, during and in the aftermath of its participation in the Korean War, which indisputably facilitated Turkey’s accession. By being a NATO member in February 1952, Turkey became inextricably linked to the Western institutions and the transatlantic security community. As argued in AksuEreker and Akgül-Açıkmeşe (2021), ‘during the Cold War, Turkey was strongly bonded to bloc politics and did rarely pursue policies independent of NATO, although these policies did not serve always for Turkey’s specific interests’. NATO–Turkey affairs remained as an ‘identity-driven’ relationship throughout the Cold War years (Oğuzlu 2012: 153) and they were predominantly determined by ‘Turkey’s quest for Westernization’ (Yılmaz 2012: 481). In the post-Cold War era, Turkey adapted itself to NATO’s changing role and capacity in the face of new global security structures. NATO’s raison d’être based on the mutual self-defence guarantees of the Washington Treaty’s Article 5 had to be transformed, which necessitated a new role for the organisation in order to defend the allies against threats such as terrorism, instabilities, civil wars, ethnic conflicts, weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and so on. In such a setting, NATO’s out-of-area operations – which included missions of crisis management operations ranging from peacekeeping to training and from humanitarian relief to logistics support – equipped the alliance with changing roles and capabilities. Since the 1990s, Turkey has adapted itself to NATO’s new search for an existential role and contributed to NATO’s outof-area missions elsewhere in the world. Turkey has been a significant contributor to NATO’s out-of-area/peacekeeping missions elsewhere in the world. In the Balkans, Turkey has contributed to the UN-mandated Implementation Force (IFOR) and then the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia-Herzegovina, which aimed at enforcing and sustaining peace under the Dayton accords; to the Kosovo Force (KFOR) for creating a secure zone in Kosovo on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 1244; and to the Essential Harvest, Amber Fox and Allied Harmony operations in Northern Macedonia for the implementation of peace and provision of stability (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022). Turkey supported NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, by providing personnel and equipment as well as taking command of Regional Command Capital in Kabul between 2006 and 2008 and providing security at Kabul airport. Turkey provided naval vessels for Operation Active Endeavour, to

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446 | sinem akgül açıkmeşe and ali şevket ovalı protect against terrorism in the Mediterranean Sea, and for Operation Ocean Shield, to combat piracy. Turkey provided naval and air vessels in non-combat roles for Operation Unified Protector in Libya, which implemented the arms embargo and no-fly zone in the region (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2022). As reflected in these examples, Turkey demonstrated its loyalty to NATO by assisting the alliance in its most critical missions aiming at consolidating NATO’s existence and role in the post-Cold War security environment. In addition, Turkey hosts Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) in Izmir, Rapid Deployable Corps Headquarters in Istanbul and an early warning radar system in Malatya-Kürecik as part of the wider NATO Ballistic Missile Defence System. According to a report published by NATO in March 2022, Turkey is very close to meeting the NATO guideline of devoting 2 per cent of GDP to defence expenditures, with a percentage in 2021 of 1.62 (NATO 2022a). Turkey’s role within NATO as a loyal ally corresponds with NATO’s assistance to Turkey under the consultation mechanisms of Article 4 of the Washington Treaty, specifically in Turkey’s tensions with Iraq and Syria. Article 4, which is read as ‘the Parties will consult together whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened’, has only been invoked seven times in the alliance’s history and the five of those invocations resulted from Turkey’s request to bring threats emanating from Iraq and Syria to the North Atlantic Council’s attention. In February 2003, Ankara invoked Article 4 by asking assistance from NATO against threats directed at Turkey as a result of the ongoing conflict in Iraq, which then led to a decision by NATO to launch Operation Display Deterrence, including the deployment of surveillance aircraft and missile defences in Turkey (NATO 2022b). In June 2012 when a Turkish military jet was downed by Syria and in October 2012 when Turkish civilians were killed by Syrian shelling in Akçakale, Turkey invoked Article 4 in each case and NATO responded mainly with the launch of Operation Active Fence in order to protect Turkey’s southern border with Syria, including the decision to site Patriot missile batteries in Turkey in December 2012 (NATO 2013). This military assistance endured after Ankara’s request to yet again invoke Article 4 as a result of the Suruç bombings by ISIS, in which NATO declared its support for and solidarity with Turkey. Finally, in February 2020 when Turkish soldiers were killed in Idlib as a result of airstrikes by the Syrian regime forces backed by Russia, Turkey requested consultations under Article 4, and ‘NATO called on them to stop their offensive, to respect international law and to back UN efforts for a peaceful solution’ (NATO 2020a). This natural reciprocity in NATO–Turkey affairs stems not only from the legally binding arrangements and commitments under the Washington Treaty, but also from

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turkey’s seven decades of ebb and flow within nato  | 447 security requirements as well as political/security considerations. Throughout the Cold War, Turkey needed the collective security umbrella of NATO, and NATO required Turkey’s contributions on the southern flank against the Russian threat. Today, Turkey needs the political protection provided by NATO, specifically at a time when NATO is Turkey’s only strong attachment with the Western political and security structures as Turkey’s relations with the EU have been deteriorating day by day. From NATO’s perspective, Turkey has been a reliable partner in the alliance’s search for its raison d’être while it was transforming itself from a collective defence institution to a collective security institution (Karaosmanoğlu 2014: 5), particularly with its contributions to out-of-area operations. However, with the war in Ukraine, Turkey has yet again become an indispensable ally with its leverage over passage through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and with the recognition that NATO has to be unified and act with one voice against the Russian aggression. Turkey at Odds with NATO Once it became a full member of NATO in 1952, Turkey played an important role in maintaining security in the transatlantic region. During the Cold War, Turkey was mostly a collaborative and supportive ally within NATO, while sometimes displaying critical tensions towards the policies of the alliance. Despite the security guarantees provided by the alliance, Turkey had several concerns about the credibility of US nuclear deterrence and divergent interests, particularly regarding the Cyprus conflict. According to Güvenç and Özel (2012), the US’s attempts to make a deal with the USSR in the form of the INF (Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty and the US arms embargo imposed after Turkey’s Cyprus operation culminated in a fear of abandonment on the Turkish side. However, the imminent Soviet threat enforced a certain type of cooperative behaviour from Ankara, even in cases where Turkish interests had become at odds. Under post-Cold War uncertainties, the differences in threat perceptions between Turkey and its allies in NATO have become clearly visible. With the Gulf War in 1991 and subsequent security risks in Iraq, NATO members’ tone of criticism of Turkey’s war against the PKK and the bilateral disputes between Turkey and Greece inevitably caused tensions within NATO. However, differing threat perceptions and even souring relations did not prevent the parties from deeper cooperation. At Ankara’s request, NATO decided to deploy Patriot missile defence systems in Turkey against Saddam Hussein’s Scud missiles threat during the Gulf War. Turkey, for its part, continued to contribute to various NATO operations throughout the 1990s. Yet, it is noteworthy to mention that the absence of a common threat like the USSR has certainly made the situation much more complicated for the transatlantic security community because Turkey’s threat

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448 | sinem akgül açıkmeşe and ali şevket ovalı perceptions were so different than those of its allies in NATO. Whereas NATO’s strategic priorities were enlargement towards central and eastern Europe and developing capabilities in a challenging environment for confirming its raison d’être, Turkey’s security agenda was mainly shaped by separatist terrorism and uncertainties in the Middle East throughout the 1990s. A recent crisis in Turkey’s NATO attachments erupted in 2004 when Cyprus joined the EU and closer NATO–EU relations based on Berlin Plus arrangements necessitated the participation of non-NATO EU members in NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) programme. Since then, Turkey has been blocking the signing of a bilateral agreement between NATO and Cyprus on protecting classified information, which then would lead to partnership between Cyprus and the alliance. In other words, not only can NATO not establish a partnership with Cyprus due to Turkey’s veto but it also cannot include Cyprus in its open-door policy. Moreover, this stalemate has created a freeze in EU–NATO relations, since Cyprus has been using its veto card on intelligence cooperation between Turkey and the EU as well as Turkey’s participation in EU’s security structures including the European Defence Agency (EDA) and Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) (Akgül Açıkmeşe & Triantaphyllou 2012). Another conflict between NATO and Turkey has erupted during the civil war in Syria. According to Balkan Devlen, the divergence of threat perceptions regarding the civil war in Syria, Turkey’s decision to purchase Russian manufactured S-400 antiaircraft missile systems and Turkey’s democratic backsliding are three major issues of contention between Turkey and NATO since 2015 (Devlen 2020). Among those the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the S-400 missile systems were seemingly the most significant ones that caused souring of relations between Turkey and its allies in NATO. As ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) gained substantial ground in Syria and Iraq, the US established the SDF in 2015 as an umbrella organisation as part of a wider strategy to fight the terrorists. The SDF was apparently designed to include all armed groups, including Yazidis and Sunni Arabs, but in fact the backbone of the organisation was the YPG (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, People’s Protection Units), affiliated to the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party). In January 2018, when the news began to circulate that the US was planning to train 30,000 personnel, composed primarily of YPG forces, for border protection in Syria, a crisis broke out between Ankara and Washington (France 24 2018; Perry & Coşkun 2018). The aim of the US was to fill the power vacuum by deploying YPG militia in the region and thus preventing ISIS from regaining ground in Syria. Turkey declared the US plan as an attempt to create ‘a terror army’ (Al Jazeera 2018) on its southern border and launched Operation Olive Branch on 20 January, to enforce a

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turkey’s seven decades of ebb and flow within nato  | 449 withdrawal of YPG forces from the city of Afrin in northern Syria. Since Turkey’s military operation inevitably increased the risk of a direct Turkish–American military clash, the crisis also put further stress on Turkey–NATO relations. From the outset of the crisis, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg refrained from taking sides in the dispute and Turkey informed NATO officials about the scope and duration of the operation to calm concerns in Brussels and Washington. During her official visit to Ankara, deputy secretary general Rose Gottemoeller was also briefed by the Turkish officials, and she was assured that the military operation would be ‘brief’ (Schultz 2018). Despite a temporary normalisation, the conflict between Turkey and its allies in NATO, due to divergent threat perceptions in Syria, surfaced once again in early October 2019. With an objective to eliminate the YPG threat in northern Syria, Turkey launched Operation Peace Spring on 9 October. Soon after the operation was declared, a group of EU countries including Germany, the UK, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands decided to limit arms sales to Turkey (Emmott 2019); unlike the 2018 imbroglio this crisis had severe implications for NATO. Prior to the NATO summit in London in December 2019, leaks revealed that Turkey had used its veto power to block a new defence plan for Poland and the Baltic states (Brzozowski 2019). Turkey’s use of its veto power in NATO decision-making mechanisms was not a new practice and was seen recently in NATO’s partnership initiatives with Israel and Austria. However, blocking a critical decision about a new defence plan on the eve of a potential clash with Russia in eastern Europe was not common practice. Though Turkey lifted its veto in June 2020, the confrontation between Ankara and NATO member states demonstrated the fragility of the alliance’s cohesion. It is plausible to argue that the S-400 deal was one of the most significant crises between Turkey and the US which also had significant implications for NATO. Turkey’s deal with Moscow to procure S-400 systems not only caused a severe crisis between Ankara and Washington, but also raised concerns among NATO members about the cohesion of the alliance, which is very critical to deter Russian aggression. Criticisms against Turkey’s decision addressed technical and political challenges that the alliance had to cope with. Technically, the US and NATO officials argued that the S-400 system was not compatible with NATO’s air defence system and, if deployed, could enable Moscow to gather key information and intelligence about the F-35, a new generation of fighter jet (Gaouette & Hanlser 2019). Emphasising the risk, Stoltenberg stated that ‘NATO is concerned about the consequences of Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 system since it can pose a risk to Allied aircraft’ (NATO 2020b). Similarly, US vice president Mike Pence said that acquisition of the S-400 system could pose a threat to NATO and warned Turkish government of the consequences of such an action (Browne 2019). Turkey’s proposal to establish a joint committee to examine the

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450 | sinem akgül açıkmeşe and ali şevket ovalı technical concerns of the alliance was also not considered as a reasonable formula. Politically, Turkey’s insistence on buying the S-400 system was seen as a deliberate choice of action and such a policy preference was perceived as a manifestation of Ankara’s actual drift away from the West. Amid the reactions from the US, the first S-400 shipment was completed in July 2019. Not surprisingly, on 4 December 2020, the US government imposed sanctions on Turkey, pursuant to the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). Additionally, Turkey was removed from the F-35 fighter jet global production network. Mehmet Yeğin argues that Turkey’s decision was mainly based on three points: ‘having closer relations with Russia, thereby making Turkey more autonomous vis-àvis NATO; using this as a bargaining chip; and/or making the purchase for domestic purposes’ (Yeğin 2019). For Sinan Ülgen, a strong anti-Western sentiment shaped by Turkey’s increasing threat perception of the YPG and the failed coup attempt in July 2016 should also be considered as a contextual variable behind Ankara’s S-400 deal (Ülgen 2021). Whatever the reason might be, Turkey’s insistence on purchasing the S-400 system put further strains on the problematic relations between Turkey and its fellow members in NATO. The crisis is likely to endure, as long as Turkey’s decision does not change. Triggered by the war in Ukraine since February 2022, another source for tension has occurred in Turkey’s relations with NATO. Finland and Sweden decided to drop their decades-long non-alignment policies as a result of Russian aggression and the potential for further deterioration of the security environment in the region and submitted their official applications for NATO membership on 18 May 2022. Turkey accused both countries, especially Sweden, of harbouring terrorists and supporting terrorist organisations. Despite these issues, Finland was accepted into NATO in April 2023. but Turkey decided to use its veto card against Sweden’s inclusion until it collaborated with it in the fight against terrorism. Since each and every step of NATO’s open-door policy requires the consensus of thirty allies, and since the Russian aggression is hanging like the sword of Damocles over European security, this veto crisis is highly likely to block NATO’s widening for some time, up until the moment Turkey receives one or more concessions either from the US or from NATO allies as a whole. Conclusion Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its proxy war in eastern Ukraine had triggered NATO’s response to a limited extent and put further strain on Moscow’s problematic relations with the West. After years of escalation, the crises reached their peak when Russia recognised two separatist enclaves, Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, as independent political entities. Soon after the recognition, on

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turkey’s seven decades of ebb and flow within nato  | 451 24 February 2022, Russia launched a devastating attack on Ukraine by land, air and sea. The war in Ukraine has presented NATO and Turkey with an opportunity to restore their relations, which have been damaged by Ankara’s S-400 deal as well as the openly declared veto card to NATO’s enlargement towards Sweden. Despite its diverging priorities regarding the Middle East and the Mediterranean, and the current impasse over NATO’s Baltic expansion, Turkey’s alignment with NATO in the Black Sea is a strategic asset for the alliance which is undoubtedly vital against an imminent Russian threat to the Euro-Atlantic region. Turkey’s alignment with NATO in the Black Sea region was revealed through four major policy preferences. First, the decision to deliver unmanned aerial combat vehicles to Ukraine even before the outbreak of the war was a manifestation of Ankara’s delicate balancing in the Black Sea region. Second, following the Russian annexation of Crimea, Turkey participated in military exercises and maritime patrolling missions in the Black Sea, hosted by the US and Ukraine, which displayed that Ankara would not hesitate to fulfil its commitments to NATO. Third, by officially labelling the Russian invasion as a ‘war’, Turkey declared that it would explicitly side with the international community against any act of aggression without any reservations. Fourth, while Turkey’s decision to implement all provisions of the 1936 Montreux Convention regulating the passage of warships through the Turkish Straits is likely to have little impact on the military balance in the Black Sea,* its symbolic significance in support of Ukraine was relatively high. Yet, NATO–Turkey relations have their own limits, as Turkey’s excessive dependency on Russia in energy and critical economic sectors prevails. While Turkey has strived to recover from Covid-19 recession, the Turkish lira hit a historic record low against the US dollar in 2021. This currency crisis has impelled Turkey to reconsider its foreign policy priorities and necessitated the pursuit of a balancing policy between Russia and the West. Besides its lion’s share of Turkey’s natural gas imports, Russia is among the top trading partners of Turkey and Russian citizens rank first in the list of foreigners that visited Turkey in 2021. Furthermore, Turkey’s and Russia’s intertwined interests in Libya and Syria make the standoff in Ukraine more complicated for Turkey. The Russian invasion of Ukraine offered an opportunity for Turkey to reanchor itself in the Western security structures. Due to its unique geopolitical position, Turkey could have a wider manoeuvring space within NATO and push further for the normalisation of its bilateral relations with the US. Similarly, the Russian threat would serve as a unifier in NATO and some of the bilateral disputes between Turkey and fellow NATO members would be frozen, if not solved. However, even under the imminent Russian threat, Turkey is likely to remain at odds with NATO. The recent statements  

* For a comparison of Russia and Ukraine’s naval powers see Martin (2022).

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452 | sinem akgül açıkmeşe and ali şevket ovalı from Ankara about Sweden’s NATO membership are about to fuel a new crisis within the alliance. On 18 May 2022, just a few hours before Finland’s and Sweden’s submissions of their NATO membership bids, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stated that his government could stall the fast-track membership process with a claim that these states had been harbouring terrorists and imposing an arms embargo to Turkey. Russia’s geopolitical aggression, war in Ukraine and NATO’s decision to enlarge to Sweden, as well as Turkey’s domestic political problems and its volatile economy, are dictating to Turkey the pursuit of a precarious balancing policy between the West/transatlantic partners and Russia. Formulating and pursuing such a balancing policy, amid the war threatening the eastern flank of NATO, would inevitably cause tensions between Turkey and its allies. In such a macro-securitised environment, Turkey is at a crossroads either to consolidate its relations with NATO and its allies or to be perceived as aligning with Russia for as long as it does not follow suit in the West’s sanctions policies or seek to find a solution to the S-400 crisis. All these challenges and risks notwithstanding, Turkey’s seven decades of experience in NATO should enable the partners to sail through these troubled waters. References Akgül Açıkmeşe, Sinem and Dimitrios Triantaphyllou (2012), ‘The NATO-EU-Turkey Trilogy: The Impact of the Cyprus Conundrum’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 12(4): 555–73. Aksu-Ereker, Fulya and Sinem Akgül Açıkmeşe (2021), ‘The Transatlantic Link in Turkey’s Middle Power Identity’, in Eda Kuşku-Sönmez and Çiğdem Üstün (eds), Turkey’s Changing Transatlantic Relations, Lanham, MD: Lexington, pp. 93–116. Al Jazeera (2018), ‘New US-backed Syria force: five things you should know’, 16 January, https:// www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/1/16/new-us-backed-syria-force-five-things-you-shouldknow, accessed 26 June 2023. Browne, Ryan (2019), ‘Pence warns Turkey over its purchase of Russian missile system’, CNN, 3 April, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/03/politics/pence-turkey-warning/index.html, accessed 26 June 2023. Brzozowski, Alexandra (2019), ‘Turkey continues to block NATO’s Eastern defence plans’, Euractiv, 10 December, https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/turkeycontinues-to-block-natos-eastern-defence-plans/, accessed 26 June 2023. Devlen, Balkan (2020), ‘An Alliance in Trouble? Turkey and NATO in 2025’, Defence and Security Foresight Group, University of Waterloo, July, https://uwaterloo.ca/defencesecurity-foresight-group/sites/ca.defence-security-foresight-group/files/uploads/files/dsfg_ devlen_workingpaper_0.pdf, accessed 26 June 2023. Emmott, Robin (2019), ‘EU governments limit arms sales to Turkey but avoid embargo’, Reuters, 14 October, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-security-eu-france-idUSKBN1WT0M4, accessed 26 June 2023.

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turkey’s seven decades of ebb and flow within nato  | 453 France 24 (2018), ‘US helps build new Syrian border force, angering Turkey’, 14 January, https:// www.france24.com/en/20180114-usa-helps-build-new-syrian-border-force-turkey-sdf-ypg, accessed 26 June 2023. Gaouette, Nicole and Jennifer Hansler (2019), ‘Pompeo pushes back against Turkey, stands by US account of disputed meeting’, CNN, 4 April, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/04/politics/ pompeo-nato-turkey-china/index.html, accessed 26 June 2023. Güvenç, Serhat and Soli Özel (2012), ‘NATO and Turkey in the Post-Cold War World: Between Abandonment and Entrapment’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 12(4): 533–53. Karaosmanoğlu, Ali (2014), ‘NATO’nun Dönüşümü’, Uluslararası İlişkiler Dergisi 10(40): 3–38. Kınacıoğlu, Müge (2017), ‘NATO–Turkey Relations: From Collective Defence to Collective Security’, in Pınar Gözen Ercan (ed.), Turkish Foreign Policy: International Relations, Legality and Global Reach, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 83–103. Martin, Chris (2022), ‘A graphical comparison of Russian and Ukrainian military forces’, Defense News, 24 February, https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/02/24/a-graphicalcomparison-of-russian-and-ukrainian-military-forces/, accessed 26 June 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2022), ‘Türkiye’s International Security Initiatives and Contributions to NATO and EU Operations’, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/iv_-european-security-and-defenceidentity_policy-_esdi_p_.en.mfa, accessed 26 June 2023. NATO (2013), ‘NATO support to Turkey: background and timeline’, 19 February, https://www. nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_92555.htm, accessed 26 June 2023. NATO (2020a), ‘NATO expresses strong solidarity with Turkey at special meeting of the North Atlantic Council’, 28 February, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news_173927.htm, accessed 26 June 2023. NATO (2020b), ‘Remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the joint press conference with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’, 5 October, https:// www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/opinions_178528.htm, accessed 26 June 2023. NATO (2022a), ‘Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2014–2021)’, 31 March, https:// www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2022/3/pdf/220331-def-exp-2021-en.pdf, accessed 26 June 2023. NATO (2022b). ‘NATO and the 2003 campaign against Iraq’, 19 May, https://www.nato.int/cps/ en/natohq/topics_51977.htm, accessed 26 June 2023. NATO (n.d.), ‘Türkiye and NATO’, https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/declassified_191048. htm?selectedLocale=en, accessed 26 June 2023. Oğuzlu, Tarık (2012), ‘Turkey’s Eroding Commitment to NATO: From Identity to Interests’, Washington Quarterly 35(3): 153–64. Perry, Tom and Orhan Coşkun (2018), ‘US-led coalition helps to build new Syrian force, angering Turkey’, Reuters, 14 January, https://www.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-syria-sdf-idINKBN1F30OG, accessed 26 June 2023. Schultz, Teri (2018), ‘Tension between NATO allies over Syria offensive’, DW, 22 January, https:// www.dw.com/en/nato-allies-clash-as-turkey-attacks-us-backed-kurds-in-syria/a-42262543, accessed 26 June 2023.

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454 | sinem akgül açıkmeşe and ali şevket ovalı Ülgen, Sinan (2021), ‘Redefining the US–Turkey Relationship’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/Ulgen_US-Turkey_final.pdf, accessed 26 June 2023. Yeğin, Mehmet (2019), ‘Turkey between NATO and Russia: The Failed Balance’, SWP Comment 30, https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2019C30/, accessed 26 June 2023. Yılmaz, Şuhnaz (2012). ‘Turkey’s Quest for NATO Membership: The Institutionalization of the Turkish–American Alliance’, South East European and Black Sea Studies 12(4): 481–95.

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35 Turkey as a Global Aid Actor Alpaslan Özerdem (George Mason University)

Introduction

A

s Turkey celebrates the centenary of the Republic, its role as an aid actor globally is an important area to focus on, as it has greatly transformed over the years and become an important political feature of the country. Turkey as a humanitarian and development aid provider, peacemaker and peacebuilder has become an integral part of its foreign policy identity, and this recently adopted role is also closely linked with the changes in its domestic politics. Therefore, this chapter will present the drivers and primary characteristics of Turkey’s humanitarian experience and show how the country has been making a lasting impact in this realm. Considering that its most significant shifts as an aid actor have taken place over the last two decades, the chapter will limit its focus to the period from the 1990s. Throughout its 100-year existence as a republic, Turkey has always been a country that assists others at times of crisis, but until the 1990s it was mainly through the multilateral structures of the United Nations and primarily through participation in international peacekeeping forces. It was not until the late 1990s that Turkey’s spending on international humanitarian aid started to show any real significance in terms of its size and it has become an integral aspect of its foreign policy only since then. In fact, the country did not have a bilateral agency to coordinate such activities until 1992 – the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TİKA) – and its assistance was based on specific humanitarian emergencies, particularly those caused by natural disasters primarily in its immediate region. Starting in the early 1990s Turkey played an increasingly active role in humanitarian and peacebuilding operations, especially in the Balkans, and its engagement in BosniaHerzegovina in the mid-1990s was a critical turning point. Until then, the 1993 military 455

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456 | alpaslan özerdem humanitarian intervention in Somalia and Turkey’s key role in the stabilisation of security was probably the main exception geographically during that period. However, in the Balkans, with the country’s historical links with Bosnia-Herzegovina and particularly with its Muslim (Bosniak) population, Turkey found itself as one of the key actors in responding to the conflict, whether it was through the provision of relief aid, working with NATO on military operations, or supporting the Bosniak forces through military assistance. In its basic nature, it was still mainly multilateral as part of its traditional aid approach, but this was a context in which Turkey could also apply pressure on its Western allies to be more active in forcing the Serbs and Croats to a peace deal. In other words, its political driver became much more visible with the response to the Bosnian war. Again, in the context of the Balkans, but this time in Kosovo in the aftermath of the 1999 NATO military intervention, Turkey’s engagement was both in humanitarian operations and wider statebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. Although it was possible to observe an increase in the scale of interventions, it was mainly through the deployment of the Turkish army in UN- or NATO-led peacekeeping operations and aid efforts by the Turkish Red Crescent. Similarly, after the 2002 Bonn Agreement, which set the scene for international peacebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, Turkey worked with the international community in specific areas such as security sector reform. It commanded the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force several times (Kaya 2013). Turkey as an Aid Actor under AKP Rule With the arrival of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkish politics after winning the 2002 general elections, the prospects and approaches of Turkey as an aid actor changed significantly. To start with Turkey adopted a new foreign policy approach that was prepared to tackle some of the most intractable conflicts in the Middle East. Under the then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s profile as a mediator and trustworthy partner in responding to political crises and security challenges in the region rose quickly in the early days of AKP rule. The Turkish government at the time could talk to the Assad regime in Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as having strong economic, political and diplomatic relationships with Israel. With the ‘zero problem with neighbours’ doctrine of Ahmet Davutoğlu, who became foreign minister in 2004 and then prime minister, a new era in Turkish foreign policy began. While the country was making considerable progress with its EU membership negotiations at the time, it was also engaging with Syria, Lebanon and Jordan to create a free economic area in the Middle East and was exploring the possibility of introducing a visa-free movement system for citizens. Starting from 2005, these countries even held joint cabinet meetings in order to harmonise their relationships in several key economic and governance areas. During this period, Turkey also struck many deals with the oil- and

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turkey as a global aid actor | 457 gas-rich countries of central Asia, the Caucasus and the Middle East to act as an ‘energy bridge’ linking to markets in Europe (Larrabee 2007; Gavin 2012). In 2010, in cooperation with Brazil, Turkey managed to convince Iran to sign a nuclear fuel swap deal, a breakthrough that was, however, rejected by international powers for being weak (BBC 2010). One of the most significant characteristics of the Davutoğlu era for Turkey’s aid policies was the conceptualisation of a ‘humanitarian diplomacy’ idea. Moving beyond the binaries of realism versus idealism or hard power versus soft power, Davutoğlu claimed that his foreign policy was human-centred and Turkey, being both a benevolent and powerful state, would be the ‘conscience’ that guided the decisions of diplomacy (Davutoğlu 2013). With these new dynamics in Turkish foreign policy, the country started to increase its role in the context of humanitarianism and peacemaking, and this can clearly be seen through the expansion of Turkey’s aid budget over the last two decades. In 2010, with its official development assistance (ODA) budget of nearly US$1 billion, Turkey’s ODA:GNI (gross national income) ratio was 0.13 per cent. This was already similar to a number of members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) such as Greece, Italy and South Korea. In 2011, while ODA budgets fell in sixteen DAC countries, Turkey’s net ODA budget increased by 38 per cent. Considering that around ten years earlier back in 2002 Turkey’s ODA budget was only $85 million, the scale of the aid budget increase has clearly been impressive. In 2016, in comparison to OECD/DAC member countries, Turkey was the sixth most generous country after the United States, Germany, the UK, Japan, and France. In terms of net ODA:GNI ratios, its 0.76 per cent ratio meant it rose to the fourth position after Norway, Luxembourg, and Sweden (TİKA 2018). In terms of solely humanitarian assistance contributions, Turkey was number two in the world after the US, but number one in terms of the percentage of GNI (Development Initiatives 2018). Finally, in 2019, Turkey provided $8.7 billion as ODA, which corresponds to 1.15 per cent of its GNI. By looking at these changes in Turkey’s ODA numbers, we can draw three main observations. First, Turkey has been an increasingly generous donor of humanitarian assistance with a bilateral distribution framework. However, it is important to note that Turkey counts its assistance to over 4 million Syrian refugees in its own territory as part of this ODA and that, in fact, constitutes the lion’s share of its aid budget. For example, it accounted for $5.85 billion out of its $7.6 billion ODA assistance in 2016 (TİKA 2018). Second, there is a question of whether Turkey will sustain such a high level of assistance once the Syrian refugee crisis is over. As for the latter, only time will tell whether this will be the case. For the former, it is important to pay more careful attention to the way that Turkey provides its ODA and what impact it seems to be having on peacebuilding and development efforts globally. It is also important to note that Turkey’s ODA will be

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458 | alpaslan özerdem affected by the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Considering that the country has been going through a heavy economic crisis with a high inflation rate since 2021, there will probably be cuts in the ODA budget. However, having said that, Turkey has also provided large-scale pandemic-related assistance in terms of vaccines and medical kits to several countries during the pandemic. As will be explained below, due to strong linkages between the country’s domestic politics and how its international aid programmes are used for the creation of a ‘strong protector’ image internally, it would not be surprising to see Turkey maintain its current ODA commitments. Finally, in the bigger picture of international politics, Turkey’s increasing humanitarian aid engagement globally, particularly in the context of Africa, has also been coupled with the promotion of its trade links and diplomatic missions. Meanwhile, as the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ destroyed authoritarian regimes in many countries from Egypt and Tunisia to Libya, Erdoğan positioned himself as the politician of the people in the street. At the time, he further increased his popularity in the Middle East and north Africa, claiming to be an advocate for human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Turkey was later accepted as a possible model country for emerging regimes in the region (Tol 2012). Erdoğan was the rising star of international politics until the 2013 Gezi protests and was respected all over the world. However, the harsh reaction of the security forces to the protests and accusations of Erdoğan’s increasingly authoritarian and uncompromising dominance significantly damaged his international standing (Letsch 2014). Moreover, the disastrous foreign policy of the AKP since 2011 in response to the Syrian civil war has created further security and socio-economic challenges for the country, including a huge refugee population. On the one hand, Turkey has been extremely generous by hosting around 4 million Syrians at a total cost of over $40 billion; on the other hand, Turkey will also have to bear the socio-economic burden of the local integration of large numbers of Syrian refugees, as the Syrian civil war will not end any time soon. Drivers of Turkish Aid Over the last two decades, there have been major changes in Turkey’s engagement in the aid world. However, Turkey’s increasing involvement in peacekeeping, peacebuilding and humanitarian crisis responses across the world, but particularly in Muslim countries, have also raised questions about the AKP’s motivations in relation to the party’s Islamic roots. In parallel to this, it is also important to recognise the implications of such engagement for the domestic political context (Çevik & Seib 2015). To investigate such claims, it is necessary to focus on Turkey’s main international agency, TİKA, and its geographic areas of work. TİKA was founded in 1992 under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Statutory Decree-Law No. 480 and in 1999 it was entrusted to the Prime Ministry with a presidential order. Its primary focus initially was the provision of development assistance to central

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turkey as a global aid actor | 459 Asian countries in the aftermath of the disintegration of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It was modelled as an agency to prevent the political influence of Russia and Iran in newly independent countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Therefore, from the beginning, TİKA as the main conduit of Turkey’s ODA has always been a foreign policy tool but from 2002 its areas of work have expanded exponentially, and today it has programmes in 150 countries around the world. Its budget was only $85 million in 2002, which increased to $8.12 billion in 2017 (TİKA 2023). It has programmes not only in Muslim-majority countries, but also in many non-Muslim countries from Cameroon, Ethiopia and Ukraine to Sri Lanka. Therefore, at least with official Turkish development aid in mind, it would be hard to argue that there is a preference for Muslim populations. In fact, to do so would ignore recent Turkish foreign policy trajectories. Given Turkey has been bidding to become a global player, focusing on an Islamic agenda in its aid policies would narrow its options drastically. On the contrary, although it might have Islamic roots, the AKP has overall been very pragmatic in responding to a wide range of domestic and international political matters. Therefore, reducing the reasons for why and how the AKP regime has been successful in using development aid as a foreign policy tool to the point of a narrow Islamic agenda would risk ignoring many other significant factors in this complex picture. It is also important to point out that a substantial part of the Turkish public seems to enjoy the so-called ‘strong leadership’ profile presented by Erdoğan in global peace and conflict matters. Coupled with changes in Turkish foreign policy with much wider and more active engagement in international affairs, Erdoğan’s leadership profile in the international realm has often been described as ‘neo-Ottomanism’ – a term which describes the country’s ambitions to expand and revitalise its political influence in large territories once controlled by the Ottoman Empire. Within the neo-Ottomanism argument, Turkey, a long-time loyal ally of the West in international affairs from the 1950s to the late 1990s, is a ‘rising power’ trying to put its own stamp on international affairs by pursuing its own foreign policy priorities. The reference to the Ottoman Empire is to indicate that Turkey, with its increasing economic power and geopolitical advantages, would no longer be the sidekick of Western interests in the Middle East or elsewhere (Taşpınar 2008). Rather, it wanted to sit with the major powers at the same table when critical decisions were being made for global peace and security. Turkey pursued an active campaign to be elected as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council and served from 2009 to 2010; however, it lost its bid for the 2015–16 period (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014a). From a neo-Ottoman perspective, the Turkish public’s desire for strong leadership could be explained as their longing for the Ottoman past, during which the Empire ruled large geographies and for a long time was one of the ‘superpowers’ of the world. With the

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460 | alpaslan özerdem founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923 from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, and since then being a low-to-middle-income country with no significant presence in international affairs, what the AKP and Erdoğan claimed to have managed is to bring to the public a regained confidence during the last two decades. This has been a much-needed remedy for the wounds of the Turkish public, whose pride has been badly bruised by the never-ending EU membership negotiations. Running an assertive foreign policy and reaching out to populations across the world, Muslim or not, has been a great catalyst in increasing the political popularity of Erdoğan and the AKP domestically. Erdoğan frequently uses Turkey’s aid presence across the world as an example of how strong and benevolent the country has become across the world and how Turks should be proud of such regained strength and confidence (Özerdem 2016a). Again, within the ‘neo-Ottomanism’ argument, one of the key theses has been that Erdoğan aspires to become the leader of the Islamic world. As the AKP is an Islamistrooted party, it has often been argued that the Islamic position was one of the main drivers of the country’s new foreign policy and its approach to the Middle East and the wider Islamic world. Erdoğan’s clash with the Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres at a Davos meeting in January 2009 is a case in point. This was dubbed the ‘one-minute crisis’ as Erdoğan reacted to Peres’s defence of Israel’s actions in Gaza, accusing the debate’s moderator of not allowing him to speak and storming off, saying that he would not return to Davos again. It suddenly made him one of the most popular and respected politicians in the Middle East, especially with the Palestinians (BBC 2009). Since the ‘one-minute crisis’, Turkish–Israeli relations have worsened gradually due to various diplomatic incidents. They hit rock bottom with the Mavi Marmara flotilla crisis, when a Turkish humanitarian aid ship was intercepted by Israeli forces while trying to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, killing nine Turkish nationals (Booth 2010). During a period of such increasing importance for humanitarian matters in Turkish foreign policy, Africa has been one of the primary examples of the way that Turkey’s humanitarian aid policies have changed in line with the expansion of its foreign policy engagement. In 2009, Turkey had twelve embassies across the continent. Today, it has forty-two, and the Turkish Foreign Ministry wants to increase it to fifty soon. Similarly, while there were ten African embassies in Ankara twelve years ago, there are now thirtysix. Turkey hosted the Turkey–Africa Cooperation Summit, held in Istanbul in August 2008, and then the African Union declared Turkey a ‘strategic partner’. In May 2010, Istanbul hosted the Fourth UN Conference on Least Developed Countries (LDCs) (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014b). Compared to some other actors such as the EU, the USA and China, Turkey is relatively new in African politics and trade circles. However, it has expanded its sphere of influence in the continent by including soft-power tools such as transportation links, trade and education in its foreign policy.

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turkey as a global aid actor | 461 In many African countries, this foreign policy strategy has proven successful with rapidly growing partnerships in the economic and political fields. Some of these measures may be quite traditional tools for other countries in terms of bilateral relations as well, but what Turkey does, unlike many other countries, is to combine humanitarian and peacebuilding efforts in the fields of diplomacy, economy, trade, culture and education (Özerdem 2019). Turkey’s humanitarian engagement in Africa, particularly in Somalia as will be explained below, was seen by some as political opportunism, but from a realist perspective, analysts would probably consider Turkey’s engagement in Somalia more as a means of legitimising its own strategic interests in the region. Considering that TİKA has openly agreed to act as an intermediary in Turkish foreign policy, the impact of geopolitical interests on aid programmes cannot be ignored. As with other emerging powers such as India, China and Brazil, Turkey recognises that Africa is a continent where it can have new opportunities for trade, investment and political influence. On the other hand, it would be an exaggeration to argue that this is due to a completely neo-mercantilist approach, at least for Turkey, because such an approach can be realised by rising powers such as China with a much wider sphere of influence economically and financially. For these reasons, we can say that Turkey has a more cooperative approach to its African policy. But for other emerging powers and Turkey as well, from their natural resource needs to the desire to seize new economic opportunities and the possibility of gaining influence over African aid recipients in times of need for international support (such as gaining votes for temporary membership of the UN Security Council or selecting a city to host the Olympics), there are many more reasons to build stronger links. This is perhaps not surprising given that traditional Western aid donors have been doing this for decades. In other words, statements that question Turkey’s geopolitical interests in the Horn of Africa for example, or investment and trade opportunities for its private sector in the protection of maritime transport routes should be evaluated together with the geopolitical interests of other states and key actors. These will include the US security agenda in the face of al-Shabaab and jihadist terrorism in the region, and the UK’s interest in exploiting its offshore oil and gas reserves. Emerging powers like Turkey are engaged in a similar way to traditional aid actors in Africa. To some extent, this engagement may be for altruistic reasons, but geopolitical and economic interests are also important drivers. While the traditional development agenda of the West tends to be strongly conditional, emerging powers seem to be far less concerned with that. Therefore, working with the rising powers has become an attractive alternative for many African leaders. Not having any colonial background with African countries is also a huge advantage for emerging powers, who can build relationships based on more equal partnerships.

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462 | alpaslan özerdem Characteristics of Turkish Aid To understand the characteristics of Turkish aid and what makes it different from the assistance provided by traditional aid donors such as the US, EU and other Western actors, Somalia is a good example to explore. When Erdoğan visited Somalia in August 2011 with a large entourage of 200 people, including his family, ministers, charity workers, businesspeople and celebrities, the country was completely out of the attention of the world. Various reasons may have played a role in the selection of Somalia for such a high-level aid initiative. On the one hand, the common religious denominator with Somalia and the positive message it would send to AKP voters, and on the other hand, the fact that Turkey could show itself more easily as an international aid actor because Somalia was a forgotten country within the framework of global aid may be factors in this. The visit received full media coverage, which meant strong public support for the Somali aid campaign in Turkey’s domestic politics and in turn popularity for the ruling party. In 2011, the Turkish government donated $49 million to Somalia, but its successful mobilisation of private donations resulted in another $365 million (Harte 2012). Turkish aid organisations such as the Turkish Red Crescent and TİKA have taken very active roles in a wide variety of infrastructure, welfare and service sector programmes in the capital, Mogadishu, such as providing clean water, collecting household waste, constructing hospitals and setting up camps for internally displaced people. In 2012, more than 1,200 Somali students received nearly $70 million worth of full scholarships to study in Turkey. The Turkish embassy, which reopened in November 2011, was the only foreign representation in the capital at the time. For a very long time, Turkish Airlines was the only international airline connecting Mogadishu to the world. Before and after the visit, Turkey also organised several Somali peace talks as an independent third party. For example, it hosted two international conferences on Somalia in May 2010 and 2012 (I. Istanbul and II. Istanbul). The second involved a Somali civil society meeting, which was attended by representatives of all Somali organised political groups, business leaders and even delegates from declared independent regions such as Somaliland (Akpınar 2013). Gizem Sucuoğlu and Onur Sazak (2016) identify four main features in Turkey’s peacebuilding approach: unconditionality, bilateral negotiations, direct delivery on the ground, and a multi-stakeholder approach. Why are these features important? Above all, Turkey seems to approach its local partners from a ‘solidarity’ perspective, and the principle of unconditionality builds a strong foundation of trust with aid recipient governments, as in Somalia. From the presence of his family and his interaction with Somalis in the camps he established for internally displaced people, to his decision not to use the UN security mission AMISOM to provide protection, the content of Erdoğan’s visit had a huge public relations impact, especially in terms of building trust and credibility. For

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turkey as a global aid actor | 463 Somalis, this visit showed that Erdoğan values them and is different from other world leaders. Also, as the previous review of Turkish ODA statistics has shown, Turkey acts as a dual actor and works mainly with governments. The main advantage of such an approach is that, compared to OECD/DAC countries, Turkey’s development and peacebuilding assistance, although very modest, tends to gain much more visibility. Such a dual approach creates better opportunities to link humanitarian aid with development priorities (Özerdem 2016a). In fact, what distinguishes Turkey’s aid is the way it operates through these links and the remaining two features. Whether in Kosovo, Afghanistan or Somalia, the distinctive feature of Turkey’s strategy is its direct, hands-on nature and its focus on working with conflict-affected communities in their everyday lives. Due to the security problems in Somalia, while other institutions were running their programmes from distant Nairobi, Turkey conducted its own programmes directly on the ground and maintained its presence in the country. Another major contrast is that most foreign organisations in Mogadishu were concentrated in the AMISOM base, while Turkish officials and aid workers lived and worked in the city. Turkish aid actors, whether official or civil society, tend to be on the ground in the most challenging environments and have won the ‘hearts and minds’ of local people with such a visible presence of solidarity. Besides the direct engagement approach, Turkish aid also focuses on prioritising the concrete needs of local people. In fact, around 90 per cent of Turkey’s ODA globally in 2016 was devoted to socio-economic infrastructure and services such as education, health, water and sanitation, transportation, and communication (TİKA 2018). Given these characteristics, one of the main advantages of Turkey’s intervention is that it enables aid to be delivered in relatively more efficient ways, as it engages directly with beneficiaries. Moreover, the Turkish approach is more likely to support existing institutional structures in the field of development, rather than creating parallel systems for the delivery of health and education services. Special assistance to peacebuilding efforts can be better targeted through such an approach, and Turkey has channelled its efforts in the context of Afghanistan and Somalia more towards reform initiatives in the security sector. Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to argue that Turkey’s peacebuilding efforts are mostly in the field of state-building. Restructuring national armies, training soldiers and police, and modernising civil service capabilities are key areas of engagement for Turkey in war-torn countries. Through its multi-stakeholder approach, Turkey’s peacebuilding strategy seems to adopt partnerships that are more appropriate for the local context, as such an approach tends to forge stronger institutional pairings, regardless of religion, security or private sector actors. Consequently, such decentralisation and less emphasis on conditionality in Turkey’s overall aid response often means more meaningful avenues of accountability as it will encourage greater local ownership (Özerdem 2016b).

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464 | alpaslan özerdem In addition to ODA assistance, Turkey appears to be adept at mobilising its diplomatic tools – private sector companies, charities, religious charities and municipalities – in such efforts. Almost all the non-governmental organisations that went from Turkey and started different humanitarian aid programmes were ones that promoted themselves with Islamic and conservative values. These NGOs were also known for their affiliation with the AKP government. Many of them have realised projects with the funds provided by different ministries or AKP-run municipalities as well as their own resources. Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has also played an important role in this process with different aid projects like a charity. In 2016, Turkish NGOs provided more than $655 million in aid worldwide, while Turkey’s official development assistance was only around $820 million. In the same year, the Turkish private sector invested approximately $600 million in developing countries (TİKA 2018). Such a multi-track and multi-stakeholder approach is probably one of the most visible features of Turkey’s response and brings with it greater opportunities for wider and more effective impact. Moreover, Turkish aid providers have entered an arena in a country like Somalia where other international aid actors have a problematic image in the eyes of the local population. As a new actor, Turkey had the advantage of entering Somalia without bearing significant historical burdens such as British colonial rule or US military interventions. Actors like the UN and the EU have been working on humanitarian aid in Somalia for decades, and some of these organisations seem to have done a lot of damage to their reputations. Seeing that Turkish organisations can deliver large-scale relief and rebuilding programs with a very modest staff presence further strengthened the belief of actors in Somalia that the international community wastes its funds (Ali 2013). In connection with the tainted reputation of the international community in Somalia and the Somali population’s distrust of the motivation and benefits of other international aid actors, the Turkish presence has managed to be perceived as independent and impartial. Their participation in Somali aid programmes created a general image and perception that the Turks were in Somalia to help the Somalis. On the other hand, the perception of many Western aid officials in Mogadishu was that the Turks were there for geopolitical interests or the exploitation of recently discovered offshore oil and gas resources. They were also of the view that Turkish aid was provided without significant coordination with other international actors. However, according to Turkish aid organisations, working with other international actors would greatly damage the image of neutrality in the country (Özerdem 2016b). The reason for the lack of coordination or cooperation with Western actors for some Turkish agencies with strong Islamic roots may be ideological, given the faith-based nature of most Turkish NGOs working in Somalia. However, while cooperation could mean more funding opportunities and the expansion of their programmes, Turkish actors have made a deliberate effort to maintain their distinctiveness

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turkey as a global aid actor | 465 from other international actors in a more cautious and tactical way. In fact, it is important to note that Turkish aid agencies stay away from other Muslim aid actors, particularly from Gulf states. Turkish agencies in coordination with other aid actors should not necessarily be viewed from a Muslim and Western perspective. Somalia’s specific socio-political aid context has played an important role both in the perception of Turkish aid and in determining the behaviour of Turkish aid actors within the framework of humanitarian coordination (Thiessen & Özerdem 2019). However, in 2011, when the Somali aid process began, Turkey’s prestige in foreign policy also began to change due to the Gezi events and the country’s problems with democratic values o​ ver time. For example, if Turkey launched a similar aid campaign in Somalia today, its foreign policy implications and the international perception of this process would probably be very different. In other words, Turkey’s prestige in international politics at that time was an important reason for the very positive perception and acceptance of the Somali humanitarian aid initiative. Finally, as indicated above, another key aspect of Turkish aid is centred around the private donation realm, and with that, there are two main characteristics that should be noted. First, in recent years, the public’s propensity to donate has increased in response to humanitarian crises. The Turkish people have been generous donors to the influx of refugees from Syria to Turkey and in humanitarian aid campaigns for Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar. This is partly because Turkey is relatively a wealthier country today than it was at the beginning of the 2000s. Also, with the increasing active participation of Turkish foreign policy in different parts of the world, there is now more awareness of global challenges in Turkey than before. Turkish people donated before for major humanitarian crises such as the 2004 tsunami disaster in southeast Asia, but the aid campaign for Somalia has made humanitarianism a household issue. Since this is used by the AKP at least as an important policy tool in the country, people from all walks of life, but especially AKP voters, have shown a positive and generous reaction to these campaigns to stand by their party. Such an intense interest in a country like Somalia, where Turkey does not have significant historical and cultural ties, has been a major turning point. It is also important to keep in mind that since the August 1999 Marmara earthquake, there has been an increasing trend towards the involvement of Turkish NGOs in the delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Turkey and beyond (Deniz 2011). However, with the effects of Turkey opening its doors to many Syrians fleeing from the civil war and the prolongation of this process and the deepening of the economic crisis that the country has gone through in recent years with the pandemic, the willingness and ability of the Turkish people to help is not what it used to be. In fact, the presence of Syrians in Turkey carries the risk of turning into an important handicap for the AKP in today’s political conjuncture. Second, the ideological understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey, which is very active in the socio-political and cultural life of the country, takes the lead in

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466 | alpaslan özerdem carrying out aid campaigns, especially for crises in Muslim countries. It is active in fundraising and is linked to several Turkish NGOs, many with strong Islamic roots and vision. For example, in the case of Somalia, as mentioned above, the most active Turkish NGOs can be categorised in this group. Although they use their own private donations for aid programmes, their strong ties with the AKP, based on Islamic values, seem to have helped them be more active in the international arena; however, this does not mean that Turkish aid is driven by a desire to advance an Islamic agenda. Although the concept of ummah is frequently expressed by AKP politicians, helping Muslim countries in particular is not the main determining factor in Turkey’s aid policy. Conclusion Turkey is a relatively new actor in the fields of humanitarian aid, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction, but it is playing an increasingly active role, particularly in Africa. It now has more funds than ever to respond to worldwide challenges, thanks to a significant increase in the aid budget, provided by both public and private donations. However, as in the case of Somalia, the importance of what Turkey can offer is not just in terms of funding. In fact, compared to traditional donor countries and multilateral organisations, the size of Turkey’s funding appears to be rather modest. However, in contexts such as Somalia the manner and methods of delivery of assistance have perhaps provided a more effective way of helping war-torn societies. Working directly with and being close to local groups and experiencing the challenges of these environments with local people has played an important role in gaining their trust and respect. This has allowed the Turkish aid presence to deliver its programmes more effectively and efficiently. Therefore, Turkish aid in Somalia emphasises the importance of establishing constructive and possible relations with the local population. Rather than choosing easier alternatives to remote administration of assistance services, the fundamentals of working and striving with communities are the unique characteristics of Turkey’s international aid approach. Whether Turkey’s geopolitical interests or Erdoğan’s religious and/or political aims have played a role in engagements is an important aspect of the debate around the country as a rising actor in humanitarian crises. One way or another it is difficult to come to a firm conclusion, but there are several indications that such humanitarian policies are being implemented and are a contributing factor to explaining why Turkey is an active donor in Africa. The demands of Turkish foreign policy seem to encourage the use of donations and development aid to some extent, but it would be an exaggeration to argue that such involvement is purely for religious or political interests and that there is no humanitarian factor. In fact, there are many indicators that Turkey has been striving to present itself as a neutral and effective aid actor within the parameters of global aid standards.

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turkey as a global aid actor | 467 It is also important to remember that with its international aid experience over the last two decades, Turkey is now in a unique position to respond to complex peace and development challenges. However, the future experience will tell us whether this is unique to Africa or specific contexts like Somalia, or whether it is sustainable and transformable as part of a long-term humanitarian aid and peacebuilding strategy elsewhere. On the other hand, it is an undeniable fact that Turkey has provided a striking alternative to humanitarian assistance approaches by traditional aid actors. The way Turkish aid agencies demonstrate their ability to understand and work directly with war-torn societies may suggest strategies for enabling such local populations to build their own peace. However, there are risks with the politicisation of humanitarian aid and Turkey needs to pay particular attention to this. Also, with the expansion of its aid presence globally, there will be a great need for Turkey to develop its human resources by placing emphasis on the education and training of its humanitarian workers. Overall, Turkey has something unique to offer in its aid approach that can benefit many communities affected by armed conflict and disasters across the world, but to realise such a goal the successes of the past will not suffice on their own. References Akpınar, P. (2013), ‘Turkey’s Peacebuilding in Somalia: The Limits of Humanitarian Diplomacy’, Turkish Studies 14(4): 735–57. Ali, A. (2013), ‘Turkish aid in Somalia: the irresistible appeal of boots on the ground’, The Guardian, 30 September, http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionalsnetwork/2013/sep/30/turkey-aid-somalia-aid-effectiveness, accessed 7 February 2023. BBC (2009), ‘Turkish PM storms off in Gaza row’, 29 January, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ business/davos/7859417.stm, accessed 7 February 2023. BBC (2010), ‘Iran signs nuclear fuel-swap deal with Turkey’, 17 May, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/ hi/ world/middle_east/8685846.stm, accessed 7 February 2023. Booth, R. (2010), ‘Israeli attack on Gaza flotilla sparks international outrage’, 31 May, https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/31/israeli-attacks-gaza-flotilla-activists, accessed 7 February 2023. Çevik, B. S. and P. Seib (eds) (2015), Turkey’s Public Diplomacy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Davutoğlu, A. (2013), ‘Turkey’s Humanitarian Diplomacy: Objectives, Challenges and Prospects’, Nationalities Papers 41(6): 865–70. Deniz, D. (2011), ‘Top development aid agencies in Turkey: a primer’, 5 April, https://www. devex.com/news/top-development-aid-agencies-in-turkey-a-primer-73930, accessed 7 February 2023. Development Initiatives (2018), ‘Global Humanitarian Assistance Report 2017’, http://devinit. org/wp-content/ uploads/2017/06/GHA-Report-2017-Full-report.pdf, accessed 7 February 2023.

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468 | alpaslan özerdem Gavin, J. (2012), ‘Policy in Turkey drives trade with Middle East’, MEED, 2 July, https://www. meed.com/policy-in-turkey-drives-trade-with-middle-east/, accessed 7 February 2023. Harte, J. (2012), ‘Turkey Shocks Africa’, World Policy Journal 29(4): 27–38. Kaya, K. (2013), ‘Turkey’s Role in Afghanistan and Afghan Stabilization’, Military Review, July– August, pp. 26–32. Larrabee, S. (2007), ‘Turkey Rediscovers the Middle East’, Foreign Affairs, July–August, http:// www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62649/f-stephen-larrabee/turkey-rediscovers-the-middleeast, accessed 7 February 2023. Letsch, C. (2014), ‘A Year after the Protests, Gezi Park Nurtures the Seeds of a New Turkey’, 29 May, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/29/gezi-park-year-after-protests-seedsnew-turkey, accessed 7 February 2023 Özerdem, A. (2016a), ‘Turkey as a Rising Power: An Emerging Global Humanitarian Actor’, in Z. Sezgin and D. Dijkzeul (eds), The New Humanitarians in International Practice: Emerging Actors and Contested Principles, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Özerdem, A. (2016b), ‘İnsaniyetcilik ve Türk Dış Politikası’, Uluslararası İlişkiler 13(52): 129–50. Özerdem, A. (2019), ‘Turkey as an Emerging Global Humanitarian and Peacebuilding Actor’, in A. Özerdem and M. Whiting (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Turkish Politics, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 470–80. Sucuoğlu, G. and O. Sazak (2016), ‘The New Kid on the Block: Turkey’s Shifting Approaches to Peacebuilding’, Rising Powers Quarterly 1(2): 69–91. Taşpınar, Ö. (2008), ‘Turkey’s Middle East Policies: Between Neo-Ottomanism and Kemalism’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 7 October, http://carnegieendowment. org/2008/10/07/turkey-s-middle-east-policies-between-neo-ottomanism-and-kemalism, accessed 7 February 2023. Thiessen, C. and A. Özerdem (2019), ‘Turkey in Somalia: Challenging North/Western Interventionism?’ Third World Quarterly 40(11): 1976–95. TİKA (2018), ‘Turkish Development Assistance Report 2016’, http://www.tika.gov.tr/ upload/2018/Turkish%20Development%20Assistance%20Report%202016/Turkish%20 Development%20Assistance%20Report%202016.pdf, accessed 7 February 2023. TİKA (2023), ‘About Us’, https://www.tika.gov.tr/en/page/about_us-14650, accessed 7 February 2023. Tol, G. (2012), ‘The “Turkish Model” in the Middle East’, Current History 111(749): 350–5. Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2014a), ‘Turkey’s Priorities for the 60th Session of the United Nations General Assembly’, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/turkey_s-priorities-for-the-60th-session-of-the-united-nations-general-assembly.en.mfa, accessed 10 April 2023. Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2014b), ‘Turkish Emergency Humanitarian Assistance’, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/humanitarian-assistance-by-turkey.en.mfa, accessed 7 February 2023.

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Part VI Economy, Development and Environment

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36 A Century of Agriculture in Turkey: We’ve Come a Long Way Fatma Handan Giray (Eskişehir Osmangazi University)

Introduction

I

n the mid-1920s following the foundation of the Turkish Republic, around 80 per cent of the 13 million population of the country lived in rural areas, and approximately half of the GNP came from the agriculture sector (Pamuk & Toprak 1988). At the beginning of the 2020s, as we prepare to celebrate the centenary of the Republic, Turkey’s population is over 80 million, and the proportion living in rural areas and employed in agriculture is much less, while the share of agriculture in the economy has fallen to about 7 per cent. Over the same time, the area devoted to agriculture has increased by more than three times, and with this increase not only in productive land area but also in productivity, and with changes in crop patterns, agricultural growth rates have risen. The first half of this hundred-year journey of agriculture in Turkey can be divided into a number of distinct periods. In the early republican period, agricultural education began and institutional structures, legislation and taxation arrangements were set up, and this was reflected in increased production. In the time between 1940 and 1960, the economy moved to agriculture, with a redirection of economic policies away from a selfsufficient economy and government industrialisation and towards export. Then in the 1960s, the land available for agriculture reached its limit, and technological advances initiated the change from extensive to intensive agriculture. In the 1970s, these developments were reflected in agricultural operations on a much larger scale. The economic policies of the 1980s, which was a difficult political and economic period for Turkey, also led to significant changes in agriculture. High interest rate pressure on the public economic enterprises in the agriculture sector increased further; low profit margins along with high interest rates had an adverse effect on private sector investment in agriculture, and this caused a decrease in production. After that, liberal policies implemented from 1990 led to 471

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472 | fatma handan giray some structural changes in agriculture. The 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium were years when because of globalisation and institutional developments with and in the European Union, important changes took place in Turkey both in legislation in the agricultural and food sector and in agricultural policies: the amount of financial support given to producers under agreements with the International Monetary Fund was limited, and the costs of agricultural production rose above world averages. This led producers to move away from agricultural production, and problems with the operation of the supply chain and the consumer’s struggle with high-priced foods continue today. On the other hand, being a candidate to join the EU has created some opportunities, in that the country has benefited from the transition process preparation fund with regard to agriculture and rural development. In this study covering agriculture in the centenary of the Turkish Republic, the place of agriculture in the process of economic development will be discussed through agricultural statistics and the relevant scientific literature, and policies and implementations will be evaluated in order to draft a companion chapter in a historical framework. However, the chapter will start with analysis of the present situation of the agricultural sector in Turkey, after which it will go back to the first years of the foundation of the Turkish Republic in order to tell the story of how far we’ve come. The Current Place of Agriculture in the Country Agriculture plays an important role in Turkey, both in social and economic terms and because of its historical importance, thanks to a vast agricultural resource base with significant potential to expand output, and as an important buffer against urban unemployment (Giray 2012). Around one third of the total land area of the country is devoted to agriculture. In 2020, the annual growth rate in the agricultural sector was 4.8 per cent, while it was 2 per cent in industry, 4.3 per cent in services, 3.5 per cent in the construction sector and 1.8 per cent in the total economy of the country (TURKSTAT 2023). The total value of agricultural production in Turkey was about 460 billion Turkish lira (TL) in 2019 and 550 billion TL in 2020. In 2019, 57 per cent of this 460 billion TL originated from animal production (260 billion TL) and 43 per cent came from crop production (198 billion TL), while in 2020, 55 per cent was from animal production (304 billion TL) and 45 per cent was from crop production (245 billion TL). In 2020, animal production value increased by 19 per cent compared with 2019 and crop production value increased by 24 per cent, which corresponds to a 20 per cent increase in total agricultural production value. However, these significant increases vanish when expressed in US dollars. That is to say, the crop and animal production values were $34.9 billion and $45.8 billion respectively in 2019 and $34.8 billion and $43.3 billion in 2020. Thus, although crop production remained almost the same, animal

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a century of agriculture in turkey | 473 Table 36.1 Main indicators of agriculture in Turkey Indicators

Value

Total area (ha)

78,356,200

Total agricultural area (ha)

39,032,000

Proportion of total area (%)

49.81

Total arable land (ha)

21,375,000

Total sown area (ha)

17,657,000

Arable land as a proportion of total agricultural area (%)

54.76

Employment in agriculture (2017)

5.5 million

Source: TURKSTAT (2021)

production value decreased by 5.5 per cent, and this is reflected in a 3 per cent decrease in the total agricultural production value (2019: $80.61 billion and 2020: $78.18 billion) (TURKSTAT 2023). Turkey is either the seventh or the tenth largest agricultural producer by value in the world according to the calculation methodology. However, the productivity level of most agricultural products, particularly animal products, lags behind that of developed countries (Yavuz & Dilek 2019). The inadequate productivity levels are largely the result of poor mechanisation, small farm size, and uncoordinated and unplanned agricultural production (Giray 2012). This indicates that the country owes its success in total production to its natural resources but this does not reflect on unit farm or individual farmer or household or general welfare in the rural areas because of structural problems and challenges in the agricultural sector. Ahmet Bayaner describes a dual structure in which a very few farms employ high technology and can be strong actors in world markets, while the majority (subsistence and semi-subsistence farmers) are not even integrated with local market conditions and target mainly auto-consumption (Bayaner 2013). No agricultural census has been carried out for more than twenty years in the country. According to the last census in 2001, there are approximately 3 million farms in Turkey, most of which are family farms employing family labour. This is an important characteristic of Turkish agriculture. These farms are typically characterised by low productivity with only a small fraction of production being marketed. These farms, however, are crucial for providing income and food security and livelihood to the majority of the rural population in Turkey (Giray 2012). The current average farm size is 5.9 hectares (Yavuz & Dilek 2019). Nearly 70 per cent of the farms have less than 5 hectares of land. Ownership of land and livestock is also distributed unequally: 2.5 per cent of the farmers do not own any land, and small farmers (20 ha) constitute 5 per cent of the farms, own 35 per cent of the land, 17 per cent of the sheep and 10 per cent of the cattle. Having shown the unequal distribution of land, it will also be significant to look at the distribution of the quality of land owned by the farmers. The small farmers, with less than 5 hectares, cultivate only 21 per cent of the land and 30 per cent of the irrigated land. Less than 1 per cent of farmers own more than 50 ha of land, but they cultivate more than 11 per cent of the land and nearly 15 per cent of the irrigated land. Chronological Developments in the Agricultural Sector Developments in the agricultural sector since the foundation of the Turkish Republic have generally been divided into two main periods in previous studies: the statist economy period (1923–80), and the period of transition to a free market economy (after the 1980s). The same approach will be adopted in this study, and each period will be divided into sub-periods according to the milestones and/or main policy of the time, and the characteristic features of the agricultural sector will be summarised. Agriculture during the Period of Statist Economy Early Republic Days Before discussing the developments in agriculture since the foundation of the Turkish Republic, it would be as well to remember some of the reference points first. In 1923, the population was roughly 13 million; 90 per cent of these were illiterate; more than 80 per cent were farmers, or rather peasants, and about 70 per cent of the national income was derived from this employment (Birtek & Keyder 1975). Very little of the arable land was cultivated; there was no organisation or institution to support farmers, and what farmers had as agricultural equipment were only wooden ploughs, and scythes, sickles and harrows. Even transitioning from a wooden to a steel plough was considered an important technological development (Toprak 1988). It appears that Turkey did not have many options for development, and this is why priority was given to agriculture and rural areas for economic development efforts, although it is stated in general and has almost become a cliché that Turkey’s economic policies have put the main emphasis on industrial development since the 1920s. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk paid particular attention to peasants and the problems in agriculture in a speech which he gave on 1 March 1922 at the inauguration of the Turkish Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi, TBMM), when he said: Who is the owner of Turkey? Let’s answer this question immediately. The real owner of the country is the peasant, who is the real producer. Therefore, the one who has gained

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a century of agriculture in turkey | 475 rights and deserves more welfare, happiness and fortune than anyone is the peasant. This is why the TBMM will follow what has to be done towards achieving this fundamental aim.

This approach was crucial not only to emphasise the agriculture-based economic structure of the country but also the importance and priority that would be given to rural areas, and the same approach also continued at the 1st Congress of Economics in Izmir on 17 February 1923 (Eriş 2018). In fact, the economic situation of the country was characterised by traditional agriculture, a centralist-modernising state and an underdeveloped economy, and the main source of possible surplus for the state was undoubtedly agriculture (Birtek & Keyder 1975). Many important decisions regarding the agricultural sector were made at the Congress of Economics and implemented in the following years. For instance, the abolition of the land tithe or aşar (a tax in kind on agricultural production), which put high pressure on producers, was decided in 1923 and put into practice at the beginning of 1925. Although it was called a land tithe, it was implemented on agricultural production value in kind without considering the production cost. The aşar was an important fiscal element, and its rate was so high that it contributed 28.6 per cent of the budget income in 1924 (Önder 1988). The abolition of the aşar was a real milestone in Turkish agriculture. In the first years of the new Republic, a real campaign appeared everywhere. The term ‘holistic approach’ did not exist in the Turkish language, yet it was implemented through policies which covered founding agricultural institutions, support bodies, legislation, agricultural education and training, extension, research and development, technology transference and investment in human capital. In 1927, the first agricultural census was conducted. It was a sort of agricultural inventory to see what remained from the Ottoman Empire after the War of Independence (Saçlı 2009). The Period of the Second World War During the Second World War years, the middle-sized and large farmers were much less damaged (Birtek & Keyder 1975). The war affected the development activities of the country in agriculture and created a slowdown because of the withdrawal of the labour force for the army, and also because of conflicts in the wheat markets. State policies increased disparities among the peasants, and most of the small and middle-sized farmers suffered from compulsory purchasing, while the landlords and large farmers were able to sell most of their produce in the market, benefiting from the high prices (Pamuk 1988). In the period 1923–46, the main policies and tools which had impacts on agriculture were the closed economy, import substitution policy, support for agriculture for selfsufficiency in food supply in an environment of very strong nationalism and statism, moderate state aid to initiate the private sector, strong agricultural extension and

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476 | fatma handan giray education, and supporting institutions. The motivation of this period was to catch up with the West (Temel 2005). The Era of the Multi-party System The single party period effectively ended in 1946 with the participation of the newly established Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) in the national election. In fact, this change was also very much related to wartime agricultural policies. The pressure on small and medium-sized farmers during the war created a popular base that emerged from the transition (Pamuk 1988). When it came to power in 1950, the DP launched policies to promote private entrepreneurship and to attack foreign investments. However, statism remained during this period as well (Temel 2005). In the same year the DP came to power, the second agricultural census of the country was carried out. In 1955, legislation was passed to conduct a general agricultural census every ten years. The results of the efforts on agriculture started in the early period of the Turkish Republic, and were reflected in the 1950s. Two main types of technological change occurred: mechanical developments and chemical or biological developments. The first one happened through an increase in the number of tractors, along with associated combine harvesters, grain drills, ploughs and harrows (Mann 1983). There were only about 500 tractors in Turkey in 1924 (Toprak 1988); there were 1,556 in 1947, and this had increased to 40,000 by 1956 thanks to a strong government commitment and massive Marshall Plan assistance. The results of mechanical development mostly increased the planted area in the short term, but did not raise yields significantly. The other types of technological change, chemical and biological developments, began in the late 1960s, and the impact of using chemical inputs and introducing improved varieties over the previous ten years became apparent (Mann 1983). This period, from 1946 to the 1960s, was characterised by the following policies which had an impact on agriculture: a partially open economy, an import substitution policy, intermittent statism, moderate state aid to the private sector, enhanced institutions for industrial and agricultural development, strong dialogue, improved research and education, and weak land institutions with the motivation of cooperation with the West and the adoption of Western institutions (Temel 2005). The Time between the Two Coups (1960–80) After the coup in 1960, a State Planning Organisation (SPO) was founded in September the same year, even before the adoption of the new constitution for the Republic. The 1960s saw the beginning of the implementation of five-year development plans by the SPO, and agricultural policies were also mainly framed through the official documents of the development plans. It can be seen that the main concerns of the development plans

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a century of agriculture in turkey | 477 regarding agricultural policies were increasing total quantity and yield in agricultural production and agricultural incomes. In order to achieve these goals, expansion of agricultural lands, increase in the use of agricultural inputs including provision of credit at low or subsidised interest rates and investment in irrigation continued during this period. The aim of the rate of increase of gross agricultural product under the first plan was 4.2 per cent, but it actually reached only 3.3 per cent. Despite this, an exceedingly creditable record of accomplishment could be seen in the physical establishment of Turkey. Even though investments in agriculture reached only about 85 per cent of the originally planned capital expenditure, they nevertheless represented a notable achievement. The usage of selected seeds, while also below their targets, began to increase significantly and improved many crops. A number of large irrigation projects were completed, and it remained mainly for small irrigation works to be developed on the farms and to be brought into operation. The increase in the use of fertiliser was impressive, almost doubling, and the demand for its use exceeded by well over a third the goals set for it. The young, but extremely important, vegetable and fruit industry, particularly that of citrus (oranges and lemons) and peaches, developed from a small start-up to an undertaking of some importance but production of these and of industrial crops was still very low. However, forage and other animal feed and also the livestock industry failed not only to live up to estimates, but actually declined. With an average annual increase in output over the long period from 1949–67 of 2.9 per cent, agriculture was assigned a growth rate of 4.1 per cent of GNP per annum in the second plan. This optimistic target was chosen because of increases in production areas in the 1950s, and because of good yields on account of the exceptionally good weather of the early years and the last year under the first plan. However, the high yield of those years contrasted with bad weather and decreased production in that plan’s middle years. The first two years of the second plan brought a worse weather picture so that in 1968 and especially in 1969, agriculture grew more slowly than any other sector of the economy. In 1968, its growth rate declined to 3 per cent of GNP instead of the target rate of 5.1 per cent, largely because of the disastrous wheat harvest. In 1969, the rate was down to 1.9 per cent because the weather continued to be so bad that fruit and vegetables as well as the wheat crop were badly damaged. There were still not enough fertilisers, improved seeds, mechanisation and farm credit to meet demand and help the financial position of a large number of farms, while cattle still formed too small a percentage of the total livestock. Most important was the continued use of traditional methods of farming in many places. The change in farmers’ attitudes was clearly apparent. Although much could still be done to improve production and productivity in Turkish agriculture, its position could be changed only by fundamental changes in its own structure and in the educational and institutional framework of the atomised agricultural sector (Carey & Carey 1971).

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478 | fatma handan giray Tuğrul Temel (2005) describes the period of 1970–80 when nationalism and statism were relatively weak, military control was strong, there were multi-party politics and strong property rights and enforcement, but moderate state aid to the private sector, poor institutions for industrial and agricultural development, weak social dialogue, and weak land institutions and enforcement, and when preparations started for a competition framework. In a partially open economy, import substitution continued in the area of policy and the main aim of this period was to establish social stability by modifying the institutions adopted earlier. The Transition Period to a Market Economy In the 1980s, the government’s main motivation was integration with and competing in international markets after certain changes in policies. An open economy except for agriculture, export promotion policies, and a customs union with the EU were the dominant policy adoptions of this period just after another military coup in 1980, where an environment emerged (or was aimed at) with moderate privatisation, competition and secularism, strong military control, multi-party politics, strong property rights and law enforcement, moderate state aid to the private sector, improved institutions for industry, subsidised agriculture with old institutions, limited social dialogue, moderate national policy and institutions, and the establishment of the Scientific and Technical Research Council (Temel 2005). The key features of the rapid change in agriculture were migration and mechanisation, as well as government policies. In general, the national plan envisaged a continuing change in the production mix away from traditional subsistence and market-ignoring village farming towards coordinated market-seeking commercial agriculture. Although the contribution of agriculture to the national economy relatively declined, important changes achieved were rapid export development and the expansion of field crops, animal husbandry, forestry products and water schemes (Beeley 1985). The Period of Greater Impacts of Global Policies on Agriculture (1990s) The implementation of neoliberal policies in the Turkish economy was uneven between the various sectors until the late 1990s. Agricultural policies between 1980 and 2000 were characterised by a slow but gradual shift from state intervention to a ‘free market’ economy, while liberalisation was in full swing in trade and finance (Aydın 2010) and the radical reforms after the 1980s resulted in the privatisation of public agricultural enterprises, decreasing subsidies for agricultural products and liberalisation of agricultural trade. Turkish agricultural support policies have consisted of guaranteed output prices, input subsidies, control of supply, free or low-cost services to farmers, import protection and export subsidies. In the late 1990s, Turkey decided (or was forced to decide) to reform its agricultural policies because of criticisms that the current policies were fiscally

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a century of agriculture in turkey | 479 expensive and unsustainable, and did not provide a cost-effective way to address policy objectives, the alleviation of rural poverty and regional development. The government introduced the Agricultural Reform Implementation Project to phase out current policies and replace them with area-based income support payments. Liberalisation of the agricultural sector and the excessively protective structure largely continued as well. The New Millennium and the Accession Period to the EU (2000s) The year 2000 was a turning point through the introduction of direct support to farmers instead of subsidies. It has been proposed that liberalisation at full speed brought small farmers to the brink of collapse (Aydın 2010). The beginning of the 2000s was also the period when the relationship between Turkey and the EU speeded up. In fact, Turkey’s integration with the EU is one of the milestones for the country’s agricultural sector. The relationship started with the Association Agreement in 1963, and the agreement of the customs union was one of the important steps. Agricultural components of agro-food products were excluded from the current customs union agreement between the EU and Turkey, and only manufactured elements of processed products originating from agriculture were covered along with industrial products. The real effects of the EU on the agricultural sector in Turkey started after the country was officially recognised as a candidate state in 1999. Following the European Council definition of the opening perspective for accession negotiations with Turkey in 2004, the screening process regarding agriculture also started immediately. Three out of the thirty-five chapters of the acquis are directly related to agriculture. These are Chapter 11: Agriculture and Rural Development, Chapter 12: Food Safety, Veterinary and Phytosanitary Policy, and Chapter 13: Fisheries. Only Chapter 12 was opened to negotiation for Turkey in 2010 after the intergovernmental conference organised by the Council of the EU during the accession negotiation process, following the legal framework of food safety formed by Law No. 5996 on Veterinarian Services, Plant Health, Food and Feed (Giray & Özkan 2012). During this period, Turkey not only reviewed domestic legislation, comparing it with the EU and issuing and/or updating it, but also gained a huge experience of documentation and project preparation. New terms and jargon were created in related environments thanks to the close relationship with the EU bodies, but there were problems with the contents, such as ‘logical framework’, ‘awareness’, ‘governance’ and ‘participation’, while the fundamental problems of agriculture and rural areas in Turkey still existed. Although a great many crucial and significant developments occurred, some of them did not reach harmonisation (uyum) in the implementation level but remained fabricated (uydurma). A large number of texts regarding agriculture and rural development have been drafted in Turkey especially since the beginning of the accession period to the EU. Three National Rural Development Strategy documents, dedicated to the periods 2021–3, 2014–20

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480 | fatma handan giray and 2007–13, the Rural Development Action Plan (2015–18), IPARD-II (2014–20), the Rural Development Plan (2010–13) and IPARD-I (2007–13) are just some of them (Giray 2017). Meanwhile, twenty-three annual progress reports have been published by the European Commission. Over the last twenty years, the templates, outlines, shapes, contents and titles of the reports have changed but most of the criticism about the five opening benchmarks for agriculture and rural development has stayed pretty much the same. Those benchmarks, which must be attained by Turkey, are: (i) accreditation of the IPARD Agency (Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance in Rural Development) in compliance with EU requirements; (ii) presenting a strategy to reverse the tendency in recent years to increase the importance of coupled direct support payments and price support measures in the agriculture budget, in favour of decoupled direct support in line with the current trend of the Common Agricultural Policy; (iii) presenting a detailed strategy referring to sensitive products such as cereals, sugar, milk, livestock, fruit and vegetables to ensure sound and reliable statistical information about agriculture and rural development, in order to reach a satisfactory level to start negotiations; (iv) presenting a strategy on how Turkey intends to further develop the system of land identification and the National Farmer Registration System to prepare for controls on agricultural land; and (v) lifting restrictions on trade in beef, live cattle and derived products. Because of the obligation to implement in full the Additional Protocol by virtue of the Council’s decision, we have to keep in mind that Agriculture and Rural Development is truly one of the eight blocked chapters. The last report, published in October 2021, appreciates the efforts made in implementing the IPARD II programme despite the Covid-19 pandemic, preparing the coming programme (IPARD III), the National Rural Network’s activities, implementation of the pilot agri-environment-climate measure, food quality actions such as continuation of implementing legislation on Protected Geographical Indicators, and advances in organic farming, while it repeats the same criticisms as previous reports (European Commission 2021): Turkey reached some level of preparation in the area of agriculture and rural development. There was backsliding with respect to the recommendations from last year. There is still no strategy for producing agricultural statistics. Turkey’s agricultural support policy is moving away from the common agricultural policy’s principles and Turkey restricts imports of agricultural products from the EU. In the coming year, Turkey should in particular adopt and start to implement a strategy for producing agricultural statistics; develop and start to implement a strategy to align its agricultural support policy with the EU acquis, including the definition of cross-compliance standards. Turkey needs to take further steps for the implementation of the integrated administration and control system (IACS). The farm

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a century of agriculture in turkey | 481 accountancy data network (FADN) covers all 81 provinces and was integrated into the agricultural production and registration system. The agricultural census is not yet complete and the strategy for agricultural statistics remains to be adopted. Further alignment with EU policies requires the decoupling of payments from production and linking areabased payments to well-defined cross-compliance standards. On common market organisation, a regulation on beef carcass classification was published. Sharp decline in imports of live cattle, beef and derivate products from the EU continued in the reporting period. Turkey is yet to fully implement its obligations under the EU–Turkey trade agreement for agricultural products, by opening quotas for beef and live animals on a lasting basis. Proper and transparent management of import quotas needs to be implemented.

In 2006, the first Agricultural Law (no. 5488) was accepted and put into practice. It is an important achievement as it covers all dimensions of the sector and aims at determining the necessary policies and implementations for the agricultural sector and rural area in line with the development plans and strategies. Item 21 of this law indicates that agricultural support programmes are funded by the national budget and external resources and the amount of support from the national budget cannot be less than 1 per cent of the GNP (Official Gazette 2006). However, it has never been reached in the implementation. Conclusion Agriculture in Turkey, while experiencing these changes, continues to contribute to the non-agricultural sector, which is saving and growing more quickly as a workforce, product and market. At the same time, experiences in different parts of the world have shown the necessity of abandoning approaches and policies which see agriculture and the rural areas as merely a source of non-agricultural funds. Rather than developing policies by describing rural areas and agriculture in terms of external factors as a place and economic sector which meet the urban demand for food, there is a need to give priority to the internal dynamics of rural areas and the agricultural sector. In this regard, sustainable development, discussed around the world since the 1980s, and more recently the circular economy and lately the EU’s Green Deal are being discussed. In Turkey also, there is a need when discussing agriculture and agricultural policies to take note of these developments, to take a broad view, and to take decisive long-term action. Turkey has a great advantage in its ability to produce a rich variety of quality agricultural products in large quantities thanks to its large amounts of arable land and agroclimatic diversity. The country ranks number one in the world for the total quantity produced of hazelnuts, apricots, sour cherries and poppy seeds, and is also one of the top producers of sweet cherries and other stone fruits, quinces, vetches, cucumbers and gherkins, strawberries, watermelons and other melons including cantaloupes, leeks and other alliaceous vegetables, figs, pistachios, chickpeas, walnuts, chillies and peppers, green

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482 | fatma handan giray beans, chestnuts, spices, snails, lentils, apples, sheep’s milk, honey, tomatoes, beeswax, olives, spinach, dry onions, sugar beet, aubergines, berries and tea. This richness makes Turkey a large producer and exporter of agricultural products. The farms are still characterised by their small size and fragmentation, and most farms rely on family labour only. In other words, the agriculture sector maintains its historical characterisation of the predominance of a small and independent peasantry structure. Subsistence and semi-subsistence farms are difficult to reach with traditional market and price policies because they only market a minor part of their production on a very limited regional scale. More important for the development of these farms is the possibility of gaining income from sources other than agriculture. The development of this important segment of Turkish farming depends therefore on the social and economic conditions in rural areas. Much of the future competitiveness and prospects of agriculture in an integrating interregional framework depends on structural changes in rural economies in Turkey. The average income level of farmers in Turkey is about 40 per cent lower than that of workers in non-agricultural sectors, and almost 80 per cent of Turkish farmers have small farms, which complicates their access to the value chain and also makes it difficult for them to have competitive power in the market. The agricultural sector made up about 22 per cent of GDP at the beginning of 1980, and it has declined to around 10 per cent in recent years. The annual growth rate in the agricultural sector was 3.6 per cent in 2009, 2.4 per cent in 2010, 5.3 per cent in 2011 and 4.8 per cent in 2020. Overall, the agriculture sector has suffered from a number of fundamental structural and institutional problems for years. Reading the history of agriculture since 1923, one might expect that these changes would have been completed earlier thanks to the very enthusiastic and holistic approach to agriculture that covered founding agricultural institutions, support bodies, legislation, agricultural education and training, extension, research and development, technology transference and investment in human capital. But given the very tough conditions and limited resources, it was not easy to change everything and achieve all targets in a short period as such a change could only be brought about gradually, and it might prove a long uphill struggle. However, significant progress is achieved in agriculture through decisive and consistent policies and dedicated works, which are what is most lacking currently. Having the same problems for a long time has created a despair and fatigue in everyone in the agricultural sector. Uncertainty with agricultural subsidies makes this negative situation even worse. Turkish farmers do not know what they are going to be next year, while agricultural policies are determined for five years in USA and seven years in the EU. Reversal will only be possible through rational, transparent, participatory, long-term and sustainable agricultural policies in a new campaign mode, as partially happened in the early years of the foundation of the Turkish Republic.

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a century of agriculture in turkey | 483 References Aydın, Zülküf (2010), ‘The New Right, Structural Adjustment and Turkish Agriculture: Rural Responses and Survival Strategies’, European Journal of Development Research 14(2): 183–208. Bayaner, Ahmet (2013), Türkiye Tarımı: Gelişmeler ve Beklentiler, Istanbul: Nobel. Beeley, Brian W. (1985), ‘Progress in Turkish Agriculture’, in Peter Beaumont and Keith McLachlan (eds), Agricultural Development in the Middle East, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 289–301. Birtek, Faruk and Caglar Keyder (1975), ‘Agriculture and the State: An Inquiry into Agricultural Differentiation and Political Alliances – The Case of Turkey’, Journal of Peasant Studies 2(4): 446–67. Carey, Jane Perry Clark and Andrew Galbraith Carey (1971), ‘Turkish Industry and the Five Year Plans’, Middle East Journal 25(3): 337–54. Eriş, Atilla (2018), ‘Cumhuriyetin İlk Yıllarında Türk Tarımı ve Ali Numan Kıraç’, 5th International Dam Security Symposium, Istanbul. European Commission (2021), ‘Turkey 2021 Report’, 19 October, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/turkey-report-2021_en, accessed 7 February 2023. Giray, Handan (2012), ‘Turkish Agriculture at a Glance’, Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment 10(3–4): 292–5. Giray, Handan (2017), ‘National Frameworks for Sustainable Rural Development: Turkey’ (in Turkish), report under the project of ALTER (Active Local Territories for Economic Development of Rural Areas) Action. Ankara: Development Foundation of Turkey. Giray, Handan and Zehra Özkan (2012), ‘European Union Food Safety Policies and Lessons/ Homework for Turkey’, Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment 10(3–4): 51–4. Mann, Charles K. (1983), ‘Changing Structure of Turkish Agriculture’, in Bruce L. Greenshields and Margot A. Bellamy (eds), Rural Development: Growth and Inequity, Aldershot and Brookfield, VT: Gower, pp. 107–10. Official Gazette (2006), Agricultural Law No. 5488, 18 April. Önder, İzzettin (1988), ‘Cumhuriyet Döneminde Vergi Politikaları’, in Şevket Pamuk and Toprak Zafer (eds), Türkiye’de Tarımsal Yapılar 1923–2000, Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, pp. 113–33. Pamuk, Şevket (1988), ‘İkinci Dünya Savaşı Sırasında Devlet, Tarım Yapıları ve Bölüşme’, in Şevket Pamuk and Toprak Zafer (eds), Türkiye’de Tarımsal Yapılar 1923–2000, Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, pp. 91–112. Pamuk, Şevket and Zafer Toprak (1988), ‘Giriş’, in Şevket Pamuk and Toprak Zafer (eds), Türkiye’de Tarımsal Yapılar 1923–2000, Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, pp. 9–18. Saçlı, Yurdakul (2009), Türkiye’de Tarım İstatistikleri Gelişimi, Sorunlar ve Çözüm Önerileri, Ankara: Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı. Temel, Tuğrul (2005), ‘The Institutional Framework of Turkey and Turkish Agriculture’, in Alison Burrell and Arie Oskam (eds), Turkey in the European Union: Implications for Agriculture, Food and Structural Policy, Wallingford, England: CABI, pp. 27–46.

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484 | fatma handan giray Toprak, Zafer (1988), ‘Türkiye’de Tarım ve Yapısal Gelişmeler’, in Şevket Pamuk and Toprak Zafer (eds), Türkiye’de Tarımsal Yapılar 1923–2000, Ankara: Yurt Yayınları, pp. 19–35. TURKSTAT (2023), ‘Herbal Product Balance Sheets, 2022’, TURKSTAT, 31 March, https:// data.tuik.gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=Bitkisel-Urun-Denge-Tablolari-2022-49456, accessed 10 April 2023. Yavuz, Fahri and Şerif Dilek (2019), Türkiye’de Tarımı Yeniden Düşünmek, Istanbul: SETA.

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37 Urbanisation in Turkey1 Sinan Erensü (Boğaziçi University)

T

urkey’s urbanisation experience is key to understanding and critically evaluating its hundred-year history as well as its contemporary socio-cultural tensions. Its story of transformation from essentially an agrarian society into a predominately urban one reveals much about the Republic’s accomplishments as well as its failures. Turkey’s most pronounced urban failure, the fact that its cities grew in an unplanned fashion, has inadvertently led to the emergence of a bottom-up urbanism which, at times, has made room for local democracy to flourish as much as it has fuelled clientelism, corruption and risky urban structures. For the better part of the twentieth century Turkish cities were built (and governed) by its new residents themselves, with little support from the state. On the one hand, the country’s historical turning points, past and present conflicts bear the mark of its fast, uncoordinated and uneven urbanisation. On the other, urbanisation has created vibrant cities for Turkey, grown its economy, brought unlikely communities together, and boosted innovation and creativity. Late Yet Rapid Urbanisation With barely one quarter of its population living in cities, Turkey was a rural state when founded in 1923. Rurality, to a certain degree, was the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, over the remnants of which Turkey was founded. However, early Republican Turkey

Sinan Erensü acknowledges research funding support from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 680313). The author also thanks Şevket Pamuk for clarifying the parameters of his urbanisation dataset.

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486 | sinan erensü was even more rural than the late Ottoman Empire.2 The shrinkage of urban population in transition to the republic was significant; Pamuk (2018) estimates that the republican urbanisation rate was only able to surpass the late Ottoman urbanisation by the mid-1950s.3 The stability of the young Republic’s modest urbanisation rate (25 per cent urban to 75 per cent rural) did not change much for around thirty years following its foundation despite the near-doubling of the total population from 13.6 million in 1927 to 24 million in 1955 (see Table 37.1). During worldwide cataclysmic events, such as the Great Depression and Second World War, Turkish villagers continued to remain in the countryside despite economic hardship as rural subsistence was still preferable to urban unemployment (Akçetin 2000). The rural-heavy composition of the country began to change in the aftermath of the Second World War, supported by a post-war economic recovery programme backed by US funds and know-how. The funds were specifically put to use in two areas: mechanisation of agriculture and improvement of the motorway network. While the former increased productivity and rendered sharecroppers (and some small-scale farmers) redundant (Yıldırmaz 2017), the latter served as the infrastructure of the great wave of rural-to-urban migration. Particularly upon the arrival of the tractor, which revolutionised labour- and animal-intensive farming across Anatolian fields, one out of every ten villagers migrated to cities during the 1950s (Keyder 1987: 120, 137). When Turkey embarked upon import-substitution industrialisation later in the 1960s and 1970s, the push factor in the countryside was augmented by an even greater pull factor in cities. Demand for labour power in burgeoning publicly and privately owned factories promised decent wages, consumer goods and liberation from the hardship of rural life and social structures. As such, large swathes of small producers turned into an urban proletariat within a generation or two. The urban population quadrupled within three decades following 1960, with decadal growth rates of 54.5 per cent in the 1960s, 43.5 per cent in the 1970s and 69.6 per cent in the 1980s. Thanks to neoliberal economic policies, and the retreat of public incentives and services, from the late 1980s onwards rural life and By focusing on administrative units (not size of the settlements) the Turkish Statistical Institute recognises urban population as the ‘population of municipal areas of a province and district centres’. Accordingly, 24.22 per cent of the population were living in urban locations based on the first census conducted by the Turkish Republic. In contrast, Pamuk (2018: 52) considers settlements above 5,000 residents, reinterprets the census data and concludes that the share of urban population remained well below 20 per cent in the early Republican era.  3 According to Pamuk’s (2018: 52) fine-tuned calculation, Ottoman society was around 22 per cent urban by 1914. In the aftermath of the land and population losses of the late 1910s and early 1920s, the urbanisation rate plummeted below 20 per cent and remained as such during the early Republican era, reaching the 30 per cent threshold in the 1960s.  2

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17,820,950

20,947,188

27,754,820

35,605,176

44,736,957

56,473,035

67,803,927

73,722,988

83,614,362

1940

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

Source: TURKSTAT

13,648,270

 

1927

 

 

13.4

8.7

20.1

26.2

25.6

28.3

32.5

17.5

–

Decadal urban population growth %

Total

77,736,041

56,222,356

44,006,274

33,326,351

19,645,007

13,691,101

8,859,731

5,244,337

4,346,249

3,305,879

 

Table 37.1 Urban and rural population growth in Turkey

93.0

76.3

64.9

59.0

43.9

38.5

31.9

25.0

24.4

24.2

% of total population

Urban

 

38.3

27.8

32.0

69.6

43.5

54.5

68.9

20.7

–

Decadal urban population growth %

Population

5,878,321

17,754,093

23,797,653

23,146,684

25,091,950

21,914,075

18,895,089

15,702,851

13,747,701

10,342,391

 

7.0

23.7

35.1

41.0

56.1

61.5

68.1

75.0

75.6

75.8

% of total population

Rural

 

−66.9

−25.4

2.8

−7.8

14.5

16.0

20.3

14.2

–

Decadal rural population growth %

488 | sinan erensü production entered a period of dissolution, evident in the negative 66.9 per cent decadal growth rate in the 2000s. The fact that Turkey’s urbanisation was late yet fast and intense is best understood comparatively (see Figure 37.1). While the country’s urbanisation pattern is concordant with some other late-urbanisation examples (such as Iran), Turkey’s urbanisation speed especially in the 1980s was exceptionally fast: it is only comparable to the astounding pace of contemporary Chinese urbanisation. Alongside the pace, also noteworthy is the degree of urbanisation achieved. Turkey’s urbanisation level was significantly low by OECD standards as late as the mid-twentieth century; yet the distance between the two has largely shrunk since then. Turkey, in 2020, was more urban than several OECD members including Ireland, Portugal and Hungary. Despite this rapid urbanisation, there is a lingering ambiguity as to where exactly Turkey’s contemporary urbanisation rate stands. With the passing of 2012 legislation (Law No. 6360), the number of metropolitan municipalities was increased to thirty and their scope of jurisdiction was enhanced to match the entirety of the province each city was in, bringing the provincial towns and villages and the countryside into the fold of the metropolitan city. Redesignating villages as urban neighbourhoods and transferring their common land and property to the metropolitan municipality, the change effectively eradicated the urban-versus-rural distinction in thirty provinces, at least on paper. Since demographic measurements follow administrative lines, an inevitable outcome of this major administrative restructuring has been the effect on Turkey’s official urban population figure, which skyrocketed from 77.3 per cent in 2012 to 91.3 per cent

Figure 37.1 Urbanisation in Turkey 1960–2020 in comparison with select countries Source: World Bank

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urbanisation in turkey | 489 in 2013.4 While the new legislation does not affect a province like Istanbul, which was already 99 per cent urban, it causes major governmental problems in provinces with large rural populations beyond the metropolitan core.5 While this administrative reorganisation is illustrative of an increased emphasis on the city as the preferred form of human settlement, most metropolitan municipalities fail to serve their new rural constituencies. Old and New Cities of the Republic Successive wars, population decline and land losses in the first two decades of the twentieth century not only rendered Turkey less populous and more rural but also stripped it of major urban centres. Strategic port cities such as Salonica and Beirut, key interior cities such as Jerusalem, Damascus and Baghdad in the Middle East as well as Sarajevo in the Balkans were all integral to Ottoman urban geography as late as the turn of the century. Their cascading fall in 1910s was perilous to the realm. These cities had not only enjoyed sizeable urban populations, but also played a critical role in integrating the Empire to global markets and fostering an emerging bourgeoisie alongside a working class in the making (Keyder et al. 1993). More critically, although these cities were never granted self-rule privileges, some nevertheless enjoyed relative de facto autonomy thanks to their distance from the palace (Şengül [2001] 2009). Founded right after their loss, the Turkish Republic was deprived of the social, political and financial accumulation of these urban cores as well as the local and transborder networks they were embedded in. Yet the ruling elite did not intend to change the urban–rural make-up. On the contrary, the founding cadres and the intellectual circles around them had a pronounced affinity for the countryside and preferred rural development to that of cities. This peasantist ideology (köycülük), also observed in Europe during the interwar era, feared the problems that urbanisation could bring, including class conflict, economic stagnation and crime (Karaömerlioğlu 2002). Against the decadency and turbulence of cities, the Republican intellectuals pointed to villages as the nation’s true core. Particularly in the 1930s, when the peasantist ideology was in its heyday, urban designers proposed new and modern village plans along with innovations in village architecture (Bozdoğan 2001: 97–105). New state industrial facilities were located across the nation not to replace, but to support agricultural production. Rural-to-urban migration was systematically discouraged if not prevented. This explains the discrepancy between Table 36.1 and Figure 36.1. The former is based on TURKSTAT data and in accordance with the new administrative arrangement calculates the 2020 urbanisation percentage as 93, while the latter is from data provided by the World Bank.  5 Provinces such as Muğla, Hatay, Van, Şanlıurfa, Trabzon, Ordu and Mardin had urbanisation rates of less than 60 per cent in 2012, yet are now regarded as 100 per cent urban. For more, see Özçağlar (2016).  4

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490 | sinan erensü The only major city that was spared from the denunciation of urbanisation was Ankara, the capital of the new Republic. Development of the new capital, which otherwise was a forgotten small town in the middle of the barren Anatolian steppes with a few thousand residents, was encouraged, taken seriously and accomplished swiftly.6 As a centrally located interior city, Ankara had a geographical advantage for serving the far corners of the country and maintaining national unity in the aftermath of imperial disintegration (Şengül 2009: 112–19). More symbolically, Ankara’s urbanisation from scratch enabled the founding elites to distance themselves from the Ottoman past and showcase the revolutionary characteristics of the new regime (Bozdoğan 2001). Its urban fabric was carefully planned and accompanied by elegant state buildings, spacious public parks and squares, all of which were commissioned to acclaimed European planners and architects (Batuman 2005). Istanbul, in contrast, was politically and economically overshadowed by Ankara’s development. The sharp impact was quantifiable. With the abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate and the conclusion of its capital status, the city’s population shrank from just shy of 1 million to 690,857 in 1927. Deprived of its privileges, it did not receive much investment in the early republican era. Istanbul’s share of the national budget was kept at a bare minimum although it continued to be the nation’s most populous city and generated one third of the national tax revenue (Gül 2009: 48–50). Moreover, unlike in Ankara, implementing modern urban planning approaches meant the partial destruction of this imperial city. The process of old neighbourhood clearance started in the early 1940s and peaked during the late 1950s under the Democrat Party as some 5,000 buildings were destroyed to make way for roads and squares. Adnan Menderes, then prime minister, personally supervised the projects, pioneering a political tradition in which central governments seek popularity and economic gain by activating Istanbul’s urban rent through reconstruction drives. A quick glance at how the country’s ten most populous cities have been ranked over the last century reveals much about the character of urbanisation in Turkey. The top three spots have remained intact since Ankara, the Republic’s first city, positioned itself between two historic port cities, Istanbul and Izmir. They are followed by two urban centres of early industrialisation attempts: Adana and Bursa. Among the second tier, the diminishing relevance of Edirne and Sivas is noteworthy as two major ex-Ottoman vilayet centres. Among new additions, Mersin both performs port city capabilities in the eastern Mediterranean and acts as a cosmopolitan hub that attracts displaced Kurdish, Alevi and now Syrian migrants. Hand-picked and developed as a global tourism hub since the According to the last Ottoman census of 1914, Ankara was less populous than some other mid-size cities in Anatolia, such as Yozgat and Çorum.

 6

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urbanisation in turkey | 491 Table 37.2 Most populous cities in Turkey 1935 City

1960

1990

2020

Pop.

City

Pop.

City

Pop.

City

Pop. (estimate)

1,506,040

Istanbul

6,753,346

Istanbul

15,300,097

1

Istanbul

758,488

Istanbul

2

Izmir

170,959

Ankara

582,431

Ankara

2,497,111

Ankara

4,966,213

3

Ankara

122,720

Izmir

385,844

Izmir

1,757,414

Izmir

2,945,035

4

Adana

76,473

Adana

231,548

Adana

1,001,458

Bursa

2,143,108

5

Bursa

72,187

Bursa

153,866

Bursa

868,550

Adana

1,756,140

6

Konya

52,342

Eskişehir

153,096

Gaziantep 603,434

Gaziantep

1,692,575

7

Gaziantep

50,956

Gaziantep

124,097

Konya

512,346

Antalya

1,360,519

8

Eskişehir

47,045

Konya

119,841

Mersin

422,357

Konya

1,304,337

9

Kayseri

46,181

Kayseri

102,596

Eskişehir

413,082

Kayseri

1,133,662

10

Edirne

36,121

Sivas

93,368

Antalya

378,202

Diyarbakır

1,049,844

1980s, Antalya is now the country’s eighth most populous city and might be considered the second urban invention of the Republic after Ankara. Diyarbakır, the most recent entry to the list, on the other hand is a reminder of the long history of forced displacement from the Kurdish countryside as well as the city’s vibrant social and cultural life. What cannot be captured by sheer population growth is the rapidly changing spatial division of labour across Turkey’s cities and city regions, taking place at least since the late 1990s (Genç et al. 2021). As the share of service, finance and tourism sectors grew in megaurban cores like Istanbul and Izmir, some manufacturing duties were grabbed by a few medium-sized cities which thus far had remained in the periphery of the urban hierarchy.7 Small capital owners in cities like Denizli, Kayseri and Gaziantep, also referred to as Anatolian Tigers, have successfully reaped the benefits of relative decentralisation and export-led developmentalism, made possible by neoliberal governmentality (Bayırbağ 2010). While these manufacturing cities have been key to Turkey’s integration into global markets, the emergence of a peripheral entrepreneurial class (as well as subsequent new middle and working classes) and the concomitant diversification of the national bourgeoisie, the urban qualities of these emerging Anatolian cities in terms of cultural openness and social opportunities are yet to be determined (Genç et al. 2021; Keyman & Koyuncu-Lorasdağı 2020). In 2017, the share of manufacturing in total production was higher in Bursa (43%), Gaziantep (42%), Eskişehir (37%) and Kayseri (36%) than it was in Izmir (33%), Istanbul (27%) and Ankara (26%) (Genç et al. 2021: 87).

 7

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492 | sinan erensü Urban Diversity and Urban Marginalisation In comparison to the Ottoman demographics, the Turkish Republic was not only comparatively less urban, but also profoundly less diverse. In 1914, non-Muslims made up 19.1 per cent of the Ottoman population. In 1927, only 2.5 per cent of Turkish citizens were non-Muslim. Beyond land losses, the Ottoman non-Muslims were exposed to multiple targeted and government-orchestrated massacres, displacement and Islamisation drives during the first decades of the twentieth century. In a less violent episode of attempted ethnic purification, the 1924 population exchange forcibly removed 1.1 million Anatolian Orthodox Christians to Greece in exchange for 400,000 Muslims (Aktar 2000). The disappearance of the non-Muslim population particularly hit social and economic life in cities, where the minority concentration was higher.8 Turkification and Islamisation policies were not simply confined to the turbulence of a collapsing empire. The 1934 Thrace pogroms forced 15,000 Jewish citizens to flee the region, particularly the city of Edirne (Aktar 2000). Disguised as a wartime measure, the 1942 wealth tax was disproportionately levied on urban non-Muslims, who either went bankrupt while forfeiting arbitrary dues or perished in labour camps (Aktar 2000). The final straw was the anti-Greek riots of September 1955, which aimed at erasing the last remaining Greek presence in Istanbul. Ninety years after the city lost its capital status, the non-Muslim population of Istanbul is negligible: the Armenian population stands at around 45,000, Jews at 22,000 and Greeks at a mere 3,000 (Yılmaz 2008). While Turkish cities gradually lost their local non-Muslim population in the first half of the twentieth century, the arrival of rural-to-urban migrants in the second half of the century enhanced their cosmopolitan character. Starting from the mid-1950s, migrants brought with them local customs, identities and the hemşehri networks that have transformed cities forever. Thanks to the qualities of urban life, such as anonymity, spontaneity, experimentation and unpremeditated encounters, the transformation was not one-way traffic either. Alevi faith and identity, for example, which have been persecuted by the institutions of Sunni Islam in the Anatolian countryside for centuries, found new venues of expression and representation in cities. Phrases such as ‘Alevi revivalism’ (Çamuroğlu 1998) denote a widespread cultural shift in progress through which Alevi identity has been normalised and reinvented in metropolitan encounters. Urbanisation also intersects with Kurdish society and identity, which until recently were described with concepts like ‘nomadic’ and ‘pastoral’ (Bruinessen 2013: 273, 287). Through internal displacement, it is estimated that 1.5 to 5 million Kurds were forced to leave the countryside due to counter-terrorism tactics including mass evictions Around 30 per cent of Istanbulites were Greek by 1908/9 (Karpat 1985).

 8

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urbanisation in turkey | 493 (Gambetti & Jongerden 2015: 11). While resulting in worrying social problems such as dispossession and discrimination in cities of arrival, internal displacement rendered Kurds not only more visible but also a formidable political force in major metropoles in the east and south. As the Kurdish political movement began to take control of municipal governments in Kurdish-majority cities in the southeast starting with the 1999 local elections, these Kurdish cities served as spaces for reworking national identity and belonging against the oppressive and denialist policies of Ankara (Çiçek 2008; Güvenç 2011). Under this semi-autonomous municipal experience in the region, which overlapped with a period of relative openness with regard to the Kurdish question (1999–2016), cities like Diyarbakır and Mardin became civil society hubs where associational life and the public sphere flourished, linking local actors to national and international networks (Gambetti 2005). As room for civil liberties improved, so did the Kurdish-majority cities, producing new real-estate, cultural and consumption spots catering for the burgeoning middle classes (Genç 2021; Güven 2021). The most recent diversity challenge that Turkey’s cities have been facing is the Syrian refugee inflow. Since 2014, Turkey has been host to the world’s largest refugee population. In addition to 3.6 million Syrians under temporary protection, there are over 330,000 refugees and asylum seekers under international protection, almost all residing in cities (UNHCR 2021). Refugees have become an integral part of urban life and (mostly informal) labour markets through differentiated pathways based on religious, ethnic and class positions (Baban et al. 2017). Their presence poses a wide variety of challenges for cities, depending on population size, refugee concentration and experience with diversity (Biehl 2020). Whether and how Turkish cities address refugees’ right to the city will shape the prospect of urbanisation for years to come (İkizoğlu Erensü 2014; Kılıçaslan 2016). Urban Politics and Distribution of Urban Rent If belated rapidity is the fundamental character of Turkish urbanisation, its spatial form has been the gecekondu, a makeshift shanty built with mixed construction material often on public land without proper title and/or building licence. Like its counterparts across the global South, the gecekondu was born out of necessity. When the rural-to-urban migrants arrived in cities to take part in the post-war growth and industrialisation, they were not provided with affordable housing. Soon enough, individual gecekondular grew into informal neighbourhoods, began to overshadow formally built structures and, rather than being an exception in urbanisation, became the urbanisation model itself. In 1995, the share of gecekondu buildings in the total building stock was calculated to be 50 per cent in Istanbul and Izmir and 60 per cent in Ankara (Baharoğlu & Leitmann 1998). Therefore, the growth of Turkish cities

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494 | sinan erensü (as well as urban economies and infrastructures) in the second half of the twentieth century was in fact accomplished by rural-to-urban migrants, independent from a centralised plan, oversight or support. What makes this model unique is the Turkish state’s laissez-faire lenience towards gecekondular (Öncü 1988). Particularly until the 1980s, public perception of gecekondular was largely sympathetic to gecekondu dwellers’ plight. Public sympathy was matched by legislative action too (Erman 2001). While gecekondu residents lived in fear of eviction, the ruling elite’s ultimate position on informal housing had to be towards the formalisation of gecekondular, not their prevention. The most concrete proof of this choice is the routinely passed building amnesties (imar affı) pardoning gecekondu dwellers’ building and coding violations. Through these amnesties, large swathes of public land in and around cities were distributed (sold) in retrospect by municipalities to gecekondu dwellers. While these forgiving legal interventions may be seen as election bribes, and thus a form of corruption, early tolerance towards gecekondular was a testament to an urban moral economy of housing whereby urban reciprocity and inclusiveness is maintained via ‘unequal treatment of the unequal’ in the absence of formal mechanisms of redistribution (Buğra 1998). As rural-to-urban migration reached record levels in the early 1980s, however, public sympathy for gecekondular eroded in parallel with the gradual substitution of the mid-century moral economy of housing with an immoral one (Buğra 1998). Gecekondu neighbourhoods, which were seen as the cradle of self-made working-class morals only a decade before, began to be associated with deceit, decadence and later with crime (Erman 2001). A critical dynamic behind this discursive change was the middle classes’ growing distaste with an emerging entrepreneurial gecekondu class who were resourceful enough to upgrade the shanties into multi-storey apartment buildings. Soon the land allocation power of local authorities, which was designed to solve the gecekondu question, was made available to the middle and upper-middle classes through underhand deals, particularly in large metropoles (Buğra 1998). Heralding the arrival of neoliberal urbanisation, The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the marketisation of greenfield and coastal lands for luxurious gated communities (Bartu-Candan & Kolçuğlu 2008) and corporate headquarters as well as upscale hotels catering to international tourism (Ekinci 1994). Redistribution of urban rent, both its moral and immoral variants, had immense repercussions on local politics and democracy, enhancing the role of municipal authorities and inadvertently empowering the previously insignificant status of municipal mayors. The first step was the election of municipal mayors directly through the popular vote. Once this was secured in 1963, a number of popular mayors came to power in big cities, promising social justice, participation and better services to gecekondular (Bayraktar 2007; Koçak & Ekşi, 2010). Local governments were further empowered during the neoliberal

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urbanisation in turkey | 495 trailblazer Motherland Party’s rule in the 1980s, as the municipal revenue base and mayoral discretionary powers for land deals were expanded (Eder & İncioğlu 2004). Against this background, the urban political scenery became the stage for new practices and actors to shine, exemplified best by the political career of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (mayor of Istanbul 1994–8). Immediately after the 2019 municipal election upsets, the newly elected mayors of Ankara and Istanbul, Mansur Yavaş and Ekrem İmamoğlu, instantly became household names as they were seen as natural contenders for Erdoğan’s seat. To curtail their chances, the central government began to squash municipal rights and privileges including restrictions to project financing, relief management and administrative autonomy. This counter-offensive is best understood within the broader context of authoritarian urbanism, the roots of which are traceable to the construction boom that started in the mid-2000s. Urban Accumulation Machine The urban political economy of Turkey has changed fundamentally in the twenty-first century, during which urbanisation has become a prominent mode of capital accumulation rather than a condition for it. A renewed interest in mobilising urban rent was initially a response to the 2001 economic crisis, an opportunity to boost employment and growth. This particularly spoke to the interests of certain factions within the capitalist class (the textile sector among others) whose accumulation opportunities were hampered by the early 2000s. Additionally, the middle classes’ unmet demand for housing and anxieties about the safety of the existing housing stock in the aftermath of the 1999 earthquake helped form a broader coalition in support of urban renewal. The outcome has been an explosion in construction. During the AKP’s rule, building permits issued by municipalities skyrocketed from a mere 36 million square metres in 2002 to 125 million in 2007, then to 287 million in 2017.9 A building frenzy at these levels, however, would not have been possible with the existing land, tenure, and finance regime, which was not necessarily capital friendly. To this end, a new legal and institutional framework was gradually engineered during the first decade of AKP rule that guaranteed the profitability, safety and legality of new urban investments. Among many of its components, gecekondu construction was made a punishable criminal offence for the first time in 2004, thwarting self-building on public land (Law No. 5237). In 2005, metropolitan and district municipalities were given the authority to implement ‘renewal projects’ in inner-city neighbourhoods that are deemed to be derelict and unsafe (Law No. 5393). In 2012, earthquake risk was operationalised into legislation (Law No. 6306) providing the cabinet (later the Presidency) with the right In 2021, the number plummeted to below 100 million due to the economic downturn.

 9

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496 | sinan erensü to declare risk zones. This disproportionately targeted the title-insecure gecekondu neighbourhoods, pushing their inhabitants into fierce disputes with municipalities and developers. Setting urban (re)development in motion, which many considered as the main pillar of neoliberal urbanism in Turkey (Karaman 2013), was a large inflow of foreign capital (debt finance) and, to a certain degree, an expansion of credit markets. While financialisation in real estate via mortgage credits (introduced in 2007) has been relatively slow, financialisation on the investor side has been stronger through the increasing role of real estate investment trusts (REITs) and the introduction of real estate investment funds (REIFs) in 2014 (Erol 2019). In addition to the former gecekondu neighbourhoods, unoccupied/underoccupied urban land was also developed or marketed to other private developers, by the Turkish Mass Housing Administration (TOKI). Once a fringe government agency, TOKI under the AKP claimed the seemingly contradictory roles of a premier land broker for prime real estate in the urban core and an agent of populist urban housing in the periphery. Despite rightful critiques pertaining to low production quality and prioritisation of market trends over affordable housing, by developing more than 700,000 housing units in the first fifteen years of AKP rule (in contrast to just 43,000 units in the previous twenty years), TOKI has been politically consequential in a country with a weak social housing tradition (Genç et al. 2021: 78). TOKI not only played a key role in the centralisation of housing and land markets, which arguably contributed to the concomitant rise of populist authoritarianism (Erensü & Alemdaroğlu 2018), but also strengthened societal consent to AKP rule by forming an inter-class alliance around urban growth (Arslanalp 2018). Urban renewal schemes have been extremely controversial as they have lacked transparency and adequate public participation. They have been designed to trigger rapid gentrification in addition to the displacement of low-income inhabitants from urban centres. In reaction to these heavy-handed urban interventions, a new wave of urban movement began to mature in the 2000s. Composed of neighbourhood-level grassroots initiatives seeking to secure titles (such as Mahalleler Birliği) and activist circles concerned with the commodification of urban centres, this emergent urban (and environmental) mobilisation inspired, and was inspired by, the 2013 Gezi uprising (Erensü & Karaman 2017). Despite the political will behind them, most urban renewal schemes failed miserably due to public opposition, particularly in former gecekondu neighbourhoods (Kuyucu 2022). That is partially why the AKP has been attempting to diversify the spaces of the urban accumulation regime since the mid-2010s via a series of megainfrastructure projects targeting less-occupied outskirts of major metropoles, which happen to be environmental reserve areas. This compulsory shift towards building new roads, airports and waterways provides an immense level of authority over land, capital,

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urbanisation in turkey | 497 and national pride while endangering the environmental and financial well-being of the country. Conclusion The fact that most Turkish citizens now live in urban settings does not mean urbanisation is finalised. O the contrary, urbanisation is now, maybe more than ever, under a major transformation. Urban conflicts cut deeper as urban goods and space continue to be distributed unequally. The urban moral economy, which once tolerated the gecekondular and provided possibilities for urban inclusion, is now in a shambles. Urban land fuels the accumulation regime and shapes the authoritarian political alliances around it. The slow, steady but still-incomplete rise of local democracy is under threat as municipal rights and powers are being restricted. Despite millions of dollars poured into infrastructural investments (or precisely because of that), cities are becoming increasingly vulnerable to environmental calamities. Moving into the second century of the Republic, there are at least three relatively new problem areas pertaining to Turkey’s cities. The least voiced of all is climate change. Against the encumbrance of the central government, there is much cities could do in terms of mitigation and adaptation towards climate justice. The second one pertains to how cities can better welcome international migrants and growing ethnic/cultural diversity, and act as shields against exclusion. Finally, urban leaders and activists should develop innovative policies and practices of commoning to heal the wounds of both the neoliberal and the authoritarian urbanisation trends that plagued Turkey’s cities in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. References Akçetin, Elif (2000), ‘Anatolian Peasants in the Great Depression 1929–1933’, New Perspectives on Turkey 23: 79–102. Aktar, Ayhan (2000), Varlık Vergisi ve ‘Türkleştirme’ Politikaları, Cilt 4, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Arslanalp, Mert (2018), ‘Coalitional Politics of Housing Policy in AKP’s Turkey’, in Social Policy in the Middle East and North Africa, POMEPS Studies 31, Project on Middle East Political Science, October, pp. 25–33. Baban, Feyzi, Suzan Ilcan and Kim Rygiel (2017), ‘Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Pathways to Precarity, Differential Inclusion, and Negotiated Citizenship Rights’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43(1): 41–57. Baharoglu, Deniz and Josef Leitmann (1998), ‘Coping Strategies for Infrastructure: How Turkey’s Spontaneous Settlements Operate in the Absence of Formal Rules’, Habitat International 22(2): 115–35. Bartu Candan, Ayfer and Biray Kolluoğlu (2008), ‘Emerging Spaces of Neoliberalism: A Gated Town and a Public Housing Project in Istanbul’, New Perspectives on Turkey 39: 5–46.

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498 | sinan erensü Batuman, Bülent (2005), ‘Identity, Monumentality, Security: Building a Monument in Early Republican Ankara’, Journal of Architectural Education 59(1): 34–45. Bayırbağ, Mustafa Kemal (2010), ‘Local Entrepreneurialism and State Rescaling in Turkey’, Urban Studies 47(2): 363–85. Bayraktar, S. Ulaş (2007), ‘Turkish Municipalities: Reconsidering Local Democracy beyond Administrative Autonomy’, European Journal of Turkish Studies, 8 October, https://doi. org/10.4000/ejts.1103, accessed 8 February 2023. Biehl, Kristen Sarah (2020), ‘A Dwelling Lens: Migration, Diversity and Boundary-Making in an Istanbul Neighbourhood’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 43(12): 2236–54. Bozdoğan, Sibel (2001), Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic, Seattle: University of Washington Press. Bruinessen, Martin van (2013), ‘Kurds and the City’, in Hamit Bozarslan and Clémence ScalbertYücel (eds), Joyce Blau, l’éternelle chez les Kurdes, Paris: Institut Kurde de Paris, pp. 273–95. Buğra, Ayşe (1998), ‘The Immoral Economy of Housing in Turkey’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 22(2): 303–7. Çamuroğlu, Reha (1998), ‘Alevi Revivalism in Turkey’, in Tord Olsson, Elisabeth Özdalga and Catherina Raudvere (eds), Alevi Identity: Cultural, Religious and Social Perspectives, Istanbul: Svenska ForskningsInstitutet, pp. 79–84. Çiçek, Cuma (2008), ‘Katılımcı Kent Yönetimi Yerelliği Yeniden Keşfetmek Diyarbakır Örneği’, PhD thesis, Istanbul Technical University. Eder, Sema and Nihal İncioğlu (2004), ‘Yerel Politika’nın Yükselişi: İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Deneyimi 1984–2004’, in Selin İlkin, Orhan Silier and Murat Güvenç (eds), İlhan Tekeli İçin Armağan Yazıları, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, pp. 539–58. Ekinci, Oktay (1994), İstanbul’u Sarsan 10 Yıl 1983–1993, Istanbul: Anahtar. Erensü, Sinan and Ayça Alemdaroğlu (2018), ‘Dialectics of Reform and Repression: Unpacking Turkey’s Authoritarian “Turn”’, Review of Middle East Studies 52(1): 16–28. Erensü, Sinan and Ozan Karaman (2017), ‘The Work of a Few Trees: Gezi, Politics and Space’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 41(1): 19–36. Erman, Tahire (2001), ‘The Politics of Squatter (Gecekondu) Studies in Turkey: The Changing Representations of Rural Migrants in the Academic Discourse’, Urban Studies 38(7): 983–1002. Erol, Isil (2019), ‘New Geographies of Residential Capitalism: Financialization of the Turkish Housing Market since the Early 2000s’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 43(4): 724–40. Gambetti, Zeynep (2005), ‘The Conflictual (Trans)formation of the Public Sphere in Urban Space: The Case of Diyarbakır’, New Perspectives on Turkey 32: 43–71. Gambetti, Zeynep and Joost Jongerden (2015), ‘Introduction: The Kurdish Issue in Turkey from a Spatial Perspective’, in Zeynep Gambetti and Joost Jongerden (eds), The Kurdish Issue in Turkey: A Spatial Perspective, Abingdon: Routledge. Genç, Fırat (2021), ‘Diyarbakır’da Çevresel Hegemonya Mücadelesi ve Mekanın Söylemsel İnşası’, in Gözde Orhan (ed.), Osmanlı’dan Türkiye’ye Sosyal Bilimlerde Yeni Tartışmalar, Istanbul: Nobel.

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urbanisation in turkey | 499 Genç, Fırat, Çağlar Keyder, Fuat Keyman and Ayşe Köse Badur (2021), Kentlerin Türkiyesi: İmkanlar, Sınırlar ve Çatışmalar, Istanbul: İletişim. Gül, Murat (2009), The Emergence of Modern Istanbul: Transformation and Modernisation of a City, London: I. B. Tauris. Güven, O. Özgür (2021), ‘“Our City Is Our Identity!” A Field Study on Kurdish Local Government Experiences in Diyarbakır’, GeoJournal 86(2): 1029–41. Güvenç, Muna (2011), ‘Constructing Narratives of Kurdish Nationalism in the Urban Space of Diyarbakir, Turkey’, Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review 23(1): 25–40. İkizoğlu Erensü, Aslı (2014), ‘Asylum and the Right to the City: Lessons from Turkey’s Syrian Guests and Other Urban Refugees’, Jadaliyya, 5 April, https://www.jadaliyya.com/ Details/30422/Asylum-and-the-Right-to-the-City-Lessons-from-Turkey%E2%80%99sSyrian-Guests-and-Other-Urban-Refugees, accessed 8 February 2023. Karaman, Ozan (2013), ‘Urban Neoliberalism with Islamic Characteristics’, Urban Studies 50(16): 3412–27. Karaömerlioğlu, M. Asım (2002), ‘Agrarian Populism as an Ideological Discourse of Interwar Europe’, New Perspectives on Turkey 26: 59–93. Karpat, Kemal H. (1985), Ottoman Population 1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Keyder, Çağlar (1987), State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development, London: Verso. Keyder, Çaǧlar, Y. Eyüp Özveren and Donald Quataert (1993), ‘Port-Cities in the Ottoman Empire: Some Theoretical and Historical Perspectives’, Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 16(4): 519–58. Keyman, Fuat and Berrin Koyuncu-Lorasdağı (2020), Sekiz Kentin Hikayesi: Türkiye’de Yeni Yerellik ve Yeni Orta Sınıflar, İstanbul: Metis. Kılıçaslan, Gülay (2016), ‘Forced Migration, Citizenship, and Space: The Case of Syrian Kurdish Refugees in İstanbul’, New Perspectives on Turkey 54: 77–95. Koçak, Süleyman Yaman and Ali Ekşi (2010), ‘Katılımcılık ve Demokrasi Perspektifinden Türkiye’de Yerel Yönetimler’, Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 21: 295–307. Kuyucu, Tuna (2022), ‘The Great Failure: The Roles of Institutional Conflict and Social Movements in the Failure of Regeneration Initiatives in Istanbul’, Urban Affairs Review 58(1): 129–63. Öncü, Ayşe (1988), ‘The Politics of the Urban Land Market in Turkey 1950–1980’, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 12(1): 38–64. Özçağlar, Ali (2016), ‘Büyükşehir belediyeli illerde kır ve kent nüfusunun tespiti mümkün mü’, TÜCAUM Uluslararası Coğrafya Sempozyumu, pp. 271–91. Pamuk, Şevket (2018), Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey since 1820, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Şengül, Tarık H. ([2001] 2009), Kentsel Çelişki ve Siyaset: Kapitalist Kentleşme Sürecinin Eleştrisi, Ankara: İmge.

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500 | sinan erensü UNHCR (2021), ‘Turkey Fact Sheet’, September, https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/ resources/Bi-annual%20fact%20sheet%202021%2009%20Turkey%20ENG.pdf, accessed 8 February 2023. Yıldırmaz, Sinan (2017), Politics and the Peasantry in Post-War Turkey: Social History, Culture, and Modernization, London and New York: I. B. Tauris. Yılmaz, Önder (2008), ‘Dışişleri: Azınlık sayisi 89 bin’, Milliyet, 12 December, https://www. milliyet.com.tr/siyaset/disisleri-azinlik-sayisi-89-bin-1027207, accessed 8 February 2023.

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38 Every Drop Counts: A Century of Hydraulic Infrastructure Development in Turkey Arda Bilgen (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Introduction

T

urkey has a rich hydraulic history. From the second millennium bc, the Hittites, Urartus, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks and Ottomans built various dams, irrigation canals, aqueducts and similar waterworks to meet their water needs (Tiğrek & Kibaroğlu 2011: 33–4). However, it is the establishment of modern Turkey that took hydraulic infrastructure development to a different dimension. In this chapter, I provide a concise overview of hydraulic infrastructure development and, relatedly, water resources development in Turkey since 1923. By focusing on the major dam, hydroelectric power plant (HEPP), irrigation and water transfer projects implemented across Turkey, I discuss the continuities, changes and challenges in the way the country has conceived of and approached infrastructure, water and the politics of both throughout its developmental history. In this way, I seek to present a synoptic piece that benefits particularly those students, researchers and practitioners who are new to, or interested in expanding their knowledge on, the topic. Overall, I argue that Turkey has made significant progress in hydraulic infrastructure development in 100 years, but the time is ripe to abandon the dominant techno-economic perspective on water and instead adopt a socio-political perspective that captures the complex web of relations between infrastructure, nature, society, politics and water. Water Resources at a Glance Turkey has a semi-arid climate with an average annual rainfall of 574 millimetres and a total annual volume of precipitation of 450 billion cubic metres (DSİ 2023: 38). The country is split between twenty-five river basins. Five of these basins, the Euphrates– Tigris, Kura–Araks, Maritza, Orontes and Chorokhi, are transboundary and cover 501

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502 | arda bilgen around one third of Turkey’s land surface. Even though the country’s average annual runoff is 185 billion cubic metres, the annual exploitable potential is 112 billion cubic metres, including 18 billion cubic metres of groundwater. Annual freshwater consumption amounts to 57 billion cubic metres, 77 per cent of which is used for agriculture and the rest for domestic and industrial uses. It is a ‘water-stressed’ (Falkenmark 1989) country with 1,322 cubic metres of available water per capita per year (DSİ 2023: 15). Turkey has stored 182.79 billion cubic metres of water in 992 dams and 709 reservoirs built around the country (DSİ 2023: 15). Turkey’s gross theoretical, technically exploitable and economically feasible hydropower potentials are 433, 216 and 180 billion kilowatt-hours per year respectively (DSİ 2021:40). The country has developed more than 50 per cent of its hydropower potential through 740 HEPPs with an installed capacity of 32,334 megawatts with 111,660 gigawatt-hours of annual production. There are also 22 HEPPs under construction and 498 in the planning phase (DSİ 2023: 49). In addition, Turkey’s total arable area amounts to 24 million hectares of land. The ‘economically irrigable’ portion of this area amounts to 8.5 million hectares, 6.96 million of which is open to irrigated agriculture (DSİ 2023: 44). Taming Nature, Capturing Water In the early years of the new Republic, the processes of the social and political construction of the nation-state and the material construction of public works were deeply intertwined (Kurtiç 2019: 93). Hydraulic infrastructure development played a key role in facilitating the control over water resources and the making of the nation-state and its natural environment (Kurtiç 2019: 94). In other words, hydropower was a crucial tool employed by the state towards transforming society according to a set of modernist ambitions (Akbulut et al. 2018: 96). Therefore, the state began surveying, developing and managing its natural resources both to meet its water needs and to expand its reach, control and legitimacy (Bilgen 2021). In 1925, the Water Directorate, as well as regional directorates in Adana, Ankara, Bursa, Edirne and Izmir, was created under the Ministry of Public Works. The General Directorate of Waters was established in 1929 and, later, transformed into the Directorate of Water Works in 1939 (Altınbilek & Hatipoğlu 2020: 64–5). In the early 1930s, preliminary studies on river basin planning began. In 1935, the Electrical Power Resources Survey and Development Administration (Elektrik İşleri Etüt İdaresi Genel Müdürlüğü, EİE) was established. The Ministry of Public Works and EİE were tasked to explore the country’s hydropower potential, conduct hydrological surveys, and carry out engineering works (Tiğrek & Kibaroğlu 2011: 27). These early attempts showed that water would be used towards economic growth, social progress and similar modernisation goals (Sayan 2016: 7).

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every drop counts | 503 Megadams were built around the world in the early twentieth century. The construction of the Hoover Dam in the United States in the 1930s was a crucial event with global implications for infrastructure-building (Tozoğlu 2021: 384). The US Bureau of Reclamation and the US Army Corps of Engineers gained a global reputation with their expertise in water resources management. The initiation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) in the same decade took river basin development to a new level. The TVA combined the idea of ‘unified development (the damming of all the streams of a given river basin to bring the river under total control), the benefits of multi-purpose dams (hydropower, flood protection, transportation, irrigation [etc.]), and the idea of regional development’ (Molle 2009: 333). Over time, the TVA ‘became the preferred model for how nation-states – particularly those endowed with ample water resources – might best exploit their rivers to achieve economic and social goals’ (Sneddon 2015: 55). The Çubuk Dam was opened in Ankara only a few months after the Hoover Dam in March 1936. While the primary functions of the dam were to control floods and supply drinking water to the capital, it also served as an important symbol of modernisation, nation-building and control over nature (Kurtiç 2019: 97). Initial studies of the Euphrates– Tigris basin were also conducted in the 1930s (Topçu et al. 2019: 190), one reason being Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s fascination with the Soviet plans for the river Dnieper (Turgut 2000: 47). The feasibility studies for the Seyhan, Sarıyar, Hirfanlı, Kesikköprü, Demirköprü and Kemer dams and HEPPs were also conducted between 1935 and 1953 (Altınbilek & Hatipoğlu 2020: 68). Since Turkey followed the principles of Keynesian economics until the 1980s, the state was the primary actor that invested in and provided infrastructure and public services during this period (Kibaroğlu et al. 2009: 288). In the Cold War geopolitical context of the 1950s, both the US and the Soviet Union built large-scale infrastructure projects to showcase their supremacy in many domains including hydrology (Molle et al. 2009: 333). In the context of decolonisation, newly independent states also built such projects to stimulate their national development, strengthen their national unity and shed their colonial past. Jawaharlal Nehru, for example, likened dams to ‘new temples of modern India’ and Gamal Abdel Nasser put the Aswan Dam at the centre of Egyptian development, progress and nation-making (Biswas & Tortajada 2001: 11). The US especially provided generous water sector-related aid and technical assistance to the ‘Third World’ to prevent the expansion of communism (Molle et al. 2009: 335), strengthen its geopolitical alliances and create a ‘fraternity’ of non-American engineers who would play important roles in the water bureaucracies of their countries and, thus, benefit American interests (Sneddon 2015: 80). It was in this context that Turkey adopted the US model of dam-building and watershed management (Kurtiç 2019: 99). According to the Marshall Plan, Turkey would be a good fit to supply war-torn Europe with agricultural products, but its agricultural sector

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504 | arda bilgen had to be developed. The infrastructure sector of the country had to be developed too. To achieve this, financial and technical support was provided to construct dams, build granaries and modernise harbour facilities all around the country. For example, the construction of the Sarıyar and Seyhan dams was initiated with the help of American aid and expertise in 1951 and 1953, respectively (Tozoğlu 2021: 387–8). More importantly, the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works (Devlet Su İşleri, DSİ) was established by Law No. 6200 of 1953, based on the model of the US Bureau of Reclamation. Arguably from then onwards, Turkey’s hydraulic efforts transformed into a ‘hydraulic mission’ – ‘the strong conviction that every drop of water flowing to the ocean is a waste and that the state should develop hydraulic infrastructure to capture as much water as possible for human uses’ (Wester 2009: 10). The DSİ became the leading state agency mandated with the planning, design, construction and operation of hydraulic structures across the country. Dominated by civil engineers and water bureaucrats, the DSİ considered water management an overly technical matter and adopted an exclusively technocratic perspective on water policy (Sayan & Kibaroğlu 2016: 1288–9). The influence of the US on Turkey’s hydraulic infrastructure development persisted in the following years. For instance, modelled on US higher education system, Atatürk University, Black Sea Technical University, and the Middle East Technical University were established to meet the shortage of architects, engineers, and other technical staff in the field of public works construction (Tozoğlu 2021: 391). Many Turkish engineers and experts in the field, some of whom would become politicians and technocrats later, were trained by the US Bureau of Reclamation (Sneddon 2015: 182–3). As a well-known example, Süleyman Demirel, who enjoyed the nickname ‘King of Dams’ throughout his political career, spent a year at the Bureau between 1949 and 1950 and another year at the Morrison-Knudsen company as an Eisenhower fellow between 1954 and 1955 (Tozoğlu 2021: 405). Upon his return, he served first as the head of the Department of Dams and, later, as the director general of the DSİ until 1960. The DSİ spent most of its budget on building dams in the 1950s; as a result, the supply of hydroelectric power in Turkey increased from 4 per cent to 30 per cent of the country’s electricity capacity between 1950 and 1960 (Nestmann 1960: 220). The influential status of the DSİ was strengthened by the enactment of the Groundwater Law No. 167 in 1960, which allowed the agency to distribute licenses for groundwater use (Topçu et al. 2019: 191). Hydraulic infrastructure development gained momentum in the 1960s. Following the 1960 coup, import-substituting industrialisation became the primary state strategy for economic development. The State Planning Organisation (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı, DPT) was founded by Law No. 91 in 1960. This not only institutionalised the intervention of the state in the economy, but also introduced five-year development plans

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every drop counts | 505 as a means to manage public investments, including those in the water sector (Kibaroğlu et al. 2009: 288). In order to extend the development of water and land resources to the rural parts of the country, the General Directorate of Rural Services was also established, by Law No. 7457 in 1961 (Topçu et al. 2019: 191). The integration of the DSİ and DPT into the policy process made hydraulic infrastructure development an indispensable part of the country’s overall development policies (Sayan 2016: 8). For example, preliminary studies to develop the hydropower potential of the Çoruh River basin were initiated in the early 1960s (Akbulut et al. 2018: 105). The Keban Dam, the first large dam to be built on the Euphrates, was initiated in the mid-1960s (Öktem 2002: 315). The Lower Euphrates Project was also initiated as a bundle of thirteen hydropower generation and irrigation projects on the Euphrates around the same period. In the 1970s, the coverage of the Lower Euphrates Project was expanded to include projects on the Tigris as well. Eventually, all hydropower and irrigation projects on the Euphrates and Tigris were combined and put under the umbrella of the Southeastern Anatolia Project (Güneydoğu Anadolu Projesi, GAP) in the late 1970s.1 GAP consisted of the construction of twenty-two dams and nineteen HEPPs with an established capacity of 7.640 megawatts to generate 27 billion kilowatt-hours of energy annually (Öktem 2002: 317) as well as extensive irrigation and drainage networks across 1.7 million hectares of land in southeastern Turkey (Topçu et al. 2019: 192). In the 1980s, GAP was expanded to include additional sectors such as agriculture, education, healthcare, transportation and tourism, and thus was transformed into a multisectoral and integrated regional development project. After this expansion, the responsibility to administer the project shifted from the DSİ to the DPT. In 1989, the GAP Regional Development Administration was created by Law No. 388 to coordinate the development activities in the region by engaging in cooperation with governmental and non-governmental actors involved in the project. In the 1990s, GAP was redefined as a ‘sustainable human development project’ (Topçu et al. 2019: 192). The liberalisation of the economy and the European Union accession process brought additional changes to the project framework in the 2000s. The major objectives of GAP can be summarised as removing regional disparities, integrating centrifugal (Kurdish) groups, modernising land ownership, and developing the agriculture, energy and industry sectors (Warner 2008: 279). GAP has caused not only transboundary water issues between Turkey and its downstream neighbours Syria and The Eastern Anatolia Project (DAP), the Eastern Black Sea Project (DOKAP) and the Konya Plain Project (KOP) are the major irrigation projects implemented after the launch of GAP. Since 2011, each project has had its own regional development administration. When completed, DAP, DOKAP, and KOP will respectively irrigate 1,377,656, 477,970 and 1,647,239 hectares of land (DSİ 2023: 52–5).

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506 | arda bilgen Iraq, but also environmental, social and cultural problems such as soil salinisation (for example in Harran), the displacement of thousands of people (for example in Birecik), and the inundation of sites of historical importance (for example in Hasankeyf) (Bilgen et al. 2021: 1593–5). As of 2021, 91 per cent of the energy projects and 60 per cent of the irrigation projects under GAP have been completed (DSİ 2023: 51). Overall, GAP has arguably accomplished most of its technical objectives in the agriculture, energy and water sectors, but has failed to bring the promised political and social transformation in the region (Bilgen et al. 2021: 1595). Turkey struggled with high inflation, high unemployment, oil scarcity, a shortage of basic items and a balance of payment crisis in the late 1970s. In 1980, the ‘24 January Decisions’ were announced to redesign the economy along neoliberal lines. Turgut Özal played a key role in making the transition from a state-led, inward-oriented development strategy to a private sector-led, outward-oriented one. Facilitated by the 1980 coup, the shift to a free-market economy brought many changes in the energy and water sector. Following the enactment of Law No. 3096 in 1984, for instance, the private sector became authorised to generate, transmit and distribute electricity through new models such as build-operate-transfer, build-own-operate, and transfer of operating rights (Kibaroğlu et al. 2009: 291). In the water sector, this system was ‘extended to water supply and sanitation services in municipalities, and to the construction, operation and management of infrastructure, such as dams, hydropower plants and irrigation systems’ (Tiğrek & Kibaroğlu 2011: 29). The push for change came not just from the national elites, but also from international institutions such as the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and various private corporations (Tiğrek & Kibaroğlu 2011: 29). Thus, the state assumed the role of a market regulator rather than a principal contractor in the water governance process (Sayan & Kibaroğlu 2016: 1289). Even though various economic and political crises, particularly the financial crises in 1994 and 1998, had adverse impacts on the economy, hydraulic infrastructure development continued in the 1990s. One of the most significant events of the decade was the opening of the Atatürk Dam, the key component of GAP, in 1992. The Atatürk Dam was one of the world’s largest earth-and-rock fill dams, with a reservoir capacity of 48.7 billion cubic metres, an installed capacity of 2,400 megawatts and 8.9 billion kilowatt-hours of annual power production (Tortajada 2000: 454). The dam was a source of national pride. It was named ‘Atatürk’ to highlight the linkages between the size of the dam, the progress of the nation and the greatness of its founder (Bilgen 2021: 303). The Şanlıurfa Tunnels and Şanlıurfa–Harran irrigation system also became operational in the mid-1990s. Another significant development was the decentralisation of irrigation water management in the early 1990s. As part of the Irrigation Management Transfer framework, which was guided and supported by the World Bank, water user associations

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every drop counts | 507 (WUAs) were created (Topçu et al. 2019: 198). In order to transition to a more bottomup, participatory and cost-effective approach, the responsibility to operate and maintain the secondary and tertiary levels of nearly all large-scale irrigation systems was transferred to WUAs, irrigation cooperatives and local authorities (Topçu et al. 2019: 198–9), which together operate and maintain irrigation systems across 2,877,441 hectares of land as of 2023 (DSİ 2023: 50). In the early 2000s, the number of large dams around the world reached more than 45,000 (World Commission on Dams 2000: 8). From the 1980s onwards, however, an increasing number of scholars, experts and activists became more vocal about how dams led to extensive negative impacts on rivers, the irreversible loss of species and ecosystems, the displacement and impoverishment of millions, the submergence of cultural resources, changes in land ownership patterns and so forth (World Commission on Dams 2000: 15–17). In the late 1990s, even the World Bank, the main financier of many controversial dams, could no longer stay indifferent and initiated the World Commission on Dams (WCD) as an independent committee to evaluate the social and environmental impacts of large dams and set international standards for dam-building (Evren 2014: 411). Even though hydropower-dependent countries such as China, India and Turkey opposed the recommendations of the WCD, the resistance against large dams made large-scale, stateled hydraulic structures less favourable (Sayan & Kibaroğlu 2016: 1287). Instead, small HEPPs that required no damming or reservoir to hold large amounts of water and that could be easily funded, built and operated were promoted as cost-effective, eco-friendly and private sector-led alternatives (Erensü 2013: 64). Both these global development trends and the official recognition of Turkey as a candidate for EU membership in 1999 brought additional changes in the water policy in the 2000s. While gradually recovering from the effects of the 2001 financial crisis, Turkey adopted critical institutional elements of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD), including river basin districts, river basin management planning, water quality monitoring and public participation processes, and integrated them in its water policy, albeit in a hybrid manner and with limited success.2 Simultaneously, the country took a more ambitious approach to utilise its hydropower potential to the maximum extent possible. An important pillar of this policy was the construction of hundreds of small-scale runof-the-river-type HEPPs through a partnership between the DSİ and the private sector, where the former took on the planning responsibilities while the latter took on the construction and operation responsibilities, except for a few projects (Işlar 2012: 382). The WFD’s transboundary water management component has not been fully applied. Similarly, the Draft Water Law, prepared to reformulate Turkey’s water policy in line with the WFD, has not been adopted yet. See Demirbilek & Benson (2019).

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508 | arda bilgen In this process, also referred to as the ‘privatisation of Turkey’s rivers’, private enterprises were granted the right to use rivers for a 49-year period to build HEPPs (Işlar 2012: 376). In economic terms, these projects were promoted as solutions to reduce Turkey’s energy dependence, meet the country’s energy demand, and meet its need for cheap energy to support its industrial sector (Işlar 2012: 378). At a local level, however, there was a widespread backlash against the detrimental socio-ecological effects of HEPPs, in which an environmental movement formed that brought together a diverse group of rural populations, urban environmental activists, and translocal, regional and national networks (Akbulut et al. 2018: 98). Given Turkey’s strategy to cope with climate change through increased involvement of the private sector, more funds became available for hydropower projects after the country signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2004 and ratified the Kyoto Protocol in 2009 (Işlar 2012: 382). Turkey received funding from the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund, which was provided to developing and middleincome countries with an agenda to become low-carbon economies, and spent almost all of it on financing its energy efficiency and HEPP projects (Işlar 2012: 383). The EU process also made it necessary for Turkey to undertake reforms to streamline its energy sector according to the EU energy directives. To this end, for instance, Electricity Market Law No. 4628 was enacted in 2001 to create a competitive electricity market, overseen by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (Erensü 2013: 70). Similarly, Law No. 5346 on the Utilisation of Renewable Energy Resources for the Purpose of Generating Electrical Energy was enacted in 2005 to provide the private sector with generous incentives such as eminent domain rights and purchase guarantees to bring investment to the renewable energy sector (Sayan & Kibaroğlu 2016: 1290). Despite the waves of liberalisation in the field since the 1980s, arguably the statecentric and centralised nature of decision-making has not completely disappeared, with the central government being the main actor in controlling and coordinating the process. The state retains its control over the private sector by, for instance, playing the major role in introducing global financiers to local capital, guaranteeing the purchase of excess electricity from private plants, granting permits and licences, and trying to convince the public of the economic and social benefits of HEPPs (Erensü 2013: 73). For example, The DSİ played a key role in the realisation of the Melen Project, which was initiated in 2007 to transfer 1.18 billion cubic metres of water from the river Melen each year to meet the water needs of Istanbul until 2040 (Altınbilek & Hatipoğlu 2020: 72). When the ‘1,000 reservoirs in 1,000 days’ project was implemented between 2012 and 2016 to expand irrigation to rural areas located outside the scope of large-scale irrigation schemes, it was again mainly the DSİ that planned, supervised and implemented the project in a technocratic and predominantly top-down manner (Le Visage et al. 2018: 427). In other

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every drop counts | 509 words, the neoliberal mission has not replaced, but rather complemented the hydraulic mission (Işlar 2012: 382). Turkey has also sought to instrumentalise hydraulic infrastructure development in its foreign policy. In 1986, Turkey proposed the construction of the Peace Pipeline Project, consisted of two pipelines to transport around 10 million cubic metres of water per day from the Seyhan and Ceyhan rivers to Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states (Conker & Hussein 2019: 10). This proposal was rejected due to conflicting political and economic interests among the parties. A similar proposal for a smaller project that would carry 2.19 million cubic metres of water per year from Turkey to Jordan was also rejected for similar reasons (Conker & Hussein 2019: 10). In 1998, Turkey proposed a plan to transport 50 billion cubic metres of water per year from the river Manavgat to Israel. Even though the sides reached a deal in 2002, the plan was scrapped later due to broader political and economic processes in both countries and in the region (Conker & Hussein 2019: 11). In 2009, Turkey and Syria agreed to jointly build a ‘Friendship Dam’ on the river Orontes. Even though construction of the dam began in 2011, the Syrian Civil War that broke out the same year made it impossible to continue with the project. In 2015, Turkey completed the Peace Water Project, to transport up to 75 million cubic metres of water per year from the river Anamur to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (Conker & Hussein 2019: 13). In recent years, the DSİ has partnered with the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon Ajansı, TİKA) and carried out various dam-building, well-digging and training projects in many African countries including Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Somalia, and Sudan, providing drinking and domestic water to approximately 2 million people (DSİ 2021: 45). In Asia, TİKA has also engaged in similar activities such as building water tanks in Mongolia and installing water treatment plants in Pakistan (TİKA 2021: 84–5). Conclusion Turkey has made remarkable progress in hydraulic infrastructure development in the past 100 years. Despite their political, social and environmental impacts that permeate many layers of society, various dam, HEPP and irrigation projects have made significant material contributions to the economy and water security. Just like the megaprojects in the country, they have also been critical tools employed by the state to build its power, legitimacy and hegemony, generating consent through a powerful developmentalist and populist discourse that leaves little room for criticism, contestation or deliberation on the idea or the downsides of development (Paker 2017: 104–5). They have been both the means and the ends of a high-modernist ideology (Scott 1998) that encourages the ‘taming’ of ‘unruly’ waters via state-of-the-art technology to promote economic growth, political transformation and social progress towards building a modern, strong

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510 | arda bilgen and unified nation-state. In that sense, state-centric, technocratic and hierarchical discourses, practices and structures related to hydraulic infrastructure development still dominate the field. Today, various factors such as ‘water scarcity resulting from fast increases in population, increased competition for water, urbanisation, industrialisation, agriculture, expansion of tourism, increases in economic activities, climate change, and resource depletion’ (Altınbilek & Harmancıoğlu 2020: 536) already pose challenges for the accessibility, availability, security, quality and quantity of water in Turkey. Therefore, Turkey is likely to concentrate its efforts even further around hydraulic infrastructure development to meet its future water needs. Its appetite to exploit every drop of water available within (and beyond) its borders is likely to persist. The question here is whether or to what extent Turkey will transform its technocratic and economistic water governance perspective into a socio-political and rights-based water governance perspective in the future. Water is not simply an economic commodity that flows in a hydrological cycle in an isolated manner. On the contrary, water is a complex construct that flows in a hydrosocial cycle wherein water and society constantly constitute and reconstitute each other over space and time (Linton & Budds 2014). It is an increasingly politicised substance, creating disputes within and between different governmental, non-governmental and societal groups in the political, economic, social and environmental realms at a local, national, regional and international level. Therefore, rethinking, reformulating and transforming the discourses, policies and practices in the assemblage of infrastructure, nature, society, politics and water is an absolute necessity for Turkey, assuming that it conceives development as a process of positive and inclusive change for the people, not despite the people. References Akbulut, Bengi, Fikret Adaman and Murat Arsel (2018). ‘Troubled Waters of Hegemony: Consent and Contestation in Turkey’s Hydropower Landscapes’, in Filippo Menga and Erik Swyngedouw (eds), Water, Technology and the Nation-State, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 96–115. Altınbilek, Doğan and Nilgün B. Harmancıoğlu (2020), ‘Challenges for the Future’, in Nilgün B. Harmancıoğlu and Doğan Altınbilek (eds), Water Resources of Turkey, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 535–41. Altınbilek, Doğan and Murat Ali Hatipoğlu (2020), ‘Water Resources Development’, in Nilgün B. Harmancıoğlu and Doğan Altınbilek (eds), Water Resources of Turkey, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 61–85. Bilgen, Arda (2021), ‘“Concrete” Steps towards Modernization: Dam-, State-, and NationBuilding in Southeastern Turkey’, in Joost Jongerden (ed.), The Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 297–309.

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every drop counts | 511 Bilgen, Arda, Zeynep Sıla Akıncı, Antònia Casellas and Joost Jongerden (2021), ‘Is the Glass Half Empty or Half Full? An Appraisal of the Four Decades of Turkey’s Southeastern Anatolia Project (GAP)’, in Laith A. Jawad (ed.), Tigris and Euphrates Rivers: Their Environment from Headwaters to Mouth, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 1581–98. Biswas, Asit K. and Cecilia Tortajada (2001), ‘Development and Large Dams: A Global Perspective’, International Journal of Water Resources Development 17(1): 9–21. Conker, Ahmet and Hussam Hussein (2019), ‘Hydraulic Mission at Home, Hydraulic Mission Abroad? Examining Turkey’s Regional “Pax-Aquarum” and Its Limits’, Sustainability 11(1), article 228. Demirbilek, Burçin and David Benson (2019), ‘Between Emulation and Assemblage: Analysing WFD Policy Transfer Outcomes in Turkey’, Water 11(2), article 324. DSİ (Devlet Su İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü) (2021), 2020 Yılı Faaliyet Raporu, Ankara: DSİ. DSİ (Devlet Su İşleri Genel Müdürlüğü) (2023), 2022 Yılı Faaliyet Raporu, Ankara: DSİ. Erensü, Sinan (2013), ‘Abundance and Scarcity amidst the Crisis of “Modern Water”: The Changing Water–Energy Nexus in Turkey’, in Leila M. Harris, Jacqueline A. Goldin and Christopher Sneddon (eds), Contemporary Water Governance in the Global South: Scarcity, Marketization and Participation, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 61–78. Evren, Erdem (2014), ‘The Rise and Decline of an Anti-Dam Campaign: Yusufeli Dam Project and the Temporal Politics of Development’, Water History 6(4): 405–19. Falkenmark, Malin. (1989). ‘The Massive Water Scarcity Now Threatening Africa: Why Isn’t It Being Addressed?’ Ambio 18(2), 112–18. Işlar, Mine (2012), ‘Privatised Hydropower Development in Turkey: A Case of Water Grabbing?’ Water Alternatives 5(2): 376–91. Kibaroğlu, Ayşegül, Argun Başkan and Sezin Alp (2009), ‘Neoliberal Transitions in Hydropower and Irrigation Water Management in Turkey: Main Actors and Opposition Groups’, in Dave Huitema and Sander Meijerink (eds), Water Policy Entrepreneurs: A Research Companion to Water Transitions around the Globe, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 287–304. Kurtiç, Ekin (2019), ‘Sediment in Reservoirs: A History of Dams and Forestry in Turkey’, in Onur İnal and Ethemcan Turhan (eds), Transforming Socio-Natures in Turkey: Landscapes, State and Environmental Movements, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 90–111. Le Visage, Selin, Marcel Kuper, Jean-Philippe Venot, Murat Yercan and Ela Atış (2018), ‘Pursuing the State’s Hydraulic Mission in a Context of Private Groundwater Use in the Izmir Province, Turkey’, Water Alternatives 11(2): 421–38. Linton, Jamie and Jessica Budds (2014), ‘The Hydrosocial Cycle: Defining and Mobilizing a Relational-Dialectical Approach to Water’, Geoforum 57: 170–80. Molle, François, Peter P. Mollinga and Philippus Wester (2009), ‘Hydraulic Bureaucracies and the Hydraulic Mission: Flows of Water, Flows of Power’, Water Alternatives 2(3): 328–49. Nestmann, Liesa V. (1960), ‘Hydro-electric Schemes in Turkey’, Geography 45(3), 220–3. Öktem, Kerem (2002), ‘When Dams Are Built on Shaky Grounds: Policy Choice and Social Performance of Hydro-project Based Development in Turkey’, Erdkunde 56(3), 310–24.

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512 | arda bilgen Paker, Hande (2017), ‘The “Politics of Serving” and Neoliberal Developmentalism: The Megaprojects of the AKP as Tools of Hegemony Building’, in Fikret Adaman, Bengi Akbulut, and Murat Arsel (eds), Neoliberal Turkey and Its Discontents: Economic Policy and the Environment under Erdoğan, London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 103–19. Sayan, Ramazan Caner (2016), ‘A Political Ecology of “Apolitical” Water Governance: Lessons Learned from Turkish Experience’, International Journal of Water Governance 4. Sayan, Ramazan Caner and Ayşegül Kibaroğlu (2016), ‘Understanding Water–Society Nexus: Insights from Turkey’s Small-Scale Hydropower Policy’, Water Policy 18(5): 1286–1301. Scott, James (1998), Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sneddon, Christopher (2015), Concrete Revolution: Large Dams, Cold War Geopolitics, and the US Bureau of Reclamation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tiğrek, Şahnaz and Ayşegül Kibaroğlu (2011), ‘Strategic Role of Water Resources for Turkey’, in Ayşegül Kibaroğlu, Annika Kramer and Waltina Scheumann (eds), Turkey’s Water Policy: National Frameworks and International Cooperation, Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 27–43. TİKA (Türk İşbirliği ve Koordinasyon Ajansı) (2021), Türkiye Kalkınma Yardımları Raporu 2020, Ankara: TİKA. Topçu, Sevilay, Ayşegül Kibaroğlu and Zeynep Kadirbeyoğlu (2019), ‘Turkey’, in François Molle, Carles Sanchis-Ibor and Llorenç Avellà-Reus (eds), Irrigation in the Mediterranean: Technologies, Institutions and Policies, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 185–212. Tortajada, Cecilia (2000), ‘Evaluation of Actual Impacts of the Atatürk Dam’, International Journal of Water Resources Development 16(4): 453–64. Tozoğlu, Ahmet Erdem (2021), ‘A Chapter in the Modernization of Turkey: Damming the Rivers, Claiming the Natural Landscape, and Building of the Seyhan Dam in Cilicia’, Turkish Studies 22(3): 380–409. Turgut, Hulusi (2000), GAP ve Demirel, Istanbul: ABC. Warner, Jeroen (2008), ‘Contested Hydrohegemony: Hydraulic Control and Security in Turkey’, Water Alternatives 1(2): 271–88. Wester, Philippus (2009), ‘Capturing the Waters: The Hydraulic Mission in the Lerma–Chapala Basin, Mexico (1876–1976)’, Water History 1(1): 9–29. World Commission on Dams (2000), Dams and Development: A New Framework for DecisionMaking, London: Earthscan.

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39 Turkey’s Energy Policy: Path Dependency of Carbon Lock-In Emre İşeri (Yaşar University)1

Introduction

A

s human influence on the climate reaches levels unprecedented in at least the last 2,000 years, it becomes vital for humanity to limit anthropogenic temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (IPCC 2021). In this context, the International Energy Agency provides a road map for a complete transformation in global energy systems to reach ‘net zero by 2050’ (IEA 2021a). Transition to a low-carbon development pathway poses a significant challenge for those carbon-dependent developing countries that have been already struggling with the energy trilemma (energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability). As the sixteenth-largest energy consumer country (Statista 2021) with an 82 million population, Turkey, an upper-middle-income developing country, is addicted to carbon-based fuels with detrimental ramifications on its geostrategic, economic and environmental well-being. Turkey was ranked forty-seventh with a balanced triangle in the world energy trilemma index (WEC 2021). Around 82 per cent of the growing energy demand in 2019 was covered by coal (28%), around half of which is imported, and natural gas (25%) and oil (29%), which are mostly imported (IEA 2021b). Despite the remarkable advancement in utilisation of renewable energy sources (RES) in the last decade, the proportion of carbon fuels used in electricity generation, while falling, is still notable at 59 per cent as of 2019 (EIA 2021b). Even though Turkey is among the top performers in installed renewable energy capacity, the share of renewables in the primary energy mix has not increased since 2015. Thanks to state subsidies and initiatives, it has one of the largest coal development programmes, which would make Turkey’s The author would like to thank Dr Tuğçe Uygurtürk-Gazel for her insightful comments on the draft and assistance in preparing the figures and tables.

 1

513

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514 | emre işeri energy mix more carbon and emission intense (OECD 2019). Indeed, Turkey’s energy sector with a share of 72 per cent is the single greatest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, comprising various toxic gases including carbon dioxide and methane, which grew by 137 per cent between 1990 and 2018. Ratifying the Paris climate agreement in its parliament on 7 October 2021, Turkey became the last G20 country in this respect. This six-year delay stems from Turkey’s intention to escape from binding carbon emission commitments at the expense of benefiting from various international green climate funds through ‘politics of special circumstances’ (Turhan et al. 2016). At this critical juncture, Turkey awaits a radical energy transition due to its high carbon energy politics and exhibits ‘carbon lock-in’ characteristics (Seto et al. 2016; Unruh 2000; Unruh 2002), meaning that the country’s carbon-intensive model creates a path dependency or policy inertia to decarbonising. Drawing on a ‘path dependency’2 approach with an emphasis on the role of the formal institution (the state) intertwined with energy technology/infrastructure (including resource endowment), this chapter aims to explain or understand Turkey’s high carbon energy politics, the ‘sub-optimal option’ destined to take the country to a carbon lockin phase. It argues that inheriting carbon-intensive energy infrastructure, an increasingly ‘authoritarian neoliberal’ regime (Babacan et al. 2021; Tansel 2018) led Turkey to adopt various self-serving mechanisms that culminated in the National Energy and Mining Policy (NEMP), enhancing carbon-intensive path dependency, rather than choosing more efficient and sustainable low-carbon pathways (see İşeri & Uygurtürk-Gazel 2021). From the Early Republic to the 2000s: Phase I (Initial Conditions) Since the foundation of the Republic, the idea of ‘catching up’ with the West has haunted the minds of Turkish policymakers with a ‘growth fetishism’ to solve Turkey’s socioeconomic problems (Arsel et al. 2015: 376). Accompanied by ‘the historical legacy of state interventionism’ permeating centralised decision-making on mega energy projects to achieve economic development at any environmental and social costs (Bayülgen 2021: 166), Turkish policymakers prioritised affordable and uninterrupted supply in their energy policy formulations. As the history of Ottoman/Turkish state interventionism in

With the assumption that ‘history matters’, path dependency theory sheds light on the inclination of institutions or technologies to develop in a certain way due to their structural material/cognitive properties partly inherited from history. Various disciplines have adopted the theory in various ways and applied it to various phenomena (one well-known example is the persistence of the QWERTY keyboard regardless of its sub optimality). For its purposes of examining the role of path dependency in energy systems (cf. Simmie 2012), this chapter draws on a version of path dependency theory foreseeing a three-stage process (pre-formation, formation, lock-in) (Sydow et al. 2009).

 2

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turkey’s energy policy | 515 industrialisation records both successes and failures (Pamuk 2018: 314), so do its energy policies, as this chapter aims to address. Liberal Policies Period (1923–9) As the global energy system was shifting away from coal to oil on the eve of the great power rivalry culminating in the First World War (Ediger & Bowlus 2019), the bulk of the population in the early years of the Republic were destined to rely on noncommercial fuels such as wood, animal waste and vegetable waste. With the Frontier Treaty of 1926 abrogating its claims over the former Ottoman lands of Mosul province, rich in untapped oil reserves (Uluğbay 2008: 225–388), modern Turkey relied on those limited known traditional resources (for example coal and hydro) endowed by the country’s geology, typology and geography. During the interval between the two conferences that led to the Treaty of Lausanne, the Izmir Economic Congress was held in 1923 to set the economic development and industrialisation agenda to repair and revive the war-devastated economy of modern Turkey. The main goals of the congress were as follows: to complement political independence with economic independence; and to empower Turkish entrepreneurs. In this light, it would not be wrong to label the period’s economic policies as ‘nationalist-liberal’ (Eğilmez 2018: 137). Even though no notable decision had been taken on increasing nationwide energy production at the congress, it was agreed to recover the rich coal basins of Ereğli-Zonguldak and Soma along with others from their impoverished conditions and conduct geological studies. Statist Policies Period (1930–49) Following the Great Depression of 1929, economic liberalism gave up its place to the principle of statism. Despite all the financial difficulties, some energy enterprises owned by foreign companies (for example the Zonguldak–Çatalağzı railway and coal mining enterprises in 1937, the Istanbul electricity company in 1938) were nationalised in parallel. At this point, one should note the parallelism between those state-led energy investments and the development efforts. In the first five-year industrial plan, covering the 1933–8 period, the issues of electrification and energy organisation were widely covered. In this process, Turkish policymakers gave most importance to coal. Indeed, referring to Zonguldak’s coal basin, in 1933 President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk remarked that it contained ‘wealth that would revive the whole of Turkey’ (Namal 2010: 17). The second five-year industrial plan was prepared, but this plan could not be put into practice fully due to the Second World War. Nonetheless, the preferred policy proposals gave clues to the then policymakers’ mindset on the role of energy in fuelling the young Republic’s industrialisation trajectories. The main goal of the second plan was to develop

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516 | emre işeri the country’s underground resources, which were formulated as the ‘three blacks’: coal, iron and oil. In 1935, Etibank was established to implement and finance the second plan with the agenda of extracting and processing the ‘three blacks’ to fuel the country’s industrialisation (Polatoğlu 2019). In parallel, the General Directorate of Electric Power Resources Survey and Development Administration and the General Directorate of Mineral Research and Exploration (Maden Tetkik ve Arama Genel Müdürlüğü, MTA) were founded in 1935. Following almost one century after the world’s first oil well, sunk in 1859 in Pennsylvania, the MTA extracted the first producible oil in the Raman region in 1940. While Turkey nationalised all privately owned and operated energy infrastructure between the Great Depression and the end of the Second World War (Hepbaşlı 2005: 317), the Çatalağzı coal-power plant as a public economic enterprise became the outstanding achievement, powering the Marmara region, which would soon become the country’s industrial epicentre (Erensü 2016: 48). Returning to Liberal Policies (1950–60) In contrast to the statist economic policies of the previous period, once again liberal policies were adopted from 1950 to 1960. In this vein, the Democrat Party led Turkey to encourage private entrepreneurship and utilise foreign capital for energy development projects. Indeed, the Law for the Encouragement of Foreign Capital along with the oil and mining laws of 1954 emphasised the importance attached to foreign capital and private entrepreneurship in the new era. On the other hand, the Turkish state prioritised energy infrastructure projects in line with rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Hence, there had been established various thermal and hydropower plants that could be considered remarkable in the scale of Turkey’s energy sector at the time. Alongside this, various state institutions were founded to increase energy investment and production. Those state-led enterprises include the General Directorate of State Hydraulic Works in 1953, the Turkish Petroleum Corporation in 1954, the General Secretariat of the Atomic Energy Commission in 1956 and the General Directorate of Coal Enterprises in 1957. In short, regardless of the adoption of liberal economic policies in this period, public, rather than private investments, played a critical role in increasing electricity production as new hydroelectric and thermal power plants became operational. Planned Mixed Economy (1961–79) Acknowledging that those unplanned and non-programmed policies had induced economic problems in the 1950–60 period, the constituent assembly made the concepts of planning and planned economy constitutional rule while preparing the 1961 Constitution. In this framework, the State Planning Organisation was founded with the task of coordination (Eğilmez 2018: 144). In the 1960s, changing strategy from the

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turkey’s energy policy | 517 agriculture-led growth of the previous period, Turkey’s planned economy prioritised large-scale (import substitution) industrialisation by the private sector, accompanied by rapid urbanisation (Pamuk 2018: 231–4). This prompted energy consumption to rise threefold in two decades from 11.21 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe) in 1960 to 33.47 mtoe in the 1980s (Erensü 2016: 49–50). In the five-year industrial plan covering the years 1963–7, the principles of initiating the shift from non-commercial resources (with a share of 54 per cent in 1963) to commercial ones (largely imported oil and limited domestically produced coal) in energy consumption, utilisation of all kinds of energy sources, and more economical operation of electrical power generation facilities were adopted. Those decisions paved the way for Turkey to rely on incrementally higher amounts of imported energy resources (coal and oil) as the rapid increase in the country’s population and industrialisation caused domestic energy demand to soar. Meanwhile, in this plan period, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources was established in 1964 to collect activities related to water, electricity, oil, coal and mines under a single institution. Moreover, it was agreed to establish the Turkish Electricity Administration with the task of implementing electricity production, transmission and distribution in the following years. The principles related to the energy sector in the second five-year industrial plan, which was put into practice in the period 1968–72, were almost the same as in the first plan. While prioritising electricity generation from hydro, the plan also proposed natural gas reserve explorations and a transition to nuclear to meet soaring domestic demand. In the 1970s, there was an energy crisis around the world, and Turkey was affected by this crisis as it imported the oil used in its thermal power plants, and therefore the construction of hydroelectric power plants gained importance and speed. Meanwhile, the third five-year development plan (1973–7) covered the issue of energy more comprehensively and in greater detail than other plans. The plan prioritised indigenous resource development (coal and hydro) to cover increasing domestic energy demand. The plan also envisaged oil procurement from various suppliers (such as Iraq, Iran and Libya) in case of shortages. In the first year of the plan, the Turkish energy sector entered into a bottleneck due to the Arab OPEC embargo precipitating the October 1973 oil crisis, causing prices to quadruple. Fortunately, a number of thermal power plants (Seyitömer, Hopa and Aliağa) and the Keban hydroelectric power plant came into operation in this period. However, Turkey’s production levels did not suffice to cover its rising domestic energy demand. This energy bottleneck culminated in 1977 as the country’s oil consumption continued to increase and import dependency rose to 50 per cent. The admission of the then energy minister, Kamran İnan, that in 1977 ‘while all nations of the world took steps to save fuel, we took the opposite direction, encouraging oil consumption’

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518 | emre işeri Table 39.1 Turkey’s primary energy supply (five-year intervals)  

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2019

Oil

42%

52%

50%

46%

45%

46%

40%

35%

28%

30%

29%

Natural gas 0%

0%

0%

0%

6%

10%

17%

27%

30%

31%

26%

Coal

25%

21%

21%

30%

30%

26%

28%

24%

29%

26%

28%

Hydro

1%

2%

3%

3%

4%

5%

3%

4%

4%

4%

5%

Other

32%

26%

25%

21%

15%

13%

11%

9%

9%

8%

12%

Note: Calculated and prepared by Dr Tuğçe Uygurtürk-Gazel based on Energy Balance Charts (MERN 2021).

Figure 39.1 Supply of carbon fuels (oil and coal) Note: Calculated and prepared by Dr Tuğçe Uygurtürk Gazel based on Energy Balance Charts (MERN 2021).

(quoted in Liel 2001: 42) revealed a desperation to address the ongoing energy crisis. In the same year, 84 per cent of the country’s export revenues were spent on oil imports, which was then the highest rate recorded in the world (Börekçi 2013: 58). The fourth five-year development plan (1979–83) was put into practice with a one-year delay due to the major political and economic crises experienced in the third plan period. In the fourth plan, utilisation of indigenous resources in the energy sector was considered as the main principle, and it envisaged gradually reducing petroleum-generated electricity production. In this light, the plan aimed to make a big breakthrough in lignite production and proposed research and development studies for the acceleration of petroleum explorations and the use of alternative sources including modern, renewable, solar. In 1979, the second oil crisis occurred as OPEC members raised the price of oil by 150 per cent. This crisis caught Turkey while it was experiencing a separate economic crisis, thereby putting the country in political and economic turbulence that culminated in the 1980 military coup. While those oil crises prompted the world to utilise alternative

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turkey’s energy policy | 519 energy resources (for example natural gas, nuclear, modern renewables of solar and wind), Turkey commenced utilising natural gas in the second half of the 1980s. At this point, an intergovernmental agreement on natural gas shipments was signed with the Soviet Union on 18 September 1984. This agreement would set the ground for the realisation of the Russia–Turkey natural gas pipeline (the West line) in 1987. Transition to Market Economics (1980–2001) Hinging on the ‘24 January Decisions’ prescribing neoliberal policies (such as market liberalisation and privatisation) to address the ongoing economic crisis, the post-coup government led by technocrat Turgut Özal adopted neoliberal shock therapy in the 1980s (Öniş 2004; Yalman 2009). In this process of restructuring Turkey’s economy from import substitution to the neoliberal model, the energy sector in general, and the electricity sector in particular, topped the agenda. Law No. 3096 entitled ‘Authorisation of Enterprises Other than the Turkish Electricity Administration to Produce, Transmit, Distribute and Trade Electricity’, enacted in 1984, was the first step in this neoliberal structuring (Erensü 2018,150). The fifth five-year development plan (1985–9) envisaged the development of primary energy resources, the rapid introduction of operable resources, and the completion of energy investments to overcome the energy bottleneck. In the production of electricity, priority was given to the construction of lignite-based thermal power plants and macro-hydroelectric power plants. In addition to the private sector, foreign capital investments were also allowed to explore and produce crude oil. In this period, an increase was observed in hydro and geothermal energy. The plan also aimed to commission all units of the Afşin-Elbistan thermal power plant and continue the construction of the Atatürk Dam. In 1985, the first natural gas-based thermal power plant, the Hamitabat power plant, was commissioned. In parallel to those measures to expand natural gas, Turkey and Russia signed the 25-year Natural Gas Purchase–Sale Agreement on 15 December 1997 to supply 16 billion cubic metres of natural gas through the Blue Stream pipeline, which would become operational in 2005. Besides this, the Karakaya and Altınkaya hydroelectric power plants were completed in this period. The concept of privatisation was mentioned for the first time in the sixth five-year plan (1990–4), and it was stated that initiatives to increase the share of the private sector in investments would be encouraged, especially to reduce the burden on public finance. Moreover, it was stated that a new structure should be established in the electricity sector in which the public and the private sectors would operate together. The plan also envisaged natural gas expansion, transition to nuclear energy, and taking measures to increase utilisation of alternative sources. Meanwhile, the Atatürk Dam and Unit B of the AfşinElbistan thermal power plant became operational. Moreover, the plan aimed to realise the

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520 | emre işeri Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline, the Turkmenistan–Europe gas pipeline, and the Azerbaijan–Turkey natural gas pipeline projects to meet increasing oil and natural gas demand. The seventh five-year development plan (1996–2000) stated that investments should be carried out in a planned and continuous manner. Furthermore, it recommended that the private sector’s share in investment and operating activities should be increased, and an attractive and suitable environment should be created for the operators, together with the stable continuation of public investments. The plan took the following prominent decisions: (1) construction of thermal power plants based on natural gas; (2) ensuring that natural gas would be the primary energy source; (3) transition to nuclear energy; (4) increasing the opportunity to benefit from alternative energy sources. Critical Juncture and Phase II: The 2010s The economic crisis experienced in 2000–1 as the worst meltdown of the nearly neoliberal era affected the entire economy as well as the energy sector. Thanks to its fundamental conditionality, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assistance package obliged the completion of the energy sector’s liberalisation (Erensü 2018: 150–1). Along with the IMF, the European Union was instrumental in proposing (renewable) energy reforms in line with the principle of energy sustainability in the acquis as one of the preconditions for Turkey’s membership (Şirin & Ege 2012). A laggard in formulating a national renewable energy policy, eventually Turkey began to take steps in this direction. Enactment of the Electricity Market Law (EML) No. 4628 in 2001, followed by the EML No. 6446 in 2003, served as breakthroughs. By ensuring more competition in the electricity sector with the foundation of an ‘independent’ supervisory energy agency (renamed in 2013 the Energy Market Regulatory Authority) and unbundling the generation, wholesale trade and transmission activities of TEAŞ (Turkey Electricity Transmission Corporation), these laws gave room for renewable energy development. In this vein, Law No. 5346 on the Utilisation of Renewable Energy Sources for Generating Energy of 10 May 2005 became the first law on RES development, to be followed by other pieces of legislation (see Table 39.2). Nonetheless, these laws have been continually revised for different reasons and purposes. Among them, a major institutional restructuring occurred with the establishment of a ‘super presidential system’, weakening various institutions of checks and balances tasked with oversight of governmental misdoings. This new institutional structure enabled the government to politicise energy decisions, and to protect and enrich its business cronies through privatisations, opaque methods of auctions, urgent expropriations and exemptions from environmental impact assessments at the expense of sustainable energy policies (Bayülgen 2021: 171–5). Indeed, pro-AKP companies (such as Kolin,

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turkey’s energy policy | 521 Table 39.2 Renewable energy legislation in Turkey Laws

Regulations

1. Law No. 6446

2. Law No. 5346

3. Law No. 5686

Technical analysis of renewable energy sources for electricity

Support for electricity production process

This law defines the electricity energy market, in which production, transfer, sale and import/export are conducted within the scope of the competition rules

This law defines the policies for encouraging renewable energy and the basis for constructing a domestic manufacturing industry for renewable energy equipment

The main aim of this law is to put forward principles for exploration, production and protection of geothermal and natural mineral water resources

• Electricity market licence regulation • Technical analysis of solar and wind power applications for electricity generation

• Support for using domestic equipment while producing electricity • Support for research and development projects

Source: MERN

Çalık, Limak, Kazancı and Cengiz Holding) won most of the electricity and natural gas distribution tenders. Simply, there are doubts about the extent to which the legal regulations on the energy sector could contribute to ‘solving the country’s energy problem’ (Kızıl Voyvoda & Voyvoda 2019: 152). Meanwhile, decisions were taken in the eighth five-year development plan (2001–5) to expand natural gas across the country to pave the way for this source to become the most used energy type in the country. In 2001, the BTC oil pipeline agreement was signed with Azerbaijan. And in 2005, the Blue Stream project came into operation to transmit 16 billion cubic metres of Russian natural gas annually for twenty-five years to Turkey. In the period when the ninth five-year development plan (2007–13) came into effect, natural gas ranked the highest consumed energy source, with a share of 30 per cent by 2010, followed by coal (29%) and oil (28%) in Turkey (see Table 39.1). In the early days, the state supplied natural gas at a lower price than oil, and the public began to consume the relatively clean and cheaper energy of natural gas. Due to these benefits, regardless of its limited natural gas endowment, Turkey had sought to increase natural gas supplies from external suppliers, thereby signing various deals on energy and its transmission routes. Due to those ambiguities in renewable energy legislation and investments in carbonintense energy megaprojects, Turkey is to harness the development of its renewable potential with a ‘two-steps forward, one-step back pace’ (Bayülgen 2021: 165). Despite various setbacks, Turkey managed to record impressive growth in renewables in the

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522 | emre işeri past decade (particularly solar, wind and geothermal), driven by a favourable resource endowment, strong energy demand growth, and supportive government policies such as the Renewable Energy Support Mechanism and Renewable Energy Resource Areas. Hence, Turkey has managed to exceed the target of 38.8 per cent of power generation from renewables set out under the eleventh five-year development plan (2019–23) (IEA 2021b). The Electrical Energy Market and Supply Security Strategy Document (2009) reiterated the aforementioned carbon-intense ambitious energy objective along with the stated target of increasing the share of renewable resources in electricity generation to at least 30 per cent by 2023. The document ‘justified’ those contradictory aims to increase production of both coal and renewables for two reasons: meeting incrementally increasing demand and decreasing dependency on imported natural gas. In parallel, the Energy Ministry declared 2012 as ‘the coal year’, prompting various investment support mechanisms and exemptions from environmental assessments for coal-mining and coal-powered electricity generation projects. Similarly, numerous amendments in the EML granted privileges to local coal-powered power plants: a purchase guarantee and priority in reaching the national grid. Regardless of the difficulty of calculating the exact value of total coal initiatives due to social costs and indirect supports, Sevil Acar and Erinç Yeldan (2016: 2) estimated that the coal sector received around $730 million in subsidies in 2013. In this vein, Önder Algedik (2017) calculated that more than $2 billion in state subsidies and exemptions were provided to coal-fired power plants in 2016. Moreover, customs tax exemptions worth $1.32 billion were provided for turbine and component imports. Drawing on those supports to the coal sector, Ümit Şahin (2018: 37) deduces that ‘Turkey does not have [a] policy to reduce fossil fuels in energy production’. Indeed, the then Turkish energy minister, Berat Albayrak (son-in-law of President Erdoğan), launched the National Energy and Mining Policy (NEMP) to safeguard a ‘strong economy and national security’ (MENR 2017). Designated as ‘priority areas,’ new coal-mining and power generation projects would be subsidised via generous regional investment incentives, thereby accelerating the accumulation of capital in those enterprises having clientelist relations with the government (Özkaynak et al. 2020). The NEMP had three pillars: security of supply, localisation and predictability in the markets. Regarding supply security and localisation, the NEMP reiterated the pledge to exploit all types of national resources (lignite coal, hydro and renewables) along with controversial nuclear plants. In parallel, the Energy Strategic Plan for 2019–2023 (MENR 2019) underscored those two pillars (security of supply and localisation) in its preamble with the motto ‘more indigenous, more renewable’ by setting seven goals. Among those, ‘ensuring sustainable energy supply security’ foresaw increasing supply from indigenous resources

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turkey’s energy policy | 523 including nuclear. Indeed, Turkey has already embarked on a controversial nuclear energy strategy (İşeri et al. 2018) and plans to install three nuclear power plants (NPPs) with twelve reactor units in total. The first NPP is currently under construction in Akkuyu, Mersin province, and its first unit is scheduled to be operational in 2023. ‘Prioritisation and increasing energy efficiency’ stresses efficiency in consumption, while ‘technological advancements and localisation’ outlines measures to support national production of energy equipment and systems. Recognising that those aforementioned measures would not cover growing domestic consumption, the document also targets ‘increasing regional and global trade in energy and natural resources’. To reach this target, two goals were proposed. The first goal aims to transform transit country status to regional energy centres/hubs through the realisation of various pipelines on both north and south axes (for example TANAP, Turkstream; see Figure 39.2) (Yılmaz-Bozkuş 2019) and explorations for carbon fuels in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The second goal pertains to enhancing energy cooperation with supplier countries. Achieving those two goals obliges Turkey to synchronise its foreign policy and energy security concerns in the turbulent geopolitical environment of the Middle East (Özdemir & Raszewski 2016), Eurasia (İpek, 2019) and the eastern Mediterranean (İşeri & Bartan 2019). Yet many pundits perceive these goals as a reflection of Turkey’s placement of geopolitics above the environment, while RES (particularly solar) development feasibility is among the highest in the world (Elgendy 2021). The tenth five-year development plan (2014–18) acknowledged that Turkey’s energy consumption continued to grow, but the increase was lower than expected due to the negative effects of the global crisis in the previous period. Despite various revised initiatives to promote domestic production (such as electricity generation from coal and renewables) and measures to increase energy efficiency (such as the Energy Efficiency Strategy Document in 2012), the plan stated that Turkey continued to remain highly dependent on foreign energy supply. To reduce this dependency, the plan emphasised the importance of utilising domestic resources in energy production. As the first development plan of the presidential government system, the eleventh development plan (2019–23) put forward a developmental vision of Turkey with a longterm perspective. Pertaining to the energy sector, the plan stated the objective of providing an uninterrupted supply that was high quality, sustainable, safe and affordable. To achieve this objective, the plan adopted various policies and measures, among which the following stand out: competitive markets in electricity and natural gas, generating electricity from nuclear, initiatives to increase ‘clean’ coal technologies, expansion of natural gas storage facilities, initiatives to increase the share of renewables, and enhancing energy efficiency in public buildings (see Table 39.3).

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Source: MERN

Figure 39.2 Natural gas pipelines and projects through Turkey

turkey’s energy policy | 525 Table 39.3 Energy sector targets 2018

2023

147,955

174,279

303.3

375.8

1.81

2.01

Electrical energy consumption per capita (kWh)

3,698

4,324

Share of natural gas in electricity consumption (%)

29.85

20.7

32.5

38.8

150.0

219.5

88,551

109,474

Primary energy demand (ktoe) Electrical energy demand (TWh) Primary energy consumption per capita (toe)

Share of renewable resources in electricity generation (%) Amount of electricity produced from domestic sources (TWh) Installed power capacity (MW)

Abbreviations: ktoe kilotonne of oil equivalent; TWh terawatt-hour; toe tonne of oil equivalent; kWh kilowatt-hour; MW megawatt Source: Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and TEİAŞ (2018); eleventh five-year development plan (2023). All data is estimated except 2018 installed power capacity

Conclusion: Towards a Clean Energy Transition? This chapter has examined the trajectory of Turkey’s sub-optimal carbon-intensive pathways through a path dependency approach. Inheriting a carbon-based energy system from the previous period, in the late 2000s onwards, the authoritarian neoliberal regime in Turkey has initiated various self-serving mechanisms (carbon subsidies, mega energy projects, oil/gas explorations) culminating in the NEMP serving as a critical juncture in its carbon locked-in pathway. Its notable RES development in the last decade does not change this trajectory either. Fortunately, there are still economically viable options available for Turkey to escape from carbon lock-in, as various studies attest. For instance, WWF Turkey and the Istanbul Policy Center’s Climate Policy Package foresees a notable transition from natural gas and coal to solar and wind energy in the country’s energy mix by pledging green growth for Turkey (WWF/IPC 2015). In this vein, SHURA’s (2018) report reveals multiple benefits of a RES-dominant energy system including energy security, better trade balance, increased economic activity, new employment opportunities and a better environment. By the same token, the joint study by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies, the Istanbul Policy Center and the Independent Institute for Environmental Issues reveals co-benefits for Turkey (e.g. employment, high-tech industrial development, improved air quality, reduced health costs, and supplying secure, reliable and affordable electricity) by choosing low-carbon development pathways (IASS IPC/UfU 2020). Clearly, Turkey has a lot to gain from harnessing the transition to a low-carbon sustainable energy system. Considering Turkey’s high-carbon energy politics

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526 | emre işeri under an authoritarian neoliberal regime since the late 2000s, it seems that current Turkish policymakers do not have a political commitment to harnessing a sustainable energy transition. Hence, it seems that the interaction of various exogenous (such as access to the vast green funds, the EU’s heavy carbon border tax) and endogenous (such as regime change, strong environmental civil society, public opinion) factors could incentivise the already present renewable energy path to gain ground and enable Turkey to escape from carbon lock-in. References Acar, Sevil and A. Erinç Yeldan (2016), ‘Environmental Impacts of Coal Subsidies in Turkey: A General Equilibrium Analysis’, Energy Policy 90: 1–15. Algedik, Önder (2017), ‘Coal and Climate Change: 2017’, August, http://www.onderalgedik. com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Coal-and-Climate-Change-2017.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. Arsel, Murat, Bengi Akbulut and Fikret Adaman (2015), ‘Environmentalism of the Malcontent: Anatomy of an Anti-Coal Power Plant Struggle in Turkey’, Journal of Peasant Studies 42(2): 371–95. Babacan, Errol, Melehat Kutun, Ezgi Pınar and Zafer Yılmaz (eds) (2021), Regime Change in Turkey: Neoliberal Authoritarianism, Islamism and Hegemony, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Bayülgen, Okşan (2021), ‘Byzantine Energy Politics: The Complex Tale of Low Carbon Energy in Turkey’, in Robin Mills and Li-Chen Sim (eds), Low Carbon Energy in the Middle East and North Africa, Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 155–83. Börekçi, T. (2013), ‘Türkiye’nin Ulusal Enerji Politikalarının Yol Bağımlılık Bakış Açısı İle İncelenmesi’, PhD thesis, Istanbul Technical University. Ediger, Volkan Ş. and John V. Bowlus (2019), ‘A Farewell to King Coal: Geopolitics, Energy Security, and the Transition to Oil 1898–1917’, Historical Journal 62(2): 427–49. Eğilmez, Mahfi (2018), Değişim Sürecinde Türkiye, Istanbul: Remzi. Elgendy, Karim (2021), ‘Burning forests and burning coal: Turkey’s climate conundrum’, Al Jazeera, 20 August, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/20/burning-forests-andburning-coal-turkeys-climate-conundrum, accessed 9 February 2023. Erensü, Sinan (2016), ‘Fragile Energy: Power, Nature, and the Politics of Infrastructure in the “New Turkey”’, PhD thesis, University of Minnesota. Erensü, Sinan (2018), ‘Powering Neoliberalization: Energy and Politics in the Making of a New Turkey’, Energy Research & Social Science 41:148–57. Hepbaşlı, Arif (2005), ‘Development and Restructuring of Turkey’s Electricity Sector: A Review’, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 9(4): 311–43. IASS IPC/UfU (2020), ‘Making the Paris Agreement a Success for the Planet and the People of Turkey’, Cobenefits, December, https://www.iass-potsdam.de/en/output/publications/2020/ making-paris-agreement-success-planet-and-people-turkey-unlocking-co, accessed 9 February 2023.

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turkey’s energy policy | 527 IEA (2021a), ‘Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector’, International Energy Agency, October, https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050, accessed 9 February 2023. IEA (2021b), ‘Turkey 2021: Energy Policy Review’, March, https://www.iea.org/reports/ turkey-2021, accessed 9 February 2023. IPCC (2021), IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/, accessed 9 February 2023. İpek, Pınar (2019), ‘Turkey’s Energy Security in Eurasia: Trade-Offs or Cognitive Bias?’ in Emre Erşen and Şeçkin Kösterm (eds), Turkey’s Pivot to Eurasia: Geopolitics and Foreign Policy in a Changing World, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 129–46. İşeri, Emre and Ahmet Çağrı Bartan (2019), ‘Turkey’s Geostrategic Vision and Energy Concerns in the Eastern Mediterranean Security Architecture: A View from Ankara’, in Zenonas Tziarras (ed.), The New Geopolitics of the Eastern Mediterranean: Trilateral Partnerships and Regional Security, Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre, pp. 111–24. İşeri, Emre and Tuğçe Uygurtürk-Gazel (2021), ‘Energy Governance in Turkey’, in Michèle Knodt and Jörg Kemmerzell (eds), Handbook of Energy Governance in Europe, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 1–39. İşeri, Emre, Defne Günay and Alper Almaz (2018), ‘Contending Narratives on the Sustainability of Nuclear Energy in Turkey’, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space 36(1): 160–77. Kızıl Voyvoda, Özlem and Ebru Voyvoda (2019), ‘Türkiye’de Enerji Sektörünün Yeniden Yapılandırılması Sürecinde Hukuk Düzenlemeleri – Elektrik Sektörü’. Çalışma Toplum, 60(1): 127–54. Liel, Alon (2001), Turkey in the Middle East: Oil, Islam, and Politics, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. MENR (2017), Milli Enerji ve Maden Politikası, Ankara: MENR, https://www.enerji.gov. tr/tr-tr/bakanlik-haberleri/milli-enerji-ve-maden-politikasi-tanitim-programi, accessed 31 August 2021. MENR (2019), 2019–2023 Stratejik Planı, Ankara: MENR, https://ankara.meb.gov.tr/meb_ iys_dosyalar/2021_05/26154129_2019-2023_Stratejik_Plan.pdf, accessed 10 April 2023. MERN (2021), ‘Energy Balance Charts’, https://enerji.gov.tr/eigm-raporlari, accessed 10 April 2023. Namal, Yücel (2010), Atatürk’ün Zonguldak Gezisi, Zonguldak: Hazar Reklam. OECD (2019), ‘OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: Turkey 2019’, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 19 February, https://www.oecd.org/turkey/ oecd-environmental-performance-reviews-turkey-2019-9789264309753-en.htm, accessed 9 February 2023. Öniş, Ziya (2004), ‘Turgut Özal and His Economic Legacy: Turkish Neo-Liberalism in Critical Perspective’, Middle Eastern Studies 40(4): 113–34. Özdemir, Volkan and Slawomir Raszewski (2016), ‘State and Substate Oil Trade: The Turkey– KRG Deal’, Middle East Policy 23(1): 125–35. Özkaynak, Begüm, Ethemcan Turhan and Cem İskender Aydın (2020), ‘The Politics of Energy in Turkey: Running Engines on Geopolitical, Discursive, and Coercive Power’, in Güneş Murat Tezcür (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Turkish Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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528 | emre işeri Pamuk, Şevket (2018), Uneven Centuries: Economic Development of Turkey since 1820, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Polatoğlu, Mehmed Gökhan (2019), ‘Atatürk Döneminde Maden ve Eneri Alanında Kurulan ve Sonraki Dönem Türkiye Sanayisine Katkı Sağlayan Bir Iktisadi Devlet Teşekkülü: ETİBANK’, Tarih Araştırmaları Dergisi 38(66): 444–78. Şahin, Ümit (2018), Carbon Lock-In in Turkey: A Comparative Perspective of Low-Carbon Transition with Germany and Poland, Istanbul: Istanbul Policy Center (IPC). Seto, Karen C., Steven J. Davis, Ronald B. Mitchell, Eleanor C. Stokes, Gregory Unruh and Diana Ürge-Vorsatz (2016), ‘Carbon Lock-In: Types, Causes, and Policy Implications’, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 41: 425–52. SHURA (2018), Increasing the Share of Renewables in Turkey’s Energy System: Options for Transmission Expansion and Flexibility, SHURA Energy Transition Center, https://www.shura. org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/SHURA_Increasing-the-Share-of-Renewables-inTurkeys-Power-System_Report.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. Simmie, James (2012), ‘Path Dependence and New Technological Path Creation in the Danish Wind Power Industry’, European Planning Studies 20(5): 753–72. Şirin, Selahattin Murat and Aylin Ege (2012), ‘Overcoming Problems in Turkey’s Renewable Energy Policy: How Can EU Contribute?’ Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 16(7): 4917–26. Statista (2021), ‘Distribution of Primary Energy Consumption Worldwide in 2020’, https:// www.statista.com/statistics/274200/countries-with-the-largest-share-of-primary-energyconsumption/, accessed 31 August 2021. Sydow, Jörg, Georg Schreyögg and Jochen Koch (2009), ‘Organizational Path Dependence: Opening the Black Box’, Academy of Management Review 34(4): 689–709. Tansel, Cemal Burak (2018), ‘Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Democratic Backsliding in Turkey: Beyond the Narratives of Progress’, South European Society and Politics 23(2): 197–217. Turhan, Ethemcan, Semra Cerit Mazlum, Ümit Şahin, Alevgül H. Şorman and A. Cem Gündoğan (2016), ‘Beyond Special Circumstances: Climate Change Policy in Turkey 1992–2015’, WIREs Climate Change 7(3): 448–60. Uluğbay, Hikmet (2008), İmparatorluk’tan Cumhuriyet’e Petropolitik, Ankara: Farklı Yayıncılık. Unruh, Gregory C. (2000), ‘Understanding Carbon Lock-In’, Energy Policy 28(12): 817–30. Unruh, Gregory C. (2002), ‘Escaping Carbon Lock-In’, Energy Policy 30(4): 317–25. WEC (2021), World Energy Trilemma Index, World Energy Council, https://trilemma.worldenergy.org/reports/main/2021/World%20Energy%20Trilemma%20Index%202021.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. WWF/IPC (2015), Low Carbon Development Pathways and Priorities for Turkey, WWF Turkey and Istanbul Policy Center, https://wwftr.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/turkiye_nin_duuk_karbonlu_kalknma_yollar_eng.pdf?5060/lowcarbonpathwaysforturkey, accessed 9 February 2023. Yalman, Galip L. (2009), Transition to Neoliberalism: The Case of Turkey in the 1980s, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Yılmaz-Bozkuş, Remziye (2019), ‘Analysis of Turkey’s Role as a Possible Energy Hub’, GeoJournal 84(5): 1353–64.

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40 Social Policy and the Welfare State: From ‘Modernisation’ to ‘De-Europeanisation’ Ayşe İdil Aybars (Middle East Technical University)

Introduction

S

ocial policy in Turkey has a unique development trajectory, having undergone a number of significant transformations, which makes it difficult to locate it in any discussion on comparative welfare regime analysis. It is often argued that the historical development of the welfare state since the early Republican era has followed a path that has significantly differed from the Western-centred welfare state models, and has depended on a particular amalgam of varying political, economic and ideological forces, which in turn imply an ever-changing social policy environment, largely reflecting the broader political choices of the governing parties. The development of social policies in Turkey has followed the different phases of the Republican period (Buğra 2007), and has come to represent, in the 2020s, an exceptional model characterised by strong conservative-religious underpinnings combined with a neoliberal market-oriented approach, as well as the impact of the Europeanisation processes that the country has been undergoing since the 1990s (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). This chapter focuses on the development of social policies and the welfare state in modern Turkey through four phases that have roughly characterised the different stages of the Republican era: the single-party ‘modernisation’ period between 1923 and 1946; the post-war ‘populist’ period from 1946 to the 1980s; the neoliberal ‘open-market’ period from the 1980s until the early 2000s; and finally, the ‘de-Europeanisation’ period since the 2010s. Each of these periods, while illustrating the general socio-economic and political development trends in the country, at the same time entail significant implications for social policy, in terms of both its conceptualisation and its application. The chapter concludes by exploring possible future scenarios in the field of social policies, implied by intense crises in the social arena triggered by the Covid-19 529

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530 | ayşe idil aybars pandemic and intensifying immigration waves, as well as the domestic political processes in the country. Social Policies: From ‘Modernisation’ to ‘Europeanisation’ and Beyond It is generally argued that the development of the welfare state and social policies in Turkey has followed a different path than its European counterparts, and various studies have focused on the distinguishing traits of the Turkish model of welfare. Several important characteristics of social policies in Turkey, as well as in developing countries at large, are highlighted in terms of their significance in shaping this path, including (1) underdevelopment or very limited coverage of a government-led social policy framework, and the resulting ‘welfare mix’ in provision implying the influence of actors other than the state (families, community groups, civil society, private initiatives and so on); (2) a lack of clearly defined state–society boundaries, putting in question the autonomous character of the state and opening it to international pressures as well as domestic clientelistic interests; (3) the existence of a vast informal market, suggesting that, in addition to wide populations of peasant agriculture, non-wage labour is characteristic of the labour market (family labour, sub-contracting and so on); and (4) the limited role of class power or economic interest groups in shaping welfare benefits, leaving the ground open for the predominance of ethnic, religious or kinship interests (Eder 2010). One can add to this the significant role played by women in welfare provision, particularly in terms of care and reproductive responsibilities within the family, which is not generally acknowledged by the welfare state, and which leads to the ‘invisible’ status of women (Aybars et al. 2018). A key feature of Turkey’s social policies is the centrality of the family in welfare delivery, and the state’s reliance on it to make up for the inadequate public provision (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010; Buğra & Keyder 2006). The social policy framework and welfare provision have mostly been based on ‘indirect welfare tools’, including family ties and informal personal networks. For a long time, rather than fully fledged social assistance and insurance programmes promoting universal coverage of the population, the foundations of the welfare regime have been laid by three informal strategies, namely (1) extensive agricultural subsidies and tax exemptions in rural areas, (2) tolerating and supporting informal housing in the urban setting, and (3) encouraging informal family and social networks. Together, these imply that the state has lacked the institutional capacity to provide quality welfare, but they have nevertheless been useful in containing extreme poverty and social unrest in the country (Eder 2010). The ‘familialistic’ orientation of social policies implies a paradoxical situation where the conservative understanding of family and gender relations places care issues at centre stage, despite a significant lack of public provision and at the same time consolidating the role of the family, that is, women, in care provision

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social policy and the welfare state  | 531 (Aybars et al. 2018). This is closely related to another constant feature, the worryingly low levels of female labour market participation, which makes Turkey an outlier in the group of countries with similar levels of economic development: at about 30 per cent, it reaches barely half of the average levels in the EU and OECD (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010; Eder 2010). A further element concerns clientelistic and populist practices in social policy provision, particularly apparent in the deployment of agricultural subsidies and the tolerance for informal housing (Buğra 2007; Eder 2010), as well as the operation of social assistance schemes. Last but not least, the labour market is characterised by a strong insider/outsider dichotomy, which is marked by low levels of employment and deepened by the significant informal economy, and which excludes millions of employees from the social security system (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010; Eder 2010). What is more, this situation of informality is exacerbated by the refugee problem and the more recent Covid-19 pandemic. Turkey’s welfare regime, therefore, significantly reflects the historical, cultural and institutional context of the country and is shaped by this unique configuration. Three distinct phases have been identified in the history of social policy in Turkey (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010; Buğra 2007), with the objective of tracing the changes and developments in this field since the early years of the Republic. The first phase covers the single-party era, which lasted from 1923 until 1946. The establishment of the Republic after long years of war saw the country in social and economic turmoil, and started a significant ‘modernisation’ process through nation-building and developmentalist goals, at the same time pursuing economic recovery through the encouragement of public economic enterprises, five-year development plans and support of import substitution policies (Özbudun 1980). This period was marked by the efforts of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) to keep poverty confined to the rural areas, and to encourage voluntary initiatives (Buğra 2007) as well as self-help and informal family networks to deal with urban poverty (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). It is interesting to note that, while most areas of the economy and society were dominated by state intervention in this period, the state did not really assume responsibility for poverty alleviation and social assistance provision, especially in the urban context, which was largely left to private benevolence through the fundraising activities of voluntary organisations. This can also be explained by the very limited resources that the state commanded in the domestic and international circumstances of the time (Buğra 2007). The main priorities in this period were economic growth and modernisation of social life, while efforts towards the provision of welfare and social security to a weary and poor – predominantly agricultural – population remained significantly limited (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010; Boratov & Özuğurlu 2006). Almost 75 per cent of the population lived in rural areas at the time, and they were mostly concentrated in peasant agriculture, which was seen as an impediment to the rise of industrial productivity and

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532 | ayşe idil aybars economic development, as well as of an industrial working class. Still, most of this period was marked by a series of measures that were deployed by the state, such as the removal of heavy taxes and the establishment of ‘village institutes’ and ‘people’s houses’, to ensure the survival of the village economy, to avoid poverty spreading to urban areas (Buğra 2007), and to ensure peasants’ loyalty to the newly established Republic (Eder 2010).1 While secularised free public education was an effective tool in efforts to modernisation, which also implied a gradual institutionalisation of the welfare state in the early Republican years, most social policy initiatives of the time illustrated the approach of the state, inherited from the Ottoman period, as the ‘father of the nation’, which still preserves its symbolic meaning today (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). Therefore, in a difference from the emergence and development of the welfare state in the Western advanced industrialist countries (Esping-Andersen 1990), most of the social and employment rights did not result from a demand from society; rather, a top-down approach to social policy was the order of the day (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). The second phase concerns the post-war period, which marked the end of the singleparty era and led to the coming to power of the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) in 1950 in the context of a closed economy with heavy state intervention. This phase opened up a new phase in state–society relations, implying a shift from an authoritarian approach to an ‘informal pact’ (Buğra 2007). This period also saw the establishment of social security institutions, albeit covering just the tiny part of the population that were formally employed, showing an awareness of international post-war developments and the emergence of the welfare state in the West (Buğra 2007). While national planning and state-led industrialisation continued over this period, socio-economic inequalities rose significantly (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). In the multi-party era, political leadership ‘continued to see the “social problem” principally as a rural problem’, again prioritising agriculture, this time by deploying a larger share of the national budget (Buğra 2007: 42). Small peasant agriculture was consolidated in this period through land distribution programmes, tax relief and price support policies, which continued to put important limits on the budget available to pursue industrial development and capital accumulation (Buğra 2007), and which slowly became a major factor in explaining the huge fiscal deficits in the public budget since the 1960s (Eder 2010). Employment opportunities in the formal manufacturing sector – mainly through the state-owned enterprises – remained limited, although they also triggered a move from rural to urban areas, as it was becoming more and more difficult to contain the lack of revenue from the largest sector of economic development, namely It is argued that subsequent attempts to levy taxes on agriculture failed due to political concerns about social unrest, mass migration and massive dispossession (Eder 2010).

 1

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social policy and the welfare state  | 533 agriculture. Novel mechanisms of poverty alleviation were needed to address the social tension resulting from increasing poverty levels, and policies started to place a growing emphasis on the family as a key informal mechanism of welfare provision, along with the clientelistic tendencies of state authorities (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). One of the most significant illustrations of clientelism can be seen in the periodical approval by state authorities since 1949 of squatter houses (gecekondular) built overnight on the outskirts of urban centres, which entailed ‘a reciprocal exchange of votes for irregular access to urban land’ (Buğra 2007: 44), and which proved to be effective in providing immediate relief to rural-to-urban migrants and facilitated their integration into the cities (Eder 2010). This period, therefore, witnessed the culmination of populist policies, which became a constant feature of politics in Turkey from then on. The rising social tension in the country and the authoritarian tendencies of the DP government eventually led to a military coup in 1960, which resulted in the adoption of the 1961 Constitution. This constitution is generally found to be progressive in terms of its social policy content, proclaiming the country a ‘social state’ (Article 2), and asserting workers’ rights, including unionisation, collective bargaining, the right to strike and paid leave, as well as rights to social security, education and housing (Articles 44–50). While it has been underlined that these rights and guarantees were adopted without a constituency demanding them as a matter of social right (Özbudun 1980), the 1961 Constitution nevertheless illustrates the influence of Western ideas concerning universal welfare protection and the importance of guaranteeing minimum social rights, which signalled a new period of public debate on equality and social justice issues (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). In practice, however, formal social policy remained limited to the provision of free education and a combined public health and pension system linked to employment status (Buğra & Keyder 2006; Eder 2010). While the two social security institutions, one for wage earners (Social Security Institution) and the other for civil servants (Retirement Chest), were institutionalised in the late 1940s, a third fund was introduced in 1971 for the self-employed (Bağ-Kur). These three insurance funds operated until recently, assigning significant privilege and advantages to civil servants and military personnel, but excluding large parts of the population from coverage under conditions of rising informal employment (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). The third phase can be traced to the 1980s and was marked by a shift from an inwardlooking economic regime to outward-looking, market-oriented policies, operating in tandem with the neoliberal agenda of globalisation, implying unregulated labour markets, financial liberalisation and increasing poverty levels across the country (Boratov & Özuğurlu 2006; Buğra 2007; Buğra & Keyder 2006). In this period, Turkey finally took its place in the world economy, whereby concerns with competitiveness led to the abolition of the variety of agricultural subsidies and price supports provided for peasant

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534 | ayşe idil aybars agriculture, implying increasing hardship for the latter (Buğra 2007). What this new picture showed was that the ‘indirect welfarism’ of the country was increasingly under strain, as neoliberal pressures implied that most of the populist tools used by governments were no longer viable (Eder 2010). Politically, this third phase was characterised by ‘instability, short-lived coalition governments endorsing populism and recurring cycles of economic volatility’ (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010: 753). The military coup of 1980 was followed by a new constitution in 1982, which can be considered as more restrictive in terms of its social policy content, placing strict rules on the operation and membership of trade unions. An important feature of this period was macro-economic instability reinforced by large public deficits and persistent high inflation (Yakut-Çakar 2007), resulting in a series of ‘standby agreements’ with the International Monetary Fund and the structural adjustment programmes of the World Bank. It is widely acknowledged that these international organisations have played a significant role in shaping the subsequent health and pension reforms, as well as social assistance programmes, in Turkey. Health and pension benefits in Turkey had long been tied to employment status, along with the three social security institutions mentioned above, leading to important differences of coverage and quality, and excluding large sections of the population who were outside formal employment. In terms of the social security system, the reforms of the late 1990s have mainly aimed to relieve the fiscal constraints resulting from the high ratio of pension recipients to active contributors, to establish a balance between the state and the market in the provision of pensions, and to promote universal coverage (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). The debate on the reform of the health and social assistance pillars, which took off in 2004, aimed for the institution of universal health insurance and the restructuring of social assistance and services, as well as the establishment of an integrated institutional structure for the three pillars of pensions, health and social assistance (Yakut-Çakar 2007), which led to the establishment of the Social Security Institution in 2006. Still, these reforms have been widely criticised for excluding the informally employed, who constitute almost half of the total labour force, and representing a crucial step towards the ‘marketization of services’, encouraging ‘the private sector to collaborate in a public–private mix of service provision’, which would serve to deepen the persistent inequalities (Boratov & Özuğurlu 2006; Yakut-Çakar 2007: 124) Another major international influence in the social policy reforms of this period was the European Union, which has since been significant in shaping the cognitive and administrative dimensions of social policy in a wholesale process of ‘Europeanisation’. Turkey’s long and tumultuous relationship with the EU finally led to its official recognition as a candidate country in 1999, and the start of membership negotiations in 2005, which was initially met with remarkable enthusiasm and commitment on the part of society at large, as well as the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP),

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social policy and the welfare state  | 535 which came to power in 2002 with a decisive attitude to successfully complete Turkey’s EU membership journey (Arat 2010). While the impact of the EU in the social policy field has been found to be less significant than the IMF and the World Bank (Yakut-Çakar 2007), it has nevertheless been the major force behind the labour market regulations, particularly concerning gender equality, health and safety at work and non-discrimination issues. This is mainly because of the principle of the ‘supremacy’ of EU law, which necessitates the harmonisation of national legislation with the EU acquis, also in the field of social policy and employment. Gender equality, for instance, is generally pointed to as a major area where EU-led legal reforms in the early 2000s have been impressive and have led to a significant mobilisation of government and civil society actors (Ayata & Tütüncü 2008; Aybars et al. 2019,). Beyond legal harmonisation, the impact of ‘Europeanisation’ has been visible in terms of the ideas shaping social policies (active labour market policies, ‘flexicurity’, gender mainstreaming, lifelong learning and so on), the range of actors involved (coordination among governmental bodies, civil society organisations, private actors, academia and so on), as well as administrative procedures (such as data collection and development of indicators). The key problems in the Turkish labour market concerned the decline of formal employment since the 1980s, mainly due of the shift towards the free market-oriented economic strategy, which implied deregulation and flexibilisation of the labour market along with the extensive privatisation processes (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010; Buğra & Keyder 2006). Increasing informal employment, long-term unemployment, skills shortages, and low employment of women and youth were the major issues in this respect, requiring extensive reforms for the Turkish labour market to harmonise with the EU acquis, as well as to respond to changing conditions (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). In its path towards the EU, and as direct examples of the ‘Europeanisation’ of social policies, Turkey adopted a new Labour Law in 2003, and ratified International Labour Organization conventions concerning freedom of association. Steps were taken in terms of promoting active labour market policies, targeting women and young people, as well as other disadvantaged groups. The Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, which assists candidate countries in preparing for EU membership, has provided a significant framework for institutional capacity-building and improving policies concerning the labour market, education and training (Aybars & Tsarouhas 2010). Still, the EU process requires Turkey to ensure full trade union rights and effective social dialogue mechanisms, and Chapter 19 of the acquis on Employment and Social Policy has not been deemed ready to be opened for negotiations for more than a decade. In light of the societal transformation that the country has been undergoing, at least since the beginning of 2010s, it would not be wrong to distinguish a fourth phase in the development of social policy and welfare state in Turkey, marked by persistent AKP

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536 | ayşe idil aybars governments, a significant regime change and increasing authoritarian tendencies. When the AKP came to power for the second time in 2007, increasing its vote share to almost half of the population, it started to display a more inward-looking and confident attitude, placing a gradual distance between itself and the international development community as well as the EU membership bid. This attitude reached new heights with the 2011 elections, when the party managed to increase its vote share for the third time in a row and gained 50 per cent of popular support, verifying its political dominance and further disrupting the country’s anchor with the EU and, broadly speaking, the ‘West’ (Aybars et al. 2019), in a way that signalled the start of a gradual but decisive ‘de-Europeanisation’ process. With the regime change towards the presidency accepted in a 2017 referendum and put in operation in 2018, the ‘European’ outlook has almost completely disappeared from the political radar, and social policies have also closely followed as they started to be pursued through a strongly nationalistic and inward-looking framework, explicitly challenging the normative framework of equality and social justice. Social policies in this period consistently place all the burden of welfare provision on families, and particularly target the family as the primary caregiver, as there appears to be a significant lack of political will to develop alternative solutions. The ‘familialisation’ of the welfare system reaches new heights in this climate, as many ‘invisible’ groups (Aybars et al. 2018), such as women, the youth, the elderly, children, persons with disabilities, LGBTQI+ people and, lately, immigrants appear to have been subsumed under the category of ‘the family’, and are left alone to deal with increasing economic, social and healthrelated pressures and crises. The institutions of the family and marriage are consecrated to an extent that they determine almost all welfare benefits and services, leaving large numbers of the population that do not fit this frame (single people, divorcees, non-married couples and so on), particularly women and LGBTQI+ people, outside of the system. The recent decision of Turkey to leave the Istanbul Convention, accompanied by heated public debate about its encouragement of homosexuality and the threats that it poses to family values, is a prime illustration of this approach (VoA 2021). Another significant argument concerns the gradual but decisive move of the Turkish model from a ‘social state’ towards a ‘social assistance state’ (Eder 2010), whereby social assistance is increasingly at the centre of welfare provisions. This process, which took off in the early 2000s with the establishment of the General Directorate of Social Assistance and Solidarity, funding and supervising more than 1,000 local social assistance and solidarity foundations operating autonomously and arbitrarily, reached new heights by the early 2010s. The social assistance system now comprises more than forty cash or inkind assistance programmes, strongly criticised for escaping budgetary scrutiny, implying favouritism and patronage, and being increasingly used for political purposes (Eder 2010). This goes parallel with significant processes of privatisation, decentralisation and

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social policy and the welfare state  | 537 diffusion of welfare responsibilities to other actors, including municipalities, households and private providers, mostly working in collaboration with the government, at least until the latest local elections held in 2019 which saw the victory of candidates from the main opposition Republican People’s Party in important metropolitan centres like Istanbul and Ankara. This is found to be further triggering clientelism and patronage politics, characteristic of the welfare state for a long time, increasing the political reach and controlling function of the state, stretching ‘its increasingly politicised power into various aspects of social and economic life’, and promoting further politicisation of welfare provision (Eder 2010: 156). By the early 2010s, the AKP’s approach to social policies had started to be described as ‘an amalgam of neoliberalism with social conservatism’ based on moderate Islamic values (Buğra 2014; Buğra & Keyder 2006: 213), reflecting a patriarchal value system that places the traditional gender division of labour at the centre of socio-economic relations (Buğra & Yakut-Çakar 2010), and marked by an emphasis on the family as the main social protection mechanism in the absence of a comprehensive welfare state (Dedeoğlu 2012). However, the developments in this last period point to a much deeper nationalistic and conservative outlook, having important repercussions for social policy in terms of promoting overtly pro-natalist, patriarchal and familialistic discourses and practices (Aybars et al. 2019), idealising the three-generation family, and introducing social policy schemes that encourage home care (Fougner & Kurtoğlu 2015). The most important concerns of the government in this period focused on declining population levels, changing family structures and marriage at a later age (Korkut & Eslen-Ziya 2011), which it targeted at every possible occasion, especially addressing women to have at least three children. The discourse and approach to social policies in this period mainly centre on the sacred place of the family in society, assigning patriarchal and conservative values on the family and gender division of labour, and persistently advocating for ‘gender justice’ instead of ‘gender equality’, implying that ‘the normalisation of biological differences in terms of a “natural” division of duties and functions between men and women now deliberately underlies policy choices’ (Aybars et al. 2019: 792). This is especially important as it reflects an understanding of social policy not based on an individual rights perspective, but overtly promoting the place of the family in society as the basic unit of welfare provision, as the building block of society, and as an entity on which all individuals, but particularly women, are dependent. Conclusions This chapter has sought to trace the development of social policy and welfare state from the early Republican period to today, highlighting the main points of continuity and change, through a four-stage periodisation. It has aimed to display the gradual

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538 | ayşe idil aybars accumulation and often juxtaposition of the ‘modernisation’ objectives of the singleparty period, the ‘populist’ tendencies of the post-war era, the ‘open-market’ preference dictated by globalisation and the ‘de-Europeanisation’ processes that Turkey is undergoing today. What this complicated picture shows is that the development of social policy and the welfare state in Turkey has yet to take another turn, either towards more politicisation, patronage or ‘fatherhood’ by the state, or towards a more rightsbased, universalistic and individualistic understanding, acknowledging and catering for the needs of, to say the least, larger segments of society and promoting a more solidaristic and inclusive attitude. The former option clearly endangers the basis for equality and social justice, already damaged by the politicisation and polarisation of welfare provision, which has so far failed to succeed in addressing vulnerability and poverty in society. The recent pandemic, and the health and social crisis that it caused, has shown, however, the preliminary signals of the latter attitude, led not by the state but municipalities and civil society and private actors, who have played a proactive role in the provision of welfare services and benefits to an increasingly impoverished and polarised population. This new impetus might prove to be influential in evoking a renewed interest in promoting solidarity and revoking the gradual disintegration in society. A significant challenge remains the high numbers of refugees fleeing war and conflict in Syria and other Middle Eastern and north African regions, sparking heated debates about the welfare burden and competition for the already scarce labour market opportunities in various localities of Turkey, which appear from now on to constitute an important item of the agenda surrounding the upcoming elections in 2023. The prospects for domestic political change will be the real question that will shape the direction of social policies in the short run, and determine whether the promotion of equality, fundamental rights and social cohesion, as well as the commitment to international and European standards, will be on the agenda. References Arat, Yeşim (2010), ‘Religion, Politics and Gender Equality in Turkey: Implications of a Democratic Paradox?’ Third World Quarterly 31(6): 869–84. Ayata, Ayşe Güneş and Fatma Tütüncü (2008), ‘Party Politics of the AKP (2002–2007) and the Predicaments of Women at the Intersection of the Westernist, Islamist and Feminist Discourses in Turkey’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 35(3): 363–84. Aybars, Ayşe İdil and Dimitris Tsarouhas (2010), ‘Straddling Two Continents: Social Policy and Welfare Politics in Turkey’, Social Policy and Administration 44(6): 746–63. Aybars, A. İdil, F. Umut Beşpınar and H. Sibel Kalaycıoğlu (2018), ‘Familialization of Care Arrangements in Turkey: Questioning the Social Inclusion of “the Invisible”’, Research and Policy on Turkey 3(2): 115–37.

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social policy and the welfare state  | 539 Aybars, Ayşe İdil, Paul Copeland and Dimitris Tsarouhas (2019), ‘Europeanization without Substance? EU–Turkey Relations and Gender Equality in Employment’, Comparative European Politics 17(5): 778–96. Boratov, Korkut and Metin Özuğurlu (2006), ‘Social Policies and Distributional Dynamics in Turkey 1923–2002’, in Massoud Karshenas and Valentine M. Moghadam (eds), Social Policy in the Middle East: Economic, Political and Gender Dynamics, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 156–89. Buğra, Ayşe (2007), ‘Poverty and Citizenship: An Overview of the Social Policy Environment in Republican Turkey’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 39(1): 33–52. Buğra, Ayşe (2014), ‘Revisiting the Wollstonecraft Dilemma in the Context of Conservative Liberalism: The Case of Female Employment in Turkey’, Social Politics 21(1): 148–66. Buğra, Ayşe and Çağlar Keyder (2006), ‘The Turkish Welfare Regime in Transformation’, Journal of European Social Policy 16(3): 211–28. Buğra, Ayşe and Burcu Yakut-Çakar (2010), ‘Structural Change, the Social Policy Environment and Female Employment in Turkey’, Development and Change 41(3): 517–38. Dedeoğlu, Saniye (2012), ‘Equality, Protection or Discrimination: Gender Equality Policies in Turkey’, Social Politics 19(2): 269–90. Eder, Mine (2010), ‘Retreating State? Political Economy of Welfare Regime Change in Turkey’, Middle East Law and Governance 2(2): 152–84. Esping-Andersen, Gøsta (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism, Cambridge: Polity Press. Fougner, Tore, and Ayça Kurtoğlu (2015), ‘Gender Policy: A Case of Instrumental Europeanization’, in Aylin Güney and Ali Tekin (eds), The Europeanization of Turkish Public Policies: A Scorecard, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Korkut, Umut and Hande Eslen-Ziya (2011), ‘The Impact of Conservative Discourses in Family Policies, Population Politics, and Gender Rights in Poland and Turkey’, Social Politics 18(3): 387–418. Özbudun, Ergun (1980), ‘Income Distribution as an Issue in Turkish Politics’, in Ergun Özbudun and Aylin Ulusan (eds), The Political Economy of Income Distribution in Turkey, New York: Holmes & Meier, pp. 55–82. VoA (Voice of America) (2021), ‘Türkiye İstanbul Sözleşmesi’nden ayrildi’, 20 March, https:// www.amerikaninsesi.com/a/turkiye-istanbul-sozlesmesinden-ayrildi/5821927.html, accessed 9 February 2023. Yakut-Çakar, Burcu (2007), ‘Turkey’, in Bob Deacon and Paul Stubbs (eds), Social Policy and International Interventions in South East Europe, Cheltenham and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, pp. 103–29.

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41 Environmental Protection versus Economic Development in Turkey Senem Atvur (Akdeniz University)

Introduction

T

he idea of environmental protection was shaped in parallel with the Industrial Revolution, which was a breaking point in terms of environmental degradation. In the nineteenth century both in the United Kingdom and the United States, where industrialisation had flourished, the first environmental protection movements and regulations appeared as well. As a result, in the United Kingdom, the first Public Health Act was adopted in 1875 and the Clean Air Act in 1956, and in the United States, the first national park, Yellowstone, was inaugurated in 1872 in order to protect the wilderness of nature.1 Since the 1960s, thanks to the rising awareness of public opinion on environmental issues, national environmental policies have become more organised and international initiatives for environmental protection have increased. Environmental degradation in late industrialised countries has produced similar outputs regarding protectionism; however, the problems surrounding the implementation of environmental regulations or governments’ reaction towards the environmental movements in these countries differed. Turkey as a developing country is one of the examples in which the preservation of nature is considered in particular cases an obstacle for economic development. This chapter, focusing on the environmental policies in modern Turkey, aims to reveal why economic development prevailed over environmental protection and how economic priorities became a threat to the environment. The anthropocentric and ecocentric approaches in terms of protection and conservation began to be shaped in this context. While anthropocentric environmentalism aims to protect the environment to sustain human needs, the ecocentric approaches prioritise the preservation of nature and its wilderness for its own sake.

 1

540

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environmental protection versus economic development | 541 Although environmental protection has been a modern approach, during the Ottoman Empire some directorates were promulgated by the sultan related to the protection of the forests, water resources or urban hygiene (Algan 2000: 222; Binark 1995: 11–26). When the modern Turkish Republic was founded in 1923, war, poverty and diseases had wreaked havoc on the country; therefore, environmental health – especially in rural areas – and forestation became a priority. The Village Law dated 1924 regulated the sanitation of water resources, cleaning of the streets and the forestation around villages (Çakır 2004: 119). Meanwhile, the young Republic was also aiming to create a national economy to enhance its independence and development, and in accordance with this target new national factories were opened, and reconstruction of infrastructure and strengthening the nation’s health took precedence (Algan 2000: 222–3). In the first part of this chapter, I will examine how the environmental policies were implemented from the 1970s to the end of the 1990s and what the public opinion’s reaction was to these policies and the environmental problems as well. The second part focuses on the increasing impacts of climate change in Turkey and the environmental policies in the 2000s. In this context, I will discuss why the implementation of more effective environmental and climate policies is crucial for the future of Turkey. Environmental Regulations, Problems and Public Opinion Even though in the first period of the Republic a concrete environmental policy was not adopted, the forestation policy could be considered as the cornerstone for protection. In 1937 the Forestry Law was promulgated and the General Directorate of Forestry was created; in 1956 an amendment to the Forestry Law brought in the concept of ‘protected area’ or ‘nature reserve’ and as of 1958 national parks in different parts of Turkey started to be formed (Türkiye Ormancılar Derneği 2019). Moreover, the first civil associations for forestation or environmental protection had been established in big cities of the young Republic at the end of the 1920s. Civic engagement on environmental issues accelerated after the 1950s since the environmental problems, particularly pollution, were deepening due to the rapid agriculture-led growth and industrialisation and they became more visible and more destructive (Bahçeçi 2018: 48–9). The turning point for modern environmental protection in Turkey was the creation of the first governmental unit working on the environment under the authority of the Prime Ministry in 1972, with the obvious influence of the UN Human Summit held in Stockholm that year. The Environmental Research Unit was transformed into the Prime Ministry Undersecretariat of the Environment in 1978 and this new institution became responsible for determining environmental policies, preparing conservation plans and projects, and coordinating the implementation of these plans (Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change n.d.). In 1978, for the first time, environmental problems were reflected in the

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542 | senem atvur five-year development plan under a specific chapter and it was accepted that they should be considered with a holistic perspective in the planning system; but the plan also emphasised that environmental problems could not be used as a pretext to slow down development policies (DPT 1973: 866). According to Nesrin Algan (2000), these assumptions were consistent with the less developed nations’ approach, which was based on the right to development, and Turkey regarded developmental problems such as poverty or insufficient resource management as the main cause of environmental problems. The 1970s were not only the years of the establishment of environmental policies but also the turning point for the evolution of environmental social movements. During the 1970s, different environmental civil society organisations such as the Environmental Protection and Greening Association, the Wild Life Conservation Association and the Turkey Environmental Problems Foundation were established, and the first protests were organised against industrial projects such as the Etibank copper mine in Murgul (Artvin province), factories in Çarşamba (Samsun province) and the Akkuyu nuclear power plant in Mersin province (Bahçeci 2018: 49–50). After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 the antinuclear movement gained significant ground; in particular, the negligence of executives regarding the impacts of the fallout, which directly affected the country’s northern coasts, stimulated people’s opposition to these projects. The most effective tool of these civil movements has always been the judiciary and in addition to the protests, civil society has taken these projects to court in order to stop environmental destruction. Following the political and economic instability, armed conflicts and social unrest in Turkey in the 1970s, the military coup of 12 September 1980 caused great damage to Turkey’s evolving democracy. The military junta started to redesign Turkish political life; just before the coup the economy of the country had begun to be oriented to neoliberal policies with the ‘24 January Decisions’ and the coup did not interrupt the implementation of this neoliberal programme. In this period, regarding environmental issues, the only positive agenda was the adoption of the 1982 Constitution’s Article 56. According to the article, the constitution guarantees the right of all citizens’ to live in a ‘healthy, balanced environment’ (Constitute 2021). Moreover, before the elections in November 1983, the first Environment Law No. 2872 entered into force in August. The law emphasised the compliance of environmental protection and improvement (for present and future generations’ health, civilisation and life expectancy) with economic and social development targets. Furthermore, the law brought in an environmental impact assessment process to predict and prevent harmful effects of economic activities on the environment (Tekayak 2014: 139–40). During the 1980s, although Turkey’s participation in international environmental initiatives remained limited, in domestic politics environmental awareness began to grow. In this regard, the neoliberal economic policies played an essential role in strengthening environmental activism because the unlimited

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environmental protection versus economic development | 543 support given to industry and the private sector worsened environmental degradation in different regions (Duru 2002: 180). According to Bülent Duru, the political pressure of the military junta and the limitation of civil rights and liberties were obstacles for the progress of civil activism, but in the 1980s environmental activism had found a concrete basis. In this regard, Duru explains (2002: 181) that people distanced the ideological movements from the conflictual memories of the 1970s, producing this contradiction, and environmental movements were considered as non-ideological by the people and less dangerous by the government. The most important political step in this period was the creation of the Green Party in 1988. In Turkish political life, this was the first political party directly focused on environmental issues, therefore it is mostly considered as a pressure group rather than a political party, and due to internal dissidence, it could not create an effective political opposition, but it did influence the development of a green discussion and politicisation of environmental issues in Turkey (Duru 2002: 185–96; Öztürk 2017: 449). In the 1990s, Turkey’s environmental policy was reintegrated into international regulations. The Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro under the auspices of the UN in 1992 influenced national and international environmental policies by offering an agenda for the implementation of sustainable development, which was first used in the Brundtland Report in 1987 with a perspective to balance economic development with ecological sustainability and social progress, considering the rights of future generations (WCED 1987). In this context, the Ministry of the Environment was established in 1991 and during the 1990s the sustainable development approach tried to be reflected in the regulations and development programmes in Turkey, and improvement was sought in the implementation of governance mechanisms (Algan 2000). However, in this period Turkey also focused on the acceleration of economic growth and industrial investments. Thus, the discrepancy between economic and environmental policies began to crystallise, and while economic growth was given priority by the state, the implementation of environmental legislation remained ineffective or insufficient (Paker et al. 2013: 763). In this regard, energy investments became crucial for development and for increasing the growth rate; hence, the environmental impacts of energy projects were neglected by the government. Moreover, the unstable functioning and changing institutional organisation of the ministry was another problem for the implementation of environmental legislation: in 2003 the Ministry of the Environment and Forestry had been created, but in 2011 two separate ministries, the Ministry of the Environment and Urbanisation and the Ministry of Forestry and Water, were established. These institutional transformations caused duplication and responsibility-sharing problems in terms of environmental governance and in some cases, the government used these complications to hide its unwillingness concerning environmental protection.

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544 | senem atvur The environmental movements in Turkey, however, entered a new phase in the 1990s. As the new communication technologies transformed traditional media, the voices of local protestors against mining activities, energy projects or power plant construction could reach different parts of the country, and national support for these demonstrations multiplied. The resistance of Bergama villagers against gold-mining or anti-nuclear protests in Akkuyu became symbols of environmental activism in Turkey. Another important point related to these movements was their international or transnational connections with various movements and NGOs to spread the impact of their struggle (Çoban 2004; Temocin 2018). The main argument of the protests was that the environmental degradation caused by these projects posed threats to nature, human health and economic activities – particularly agriculture. Furthermore, opposition to the neoliberal policies ensured an intersection between environmental movements and other social protests, hence, along with the environmental protection cause, environmental activism began to transform into a struggle for democracy and the rule of law. On the basis of both the constitutional right to live in a healthy environment, and the environmental impact assessment regulation, the protestors filed their complaints to the courts, and despite the court decisions in favour of these movements, the government insisted on the investments and continued to support construction projects (Özen 2009). After the 1998 and 2001 economic crises, in 2002 the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) period began in Turkey. In the first decade of the 2000s, the AKP governments accelerated economic development with a neoliberal approach and increased the growth rate. The mega construction projects were reflected as a success story of the government despite their environmental externalities and their political and social critics. However, since the beginning of the 2000s environmental degradation has also begun to deepen. Since environmental protection and environmental impact assessments have been seen as a financial cost for economic investments, the government has preferred to change regulations and guarantee the constructions proceed. Nevertheless, Turkey’s EU accession process has played a positive role in the progress of the country’s environmental policy. After the EU recognised Turkey’s candidacy to full membership in 1999 and the negotiations for accession began in 2005, Turkey intensified legal reforms to align with the Acquis Communautaire. Harmonising administrative capacity, bearing the costs of transformation and effective implementation were indicated as problematic issues in this regard (Sayman 2017). Nonetheless, some institutions benefited from EU projects and funds to develop environmental protection and monitoring and waste management programmes, to prevent biodiversity loss, and to adapt to climate action (AB Türkiye Delegasyonu n.d.). The next section will focus on the environmental problems in the 2000s in the context of climate change. Turkey is located in one of the climate hotspot regions, but despite

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environmental protection versus economic development | 545 this reality the government’s economic priorities have been prevailing over environmental concerns. This approach also affects the tension between environmental social movements and the government. Growth, Climate Change and Environmental Degradation Uncontrolled industrialisation, unplanned urbanisation, use of heavy chemicals in industry and pesticides in agriculture, ill-managed tourism activities, and mega irrigation, energy and transport projects are the main reasons for environmental degradation in Turkey. When these economic activities combine with high population density, poverty, insufficient infrastructure and uneven distribution of wealth, the environmental problems such as air, water, soil and noise pollution, erosion, salinisation, loss of biodiversity, ecological degradation and humanitarian crises, particularly related to health issues, begin to worsen (Adaman & Arsel 2016: 5). Moreover, apart from these problems since the beginning of the 2000s, the impacts of climate change have become more visible and more severe in Turkey. Climate change is a global challenge caused by anthropogenic activities, predominantly fossil fuel use (IPCC 2018), and it not only affects natural systems, precipitation or weather events but also contributes to galvanising political, economic and social instabilities. Since the 1990s, international initiatives have been accelerated to handle the global impacts of climate change and to coordinate global mitigation and adaptation policies. As a result of these actions, the Kyoto Protocol in 1997 and the Paris Agreement in 2015 were signed. The objective of the Protocol was to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including carbon dioxide and methane, of developed nations (OECD members, which bear historical responsibility for emissions), and that of the Agreement is to limit the global temperature rise to 2°C or, if possible, 1.5°C. Even though Turkey is an OECD member, it did not ratify the Protocol until 2009 for reasons such as the economic and sectoral structure of the country, the cost of the treaty commitments, and the design of the treaty (Alkan-Olsson & Alkan-Olsson 2013: 14). Before Turkey participated in the Kyoto process, it negotiated for an exemption from the responsibilities to reduce GHG emissions by defending its special or sui generis conditions and common but differentiated responsibilities. Eventually, Turkey became a party to the Protocol without committing to any responsibility to reduce its emissions. Turkey’s position regarding the Paris Agreement is more problematic than the Kyoto process. Until 2021, Turkey was among the countries that had not ratified the Agreement, which also included Eritrea, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. According to Turkey’s intended nationally determined contribution (INDC) adopted before the Twenty-First Conference of the Parties (COP 21), where the Paris Agreement was signed, Turkey pledged to reduce its GHG emissions up to 21 per cent by 2030 (UNFCCC 2015), but it did not foresee emission cuts or decarbonisation. According to the Climate Action

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546 | senem atvur Tracker (2020), Turkey’s INDC is critically insufficient to reach the Paris Agreement’s targets and this weak commitment will allow the country to double its GHG emissions. Turkey’s unwillingness to ratify the Agreement is explained by the costs Turkey should assume for mitigation and adaptation strategies; nevertheless, Turkey is not totally isolated from climate negotiation because it expresses its intention to benefit from financial mechanisms or funds for developing its climate strategy (Turhan et al. 2016: 456). According to Semra Cerit Mazlum (2017: 147), Turkey needs to prepare and build an institutional capacity for implementing the Paris Agreement rather than focusing its energy and capacity on its long-standing quest for special treatment within the climate regime. Cerit Mazlum claims that Turkey’s reluctance to rely on the regime influences its relations and engagements with non-state actors – such as businesses, sub-national authorities, environmental organisations and social movements – which became more active and prominent actors in global climate negotiations (Cerit Mazlum 2017: 148). In the last twenty years, while Turkey’s economic growth and population density have been rocketing, carbon emissions in the meantime have apparently increased due to energy consumption dependent on fossil fuels, particularly coal and oil. In the 1990s Turkey’s annual carbon emission per capita was around 4 tonnes; however, in 2007 this amount rose to 6.5 tonnes per capita (TÜİK 2020). Moreover, linked to these emissions, the average temperatures and the intensity of extreme weather events have also significantly increased. The average temperature in 2020 measured 1.4°C higher than the 1981–2010 average; additionally, in 2020 the precipitation was 12.9 per cent under the normal rates, and 984 extreme weather events including the drought were recorded (Tarım ve Orman Bakanlığı Meteoroloji Genel Müdürlüğü 2021: 4–11). The wildfires, torrential rain and floods that raged the country in summer 2021 could also be regarded as visible impacts of climate change, but insufficiencies regarding infrastructure, preparedness and emergency plans aggravated their impacts. These facts show that the climate of Turkey has been changing and it is predicted that the impacts of climate change will keep threatening temperature and precipitation regimes, biodiversity, food and water security, public health, and agricultural and economic productivity in the future (Akçakaya et al. 2015: 132; Bayraç & Doğun 2016: 33–46, Öztürk 2002: 47–65). Despite these evident impacts, Turkey’s climate policies contradicting its economic priorities. Although Turkey’s Climate Change Strategy (2010–23) and Climate Action Plan (2011–23) emphasise the integration of economic and climate policies, the importance of sustainability and low-carbon standards, Turkey has tried to avoid giving pledges about emission cuts and argued that the country would balance its emissions through measures without threatening its sustainable development and strategy to fight poverty (Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı 2012a: 14; Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı 2012b: 14–15). In the eleventh Development Plan, the government claimed to adopt a green

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environmental protection versus economic development | 547 growth approach to limit its emissions and underlined its estimation of high and sustainable growth through which climate adaptation would be realised (Cumhurbaşkanlığı 2019: 24). However, despite these assumptions, the share of renewable energy in energy consumption remains low (7.6 per cent in 2021) (TÜİK 2021) while new investments in national coal and lignite resources are endorsed on the basis of energy independence, and the environmental impact assessment process and conservation areas are considered as obstacles for mining investments (Kalkınma Bakanlığı 2018: 133–5). Mega construction projects such as Istanbul Airport (Doğru et al. 2020) or suspension bridges in Istanbul, Kocaeli and Çanakkale with their linked highways, and energy investments for hydroelectric, nuclear, wind or geothermal power have been considered as monuments of development, signs of prosperity and icons of power by the government; but their environmental impacts along with the mining projects have also been devastating.2 Dalya Hazar Kalonya points out that environmental destruction due to these projects is intensifying in the Mediterranean, Aegean and Marmara regions and the Black Sea coast, where the economic activity and population density are also immense (Hazar Kalonya 2021). For instance, the mid-scale hydroelectric power plants (HEPPs) in mountainous areas mostly in the Black Sea and Mediterranean regions, and gold and coal mines and quarries in every part of Turkey have deepened deforestation, biodiversity loss, degradation of water resources and pollution. Even though the experts, academics and environmental impact assessments have revealed the disadvantages of and the destruction caused by the projects, the government has kept providing assistance for their construction. This situation has naturally triggered local opposition against these activities; as the scale of destruction has grown, the local reactions have transformed into a social movement at the national level. The local HEPP protests and their legal struggles drew the attention of mainstream media and national public opinion; as a result of this support, in 2010 the Fraternity of Rivers Platform was established to coordinate local protests and in 2011 with the initiative of this platform the Great Anatolian March was organised to protest against HEPP construction and ecological degradation (Atvur 2014: 288–94). The 2013 Gezi Park protests, which opened a new phase for social movements and civic engagements in Turkey by challenging the oppressive or authoritarian politics of the government, privatisation and the neoliberal transformation in the country, were also triggered by a construction project in Istanbul (Özkırımlı 2014). As the government aimed to transform Gezi Park near Taksim Square, one of the last green areas that remained in Istanbul, into a shopping mall, the protestors occupied the park to protect The research conducted by Doğru et al. (2020) shows the impacts of land use change on deforestation, particularly the destruction of the northern forest area in İstanbul, and the contribution of the third bridge across the Bosporus and the third airport to carbon emissions.

 2

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548 | senem atvur the trees; then the brutal riot police response increased the civic reaction and the protests spread throughout the country. The deforestation of Kazdağları – one of the most valuable natural and historical reserve areas in the northern Aegean with its rich biodiversity and endemic species – due to the gold-mining project conducted by Canadian Alamos Gold and its Turkish partner created turmoil in the country. Thanks to the protests, the Canadian company withdrew from the project, but Cengiz Holding, which has close ties with the government, took it over (DuvarEnglish 2020). During the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the politicisation of environmental issues (Öztürk 2017) has changed the government’s reaction to environmental activism. Even though the protests for protecting the environment have been peaceful and legal, the government began to see the environmental movement as an obstacle or a threat to economic investments or a challenge to its legitimacy. Therefore, law enforcement units have usually intervened violently in these movements. KONDA’s survey published in 2018 shows that Turkish public opinion considers pollution as the most important environmental problem and the majority have concerns about climate change. The survey also shows that uncontrolled corporations are seen as the main reason for pollution and environmental degradation, and the majority of public opinion (89 per cent) supports more severe sanctions for the polluters (KONDA 2018). In spite of the concerns and opposition of public opinion, the government does not take the necessary measures to halt environmental destruction. Plastic waste importation is another recent example of this contradiction. After protests the importation was banned (Laville 2021), but due to the pressure of the producers – using plastic waste for recycling but particularly for plastic production – the ban was replaced with new restrictions before it was applied (Cumhuriyet 2021). Even though President Erdoğan (when he was the prime minister in 2008) claimed that he is the best environmentalist in the country (Tüfekçi 2008), under the AKP government Turkey has faced the most severe environmental destruction. The government’s economic priorities have been jeopardising the common interest regarding the conservation of ecological integrity. While the climate crisis has been aggravating, it should be understood that the unsustainable policies destroying the environment make the country more vulnerable concerning the complex impacts of global problems. Conclusion Since the beginning of the Republic, environmental protection in Turkey has always been secondary to economic concerns and development. The priority of industrial investments – such as the mega construction and mining projects – led environmental degradation to become more severe and intense. The aggravating environmental destruction could be considered as one of the most crucial challenges for Turkey vis-à-vis the

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environmental protection versus economic development | 549 impacts of climate change. While the global climate crisis has become more destructive and critical, it should be admitted that Turkey’s climate resilience depends on its capacity to protect the environment. Turkey defends that despite the negative impacts of economic projects on the environment, which the government could compensate with environmental policies like forestation. However, even if the importance of forestation cannot be denied, it is not always possible to rebuild the degrading ecological balance or recover the biodiversity losses. In this context, the Centennial Turkish Republic faces its most complicated challenge in history. Instead of following unsustainable and controversial economic projects, Turkey must focus on improving its environmental agenda to guarantee not only the preservation of nature, the sustainability of the environment and the rights of the next generations, but also the future of the democratic, liberal and egalitarian Republic. The environmental struggle in Turkey has become a movement for democratic, existential and political rights; therefore, for the sake of the Republic’s future, the state should listen to the voice of the citizens and change the political direction to rebalance ecological sustainability and social welfare with economic policies. Hence, the rule of law and the resilience of the Republic in the face of the climate crisis could be strengthening. In this context, the EU’s Green Deal could also be a guideline for Turkey to renew its environmental regulations as well as an economic model. The European Commission defines the Green Deal as an action plan to boost the efficient use of resources and restore biodiversity; thus, the EU aims with this model to transform into a zero-carbon economy and climate-neutral continent (European Commission 2021). As a candidate state, Turkey’s integration into the Green Deal seems to be not only an indispensable option but also an obligation. Turkey should redefine its political position in the transforming global system, and the environment could be the key to this process. References AB Türkiye Delegasyonu (n.d.), ‘Örnek Projeler: Çevre ve İklim Değişikliği’, https://www.avrupa. info.tr/tr/ornek-projeler-cevre-ve-iklim-degisikligi-693, accessed 9 February 2023. Adaman, Fikret and Murat Arsel (2016), ‘Introduction’, in Fikret Adaman and Murat Arsel (eds), Environmentalism in Turkey. Between Democracy and Development? Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–13. Akçakaya, Alper, Osman Eskioğlu, Hakkı Atay and Ömer Demir (2015), Yeni Senaryolar ile Türkiye İklim Projeksiyonları ve İklim Değişikliği: TR2015-CC, Ankara: Meteoroloji Genel Müdürlüğü. Algan, Nesrin (2000), ‘Türkiye’de Devlet Politikaları Bağlamında Çevre ve Çevre Korumanın Tarihine Kısa Bir Bakış’, in Türkiye’de Çevre ve Çevre Korumanın Tarihi Sempozyumu, Istanbul: Türkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, pp. 221–34. Alkan-Olsson, Johanna and İlhami Alkan-Olsson (2013), ‘Turkey’s Signature of The Kyoto Protocol’, İstanbul Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi 47: 1–30.

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550 | senem atvur Atvur, Senem (2014), ‘Baraj Politikalarına Karşı Toplumsal Tepkiler: Hindistan ve Türkiye’deki Toplumsal Hareketlerin Karşılaştırılması’, Yönetim ve Ekonomi 21(1): 281–98. Bahçeci, Bahar Ilgın (2018), ‘Türkiye’de Çevreciliğin Tarihi’, in Burak Hergüner and Erol Kalkan (eds), Türkiye’de Çevre Politikaları, Ankara: Nobel, 45–62. Bayraç, H. Naci and Emrah Doğan (2016), ‘Türkiye’de İklim Değişikliğinin Tarım Sektörü Üzerine Etkileri’, Eskişehir Osmangazi Üniversitesi İİBF Dergisi 11(1): 23–48. Binark, İsmet (1995), ‘Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi’ndeki Belgeler Işığında Türkler’de Çevrecilik Anlayışı’, Yeni Türkiye Çevre Özel Sayısı 1(5): 11–26. Çakır, Gülizar (2004), ‘Köy Yönetimi ve Çevre’, in Yusuf Karakılçık, Hüseyin Erkul and Aydın Usta (eds), Kurumlar ve Çevre, Ankara: Detay, pp. 115–28. Cerit Mazlum, Semra (2017), ‘Turkey and Post-Paris Climate Change Politics: Still Playing Alone’, New Perspectives on Turkey 56: 145–52. Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı (2012a), Türkiye Cumhuriyeti İklim Değişikliği Eylem Planı 2011– 2023, Ankara: Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı. Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı (2012b), Türkiye İklim Değişikliği Stratejisi 2010–2023, Ankara: Çevre ve Şehircilik Bakanlığı. Climate Action Tracker (2020), ‘Turkey’, 30 July, https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/ turkey/2020/07/30, accessed 9 February 2023. Çoban, Aykut (2004), ‘Community-Based Ecological Resistance: The Bergama Movement in Turkey’, Environmental Politics 13(2): 438–60. Constitute (2021), Turkey’s 1982 Constitution with Amendments through 2002, https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Turkey_2002.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. Cumhurbaşkanlığı (2019), On Birinci Kalkınma Planı (2019–2023), Ankara: Cumhurbaşkanlığı Strateji ve Bütçe Başkanlığı. Cumhuriyet (2021), ‘Yasak iki ay dayanabildi: Plastik atık ithalatı yeniden başlıyor’, 9 July, https:// www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/haber/yasak-iki-ay-dayanabildi-plastik-atik-ithalati-yeniden-basliyor-1851053, accessed 9 February 2023. Doğru, Ahmet Özgür, Ciğdem Goksel, Ruusa Magano David, Doğanay Tolunay, Seval Sözen and Derin Orhon (2020), ‘Detrimental Environmental Impact of Large Scale Land Use through Deforestation and Deterioration of Carbon Balance in Istanbul Northern Forest Area’, Environmental Earth Sciences 79(11), article 270. DPT (1973), Üçüncü Beş Yıllık Kalkınma Planı 1973–1977, Ankara: DPT. Duru, Bülent (2002), ‘Türkiye’de Çevrenin Siyasallaşması: Yeşiller Partisi Deneyimi’, Mülkiye 26(236): 179–99. DuvarEnglish (2020), ‘Activists protesting controversial mining project of pro-gov’t company in Kaz Mountains detained’, 22 September, https://www.duvarenglish.com/environment/ 2020/09/22/activists-protesting-controversial-mining-project-of-pro-govt-company-in-kazmountains-detained, accessed 9 February 2023. European Commission (2021), ‘A European Green Deal: Striving to Be the First Climate-Neutral Continent’, https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_ en, accessed 9 February 2023.

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environmental protection versus economic development | 551 Hazar Kalonya, Dalya (2021), ‘Environmental Movements in Turkey from the Perspective of Commons’, International Journal of the Commons 15(1): 236–58. IPCC (2018), ‘IPCC Special Report “Global Warming of 1.5°C” Summary for Teachers’, Office for Climate Education, December, https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/2/2018/12/ ST1.5_OCE_LR.pdf. Kalkınma Bakanlığı (2018), On Birinci Kalkınma Planı (2010–2023) Madencilik Politikaları Özel İhtisas Komisyonu Raporu, Ankara: Kalkınma Bakanlığı. KONDA (2018), ‘Çevre Bilinci ve Çevre Koruma’, March, https://konda.com.tr/uploads/ tr1803-barometre85-cevre-bilinci-ve-cevre-koruma-3f00e4c6a34482a7e3414097ef5cbd0203b283d1c985bd09cb814cd8fcbd5a54.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. Laville, Sandra (2021), ‘Turkey to ban plastic waste imports’, The Guardian, 19 May, https:// www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/19/turkey-to-ban-plastic-waste-imports, accessed 9 February 2023. Ministry of Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change (n.d.), ‘Our History’, https://www. csb.gov.tr/en/our-history-i-100015, accessed 9 February 2023. Özen, Hayriye (2009), ‘Located Locally, Disseminated Nationally: The Bergama Movement’, Environmental Politics 18(3): 408–23. Özkırımlı, Umut (ed.) (2014), The Making of a Protest Movement in Turkey: #occupygezi, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Öztürk, Kemal (2002), ‘Küresel İklim Değişikliği ve Türkiye’ye Olası Etkileri’, Gazi Üniversitesi Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 22(1): 47–65. Öztürk, Özkan (2017), ‘Çevrecilik Söylemleri ve Türkiye’deki Çevre Hareketlerinin Seyri’, Journal of History Culture and Art Research 6(2): 441–56. Paker, Hande, Fikret Adaman, Zeynep Kadirbeyoğlu and Begüm Özkaynak (2013), ‘Environmental Organisations in Turkey: Engaging the State and Capital’, Environmental Politics 22(5): 760–78. Sayman, Rifat Ünal (2017), ‘Avrupa Birliği Çevre Mevzuatı ve Türkiye’, REC Türkiye, https:// rec.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/01-01_rifatunalsayman_abmevzuativeturkiye.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. Tarım ve Orman Bakanlığı Meteoroloji Genel Müdürlüğü (2021), Türkiye 2020 Yılı İklim Değerlendirmesi, Ankara: Meteoroloji Genel Müdürlüğü. Tekayak, Deniz (2014), ‘An Overview of Environmental Impact Assessment in Turkey: Issues and Recommendations’, Ankara Avrupa Çalışmaları Dergisi 13(2): 133–51. Temocin, Pınar (2018), ‘Framing Opposition to Nuclear Power: The Case of Akkuyu in Southeast Turkey’, Asian Journal of Peacebuilding 6(2): 353–77. Tüfekçi, Hasan (2008), ‘Çevrecinin daniskasiyim’, Hürriyet, 8 August, https://www.hurriyet. com.tr/gundem/cevrecinin-daniskasiyim-9728287, accessed 9 February 2023. TÜİK (2020), ‘Sera Gazı Emisyon İstatistikleri 1990–2018’, 31 March, https://data.tuik.gov.tr/ Bulten/Index?p=Sera-Gazi-Emisyon-Istatistikleri-1990-2018-33624, accessed 9 February 2023. TÜİK (2021), ‘Sürdürülebilir Kalkınma Göstergeleri 2010–2019’, 2 February, https://data.tuik. gov.tr/Bulten/Index?p=Surdurulebilir-Kalkinma-Gostergeleri-2010-2019-37194, accessed 9 February 2023.

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552 | senem atvur Turhan, Ethemcan, Semra Cerit Mazlum, Ümit Şahin, Alevgül H. Şorman and A. Cem Gündoğan (2016), ‘Beyond Special Circumstances: Climate Change Policy in Turkey 1992–2015’, WIREs Climate Change 7(3): 448–60. Türkiye Ormancılar Derneği (2019), Türkiye Ormancılığı: 2019, Ankara: Kuban. UNFCCC (2015), ‘Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs)’, https://unfccc. int/files/adaptation/application/pdf/all__parties_indc.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023. WCED (1987), ‘Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future’, http://www.un-documents.net/our-common-future.pdf, accessed 9 February 2023.

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42 Disaster Risk Management in Turkey Burcak Basbug Erkan (Middle East Technical University)

Introduction

T

urkey is prone to earthquakes, floods, avalanches, landslides, rockfalls, mine accidents, forest fires, tornados, human influx, mass displacements and other types of human-made, natural and technological hazards. Hazards turn into disasters if there are no preparedness, precaution and mitigation strategies available. Disaster science believes in capacity-building in advance and being proactive rather than reactive so that any action taken before an event helps the country to respond faster and recover more resiliently. Earthquakes are the most significant type of natural hazard considering their social and economic consequences in Turkey. The main active fault line to cause significant earthquakes in Turkey is the North Anatolian Fault Line (NAF), starting in the east of the country at Bingöl-Karlıova. The NAF runs from east to west and there have been ruptures in the fault, which resulted in earthquakes that caused damage lasting for years. The second active fault line is the East Anatolian Fault Line. The third high-risk region is western Turkey, where the Aegean grabens are located. The red-coloured areas in Figure 42.1 indicate the seismically high-risk zones in Turkey. The current map in use is the revised version of the first seismic hazard map of Turkey, which was current between 1996 and 2018. Turkey has experienced earthquakes for centuries. Each of them has been a lesson to learn from. However, it was the Marmara earthquake, which struck on 17 August 1999, that became a milestone in disaster management and understanding the risk system of the country. Rather than managing disasters after they occur, reducing risks in the exante period was introduced into operational, tactical, strategical and political implementations. Disaster ‘risk’ management is one of the key and crucial elements of local and national development agendas in an emerging market like Turkey. This chapter will focus 553

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Source: AFAD

Figure 42.1 Seismic hazard map of Turkey

disaster risk management in turkey | 555 on problems and solutions, gaps and challenges, strengths and weaknesses in disaster risk management in Turkey with an eye on multisectoral, multi-hazard risks, within the timeline since the establishment of the Republic. Strong preparedness and mitigation will prove that geography is not the destiny of Turkey! The first written document on the effect of earthquakes in this geography dates back to the Ottoman era to 1509, when a strong earthquake hit Istanbul, then the capital of the Ottoman Empire. In the records, it was called ‘Little Doomsday’ for the damage it caused. A report prepared after the 1999 Marmara earthquake by the Turkish Parliament states that the magnitude of the 1509 earthquake was estimated between 7.6 and 8.0. There were more than 10,000 deaths and thousands of damaged buildings. Sultan Beyazıt II was on the throne then and he declared a ferman or mandate on how to prepare and respond to the earthquake risk in Istanbul then (Ozden & Erkan 2016). There were several significant earthquake and flood events before the Republican era, which started in1923.

Figure 42.2 The 1509 ‘Little Doomsday’ earthquake Source: Ambraseys & Finkel (1995).

From 1923 to 1999 After the announcement of the Republic in 1923, there was a series of reforms in the social and economic structures of the country. Within this reform period, Ali Tolga Ozden (2016) states that significant progress was made with regard to development of settlements. One of the first legislative steps was the declaration of the Village Law No. 442, which was published in 1924. This law included taking precautions against hazards such as floods and epidemics.

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556 | burcak basbug erkan The new Republic experienced its first earthquake on 13 September 1924 in Erzurum province in eastern Turkey. Hüseyin Kalemli (2010) mentions that there was extensive damage and many casualties with a significant loss of livestock. Following the earthquake, Law No. 516 was declared to manage the aid and rehabilitation process in the region. Between 1930 and 1945, there were new institutions set up in the newly formed country. However, it was not until 1939 that a big earthquake hit the country. On 26 December 1939, an earthquake of magnitude 7.8 hit Erzincan province. It resulted in the loss of 32,000 lives and more than 100,000 buildings damaged. Following the devastating impact of the 1939 earthquake, Law No. 3773 was published to support earthquake-affected regions. Ozden (2016) discusses how the approach of declaring a new law after each earthquake offered a case-specific, temporary solution, only providing assistance to earthquake-affected communities and regions and mainly covering financial losses caused by the single event. This was the basis of the paternalistic approach in the culture of Turkey, where there was no long-term and wide coverage of durable solutions for disaster situations. Table 42.1 summarises a series of earthquakes that occurred between 1939 and 1945 in Turkey. The country itself was in the process of recovery from the 1920s War of Independence with scarce resources. These earthquakes and related losses could only be survived with temporary ‘first aid’ solutions. There was a strong need to develop sustainable policies and improve legislation against seismic risk. Table 42.1 Significant earthquakes in Turkey between 1939 and 1945 Date

Location

Deaths

Buildings damaged

26 December 1939

Erzincan

32,962

116,720

20 December 1942

Niksar-Erbaa

1,100

32,000

20 June 1943

Adapazarı-Hendek

336

2

26 November 1943

Tosya-Ladik

4,000

40,000

1 February 1944

Bolu-Gerede

3,959

20,864

Source: Ozden & Erkan (2016)

It was not only the earthquakes that the new Republic had to fight against; there were floods recorded between 1941 and 1943 too, which caused significant damage. On 14 January 1943, Law No. 4373 was declared to introduce flood risks, early warnings, identification of hazardous areas and mitigation strategies against flooding. In 1950, the Republic’s first democratic election was held. Losses that occur as a result of any disaster can only be prevented with a strong political will and motivation of the policymaker.

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disaster risk management in turkey | 557 Between 1944 and 1958, the idea of disaster risk reduction was partially introduced into the state governance system. According to H. P. Gülkan (2018), Ozden (2016) and the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (Afet ve Acil Durum Yönetimi Başkanlığı, AFAD) archive, during this timeline, the first earthquake hazard map of Turkey was introduced. The first building code concerning earthquake-resistant structures was also launched. Gülkan (2018) states that local governance in Turkey is crucial because it is the spine of the disaster management operations. He explains that between 1922 and 1963, members of municipal assemblies were elected by popular vote and then one of their members would be elected as the mayor. Ankara and Istanbul were exceptions to this procedure and their mayors were appointed by the central government. Municipalities are one of the main stakeholders in disaster risk management in Turkey as the municipal engineers have the authority to enforce building code regulations. Gülkan (2018) discusses how the enforcement of the building code was problematic due to the heavy workload and professional know-how of these engineering teams. In 1959, an umbrella for the rest of disaster legislation in Turkey was declared in Law No. 7269. It emphasised the need to take measures before the disaster and provide assistance after its occurrence. Ozden (2016) states that Law No. 7269 was the first law to combine existing regulations on disasters, introducing an integrated and comprehensive approach, and that is also considered the needs of the community. The period between 1999 and 2009 is called the awakening period by AFAD and from 2009 onwards the country went into a period of total risk reduction and resilience rather than total response. Table 42.2 lists the significant disasters that occurred in Turkey in the 1990s. The wider world also suffered from devastating disasters so that the United Nations declared the 1990s as the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction. Table 42.3 presents a compilation of the significant disasters in Turkey since the 1990s. Table 42.2 Significant disasters in Turkey during the 1990s Date

Type of event

Location

Deaths/injuries

People affected

13 March 1992

Earthquake

Erzincan

650/700

n/a

October 1995

Earthquake

Afyonkarahisar-Dinar

92/200

100,000

May 1998

Flood, landslide

Western Black Sea

20/n/a

2.2 million

June 1998

Earthquake

Adana

144/1,000

n/a

17 August 1999

Earthquake

Marmara region

17,480/43,953

600,000

763/4,948

n/a

12 November 1999 Earthquake

Düzce

Source: Gulkan (2018)

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558 | burcak basbug erkan Table 42.3 Disasters in Turkey since the 1990s Year

Type

Location

1992

Earthquake

Erzincan

1995

Earthquake

Afyon-Dinar

1998

Earthquake

Adana-Ceyhan

1998

Flood

Bartın

1999

Earthquake

Marmara region

1999

Earthquake

Düzce-Kaynaşlı

2003

Earthquake

Bingöl

2011

Earthquake

Kütahya-Simav

2011

Earthquake

Van-Erciş

2011

Human influx

Syria

2014

Mine accident

Soma

2019

Earthquake

Elazığ

2019

Avalanche

Van

2020

Flood

Giresun

2020

Earthquake

Izmir

2020

Pandemic

Global

2021

Forest fires

Aegean and Mediterranean coasts

2021

Flood

Bartın, Kastamonu, Sinop

Source: compiled by the author from various resources, 2022

Figure 42.3 is a very impressive picture of a collapsed residential complex, where the fault line just broke through it during the 1999 Marmara earthquake. The questions of why and how this happened, and who built these apartments on top of a fault line are indicators of why Turkey suffers from social and economic losses after earthquakes. From the Turkish Emergency Management Presidency to the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) Learning from past events should serve as a guide for preparedness for the future by enabling us to understand the philosophy of resilient recovery. Implementing resilient and robust strategies in the rehabilitation/recovery process first of all leads us build back better, secondly helps with resilient recovery and finally makes us resilient as individuals, households, neighbourhoods, localities, nations, regions and globally. Certainly, this cannot be achieved just by a person, a country or an institution alone. There is a need

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disaster risk management in turkey | 559

Figure 42.3 Totally collapsed site after 1999 Marmara earthquake Source: Gulkan (2018)

for strong coherence among all the stakeholders from an individual to the private sector, from academia to local government, from national governments to NGOs. A popular term that we often meet nowadays and surely onwards is ‘disaster risk governance’. Efficient and effective governance of disaster risk management can only be achieved when all merge their forces and resources. Turkey has travelled a good distance since 1999 in terms of search and rescue, psychosocial support, drills and training, setting up financial risk reduction mechanisms, human resources, equipment and digitalisation. Turkey has committed to the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA, 2005–15) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR, 2015–30). The SFDRR, like the HFA before it, has a monitoring system for signatory countries to keep track of implementation of the targets set in these disaster risk management frameworks, prepared in line with the millennium development goals (concurrent with the HFA) and then the sustainable development goals (concurrent with the SFDRR). However, there is a long way to go and a need to give more emphasis to resilient recovery, disaster risk governance, community engagement and stakeholder management.

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560 | burcak basbug erkan Before the establishment of AFAD in December 2009, there used to be three institutions in relation to disaster management operations in Turkey. The main one was the General Directorate of Disaster Affairs under the Ministry of Construction and Public Works. The second one was the General Directorate of Civil Defence, which operated under the Ministry of the Interior. And the third one was the Turkish Emergency Management Presidency, which was formed after the 1999 Marmara earthquake as part of the response and recovery activities. The institutional and governance structure of disasters in Turkey used to be centralised and top-down before 2009. The three institutions named above used to have provincial directorates operating in eighty-one jurisdictional provinces in Turkey. The idea behind starting AFAD, under the then Prime Minister’s Office, was to approach disasters with a vision of risk management and preparedness, in a bottom-up, decentralised way to give local authorities more power. It is always best to manage disaster at the local level because local people know the local conditions far better than someone from another location who is appointed there. Rather than managing disasters after they occur, the importance of preparedness before they happen and generating mitigation strategies became the priority of AFAD until 2018. Between 2009 and 2018, AFAD carried the role of the solo coordination authority for the preparedness, risk reduction, response and recovery phases of disaster risk management. AFAD was directly linked to the Prime Minister’s Office, which indeed saved a lot of time on bureaucratic issues, and it was much easier to keep stakeholder management between any relevant institutions in line with disaster risk management and disaster risk reduction in Turkey. When the Prime Minister’s Office was abolished and the presidential system started in 2018, AFAD saw a change and a decrease in its role. On 15 July 2018, AFAD was linked to the Ministry of Interior and since then its power and uniqueness in a multi-hazard country like Turkey has been downgraded. There are soon to be institutional division changes to AFAD, which will make it worse. AFAD lost its coordination role between all the stakeholders and it became just a part of any line ministry such as Health, Education or Environment in link with disaster risk management/ reduction. The system which initially aimed to switch from top-down to bottom-up has been reversed and now a purely top-down, centralised disaster risk management system is again in use in Turkey (see Figure 42.4). The eighty-one provincial AFAD branches still exist but not all of them function with equal technical and personal capacities. National Disaster Response Plan of Turkey (TAMP) In order to have an integrated planning and a modular structure between the stakeholders in disaster response in Turkey, TAMP was introduced in 2014. TAMP brings together line ministries, local governments, the private sector, NGOs and where needed individuals

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disaster risk management in turkey | 561

Figure 42.4 AFAD organisational chart Source: AFAD

as part of the philosophy of disaster risk management. There is a strong political commitment behind TAMP because it serves to cover the preparedness, response and initial recovery phases of the disaster risk management process comprehensively. It brings stakeholders together. It prevents operating just with a paternalistic approach but instils a professional, integrated, holistic disaster risk management approach across the whole country both at local and national level. It covers all types of hazards at every scale. TAMP operates in twenty-eight service groups and responsible ministries for each sector. For example, for nutrition operations, the responsible agency is the Turkish Red Crescent; for environmental risk, the Ministry of the Environment is the focal point. Recently in 2021 and 2022, as an important step to create disaster-resilient communities and countries based on the disaster informatics as introduced in the SFDRR, AFAD introduced national and provincial disaster risk reduction plans for the

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562 | burcak basbug erkan

Figure 42.5 TAMP Source: AFAD

whole country and each of the eighty-one jurisdictional provinces now has its own plans in 2022. Good Practice in the Turkish Disaster Risk Management System A. Istanbul Seismic Mitigation and Emergency Preparedness Project (ISMEP) There are good practices of Turkey in terms of reducing seismic risk such as the ISMEP (Istanbul Seismic Mitigation and Emergency Preparedness) project, which aims to retrofit or rebuild public schools, public hospitals and cultural heritage in Istanbul. ISMEP started back in October 2005 as part of the country’s mitigation strategy to prepare Istanbul for a future earthquake. It initially started as a World Bank loan. Following its successful implementation and process, the European Investment Bank and the Council of Europe Development Bank contributed to the funding and continuation of the project. It has two main pillars: structural resilience and increasing public awareness and community resilience through training. It is the first disaster risk reduction project in Turkey, and it is still ongoing in 2022 with other funding resources. In 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic started, the hospitals designed by ISMEP in Istanbul against the earthquake hazard were transformed into pandemic hospitals and started operation. One hospital, formerly called the Okmeydanı Training and Research Hospital, reopened on 30 March 2020 as Prof. Dr Cemil Topuzoğlu City Hospital, named after the first medical doctor who passed away due to Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. This hospital has become a hub for Covid-19 patients and the most high-tech hospital in Turkey. ISMEP operates to enhance the earthquake resistance of public schools

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disaster risk management in turkey | 563 as a huge contribution to a safe-school policy in a highly seismic city. Kadıköy Atatürk Science High School is one of the best examples of a seismically strong school and also has won a Platinum School award for its energy-saving design. This design is intended to spread across the city as a model for sustainable development in the education sector. Seventy-one schools have been reconstructed and 413 have been retrofitted within the ISMEP project. B. The Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) Burcak Basbug Erkan and Ozlem Yilmaz (2015) provides a deep evaluation of another good financial practice, which is the development of the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (TCIP) as a financial instrument to mitigate seismic risk. The 1999 Marmara earthquake caused a big deficit in the national budget, which was then approximately $16–20 billion, 5–7 per cent of the GDP by the OECD’s estimation. The frequency of earthquakes as shown in Table 42.1 and their possible economic effects on the country’s financial resources were a signs of an urgent need to initiate a financial system to compensate for disaster losses. The earthquake became a trigger to speed up the bureaucracy and the system came into operation in September 2000. It is the first example of a public–private partnership in an emerging market like Turkey. It aims to provide compulsory insurance for dwelling units within municipality borders. This insurance covers structural losses and losses due to flood, landslide and explosions caused by an earthquake. In 2012, the hazard of a tsunami was added to the coverage. Any other losses, such as building contents and injury treatments, are excluded. There are fifteen tariffs applied in the TCIP, which are calculated according to three building types (reinforced concrete, masonry and other types) and five seismic zones as determined in the Seismic Hazard Zone Map of Turkey revised by AFAD in 2019 (see Figure 42.1). The 2011 Van, 2019 Elazığ and 2020 Izmir earthquakes were important tests to check the system. It seems to work efficiently. As of May 2021, the penetration rate is 57.8 per cent with 10,218,195 policies sold across the country. In the past twenty years, the pool has made payments on more than 30,000 claims caused by 696 tremors/earthquakes with a total of $32 million. The total payment capacity of the TCIP is almost $2.5 billion. More detailed information can be found on the TCIP’s website. The examples of ISMEP and the TCIP are significant and unique mechanisms; however, as can be seen in Table 42.1, it is not just a matter of earthquakes and Istanbul: the whole country has to be prepared for multiple hazards. More Recent Disasters in Turkey in the 2000s The Van Earthquakes of 23 October and 9 November 2011 The year 2011 witnessed another series of earthquakes in Turkey. On 19 May, an earthquake occurred in the Simav district of the Kütahya province in the Aegean region. This was a medium-scale earthquake following the devastating 1999 earthquakes. It did not

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564 | burcak basbug erkan have a severe impact. Temporary emergency services were provided for survivors by AFAD and the Turkish Red Crescent. Later that year, on 23 October, a severe earthquake hit the Erciş district in the Van province in the eastern part of Turkey. The city of Van is known to be seismically very active and has experienced earthquakes in the past. Interestingly, just two weeks after that earthquake, on 9 November 2011, there occurred a second earthquake in Van. This time the epicentre was in Van city centre. These two successive earthquakes became a test for the social, institutional, economic and technical preparedness of the country against earthquake risk. An observation after a reconnaissance study to the city of Van showed there was a better search and rescue service compared to the 1999 earthquake. Another finding was the lack of communication and coordination between local and national authorities in response to the earthquake due to differences in political views. In case of an emergency humanitarian response, any conflict of views between stakeholders should not hinder services to survivors. The conflict in this case interrupted the services needed by the local inhabitants of Van. Villages were out of reach and several municipalities in other parts of the country had to help the survivors in some villages. However, psychosocial support to survivors was observed to be very timely and efficient. Reconstruction of the city of Van was planned to be very quick with an approximate total cost of $1.5 billion in 2011 figures. Most of the vulnerable buildings have been relocated towards hilly locations away from Lake Van to prevent the impact of liquefaction, which was found to be the main reason for building collapses and losses of life. This again takes us back to the role of the municipalities in the enforcement of the building code to prevent and prepare in seismic regions. The Soma Mine Fire of 13 May 2014 A very sad event occurred on 13 May 2014 at the Eynez coal mine in Soma, a town in the Manisa province in the Aegean region of Turkey. Soma is known to be a location for lignite coal production, which is a crucial component in the country’s energy production and other related areas. It was ironic and upsetting that the mine was recognised as safe after an inspection that was held in March 2014. Just a few weeks later, a sudden combustion started a fire in the mine. The fire started around 3.00 in the afternoon on 13 May 2014 and the disaster was declared to have ended on 17 May, when the last body was evacuated. Some 301 miners lost their lives in this disaster. A reconnaissance study in the area two weeks after the event showed the lack of understanding of the need for mitigation of and preparedness for technological disasters in Turkey. As Erkan and colleagues (2016) discuss, if there had been any investment made in safety measures, such as a flameproof belt, which would not catch fire even if a spark fell on it, or three-hour oxygen supplies, the flame would not have turned into a fire and killed miners.

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disaster risk management in turkey | 565 The Soma disaster triggered an urgent need for risk assessment, preparation and mitigation in relation to safety measures against technological hazards in Turkey. It is always debatable if a disaster brings an opportunity for development and building back better. Some changes were made after this event, in coal miners’ working hours and in the training and education of the employees. The families of the miners who lost their lives have never been fully paid what they deserved as compensation. The legal court case ended in 2021 with twenty years’ imprisonment for the company owner. The 2020 Giresun Flood In August 2020, there occurred a severe flood in the Giresun province of Turkey, which is located in the Black Sea region. By geography, the region is located between the Black Sea coast and the mountains, where there is a dense forest area. According to an AFAD expert, there have been preparedness plans against flood risk for the Black Sea region available for the past thirty years but these plans have never been implemented. Therefore, social and economic losses still occur in the area if there is heavy rainfall. The main reason for floods to occur is actually just the blockage of the river bed by the local people. Residential construction designs and plans are approved by the local authorities, which enables contractors to build a structure where it is not legally permitted. In August 2021, in the Black Sea region, Kastamonu, Bartın and Sinop provinces were hit by flash floods. According to AFAD data seventy-nine people lost their lives due to these floods. This was not the first flood event to hit the region. As shown in Table 42.2, back in 1998, there was a severe flood event in the Western Black Sea region, with the worst impact in Bartın province, after which a World Bank loan was initiated for the Turkey Emergency Flood and Earthquake Recovery project. One major issue in the Black Sea region is the level of preparedness, planning and mitigation and lack of political commitment to bring an end to flood disaster. There is also human involvement in blocking the river bed with rubbish so that if an excess amount of precipitation falls there is no way it can flow away. The same experience occurred in the 2020 Giresun flood. Unfortunately, those floods will not be the last ones. 2021 Forest Fires and Floods Turkey experienced the worst forest fires in the summer of 2021 in the history of the Republic. It was highly dramatic to observe that there was no preparation for fire on such a scale in any part of the Aegean and Mediterranean regions, which are at the heart of the tourism sector. Manavgat, Marmaris, Muğla and Antalya are examples of locations where nature has been destroyed by this fire. The main reason for the devastation, that the fire went out of control at different locations simultaneously, is a very serious issue. Having a fire at various places at the same time caused a huge problem for firefighters in

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566 | burcak basbug erkan their response. Teams from all around the country were allocated to the region. They put out one fire and travelled to another location to put out another one. There was an obvious lack of technical equipment and at a wider scale investment in and preparedness for fire risk in the coastal areas. At most of the locations, local people had to fight the fire by using their own resources and showed a very strong and emotional example of societal bond. The European Forest Fire Information System announced that 1.78 billion square metres of forest area were burned in the 2021 fires in Turkey. Livelihood in the fire areas was totally devastated. It will be a very long-term recovery process for the ecosystem to restore itself. Conclusions During the first half of the Republican era, the understanding of disaster was mainly focused on earthquakes and the response period. As time went by, the types of hazards changed, scientific knowledge developed, events became experiences to prepare for the next event to strike. The 1992 Erzincan earthquake was the first event for which the Turkish government approached the World Bank and asked for a loan for the recovery process. This long-term, low-interest credit loan borrowing from a multilateral institution was extended to flood recovery after the devastating 1998 Western Black Sea flood, which hit the Bartın province severely. History repeated itself in 2021 in the Western Black Sea region with a severe flood occurrence. This is a very good example of how the local governments (municipalities) fail to implement the existing hazard and risk plans produced for the region. Also, at the central level, there is no existing integrated, comprehensive and holistic approach to disaster risk management. Following the devastating impact of the 1999 Marmara earthquake, there was a paradigm shift from disaster management to disaster risk management in Turkey. There have been new laws introduced for disasters with amendments made in time with changing needs. The disaster risk management system was highly centralised and top-down, at least until 2009, when AFAD was established. Small-scale disasters have been responded to with local capacity at the provincial level. If there is a large-scale event to affect a wider region or the whole country, then the central AFAD has the role and responsibility to take action. Besides everything mentioned and discussed in this chapter, Turkey still lacks the most crucial key for successful and effective disaster risk management, which will build disaster-resilient communities and disaster-resilient country. That is ‘disaster risk governance’. As is self-evident from Figure 42.3 in the Introduction section, the main reason for ‘why and how this happened’ is quite clear. In the current system, local governments approve construction projects in Turkey, where they should be aware of the seismic risk with knowledge of the active fault lines in the land. However, through misuse of power and prioritising personal profit over safety and regulations, Turkey lacks earthquake-

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disaster risk management in turkey | 567 resistant building stock in many locations. This is a big issue for today and for any possible earthquakes to come. There is an urgent need for a strong rule of law to put into effect good disaster risk governance by the central government, but this requires accountability, transparency, consensus, equitability, responsiveness and a strong rule of law (Gülkan 2018). Only in this way can Turkey build a resilient country against any type of hazard. References Ambraseys, Nicolas N. and Caroline F. Finkel (1995), The Seismicity of Turkey and Adjacent Areas: A Historical Review 1500–1800, Istanbul: Eren. Başbuğ-Erkan, B. Burcak and Ozlem Yilmaz (2015), ‘Successes and Failures of Compulsory Risk Mitigation: Re-evaluating the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool’, Disasters 39(4): 782–94. Erkan, Burcak, Gunes Ertan, Jungwon Yeo and Louise K. Comfort (2016), ‘Risk, Profit, or Safety: Sociotechnical Systems under Stress’, Safety Science 88: 199–210. Gülkan, H. P. (2018), ‘Natural Hazards Governance of Turkey’, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Natural Hazard Science, Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199389407.013.245, accessed 10 February 2023. Kalemli, Hüseyin (2010), ‘1924 Erzurum Depreminde Yurtdışından Yapılan Yardımlar’, Atatürk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 14(2): 1–19. Ozden, Ali Tolga and Burcak Erkan (2016), ‘From Healer State to Protector State: A Critical Evaluation of Painful Struggles in Legal and Administrative Undertakings in Disaster Management of Turkey from 1509 to 2010’, in Yuka Kaneko, Katsumi Matsuoka and Toshihisa Toyoda (eds), Asian Law in Disasters: Toward a Human-Centered Recovery, Abingdon and New York: Routledge.

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Part VII Society and Culture

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43 Constructing the Youth of the Republic: Youth and Population Challenges in Modern Turkey Demet Lüküslü

Introduction

T

his chapter argues that the construction of youth has been one of the main political projects of the Republic of Turkey. A strong political myth as well as post-war traumas and the demographic characteristics of the Republic nourished the political project, for which youth symbolised the young Republic and the future of the nation. Thus, the construction of the young generation’s bodies, minds and spirits became a national concern for a desirable future. This myth has been very strong throughout the history of the Republic, even though on the 100th anniversary of the Republic, Turkey has chronic problems such as a high percentage of young NEETs (neither in education, employment nor training) and high rates of youth unemployment. Despite these chronic problems, Turkey lacks successful youth policies and the solution announced by the AKP government(s) to these problems is to launch a new political project to construct pious generation(s), which marks a new era in the history of political projects directed at youth. Besides, even though still the youngest country in Europe, Turkey seems to have missed the window of demographic opportunity (a period during which the proportion of the working-age group was particularly prominent) since the share of youth in the total population began to decrease after 2010. Thus, Turkey in its second century will be facing the challenges not only of the young generation’s chronic problems but also of an ageing society. The chapter starts with a brief discussion of the history of youth and the population challenges of the Republic and then discusses the recent issues and chronic problems of youth in contemporary Turkey. A History of Youth and Population Challenges (1923–80) The Republic of Turkey was founded in 1923 after a decade of wars (the Balkan Wars, the First World War and the War of Independence) severely affecting its population. 571

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572 | demet lüküslü In 1923, Turkey’s population was around 11–12 million and comprised mainly women, children and elderly as the young men had been lost in the previous wars (Shorter 1985). Only 16.4 per cent of the population lived in cities while the rest lived in rural areas in Anatolia, which used not to be a developed part of the Ottoman Empire (Shorter 1995: 18). The health of the people was also an important issue as the population was struck not only by wars but also by various epidemics (Çavdar 1985: 1552). That is why the Republic was preoccupied with creating healthy and robust generations (Akın 2004; Lüküslü & Dinçşahin 2013) and was eager to change its ‘sick man of Europe’ image inherited from the Empire. In such a context, as was the case with all modern nationstates, youth became the symbol of the ‘new’ Republic. It was indeed with the modernisation that started in the nineteenth century that the young started to symbolise change, to rebel against the old and to demand changes in society (Georgeon 2007; Zürcher 1984: 47–9). It is important to underline that in line with other movements in Europe, the group that was opposed to the absolutist monarchy in late Ottoman Empire was called the Young Turks. This ‘myth of youth’ (Lüküslü 2009) continued and became even stronger with the Republic. The importance of the young for nation-states comes not only from their symbolic importance but also from their instrumentalisation for constructing the future. With modernity, youth emerged as a modern construct and the young generations’ education and preparation for the ‘adult’ world became vital for shaping the future of societies. It is in this sense no surprise to observe that Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ended his foundational speech to the Ankara parliament (Nutuk) in 1927 in which he determined the official historical narrative of modern Turkey by calling on the ‘Turkish youth’ to act as the guardians of the regime and to carry on this mission for all eternity: Turkish youth! Your first duty is to maintain and protect Turkish independence and the Republic of Turkey, forever. This is the primary basis of your existence and of your future. This constitutes your most valuable treasure. Child of Turkey’s future! Your duty is to save Turkish independence and the Republic. You will find the strength that you need to achieve this already exists in the noble blood that flows in your veins! (Atatürk 1989: 1197, author’s translation)

Educating the minds, spirits and bodies of the young generations was also important for constructing the future (for the history of modern education in Turkey see among others Fortna 2002; Kaplan 1999; Sakaoğlu 2003; Somel 2001). Even though national education was prioritised as a central issue, the number of schools and the percentage of young people enrolled in education was very low: in the academic year of 1923/4 there were only seventy-two middle schools and twenty-three high schools in the Republic and 90 per cent of the population was illiterate (Tunçay 1999: 235). Thus, there was indeed

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constructing the youth of the republic | 573 a very low percentage of young people who had access to education. The first generation of the Republic seemed to position themselves as the ‘guardians of the Republic’ (Neyzi 2001: 416–18) and in their memoirs and the oral history interviews that Mine Göğüş-Tan and colleagues (2007) conducted with them, they demonstrated their pride in belonging to this generation. The 1950s, the post-Second World War period, was a turning point for population trends in Turkey (Özbay 2015: 278–81). This phenomenon is not only linked with the world war atmosphere and the baby boom following the war, as Turkey entered the war only at a late stage, but seems to be correlated with social changes taking place within Turkish society. It is not only the rise in the population that attracts attention but also the high-speed urbanisation. The population of Turkey, which was 16.2 million in 1935, rose to 35.6 million by 1970 (Özbudun 1975: 69) and Istanbul’s population, which was 1,166,477 in 1950, rose to 3,019,032 in 1970. This high-speed urbanisation was much greater than the speed of industrialisation (Sunar 1975: 86–97). It is at that period that the number of schools and the numbers of students enrolled in university education rose significantly: in 1927, there were only 1,660 university students but this number rose to 63,051 in 1960 and 146,299 in 1968 (Kışlalı 1974: 53). There were also important political developments taking place during this period. During the decade of the 1950s, the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) was in power after winning the elections against the political party that founded the Republic, the Republican People’s Party. It was during the DP’s rule that ‘youth’ (which needs to be read as university students) entered into the coalition opposing the ruling party and became a political actor. ‘Army and youth hand in hand’ was an important slogan of the period and university students participated in various protests against the government. For this reason, it is no surprise to see that the military coup of 27 May 1960 propagated the myth of youth. The DP and its successor the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi, AP) stigmatised the student/leftist movement as one of the responsible stakeholders of the military coup. As a response to the execution of three DP leaders in the 1960 coup, three leaders of the 68 revolutionary student movement were sentenced to death with the approving votes of the AP representatives in the assembly and senate. The 68 generation was not a homogeneous one and the revolutionary 68 movement was only one of that generation’s existing units. There was diversification on the political field, which also influenced the young generation. However, despite the ideological differences, the political culture in which the young generation was socialised actively referred to the myth of youth, defined youth as a political category per se and perceived it as an ‘object’ rather than a ‘subject’ (Neyzi 2001). Respectively, the young generation belonging to different ideologies shared the same myth of youth and gave themselves a political mission to save the state from others (Lüküslü 2015).

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574 | demet lüküslü Youth and Population Issues in the Post-1980 Era The military coup of 12 September 1980 marks another turning point in the history of modern Turkey. The coup was launched on the pretext of stopping the political polarisation and violence of the 1970s and creating a ‘peaceful’ society. However, the military regime, which lasted until the 1983 elections, halted the violence between political groups only through other forms of state violence, including imprisonment, torture, executions and the establishment of a repressive apparatus aimed at ‘rehabilitating’ the whole society. Youth were seen as especially responsible for the earlier political violence, as can be clearly seen in the following speech of Kenan Evren, the lead general of the 12 September coup, for the Youth and Sports Day on 19 May 1981: The Patriotic, Brave and Creative Turkish Youth: With the full conscience of the task that you have undertaken from Atatürk, with his words ‘Thou, the Turkish youth, Your first and foremost duty is to Safeguard and Preserve the Independence and the Republic of Turkey Eternally. The Sole Basis of Your Existence and Your Being is This, and This Basis Is Your Most Valuable Treasure’ and with the full pride of the awareness of the fact of your worthiness, you will safeguard this sacred task with your honour, to the cost of your life and will keep it alive eternally. Our Sublime Leader has dedicated the Youth and Sports Day to the essence, fresh power and the eternal hope of our nation, the Turkish Youth, and by doing so, he has clearly shown his confidence, and the endless love that he felt towards our Youth. The Turkish Youth whom the Turkish Nation depends upon was unfortunately subject to a threat aimed at the entire humanity, during the last decade of the century. This threat was anarchy and terrorism. Such a barbarous, merciless, damnable and widespread kind of assault had not been encountered in thousands of years of human history. Due to the fact that in facing the advancement of the weapons in our age, it was not possible for any nation to gain a victory, mankind was dragged into a kind of secret war that took its form in anarchy and terror. The aim of this sort of war is to capture the castle from within and to cause its collapse in that fashion. To that purpose, the young generations living in that castle and that constitute the dynamic factor were chosen as a target. (General Secretariat of the National Security Council 1982: 232)

The only article relating to youth in the constitution framed by the military regime and adopted in 1982 (The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, Article 58 A) – an article which is still in force – underlines the importance of the ‘protection of youth’. This article is clearly in line with the myth of youth, and explicitly reflects the desire to ‘tame’ youth under the cover of such ‘protection’: A. Protection of Youth ARTICLE 58. The state shall take measures to ensure the training and development of the youth into whose keeping our state, independence, and our Republic are entrusted,

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constructing the youth of the republic | 575 in light of contemporary science in line with the principles and reforms of Atatürk and in opposition to ideas aiming at the destruction of the indivisible integrity of the state with its territory and nation. The state shall take all necessary measures to protect youth from addiction to alcohol, drug addiction, crime, gambling and similar vices, and ignorance.

Even after the transition to democracy in 1983, the influence of the military regime remained highly visible, and was accompanied by a neoliberal restructuring of the economy. Under the military regime, ‘a radical makeover of the economy could be embarked upon with the minimum resistance’ (Keyder, 2004: 67) and this policy was later continued after the transition to democracy under the ruling Motherland Party. Thus, Turkish society was introduced to a consumer culture whose cities became home to fast-food chains, cafés, cybercafés, shopping malls and all the other symbols of globalisation. For these reasons the post-1980 generation was labelled as the generation of the military coup, neoliberalism and the consumer society. Compared to previous generations of modern Turkey, the post-1980 generation was perceived as a depoliticised/apolitical1 generation, and this was confirmed by surveys on youth. The post-1980 generation symbolises the end of the ‘myth of youth’, in which young people are actively involved in the political space, a notion which, as discussed earlier, had existed in the political culture of Turkey since the nineteenth century. In fact, all surveys conducted since 1999 have indicated that young people feel apathetic towards the political sphere and their participation in political parties, political organisations or NGOs is low.2 For example, according to one survey published in 1999, only 3.7 per cent of young people reported being members of a political party, only 3 per cent reported belonging to any political or social group or association, and only 10 per cent reported talking about politics with friends (see Türk Gençliği 98: Suskun Kitle Büyüteç Altında 1999: 16). The surveys confirmed that young people see political parties as irrelevant to their lives. For instance, when asked which political party was interested in the problems of youth, half of the respondents wrote in ‘none of them’, an option not offered on the survey, clearly demonstrating their lack of confidence in political parties. A 2003 survey of university students produced similar results and clearly indicated once again the ‘political apathy’ of the young (Türk Üniversite Gençliği Araştırması: Üniversite Gençliğinin Sosyo-Kültürel Profili 2003: 85). The 2008 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report ‘Youth in Turkey’ further confirmed young people’s widespread mistrust of politics and urged change: It is important to note that the commentators on youth use these two words synonymously. For a discussion on the comments and views on youth in Turkey see Lüküslü (2009: 132–43).  2 I refer particularly to the following surveys: Türk Gençliği 98: Suskun Kitle Büyüteç Altında (1999); Türk Gençliği ve Katılım (2001); Türk Üniversite Gençliği Araştırması. Üniversite Gençliğinin Sosyo-Kültürel Profili (2003); Armağan (2004); Erdem Artan (2005); KONDA (2014b).  1

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576 | demet lüküslü ‘While the youth’s distrust towards politics seems to be rather widespread, civil society can offer some adequate participation tools for the youth. Youth’s perception of politics too needs to change. Political participation is one of the most important means for youth to become responsible citizens’ (UNDP 2008: 9) In May 2013, right before the Gezi protests that erupted at the end of that month, the EU-funded Network: Youth and Participation Project conducted a national survey of the 15–29 age group (KONDA 2014b). In the scope of this national survey, 9 per cent of respondents answered that they had some sort of relationship with political parties, while 91 per cent claimed no such relationship. When those answers are examined according to participants’ gender, 70.7 per cent of those who were party members and 71.2 per cent of those who had previously been members were men. However, among those who stated that they would want to be members of a political party, 49.1 per cent were women, while the share of men was 50.9 per cent. We observe gender inequality in actual political participation but when it comes to ‘willingness’ of political participation, the gap shrinks. Furthermore, 26.2 per cent of respondents were members of a civil organisation or a university club. Compared to the figures concerning participation in political parties, the percentage of those taking part in civil society organisations is in fact quite high. It is interesting to note that approximately 10 per cent of the young people in the national survey declared that they had participated at least one protest, rally or similar manifestation, while 20 per cent indicated that they had posted political messages on social media. That is why the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, in which the young generation3 (the media coined the term ‘Generation Y’ when discussing their presence in the Gezi protests) participated and demonstrated their political standing by means of the new and creative slogans they used, surprised older generations and managed to change the image of a politically apathetic generation. The Gezi protests, however, also enabled the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) government to distinguish between the Gezi youth and the youth the party would like to form. During the third AKP government, which Recep Tayyip Erdoğan declared to be the work of his ‘mastership’, the political mission of creating a pious generation was announced. I have argued elsewhere (Lüküslü 2016: 638) that ‘the construction of the myth of a pious generation entails the reframing of the Kemalist youth myth into an Islamic conservative one’, as an integral part of its project for reshaping society and national identity. This mission was first stated by then Prime Minister Erdoğan during a group meeting of the AKP in A survey by a leading social research institute, KONDA, carried out during the Gezi Park protests with 4,411 participants, provides a good overview of the profile of those present in the protests (KONDA 2014a). According to KONDA, the average age of the participants was twenty-eight. Thirty-seven per cent were students and 52 per cent were employed, mostly in highly skilled jobs.

 3

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constructing the youth of the republic | 577 January 2012, and clarifications and confirmations of this statement were made on various occasions thereafter following criticisms from the opposition parties: There is the raising of a pious youth [. . .] Do you expect us, the AK Party, which has a conservative identity, to raise an atheist generation? [. . .] We will be raising a conservative democratic generation, loyal to the historical values and principles of the nation, and the fatherland. That is what we are working on. (Bianet 2012, author’s translation) Do you want this generation to be one of glue-sniffing (tinerci) youth? Do you want this generation to be rebellious against their elders? Do you want this youth to be torn apart from their national and moral values, to become a generation without a certain direction or any mission? (NTV 2012, author’s translation)

This new myth of youth is highly inspired by conservative poet and thinker Necip Fazıl Kısakürek, whom Erdoğan often quotes as a source of inspiration. Kısakürek, as a political figure ‘at the forefront of Turkish Islamism in the wake of the Kemalist revolution’ (Guida 2014: 98; see also Duran 2001; Mardin 1994), was highly critical of Turkish modernisation and in 1975 he made a speech entitled ‘Addressing the Youth’ at an event organised by the Islamist-leaning Turkish National Students’ Union (Milli Türk Talebe Birliği), of which Erdoğan himself was a member. In that speech Kısakürek defined his ideal youth as a defender of Islam, in contradiction to Mustafa Kemal’s address on youth, and thus aimed to form a new myth in opposition to the Kemalist one. These debates relating to the AKP’s new youth myth of creating pious generations do not seem to be successful. The research on young people in Turkey points out a definite secularisation, and even among the young of conservative families, it is possible to notice a certain distance between religion and ordinary life (see Çakir 2020). These political debates and the myths constructed around youth do not help at all to solve the chronic problems of youth in Turkey, which will be discussed in our next section. Recent Issues, Chronic Problems of the Young Generation and Future Prospects As of 2020, three years before the 100th anniversary of the Republic, Turkey had a young population with almost 13 million people between fifteen and twenty-four years of age, comprising 15.4 per cent of the population (TUIK 2020). This makes Turkey by far the youngest country in Europe (followed by Denmark with 12.5 per cent, the Netherlands with 12.3 per cent and Germany with 10.3 per cent). The term ‘demographic window of opportunity’ underlines the importance of demographic trends for the development of a nation and this window represents the period of time during which the proportion of the working-age population is particularly prominent (for earlier discussions see Behar 2006; TÜSİAD 1999). Back in 2008, the United Nations Development Programme published a report that started a public debate, pointing out that ‘Turkey has a 15-year window

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578 | demet lüküslü of demographic opportunity to prepare today’s youth for the challenges of 2023 and beyond’ (UNDP 2008: 87); however, ‘this window of opportunity will close soon, as the young population will start to diminish’ (UNDP 2008: 88). Turkey has the highest proportion of young NEETs (people not in education, employment or training) among the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (OECD 2019), standing at 26 per cent of young people between fifteen and twenty-nine years of age in 2019 (TUIK 2020) and increasing to 28.3 per cent in 2020 (TUIK 2021), which seems to be correlated with the effects of the global Covid-19 pandemic. There is in fact a gender aspect of the NEET category in Turkey since 46 per cent of the young women in Turkey were NEET compared to 17 per cent of the young men in 2019, and it is very important to understand the gendered aspect of the phenomenon (see Lüküslü & Çelik 2022). The statistics of NEET also demonstrate that there are important geographical inequalities and that cities such as Hakkari, Şırnak and Siirt have the highest proportion of young NEETs (TUIK 2020), which is also confirmed by recent research on Kurdish youth underlining that this is a major issue (RAWEST Araştırma 2020). Even though the statistics of youth in Turkey demonstrate the chronic problems of the education system and the labour market as there is such a high percentage excluded from both, Turkey lacks youth policies aiming to solve these chronic problems and empower young NEETs. This does not mean, however, that there are not heated debates over the youth of Turkey, as we have already discussed, related to the AKP’s new myth, the myth of a pious generation, but in fact all these debates do not serve to solve the chronic problems of youth. During the following years, the heated debates around ‘youth’ and ‘generation’ in Turkey seem very likely to accelerate. In the next elections, which are expected to be held in 2023, it is estimated that 5 million young people will reach voting age whereas there is a total of 13 million of ‘Generation Z’ (Özdemir & Bellut 2020). That is why all the political parties are eager to attract the young electorate. This young electorate is also the one experiencing the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic as they had to continue their education online when the physical doors of their campuses and schools were closed, and there were restrictions on going out for young people. In the family- and authority-oriented cultural context of Turkey respect is commonly accorded to age. The age hierarchy prescribes the young members of society to respect adults and the elderly. If broadly interpreted, this prescription of respect may also include an implied proscription (sanctioned by moral norms) levied on youngsters that keeps them from expressing themselves freely in front of adults, and arguing with, disagreeing with or answering back to the latter. Partially affected by adults’ stereotypical view of youngsters as having a tendency towards irresponsible behaviour (in the case of the pandemic this typically translated into not wearing masks, wearing them incorrectly, or not keeping social distance) and by the concomitant

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constructing the youth of the republic | 579 lack of trust in youth, the pandemic constraints enforced by the government brought extra measures of restriction to the freedom of movement of young people in particular. In November 2020, for example, when there was a general lockdown between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m., the government decreed that young people aged twenty and below were permitted to leave their homes only for three hours on weekdays and at weekends, between 1.00 p.m. and 4.00 p.m., and were not permitted to use public transport. The university exam date changed twice in 2020; President Erdoğan, on the eve of the date finally chosen for the exam, met with young people on YouTube during which the young not only showed their dislike with real-time comments but also launched a hashtag campaign, #OyMoyYok (Not getting my vote) (for a discussion see Tol & Alemdaroğlu 2020). This online protest by the young was interpreted by the opposition parties as a sign of dissatisfaction with the AKP and satisfaction with the opposition parties. The label of ‘Generation Z’ is widely used for this generation in mainstream media and social media. This important cry of the young generation in fact can also be read as a critique of the existing political system in Turkey, in which young people feel that political leaders and political parties address youth only when they are asking for votes and are not there to solve their problems. The surveys on youth demonstrate that there is a rising trend among the young generation in the desire to live abroad, which demonstrates their lack of hope that the problems of the country will be solved in the near future. The recent SODEV report (2020: 7) demonstrates that 62.5 per cent of young people (including 47 per cent of AKP voters) want to leave the country and live abroad (mainly in Europe and the US). Conclusion During the following years, the heated debates around youth and generation in Turkey will not cease but accelerate as the young electorate will be playing a decisive role in the coming elections. During its second century, Turkey’s demography is also prone to change. As discussed throughout the article, even though it is the youngest country in Europe, the share of youth in the total population of Turkey began to decrease after 2010. The share of youth in the total population was reported as 19.4 per cent in 2000, 17 per cent in 2010 and 15.4 per cent in 2020, demonstrating that the population has gradually started to age, as a result of increasing life expectancy and decreasing total fertility rate. In that sense, Turkey seems to have missed the window of demographic opportunity and now as a country with chronic problems facing young people, also has to face the challenges of an ageing society. It seems suitable to end this chapter by posing some important questions regarding Turkey’s future as it is these questions which will be central in determining Turkey’s second century and the answers given to them will determine the future of the country: Will Turkey adopt effective policies for solving its chronic youth problems? Will Turkey

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580 | demet lüküslü be able to decrease the number of NEETs and reduce youth unemployment? Will Turkey be able to provide hope for young people about the future of the country and make it attractive to live and work in the country? Will Turkey adopt the necessary policies for an ageing society? References Akın, Yiğit (2004), Gürbüz ve Yavuz Evlatlar, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları.  Armağan, İbrahim (2004), Gençlik Gözüyle Gençlik: 21. Yüzyıl Eşliğinde Türkiye, Istanbul: Kırkısraklılar Vakfı USADEM Yayınları. Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal (1989), Nutuk, Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi. Behar, Cem (2006), ‘Demographic Developments and “Complementarities”: Ageing, Labor and Migration’, Turkish Studies 7(1): 17–31. Bianet (2012), ‘Başbakan Açıkladı: “Dindar Gençlik Yetiştirmek İstiyoruz”, 1 February, https:// bianet.org/bianet/din/135875-dindar-genclik-yetistirmek-istiyoruz, accessed 10 February 2023. Çakır, Ruşen (2020), ‘Ayşe Çavdar: İslamcı ve Dindar ailelerin evlerindeki genç kuşak sekülerleşiyor’, Medyascope, 23 August, https://medyascope.tv/2020/08/23/ayse-cavdar-islamci-ve-dindarailelerin-evlerindeki-genc-kusak-sekulerlesiyor/, accessed 10 February 2023. Çavdar, Tevfik (1985), ‘Türkiye’de Nüfus ve Nüfus Sorunu’, in Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, vol. 6. Duran, Burhanettin (2001), ‘Transformation of Islamist Political Thought in Turkey from the Empire to the Republic (1908–1960): Necip Fazıl Kısakürek’s Political Ideas’, PhD thesis, Bilkent University. Erdem Artan, İnci (ed.) (2005), Üniversite Gençliği Değerleri: Korkular ve Umutlar, Istanbul: TESEV Yayınları. Fortna, Benjamin C. (2002), Imperial Classroom: Islam, Education, and the State in the Late Ottoman Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press. General Secretariat of the National Security Council (1982), 12 September in Turkey: Before and After, Ankara: Ongun. Georgeon, François (2007), ‘Les Jeunes Turcs étaient-ils jeunes? Sur le phénomène des générations, de l’Empire ottoman à la République turque’, in François Georgeon and Klaus Kreiser (eds), Childhood and Youth in the Muslim World, Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose, pp. 146–73. Göğüş-Tan, Mine, Özlem Şahin, Mustafa Sever and Aksu Bora (2007), Cumhuriyet’te Çocuktular, Istanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Guida, Michelangelo (2014), ‘Nurettin Topçu and Necip Fazıl Kısakürek: Stories of “Conversion” and Activism in Republican Turkey’, Journal for Islamic Studies: 34: 98–117. Kaplan, İsmail (1999), Türkiye’de Milli Eğitim İdeolojisi, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Keyder, Çağlar (2004), ‘The Turkish Bell Jar’, New Left Review 28: 65–84. Kışlalı, Ahmet Taner (1974), Öğrenci Ayaklanmaları, Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi. KONDA (2014a), ‘Gezi Raporu: Toplumun “Gezi Parkı Olayları” Algısı Gezi Parkındakiler Kimlerdi?’, 5 June, https://konda.com.tr/rapor/67/gezi-raporu, accessed 10 February 2023.

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constructing the youth of the republic | 581 KONDA (2014b), Türkiye’de Gençlerin Katılımı, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Lüküslü, Demet (2009), Türkiye’de ‘Gençlik Miti’: 1980 Sonrası Türkiye Gençliği, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Lüküslü, Demet (2015), Türkiye’nin 68’i: Bir Kuşağın Sosyolojik Analizi, Ankara: Dipnot Yayınları. Lüküslü, Demet (2016), ‘Creating a Pious Generation: Youth and Education Policies of the AKP in Turkey’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4): 637–49. Lüküslü, Demet and Kezban Çelik (2022), ‘Gendering the NEET Category: Young NEET Women in Turkey’, Turkish Studies 23(2): 200–22. Lüküslü, Demet and Şakir Dinçşahin (2013), ‘Shaping Bodies Shaping Minds: Selim Sırrı Tarcan and the Origins of Modern Physical Education in Turkey’, International Journal of the History of Sport 30(3): 195–209. Mardin, Şerif (1994), ‘Culture Change and the Intellectual: A Study of the Effects of Secularization in Modern Turkey’, in Şerif Mardin (ed.), Cultural Transitions in the Middle East, Leiden: Brill, pp. 190–213. Neyzi, Leyla (2001), ‘Object or Subject? The Paradox of “Youth” in Turkey’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 33(3): 411–32. NTV (2012), ‘Erdoğan: Gençlik tinerci mi olsun?’, 6 February, https://www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/ erdogan-genclik-tinerci-mi-olsun,AKpJBJMdrUG5IZSLvybH2g, accessed 10 February 2023. OECD (2019), Education at a Glance 2019: OECD Indicators, Paris: OECD Publishing. Özbay, Ferhunde (2015), ‘Gençlik, Nüfus ve İktidar’, in Dünden Bugüne Aile, Kent ve Nüfus, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 253–86. Özbudun, Ergun (1975), Türkiye’de Sosyal Değişme ve Siyasal Katılma, Ankara: Ankara Üniversitsi Hukuk Fakültesi Yayınları. Özdemir, Sinem and Daniel Derya Bellut (2020), ‘Generation Z Puts Pressure on Turkey’s Erdoğan’, DW, 7 May, https://www.dw.com/en/generation-z-turkey/a-54057490, accessed 10 February 2023. RAWEST Araştırma (2020), Kürt Gençler ’20: Benzerlikler, Farklar, Değişimler, December, https://kurdish-studies.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Kurt_Gencler_20_Benzerlikler_ Farklar_Degisimler.pdf, accessed 10 February 2023. Sakaoğlu, Necdet (2003), Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Eğitim Tarihi, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. Shorter, Frederic C. (1985), ‘The Population of Turkey after the War of Independence’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 17(4): 417–41. Shorter, Frederic C. (1995), ‘The Crisis of Population Knowledge in Turkey’, New Perspectives on Turkey 12: 1–31. SODEV (Sosyal Demokrasi Vakfı) (2020), ‘Türkiye’nin Gençliği Araştırması’, 19 May, https:// sodev.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/arastirma.pdf, accessed 10 February 2023. Somel, Selçuk Akşin (2001), The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire 1839–1908: Islamization, Autocracy, and Discipline, Leiden: Brill. Sunar, İlkay (1975), State and Society in the Politics of Turkey’s Development, Ankara: AÜSBF Yayınları.

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582 | demet lüküslü Tol, Gönül and Ayça Alemdaroğlu (2020), ‘Turkey’s Generation Z turns against Erdoğan’, Foreign Policy, 15 July, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/07/15/turkey-youth-education-erdogan/, accessed 10 February 2023. TUIK (2020), İstatistiklerle Gençlik 2019, Ankara: TUIK. TUIK (2021), İstatistiklerle Gençlik 2020, Ankara: TUIK. Tunçay, Mete (1999), Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Tek-Parti Yönetiminin Kurulması (1923–1931), Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Türk Gençliği 98: Suskun Kitle Büyüteç Altında (1999), Ankara: İstanbul Mülkiyeliler Vakfı / Konrad Adenauer Vakfı. Türk Gençliği ve Katılım (2001), Istanbul: ARI Düşünce ve Toplumsal Gelişim Derneği. Türk Üniversite Gençliği Araştırması: Üniversite Gençliğinin Sosyo-Kültürel Profili (2003), Ankara: Gazi Üniversitesi Yayını. TÜSIAD (Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association) (1999), Turkey’s Window of Opportunity: Demographic Transition Process and Its Consequences, March, https://www. tusiad.org/en/reports/item/9140-turkey-s-window-of-opportunity-demographic-transitionprocess-and-its-consequences, accessed 10 February 2023. UNDP (2008), ‘Human Development Report 2008: Youth in Turkey’, United Nations Development Programme, March, https://hdr.undp.org/content/youth-turkey, accessed 10 February 2023. Zürcher, Erik Jan (1984), The Unionist Factor. The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement 1905–1926, Leiden: Brill.

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44 Development of the Turkish Higher Education System between 1923 and 2023 Burhan Barlas (Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University)

Introduction

K

nowledge is replacing the role of the physical capital system as a source of wealth creation, especially with the development of higher education. As knowledge becomes more important, the significance of higher education for development increases accordingly. With the development of the higher education system, universities today are where knowledge is produced, interpreted, enriched, critiqued and transferred. Key roles such as improving the abilities of new generations, increasing their cultural and scientific competencies, and improving their critical thinking capacities are entrusted to these institutions. Higher education institutions have an important place in social life too in that they have the potential to deeply affect our societies with their features such as sharing information, imparting contemporary and critical thinking skills, and training qualified individuals. Therefore, higher education institutions have been very active socially and politically in modern times. It is not surprising, therefore, that discussions on higher education in Turkey have been an integral part of politics and concerns in the past and the steps to be taken in this regard are often reduced to ideological slogans. Due to their important social roles, universities, academies and colleges have attracted the attention and sensitivity of the public in Turkey, and the problems of higher education have been a focal point of politics throughout the Republic’s 100-year history. These debates, which express social aspirations and wishes, have from time to time led to changes and reform attempts in the university system. In fact, the first important developments were made after the establishment of the Turkish Republic with the ‘1933 reform’. Afterwards, reform developments continued with laws enacted in 1946 and 1973. The last radical change regarding the Turkish higher education system was made in 1981 in the 583

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584 | burhan barlas aftermath of the 1980 military coup. With Law No. 2547, the higher education system in Turkey was reshaped with the principle of integrity and a new scope was added to the system (Baskan, 2001: 24). In this process, one of the key goals was the opening of new universities in every city in Turkey. Following this, in the process of applying for full membership of the European Union, Turkey has taken new measures to increase the competitiveness of Turkish higher education and ensure the continuation of improvements in European higher education in the future. Therefore, with this overall context in mind, this chapter will evaluate the development of the Turkish higher education system from the proclamation of the Republic to the present, with a particular reference to the role of this process in Turkey’s full membership application to the EU. The 1923–46 Period After the proclamation of the Republic, modernisation took place in higher education institutions, as was the case in every field. In this framework, the three-pronged and difficult to control educational activities from Ottoman times, consisting of religious education institutions, general education institutions and foreign schools, were gathered under one umbrella with the Law on the Unification of Education (Tevhîd-i Tedrîsât Kanunu) of 3 March 1924. On 1 April 1924, the name of the oldest university of that period was changed from Darülfünun-u Osmaniye to İstanbul Darülfünun under Law No. 493, and it gained financial autonomy and legal status with its own budget (Namal & Karakök 2011: 30). While the financing of higher education was generally provided through foundations in the Ottoman period, it was replaced by public financing with the enactment of the Law on the Unification of Education after the Republic. However, soon after, as a newly established country and under the overall economic conditions of the period, financing problems in higher education emerged (Kılıç 1999: 297). These issues were also discussed in detail in the report of a Swiss professor, Albert Malche, who was invited by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk to examine and reform the Darülfünun. Based on this report, the Darülfünun was closed under Law No. 2252 and reopened under the name of Istanbul University in November 1933. With these developments, the old structure of Istanbul University changed significantly (Tekeli 2019: 287). This reform was indeed radical. Because, together with many faculty members coming from Germany, serious developments were achieved in terms of structure and quality of education, and the positive effects of the reform were seen as an important starting point for entering the modern university path. The following issues were important factors in the abolition of the Darülfünun and the establishment of Istanbul University, which indicate the drivers of such a reform process at the time:

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the turkish higher education system | 585 1. Not playing an important role in the establishment of the Turkish Revolution, opposing or resisting the reforms; 2. Lack of a supervisory body; 3. Not doing scientific studies; 4. Being disconnected from society. Especially with the arrival of many Jewish professors fleeing Nazi Germany, Istanbul University and other higher education institutions in Ankara (Agriculture Institute, Faculty of Law) became important centres in education and research (Yazar & Averbek 2018: 1347). According to the first article of the Istanbul University Regulations published in October 1934, the duties of the university were as follows (Korkut 2003): 1. To conduct research, to spread national culture and higher knowledge; 2. To train qualified personnel for state- and country-level jobs. In the period from 1933 to 1946, the university rector was appointed by the president with the recommendation of the minister of national education, and the deans were appointed by the minister of national education with the recommendation of the rector. During this period, the rector’s powers were limited. The rector, who presided over the senate, had only one vote and the senate made the decisions. In 1946, when the multi-party period started, universities were given autonomy and this autonomy was interpreted through the election of rectors and deans by faculty members to a large extent (Doğramacı 2007: 15). While reform initiatives were carried out in Istanbul, between 1923 and 1941, the number of newly opened departments and university buildings nearly doubled, while the number of faculty members increased threefold; but the increase in demand for higher education over the same period was more than eight times (Günay & Günay 2011: 2–3). Therefore, the years 1933–46 were also the years when higher education institutions spread to Anatolia. The 1946–1980 Period In 1946, Turkey switched from the single-party system to the multi-party electoral system, and there was a new university reform with Law No. 4936, whose main purpose was ‘to link the conditions of training, selection and promotion of university professors to certain principles, thereby establishing the university teaching profession based on law and thus enabling them to develop more quickly’ (Meriç 1998: 52). Accordingly, universities and all their affiliated organs were regulated by this law, which gave universities a new status. Under it, they gained financial, managerial and scientific autonomy. However, since most of their revenues were covered by the state budget, their financial autonomy was still a significant question.

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586 | burhan barlas In 1946, Ankara University was established by merging schools, faculties and institutes that were previously established. It thus became the first university in Turkey to be established outside Istanbul. Another important change that happened during this period was the change of the educational system model. Until 1950, higher education institutions in Turkey adopted the model of continental Europe in terms of a university system. Especially after the 1950s with the change of government, the structure of Turkish universities continued to change. The main reason for that was the new government’s intention to convert to a free-market economic system and the belief that an American university model would meet the required manpower of a growing economy. Due to such changes at the policy level, new efforts were made to establish universities in other major big cities of Turkey (Karasaç & Sağın 2019: 40–1). In the 120th article of the 1961 Constitution, which was written after the 1960 military coup, eleven universities were defined as institutions with ‘scientific and administrative autonomy and legal personality’, and academic members were granted privilege, for they cannot be suspended from their duties by authorities other than the university. Accordingly, faculty members could join any political party and take part in their activities whenever they wanted (Feyzioğlu 1983: 128). Moreover, universities would be managed by bodies they chose, and faculty members and assistants could not be removed from their duties by authorities outside the university, which can be interpreted as an expression of broader and wider structural and administrative changes than had been made until that time. Unlike the 1924 Constitution, the 1961 Constitution does not contain provisions on how to elect administrators such as the rector and dean. The constitution left the authority to determine the elections and powers of university bodies to the legislature (Küçükcan & Gür 2009: 135). Until the 1960s, many faculties accepted applicants without examination. However, with the decision of the Interuniversity Board to conduct university entrance centrally in 1974, the Student Selection and Placement Centre was established and entrance exams have been run by this centre since then (Toker 1997: 3). Meanwhile, with the Private Schools Law enacted in 1965, private schools began to be opened. The number of private higher education institutions has increased over time because of the inability of state higher education institutions to meet the demand for higher education and the inadequacy of these institutions in increasing the quota (Akyüz 2008). In January 1971, after another military coup, the Constitutional Court annulled the relevant article of law, relying on the article of the constitution stating that universities can only be established by the state, and considering colleges as universities. In 1973, the Universities Law No. 1750 was enacted which introduced additional changes in the higher education system. The most important innovation brought by this law was the establishment of the Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK) to conduct research, examination and evaluations to guide higher education and ensure

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the turkish higher education system | 587 coordination among universities. However, the life of YÖK was very short, and its establishment in 1975 was cancelled by the Constitutional Court (Baskan 2001: 27). In line with the goal of expanding higher education, the number of universities, which was only eight until 1971, reached nineteen by 1978. However, the schooling rate in higher education had still barely reached 9 per cent (Gül & Gül 2015: 54). During the 1946–1980 period, the developments had a significant impact on the higher education system in Turkey. However, the lack of coordination and cooperation among higher education institutions in this period and the disruptions in long-term plans and management caused the development of higher education institutions to fall behind what was expected. For this reason, new reforms had to be made (Kılıç 1999: 301). From the Council of Higher Education to the Present The 1980 military coup caused an even more strict restriction in the 1982 constitution on the autonomy of universities from the point of view of students and the universities themselves. While the understanding of mass education came to the fore, universities were subjected to serious pressures and were restructured by the military regime (Gül & Gül 2015: 54). Higher education reform was undertaken through the adoption of the Higher Education Law No. 2547. And with this adoption the Universities Law No. 1750 was repealed. Some articles of the Higher Education Law No. 2547 were amended after a short time (20 April 1982), and the powers of YÖK, which was re-established according to this law, were expanded (Yükseköğretim Kanunu 1981: 5381). Therefore, with the Higher Education Law No. 2547 enacted in 1981, faculties, academies, institutes and colleges were combined under the same roof and all higher education institutions were connected to universities. The current Turkish higher education system is regulated by the 1982 Constitution and the Higher Education Law No. 2547. With this law, the Turkish higher education system was separated from the continental European model and followed the basic principles of the Anglo-Saxon system (Gürüz 2001: 305). Also, with Law No. 2547, YÖK was established for a second time in 1981, as a constitutional institution. The most significant duties of the council were defined as directing the activities of higher education institutions such as ‘planning, regulation, management, teaching and research’. With the adoption of the Higher Education Law, the management of the twenty-seven existing universities at the time was left to YÖK (YÖK 2020). Law No. 2547 also included important changes in the administrative dimension, and it was stipulated in the relevant regulation that the appointment would be made by the president with the recommendation of YÖK. Before the establishment of YÖK, higher education was not in unity either within itself or within the national education system. Duties and obligations related to higher education were determined and regulated by

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588 | burhan barlas different laws. The diversity in these laws on higher education caused confusion and prevented higher education institutions from performing their functions. There are many important innovations brought by the Higher Education Law (Kılıç 1999: 303): 1. It gathered universities, academies and colleges (including conservatories, vocational and art schools) under the roof of a university and announced the equivalent of academic titles (doctorate, associate professorship, professorship) determined by laws at different times. 2. The Council of Higher Education, which the Constitutional Court found unlawful and annulled in 1975, was re-established with broader powers. 3. It brought all the schools teaching above secondary education together under the name of higher education. 4. It established the Higher Education Supervision Board, affiliated to the Higher Education Board, whose members are selected by appointment. 5. It establishment an Interuniversity Board elected by the rectors and university senates. 6. It connected the Student Selection and Placement Centre to YÖK. Due to the economic changes made after the 1980s within the framework of the new liberal economic ideology, it was envisaged that the state would be downsized and withdrawn directly from the process of producing public goods and services, thereby leaving production to the private sector or performing it in competition with the private sector. This led to the emergence of some changes in university education services. Thus, it was envisaged to allow foundation universities to be established. In this period, the number of higher education institutions gradually increased (Gül & Gül 2014: 54). Also, besides these developments, the 1982 Constitution brought some very important changes for higher education institutions. We can list them as follows (Küçükcan & Gür 2009: 139): 1. Apart from state universities, private foundation universities can also be established, ‘subject to the supervision and control of the state’ and ‘provided that they are not for the purpose of profit’. 2. Academic freedoms in universities are limited by vague laws such as ‘acting against the existence and independence of the state and the integrity and indivisibility of the nation and country’. 3. Universities and their affiliated units are under the supervision and control of the state and security services will be provided by the state. 4. Rectors will be selected and appointed by the president of the Republic and deans by YÖK.

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the turkish higher education system | 589 After these developments, the term of office of the rectors was increased from three to five years, and they were equipped with wide powers and responsibilities. Due to these and similar changes in terms of administration, the public and the parliament were affected because of prejudices and incomplete information in the higher education administration, and as a result of discussions Law No. 3826 of 1992 was put into effect. With this law, it was stipulated that rector candidates should be determined by secret ballot of university faculty members, and the term of office was reduced from five to four years (Yükseköğretim Kanunu 1981: 5392). In the 2000s, the main purpose of the Turkish higher education system was to increase the number of universities, improve the balance between supply and demand and access to higher education institutions, and minimise the development differences between regions. For that reason, the framework of the AKP governments, with the slogan of ‘one university for every province’, led to the process of establishing universities in each province. The Development of European Union Education Policies in Turkey According to the decisions taken at the Essen summit held in December 1994, EU candidate countries would be able to participate in Union programmes within the annexed protocols or the European treaties as they developed. In this way, all EU member countries or countries whose candidacy process continues can benefit from the relevant programmes by establishing an independent institution that is responsible for the execution and coordination of the EU’s education and youth programmes at the country level, employs qualified professionals in the field, has financial and administrative autonomy, and is managed by a national agency (Yayan 2003: 65). At the summit held in Helsinki on 10–11 December 1999, Turkey’s candidacy for full membership was announced and a new era was entered in relations with the EU. For Turkey, whose candidacy was officially accepted, the Accession Partnership document (APD) was published on 8 November 2001, which includes the measures to be taken for short- and medium-term priorities, political and economic standards and harmonisation with the EU acquis. Based on the APD, Turkey has established three national programmes (2001, 2003 and 2008) for harmonisation with EU legislation so far. The EU publishes a progress report every year to follow up on the reform efforts and guide the process (TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı 2019). With these developments, Turkey got involved in the EU’s educational programme, the Bologna Process, with the Prague conference in 2001 and since then, it has made progress by harmonising the Turkish higher education system with the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in many respects, in line with the objectives of the process (Arslana & Bahadır 2007: 227). By participating in the Bologna Process, which is based on the target of establishing an EHEA, Turkey has tried to increase human capital together with

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590 | burhan barlas European countries through practices that include mobility, community quality management, accreditation, degree structure, a joint degree programme and qualifications (Erdoğan 2015: 744–5). The Turkish National Programme and EU Progress Report The first national programme was prepared by the EU General Secretariat in 2001 after the APD and published in the Official Gazette. In the education-related part of the national programme, firstly, an analysis of the current situation was made, and then the necessary arrangements for harmonisation with the EU acquis were included. The content of the 2001 national programme concerned the decisions taken regarding Turkey’s fulfilment of the Copenhagen criteria, consisting of situation analysis regarding the chapter titles foreseen for Turkey within the framework of the negotiation and the objectives determined for harmonisation with the EU acquis. According to the report, the situation analysis and objectives in the field of higher education were as follows (AB Bakanlığı 2001: 329–34): 1. While the schooling rate in higher education is 43 per cent on average in EU countries, it is 29 per cent in Turkey. In this context, it is aimed to increase the rate of access to higher education by raising the enrolment rate in basic education by extending compulsory education from five to eight years, and by creating a five-year development plan. 2. To better understand the application of the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) in higher education, a booklet explaining the system in detail was prepared and a meeting was held with higher education institutions on this subject. 3. It was decided to establish a National Agency responsible for the implementation of the EU Education and Youth Programmes in Turkey and to create a job description. 4. As of 2001, it was decided to start working on inclusion in the Socrates programme and to give a diploma supplement to graduate students in this context. As for higher education in general, it is understood that it was decided to switch to the ECTS in the context of the 1999 Bologna process and the creation of the EHEA. Another important decision emerging from the report was to establish the National Agency as the institution responsible for the implementation of the Socrates programme in Turkey. On 23 June 2003, a report titled ‘Implementation of the Turkish National Programme for the Adoption of the EU Acquis’ was published with the Council of Ministers’ Decision No. 5930. The decisions taken in the 2003 national programme can be summarised as follows: 1. Turkey is included in the European Community action programmes; it was decided to complete the legal arrangements regarding participation in the Socrates programme,

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the turkish higher education system | 591 youth programme and Leonardo da Vinci programme applied in the field of vocational education. 2. It was decided that the National Agency, which will be responsible for the implementation of the EU education and youth programmes in Turkey, would be established within the State Planning Organisation with the Council of Ministers’ Decision No. 3547 on 29 January 2002. 3. It was decided to increase the attractiveness of vocational education within the scope of Law No. 4702, which was enacted to encourage vocational education students to attend two-year vocational college courses in the field of education without being included in the university exam system (AB Bakanlığı 2003: 552–7). Also, in line with the Bologna declaration, YÖK has worked on issues such as making diplomas and degrees understandable (diploma supplement), quality assurance in higher education, and student and academic mobility, in addition to the ECTS. The application regarding the diploma supplement started at the end of the 2005/6 academic year. Studies on internal quality assessment and strategic planning processes in higher education institutions in Turkey have been completed. In addition, since 2004, participation has been made in the Erasmus programme, which provides mobility opportunities for both students and academics (Çelik & Karataş 2020: 114). Globalisation and rapidly developing technology have transformed the labour market into professions that require talent and skills all over the world. For this reason, the vocational education system, to which the EU attaches great importance, has been one of the most important issues addressed in the last national report in 2008. The decisions taken in the 2008 National Program are as follows (AB Bakanlığı 2008: 284–5): 1. To initiate collaborative work on the creation of a vocational training system suitable for the labour market. 2. To transform the vocational education programmes at the higher education level into a single structure based on programme integrity and to focus on applied education. 3. To emphasise that lifelong education policy should be considered in the context of increasing employment and developing human resources. Therefore, it has been decided to increase formal and non-formal education opportunities and to strengthen horizontal and vertical relations between education types. 4. To encourage e-learning and open education systems in the context of creating a knowledge-based society. 5. To plan incentive programmes for directing students to research and scientific studies, in order to ensure the quality of education. 6. To encourage higher education institutions to cooperate with the business world, in order to ensure a competitive and knowledge-based economy.

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592 | burhan barlas 7. To take the necessary measures to comply with the legislation of the lifelong learning programmes to be implemented between 2007 and 2013 by the Turkish National Agency. The priorities stated in the three national programmes are almost the same: to strengthen the quality of Turkey’s education system, enhance physical capabilities, train qualified teachers, and increase the importance of vocational education in secondary education. The most important target stated within the scope of harmonisation with the EU has been the establishment of the Turkish National Agency. After the establishment of the agency, Turkey started to take part in education programmes, and it was possible to develop the knowledge, skills and competencies of many students and trainers through education projects. Lastly, the Erasmus Plus programme, which covered the period from 2014 to 2020 when the Erasmus programme was in effect, was carried out by the EU Education and Youth Programmes Centre under the name of the Turkish National Agency (Türkiye Ulusal Ajansı 2013). In the progress reports between 1998 and 2021, it is noteworthy that Turkey was generally compatible with the EU in terms of education. However, it is underlined that there are many regulations that Turkey needs to make regarding education. The biggest problems in the reports were stated as low participation in education, gender variation in participation in education, and inadequate technical and physical conditions in vocational high schools. Turkey has gradually sought solutions to these problems and applied them to correct other problems in its system over time. In addition, it has determined and tried to implement some priorities to increase international mobility and harmonise education systems with EU member states. The studies on the establishment of the Vocational Qualifications Authority, the creation of the National Qualifications Framework and the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training show these developments. The establishment of the Turkish National Agency and the projects realised in this way are among the most important gains in education (European Commission 2021). Within the framework of harmonisation with its twenty-sixth chapter, important steps have been taken in line with the targets set within the scope of the Europe 2020 strategy and Education and Training 2020 work programme, the Bologna process and the EU Youth Strategy. Turkey has established and continues to establish various institutions to harmonise with EU countries. Although Turkey has made an effort in education, some reform studies have not reached the desired level yet. Therefore, in the 2020 Bologna process implementation report, The European Higher Education Area in 2020, it is mentioned that the Turkish higher education system has gained great momentum in recent years and has come to the fore in many fields. This report is an important indicator that shows the development or decline of the higher education systems of the countries and

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the turkish higher education system | 593 reveals the higher education scorecard of all countries involved in this process. It is a report that approaches higher education systems holistically. In the 2020 report Turkey received full marks in five areas: ‘monitoring the implementation of the ECTS with external quality assurance’, ‘level of implementation of diploma supplement’, ‘level of implementation of national qualifications frameworks’, ‘level of openness to cross-border quality assurance of agencies registered with the European Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (EQAR)’ and ‘automatic recognition level for academic objectives’ (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2020). In this way, the conformity of the Turkish qualifications framework and the qualifications framework of the EHEA were referenced. In other words, Turkey has created a common language between its own higher education system and the European higher education system (YÖK 2021). In addition, according to the report, Turkey’s report score has improved compared to past years in the areas of ‘level of student participation in external quality assurance system’, ‘level of international participation in external quality assurance’ and ‘recognition of non-formal and informal prior learning’. Also, Turkey has achieved a great improvement compared to many EHEA and OECD countries with a score of 4 out of 5 on these topics (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2020). The findings in the report show that the Turkish higher education system has developed and has been through a rapid recovery process in recent years, and it has been registered at the ministerial summit of the Bologna process. Conclusion Turkey’s history of higher education has undergone many changes and innovations over the last 100 years. Although these changes have brought rapid developments with significant improvements, they have also brought some conflicts. Unique to Turkey, the effort to keep up with the times on the one hand and to feed on the roots on the other has led to the search for a new system with endless discussions. This problem has made its impact felt since the beginning of Turkish higher education history. The problem was coded as the modern content of the concept of the university within higher education, which is conditioned to research, and the Turkish education tradition to transference, and this tension has not been resolved. The problems experienced in higher education tried to be solved through laws, but they continued in critical aspects such as research transmission, and scientific and managerial autonomy. While the Turkish higher education system has experienced differences in the historical process, there have also been important numerical developments. The number of higher education institutions increased from 1 to 209 (YÖK 2022). However, in order to increase the quality of higher education and to ensure development through science, it is necessary to give importance to qualitative aspects along with quantitative developments. Another

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594 | burhan barlas important development was the appointment of rectors to state and private foundation universities by the president of the Republic with the decree-law made in 2018. This situation has been criticised because it is a matter that limits the autonomy of universities. After the recognition of Turkey as a candidate country at the 1999 Helsinki summit and the preparation of the Accession Partnership document, it is observed that cooperation and harmonisation with the EU in the field of education have gained momentum within the framework of the calendar and priorities defined in the Turkish national programme for the adoption of the EU acquis. In the national reports published in 2001, 2003 and 2008, education, vocational training and youth were among the short-term targets. In addition, among the short-term objectives in the Accession Partnership document, it was envisaged to establish a unit to fulfil the duties of the National Agency and to establish the necessary administrative and financial mechanisms for participation in EU education programmes. Significant changes in the Turkish higher education system in the last two decades have been consistently associated with the Bologna process. It is possible to say that the foundations of many changes in the field of higher education have been laid in the context of the Bologna process, especially under the leadership of the Council of Higher Education. According to the EU progress reports, Turkey has made good progress in the field of education despite its deficiencies. However, there are still fundamental challenges to respond to in order to raise the standards of education and research at Turkish universities, and for the country to enable its socio-economic basis further, this will remain a critical area for action. References AB Bakanlığı (2001), 2001 Ulusal Raporu, Ankara: AB Bakanlığı. AB Bakanlığı (2003), 2003 Ulusal Raporu, Ankara: AB Bakanlığı. AB Bakanlığı (2008), 2008 Ulusal Raporu, Ankara: AB Bakanlığı. Akyüz, Yahya (2008), Türk Eğitim Tarihi: M.Ö. 1000–M.S. 2008. Ankara: Pegem. Arslana, Mehmet Metin and Harun Bahadır (2007), ‘2007 Bologna Süreci ve Türkiye’, Sosyal Bilimler Araştırmaları Dergisi 2(2): 222–9. Baskan, Gülsun Atanur (2001), ‘Türkiye’de Yükseköğretimin Gelişimi’, Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi 21(1): 21–32. Çelik, Koray and Abdullah Karataş (2020), Yükseköğretimde AB: Türkiye İlişkilerinin Tarihsel Gelişimi, Gölbaşi: İKSAD. Doğramacı, İhsan (2007), Türkiye’de ve Dünyada Yüksek Öğretim Yönetimi, Ankara: Meteksan Yayınları. Erdoğan, Armağan (2015), ‘Current and Future Prospects for the Bologna Process in the Turkish Higher Education System’, in Adrian Curaj, Liviu Matei, Remus Pricopie, Jamil Salmi and Peter Scott (eds), The European Higher Education Area: Between Critical Reflections and Future Policies, Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

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the turkish higher education system | 595 European Commission (2021), Avrupa Komisyonu Tarafından Hazırlanan Türkiye Raporları 1998–2021, Brussels: European Commission. European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2020), The European Higher Education Area in 2020: Bologna Process Implementation Report, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Feyzioğlu, Bedi (1983), ‘Üniversite Özerkliği’, Maliye Araştırma Merkezi Konferansları 28: 127–32. Gül, Songül Sallan and Hüseyin Gül (2015), ‘Türkiye’de Yükseköğretimin Gelişimi, Güncel Durumu ve Eleştirisi’, Toplum ve Demokrasi 8(17): 51–66. Günay, Durmuş and Aslı Günay (2011), ‘1933’den Günümüze Türk YükseköğretimindeNiceliksel Gelişmeler’, Yükseköğretim ve Bilim Dergisi 2011(1): 1–22. Gürüz, Kemal (2001), Dünyada ve Türkiye’de Yükseköğretim Tarihçe ve Bugünkü Sevk ve İdare, Ankara: ÖSYM Yayınları. Karasaç, Fatih and Abdüsselam Sağın (2019), ‘Türk Yükseköğretim Sistemi: Erişim, Yönetim ve Kalite’, Journal of European Theoretical and Applied Studes 7(1): 33–57. Kılıç, Ramazan (1999), ‘Türkiye’de Yükseköğretimin Kapsamı ve Tarihsel Gelişimi’, Dumlupınar Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 1999(3): 289–310. Korkut, Hüseyin (2003), ‘Türkiye’de Cumhuriyet Döneminde Üniversite Reformları’, Milli Eğitim Dergisi 160, http://dhgm.meb.gov.tr/yayimlar/dergiler/Milli_Egitim_Dergisi/160/ korkut.htm, accessed 31 March 2023. Küçükcan, Talip and Bekir S. Gür (2009), Türkiye’de Yükseköğretim Karşılaştırmalı Bir Analiz, Ankara: Seta. Meriç, Metin (1998), ‘Türkiye’de Yükseköğretimde Finansman Sorunu’, Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi İktisadi İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi 13(1): 49–66. Namal, Yücel and Tunay Karakök (2011), ‘Atatürk ve Üniversite Reformu (1933)’, Yükseköğretim ve Bilim Dergisi 2011(1): 27–35. TC Dışişleri Bakanlığı (2019), ‘Ulusal Programlar’, 5 July, https://www.ab.gov.tr/ulusal-programlar_46225.html, accessed 13 February 2023. Tekeli, İlhan (2019), ‘Modern Türkiye’de Bilim ve Üniversite (1923-2019)’, in Ahmet Şimşek (ed.), Modern Türkiye Tarihi, Ankara: Pegem. Toker, Fethi (1997), Türkiye’de Yükseköğretime Giriş, Ankara: ÖSYM. Türkiye Ulusal Ajansı (2013), Erasmus+ Katılım Anlaşması (2014–2020), Ankara: Türkiye Ulusal Ajansı. Yayan, Melik (2003), ‘AB Eğitim Programları ve Türkiye’nin Yararlanma Kaabiliyeti’, Milli Eğitim Dergisi 158, https://dhgm.meb.gov.tr/yayimlar/dergiler/Milli_Egitim_Dergisi/158/yayan. htm, accessed 31 March 2023. Yazar, Taha and Emel Averbek (2018), ‘1933 Üniversite Reformundan Günümüze Türkiye’de Üniversitelerin Tarihsel Gelişimi’, Turkish Studies 13(4): 1341–60. YÖK. 2010. Yüksek Öğretimde Yeniden Yapılanma: 66 Soruda Bologna Süreci Uygulamaları. Ankara: Yükseköğretim Kurulu. YÖK (2020), The Law on Higher Education, YÖK.

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596 | burhan barlas YÖK (2021), ‘Türk Yükseköğretim Sisteminin 5 alani Avrupa’da başariyla tescillendi’, 9 February, https://www.yok.gov.tr/Sayfalar/Haberler/2021/2020-yili-bologna-sureci-uygulama-raporu. aspx, accessed 13 February 2023. YÖK (2022), Yök İstatistik. https://istatistik.yok.gov.tr/ Yükseköğretim Kanunu (1981), ‘Yükseköğretim Kanunu’, 4 November, available at https:// www.mevzuat.gov.tr/: https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/mevzuatmetin/1.5.2547-20150404.pdf, accessed 13 February 2023.

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45 Turkey’s Civil Society between Repression, Neoliberalisation and Grassroots Mobilisation Bilge Yabanci (Northwestern University and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)

C

ivil society refers to the ‘social spheres of activism’ where ‘interaction between the state/rulers and organised societal forces’ unfolds constantly (Cohen & Arato 1994; Edwards 2004; Foley & Edwards 1996). As a virtual sphere, civil society is in the middle of power relations and ‘hegemony’, that is, consent and legitimacy as they are ‘produced by the regime-holders and challenged by counter groups’ (Yabanci 2019: 289). Civil society is populated by institutionalised membership-based organisations such as interest groups, associations, foundations and (I)NGOs as well as loosely organised horizontal networks and social movements based on issue-based contentious mobilisation. The common point of these civil society actors is their goal to influence public policy and/or shape public opinion. This chapter offers an overview of the evolution of civil society and social movements in Turkey with a special focus on tumultuous state–society relations. It starts with a historical and structural background in the late Ottoman modernisation/early Republic and particularly elaborates on the transformation of civil society during the recent autocratisation through executive aggrandisement under the rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP). The Historical Background of Civil Society The literature on Turkey’s civil society tends to divide its development into four periods: (1) late Ottoman, (2) early Republican, (3) multi-party transition, (4) post-1980 coup (Özçetin et al. 2014). While this template of periodisation has some benefits, it focuses attention on the continuity of the restrictive structures at the expense of the actors. This chapter will prioritise the developments that went against the tide of the restrictive state and led to the emergence of a dynamic civil society and grassroots mobilisations in modern Turkey. A particular focus will be the last two decades of AKP rule. 597

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598 | bilge yabanci Lack of Political Opportunities under Strong State Tradition Any discussion concerning civil society in Turkey requires an understanding of the historical impact of the state tradition in late Ottoman Turkish political life. Current issues such as the approach of the state to civil society, society and state relations, and civic-social opposition to politics’ current autocratisation cannot be discussed without taking this historical background into account. Social and political life in the Ottoman Empire was dominated by the upper hand of the centralised state structure. Many scholars have argued that the core reason for civil society’s underdevelopment is the presence of a powerful state that was immune to social demands. According to Şerif Mardin (2000), one of the main features of the state was its intolerance of opposition and social scrutiny. Metin Heper (1985) juxtaposes the strong centralised state tradition with feudalism, aristocracy, an autonomous church, guilds and city-states in France and Britain to account for different development levels of independent civil society in Turkey and western Europe. The relationship between state and society was set through strong hierarchical patronage ties that structurally freed the state from concerns of societal legitimacy (Insel 2002; Mardin 1969). Production systems controlled by top-down measures and extended periods of war from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century prevented private capital accumulation and mobilisation of labour, and this in turn delayed the emergence of modern citizenry and civil society. The strong state tradition placed a major obstacle in the way of the development of civil society and participatory democracy (Özbudun 2003; Toprak 1995). The structural interference in civil society continued during the transition and the Republican period. The security and persistence of the state were prioritised over social demands and participation. Top-down modernisation efforts also ensured that the state had the upper hand in designing civil society by sanctioning or directly establishing some organisations while oppressing alternative bottom-up mobilisations. One example is the repression of autonomous women’s organisations and publications led by Turkish and Armenian feminists during the early Republican era (Öztürkmen 2013). Ankara did not recognise a new party, Kadınlar Halk Fırkası (the Women’s People’s Party), established by circles around the women’s rights activist Nezihe Muhiddin to gain seats in the parliament and expand women’s social and political rights. Later, the same women established Türk Kadinlar Birligi (the Union of Turkish Women), which was forced to close after Muhiddin faced a series of trials (Zihnioğlu 2019). The Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), however, aimed to coopt women into the organisation by inviting them to join Halkevleri (People’s Houses), an unofficial wing of the party. The republican elites preferred ‘state feminism’ to the grassroots autonomous civil society and limited women’s rights mostly to suffrage and

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turkey’s civil society | 599 a new civil code (Tekeli 1986). The early fate of autonomous women’s mobilisation is a good example illustrating how state elites tended to construct and control civil society in a top-down fashion to serve ‘the consolidation and promotion of the official state ideology’ (Özçetin et al. 2014). Similarly, trade unionism was effectively restricted by legislation until the late 1940s. As Ergin Yildizoğlu and Ronnie Marguiles (1984) argue, in line with the Kemalist idea of classless society, the state adopted a paternalistic approach towards labour while not permitting self-organisation. After the transition to multi-party democracy in the 1950s the rule of the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) was no different. Despite the DP’s populism to reach out to underrepresented rural populations, the government restricted workers’ mobilisations. For example, the Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (Türkiye İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, Türk-İş) was established in 1952 but remained under the influence of the state, concerned more about ‘maintaining good relations with the government than [about] harnessing the workers’ movement from below to wrest better wages and conditions’ (Yildizoğlu & Margulies 1984). For most of the Cold War, civil society activities were regulated and circumscribed against communist or Islamist ‘threats’. Multi-party democracy was regularly interrupted by military coups that contained the depth and breadth of civil society and civic participation (TÜSEV 2006). The 1980 coup was particularly destructive as the military regime considered organised citizenry as a source of lawlessness and anarchy and abolished trade unions, the majority of associations and political parties as well as the freedoms of assembly and association. Overall, historical-political structures imposed severe impediments on participatory and pluralistic civil society (Heper & Yildirim 2011). Autonomous civil society organisations (CSOs) and grassroots mobilisations have always been viewed with suspicion as the breeding ground for ‘hidden agendas’ that would harm national security and facilitate ‘terrorism’ and ‘anarchism’. The civic sphere and organised citizenry are to be tamed or coopted to counter threats against the state’s survival. Consequently, civil society participation in policymaking procedures is discretionary. In the absence of guidelines and principles, most CSOs are excluded from public consultations and policymaking. The limited number of consultations between the state and civil society take place on an ad hoc or personal basis (TÜSEV 2013b). This situation has also limited the impact of CSOs in terms of holding policymakers accountable, responding to and representing societal demands and empowering citizens (Aktan et al. 2007; Icduygu et al. 2011; TÜSEV 2006; Yegen et al. 2009). Furthermore, resources and cooperation between CSOs remains underdeveloped given low civic participation due to fear of backlash from security forces or bans for certain professions to engage in civil society (TÜSEV 2006; TÜSEV 2010).

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600 | bilge yabanci However, beyond the historical, structural and institutional limitations, Turkey’s civil society has also witnessed several crucial periods of emergence, revitalisation and dynamism. The next section will turn to these periods of civil society’s (trans)formations. Emergence of Civil Society and Social Movements Following the 1960 coup, Turkey attained its most liberal constitution, offering a greater opportunity for social and civic mobilisations. The following period in the 1960s and 1970s was marked by unprecedented labour activism with the establishment of the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (Türkiye Devrimci İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu, DİSK) and youth/student movements. The rise of trade unionism in the 1960s can be attributed to industrialisation of the economy, migration from rural to urban areas since the 1950s and the emergence of an industrial working class active in the manufacturing sector. As a result, the number of unionised workers skyrocketed in both DİSK and Türk-Iş. Strikes, now legalised, rallied large numbers of workers during the 1960s and 1970s. The state tradition still attempted to curb grassroots labour mobilisations. In 1970, an amended Law of the Unions aimed to limit the nationwide impact of trade unions. The Labour Ministry announced that ‘unions which have become tools of ideological movements [that is, DİSK-affiliated unions] will automatically be abolished as soon as the law is passed’ (cited in Yildizoğlu & Margulies 1984). However, this time civil society’s response was different from previous state attempts at closure or cooptation. DİSK-affiliated workers launched one of the largest labour protests in the history of Turkey, known as the 15–16 June protests (Sülker 2005). Thousands of workers started a march from various districts in Istanbul and protests spread to other cities (Öztürk 2001). Encouraged by the large-scale protests, opposition parties (the CHP and the TİP (Türkiye İşçi Partisi, Workers’ Party of Turkey)) took the amendments to the Constitutional Court, which eventually annulled them (Ateşoğullari 2003). The 1970 military coup also tried to maintain a ban on strikes but could not do so, and working-class mobilisation continued to expand until the 1980 coup. This was a result of not only the ideological empathy of the CHP social-democratic government led by Bülent Ecevit but also the impressive self-organisation capacity and reach of the trade unions. Even the Nationalist Front government – composed of right-leaning, including far-right and Islamist-conservative, parties – had to give several concessions in policymaking to labourers. Strikes lasted for months accompanied by the occupation of factories and mines. Daily wages and the collective bargaining power of organised workers progressively expanded in the 1970s. DİSK gained the ability to rally up to 300,000 workers at one time for a general strike to force the government to abandon its efforts to preserve military courts (Yildizoğlu & Margulies 1984).

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turkey’s civil society | 601 The same period also witnessed a politicised youth/student movement organised around student unions (Feyzioglu 2004). Sit-ins, occupations, protests and boycotts became widely used means to express demands in the 1960s among leftist youth. Before militant and violent clashes took precedence between socialist/communist and far-right/nationalist students in the 1970s, students mobilised through non-violent means to demand education reform and an end to the surveillance and repression of universities by the DP government. Among their demands were also an increase in the capacity of universities, equal opportunities in education and representation of students in faculty administrations (Bakindi 2001). However, the 1970s also showed that civil society is not necessarily a force for peaceful, prodemocracy actions. Increasing tension between the state and civil society, heavy repression targeting grassroots mobilisation and fights within civil society, especially between socialist/ communist and far-right nationalist youth networks, demonstrated that civil society is not immune to the impact of autocratic, violent, militant and nationalist ideas. Civil society expanded in a second wave after the 1980 military coup with the proliferation of rights-based CSOs in a very different mode than the first wave of social movement-type mobilisations. One factor for this rupture is the multiplication and pluralisation of actors, demands and identities mobilised through the civic space. Women, Kurds, Alevis and Islamists became regularly represented in civil society (Kadıoğlu 2005; Ketola 2013; Kuzmanovic 2012; Seckinelgin 2006). This diversification created fertile ground for learning and practising active citizenship (Çakmaklı 2015). Another factor was the global popularity of civil society as a major force for democratisation. The role of civic mobilisations during the third wave of democratisation in the 1990s motivated the international community of donors to promote civil society for development and democratisation (Mercer 2002). The result was the neoliberalisation of civil society with the creation of a professional NGO sector in several countries, which was considered an antidote to abusive and incapable state power (Alvarez 2009). The reflections of this global trend of civil society promotion in Turkey became visible in the intensified EU–Turkey relations in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The EU distributed aid towards development of CSOs tasked to carry out projects. This situation has fundamentally transformed the civil society ecology in Turkey. Compared to the previous decades when civic engagement and organic grassroots mobilisation dominated civil society, civil society became dominated by a professionalised NGO sector but has also been depoliticised (Petras & Veltmeyer 2005). Consequently, NGO-isation created a gap between civil society and the public. Voluntary participation and membership in civil society have remained very limited despite the improvements in the quantity of civil society activity (Sener 2014; YADA 2016; Yegen et al. 2009). Therefore, when the AKP came to power in 2002, two factors determined the civil society outlook. First, the statist tradition was omnipresent. Legal limitations imposed

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602 | bilge yabanci by the 1980 coup in the name of ‘national security’ and a general suspicion and hostility towards civil society prevented many citizens from engaging in civil society and activism. Second, professional NGOs were versed in competing for EU funding but detached from society (Ergun 2010). Civil society mobilised to delivering services (like emergency or social) that the state would no longer provide rather than organising collective action and grassroots representation (Yabanci 2021a). Civil Society’s Transformation during the AKP Period The AKP came to power amid a triple crisis: the economy, the party system and democratic representation. Its rule during the early 2000s was a brief break in the statist approach to civil society. In 2004, the AKP issued the Law on Associations, and in 2008 the Foundations Law, easing the regulatory framework concerning domestic workings and foreign funding. Moreover, some CSOs were involved in policymaking and public opinion formation under the impact of EU integration. A good case is the inclusion of women’s organisations preceding the endorsement of the Istanbul Convention in 2011. However, vague restrictions on civil society remained intact such as provisions banning civic organisations from acting against ‘law and morality’ and ‘the characteristics of the Republic’. These restrictions limited civil society’s growth and impact in policymaking. The 2012 EU Progress Report claimed that civil society faced a ‘restrictive interpretation of legislation vis-à-vis associations and harassment of their leaders’ as well as ‘fines, closure proceedings, and administrative obstacles to their operation’ (European Commission 2012). The 2007 and 2011 elections and the 2010 constitutional referendum made the AKP the dominant party. Majoritarian and increasingly authoritarian practices progressively undermined democratic procedures and institutions (Başer & Öztürk 2017; Öktem & Akkoyunlu 2017). The deepening of democratic erosion has culminated in democratic breakdown under the strong presidential system (Somer 2019). Within this framework of regime change in Turkey, civil society has also undergone a profound transformation determined by repression, cooptation and contestation. Repression The 2013 Gezi protests were a turning point for civil society. In their aftermath, civil society has become a target for critical voices and contentious mobilisation. Since the protests, ‘extensive and additional auditing and frequent fiscal penalties’ and police raids have been used to harass certain organisations (Yabanci 2019). The vague legislation is used to repress organisations working on LGBT+, cultural, religious and linguistic rights through fines, lawsuits and auditing (Keyman at al. 2017; Yabanci 2019). Another turning point was the 2016 coup attempt, which recalibrated AKP’s repression strategy towards civil society. Following the coup, 1,412 associations and 139

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turkey’s civil society | 603 foundations have been closed under the state of emergency measures. Obstacles and bans on peaceful protests and curfews, pre-emptive detention based on social media posts, and constraints on access to foreign funding have become widespread. To justify these measures and police violence, the government often resorts to the Anti-Terror Law, the Misdemeanour Law and the Law on Meetings and Demonstrations (TÜSEV 2013a). According to civil society monitoring organisations, ‘funds allocated by the European Union [are] investigated [. . .] The fact that such CSOs received international funding is presented as evidence in courts within the scope of the Anti-Terror Law’ (TÜSEV 2013a). In 2020, the AKP issued the Law on Preventing Financing of Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. While the law allegedly tackles terrorism, in practice, it limits legal activities of autonomous CSOs further, nearly paralysing them through annual inspections, high fines for fund-raising and the suspension of the entire board of an organisation in case a member faces a criminal investigation (Human Rights Defenders 2021). Repression targeting civil society is highly selective or strategic for a state aiming to undermine not only organisations but also individual activism. Academics for Peace, detentions over social media posts, and criminal libel charges are exemplary cases in this sense. To give an example, 38,581 people faced defamation charges in court by President Erdoğan, a massive leap from the 848 court cases filed by Abdullah Gul, the secondhighest figure (Bianet 2021). The motivation is to deter voicing dissent on politically sensitive issues, such as human rights, the rule of law, corruption, social justice, peace and reconciliation. Repression drains the resources of civil society in several ways such as self-censorship or avoidance of international donors, to say the least (Yabanci 2019). Particularly, the unpredictability of when and in what form the repression will come makes it an effective tool for discouraging a vocal civil society. Unpredictability exacerbates the expectation of persecution and obliges activists to prioritise survival more than mobilisation. Cooptation The second aspect of civil society’s transformation serves regime legitimation. A few months after the countrywide Gezi protests in 2013, the Ministry of the Interior launched a civil society initiative that intended ‘to support the organisational and financial development of a strong civil society sector’. The ministry organised an International Civil Society Expo, inviting CSOs that, in the ministry’s description, ‘would not cause any nuisance [and] are truly proven as voluntary and charity-oriented and not radical’ (Yabanci 2019). With this initiative, the AKP revealed its ambition to establish an ‘orderly’ civil society. Towards this goal, it has encouraged the emergence of government-oriented nongovernmental organisations (GONGOs). GONGOs have a certain autonomy in terms

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604 | bilge yabanci of their activities and membership but have close ideological and organic links with the incumbents and are dependent on their resources (Yabanci 2021d). Over the last decades, GONGOs have emerged as associations working mostly on family, youth, women and diaspora issues and as trade unions for collective bargaining. They have extensive organisational, symbolic and financial power, and they use their power to establish solid grassroots reach. For example, government-oriented youth organisations have a myriad of ways to mobilise youngsters from different age groups. They engage youth through summer camps, school clubs, dorms, extra-curricular training, electoral mobilisation and voluntarism (Yabanci 2021d). These activities allow them to shape the moral and political attitudes of youngsters in line with the AKP’s ideal of ‘national and authentic youth’. These organisations have also turned themselves into precious allies for the government by filling the gap left by the retreat of the social state from the education sector. Governmentoriented women’s organisations similarly pursue several goals and operate at multiple scales to strengthen the AKP’s gender policy, informed by nationalist-Islamic traditions. They mobilise public opinion by forming a counter-bloc to feminist women’s organisations, especially when the government pushes for controversial policies that would undermine gender equality and women’s rights (Yabanci 2016; Yabanci 2021b). The AKP’s attempt at coopting civil society has even taken a transnational dimension. Coopted diasporic civic space has particularly been useful in exploiting nationalist sentiments and insecurity among the Turkish diaspora in Europe. First, pro-AKP diaspora organisations mobilise votes for critical elections and referendums. Second, they have a unique role in transforming financial and human resources between the diaspora and Turkey, particularly by establishing patronage ties with the supporters of the government abroad. They also seek to deflate international criticism against the AKP. Finally, they serve the purposes of surveillance and control over the AKP’s opponents abroad (Yabanci 2021c). Cooptation of civil society addresses the AKP’s search for societal consent. GONGOs act as intermediaries between the captured state and various social groups. On the one hand, they transmit demands and resentments from the bottom up, and on the other they diffuse ideological and policy-related agendas and discourse from the top down. Contestation Turkey’s civil society has also witnessed a revival under autocratisation. As the AKP has manipulated electoral and partisan arenas, dissenting societal forces have turned to civil society in increasing numbers and alternative organisational forms, creating a complex and pluralistic civil society ecology. This transformation is not simply an increase in the number of activities. The quality of civic engagement has also deepened. To start with, civil society has become densely populated by novel local and regional social movements against autocratic policymaking. Impactful ones tackle environmental

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turkey’s civil society | 605 justice issues against the exploitation of natural resources, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights to challenge conservative social and gender policies, and pro-labour mobilisation against occupational hazards and the precarisation of labour. These groups do not only articulate local and temporal grievances. Their insistence on constitutional and human rights perspectives allows them to capitalise on multiple mediums of action, particularly combining classical contentious repertoire protests – sit-ins, pickets and demonstrations – with ‘off-the-street’ modes of mobilisation that constitute the majority of their collective action. These off-the-street mediums include outside lobbying, litigation at national and international courts, organisation of the public sphere, citizen assemblies, election observation, civil disobedience, reclamations of space, agenda-setting through social media, and the facilitation of citizen complaints. Citizens mobilise through various mediums, often combining several at once to reclaim rights and democratic governance. As repression of civil society has progressively increased, such efforts have maintained pockets of opposition within civil society despite a deepening crisis of democracy at the formal institutional level. To give an example, environmental justice groups do not only organise local-level protests, sit-ins and occupations to stop or delay a specific mega-infrastructure project. They reach out to wider populations by highlighting corruption and clientelism involved in policymaking. They have also realised that by adopting a rights-based perspective based on constitutional principles and the major international human rights conventions, they are more capable of establishing a sustained civic campaign. They resort to ‘the right to property against usurpations of land’ encapsulated in the constitution and ‘the right to protect and develop material and spiritual entities’ or ‘the right to live in a healthy environment’. By using these claims, they bring up charges at national courts, the Constitutional Court and in some instances the European Court of Human Rights. These do not only set a legal precedent but also demonstrate that civil society cherishes democratic practices and institutions and utilises them against the very autocratic attempt that seeks to undermine them. Similar social movements, for example for women, have generated an impressive capacity to combine multiple on- and off-street mobilisations as the target and intensity of repression keep changing (Yabanci 2021b). Contestations from civil society have created a new politicised and oppositional sector altering the ‘NGO-ised’ project-driven civil society in Turkey that dominated the 1990s–2000s. Consequently, on some occasions, new movements have emerged to establish support communities across perennial cleavages in Turkey (Kurdish–Turkish, left–right, secular–religious) (Yabanci 2021a). In other words, the AKP has inadvertently contributed to the expansion of civic engagement to new groups such as unorganised labour, neighbourhoods, rural populations and provincial cities as well as prompting the renewal of civil society through novel methods of mobilisation among the previously mobilised groups such as women.

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606 | bilge yabanci Conclusion The evolution of civil society and social movements in modern Turkey has been neither linear nor consistent. Structural impediments resulting from the strong centralised state tradition created an enduring suspicion against societal mobilisation and a top-down attempt to tame and control civil society. These factors curbed some earlier attempts at creating an autonomous civil society. However, despite structural impediments, the role of the agency is undeniable. Civil society has flourished against the repressive state tradition in different episodes: the 1960s, the post-1980 coup and the latest period of executive-led autocratisation by the AKP. Each episode is interrupted by the statist attempt at suppressing civil society. However, the collective memory and legacy of civil society and social movements prove to be difficult to erase. The last two decades under AKP rule is illustrative in this sense. Civil society is a contested terrain where autocracy can be diffused and entrenched but also resisted and challenged. It can abet both democratic and undemocratic forces. The AKP strives to limit the entry conditions and rules of operating within civil society. The incumbent has also turned to civil society to create a government-oriented sector to expand and complement the AKP’s political hegemony. Yet, the legacy of civil society as a sphere to challenge the autocratic state continues, despite the repressive strategies by incumbents. The new civil society combines several mobilisational mediums including the more traditional arsenal of social movements (protests) and newer forms (off-street mobilisation). Some unlikely alliances have emerged thanks to the role of efforts to bridge across staunch cleavages and ideologies. As long as Turkey’s civil society mobilises the grassroots through non-violent means and open space for subaltern groups, it will harbour societal forces and examples for a post-autocratic redemocratisation or better democratisation than previous periods. References Aktan, İrfan, Serap Öztürk, Zelal Ayman, Ali Fuat Sütlü, Nazmiye Güçlü, Cengiz Çiftçi and Celal İnal (2007), Issues and Resolutions of Rights-Based NGOs in Turkey, Ankara: STGM. Alvarez, Sonia E. (2009), ‘Beyond NGO‐ization?: Reflections from Latin America’, Development 52(2): 175–84. Ateşoğullari, Kamil (2003), ‘15–16 Haziran: Iki Uzun Gün ve Bur Uzun Yürüyüs’, Birleşik Metal-İş http://www.birlesikmetal.org/kitap/kitap_03/2003-4.pdf, accessed 13 February 2023. Bakindi, Mahmut (2001), ‘1970–1980 Yılları Arası Türkiye’de Üniversite Öğrenci Olayları’, master’s dissertation, Hacettepe Üniversitesi. Başer, Bahar and Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (2017), Authoritarian Politics in Turkey: Elections, Resistance and the AKP, London: I. B. Tauris. Bianet (2021), ‘Erdoğan, 38.581 “Cumhurbaşkanına hakaret” davasi açti’, Bianet, 27 August, https://www.bianet.org/bianet/insan-haklari/249374-erdogan-38-581-cumhurbaskaninahakaret-davasi-acti, accessed 13 February 2023.

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608 | bilge yabanci Özçetin, Burak, Ulaş Tol, Mehmet Calışkan and Mustafa Özer (2014), ‘Major Periods of Civil Society Sector Development in Turkey’, Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies, Comparative Nonprofit Sector Working Paper no. 52, October, available at https:// www.academia.edu/30668015/Major_Periods_of_Civil_Society_Sector_Development_in_ Turkey, accessed 13 February 2023. Öztürk, Sırrı (2001), İşçi Sınıfı Sendikalar ve 15/16 Haziran, Istanbul: Sorun Yayınları. Öztürkmen, Arzu (2013), ‘The Women’s Movement under Ottoman and Republican Rule: A Historical Reappraisal’, Journal of Women’s History 25(4): 255–64. Petras, James and Henry Veltmeyer (2005), Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, London and Ann Arbor: Pluto Press. Seckinelgin, Hakan (2006), ‘Civil Society between the State and Society: Turkish Women with Muslim Headscarves?’ Critical Social Policy 26(4): 748–69. Sener, Tulin (2014), ‘Civic and Political Participation of Women and Youth in Turkey: An Examination of Perspectives of Public Authorities and NGOs’, Journal of Civil Society 10(1): 69–81. Somer, Murat (2019), ‘Turkey: The Slippery Slope from Reformist to Revolutionary Polarization and Democratic Breakdown’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681(1): 42–61. Sülker, Kemal (2005), 15–16 Haziran Türkiyeyi Sarsan İki Uzun Gün, Istanbul: İleri Yayınları. Tekeli, Sirin (1986), ‘Emergence of the Feminist Movement in Turkey’, in Drude Dahlerup (ed.), The New Women’s Movement: Feminism and Political Power in Europe and the USA, London: Sage. Toprak, Binnaz (1995), ‘Civil Society in Turkey’, in A. R. Norton (ed.),Civil Society in the Middle East, Leiden: Brill, vol. 2, pp. 87–118. TÜSEV (2006), Civil Society in Turkey: An Era of Transition, TÜSEV, December, https://www. tusev.org.tr/en/research-publications/online-publications/civil-society-in-turkey-an-eraof-transition-civicus-civil-society-index-country-report-for-turkey, accessed 13 February 2023. TÜSEV (2010), ‘Barriers to Freedom of Association of Associations in Turkey’, TÜSEV, April, https://www.tusev.org.tr/en/research-publications/online-publications/barriers-to-freedomof-association-of-associations-in-turkey-april-2010, accessed 13 February 2023. TÜSEV (2013a), ‘Civil Society Monitoring Report 2012’, TÜSEV, August, https://www. tusev.org.tr/en/research-publications/online-publications/the-civil-society-monitoringreport-2012, accessed 13 February 2023. TÜSEV (2013b), ‘Civil Society Organizations and Public Sector Relations: Problems and Expectations’, TÜSEV, December, https://siviltoplum-kamu.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ Civil-Society-Organizations-and-Public-Sector-Relations-1.pdf, accessed 13 February 2023. Yabanci, Bilge (2016), ‘Populism as the Problem Child of Democracy: The AKP’s Enduring Appeal and the Use of Meso-Level Actors’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 16(4): 591–617. Yabanci, Bilge (2019), ‘Turkey’s Tamed Civil Society: Containment and Appropriation under a Competitive Authoritarian Regime’, Journal of Civil Society 15(4): 285–306.

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turkey’s civil society | 609 Yabancı, Bilge (2021a), ‘Civil Society and Latent Mobilisation under Authoritarian Neoliberal Governance’, in İmren Borsuk, Pınar Dinç, Sinem Kavak, and Pınar Sayan (eds), Authoritarian Neoliberalism and Resistance in Turkey: Construction, Consolidation, and Contestation, Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 211–34. Yabanci, Bilge (2021b), ‘Compliance and Push-Back: Politicization of Turkey’s Civil Society and Interest Groups under Autocratization’, APSA Newsletter 19(3): 16–22. Yabanci, Bilge (2021c), ‘Home State Oriented Diaspora Organizations and the Making of Partisan Citizens Abroad: Motivations, Discursive Frames, and Actions towards Co-opting the Turkish Diaspora in Europe’, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 21(2): 139–65. Yabanci, Bilge (2021d), ‘Work for the Nation, Obey the State, Praise the Ummah: Turkey’s Government-Oriented Youth Organizations in Cultivating a New Nation’, Ethnopolitics 20(4): 467–99. YADA (2016), ‘Verilerle Sivil Toplum Kuruluşları’, https://www.yada.org.tr/verilerle-sivil-toplumkuruluslari/, accessed 10 April 2023. Yegen, Mesut, Fuat Keyman, Mehmet Caliskan and Ulas Tol (2009), ‘Türkiye de Gönüllü Kuruluşlarda Sivil Toplum Kültürü’, https://open.metu.edu.tr/handle/11511/49724, accessed 10 April 2023. Yildizoğlu, Ergin and Ronnie Margulies (1984), ‘Trade Unions and Turkey’s Working Class’, MERIP Reports 121. Zihnioğlu, Yaprak (2019), Kadınsız İnkılap Nezihe Muhiddin, Kadınlar Halk Fırkası, Kadın Birliği, Metis Yayınları.

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46 From Silent to Emphasised Gender and Sexuality in Turkey Nil Mutluer (Universität Leipzig)

Introduction

T

he 100-year adventure of the gender and sexuality policies of the Republic of Turkey has been shaped by the interactions within Turkish modernisation, nationalism and the tension between secularism and religion. Following the Ottoman path, the founding elites of the Turkish Republic aimed to control religion’s role by adopting a unifying approach centred around Islam which was tightly controlled by Kemalist laicism (Özyürek 2006). Forged through various secular pieces of legislation and state institutions (Gözaydın 2009), a Sunni (Hanafi) Muslim, secular, Turkish identity was made the central element which gives unity to the nation. Additionally, the religious and secular identities were presented as in competition in the socio-political arena, yet that perception of a competition notwithstanding, there is a common ground which both religious and secular camps share. By integrating the intersection of corporatism, populism and nationalism as the basis of its ideology, Kemalism tried to absorb possible right-wing conservative challenges (Çiğdem 2004). Thus, both Kemalism on one side and Turkish conservatism and Islamism on the other shaped their relations with secularism by embracing the political, economic and social outcomes of modernisation while rejecting its cultural and intellectual ramifications. As a result, a culture that assimilates political and social categories became the principal modern basis for both camps (Çiğdem 2004), and policies developed on gender, sexuality and ethnicity have served to create the embodiment of ideal values. The main differences between Kemalism on one side and Turkish conservatism and Islamism on the other stem from the different values they embrace in the cultural realm as well as from their different positions in the power hierarchy. As the gender and sexuality policies of the governments changed with the socio-political conjuncture, the responses 610

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 611 of feminists and later also of the LGBTIQ+ community to these policies, as well as their socio-political demands, became more pronounced. In the course of the last 100 years, first the feminist/women’s and later the LGBTIQ+ movements have moved beyond the confines of the gender and sexuality policies to gain a prominent standing among the more effective pluralist actors of Turkey’s democratisation struggle. The main symbolic difference between the old and the new ideal women and men becomes evident mainly according to whether the references given to gender and sexuality are silent or emphasised. In the old Kemalist era, the state exercised a strict control on gender and sexuality policies, and in the Kemalist discourse the ideal woman is represented as a modern, but asexual embodiment of the secular republican values (Kadıoğlu 1998; Kandiyoti 1997). In the ‘yeni milli’ (‘new national’) discourse of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the elite of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), however, the ideal woman is religious, yet sexual in the sense that the ways she is expected to behave in civil life, the professions she is supposed to choose, the attire she is encouraged to wear are all framed in reference to her sexuality. In other words, while the Kemalist discourse ignores women’s sexuality, the ‘yeni milli’ discourse reduces women to their sexuality. Similarly, LGBTIQ+ people too are reduced to their sexuality, and their very existence is presented as a threat to ‘genel ahlak’ – the ‘general morality’ – of Turkish society. It is this visually and vocally emphasised sexuality of women, men and LGBTIQ+ people that draws and redraws the shifting boundaries of the religious, the secular and the national in the new restructuring of family, society and state relations. That visibility enables the AKP and Erdoğan first to regulate everyday life from a neoliberal and conservative perspective, and second to reshape the secular–religious divide to instil the ‘yeni milli’ – ‘yerli’ (‘homegrown’) and ‘milli’ (‘national’) – values (Mutluer 2019b). The main purpose of this chapter is to discuss the novelties and the continuities of the Turkish state’s gender and sexuality policies as well as the way women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements have conformed to or resisted these policies in the last century. To this aim, I discuss the intersectional relational dynamics between the Turkish state and women as well as LGBTIQ+ movements in three socio-political periods. The first period covers the years between the foundation of the Republic in 1923 and the coup of 12 September 1980. In that period the state had active gender and sexuality policies which were shaped according to the perceived interests of the nation-state, and women’s demands for equality were silenced and their sexualities were downplayed. Similarly, the women’s movement restricted its activism, at least until the 1960s and 1970s, to preserving and protecting the rights and liberties already gained. Following this ‘silent’ period is a period of ‘encounter’ when the women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements publicly engaged with the state’s gender and sexuality policies and became socio-political actors demanding equality, freedom and rights. This period of encounter lasted until 2007, the year when the AKP

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612 | nil mutluer won a governing majority for the second time in the general elections. Finally, there is the third period of what I call ‘emphasis’. This is a period when, as I discuss below, the AKP makes vocal use of gender and sexuality policies to further its own agenda, and the women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements emerge as one of the main focal points of social and political dissent in Turkey, actively resisting the authoritarian and patriarchal policies of the Turkish state. Period of Silence: The Republican Era to the 1980s During the late Ottoman era, particularly with the 1839 Tanzimat and 1908 Second Mesrutiyet reforms, women were granted some rights in the areas of education, inheritance and marriage, and became publicly active by gathering around associations and publications and by organising public meetings. Since then, Turkish nationalisation and modernisation on one side, and women’s struggle for equality on the other, have followed parallel courses. In the founding years of the Turkish Republic, the priorities of the nationalists and the women’s struggle for equality overlapped to a certain extent and, in their effort to further the interests of the Republic, the Kemalist elites did not hesitate to recognise some civil and political rights of women (Berktay 1998). With the civil code of 1926, women’s rights to monogamy, divorce, equality in custody and inheritance were recognised. In 1930, women’s voting rights in local elections were recognised. Universal suffrage was adopted in December 1934. The acquiescence of the Kemalist elites to the granting of certain rights to women created the illusion for some nationalist women that this was an achievement of the founder of modern Turkey, Atatürk, and the state feminism of the Kemalist elites (Tekeli 1998). Contrary to this general belief, however, it was mainly the women’s feminist struggle since the late nineteenth century which pushed Atatürk and the Kemalist state elites to take action on the issue (Çakır 1994), and women, as independent actors, had to compromise on their equality demands (Berktay [2003] 2010; Mutluer 2016; Tekeli 1998; Zihnioğlu 2003). For Kemalist elites gender and sexuality have become the embodiment and main marker of both the nationalist project and the ‘laic–Islamist’ divide in Turkey, and women were mainly granted their status publicly as the objects of the national project. It was the Kemalist state which first sought to introduce and instil new national values through the construction of an image of the ‘ideal’ modern, secular, Turkish, woman, in binary opposition to women considered as the ‘others’ – such as those from Islamic, Kurdish or other ethnic or religious backgrounds. Additionally, women’s main duty was framed within the family during the foundation of the Republic (Kadıoğlu 1998). The Kemalist state also expected women to support, if not fight alongside, the men in times of war, so they were charged with cultivating and instilling in their sons militaristic values as

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 613 well. Thus, the ideal republican woman should be the protector and symbol of modern, laic, Turkish and Sunni-Islamic values: oriented towards the West, well educated to raise her children, caring of her family, and ready to sacrifice herself for the good of society if needed (Arat 1998; Berktay 1998; Kandiyoti 1997; Mutluer 2016). More crucially, as her body had become the symbol of the nation, she should know how to protect her chastity symbolically and physically while being actively involved in various parts of everyday life (Altınay 2004; Mutluer 2008; Sirman 2004). With the transition to a multi-party system in 1946 and the beginning of the Cold War between the communist and the capitalist blocs led by the USSR and the USA respectively, the secular state gained a more ambivalent character. In this environment, on the one hand, the secular bureaucrats of the state considered communism as a bigger threat than Islamism/conservatism; they even began to see Islamism and conservatism as an antidote to communism. On the other hand, the Islamists too were willing and happy to develop alliances with the bureaucratic establishment whenever they were allowed to do so (Özkan 2019). Thus, since the 1950s, whenever the state wanted to put pressure on the left, Islamists and conservatives invariably sided with the state. This alliance between Islamists and conservatives on the one hand, and the state on the other, had direct effects on the state’s gender and sexuality policies. In this period, women’s representation in the parliament decreased, their participation in public life ceased to be an indicator of modernisation (Sancar 2012), and the main duty of women in many fields, from state policies to textbooks, began to be seen as that of a mother and a wife (Gümüşoğlu 2013). Women’s organisations in the 1940s and 1950s generally took the form of Kemalist women’s associations. In line with the Kemalist state ideology, these associations defended the rights of women by adopting the modern ‘Turkish woman’ discourse against the rising right-wing populism (Sancar 2012). Their purpose was to raise awareness about women as the caregivers of their modern families and nation (Çağatay 2020). During this period, women continued their work in various areas, from women’s development to education, from charity work to advocacy. From the 1960s, leftism and Islamism started to emerge as competing ideologies to Kemalism from within which women started to voice their demands in both groups. In the 1960s and 1970s, rural to urban migration diversified the cultural and class composition of the left- and right-wing political movements in which women participated. From the early 1970s – the 1971 military intervention notwithstanding – democratic mass organisations composed of leftist groups, trade union movements and student, teacher and civil servant associations shaped the opposition in Turkey. Although these movements were highly critical of the state, especially on such issues as class, equality and the struggle for rights, they were quite sexist structures. This sexism led to discussions among women about women’s class struggle and eventually to the formation of feminist

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614 | nil mutluer organisations like the Democratic Women’s Union (Demokratik Kadınlar Birliği) and the Progressive Women’s Association (İlerici Kadınlar Derneği) (Bağdatlı 2020). Muslim female students who started to study at universities in the 1960s took active roles in the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi, MSP) (Şefkatli Tuksal 2020). The visibility of Muslim women in the public sphere became more pronounced when the MSP became active in politics and especially after 1974, when it formed a coalition government with the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the discussion of Islamic feminism began to enter the agenda of the Muslim and Islamist movements in Turkey. The rise of the MSP in the 1970s also influenced the LGBTIQ+ movement, which started underground meetings at this time. The fact that the minister of the interior was an MSP member in the coalition government of 1974 led to an increase of pressure on the LGBTIQ+ movement, but this pressure notwithstanding, the movement continued its underground activities (Biricik 2014). The MSP, of which Erdoğan was also a member, was eventually closed after the coup of 12 September 1980. Period of Encounter: 1980–2007 The anti-communist alliance formed between the Kemalist bureaucrats of the state and the right-wing movement became particularly pronounced after the 12 September 1980 coup when state secularism started to adopt a manifestly Islamic tone (Parla 1986). The repressive regime of the coup destroyed the political and civil spaces in Turkey and almost completely suppressed the left-wing movements in particular. After the 1980 coup, the only dissenting voice to be heard in the public sphere was that of the feminist women from the leftist groups, who sought to generate a pro-equality and anti-violence public awareness. Protests, demonstrations and campaigns aimed at raising a feminist public awareness left their mark on this period and feminist themes started to appear in mainstream media outlets. For example, although the Turkish state has provided some flexibility to women regarding abortion since 1963 for demographic and economic reasons, abortion was officially legalised only after the 1980 coup, in 1983 (Çokar 2006). In mainstream public discussions and feminist publications, feminists also brought up such issues as sexual freedom, gender equality and violence against women (Şenol Cantek 2020). The Women’s Petition of 1986 (Kadınlar Dilekçesi) was perhaps the most important event which demonstrated both the strength and the legitimacy of the feminist movement (Tekeli 1998). On 7 March women submitted thousands of signatures they gathered to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, demanding the implementation of CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women), to which Turkey was one of the parties. This was followed by the march of the ‘Solidarity

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 615 against Beating’ campaign held on 17 May 1987, and the rally held in Istanbul Yoğurtçu Park at the end of March that year. This was the first authorised mass demonstration after the 1980 coup, and it was held with the participation of 2,500 women from different backgrounds and views, including trans people. Another important event of the period was the ‘Purple Needle’ (Mor İğne) campaign, which was organised in 1989, against rape and sexual violence. One of the worst methods used by the state to control women’s sexuality was forced ‘virginity checks’, which led many women to commit suicide (Parla 2001). Feminist efforts against the use of this method yielded results in 1999, when the practice was abolished with a Ministry of Justice circular. In the 1990s, the first steps toward institutionalisation began to be taken both in civil society and by the government (Özkan Kerestecioğlu 2004). Hundreds of well-known women’s NGOs were established in the 1990s, among them Mor Çatı Sığınma Vakfı (Purple Roof Shelter Foundation), Kadın Dayanışma Vakfı (Women’s Solidarity Foundation), Kadın Eserleri Kütüphanesi (Women’s Works Library), Başkent Kadın Platformu (Capital City Women’s Platform) and Kadın Adayları Destekleme Derneği (KADER, Association for Supporting Women Candidates). With the establishment of institutional structures, discussions centring around the advantages and disadvantages of operating independently or conducting project-based work financed by funding agencies entered the agenda of the feminist movement. It was also in the 1990s that the government established a General Directorate on the Status of Women. This government body was first attached to the Ministry of Labour and Social Security and then to the Prime Ministry. A State Ministry Responsible for Women was also created for the first time in this period. The 1990s were also the years when the feminist movement assumed its pluralistic identity. The ethnically discriminatory, sexist and oppressive policies of the state in the Kurdish provinces had started in the 1980s. With the declaration of a state of emergency in the eastern and southeastern parts of the country, these policies intensified in the 1990s; and with the rise of the Kurdish women’s movement, women’s demands for peace were brought to the agenda of the feminist movement. The Kurdish women’s movement was organised within the Kurdish political movement, but with its discussions and actions criticising not only the ethnic discriminatory policies of the state, but also the prevailing sexism within the opposition groups, it became a highly influential voice in the women’s movement (Çağlayan 2007; Işık 2020; Üstündağ 2016). With the headscarf bans which started with a resolution of the National Security Council in 1984, Muslim women suffered considerable losses in their rights to (higher) education as well as to employment in public positions (Göle 1997; Türkmen 2006). In those years, public (state) officials did not refrain from establishing ‘persuasion rooms’ (ikna odaları) at the entrances of the universities to put pressure on the headscarf-wearing women to unveil (Akbulut 2008; Şişman 2009). Thus, Muslim women not only carried

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616 | nil mutluer this problem to the agenda of the feminist movement, but they also began contributing to its other activities as well. With the establishment of women’s studies programmes at Istanbul University in 1989 and Ankara University in 1993, women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements started to organise around feminist and queer thought in academia as well. This was a development which gave intellectual and theoretical impetus to these movements. In the same period studies on the history of the women’s movement in Turkey also revealed the important roles that Armenian and Greek women played in the historical evolution of feminism in Turkey, for example. Lerna Ekmekçioğlu and Melissa Bilal’s book Bir Adalet Feryadı (‘A Cry for Justice’). The institutionalisation of the LGBTIQ+ movement also started in these years. Important LGBTIQ+ organisations, including LambdaIstanbul, KAOS GL, Sisters of Venus, Women’s Gate, LEGATO, Sappho’s Daughters, Black Pink Triangle, Bursa Rainbow, Pink Life LGBTI+ and Voltrans, were all founded in the 1990s. One of the notorious events that left its mark on that period was the persecution of the LGBTIQ+ community by the Beyoğlu police chief Süleyman Ulusoy, who was nicknamed ‘Hortum’ – ‘The Hose’ – because of the instrument he chose to inflict violence and torture on the transvestites who lived in Ülker Sokak. Similarly, the Bursaspor supporters’ attack on the First Gay Gathering held in Bursa in 2006, left its mark as an infamous case of mass transphobia and homophobia in Turkey. By the 2000s, feminism, as a pluralistic movement which included gender, sexual, ethnic, religious and class diversity, focused on combating legally entrenched inequalities. When the AKP came to power in 2002, its leaders were highly aware of the fact that the women’s movement was pressing hard to amend and eliminate the discriminatory provisions of the civil law and the penal code. Feminists’ pressure coincided with the AKP’s interest in presenting itself as a conservative democratic party at peace with pluralistic and secular values. Thus, willingly yielding to the pressure of the women’s movement, the AKP launched an overhaul of both laws, introducing provisions in the civil law recognising women’s equality in marriage as well as repealing provisions of the penal code, allowing penal remissions in the cases of so-called honour killings. Furthermore, as the self-proclaimed representative of Muslim democrats in Turkey, it was important for Erdoğan, then prime minister, to present himself as a defender of all sorts of civil and political freedoms and rights – so much so that, on one occasion, he even publicly endorsed same-sex relations. Through such discursive moves in the area of gender and sexuality policies, the AKP sought to come across as siding with the secular in the secular– religious divide (Mutluer 2019b). Unfortunately, however, such discursive moves neither endured for long, nor led to a permanent reversal in homophobic attitudes. Thus the AKP government of the period allowed the first Pride March of LGBTIQ+ people in

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 617 2006, yet in the same year, it also sued LambdaIstanbul for closure. But thanks to the pressure of international public opinion, to which AKP was susceptible in those years, LambdaIstanbul was saved from closure. Period of Emphasis: 2007 to Today After the AKP managed to consolidate its power base in the 2007 general elections, it started to take an authoritarian turn. During this period gender and sexuality gave Erdoğan and the AKP elites fertile ground to grow and instil the so-called ‘new national’ values. However, this authoritarian turn was not taken overnight. Discrimination on the basis of gender and sexuality first started at a discursive level, and over time, it extended to structural changes in state institutions and eventually to such extra-legal steps as the annulment of the Istanbul Convention. In a speech delivered right after the AKP was elected a second time, on 7 March 2007, that is, the eve of International Women’s Day, Erdoğan encouraged women to ‘have at least three children’. This statement not only showed that the AKP’s approach to gender and sexuality would be shaped around a constantly emphasised discourse of motherhood, but also outlined the government’s new perspective on the reproductive rights of women. Erdoğan’s speech was followed by statements made by other AKP elites on how women should behave, dress and appear in public: accordingly, women were not supposed to wear miniskirts in public, laugh out loud or even go out on the street while pregnant. All of these signalled the beginning of a new period in which women were forced into a bio-political prison not only symbolically, but also effectively, thanks to the neoliberal policies the AKP government implemented (Coşar & Yeğenoğlu 2011; Mutluer 2019b). The legislative changes that allowed women to work at home on a flexible basis were premised on the assumption that women were first and foremost mothers who bear the primary responsibility for the care of children and the elderly. These changes in the discourse and laws were also reflected in the structures of the public institutions regarding women. Thus, in 2011 the AKP changed the official name of the Ministry of Women and Family to the Ministry of Family and Social Policies. During this period, aiming to reach as many women as possible through mosques, the ministry in question signed cooperation protocols with the Diyanet, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, in order to work on the preservation of Turkish family values ​and structure (Mutluer 2014; Maritato 2017; Mutluer 2018). The Ministry of the Family was merged with the Ministry of Labour in 2018. Until these two ministries were separated again in 2021, they became the main implementers of neoliberal policies that envisaged women’s participation in the economy as religious and cheap labourers whose primary function was as the caregivers for their family.

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618 | nil mutluer Discriminatory language on the basis of gender and sexuality also provided the AKP and its leader Erdoğan with tools to convey the messages of their ‘new national’ values. Thus, for example, on 28 December 2011, thirty-four civilian Kurdish citizens lost their lives in the village of Roboski (Uludere in Turkish) when the Turkish Air Force bombed a group of border traders, apparently acting on false intelligence. In the face of rising public outrage, Erdoğan remained silent for six months, but then, in a speech he made at a demographic conference organised by the United Nations, he declared that ‘each abortion is an Uludere’. Instead of publicly apologising especially to the Kurdish citizens of Turkey for the incident, Erdoğan was, in effect, trying to take advantage of the social outrage it caused in order to gather support for a ban on abortion. Feminists and many other groups, including Muslims, reacted against this statement. Although the AKP sought to make a legal amendment to ban abortion, it had to withdraw the bill it submitted to the parliament, because of the reactions. However, even though the abortion ban amendment could not be passed through the legislature, a de facto ban was put into effect, as the overwhelming majority of state-run hospitals effectively stopped performing abortions (Mor Çatı 2015; Mor Çatı 2016). As abortions were left to be performed mostly by private hospitals, access to abortion became an issue subject to class-based discrimination. In the fight against violence against women, one of the most important agenda items of the feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements, the women’s movement succeeded in getting the Turkish government to sign and ratify the Istanbul Convention in 2011 and to pass Law No. 6284 on the Protection of Family and Prevention of Violence against Women in 2012. However, because of the lack of full implementation of the preventive and protective measures provided by the law, the number of the cases of violence against women and children, incest and femicide has increased. Feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements have continued their lobbying activities. The beginning of the 2010s was also when the erosion in the rule of law started to take effect and the AKP government and its leader Erdoğan started to take a turn towards increasing centralisation and authoritarianism. Urban and environmental policies started to favour the interests of big capital more than nature, and the pressure on different lifestyles intensified. This led many opposition groups, from nationalists and Kemalists to Kurds, from Islamists and Alevis to LGBTIQ+ people, which had not been thought able to come together before, to take to streets together during the 2013 Gezi protests (Özbank 2013). The fact that the feminist and LGBTIQ+ movements were active in Gezi, and the leftists, Alevis, Kemalists, Kurds and Islamists stood together against the government’s repressive policies, also marked the beginning of then-Prime Minister Erdoğan’s identity policies entering a period of harsh polarisation. Erdoğan’s policy of polarisation employed a public communication strategy based on non-factual assertions and false accusations, and in this respect it had a marked

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 619 methodological resemblance to the propaganda techniques used by in 28 February 1997 military coup, which targeted and victimised Islamists in general and women wearing headscarves in particular. In June 2013, at the peak of the Gezi uprising in Istanbul, a pro-government media outlet published a false news report that a group of gay men from the Gezi protests attacked a woman wearing a headscarf strolling with her baby. During the 28 February coup, the ‘headscarved woman’ was presented to society as a ‘reactionary symbol’, positioned against the ‘non-headscarved’, therefore acceptable, woman as the embodiment of the secular–Muslim socio-political dilemma. In the news report mentioned above, which was also embraced by Erdoğan, the ‘headscarved woman’ once again appeared on the scene, this time, however, not as a symbol of ‘religious reaction’, but as an oppressed but proud victim who was violently attacked by ‘immoral gays’. The goal was to position Gezi Protestors as immoral and aggressive enemies of Muslims – a rhetoric which was in line with the homophobic discourses of the AKP circles who decried ‘sexual orientation’ to be out of line with the moral values of the Turkish society.

This incident is one of the most striking examples of how the AKP elites use a vocal rhetoric focused on gender and sexuality to shape the public’s response to social opposition (Mutluer 2019b). The fact that the LGBTIQ+ movement was one of the primary targets of that rhetoric was one of the reasons why both the visibility and effectiveness of that movement increased in that period. Indeed, the LGBTIQ+ movement celebrated Pride Week for the first time in 2010. During the 2013 Gezi protests, Istanbul hosted the largest Pride parade in Europe, and after the protests, many political parties recognised LGBTIQ+ rights. Even though the state’s repression increased in that period, the LGBTIQ+ movement’s efforts to institutionalise continued, and organisations such as Listag, consisting of the families of LGBTIQ+ people, and Hevjin in Diyarbakır were established during this period. As the authoritarianism of the AKP government(s) gained momentum after the Gezi protests, restrictions on freedom of expression increased and the space of civil society gradually narrowed. In the operations of the security forces carried out during the state of emergency implemented in Kurdish provinces in 2015, hundreds of civilians, including the elderly, women and children, were injured or lost their lives. One of the most disturbing aspects of these operations was the sexist treatment by the security forces of the bodies of killed female guerrillas, which revealed the ethno-sexist perspective adopted by the security establishment in the period (Mutluer 2019a). The military coup attempt on 15 July 2016 was recorded as an important breaking point in the recent social and political history of the country. A series of executive decrees issued during the state of emergency which was declared after the coup attempt, as well as

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620 | nil mutluer the constitutional amendments adopted by a referendum held on 16 April 2017, under the state of emergency conditions, allowed Erdoğan to consolidate his power as the singlehanded ruler of the country. During the state of emergency, tens of thousands of people were dismissed from public office, imprisoned, deprived of their social and political rights, on – often unsubstantiated – allegations that they were ‘associated or connected’ with terrorist organisations. During this period, more than 400 non-governmental organisations, including those working in the fields of women’s and children’s rights, were closed down or banned from their activities (İnsan Hakları Derneği 2017). Even though Turkey had turned into an authoritarian and repressive state during the state of emergency, feminists and LGBTIQ+ people were conspicuous as one of the few groups that could demand their rights by taking to the streets despite heavy police repression. These groups actively campaigned against the adoption of the constitutional amendments in the referendum of April 2017, as they were well aware of the fact that these amendments would shelve the already damaged system of checks and balances altogether, and would have further adverse repercussions in the area of gender and sexuality policies. Unfortunately, however, the constitutional amendments have been accepted and Erdoğan got elected one more time as president, albeit with a very narrow margin. During Erdoğan’s latest period of presidency, the AKP government’s gender policies have sought to reduce the vested rights of women and restrict gender equality and sexual freedoms. For example, in 2019, a bill requiring perpetrators not to be punished if they marry the children whom they abused was brought to the parliament. Upon the huge public outrage and protests led by the women’s movement, the bill was withdrawn from the parliamentary agenda on the day when it was due for a vote. It was understood that even some of the AKP MPs could not bring themselves to give an assenting vote and decided to give the meeting a pass. Yet this did not prevent the de facto implementation of what the proposed bill stipulated, for in many cases judges released abusers on the condition that they marry their victims. Courts still give mitigated sentences to the perpetrators of violence against women, including murderers. Observing that the number of the cases of violence against women, femicide and crackdown on sexual freedoms have increased and that they are likely to continue to increase, more than 300 women and LGBTIQ+ organisations have established the EŞİK platform (Eşitlik için Kadın, Women for Equality) to effectively struggle against possible further assaults to the legal provisions safeguarding gender and sexual rights. EŞİK’s activities focused on pushing for the effective implementation of the Istanbul Convention, which was signed and ratified in 2011, but was scarcely implemented in actual practice; raising the awareness of civil society, opposition parties and the general public about the oppressive and discriminatory practices of government agencies in the areas of gender equality and sexual freedoms; and struggling for social and political equality and equality before the law.

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 621 As the activism of the women’s movement gained momentum, on the night of 20 March 2021 President Erdoğan announced that he had single-handedly decided to withdraw Turkey’s signature from the Istanbul Convention. He justified his decision on the grounds that in Article 4 of the convention, discrimination among victims of violence because of their ‘sexual orientation’ is proscribed. ‘Sexual orientation’, it was claimed, is contrary to Turkey’s ‘milli’ – ‘national’ – values and ‘genel ahlak’ – ‘general morality’ – and international conventions fail to give sufficient weight to such ‘domestic’ considerations. At the time of writing this chapter, Erdoğan and his government were pushing for changes in the civil code that would restrict the vested rights of women by, for example, restricting the right to alimony, while the women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements continued to resist such efforts. Concluding Remarks The gender and sexuality policies of the Turkish state have been shaped by the dynamic interactions between the different governments of different periods on the one hand, and the women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements which have been active in civil society on the other. The future trajectory that Turkey will take in the issue areas of gender and sexuality will depend on the course that Turkey’s political regime follows in the coming years. If Turkey’s political regime continues on its current, authoritarian course, we can easily assume that the crackdown on women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements will gain further momentum, the number of the cases of violence against women, children and LGBTIQ+ people will continue to increase, and women and LGBTIQ+ people will experience further losses in the legal safeguards protecting their rights and freedoms. Yet if Turkey’s political regime reverses its current authoritarian course, women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements, with all their activism and pluralism, can make significant contributions to Turkey’s democratisation efforts. Such a turn towards democracy would not only ease off polarisation and open up the civil space, but it would also allow women’s and LGBTIQ+ movements to expand their organisations at the grassroots level. References Akbulut, Neslihan (2008), Örtülemeyen Sorun Başörtüsü: Temel Boyutları ile Türkiye’de Başörtüsü Yasağı Sorunu, Istanbul: Akder Yayınları. Altınay, Ayşe Gül (2004), The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey, New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Arat, Zehra (1998), ‘Kemalizm ve Türk Kadını’, in Ayşe Berktay Hacımirzaoğlu (ed.), 75 Yılda Kadınlar ve Erkekler/Bilanço 98, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, pp. 51–7. Bağdatlı, Narin (2020), ‘Feminizm ve Sol: Türkiye’de 1970’lerde “Kadın Sorunu”’, in Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce 10: Feminizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 362–71.

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622 | nil mutluer Berktay, Fatmagül (1998), ‘Cumhuriyetin 75 Yıllık Serüvenine Kadınlar Açısından Bakmak’, in Ayşe Berktay Hacımirzaoğlu (ed.), 75 Yılda Kadınlar ve Erkekler/Bilanço 98, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, pp. 1–11. Berktay, Fatmagül ([2003] 2010), Tarihin Cinsiyeti, Istanbul: Metis Yayınları. Biricik, Alp (2014), ‘A Walk on İstiklal Street: Dissident Sexual Geographies, Politics and Citizenship in Turkey’, PhD thesis, Linköping University. Çağatay, Selin (2020), ‘Kemalist Feminizm: KadınHareketi Tarihinin Gözardı Edilmiş Bariz Gerçeği’, in Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce 10: Feminizm, İletişim Yayınları, 313–30. Çağlayan, Handan (2007), Analar, Yoldaşlar, Tanrılar: Kürt Hareketinde Kadınlar ve Kadın Kimliğinin Oluşumu, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Çakır, Serpil (1994), Osmanlı Kadın Hareketi, Istanbul: Metis Yayınları. Çiğdem, Ahmet (2004), ‘Sunuş’, in Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce 5: Muhafazakarlık, Istanbul: İletişim, pp. 13–19. Çokar, Muhtar (2006), ‘Dünyada ve Türkiye’de İsteyerek Düşüğün Yasal Boyutunun Etik Açıdan Değerlendirilmesi’, PhD thesis, Marmara University. Coşar, Simten and Metin Yeğenoğlu (2011), ‘New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey? Gender Policy in the Age of AKP’, South European Society and Politics 16(4): 555–73. Göle, Nilüfer (1997), ‘The Gendered Nature of the Public Sphere’, Public Culture 10(1): 61–81. Gözaydın, İştar (2009), Diyanet: Türkiye Cumhuriyet’inde Dinin Tanzimi, Istanbul: İletişim. Gümüşoğlu, Firdevs (2013), Ders Kitaplarında Toplumsal Cinsiyet 1928–2013, Istanbul: Kaynak Yayınları. İnsan Hakları Derneği (2017), ‘OHAL’de Türkiye Raporu’, 26 October, https://www.ihd.org.tr/ ihd-istanbul-subesi-ohalde-turkiye-raporu/, accessed 14 February 2023. Işık, Ruşen (2020), ‘Türkiye’de Kürt Kadın Hareketi Tarihi ve Feminist Hareketle İlişkiler: Dekolonyal bir Doğru’, in Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce 10: Feminizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 273–7. Kadıoğlu, Ayşe (1998), ‘Cinselliğin İnkarı: Büyük Toplumsal Projelerin Nesnesi Olarak Türk Kadınları’, in Ayşe Berktay Hacımirzaoğlu (ed.), 75 Yılda Kadınlar ve Erkekler/Bilanço 98, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, pp. 51–7. Kandiyoti, Deniz (1997), Cariyeler, Bacılar, Yurttaşlar: Kimlikler ve Toplumsal Dönüşümler, Istanbul: Metis Yayınları. Maritato, Chiara (2017), ‘Compliance or Negotiation? Diyanet’s Female Preachers and the Diffusion of a “True” Religion in Turkey’, Social Compass 64(4): 530–45. Mor Çatı (2015), ‘Kürtaj yapiyor musunuz? “Hayır yapmiyoruz!”’, 3 February, https://morcati. org.tr/haberler/kurtaj-yapiyor-musunuz-hayir-yapmiyoruz/, accessed 14 February 2023. Mor Çatı (2016), ‘Kamu Hastanelerinde Kürtaj Uygulama Raporu’, 2 June, https://morcati.org. tr/izleme-raporlari/371-kamu-hastaneleri-ku-rtaj-uygulamalari-arastirma-raporu/, accessed 14 February 2023. Mutluer, Nil (ed.) (2008), Cinsiyet Halleri: Türkiye’de Toplumsal Cinsiyetin Kesişim Sınırları, Istanbul: Varlık Yayınları.

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gender and sexuality in turkey | 623 Mutluer, Nil (2014), ‘Yapısal, Sosyal ve Ekonomi-Politik Yönleriyle Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı’, in Sosyo-Ekonomik Politikalar Bağlamında Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, Istanbul: Helsinki Yurttaşlar Derneği, pp. 4–72. Mutluer, Nil (2016), ‘Kemalist Feminists in the Era of AK Party’, in Ümit Cizre (ed.), The Turkish AK Party and Its Leader: Criticism, Opposition and Dissent, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 40–74. Mutluer, Nil (2018), ‘Diyanet’s Role in Building the “Yeni (New) Milli” in the AKP Era’, European Journal of Turkish Studies 27. Mutluer, Nil (2019b), ‘Gendered, Sexualized and Ethnicized Clashes in Turkey’s Media’, in Elisabeth Eide, Kristin Skare Orgeret and Nil Mutluer (eds), Transnational Othering – Global Diversities: Media, Extremism and Free Expression, Gothenburg: Nordicom, pp. 253–71. Mutluer, Nil (2019a), ‘Intersectionality of Gender, Sexuality and Religion: Novelties and Continuities in Turkey during the AKP Era’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19(1): 99–118. Özbank, Murat (2013), Gezi Ruhu ve Politik Teori. Istanbul: Kolektif Yayınları. Özkan, Behlül (2019), ‘Cold War Era Relations between West Germany and Turkish Political Islam: From an Anti-Communist Alliance to a Domestic Security Issue’, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies 19(1): 31–54. Özkan Kerestecioğlu, İnci (2004), ‘The Women’s Movement in the 1990s: Demand for Democracy and Equality’, in Fatmagül Berktay, İnci Özkan Kerestecioğlu, Sevgi Uçan Çubukçu, Özlem Terzi and Zeynep Kıvılcım Forsman (eds.), The Position of Women in Turkey and in the European Union: Achievements, Problems, Prospects, Istanbul: KA-DER Press, pp. 75–97. Özyürek, Esra (2006), Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey, Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Parla, Ayşe (2001), ‘The “Honor” of the State: Virginity Examinations in Turkey’, Feminist Studies 27(1): 65–88. Parla, Taha (1986), ‘Dinci Milliyetçilik’, Yeni Gündem, 19 May. Sancar, Serpil (2012), Türk Modernleşmesinin Cinsiyeti, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Şefkatli Tuksal, Hidayet (2020), ‘Türkiye’de İslami Feminizm’, Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce 10: Feminizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 216–23. Şenol Cantek, Funda (2020), ‘Türkiye Kadınlığı Keşfediyor: Elele, Kadınca, Kim’, in Modern Türkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce 10: Feminizm, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 126–36. Sirman, Nükhet (2004), ‘Kinship, Politics, and Love: Honour in Post-Colonial Context’, in Shahrzad Mojab and Nahla Abdo (eds.), Violence in the Name of Honour: Theoretical and Political Challenges, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, pp. 39–56. Şişman, Nazife (2009), Başörtüsü: Sınırsız Dünyanın Yeni Sınırı, Istanbul: Timaş. Tekeli, Şirin (1998), ‘Türkiye’de Feminist İdeolojinin Anlamı ve Sınırları Üzerine’, in Kadınlar İçin Yazılar 1977–1987, Istanbul: Alan Yayınları, pp. 307–34.

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624 | nil mutluer Türkmen, Buket (2006), ‘Muslim Youth and Islamic NGO’s in Turkey’, in Nilüfer Göle and Ludwig Ammann (eds), Islam in Public: Turkey, Iran, and Europe, Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, pp. 227–56. Üstündağ, Nazan (2016), ‘Self-Defense as a Revolutionary Practice in Rojava, or How to Unmake the State’, South Atlantic Quarterly 115 (1): 197–210. Zihnioğlu, Yaprak (2003), Kadınsız İnkilap, Istanbul: Metis Yayınları.

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47 Turkey as a Migrant-Sending State: Diaspora Formation, Mobilisation and Engagement Policies since 1923 Bahar Baser (Durham University) and Gözde Böcü (University of Toronto)

Introduction

T

oday, Turkey is receiving increasing attention as a major migrant-receiving country that hosts around 8 million refugees and undocumented migrants (around 3.6 million refugees from Syria alone) from various countries in its proximity and beyond (Bayraktar 2022; IOM Türkiye n.d.). Historically, however, Turkey has been a prominent example of a major migrant-sending state. Most recent statistics indicate that approximately 6.5 million Turkish citizens and a much larger population of second-, third- and fourth-generation descendants live abroad across various host states. Some 5.5 million of these citizens are concentrated in western Europe (Ministry of Foreign Affairs n.d.). Emigration from Turkey has occurred in waves over the last six decades, and currently there is a wave towards Europe and beyond which started with the Gezi protests in 2013 and then accelerated due to the ongoing democratic decline in Turkey (Öztürk & Baser 2021). Given the recent authoritarian turn in Turkey, the number of emigrants from Turkey is expected to increase in the future, further contributing to the making and remaking of one of the largest diasporas situated at the heart of Europe. Throughout history, Turkey’s interaction with its diasporas has never been static. Over time, Turkey’s relationship with its nationals abroad as well as the dynamics and composition of those communities has changed significantly. On the one hand, social, economic and political changes in the homeland have triggered various waves of emigration, resulting in multiple diaspora formation processes in certain host country contexts. On the other hand, economic, social and political changes in the diaspora have triggered frequent home country responses to diaspora mobilisation and conflict. At the same time, these communities have also been affected by the political environment of the host countries, making their incorporation into host societies as well as their mobilisation 625

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626 | bahar baser and gözde böcü patterns dependent on a variety of factors. In addition, Turkey’s engagement with its citizens abroad has evolved through time, mostly shaped by Turkey’s domestic and foreign policy agendas. Ultimately, since the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) came to power, Turkey has developed a multifaceted and expansive diaspora governance policy over the last decades allowing it to tap into the diaspora for political, economic and foreign policy gains. This institutionalised and sustained form of interaction with the diaspora communities has expanded the role of diasporas as transnational actors in Turkey’s political spheres and increased their importance for political elites beyond the ruling party (Yabanci 2021; Yanasmayan & Kaşlı 2019;). The case of Turkey as a migrant-sending state is worthy of academic scrutiny for a number of reasons. Firstly, Turkey is the home country of one of Europe’s largest emigrant populations at the heart of Europe, which is growing day by day due to ongoing migration flows. This means that its diasporas will increase in size and the profile of the diaspora communities will transform with the new waves, making this transnational community even more heterogeneous and versatile. Secondly, Turkey’s engagement with its populations and their descendants abroad is not free from politics. Although Turkey has been following a global trend when it comes to formulating diaspora engagement policies, its bid to dominate the transnational space via various policies backfired on certain occasions and created strife between Turkey and various host countries with direct implications on the diaspora populations. Thirdly, the Turkish case illustrates that such policies can evolve through time through the impact of a variety of factors and that diaspora governance as a phenomenon is never static and has to be reassessed over time. In the following, this chapter provides a historical analysis of diaspora formation, mobilisation and engagement dynamics vis-à-vis Turkey and its diasporas by highlighting such trajectories of continuity and change over various historical periods until today. 1920s–1950s: State-making and Early Diaspora Formation(s) In the early twentieth century, migratory dynamics significantly shaped both the Ottoman Empire and the newly emerging nation-state whose state-building project was constituted on homogenising premises. As Ahmet İçduygu and Damla Aksel (2013) note, both empire and nation-state have strategically exploited mobility for modernisation purposes which manifested themselves as initial emigration and immigration policies. Throughout the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the making of the Turkish nation-state, policies therefore largely encouraged Muslim and Turkish immigration to the states’ territories, while other policies incentivised non-Muslim populations to leave – at times voluntarily and more than often involuntarily. At this stage of nation-building, Muslims were largely understood as part of the Turkish nation, while non-Muslim populations were placed outside of it (Içduygu et al. 2008). As such, this process of early state-making was largely

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turkey as a migrant-sending state | 627 shaped by traumatic experiences of ethnic expulsions, forced deportations and migration, resulting in the formation of Armenian, Assyrian, Jewish, Greek and Kurdish diasporas abroad. Among these processes, which continued until the late 1940s, specifically the Treaty of Constantinople between the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria (1913), the Armenian deportations and genocide (1915) and the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations (1923) were largely responsible for the creation of such diasporas abroad (İçduygu & Aksel 2013). Whatever remained of ethnic and religious minorities in the aftermath of the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923 was further alienated in ongoing processes of nation-building based on essentialist understandings of nationalism. In the early 1920s and throughout the 1930s, Turkification policies such as the repression of linguistic and religious rights and practices within state and society forced minorities to abandon their identity in favour of less salient demarcations. Furthermore, anti-Semitic violence such as the Thrace incidents, among others, led to waves of Jewish emigration from Istanbul in 1934. Often, processes of emigration were also triggered by changes in minority rights and laws, as exemplified by Law No. 4305 on Capital Tax (1942), which mainly affected non-Muslim citizens’ economic power and further triggered alienation and exclusionary experiences from the ‘homeland’, pushing non-Muslims out of the country (Içduygu et al. 2008). Despite a transition to multi-party politics, such trends continued well into the 1950s, further triggering additional waves of emigration from Turkey. In particular, throughout the 1950s violence was incited against non-Muslims that had remained in Turkey despite an ongoing atmosphere of exclusion and repression, and they became once again the target of nationalistic discourse and propaganda. The most prominent example constitutes the events that occurred in 1955 when anti-Greek violence erupted in Istanbul and Izmir over the Cyprus dispute, violence that also targeted Jewish-owned businesses (Içduygu et al. 2008).1 As a consequence, the multi-ethnic and multireligious legacy of the Ottoman Empire was seemingly destroyed, and additional waves of emigration from Turkey to Greece, Israel, Europe, and the United States took place – ultimately feeding into new diaspora formation processes long before the advent of large-scale guest worker emigration from Turkey. 1960s–1970s: Labour Migration and Becoming a Migrant-sending State Turkey’s engagement policy with its nationals abroad has experienced many changes and reforms reflecting ‘different state policies under different governments as well as diverging host state approaches to the Turkish migrant population abroad’ (Baser 2017: 223). The violence was triggered by the burning of Atatürk’s childhood home in Thessaloniki, Greece, which provoked anti-Greek sentiment in Turkey.

 1

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628 | bahar baser and gözde böcü Although there have been previous waves of emigration from Turkey as discussed above, Turkey’s unprecedented experience as a major migrant-sending state started in the 1960s with state-sponsored programmes which aimed at decreasing unemployment and contributing to development projects in the country with the help of the remittances from abroad. To achieve this goal, Turkey thus signed bilateral agreements with various European states which created a mutually beneficial environment, as the host countries were suffering from lack of supply of local labour to correspond with the demands of industrialisation in a post-Second World War setting (Baser 2015a; İçduygu & Aksel 2013; Østergaard-Nielsen 2003; Ünver 2013). Turkey eagerly signed bilateral labour recruitment agreements with Germany (1961), Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium (1964), France (1965), and Sweden and Australia (1967). These agreements were of a temporary nature as the idea was to keep the workers for only the duration of their contracts (Aksel 2019; Baser 2015a; İçduygu & Aksel 2013). This process resulted in the first, regulated mass migration flow from Turkey to European host countries and constituted a historical turning point for largescale diaspora formation. In response to the formation of a large community of workers abroad, Turkey introduced dedicated policies to facilitate the flow of remittances and the easy return of labour migrants. Sending a large number of workers abroad benefited Turkey in a number of ways. It contributed to the efforts of decreasing unemployment, while the remittances that families received from their relatives abroad contributed to the overall economy. Turkey’s efforts, therefore, were limited to sustaining this beneficial situation without extensively investing in political and cultural dimensions. Two major institutions, the State Planning Organisation (Devlet Planlama Teşkilatı) and the Turkish Employment Service (İş ve İşçi Bulma Kurumu), were responsible for administering the emigration process and regulations (İçduygu & Aksel 2013). During the first decade of labour migration, there was no visible engagement policy with these newly forming communities abroad. State institutions such as consulates and embassies were only used for providing practical information regarding citizens’ immigration status or pension issues above anything else, while workers were encouraged to send remittances back home and invest in Turkey with the money they saved abroad (Aksel 2019). While the early years of labour migration were shaped by an economic interest in the workers who had been recruited, this approach changed seemingly when labour contracts were renewed in various host countries, resulting in demands from workers to receive social and economic rights in Turkey while abroad (Aksel 2019). Labour migration was then followed by family reunification migratory flows, which increased the number of Turkish-origin migrants in Europe substantially. As the temporary migration scheme turned into a permanent one, these communities increasingly constituted the first layers of what can be labelled as a diaspora. In the early 1970s, the Turkish state therefore slowly

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turkey as a migrant-sending state | 629 initiated limited political policies that would prevent the cultural assimilation of workers and their families and seemingly responded to the cultural and social needs of workers abroad. First, the appointment of social attachés at Turkish embassies and consulates who were responsible for various needs of citizens abroad signalled some initial engagement from the Turkish state (Aksel 2019). Second, Turkey’s main religious institution, the Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs), started planning to send representatives as imams in order to facilitate religious education and religious practices among Turkey’s communities, starting in the 1970s (İçduygu & Aksel 2013; Öztürk & Sözeri 2018). At the same time, however, Turkey encouraged voluntary return programmes implemented together with the United Nations Development Programme, thus revealing the ambiguous nature of its approach. However, the influence of these state-led attempts remained limited as the programmes and personnel provided were insufficient in number, and resources invested abroad remained limited. Ultimately, Turkey increasingly acknowledged the permanency of migration, while the return incentives created by the state did not find a great appeal among the workers and their families. 1980s–1990s: Homeland Conflict and Diaspora Mobilisation(s) Up until the 1980s, Turkey’s engagement with its citizens abroad was mostly dedicated to tapping into their economic potential, while responding to social and political issues and needs in a limited manner. This changed steadily in the 1980s as large-scale emigration from Turkey to Europe altered the composition of Turkey’s emigrant communities, triggering a revision of Turkey’s approach towards its emigrant communities. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, political turmoil and instability in Turkey resulted in new migration waves from Turkey to numerous host countries in the Global North. Especially after the military coup in 1980, mainly leftist, Kurdish and Alevite activists fled to various European countries to seek asylum (Baser 2015a). This new emigration wave transformed Turkey’s diasporic landscapes significantly as high degrees of politicisation resulted in heightened diaspora activism from afar. In this process, previous hometown organisations with solely cultural or social agendas were replaced by politicised organisational patterns divided along ethnic, religious and ideological lines as various intra- and inter-group political struggles were imported to European political spheres via migration flows. Given this change in composition, Turkey adopted a more security-oriented approach toward its citizens abroad and thus introduced additional mechanisms to closely monitor diaspora mobilisation outside its borders (Baser 2015a; Mügge 2012). At the same time, Turkey also invested in other transnational measures to strengthen its communities abroad. To politically engage citizens abroad, Turkey introduced the dual citizenship law at the beginning of the 1980s (Aksel 2019). Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and

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630 | bahar baser and gözde böcü the Diyanet developed certain initiatives to respond to the diasporas’ educational and religious needs abroad. The first signs of institutionalised engagement started appearing with the establishment of institutions such as the ‘Higher Coordination Council for Workers, consisting of Social Affairs and Economic Affairs Committees’ (Aksel 2014). These efforts aimed to establish segmented integration into host societies while at the same time preventing full assimilation of these communities. To guard the religious beliefs of citizens abroad, for instance, the Diyanet expanded its mission to various Turkish diasporas abroad (Öztürk & Sözeri 2018).2 As such, Turkey started to send religious officials such as imams, guiding teachers, and education and religion attachés abroad to ensure oversight of embassies and consulates throughout the 1980s (Aksel 2019). When another large wave of migration brought a high number of Kurdish and Alevite asylum seekers to Europe in the 1990s, the need to engage citizens abroad in a more regulated manner once again came to the fore. This occurred due to two critical developments in Turkey. On the one hand, the intensification of the Turkish–Kurdish conflict as a result of the clashes between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) and the Turkish military culminated in growing Kurdish emigration from Turkey. On the other hand, religiously motivated violence against Turkey’s Alevite communities further pushed Alevites out of the country. This change in composition of Turkey’s diasporas once more resulted in growing diaspora activism against the state from abroad (Østergaard-Nielsen 2003). In reaction to these developments, Turkey acknowledged the need to further institutionalise its relations with citizens abroad. Damla Aksel (2014) describes this period as an institutionalisation process abroad whereby the Advisory Committee for Turkish Citizens Living Abroad and High Committee for Turkish Citizens Living Abroad were founded in 1998 and were employed under the aegis of the Prime Ministry, in order to monitor the problems faced by Turkish citizens abroad and report them in the Turkish parliament.3 Since 1998, the number of representatives in these two committees have increased and the countries represented have expanded geographically (Aksel 2014). While this institutionalisation constituted a significant development in Turkey’s path of establishing institutionalised state–diaspora relations, the process of institutionalisation at this time occurred in a top-down manner, while members of the diaspora were not consulted. Article 136 of the 1982 Constitution established that the Diyanet shall serve as the guarantor of national unity, ‘making [it] constitutionally responsible in advancing this objective’ (Öztürk & Sözeri 2018).  3 In this context, the Foreign Relations and Workers Abroad Services General Directorate was founded under the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, and it was responsible for employment opportunities, preparation of workforce agreements and organisation of inspections of the units established abroad. It also prepared reports annually and covered the situation of Turks abroad.  2

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turkey as a migrant-sending state | 631 2000s–2020s: From Diaspora Governance towards Authoritarianism in the Diaspora In the 2000s, Turkey’s relationship with its diasporas was transformed once again. At the beginning of the millennium, Turkey’s diasporas – in particular those located in Europe – received growing attention from policymakers in light of Europeanisation and democratisation processes in Turkey. As Turkey’s foreign policy priorities during the AKP’s first term shifted towards swift Europeanisation and democratisation (Müftüler‐ Baç & Gürsoy 2010), citizens abroad were increasingly perceived as political assets that could represent Turkey and its emergent position in the changing world order (Aksel 2019). To establish closer ties with the West and to build a more inclusionary and participatory democratic system in Turkey, the AKP government, therefore, perceived citizens in Europe as an opportunity to integrate further with the West and advance its initially democratic agenda. In 2003, a Parliamentary Investigation Commission was founded to evaluate the problems of citizens abroad and put the most pressing issues on the table (Aksel 2019). Although previous attempts to investigate the situation of citizens abroad had been made throughout the 1990s by the Turkish parliament’s Human Rights Inspection Commission, the Parliamentary Investigation Commission’s report published in 2003 constituted the first cumulative analysis of the situation of citizens living abroad. This evaluation resulted in various legal changes implemented in the 2000s improving citizenship and association laws that further extended rights and privileges to citizens abroad (Aksel 2019).4 Additional legal changes made to the electoral law in 2008 further introduced the right for citizens abroad to vote by mail or in foreign representations in addition to the ability to vote at the border, which had been in place since 1995.⁠5 In 2004, a directive by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs rearranged institutional relations between foreign missions and non-resident citizens, while also increasing the number of foreign representations, or improving the services provided abroad. In 2007, Yunus Emre Cultural Centres were founded to promote Turkish society and culture abroad, and to respond to the linguistic and cultural needs of Turkish citizens around the world (Aksel 2019). In this regard, Citizenship Law No. 5203 was passed in June 2004, and guaranteed various social, economic and legal rights to non-citizens of Turkey. These rights were further extended in Citizenship Law No. 5901, passed in May 2009, which granted additional rights to citizens who would give up their Turkish citizenship. Furthermore, Law No. 5253 on associations was passed in November 2004 and allowed domestic associations to establish representations abroad and receive financial support from abroad.  5 The right to vote for citizens abroad had already been introduced in 1987, but only received constitutional approval through an amendment of Article 67 in 1995. However, citizens were required to travel to Turkey and cast their vote at the border. The amendment of law No. 5749 on elections and electoral registry in 2008 drastically expanded voting rights (Yanasmayan & Kaşlı 2019).  4

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632 | bahar baser and gözde böcü Another pivotal shift in state–diaspora relations took place with the introduction of voting procedures from abroad. With the decision to grant citizens abroad the right to take part in national elections directly by casting a vote through Turkey’s diplomatic representations, party-led outreach in the diaspora increased steadily. As discussed above, the 2008 amendment of the electoral law had already clarified legal gaps on voting from abroad, and further expanded the right to vote. However, only with the 2012 amendment of the law on elections and electoral registry, which further clarified the role of consular voting in the process and introduced new liberties on electoral propaganda abroad (Aksel 2019), the transnationalisation of Turkish elections and campaigning took place. While party representations from Turkey had existed long before this period, the introduction of expatriate voting triggered an intensification of party-led outreach in the diaspora. As such, the AKP was among the first parties to establish new representations in Europe, but other major political parties in Turkey such as the HDP (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, Peoples’ Democracy Party) and CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Republican People’s Party) soon followed through, which resulted in a period of heightened transnational campaigning and electoral competition abroad (Yener-Roderburg 2020). Electoral mobilisation in various homeland elections, therefore, shaped relations with the diaspora significantly in this process. In particular, populist diaspora mobilisation, political campaigning of candidates from Turkey on foreign soil, and mass rallies organised by President Erdoğan and other politicians have become a substantial political phenomenon in Turkey’s diasporas (Böcü & Panwar 2022). While these events attracted thousands of diasporans, increasing political participation abroad, criticism from host country policymakers increased steadily (Baser & Féron 2022). While the extension of electoral voting rights to the diaspora can be seen as part of the participatory turn towards the diaspora at the beginning of the 2000s (Aksel 2019), Turkey’s simultaneous transition into authoritarianism has increasingly dampened this process. Growing authoritarianism under the AKP led to various episodes of anti-regime mobilisation. Starting with the transnationalisation of the Gezi protests and the organisation of sustained solidarity movements across Europe and beyond (Baser 2015b), Turkey’s diasporas also used expatriate voting and campaigning as a channel to oppose the regime from afar. At the same time, however, growing state capture under the AKP has led to diaspora engagement policy expansion, which manifested itself in the establishment of partisan state institutions that propagate support for the AKP abroad (Yabanci 2021). In this process, the introduction of a new centralised agency, the Presidency of Turks Abroad and Kin Communities (Yurt Disi Türkler Baskanligi, YTB), can be understood as the first major step in concentrating efforts at diaspora-building under one umbrella. Founded with the goal of establishing a Turkish diaspora that has close social, political, and economic ties with Turkey, the YTB has been the major institution that coordinates diaspora

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turkey as a migrant-sending state | 633 outreach (Ünver 2013: 186). Efforts to reach out to citizens abroad were summarised with the motto ‘Wherever our citizens or kin are, we are there’ (İçduygu & Aksel 2013: 183), reflecting the ambitious outlook for diaspora governance under the AKP. Although Turkey’s diaspora policy was deemed inclusive and participatory in the early 2000s (Aydın 2014; Öktem 2014; Okyay 2015), several analyses of the YTB’s programmes and the AKP’s discourse towards citizens and kin abroad have found that they are largely drawing on a glorified Ottoman heritage in reaching out to the diaspora (İçduygu & Aksel 2013), while also promoting an exclusionary notion of citizenship abroad (Yanasmayan & Kaşlı 2019: 31). Already in its first years of operation, AKP’s establishment and use of the diaspora institutions therefore must be understood as a partisan tool shaped by the ideological interests of the party. Since 2016, and the failed coup attempt in Turkey, state–diaspora relations have been further complicated by heightened transnational repression on the part of the authoritarian AKP. In this context, the AKP has been increasingly using various repression strategies employed by transnational state apparatuses in order to repress dissent and anti-regime mobilisation from abroad (Baser & Ozturk 2020). While the repression of the ‘enemies of the state’ dates back to the 1970s and 1980s, when the state used consular personnel and other bureaucrats abroad to surveil and monitor the diaspora, under the AKP the repertoire of repression has increasingly become of higher intensity over time and now includes killings, kidnappings, retribution and other practices that are employed against regime dissidents and critics abroad (Baser & Ozturk 2020; Öztürk 2020). While different groups have faced different levels of repression by the Turkish state since the 1980s, Ahmet Erdi Öztürk (2020: 60) suggests that the transnational repression after the 2016 coup has been ‘one of the most extensive and systematic cases [. . .] in the history of modern Turkey’. At the same time the regime has not only increased transnational repression against undesirable parts of the diaspora (Böcü et al. forthcoming) but has also been involved in pro-regime mobilisation abroad. While partisanship has been detected in the activities of the YTB since its foundation, different transnational state agents including transnational state apparatuses have been involved in electoral mobilisation on behalf of the regime (Baser & Ozturk 2020). While Zeynep Yanasmayan and Zeynep Kaşlı (2019), for instance, note that the AKP also used an official registry of consulates and foreign representations to call on citizens abroad to vote in favour of the constitutional referendum, Bilge Yabanci (2021) describes various cooptation efforts on behalf of the AKP. Beyond electoral mobilisation, Gözde Böcü and Bahar Baser (2022) further show that the AKP is increasingly relying on the next generations to forge loyal ties and mobilise diaspora youth for authoritarian regime-building efforts and foreign policy gains alike – indicating a further increase in authoritarian regime mobilisation efforts within Turkey’s diasporas.

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634 | bahar baser and gözde böcü Conclusion: Another 100 Years, Another 100 Diasporas? With the recent institutionalisation of its diaspora engagement policies and the establishment of various diaspora institutions, Turkey has joined the global race to establish diaspora governance policies – either by reforming existing policies, creating new institutions/ministries, or passing different legislation. In this analysis of how Turkey has become a large-scale migrant-sending state over the last 100 years, we have observed how state-led policies gradually moved from economy-oriented programmes to multifaceted complex strategies that go hand in hand with neoliberal global trends, which have been constrained by domestic transformations. Over time, Turkey has actively developed strategies to engage with its diasporas, both positively and negatively, ultimately to harness their political, economic and social potential and turn them into an asset in domestic and foreign policy agendas. Turkey has not only adapted its policies based on the needs of the time, but it has also selectively formulated policies to establish links with its citizens abroad. A closer examination of continuities and changes in Turkey’s diaspora governance policy shows us the following challenges ahead. Firstly, Turkey’s domestic policies have a significant impact on the formulation of diaspora management policies. In other words, domestic concerns such as elections, political conflict and regime change constitute the rationale for the making of its diaspora policies. The policymakers decide who to engage with and how, depending on political concerns including security. Secondly, contemporary diaspora policies cannot be separated from partisan interests and are shaped by the political parties in power. As such, it is not very clear which policies will continue if the ruling party loses elections or is forced to share power with other actors. Thirdly, although there was a balanced and distanced relationship between home and host country policymakers through diplomacy in the first phases of Turkish migration to Europe, it can be observed that this gained a problematic nature when the Turkish state started pursuing a proactive engagement policy, which was perceived as a threat by the host states. In the next 100 years, Turkey, therefore, needs to learn how to strike a balance in this public diplomacy game in order to stay relevant, and also to protect and sustain the hard-gained positions of its diaspora organisations in the host country’s political and civic spheres. References Aksel, Damla B. (2014), ‘Kins, Distant Workers, Diasporas: Constructing Turkey’s Transnational Members Abroad’, Turkish Studies 15(2): 195–219. Aksel, Damla B. (2019), Home States and Homeland Politics: Interactions between the Turkish State and Its Emigrants in France and the United States, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. Aydın, Yaşar (2014), ‘The New Turkish Diaspora Policy: Its Aims, Their Limits and the Challenges for Associations of People of Turkish Origin and Decision-Makers in Germany’, Research

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turkey as a migrant-sending state | 635 Paper 10/2014, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 23 October, https://www.swp-berlin.org/ publikation/the-new-turkish-diaspora-policy, accessed 14 February 2023. Baser, Bahar (2015a), Diasporas and Homeland Conflict: A Comparative Perspective, Farnham, England: Ashgate. Baser, Bahar (2015b), ‘Gezi Spirit in the Diaspora: Diffusion of Turkish Politics to Europe’, in Isabel David and Kumru Toktamış (eds), ‘Everywhere Taksim’: Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 251–66. Baser, Bahar (2017), ‘Turkey’s Ever-Evolving Attitude-Shift towards Engagement with Its Diaspora’, in Agnieszka Weinar (ed.), Emigration and Diaspora Policies in the Age of Mobility, Cham, Switzerland: Springer, pp. 221–38. Baser, Bahar and Élise Féron (2022), ‘Host State Reactions to Home State Diaspora Engagement Policies: Rethinking State Sovereignty and Limits of Diaspora Governance’, Global Networks 22(2): 226–41. Baser, Bahar and Ahmet Erdi Ozturk (2020), ‘Positive and Negative Diaspora Governance in Context: From Public Diplomacy to Transnational Authoritarianism’, Middle East Critique 29(3): 319–34. Bayraktar, Çağdaş (2022), ‘Türkiye’deki demografik dönüşüm: gelenler’, Cumhuriyet, 11 January, https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/turkiye/turkiyedeki-demografik-donusum-gelenler-1899199, accessed 14 February 2023. Böcü, Gözde and Bahar Baser (2022), ‘Transnational Mobilization of Future Generations by Non-Democratic Home States: Turkey’s Diaspora Youth between Empowerment and Co-optation’, Ethnopolitics, 9 August, https://doi.org/10.1080/17449057.2022.2101758, accessed 14 February 2023. Böcü, Gözde and Nidhi Panwar (2022), ‘Populist Diaspora Engagement: Party-Led Outreach under Turkey’s AKP and India’s BJP’, Diaspora Studies 15(2): 158–83. Böcü, Gözde, Bahar Baser and Ahmet Erdi Ozturk (forthcoming), ‘Turkey’s Diasporic Landscapes amidst Authoritarianism: Transnational Repression, Everyday Dynamics and Host Country Responses’, in Dana M. Moss and Saipira Furstenberg (eds), Transnational Repression in the Age of Globalisation, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. İçduygu, Ahmet and Damla Aksel (2013), ‘Turkish Migration Policies: A Critical Historical Retrospective’, Perceptions 18(3): 167–90. Içduygu, Ahmet, Şule Toktas and B. Ali Soner (2008), ‘The Politics of Population in a NationBuilding Process: Emigration of Non-Muslims from Turkey’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 31(2): 358–89. IOM Türkiye (n.d.), ‘Türkiye’de Göç’, https://turkey.iom.int/tr/turkiyede-goc, accessed 14 February 2023. Ministry of Foreign Affairs (n.d.), ‘Turkish Citizens Living Abroad’, https://www.mfa.gov.tr/theexpatriate-turkish-citizens.en.mfa, accessed 14 February 2023. Müftüler‐Baç, Meltem and Yaprak Gürsoy (2010), ‘Is There a Europeanization of Turkish Foreign Policy? An Addendum to the Literature on EU Candidates’, Turkish Studies 11(3): 405–27.

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636 | bahar baser and gözde böcü Mügge, Liza (2012), ‘Managing Transnationalism: Continuity and Change in Turkish State Policy’, International Migration 50(1): 20–38. Öktem, Kerem (2014), ‘Turkey’s New Diaspora Policy: The Challenge of Inclusivity, Outreach and Capacity’, Istanbul Policy Center (IPC), August, https://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/Content/ Images/CKeditorImages/20200327-00032456.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Okyay, Aslı Selin (2015), ‘Diaspora-Making as a State-Led Project: Turkey’s Expansive Diaspora Strategy and Its Implications for Emigrant and Kin Populations’, PhD thesis, European University Institute. Østergaard-Nielsen, Eva (2003), Transnational Politics: Turks and Kurds in Germany, London and New York: Routledge. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi (2020), ‘The Repertoire of Extraterritorial Repression: Diasporas and Home States’, Migration Letters 17(1): 59–69. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi and Bahar Baser (2021), ‘New Turkey’s New Diasporic Constellations: The Gezi Generation and Beyond’, Policy Paper 84, ELIAMEP, 8 October, https://www. eliamep.gr/en/publication/%cf%83%cf%8d%ce%b3%cf%87%cf%81%ce%bf%ce%bd%ce%b1%ce%bc%ce%bf%cf%84%ce%af%ce%b2%ce%b1-%ce%b4%ce%b9%ce%b1%cf%83%cf%80 %ce%bf%cf%81%ce%ac%cf%82-%cf%84%ce%b7%cf%82-%ce%bd%ce%ad%ce%b1%cf%82%cf%84%ce%bf/, accessed 14 February 2023. Öztürk, Ahmet Erdi and Semiha Sözeri (2018), ‘Diyanet as a Turkish Foreign Policy Tool: Evidence from the Netherlands and Bulgaria’, Politics and Religion 11(3): 624–48. Ünver, O. Can (2013), ‘Changing Diaspora Politics of Turkey and Public Diplomacy’, Turkish Policy Quarterly 12(1): 181–9. Yabanci, Bilge (2021), ‘Home State Oriented Diaspora Organizations and the Making of Partisan Citizens Abroad: Motivations, Discursive Frames, and Actions Towards Co-opting the Turkish Diaspora in Europe’, Diaspora 21(2): 139–65. Yanasmayan, Zeynep and Zeynep Kaşlı (2019), ‘Reading Diasporic Engagements through the Lens of Citizenship: Turkey as a Test Case’, Political Geography 70: 24–33. Yener-Roderburg, Inci Öykü (2020), ‘Party Organizations across Borders: Top-Down Satellites and Bottom-Up Alliances – The Case of AKP and HDP in Germany’, in Tudi Kernalegenn and Emilie van Haute (eds), Political Parties Abroad: A New Arena for Party Politics, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 218–37.

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48 Journalistic Issues through a Century under Crackdown: From Idealistic Dreams to One-Man Control Ceren Sözeri (Galatasaray University)

S

ince its beginning in the Ottoman era, the media has positioned itself as a political institution similar to the Mediterranean or polarised pluralist model (Hallin & Mancini 2004). The press, which was taken under control during the single-party regime, became more pluralist once again with the transition to the multi-party era. The coups of 1960, 1971 and 1980 were each followed by a period of military rule, which had significant repercussions for media freedom. However, after these breaks, each government continued to build its own proponent media and to feed them with political and economic opportunities. Today, power is consolidated in one pair of hands, and the crackdown on the media has increased via political, legal and economic instruments, while the proponents which have clientelist relationships have turned into propaganda tools. In addition to the authoritarian tendencies of the government, the main reasons for the existing toxic media climate are the de-unionisation of journalists, lack of resistance to the loss of independence of regulatory bodies, and the sacrificing of journalistic ethics for political polarisation. Introduction The press in these lands arose from the political needs of Sultan Mahmut II during the Tanzimat reform era. It was always affected by the political polarisations thereafter and was used as a tool by those in power. In recent years, Turkey has been included within the countries with restricted press freedom, like Israel and Russia (Eberwein et al. 2018: 5). Ever since the foundation of the Republic, the majority of the papers have been located in Istanbul. They consisted of the elites in society and played significant roles in the transition of the regime. Political engagement was critical for journalist–state relationships and polarisation was depicted by ideological differences. However, following the third coup 637

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638 | ceren sözeri d’état in 1980, the ownership structure shifted from journalist families to businesspeople who carried their own corporate mentality to the media and eliminated editorial autonomy through de-unionisation. While the corrupt climate, of which the media is a part, led to the 2001 financial crisis, the crisis brought the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) to power. Even though there has never been a democratic media environment in the country, the result of the backslidings in the last twenty years can be described as the worst period in the field of freedom of expression and the press. This chapter aims to provide a historical analysis of media within the transformation of the journalistic culture and the unchanging structural problems that cause the current toxic climate. The analysis is chronologically structured, starting with the first period of the Republic, followed by the industrialisation of the press despite military interventions in 1960 and 1971, but it is especially focused on the neoliberal transformation since the 1980 coup d’état, and the current authoritarian and clientelist media era. Under the One-party Regime During the War of Independence (1919–23) and after the foundation of the Republic, Mustafa Kemal and his friends needed press support to explain the legitimacy of the war inside and outside Turkey. The Anadolu Agency was founded on 6 April 1920, named by Mustafa Kemal himself. The Istanbul press, which bloomed in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, consisting of the members of the Union and Progress Party (İttihat ve Terakki Fırkası) or its opponents, was sympathetic to the War of Independence but was also distant from and even critical of the newly established regime. A journalist and author, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, describes this transition through three marriages of a woman in his novel Ankara, first published in 1934. Selma and her first husband came to Ankara in poverty as the elites of the late Ottoman Empire. The first husband is afraid of the violence of the war and runs away; Selma, who believes in the National Struggle, falls in love with a commander. After the Republic is established, the second husband joins a corrupt new elite. For the third time, Selma falls in love, this time with a young and idealistic journalist, who actually represents the Republic with all its merits. However, while Ankara journalists played a crucial role in the modernisation and state-building processes, the dissident İstanbul journalists were prosecuted by the Independence Courts (İstiklâl Mahkemeleri). The Law on the Maintenance of Order was enacted in 1925 and extended to 1929 to silence all the opposition, after the foundation of the first opposition party (the Progressive Republican Party, Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası) in 1924, which was supported by the Istanbul press, and the Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925. Recep Peker, who was one of the prominent defenders of the law, said in parliament: ‘We see that Istanbul newspapers tend to destroy all the institutions and authorities in the country’ (Topuz 2003: 147).

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journalistic issues under crackdown | 639 Journalism was not considered a profession by itself from the outset. It was an additional job in the first years and then became a career ladder. Between 1920 and 1957, seventy-five journalists sat in parliament (Gürkan 1998: 79–83) while the dissidents were exiled by being assigned to distant cities as civil servants by the government. The profession was excluded from the scope of the first labour law (No. 3008) in 1936. Two years later, the Press Union was established, both to regulate working conditions of journalists and to control the press. Journalists who were not registered with the union were no longer able to continue in their profession, and the High Honour Council, which had government officials among its members, was able to warn and punish them. The union was suppressed by the government itself following the transition to the multi-party regime in 1946 (Özsever 2004: 69–71). The Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), which had received strong support from the press before coming to power, kept its word and recognised journalists’ labour rights in 1952 (Law No. 5953). But, two years later, the Law on Crimes Committed via Publication and Radio Broadcasting was passed and gave prosecutors the right to directly prosecute offenders, and removed the need for evidence. The DP increased the crackdown on the press in the following years; however, at the same time it used radio broadcasting as a propaganda tool and created a partisan press called the ‘feed press’ with official and private companies’ advertising revenue (Topuz 2003: 202). In 1960 it was removed from power following a military coup. Industrialisation of the Press The veteran journalist and politician Altan Öymen began his book titled Ve İhtilal (‘And Revolution’) with an anecdote: he was a journalist who did his military service as a reserve officer at that time. He was also prosecuted due to the crackdowns on journalists. On the day of the coup, his neighbours woke him up early in the morning believing that it would bring Öymen salvation, and one of the first things they said was ‘The dark days are over’ (Öymen 2013: 23). The National Unity Committee was established after the coup with the full support of the press, despite the objections of press owners. The owners of the newspapers Akşam, Cumhuriyet, Dünya, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Tercüman, Vatan, Yeni İstanbul and Yeni Sabah suspended publishing for three days, but the journalists of these dailies issued a newspaper called Basın (‘Press’) with the support of the Journalists’ Trade Union. Although the arrest of journalists such as Aziz Nesin and İhsan Ada, who questioned the coup and the Law of Measures, which forbade any criticism of the coup, was disappointing, the new constitution which came into force in 1961 widened civil rights and liberties including the freedom of expression and association. Besides, the public broadcasting service TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation) was established in 1964 as an autonomous institution and held a broadcasting monopoly until the 1990s.

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640 | ceren sözeri However, in the bipolarised area of the Cold War when Turkey had chosen its side, the biggest fear was communism (Alan 2015: 74–83). At the end of the decade, the leftist opposition in society, consisting of student and trade union movements, was suppressed by the 1971 memorandum. Kenan Evren, who also staged the 1980 coup, believed that the constitution was not restrictive enough and described the purpose of this memorandum, which aimed to curb student and union movements, as follows: ‘The 1961 constitution was oversized’ (Hamsici 2017). After the 1971 memorandum, unionisation among journalists provided better working conditions. But on the other side anti-communist and right-wing movements supported by the governments played an important role in framing the social violence which paved the way to the 1980 military coup. In this period, the TRT lost its autonomy in 1971, it turned into an impartial legal entity in the 1982 constitution and later functioned as a state broadcasting institution. The most distinctive feature of this period was the domination of journalists’ families who invested their earnings in the media. Following the transition to offset printing, the readership of newspapers expanded, and this traditional ownership model was preserved even though there were few outsiders in this sector (Topuz 2003: 329). In 1979, following the assassination of the chief editor, Abdi İpekçi, the Karacan family sold the Milliyet newspaper to Aydın Doğan and withdrew from the sector; the Simavi family likewise withdrew upon selling the Hürriyet newspaper to Doğan, four years after the chief editor of that paper, Çetin Emeç, was also murdered in 1990 (Barutçu 2004: 299). The Turning Point in Media Ownership Before the coup d’état, the transition to a neoliberal economy started with the 24 January decisions in 1980. One of the prominent aims of the decisions was reducing the weight of the state in the economy; so paper subsidies were abolished, thus the costs of the press increased. After the third military coup on 12 September 1980 and the new constitution in 1982, freedom of expression and freedom of the press were restricted and penalties imposed on journalists were aggravated. According to Hıfzı Topuz (2003: 85–7), between 1980 and 1990, the number of cases against the press increased to over 2,000, and 3,000 journalists, writers and publishers were prosecuted. An actual shift in the journalistic culture occurred in ownership structure. The family-owned newspaper companies were replaced by new investors who already operated in other sectors. The new corporate mentality and the politically authoritarian climate resulted in tabloidisation of the news (Bek 2004: 374). Besides, the new owners forced journalists to quit the trade unions, which were very strong in the 1970s (Tılıç 2000). The de-unionisation process gradually suppressed editorial autonomy in the newsroom.

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journalistic issues under crackdown | 641 At the end of the 1980s, six media conglomerates who had a number of newspapers, magazines and news agencies in addition to other commercial companies dominated the press sector (Koloğlu 1995: 136). After the termination of the state monopoly over broadcasting in 1990, in a short time, these few conglomerates increased their economic power through vertical and horizontal mergers. Additionally, these media groups were supported by the state through promotions, concessions or cheap credits (Gür 1995: 146). According to the veteran journalist Hasan Cemal (2012), the owners were keeping the balance between the army, the government and the opposition. The primary power in this balance was undoubtedly the army. On 28 February 1997, the army intervened in politics through the decisions of the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu, MGK). It was unthinkable for the media to question the ‘interests of the state’. The pro-Kurdish Özgür Gündem newspaper’s buildings were bombed in 1993, then the paper was suspended in 1994. Forty-seven of its employees were killed in unsolved murders, between 1992 and 1994 (İnce 2014). In April 1998, the two biggest newspapers, Hürriyet and Sabah, headlined accusations of some journalists (including two of their own) of supporting the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, Kurdistan Workers’ Party) based on the alleged testimony of a PKK militant in custody who had turned informant (Elmas & Kurban 2011). These allegations had been fabricated by a senior military officer; however, the mainstream media did not dare to check them, even against their own employees (Yılmaz 2012). Additionally, the economic dependence of media owners on the state and the instrumentalisation of their outlets to gain public tenders paved the way for the 2001 financial crisis through widespread corruption in the banking sector. A former director of the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu, TMSF), Ahmet Ertürk, stated that the owners of ten of the twenty-five banks that went bankrupt in this crisis had investments in the media (Erdoğan 2012). Some media groups, including the second biggest (Sabah-ATV Group), were seized by the state due to corruption involving their owners and transferred to the TMSF. A few years later, they were used to reshape the media era by the AKP, which came to power in 2002. Consolidation: Power in One Pair of Hands Some media owners noted in their statements to the Parliamentary Coup and Memorandum Investigation Commission that they felt obliged to enter the media sector at the request and/or pressure of some politicians and had to expand through cross-ownership such as buying a TV company to reduce their deficits. This was practised many times in the AKP government for many years; ownership of some media outlets has been handed over among the business groups closer to the governing party (Sözeri 2013: 394).

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642 | ceren sözeri The survivors of the 2001 financial crisis like Doğan (the biggest media group of the era), Doğuş, Çukurova, newcomer Ciner and the AKP-linked Albayrak Group welcomed the new government, with the expectation of economic stability. The elimination process of the Uzan Group can be considered as an example of this positive atmosphere. Cem Uzan (owner of the Uzan Media Group, also a partner with Ahmet Özal in the first private television channel, Star, which, despite Özal being the son of Turkish president Turgut Özal, violated TRT’s monopoly in 1990) had invested in the banking sector and also ran in the 2002 election as a leader of the populist Genç Party (Young Party) but it was below the threshold. After 2003, the government began seizing more than 200 of Uzan’s companies including media outlets. In 2004 his newspaper Star was sold to a pro-government investor, Ali Özmen Safa, and his mainstream Star TV channel was bought by the Doğan Group in 2005 (Ayan 2019: 73). The year 2007 was the first breaking point in media–power relations. The AKP took 47 per cent of the vote in the 2007 general elections despite the party facing a closure lawsuit against it, a series of Republic Meetings in opposition to it in order to preserve laicism and the Kemalist system, and the 27 April e-memorandum from the army. Following the election victory, the party adopted a dual strategy to eliminate media opposition. In the same year, the second-largest media group, Sabah-ATV, was bought by Çalık Holding, which has close ties to the government, thanks to credits provided by two major public banks. The chairman of the board of this group was the son-in-law of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Thus, the power shifted from the opponent mainstream media companies to ‘reconfigured’ or ‘proponent’ media companies (Kurban & Sözeri 2012: 50). On the other hand, on 10 February 2008, the constitutional amendment adopted by the parliament to legalise the headscarf at universities was covered by Hürriyet (the flagship daily of the Doğan Group) with the headline ‘411 hands rose to chaos’, referring to the number of parliamentarians who voted in favour. Hürriyet was also instrumental in generating public opinion in favour of the Republic Meetings in the name of protecting secularism against the government. The Doğan Group pursued criticism of Erdoğan in the ongoing case of allegations of illegally transferring donations to a religious charity, Deniz Feneri, to himself and pro-AKP media groups (Hürriyet 2008). Finally, the Doğan Group was exposed to approximately 4.8 billion lira ($2.5 billion) in tax fines due to sales of some of its assets in 2009, although the fine was reduced to approximately 900 million lira through restructuring the tax debt after the group shifted its editorial policy. The government continued to use economic tools to subdue the media while the new proponent owners were growing by public tenders (Ellis 2015). AKP won a victory once more by a convincing 57 per cent of the vote in the constitutional referendum in 2010 despite concerns about the damage to the country’s

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journalistic issues under crackdown | 643 secular traditions via media support. The daily newspaper Taraf was first published in November 2007 and the Fethullah Gülen movement’s media played a crucial role during the ‘Ergenekon’ and ‘Balyoz’ (‘Sledgehammer’) trials against military officers, alongside journalists and academics, for their involvement in coup plans to overthrow the AKP government, between 2008 and 2010. These media covered the process as a struggle to overthrow the military tutelage (Yeşil 2016: 97–8). During the Ergenekon and Sledgehammer investigations and subsequent cases against Kurdish journalists in which they were accused of being members of KCK (Koma Ciwakên Kurdistan, the Union of Kurdistan Communities), hundreds of journalists stood trial and were imprisoned, and other critical journalists were dismissed from their jobs, while the AKP was taking important steps in creating a loyal media. In October 2011, the five biggest news agencies announced in a joint statement that they were going to ‘comply with the publication bans of the competent authorities’ the day after a meeting between Prime Minister Erdoğan and the media owners and executives (Söylemez 2011). Finally, on 29 December 2011, the deaths of thirty-four Kurdish civilians by Turkish military fighter jets in the village of Roboski in Hakkari province were not covered by the mainstream media including the news channels for eighteen hours, that is, until the government’s press release. Similarly, in the first days of the Gezi protests, which were organised against Erdogan’s increasingly authoritarian policies in 2013, the mainstream media was unable to cover the police violence in the streets. CNNTürk, for instance, aired a documentary on penguins, which became a symbol of the mainstream media’s ‘penguin media’ stance (Ellis 2015). After the fallout between the AKP and the Gülen movement, despite their support of the government during the protests, it was revealed via a series of wiretapped phone conversations that editors and journalists in the mainstream media occasionally received calls from the prime minister’s office telling them to change stories, downplay coverage, or fire reporters or columnists (Corke et al. 2014). Gezi changed society’s view of the media; while protests were being held in front of the mainstream media buildings, the use of social media to obtain information increased (Yeşil 2016: 109–10). Critical media and new digital-born alternative news sources became more popular with the support of journalists who resigned or were fired from the mainstream. The conflict between the government and its Islamist ally the Gülen movement reached a peak when state prosecutors with alleged links to the movement issued arrest warrants on 17 and 25 December 2013 for the sons of three AKP cabinet ministers, as well as a number of state bureaucrats and businessmen, on charges of political corruption and bribery (Clarke et al. 2014). While formerly pro-government Gülenist media joined the anti-AKP opposition, one of the big media groups, the Çukurova Group, was seized by the TMSF in May 2013 due to its deficits and its media companies were sold to

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644 | ceren sözeri pro-government investors. The second-biggest group, Sabah-ATV, was bought by Zirve Holding in 2014, which is also active in the construction, energy and infrastructure sectors and recently won a tender for the construction of Istanbul’s third airport. Some tape records alleged that President Erdoğan ordered some pro-government investors to create a ‘pool’ to buy the group, which led to its designation as the ‘pool media’ by the opposition (RSF 2019). Despite all these reconfiguration attempts in the media, the AKP could not reach a majority to rule alone in the 7 June 2015 elections. Not only were all the coalition efforts hampered, but also the peace process with the Kurdish movement was ended by President Erdoğan. Although electoral victory on 1 November 2015 and his security policies strengthened his hand, the game-changer was the failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016 (Madi-Şişman 2017: 86), which was described as ‘a gift from God’ by Erdoğan (Champion 2016). On 20 July 2016, a state of emergency that gave the government the power to rule by decree was declared for three months, then extended to two years. In total 179 media organisations, which included not only the media outlets that were owned by the Gülen movement but also the leftist and the pro-Kurdish ones, were shut down, thousands of journalists lost their jobs, and more than 600 press cards were cancelled by the government (RSF 2019). The constitutional referendum to change the structure of governance in the country from a parliamentary system to a presidential one was held under the state of emergency and accepted with 51 per cent in favour on 17 April 2017. Four months before the 2018 presidential election, the Doğan Media Group, the largest media group in the country, was sold to the Demirören Group, which has very close ties to the government as a result of being given a large loan ($675 million) from a state-owned bank, Ziraat Bankası, with a two-year non-payment period and a ten-year term. Since 2018, the owners of nine out of ten of the most-watched TV channels and most-read newspapers have invested in sectors such as construction, energy, mining, tourism and telecommunications, and are also affiliated with the government (RSF 2019), In 2018, the presidential system was officially adopted and presidential decrees replaced the state emergency decrees. In one of the first decrees (No. 3), the authority to appoint and to audit the board and management of the public service Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (Türkiye Radyo ve Televizyon Kurumu, TRT), the head of the Directorate General of Press Advertising (Basın İlan Kurumu, BİK) and the Court of Accounts prosecutors was transferred to the president. The power of distributing press cards, which give journalists access to parliament and official press conferences, was transferred to the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey’s Directorate of Communications, established in 2018 under a presidential decree (No. 14) (İnceoğlu et al. 2021).

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journalistic issues under crackdown | 645 All regulatory bodies are under the control of the government. The Radio and Television Supreme Council (Radyo ve Televizyon Üst Kurulu, RTÜK), which imposed a systematic broadcast ban and various financial fines to opposition TV channels, has been dominated by the ruling party and its ally, the MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, Nationalist Action Party); only two members belong to the main opposition party, the CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Republican People’s Party), and the member from the pro-Kurdish HDP (Halkların Demokrasi Partisi, Peoples’ Democracy Party), Ali Ürküt, is in jail due to the investigation into the protests held to support Kobane in northern Syria in its fight against ISIS on 6–8 October 2014. The BİK is tasked with allocating official advertisements to the print media and has imposed advertising bans against independent newspapers, cutting a crucial supply of income and threatening their viability (ECPMF, 2020). Since July 2020, following a new amendment (No. 7253) to Internet Law No. 5651, which protects personality rights like name, image, voice and private life, the media organisations have had to deal with many blocking orders and 42 per cent of the blocked news was related to the government and its close circles (MLSA 2020). Despite all these restrictions, independent media’s digital reach (33.5 million users) is growing rapidly and is about to catch the pro-government media’s (47.8 million users). Although small and independent online news sources provide more alternative perspectives, their financial and human resources are strictly limited. The incomes are based on advertising and it is difficult to create new revenue models in the digital era (Kızılkaya & Ütücü 2021). Conclusion Turkey was recognised as a European Union candidate country in 1999 and accession negotiations started in October 2005. The government has adopted some progressive legal reforms in terms of freedom of expression and freedom of the press such as the right to broadcast in languages other than Turkish. However, as seen in the European Commission (2020) country report, following the failed coup attempt in 2016, there is a serious backsliding on fundamental rights in Turkey. On 6 July 2017, the European Parliament voted to suspend accession talks with Turkey. All public institutions, such as the Anadolu Agency (founded in 1921), the BİK, TRT (founded in 1964), the RTÜK (founded in 1994) and finally, the Presidency of the Republic of Turkey’s Directorate of Communications (founded in 2018), were consolidated in one pair of hands and turned into a propaganda tool by the government. The management and board functions of these institutions were handed over to the president after the regime shift. The country is currently the riskiest in Europe for media freedom and media diversity (İnceoğlu et al. 2021). The 2021 World Press Freedom Index from Reporters without Borders ranks Turkey 153rd out of 180 countries and indicates that

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646 | ceren sözeri ‘Internet censorship has reached unprecedented levels. Questioning the authorities and the privileged is now almost impossible’ (RSF n.d.). The Committee to Protect Journalists stated that the country ranks among the highest in terms of imprisoning journalists (Beiser 2020). The problems from the outset such as a low rate of unionisation, lack of solidarity, and political engagement leave journalists in a very vulnerable position against media owners and the government. As mentioned above, after the failed coup attempt, hundreds of press cards were cancelled. The responsibility for issuing the cards transferred to the Presidency’s Directorate of Communication and the structure of the press card commission was changed to be composed of pro-government and state-owned media representatives in 2018. The government has controlled the media owners via public tenders or fines and broadcast bans. Idealistic dreams have turned into nightmares for journalists a century later. However, there are idealistic journalists whose voices will become more dominant thanks to technological transformation; so, there is still hope for the next century. References Alan, Ü. (2015), Saray’dan Saray’a Türkiye’de Gazetecilik Masalı, Istanbul: Can Yayınları. Ayan, V. M. (2019), AKP Devrinde Medya Alemi, Istanbul: Yordam Kitap. Barutçu, İ. (2004), Babıâli Tanrıları Simavi Ailesi, Istanbul: Agora Kitaplığı. Beiser, E. (2020), ‘Record number of journalists jailed worldwide’, Committee to Protect Journalists, 15 December, https://cpj.org/reports/2020/12/record-number-journalists-jailed-imprisoned/, accessed 14 February 2023. Bek, M. G. (2004), ‘Research Note: Tabloidization of News Media – An Analysis of Television News in Turkey’, European Journal of Communication 19(3): 371–86. Cemal, H. (2012), ‘Büyük medyanın eski gücü neden mi yok?’ Milliyet, 4 May, https://www. milliyet.com.tr/yazarlar/hasan-cemal/buyuk-medyanin-eski-gucu-neden-mi-yok-1535945, accessed 14 February 2023. Champion, M. (2016), ‘Coup Was “Gift from God” for Erdogan Planning a New Turkey’, Bloomberg, 17 July, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-17/coup-was-a-gift-fromgod-says-erdogan-who-plans-a-new-turkey, accessed 14 February 2023. Clarke, S., M.  B. Fraser and A.  Harrison (eds) (2014), ‘Surveillance, Secrecy and Self-Censorship: New Digital Freedom Challenges in Turkey’, PEN International, https://pen-international.org/ app/uploads/Surveillance-Secrecy-and-Self-Censorship-New-Digital-Freedom-Challenges-inTurkey.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Corke, S., A. Finkel, D. J. Kramer, C. A. Robbins and N. Schenkkan (2014), ‘Democracy in Crisis: Corruption, Media, and Power in Turkey’, Freedom House, January, https://freedomhouse. org/sites/default/files/2020-02/SR_Corruption_Media_Power_Turkey_PDF.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023.

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journalistic issues under crackdown | 647 Eberwein, T., S. Fengler and M. Karmasin (2018), ‘Introduction: Putting Media Accountability on the Map’, in T. Eberwein, S. Fengler and M. Karmasin (eds), The European Handbook of Media Accountability, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, pp. 1–6. ECPMF (2020), ‘Open letter to the Public Advertising Agency (BIK) in Turkey on concerns regarding public advertisement and bans implemented on newspapers’, 4 June, https://www. ecpmf.eu/open-letter-to-the-public-advertising-agency-bik-in-turkey-on-concerns-regardingpublic-advertisement-and-bans-implemented-on-newspapers/, accessed 14 February 2023. Ellis, S. M. (2015), ‘Democracy at Risk: IPI Special Report on Turkey’, International Press Institute, March,https://ipi.media/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/IPI_Special_Report_-_ Turkey_2015_Final.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Elmas, E. and D. Kurban (2011), Communicating Democracy – Democratizing Communication: Media in Turkey – Legislation, Policies, Actors, Istanbul: TESEV Erdoğan, H. (2012), ‘Ahmet Ertürk, 28 Şubat’ta medya-sermaye-asker üçgeninde yaşananları anlattı’, Star, 17 October, https://www.star.com.tr/politika/ahmet-erturk-28-subatta-medyasermayeasker-ucgeninde-yasananlari-anlatti-haber-697576/, accessed 14 February 2023. European Commission (2020), ‘Turkey 2020 Report’, 6 October, available at https://www. ab.gov.tr/siteimages/trkiye_raporustrateji_belgesi_2020/turkey_report_2020.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Gür, A. (1995), ‘Sermaye Yapısında Değişim ve Dergiler’, in Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, vol. 11, pp. 145–9. Gürkan, N. (1998), Türkiye’de Demokrasiye Geçişte Basın (1945–1950), Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Hallin, D.  C. and P. Mancini (2004), Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamsici, M. (2017). ‘Cumhuriyet’in anayasası’nın oylandığı 1961 referandumu’, BBC News Türkçe, 3 April, https://www.bbc.com/turkce/haberler-turkiye-39439341, accessed 14 February 2023. Hürriyet (2008), ‘Turkey’s largest media group refuses to bow to gov’t pressure’, 8 September, https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/turkeys-largest-media-group-refuses-to-bow-to-govtpressure-9846881, accessed 14 February 2023. İnce, E. (2014). ‘“Özgür basin”in tutsak yillari’, Bianet, 12 December, https://bianet.org/bianet/ medya/160894-ozgur-basin-in-tutsak-yillari, accessed 14 February 2023. İnceoğlu, Y., C. Sözeri and T. Erbaysal Filibeli (2021), ‘Monitoring Media Pluralism in the Digital Era: Application of the Media Pluralism Monitor in the European Union, Albania, Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia, Serbia & Turkey in the Year 2020 – Country Report: Turkey’, EUI Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom, August, https://cadmus.eui. eu/bitstream/handle/1814/71965/turkey_results_mpm_2021_cmpf.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Karaosmanoğlu, Y. K. ([1934] 2020). Ankara, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Kızılkaya, E. and B.  Ütücü (2021), ‘“The New Mainstream” Is Rising (and It Seeks Support)’, International Press Institute, March, https://freeturkeyjournalists.ipi.media/wp-content/

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648 | ceren sözeri uploads/2021/03/ENG-IPI-Turkey-Digital-Media-Report-01032021-finaI-.pdf, accessed 14 February 2023. Koloğlu, Orhan (1995), ‘Liberal Ekonomi Düzeninde Basın Rejimi’, in Cumhuriyet Dönemi Türkiye Ansiklopedisi, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, vol. 11, pp. 134–9. Kurban, D., Sözeri, C. (2012), Caught in the Wheels of Power: The Political, Legal and Economic Constraints on Independent Media and Freedom of the Press in Turkey, Istanbul: TESEV. Madi-Şişman, Ö. (2017), Muslims, Money, and Democracy in Turkey: Reluctant Capitalists, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. MLSA (2021), ‘Free Web Turkey: Online censorship marks the end of news’, 20 January, https:// www.mlsaturkey.com/en/free-web-turkey-online-censorship-marks-the-end-of-news/, accessed 14 February 2023. Öymen, A. (2013), Ve İhtilal . . . Istanbul: Doğan Kitap. Özsever, A. (2004), Tekelci Medya Örgütsüz Gazeteci, Ankara: İmge Yayınevi. RSF (2019), ‘Political Affiliations’, Media Ownership Monitor: Turkey, https://turkey.mom-rsf. org/en/findings/political-affiliations/, accessed 14 February 2023. RSF (n.d.), ‘Türkiye’, Reporters without Borders, https://rsf.org/en/country-t%C3%BCrkiye, accessed 14 February 2023. Söylemez, A. (2011), ‘We will comply with official publication bans’, Bianet, 24 October, https://m. bianet.org/bianet/freedom-of-expression/133600-we-will-comply-with-official-publicationbans, accessed 14 February 2023. Sözeri, C. (2013), ‘The Political Economy of the Media and Its Impact on the Freedom of Expression in Turkey’, in C. Rodríguez, A. Avaloz, H. Yilmaz and A. I. Planet (eds), Turkey’s Democratization Process, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 391–404. Tılıç, D. (2000), Utanıyorum Ama Gazeteciyim, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Topuz, H. (2003), II. Mahmut’tan Holdinglere Türk Basın Tarihi, Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi. Yeşil, B. (2016), Media in New Turkey The Origins of an Authoritarian Neoliberal State, Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Yılmaz, Ö. (2012), ‘Ertuğrul Özkök: Pişmanım’, Milliyet, 4 October, https://www.milliyet.com. tr/siyaset/ertugrul-ozkok-pismanim-1606568, accessed 14 February 2023.

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49 Questioning Century-Old Turkish Art through the Polarisation Concept Elif Dastarlı (Sakarya University)

What is Polarisation in Art?

D

ifferences of opinion, stylistic conflicts and contrarieties are the requirements of innovation in art. Nonetheless, social segregation, which can be defined as polarisation, is quite problematic. Polarisation cannot only be explained as the social segregation consisting of two segments criticising each other; social segments that have polarised believe in the absolute accuracy or truth of their own position, and form themselves and their opposites in a fixed manner. From such a point onwards, the possibility of transposition and persuasion essentially becomes minimal. The most prevalent and apparent form of polarisation in Turkey is that of the politically based mindset, which is reflected in all areas of social life. Such polarisation, which historically dates back to Ottoman modernisation, has occurred within the axis of two different political segments – principally the secular and the conservative – since the early periods of the Republic. Even though the phenomenon of polarisation, which has been increasing to date, is mostly discussed within the contexts of political science and sociology, its impact on Turkish social structure, with its cultural dimension, is considerable. The dominance of parsing logic in society has led to a number of art practices that were in the axes of national–universal, figurative–abstract, traditional–modernist, academic– non-academic, modern–contemporary. In art history, which is in the order of a hundred years old in Turkey, the confrontation of people with different views has been seen as a temporary clash of ideas; however, since such conflicts are experienced in the form of taking a hard line, it can also be seen as a kind of polarisation, and it can be claimed that it has now taken the form of a culture war. Today, Turkey is going through a period of culture wars between the East–West and religious–secular axes. This chapter deals with a hundred years of Turkish art on the axis of concepts that are positioned opposite each other 649

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650 | elif dastarlı in Turkey’s history as determined by political instability, and finally discusses how art can reach a unique point without dwelling on the dilemma of opposition in form or idea. The Reality of Polarisation in Turkish Art: Every Decade Once Again The Ottoman Westernisation process, which began as a cultural response in the eighteenth century and continued with institutional reforms in the nineteenth century, became state policy in due course and a system that could be defined as ‘modernisation’. While there were traditional arts, determined according to Islam, such as calligraphy, miniatures and ceramics in the traditional social structure of the Ottoman Empire, from the nineteenth century a change took place in Turkish art with the beginnings of the process of Westernisation, and art production began in the fields of painting and sculpture, among others. The new Republic of Turkey, as proclaimed in 1923, continued the aim of Westernisation and attached an increased importance to culture and arts to create a national consciousness in Turkish society. Therefore, in the early period of the Republic, the primary aim was to establish national art as a founding element that would help form the nation. On the other hand, while the political goal was to reach the level of civilisation of Western countries, the goal in art was to equal the achievements of any European country. However, many questions arose: How might this be possible? The modern art of Western countries was an art whose reality was self-professed, which developed in its natural process. Could that be achieved subsequently? Moreover, was national art an art that tells national stories? Was it possible for art to be both national and universal? In a country established after the War of Independence, the artist, like everyone else, considered her/himself a soldier working for her/his land – in terms of historical reality, mostly ‘his’. The principal arenas for the Turkish artist who had pinned her/his hopes on the new nation were the country’s restricted financial means, the prejudice of the predominantly Muslim society against art, and the effort required to ensure authentic production through a vision-perception that was not part of their own traditions. Both the state’s need for art to create national consciousness and the harsh conditions of the period suggest that the only way an autonomous art environment could be realised was with the support of the state. In the period from the founding of the Republic until 1933, the associated developments ranged from sending students abroad to providing space for exhibitions to show the supportive policy of the state. Moreover, politicians visited the exhibitions to ensure that the presence of the state in this field was visible, as can be inferred from the visit by the education minister, who opened the exhibition of the Independent Painters and Sculptors Association (Müstakil Ressamlar ve Heykeltıraşlar Derneği), the first artists’ organisation of the Republican era (Giray 1997: 52), in Istanbul on 15 October 1929. However, the fact that art was essentially dependent on the state, and therefore that autonomous art production was limited, became a point of discussion.

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questioning turkish art through polarisation | 651 Accordingly, the first dissidence to be followed to understand the early period of Turkish art shows up in the discussion’s axis of the existence or absence of the state in art. The debate between those who argued that the state should support art without interfering with the content and those who said that this would not be possible would continue even into the 1960s. The aim of creating a national art led to a planned art policy in 1933, on the tenth anniversary of the Republic. For instance, the artist Namık İsmail, who was also the director of the Fine Arts Academy at that time, presented a report to the Ministry of National Education in 1933 stating that Turkish fine arts were still far from being national, that they were under the various influences of the East and West, and that their development depended on the public actually seeing such works more often (Öndin 2003: 152). Paintings with the theme of republican revolutions were requested for the ‘Exhibitions of Reforms’ (İnkılap Sergileri); nationwide tours were organised to take chosen artists to the most remote districts and provinces of the country; and painting and sculpture exhibitions were periodically organised by the state itself, which, besides supporting art, meant that the state was attempting to give it a direction. When the aim of creating national art ultimately resulted in describing the ideological orientation of the state in a figurative-narrative style, artists became uncomfortable with this in terms of the associated lack of autonomy and stated that such art could not be ‘modern’ enough. This caused another conflict: Should art be national or universal? What had to be done to be universal yet remain national? Strange responses like ‘Western in form and native in content’ were formulated. Making use of ‘locality’ was perceived as a solution. For instance, Group d (d Grubu), which was founded in 1933 by Zeki Faik İzer, Nurullah Berk, Abidin Dino, Elif Naci, Cemal Tollu and Zühtü Müridoğlu, remained amid the national/local and universal/modernist debates at a time when the ‘ideal of modern Turkish art’ had become a fetish. Those artists who claimed that art in Turkey was fifty years behind the West (Berk & Turani 1981: 99) believed in the necessity of catching up with the West and worked in line with Cubist-Constructivist tendencies. The works of Group d ignited debates in which questions arose such as whether Western art should be taken in its pure form and what the dimensions of emulation could be. This prevented the development of an autonomous art environment and an original art production. The works were even accused of being ‘imitations’. Turkish modernisation was a model of European modernity but lacked the essence of modernity. Therefore, any innovation that takes the West as an example always gains the least consideration. Moreover, the fact that modernisation meant ‘being like the West’ in a formalist understanding caused the Turks to completely break away from their own traditions, and artists began to realise the abstract quality of carpet motifs and illumination patterns in their own traditions only after they gained a Western perspective on such.

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652 | elif dastarlı From the 1940s in particular, some artists such as Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu and Sabri Berkel were inspired by the traditional and folkloric arts, and started to work by creating different forms with a concern for ‘synthesis’. That artists were convinced that in order to be original one had to feed on tradition was actually the result of the practices in Western art that were ideally targeted. The idea was that if Picasso created Cubism by making use of African masks, we could feed on our pre-modern traditional arts and get hold of authentic art and reach the universal from there. But ‘looking back at the old’, and what this looking would be like, was a problem in itself. Heading towards the traditional again after breaking away from it necessitated a somewhat superficial relationship with its elements. One might refer to this situation as a conflict between traditional and modern. The single-party rule of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), which was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, came to an end in Turkey in the 1950s. This was a period in which the state’s contribution to Turkish painting was gradually withdrawn, and the then political powers, starting with the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), began to reshape the cultural environment with their understanding of Turkish-Islamic synthesising. Efforts such as ‘reviving traditional art’ should also be seen as a result of the changing political climate in the country. This was also a period when some works of painting and sculpture came close to an abstract style for the first time. The discussions with regard to traditional–modern were intertwined with those of figurative–abstract painting, which we can bring forward as another pair of contrasts. It is quite tragicomic that, in painting in particular, the figurative–abstract conflict created a polarisation in time. Even in the 1990s, conflict regarding abstract–figurative painting took place between the ateliers in the Fine Arts Academy, which was founded in the latter period of the Ottoman Empire in 1883 and had the sole say in the Turkish art scene for decades. This is one of the most typical examples of the polarisation of mentalities in art. This situation also solidified a contrast that emerged as academic–anti-academic manners. For instance, in 1954, for the tenth anniversary of the bank Yapı Kredi’s establishment, thirty-six painters, mostly from academia, participated in a competition themed ‘Work and Production’ (İş ve İstihsal) with thirty-eight paintings in total. The jury for the competition were world-renowned art critics who were present at that time, as a meeting of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) was being held in Istanbul. Aliye Berger, a female painter from outside the Academy, won the first prize with her large-sized abstract composition and met with a reaction from many of the painters who were professors at the Academy and also took part in the competition. In fact, the criticisms that were made ‘had no meaning other than the inability of the academic hegemony to get over the slap’ (Tansuğ 1995: 88). Polarisation is a state of ‘taking sides’. Undoubtedly, we find the greatest polarisation in the Turkish art scene in the reality of being from – or not from – the Academy, which

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questioning turkish art through polarisation | 653 includes all the above-mentioned differences of opinion. For example, in a panel discussion held in 1967, artists and writers focused on the decisiveness of the phenomenon of the Academy. Painter Ömer Uluç, one of the debaters, stated that the Academy and its artists did not fit Turkey’s reality, because art should not rely on the state, and the Academy, which is a state institution in Turkey, had dominated the art scene for years (Uluç et al. 2016: 15). Moreover, the relationship of the abstract–figurative distinction, which derived from the polarisation in the Academy, with the aim of making local or modernist painting was discussed at the panel, where the issue got stuck at the point of discussing the aesthetics of East and West. The painter and writer Nurullah Berk determined that Islamic societies’ relationship with plastic arts is looser than ours, and he considered this ‘a matter of religion’, which was a controversial approach. Uluç stated he did not agree with the idea that Eastern arts were backward and explained the reciprocal relationship between the East and the West, contrary to the views that dealt with the issue of the reaction to modernist progressiveness. He mentioned the duality in Eastern art and stated that an element can both be abstract and realistic (Uluç et al. 2016: 29–30, 49–50). His words point to the need to establish a genuine relationship with traditional facts. Unfortunately, it is quite easy to follow the history of Turkey in periods of decades because military coups and government changeovers have determined this history unambivalently. The change to the constitution after the military coup on 27 May 1960 was responsible for a sudden interruption in Turkish history, making it flow in an entirely different direction. The reflection of the movements in the world, the effects of these ideas with the translation of Marxist literature, the establishment of left-wing parties and their entry into the parliament, the increase in social organisations, and the mobilisation of labour unions and student movements strengthened the left socialist segment of the country, and these were all reflected in the contemporary art. While the concept of individuality had only recently been emphasised since the 1950s and abstract painting had gained acceptance in a more general sense, in the 1960s the idea of organisation with ‘social’ concerns became prominent and socialist figure painting was strengthened under the influence of the political atmosphere of the period. Migration to the cities, especially between 1960 and 1980, changed city life and its image. It is possible to say that landscape painting, which had always been prominent in Turkish painting, now fell behind images of poor people’s endeavours at life in the city for the first time. After the military coup on 12 March 1971, the left socialist discourse was severely damaged, and the will to actively take part in the social struggle was interrupted. However, art continued to exist as a powerful field of expression. In this period, there were a number of exceptional artists, such as Uluç, Nevhiz Tanyeli and Mehmet Güleryüz, who rejected any conceptual pairs that emerged as contrasts like figurative–abstract, or traditional–modernist, and who made their own way. On the one hand, in the 1970s, when

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654 | elif dastarlı the art environment, like Turkish society, was polarised to the left and right, the conflict between individualist and collectivist art was added to the abstract–figurative distinction. There was a serious polarisation on the axis of whether art would be seen as a means of social struggle or otherwise. Reducing the intellectual discussion to slogans brought a propagandist style in art to the fore in which there was figure idealisation such as clenched fists and paintings of workers. On the other hand, with the increase in the number of both state and private galleries, opportunities for exhibitions increased, awareness of collecting art began, and discussions and suggestions were made that might allow for the improvement of the existing cultural institutions. The increase in artistic organisations and the number of artistic publications paved the way for artists to make use of different sources of inspiration and to gain distinct possibilities of expression. Thus, from the late 1970s, there were alternative approaches in art (Bek 2014: 5). However, with the increase in conceptual artists came a conservative reaction against them, and those artists were considered ‘excessive individualists’. Today, the groupings formed by the advocates of ‘social art’ and of ‘conceptual art’ appear as artificial oppositions and they seem rather absurd. Here, the major difference is between the defenders of the turn-of-the-century modernism, who used the formal methods of painting and sculpture, and the artists who tried to put art at an intellectual level and use all kinds of materials. Artists who produced conceptual art were accused of being ‘fake marginal’, ‘stilted avantgarde’, ‘admirers of the West’ or ‘art trend followers’.1 In fact, compared to the early periods of the Republic, Turkish art was expeditiously becoming more autonomous and more synchronous with the world. Once again, a military coup took place on 12 September 1980, bringing heavy social destruction and changing the course of life and the direction of art. Since the use of art as a way of opposition was not possible during the period of oppression, the artist was forced to find new ways of showing resistance. Among conceptual artists such as Gülsün Karamustafa, Erdağ Aksel, Sarkis and Hale Tenger in particular, a new political language, loaded with heavy irony, became increasingly important. Moreover, Karamustafa was tried for being a member of a leftist organisation and Tenger was tried for ‘insulting the Turkish flag’ with a work that she had made (Kortun & Kosova 2014: 66). On the other hand, the ‘turning Turkey’s face to the West’ policy of the 1983 government of Turgut Özal, the new prime minister of Turkey, while maintaining the rhetoric of ‘preserving national values’ led the country in a different direction from the conditions of martial law of the coup period. An image of American liberalism was created that was not properly democratic. Compared to the previous periods, with the development of private galleries and art-collecting from the 1980s onwards, art began to establish a more distinctive discourse than that produced under the influence of the political agenda. The ‘New For more details see Dastarlı (2006).

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questioning turkish art through polarisation | 655 Trends in Art’ (Yeni Eğilimler) exhibition, which was organised as part of the Istanbul Art Festival, first held in 1977, and the ‘Cross-Section of Avantgarde Turkish Art’ (Öncü Türk Sanatından Bir Kesit) exhibitions, the first of which was held in 1980, breathed new life into the art scene. New conceptual experiments appeared in these exhibitions and a polyphonic structure began to dominate the art environment. The Istanbul Festival’s transformation into the International Istanbul Biennial in the late 1980s, taking its place among the other biennials around the world, was a vastly significant step for Turkish contemporary art. In the 1990s, works with a conceptual orientation that got ahead of formal productions such as painting and sculpture met a wide range of art production under the title of ‘current art’ – not ‘contemporary art’; the political meanings attributed to the terms ‘modern’, ‘contemporary’ and ‘current’ in Turkey have a role in this term preference. From the second half of the 1990s in particular, Kurdish artists such as Halil Altındere and Şener Özmen had a say in Istanbul’s contemporary art scene, with their works discussing identity and ethnicity adding a new dimension to Turkish art. Moreover, the voices of feminist artists were being increasingly raised about the brutal gender issues prevalent at the time. This was the first time that inequalities in terms of age, gender and origin were brought to the fore in Turkish art, and this created a very positive environment. It can be claimed that the period in which Turkish art attracted the most attention in international environments started at this time. The 2000s marked the beginning of an unprecedented transformation in Turkey with the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government. In art, as has been revealed in many other fields, there is a serious gap between the first and second decades of this right-conservative government which has been ruling the country since 2001. In fact, since the 1950s, the rising right-wing populist discourse began to dominate the cultural policies produced by the Nationalist Front governments, especially after 1970. The horizon of modernism in the art of the early Republican period was replaced by an increased tendency towards tradition and custom (Germaner 1999: 12–13). This trend was continued by coups and right-wing governments. The oft-repeated ‘being national’ corresponded to the ‘Muslim Turk’ identity, and national culture and art were again designated as the primary goal. In a period when art became autonomous and found its own way, the market developed, and universal visibility grew, the attempt was made to create a local-national idealism with ideological oppression from the top down. However, since art had acquired an autonomous structure and the art environment was integrated with the world until the 2010s, this right populist discourse could not find a response to art. On the other hand, the AKP government, which has left its mark on Turkey since 2000, brought the level of art to debates on the ‘necessity of conservative art’ in an effort to resurrect such a legacy. Social polarisation unseen in the history of Turkey emerged,

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656 | elif dastarlı and an emphasis was placed on ‘cultural power’ in an area that was thought to belong to the ‘opposite pole’. ‘Cultural power’ became a topic that Islamic intellectuals brought to the inner agenda as an acute issue, especially after the Gezi protests in 2013 (Gürpınar 2016: 114). For instance, the Yeditepe Biennial, which was held as an alternative to the Istanbul Biennial in partnership with a foundation close to the government and the local municipality in the control of the governing party, is a striking example of their desire to have a say in contemporary art, which generally had stagnated. After the first biennial, with the slogan ‘You have the art’, the second biennial was held in 2022. It has also been asked whether the Yeditepe Biennial, which clearly has the aim of ‘conquering’ contemporary art – a field that the government does not understand or care about – could be a means for the government to destroy an institution through external pressure since it cannot dominate it internally (Akbulut 2021). Authoritarian politics resort to an intrusive approach to the culture and art environment: this method is called censorship. In fact, although with certain relaxations from time to time, the prohibitive initiatives that started with the 1980 coup have increased overall, and continued until 2021. Today, it can be seen that the censorship mechanisms of art aim to delegitimise and intimidate artistic expression and its dissemination. Targeting artists, isolating them and creating an atmosphere of fear is an important part of this strategy (Karaca 2012: 135). That is to say, interventions in freedom of expression not only lead to censorship but also to self-censorship, and that is frightening. The censorship of nudity in a work of art seen in the background of a Turkish television programme is the result of an approach defined as ‘observing social sensitivity’. Moreover, unfortunately these destructive attitudes range from raiding openings at galleries because alcohol was being drunk in public2 to damaging a statue on the grounds that it insulted an Ottoman sultan.3 Doubtless, getting tired of these interventions, artists start by hesitating and then do not act bravely enough when we think in terms of the production of art. The problems that art has experienced in its own field for the past century have been entirely replaced by serious problems like coping with political pressure. It is possible to say that, today, the entire art environment has joined forces at the point of freedom of expression. Although the contrasts of concepts – even those that seem to be part of the language of art, such as figurative–abstract – presented so far seem to be indirect, they basically rest on the axis of differences in the understanding of Turkish modernisation. It is obvious that the cultural wars that emerged in line with the polarisations are not in fact cultural For two similar events in the same region in 2011 and 2018 for the same reason see CNNTürk (2018a); CNNTürk (2018b).  3 For the attack on the statue by artist Ali Elmacı at the opening of the 2016 Istanbul Contemporary Art Fair, see CNNTürk (2022).  2

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questioning turkish art through polarisation | 657 but structural in Turkey, and are more a reflection of the meaning and of the transforming ground of politics (Gürpınar 2016: 15). That the dynamic of Turkish modernisation has always been drawn on the axes of East–West, traditional–modern and conservative– secular has led to the fact that the art of modernisation is sometimes determined by contrasts such as abstract–figurative, sometimes local/national–universal. The fact that cultural power is mostly formed by a modern-secular intellectual environment has started to change as a result of the efforts of those in line with the Turkish right-wing power to dominate the cultural environment. Ultimately, the increasing dominance of the secular– conservative dichotomy in art, which constitutes the main social polarisation today, can be explained in this way. Anti-democratic practices and violations of rights directly affect the actors operating in the field of art and culture. Within this scope, the majority of the time in today’s Turkey, the field of art and culture itself can act as the basis for social polarisation and plays a role that reproduces polarisation (Suner & Atlı 2018: 6). The absence of a determined, stable and long-term cultural policy for understanding the cultural heritage of the country in all its depth and protecting it in all its aspects also brings a certain shallowness to art production (Suner & Atlı 2018: 9). For instance, reviving the Ottoman heritage with propagandist intentions has inevitably led to populism and cultural shallowness. Therefore, the question of how art can reach a unique point without being stuck with the dilemma of controversy in form or idea is very important, and is directly related to the change in Turkey’s political climate. Predictions about the period to come can only be made in the context of whether it is possible to change this mentality. Authenticity, Autonomy, Freedom . . . Are Possible . . . Today, Turkey, is going through a period of culture wars, which can be expressed in terms of East–West or religious–secular axes. Some studies propose that it seems as though Turkey’s cultural public sphere is becoming conservative by virtue of the AKP, but that it is actually the extinction of conservatism; that is to say, to publicise conservatism does not create a new conservatism. For instance, it is underlined that societies in Europe have advertised and democratised with culture wars. And it is said that culture wars are experienced more intensely at the points where different social segments begin to be visible in the public sphere, and in this sense, they can be read as a sign of the coexistence of diversities (Dellaloğlu 2020: 301–2).4 This determination is very important and holds the prediction that this situation will change in the future, and that a more egalitarian public space will emerge within society. On the other hand, while differences of opinion can be nurturing, it is somewhat doubtful that polarisation, which we can see as a complete separation, can have a positive result. That the people or For more details on culture wars in European history, see Dellaloğlu (2020: 301–12).

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658 | elif dastarlı institutions holding power, which is potency, try to direct culture and art in line with their own preferences is dangerous if we consider the deep abyss between the places where they and their opponents locate themselves. Unless such a power that does not allow the existence of the other disappears, it is out of the question that there will be any normalisation in society. Likewise, the necessary prerequisite for starting an open-hearted discussion about overcoming polarisation, establishing partnerships between different groups, and creating a culture of living together in diversity will be the establishment of a management approach that guarantees the use of fundamental rights and freedoms on a democratic basis (Suner & Atlı 2018: 6). In order to be mentally ready for this, it is necessary to go through certain periods: acceptance, respect, tolerance and equality are a must in all areas of life, not just in art. The fact that social and cultural nutrition are disconnected from each other, which is one of the most fundamental problems in the history of Turkish modernisation, should be accepted. It is obvious that polarisation will end only when the disconnection of historical and cultural dimensions in different segments of society is eliminated. Only by virtue of reading the same author’s novels, going to the same exhibitions, watching the same films and plays, and abandoning the politics of polarisation in the course of time will society stop creating opponents. References Akbulut, Kültigin Kağan (2021), ‘Son kale, çağdaş sanat mı? Yerli ve milli bir bienale doğru . . .’, K24, 5 April, https://t24.com.tr/k24/yazi/son-kale-cagdas-sanat-mi-yerli-ve-milli-bienaledogru,1692, accessed 15 February 2023. Bek, Güler (2014), 1970-1980 Yılları Arasında Türkiye’de Kültürel ve Sanatsal Ortam, Istanbul: SALT/Garanti Kültür AŞ. Berk, Nurullah and Adnan Turani (1981), Başlangıcından Bugüne Çağdaş Türk Resim Sanatı Tarihi, Istanbul: Tiglat, vol. 2. CNNTürk (2018a), ‘Sanat galerisine “içki baskını”’, 11 December, https://www.cnnturk.com/ 2010/turkiye/09/22/sanat.galerisine.icki.baskini/590408.0/index.html, accessed 15 February 2023. CNNTürk (2018b), ‘Tophane’de sanat galerisine saldırı’, 11 December, https://www.cnnturk. com/video/turkiye/tophanede-sanat-galerisine-saldiri, accessed 15 February 2023. CNNTürk (2022), ‘Contemporary İstanbul’un açılış etkinliğine saldırı, 15 April, https://www. cnnturk.com/video/kultur-sanat/diger/contemporary-istanbulun-acilis-etkinligine-saldiri, accessed 15 February 2023. Dastarlı, Elif (2006), ‘1970–1990 Yılları arasında Türkiye’de Kavramsal Sanatı Oluşturan Ortam, Koşullar, Tartımalar ve Bir Kavramsal Sanatçı Olarak Füsun Onur’un Bu Süreç İçindeki Yeri ve Önemi’, MA thesis, Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Üniversitesi. Dellaloğlu, Besim F. (2020), Poetik Politik, Istanbul: Timaş.

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questioning turkish art through polarisation | 659 Germaner, Semra (1999), ‘Cumhuriyet Döneminde Resim Sanatı’, in Ayla Ödekan (ed.), Cumhuriyet’in Renkleri, Biçimleri, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfı, pp. 8–25. Giray, Kıymet (1997), Müstakil Ressamlar ve Heykeltıraşlar Birliği, Istanbul: Akbank Culture and Art Books. Gürpınar, Doğan (2016), Kültür Savaşları, Istanbul: Liber. Karaca, Banu (2012), ‘Çağdaş sanatın üretimi ve Türkiye’de sansür politikaları’, Toplum ve Bilim 125: 134–51. Kortun, Vasıf and Erden Kosova (2014), Ofsayt Ama Gol, Istanbul: SALT/Garanti Kültür AŞ. Öndin, Nilüfer (2003), Cumhuriyet’in Kültür Politikası ve Sanat 1923–1950, Istanbul: İnsancıl. Suner, Asuman and Altay Atlı (2018), ‘Toplumsal Kutuplaşma Ekseninde Sanat ve Spor’, İstanbul Politikalar Merkezi, March, available at https://ipc.sabanciuniv.edu/en/publications-0b2cce94#!, accessed 15 February 2023. Tansuğ, Sezer (1995), Türk Resminde Yeni Dönem, Istanbul: Remzi. Uluç, Ömer et al. (2016), Plastik Sanatlarımız 1967, Istanbul: Sanatatak.

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50 Sport and Politics in Turkey Basak Zeynep Alpan (Middle East Technical University)

Introduction

I

t almost goes without saying that the foundation of the Republic of Turkey is synonymous with the notions of ‘modernisation’ and ‘Westernisation’. Indeed, this effort at modernisation as a political project, as argued by numerous scholars, could be traced back to the reforms of the state administration, judiciary and education during the nineteenth century and the last decades of the Ottoman Empire. Since then, Turkey’s choice of a European orientation has derived from a deep-rooted state tradition, referring to both a careful perception of Turkish foreign policy options and an emotional attachment to the idea of being among the ‘Europeans’. Sport is not an exceptional terrain in this regard. This chapter will assess how sport has been significant in the history of the Republic of Turkey in terms of three specific dimensions it has infiltrated: policies, institutions and identities. In this regard, particular attention will be paid to the intertwining of politics and sport, where politics will be taken in a broader sense going beyond its traditional scope of decision-making and day-to-day political activities. In this picture, politics, as Jean Baudrillard explains, ‘is no longer restricted to the political sphere, but infects every sphere – economics, science, art, sport [. . .] Sport itself meanwhile, is no longer located in sport as such, but instead in business, in sex, in politics, in the general style of performance’ (quoted in Bar-On 1997: 15). This endeavour will mainly be explored through three periods of the Republic, where the first period lasts between 1923 and 1950, when Turkey adhered to multi-party politics; the second period is between 1950 and 1980, the 12 September coup d’état; and the third period lasts from 1980 until today. Football, as the most popular branch of sport in modern Turkey (just like anywhere else), will be given particular emphasis. 660

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sport and politics in turkey | 661 Sport and Politics in the Republic: Three Periods The Early Years of the Republic (1923–50): Sport as Modernisation As already said in the Introduction, the launch of the Republic in 1923 was mainly intertwined with an emphasis on the ‘modern’ and ‘European’ character of the young country. For Atatürk, ‘Turkey’s essential Europeanness remained unchanged; it simply had to be expressed in cultural rather than geographical terms’ (Hanioğlu 2011: 201). In this respect, since 1923, sport has been considered as an indispensable part of the cultural realm and was treated as a gateway to modernisation and well-being as well as the maintenance of the growth of the population of the new Republic. Thus, the main aim of physical education and sport policies in the early years of the Republic was twofold: to construct the image of ‘the enlightened citizen’ (Lüküslü & Dinçşahin 2011), while ameliorating ‘the health of the whole population (the youth in particular), which had been badly affected due to wars, pandemics and malnutrition’ (Akın 2004: 43). For this reason, sport has emerged as a significant tool of modernisation as well as bio-politics in the Republic. In this vein, a rapid development of sport was visible in the Atatürk period as well as during the ensuing years between 1938 and 1948, when sport was turned into a means of education administered by the state (Krawietz 2014: 339). For Atatürk, ‘the main concern is to ensure physical education for all ages of the Turks. All kinds of sports activities must be considered as the main elements of the Turkish youth national decency’ (quoted in Tınaz et al. 2014: 533). Therefore, sport was seen as a significant element of the Turkish national identity. In this respect, the Turkish Alliance of Training Associations (İdman Cemiyetleri İttifakı) had been founded in July 1922 by sixteen sports clubs merging to govern sporting activities. Founded by only Istanbul clubs and originally focused mainly on football, the Alliance has enlarged to appeal to various cities such as Adana, Ankara, Antalya and Bursa and to federations of other sports such as basketball, cycling, boxing, yachting and weightlifting (Akın 2004: 57–8). During transition to the 1930s, most of the discussions covered in the press were about the Alliance’s incompetence at administering the Turkish sports scene, the effects of the Great Depression, failures at the Olympics and the necessity to organise youth (Gökçe 2017: 64). At its 8th Congress in 1936, the Alliance became a part of the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), was officialised and renamed the Turkish Sports Institution (Türk Spor Kurumu), and its headquarters were moved to Ankara. The first chair of the Institution was Adnan Menderes, who became the head of the Democrat Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) later on. The self-declared ideals of the Institution were ‘organisation of youth’ and ‘homeland defence’ (Gökçe 2017: 64). The context of the 1930s has mainly been characterised by debates on the necessity to enlarge and strengthen the scope of physical education, largely due to the approaching

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662 | basak zeynep alpan war, militarising the framework of sport (Akın 2004: 77). It was mainly the German approach to sports that was adopted, which focused on the notions of competitive self-will and power as formulated by such philosophers as Schopenhauer or Nietzsche (Lüküslü & Dinçşahin 2013: 203–4). The ratification of the Law on Physical Education No. 3530 and the establishment of the General Directorate of Sports (Beden Terbiyesi Genel Müdürlüğü, BTGM) in 1938 could be read along those lines. By this law and the introduction of the BTGM, a formal sport policy was devised for the first time (Sümer 1990). Nevertheless, during the single-party era, sports was approached as a widespread activity involving all citizens of all ages. In 1942, new legislation, Law No. 4235, led to the attachment of sport to the Ministry of National Education, where it remained until 1960 when it was reattached to the Prime Ministry (Tınaz et al. 2014: 534). The governments of the interwar years were content with a solely reactive legislative approach to sport, but after the war, the government programme of 1946–7 aimed to provide ‘all kinds of sports activities, the establishment of the high institute for physical education to train the teaching staff of schools and clubs, and making attempts at establishing sports fields’ (quoted in Tınaz et al. 2014: 534). As explored above, sport had been seen as an indispensable tool to construct and propagate Turkish national identity. In this respect, starting from the early days of the Republic, the Olympics were a significant realm where this identity was negotiated and performed. In particular, the ancestor sport of wrestling was heralded as an important tool in the cultivation of an incipient Turkish national identity (Özçakır & Llewellyn 2017: 1437). The 1924 Paris Olympics marked the first tournament at which new Turkish Republic participated in the international arena. With the backdrop of Atatürk’s rigorous programme of political, economic and cultural reforms, the Games were an opportunity to propagate and legitimise the Republic of Turkey and end the nation’s diplomatic isolation, ‘fostering a national consciousness and identity and providing a moral boost to the Turkish people after the ravages of global and revolutionary war’ (Özçakır & Llewellyn 2017: 1439). Whereas the 1920s were not very successful for Turkey in terms of sports victories, the 1936 Berlin Olympics (despite being a prelude to Nazi fanaticism) were celebrated for its firsts: Turkish wrestlers, Yaşar Erkan and Ahmet Kireççi, won the country’s first medals and Turkish women participated in the Olympics for the first time (Özçakır & Llewellyn, 2017: 1439), with Suat Fetgeri Aşeni and Halet Çambel in the women’s foil fencing competition. After further victories at the 1948 London Olympics, Turkish wrestlers were heralded as national heroes and wrestling was associated with Turkish nationalism. Football has also been a significant part of this picture. After the War of Independence and just before the establishment of the Republic, the first national football association, the Turkish Football Federation (Türkiye Futbol Federasyonu, TFF), was founded under the leadership of Yusuf Ziya Öniş. Following the TFF’s establishment, Turkey applied to FIFA for membership and became FIFA’s 26th member on 21 May 1923 (TFF n.d.).

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sport and politics in turkey | 663 The first international match in this respect was played in October 1923, where Turkey drew 2–2 against Romania. The 1924 Paris Olympics mentioned above also marked the first international match played by the Turkish national football team abroad, where Turkey lost to Czechoslovakia by five goals to two. Indeed, the young Republic saw international football matches as an opportunity to show the world the ‘Westernised’ image of Turkey. Of the twenty-two friendly games played by the Turkish national team between 1923 and 1939, eighteen were against other eastern European countries (Şenyuva & Tunç 2015: 570). Thus, football not only gave the nation the opportunity to manifest its national prestige and the importance of its existence as a new country in world politics, but, as Dağhan Irak puts it, also functioned like a ‘membership ID card’ to the bloc they were engaged with (Irak 2013: 159). At the institutional level, thanks to clubs such as Galatasaray, Beşiktaş, Fenerbahçe, Altınordu, Vefa and Anadolu İdman Yurdu, which had been founded in Istanbul at the turn of the twentieth century and became popular right away, early signs of the institutionalisation of football were seen. In 1937, the National Division started, with the first four teams of the Istanbul Football League (Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, Beşiktaş and Güneşspor), the first two teams of the Ankara Football League (Ankaragücü and Gençlerbirliği) and the first two teams of the Izmir Football League (Doğanspor and Üçok) (Koç et al. 2016: 1907–8). The symbolic value of the establishment of the division is significant and corresponds to the processes of nationalisation and centralisation. Establishing a football league is an important part of gaining the national independence almost as much as raising the flag and printing money; it almost equates to the establishment of a national market. The Multi-party Era until 12 September 1980: Sport as Liberalisation The end of single-party rule and the rise of the DP to power with the 14 May 1950 elections in Turkey is frequently explored along the famous ‘centre–periphery’ divide in the literature (see Çarkoğlu 1998; Heper 2000; Mardin 1973; Tachau 2002 for an extensive discussion on the centre–periphery cleavage in Turkish politics). According to this, the centre, constituted by the CHP, was organised around secular principles of Kemalism, adopting a centralist, nationalist and state protectionist attitude, which was confronted by a heterogeneous, sometimes hostile periphery, composed mainly of the peasantry, small farmers and artisans with parochial orientations, represented by the DP (Çarkoğlu 1998: 555). Whether or not the centre–periphery cleavage is an all-powerful tool to explore the DP’s electoral victory, this shift in terms of the ideology of the party in power and the composition of its electorate, combined with the changes in the overall socio-economic structure in Turkey, had an impact on the change in the approach to sport. Another noteworthy feature of DP rule, which was followed by subsequent governments, was

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664 | basak zeynep alpan the introduction of economic liberalisation.1 This rendered the perception of sport, and football in particular, as a terrain which could possibly be profitable and self-financing. The ratification of the Betting and Gaming Act in 1959 (Law No. 7258), which legalised betting and gave the mandate to organise betting in branches of sports to the BTGM, and of the Horse-Racing Act in 1953 (Law No. 6132), which gave the mandate to organise horse races and horse-race betting to the Ministry of Agriculture, could be given as examples of the DP’s state-led economic liberalisation approach. Moreover, this change in the socio-economic context put emphasis on various branches of sports which were hitherto scattered in the country and unorganised (such as horse-racing) or were underrepresented (such as yachting). The establishment of the Turkish Jockey Club in 1950 by figures such as Fevzi Lütfi Karaosmanoğlu and Nejat Evliyazade (that is, political figures from famous families engaged with farming or merchandise) could be counted as examples reflecting this shift of mentality (Akbeyaz 2018: 91–2). The budget allocated to various sports such as horse-riding, boxing and basketball increased during DP rule (Akbeyaz, 2018). During this period, the link sustained between national identity and wrestling continued. It was the only discipline which brought medals to Turkey from the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, 1960 Rome Olympics, 1964 Tokyo Olympics and 1968 Mexico City Olympics. This pattern also showed itself when Turkey hosted the 1956 World Wrestling Championship in Istanbul. In spite of the proliferation and support of various sports branches, this is also the period when the words of ‘football’ and ‘sport’ started being used interchangeably. Multiparty politics and the adoption of import-substitution industrialisation as a capitalist accumulation strategy generated large-scale urbanisation and political mobilisation (Keyder 1987). The urbanisation trend and massive migration to cities produced an environment for the popularisation of football, thereby mesmerising politics with its power. For instance, the directors of the big football clubs such as Fenerbahçe were usually chosen from the ranks of the ruling DP during the 1950s (Gökaçtı 2008: 214). Against this background, professionalisation of football was introduced in 1951 by the Professionalism Bylaw2 enacted by the BTGM. Against the background of the ensuing economic liberalisation and the post-Second World War context, it became impossible The notion of ‘economic liberalisation’ regarding the DP should not be misleading. The DP’s liberal economic policy, implemented for about two years after 1950, gradually reverted to statism, but different than the one enforced in 1931–45. In this economic model, ‘the state assumed a major role in developing the entrepreneurial middle classes [. . .] and invested heavily in cement, sugar, power plants and construction industries while trying to promote private investment through generous credits to the farmers, tax exemptions and special treatment accorded to foreign capital’ (Karpat 1972: 353–4).  2 ‘This bylaw, which aimed to prevent the enslavement of footballers under the roof of the clubs, still prioritised the football clubs’ interests, at the end of the day’ (Gökaçtı 2008: 193).  1

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sport and politics in turkey | 665 for the Turkish football authorities to insist on amateurism at a time when the country was urgently seeking alliances with Western powers (Irak 2013: 158–73). Thus, it did not come as a surprise when the first privately owned football club, Adalet (‘Justice’) was established in 1950 by Süreyya İlmen, an ex-army officer and a manufacturer, as the first example of the emergence of football as a capitalist enterprise. It secured the transfer of many players from other teams, most notably Fenerbahçe, by making attractive offers such as job opportunities at the factory to star players (Tunç 2019: 95). This ‘belated modernisation’, in Sevecen Tunç’s words, of the Turkish football had a direct impact on the asymmetrical geographical diffusion of football professionalism across the country (Tunç 2019: 21). ‘Except for the cities of Istanbul, Izmir, and Ankara, football in the country remained a local and amateur environment until the foundation of the second division of the National Professional League in 1963’ (Tunç 2019: 21). ‘It was against this historical background that the second phase of football club formation took off in the provincial cities of Anatolia during the 1960s’ (Emrence 2010: 243). Indeed, in the 1960s, the Second and Third Divisions were established and every city had a football team. MPs tried hard to ensure that their constituency’s team would qualify for one of these professional leagues. During this period, Trabzonspor, a team from the Eastern Black Sea region, won six national championships between 1975 and 1983, while a club from Central Anatolia, Eskişehirspor, managed to get the second spot three times (1969, 1970 and 1972) during the fifteen years of this ‘Anatolian revolution’. As such, the 1970s were a symbolic victory for the Anatolian periphery against the cosmopolitan and economically strong city of Istanbul (Emrence 2010: 244). The post-Second World War context was also significant in terms of the internationalisation of Turkish football. To start with, as a result of professionalisation, some successful Turkish players were transferred to foreign countries, while some players and trainers from countries such Argentina, Germany and Hungary were transferred to Turkey (Koç et al. 2016: 1907). Another important milestone in this regard was Turkey’s joining UEFA in 1962 as a result of the aforementioned professionalisation in football. Although the Turkish national football team played international friendly matches during the 1950s (it was able to participate in the World Cup for the first time in 1954) and won some of them (such as beating West Germany 2-1 in 1951),3 the real (and institutionally backed) direction of Turkish football was marked after joining UEFA: Europe. And in relation to the 1958 World Cup qualifying rounds, Turkey made it very clear that they would like to be placed in the European groups rather than in the Asian ones (Şenyuva and Tunç, 2015: 576). In a friendly match against Hungary in 1956, Turkey won 3–1. Turkey beating the number two in the 1954 World Cup was a story used as a consolation in the 1960s against the country’s not-so-successful international record.

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666 | basak zeynep alpan In terms of sporting institutions and policies, the state was again at the centre of sports governance prior to 1980. Sport became more centralised during the period 1961–5, when it became considered a leisure pursuit and material and technical support was provided by the government (Fişek 1998). During this period, sport policy would be formally attached to the programmes initiated by the BTGM. During the 1970s, Turkish sport policy underwent significant change, caused in part by the recognition of sport as a national policy priority, and demonstrated by the steady move away from a ‘sport for all’ policy that had dominated policy interventions up until this point towards one that more closely linked sport, education and health (Fişek 1998). The establishment of the Ministry of Sport by the second Demirel government of 1969 (the name of which was changed to the Ministry of Youth and Sport in 1972) and the inclusion of the BTGM within the ministerial framework could be read along those lines.4 According to Kurthan Fişek, the inclusion of the BTGM in a ministry meant an ‘ideological deviation’, rendering sport subservient to youth policy and thereby preventing the creation of an autonomous approach to sport (Fişek 1998). From 12 September 1980 until today: Sports as Political Consolidation To start with, the 1980s is the period which brought success to Turkey in the Olympics in fields other than wrestling after some thirty years. For the first time since the 1948 Olympics, Turkey won a medal outside wrestling (in boxing) at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.5 The 1988 Seoul Olympic Games had its first Turkish Olympic champion in weightlifting and also the first Turkish Olympic record holder, Naim Süleymanoğlu, who converted to Turkish citizenship in the 1980s, thanks to intense efforts by the prime minister, Turgut Özal6. This incidence triggered a different twist of internationalisation in sports under the rubric of ‘transfer of allegiance’, that is, successful athletes getting Turkish citizenship and joining the tournaments representing Turkey. Some examples are Natalia Nasaridze (born in Georgia), representing Turkey in archery at various international tournaments After the 1983 general elections, the name of the ministry was changed to the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sport. In April 1989, the ministry was closed and sport policies were put under the jurisdictions of the state minister responsible for youth and sport and the General Directorate of Youth and Sport. The Ministry of Youth and Education was refounded in 2011 (GSB n.d.).  5 A total of forty-eight athletes, two of whom were women, only managed to win three bronze medals in Los Angeles.  6 Süleymanoğlu was born in Bulgaria but due to the discriminatory policies of the Bulgarian government against Bulgarian citizens of Turkish ethnic origin at that time, sought asylum in Turkey. He lifted respectively 145 kg, 150.5 kg and 152.5 kg in snatch; 175 kg, 188.5 kg, 190 kg in clean and jerk; and 320 kg, 339 kg and 342.5 kg in total, breaking nine world and six Olympic records, and he was nicknamed Pocket Hercules (İstanbulluoğlu 2008).  4

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sport and politics in turkey | 667 since 1992, and Elvan Abeylegesse (born in Ethiopia), attending the Olympics on behalf of Turkey as a runner in 2004 and 2008 (Hürmeriç Altunsöz & Koçak 2017: 120). In the aftermath of the 12 September 1980 coup, football became the sole social activity permitted under military rule. According to Mehmet Ali Gökaçtı, it was seen by the powers that be as the only way to allow people to release their frustrations (Gökaçtı 2008: 274). Ironically, it was this environment of strict government control that increased the popularity of football in Turkey (Blasing 2011: 31). Indeed, during this period, Turkish football was functional in creating the masculine, apolitical and capitalist football identity, in line with the main aim of the coup (that is, to tame the revolutionary potential of the masses, rendering people unable to show political reflexes) (Irak 2013). The emergence of football as a tool to penetrate the electorate continued in the era after the coup. During the premiership of Turgut Özal, many teams from peripheral cities such as Denizlispor and Kocaelispor were not relegated on purpose due to electoral concerns. The 1980s are also the period associated with the onset of so-called ‘industrial football’, like elsewhere in the world, also fostered by Turkey’s abandonment of import-substitution industrialisation and the move to a free market. Football was an activity closely linked to the media and funded by increased television revenues, as a direct consequence of globalisation. Mirroring Turkey’s economic liberalisation, Turkey’s main football teams looked to import European coaches, allowing them to compete successfully with European teams. Similarly, it was the access to Western-style bank credits that gave Galatasaray the capital necessary to attract top European talent to their team in the early to mid-1980s (Gökaçtı 2008: 278) Within this larger context, the municipal support scheme became a realistic option for the majority of football clubs when local governments were allowed to receive larger funds from the central state, which rendered the municipalities indispensable for local football clubs to mobilise resources (Emrence 2010: 244–5). This perspective, for instance, was clearly visible in the 2000–1 season where 66 per cent of club managers in the financially troubled Third Division were also mayors (Uztuğ 2001: 139). Seeing football as a component of the free market also continued in the 1990s. The Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), joined by others in the 1990s, was more than willing to use the green pitches to get votes by turning club support into a form of ‘public clientelism’ (Emrence 2010: 245). The overall weight of municipalities within Turkish football was quite telling: 22 per cent of all teams competing in professional football divisions had municipal mayors in top positions of their administrative structure (Uztuğ 2001: 137). The main political reflex related to Turkish football during the 1990s was along the lines of consolidating national identity by denigrating the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) and Kurdish nationalism. Slogans such as ‘Martyrs

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668 | basak zeynep alpan do not die and the motherland cannot be divided’, often accompanying the national anthem before all football matches, were the usual practice during the 1990s. This tendency was also coupled during this period with an exclusive nationalist discourse prevalent in international matches, especially with countries that were claimed to support the PKK, such as Germany. After Galatasaray beat Eintracht Frankfurt in 1992 at home, Galatasaray supporters reportedly marched in the city centre and chanted ‘PKK and Germany arm in arm, the army will beat both of you, pigs’ while passing by a military building (Bora & Erdoğan 1993: 239). In April 1997, Diyarbakırspor, the local team of Diyarbakır, the city in southeast Turkey with the largest Kurdish population, was greeted with chants such as ‘Down with the PKK’. In this vein, the capture of the PKK leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in 1999 put Diyarbakırspor on the spot and underlined the potential role that the team would play in defusing the ethnic tensions in the region. The fact that the team was managed by Gaffar Okkan, a high-level state official who stated that Diyarbakırspor should always stay in the First Division in any event, also points to this potential role assigned to the team (Mizrahi 2016: 39). Rising nationalist ideology has continued to find resonance on the football pitches in the 2000s. In 2007, in a match between Trabzonspor and Kayserispor in Trabzon and in another match on the same day, placards reading ‘We are all Turkish’ and ‘We will not say we are Armenians even if you kill us’ were displayed. At a match between Malatyaspor and Elazığspor, Malatyaspor, the football team of Malatya, which is Hrant Dink’s hometown, was vilified by a placard saying ‘Armenian Malatya’ (Radikal, 2007). The AKP period has been no different in terms of the intertwining of football and politics. The AKP leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has capitalised on the popularity of the game ever since coming to power in 2002, investing huge sums into an insolvent industry and building stadiums across the country. The building of stadiums has been diverted to the conservative provinces of Central Anatolia, that is, in cities where the AKP is strongest, posing yet another challenge to the traditional power bases of Istanbul and Izmir (Blasing 2011: 4). The utter politicisation of football fans continued throughout the 2010s. The controversy between Erdoğan and the dominant fan groups of the ‘Big Three’, predominantly composed of urban, secular, middle-class members, already became apparent from the early 2010s, mainly due to the government’s restrictive policies openly targeting secular lifestyles such as restrictions on the sale of alcohol. One of the important turning points in this respect occurred in July 2011 when important figures in Turkish football including Aziz Yıldırım, the chairman of Fenerbahçe, and Mecnun Otyakmaz, the chairman of Sivasspor, were taken into custody as part of a police operation on the grounds that they had been involved in match-fixing in Turkey. After the arrest, on 10 July, Fenerbahçe fans organised a big protest on Bağdat Avenue, the biggest avenue in the Asian side of Istanbul,

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sport and politics in turkey | 669 and almost 400.000 people came (Aktükün 2016). The general belief of these people was that this case was a conspiracy organised against Fenerbahçe and Yıldırım by the Gülen movement, which wanted to bring him down for taking Fenerbahçe under his control (Yanarocak 2012). Nevertheless, one of the most crucial milestones in terms of the close link between football and politics was the Gezi protests of 2013. A clash on 11 May, shortly before the protests, between the police and Beşiktaş fans right across the street from Erdoğan’s working office in Istanbul, and in front of Kazan, the fans’ favourite bistro, further aggravated the tension between the fans and the government (Irak 2020: 683). During the protests, football fan groups from the ‘Big Three’ played a major role, manifesting themselves under the banner of ‘Istanbul United’ (Irak 2015: 138). As football fans previously had had experience of physical confrontation with the police, like the El Ahli supporters who played a major role in the Tahrir protests in Egypt, they were able to cope with the prolonged confrontation with the police. Their influence on the discourse of the protests could also be seen in the many football chants that were adapted by the protestors, such as ‘Biber gazı oley’ (‘Pepper gas olé!’) or ‘Sık bakalim, sik bakalim, biber gazi, sik bakalim’ (‘Oh yeah, go ahead and spray your pepper gas, let’s see what happens’) (Irak 2015: 138). After the Gezi protests, stadiums were seen as a terrain where the vocal dissidence of football fans needed to be stopped (Irak 2021: 39). The measures included the creation of pro-government fan groups (which were short-lived), support for pro-government clubs financed by AKP-run municipalities, and putting fan leaders who participated in the protests on trial, accused of ‘staging a coup d’état’ (Irak 2021: 39). Football turned into a national security issue for the government (Kalaycı 2021: 521). However, the most efficient of those measures was the implementation of an electronic ticket scheme called Passolig, which has been run by a private bank close to the Erdoğan family. This made surveillance possible, especially against fans shouting anti-government slogans at the games. Tayyip Erdoğan was also aware of this close link between football and politics, aiming to consolidate his political power through football. In 2014, two clubs with ties to the AKP-run municipalities of Istanbul and Ankara were renamed, respectively, Başakşehir and Osmanlıspor (Irak 2020: 683). What Irak calls an ‘invention of tradition’ included the emergence of new fan groups in the Başakşehir and Osmanlıspor stands, named in line with the AKP’s Neo-Ottomanist policies – 1453 Başakşehir, Yeniçeriler (Janissaries) and Büyük Akıncılar (Grand Troopers). 1453 Başakşehir made the headlines for the first time with a giant ‘Commander-in-Chief Erdoğan’ banner they opened during their Champions League qualifier against Club Brugge (Irak 2020: 683). On a different note, the political support of famous footballers and football club owners was also mobilised by the AKP. During the 2015 presidential referendum rally, famous football players like

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670 | basak zeynep alpan Arda Turan and Burak Yılmaz supported Erdoğan by shooting videos and sharing these videos in their social media accounts. Although football kept its privileged position in the eyes of the AKP rule, the party also drew on other sports. The first half of the 2010s were marked by Erdoğan’s strong interest in hosting the 2020 Olympic Games in Istanbul. ‘Turkey is intrinsically a country of the Olympics and the torch will look so nice in Istanbul,’ he stated (NTV Spor, 2011). Turkey’s candidacy was somehow related to the Gezi events. The then EU minister, Egemen Bağış, argued that the demonstrators would be responsible if Istanbul lost the Olympics race, saying, ‘Those who caused a scene at Taksim’s Gezi Park . . . requested Istanbul to be dropped off the candidates list. Thank God they couldn’t succeed. If Istanbul loses, it will be because of them’ (Çongar 2013). One of the reasons behind this enthusiasm was clearly the boost that the games could provide for the Turkish economy and the search for popularity for the approaching 30 March 2014 local elections. For Yavuz Yavuz, hosting an international event as big as the Olympics would be undertaken as part of the AKP’s neoliberal urban policy, incorporated into a wider conservative-Islamist political project (Yavuz 2021). Indeed, when Turkey returned home from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with two gold medals, its biggest success since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, one part of Erdoğan’s enthusiasm while congratulating Mete Gazoz, who got a gold medal in archery, and Busenaz Sürmeneli, who got a gold medal in boxing, was about these sports being ‘ancient branches of sport dating back to the Ottomans’ (Hürriyet 2021). Turkey’s women’s national volleyball team, who came fifth at the Tokyo Olympics, were also congratulated as they showed they were truly ‘Sultans’7 (Hürriyet 2021). Conclusion This chapter has shown that the terrain of sport against the background of the history of the Republic of Turkey has been closely intertwined with politics. The focus has been on three specific dimensions that sport has infiltrated (policies, institutions and identities) in order to understand how politics and sport have been intertwined in three specified periods of the Republic (the single-party period, the multi-party period and the post1980 period). We are in the 100th year of the Republic and this long history has been full of ebbs and flows, ups and downs, struggles and conflicts as well as celebrations and successes. It is more urgent than ever now for the citizens of Turkey as well as social scientists to make a realistic (yet optimistic) assessment of this history, and project the bumpy route that we The Turkish national women’s volleyball team has had the nickname Sultans of the Net since the 2003 European Women’s Volleyball Championship, where they came second.

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sport and politics in turkey | 671 will be heading on in the future. The world is already suffering from endemic disasters such as environmental degradation, poverty, income inequality, racism, pandemics and injustice. In this very cruel world, we need to see the path we will be taking. Is it going to be a free and multicultural Turkey delivering a democratic and equal country to its citizens? Or is it going to be a ‘forced asylum’ for its citizens, full of repression, hatred, intolerance and inequality? Making this decision necessitates a struggle, and struggle means politics. Since sport is also a realm (as it has apparently always been throughout the history of the Republic) which makes up a significant part of the contentious politics (used in a broader sense), we need to project the Turkey we want in the football pitches, stadiums, international games, volleyball halls, swimming pools, podiums and archery fields as athletes, supporters and coaches as well as policymakers. References Akbeyaz, D. (2018). ‘Demokrat Parti Dönemi Türk Sporu (1950–1960)’, master’s thesis, Adnan Menderes University. Akın, Y. (2004), Gürbüz ve Yavuz Evlatlar: Erken Cumhuriyet’te Beden Terbiyesi ve Spor, Istanbul: İletişim. Aktükün, İ. (2016), ‘Fenerbahçe, cemaat ve 15 Temmuz darbe girişimi’, Evrensel, 28 July, https:// www.evrensel.net/yazi/77158/fenerbahce-cemaat-ve-15-temmuz-darbegirisimi, accessed 15 February 2023. Bar-On, T. (1997), ‘The Ambiguities of Football, Politics, Culture, and Social Transformation in Latin America’, Sociological Research Online 2(4): 15–31. Blasing, J. K. (2011), ‘The Games behind the Game: The Process of Democratic Deepening and Identity Formation in Turkey as Seen through Football Clubs’, MA thesis, University of Texas at Austin. Bora, T. and N. Erdoğan (1993), ‘Dur Tarih, Vur Türkiye’, in R. Horak, W. Reiter and T. Bora (eds), Futbol ve Kültürü, Istanbul: İletişim, pp. 221–40. Çarkoğlu, A. (1998), ‘The Turkish Party System in Transition: Party Performance and Agenda Change’, Political Studies 46(3): 544–71. Çongar, Y (2013), ‘Erdoğan wants the Olympics’, Al-Monitor, 1 September, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2013/09/erdogan-pushes-for-olympic-games-in-turkey.html, accessed 15 February 2023. Emrence, C. (2010), ‘From Elite Circles to Power Networks: Turkish Soccer Clubs in a Global Age 1903–2005’, Soccer & Society 11(3): 242–52. Fişek, K. (1998), Devlet Politikası ve Toplumsal Yapısıyla İlişkileri Açısından Dünya’da ve Türkiye’de Spor Yönetimi, Ankara: Bağırgan Yayınevi. Gökaçtı, M. A. (2008), Bizim için Oyna: Türkiye’de Futbol ve Siyaset, Ankara: İletişim. Gökçe, U. (2017), ‘Manufacturing Republican Bodies: The Evolution of the One-Party State Turkish Physical Education during the 1930s’, in O. Gözel-Durmaz, A. Çevik and G. Gönüllü (eds), Current Debates in History and Politics, Vol. 6, London: IJOPEC, pp. 59–80.

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672 | basak zeynep alpan GSB (TC Gençlik ve Spor Bakanlığı) (n.d.), ‘Tarihçe’, https://gsb.gov.tr/tarihce.html, accessed 15 February 2023. Hanioğlu, M. S. (2011), Atatürk: An Intellectual Biography, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Heper, M. (2000), ‘The Ottoman Legacy and Turkish Politics’, Journal of International Affairs 54(1): 63–82. Hürmeriç Altunsöz, I. and S. Koçak (2017), ‘Olimpiyat Oyunları’nda Sporcu Devşirilmesi’, Spor Bilimleri Dergisi 28(3): 115–27. Hürriyet (2021), ‘Son Dakika: Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan’dan Tokyo Olimpiyatları Yorumu! Hedefi açikladi’, 4 August, https://www.hurriyet.com.tr/sporarena/son-dakika-cumhurbaskani-erdogandan-tokyo-olimpiyatlari-yorumu-hedefi-acikladi-41866363, accessed 15 February 2023. Irak, D. (2013), ‘From Battlefields to Football Fields: Turkish Sports Diplomacy in the Post-Second World War Period’, in C. Örnek and Ç. Üngör (eds), Turkey in the Cold War: Ideology and Culture, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 158–73. Irak, D. (2015), ‘İstanbul United: Football Fans Entering the “Political Field”’, in I. David and K. F. Toktamış (eds), ‘Everywhere Taksim’: Sowing the Seeds for a New Turkey at Gezi, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 137–52. Irak, D. (2020), ‘Football in Turkey during the Erdoğan Regime’, Soccer & Society 21(6): 680–91. Irak, D. (2021), ‘Fight “Acceptable” with “Acceptable”: Football, Cultural Battle in Turkey and the Story of “two “Doxas” over an Old Military Song’, Sport in Society 24(1): 38–55. İstanbulluoğlu, A. (2008), Türkiye Milli Olimpiyat Komitesi’nin 100 Yılı, Istanbul: Türkiye Milli Olimpiyat Komitesi Yayınları. Kalaycı, H. (2021), ‘A Not-So-Friendly Match between “Old Turkey” and “New Turkey”: Turkish Football and Stadiums as a Domain of Hegemonic Struggle’, Asian Journal of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 15(4): 519–35. Karpat, K. H. (1972), ‘Political Developments in Turkey 1950–70’, Middle Eastern Studies 8(3): 349–75. Keyder, Ç. (1987), State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development, London: Verso. Koç, U, J. Özen-Aytemur and E. Erdemir (2016), ‘Powerful Actor and Hesitant Institutionalization: The State in the History of Turkish Football’, International Journal of the History of Sport 33(16): 1904–20. Krawietz, B. (2014), ‘Sport and Nationalism in the Republic of Turkey’, International Journal of the History of Sport 31(3): 336–46. Lüküslü, D. and Ş. Dinçşahin (2013), ‘Shaping Bodies Shaping Minds: Selim Sırrı Tarcan and the Origins of Modern Physical Education in Turkey’, International Journal of the History of Sport 30(3): 195–209. Mardin, Ş. (1973), ‘Centre–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?’ Dædalus 102(1): 169–90. Mizrahi, H. (2016), ‘Passolig: Türk Futbolunda bir Devrim mi Yoksa bir Fişleme Sistemi mi?’ MA thesis, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversity. NTV Spor (2011), ‘İstanbul, 2020 Olimpiyatlarına aday’, 13 August, https://www.ntv.com.tr/ turkiye/istanbul-2020-olimpiyatlarina-aday,hWclKe8OWU6QHecl_B9RHQ, accessed 15 February 2023.

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sport and politics in turkey | 673 Özçakır, S. and M. P. Llewellyn (2017), ‘“Just Saying – Bravo Kids– and Giving Them Some Gifts Is Not Enough”: Amateurism, Turkish Wrestling, and the Olympic Games’, International Journal of the History of Sport 34(13): 1436–52. Radikal (2007), ‘Hassas vatandaş’ Manzaraları’, 29 January. Şenyuva, Ö. and S.  Tunç (2015), ‘Turkey and the Europe of Football’, Sport in History 35(4): 567–79. Sümer, R., (1990), Türkiye’de Sporun Tarihsel Gelişimi ve Sporda Demokrasi, Belgeler/Yorumlar, Ankara: Şafak Matbaası. Tachau, F. (2002), ‘An Overview of Electoral Behaviour: Toward Protestor Consolidation of Democracy?’ in S. Sayarı and Y. Esmer (eds), Politics, Parties and Elections in Turkey, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. TFF (n.d.), ‘FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association)’, https://www.tff.org/ Default.aspx?pageId=356, accessed 15 February 2023. Tınaz,C., D. M. Turco and P. Salisbury (2014), ‘Sport Policy in Turkey’, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 6(3): 533–45. Tunç, S. (2019), ‘A Game of Two Halves: The Making of Professional Football in Turkey 1946–63’, PhD thesis, Boğaziçi University. Uztuğ, F. (2001), ‘Devlet, Belediyeler, Özel Sermaye Üçgenindeki Futbol Yönetiminde Tecimsel ve Siyasal İmaj Kaygıları’, in T. Bora (ed.), Takımdan Ayrı Düzkoşu, Istanbul: İletişim, pp. 123–54. Yanarocak, H. E. C. (2012), ‘The Last Stronghold: The Fenerbahçe Sports Club and Turkish Politics’, Tel Aviv Notes 6(10). Yavuz, Y. (2021), ‘Bridging Together Authoritarian Right-Wing Politics and Neoliberal Urban Politics: Istanbul’s Bid for 2020 Summer Olympics’, Society Register 5(3): 95–112.

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51 Turkey’s Migration Management Regimes Kemal Kirişci (Brookings Institution) and Ayselin Yıldız (Yaşar University)

Introduction

O

ne of the enduring aspects of the history of the Turkish Republic as it enters its centenary is immigration and emigration. The country in its first decades of its existence saw large-scale immigration from the former Ottoman territories, especially in the Balkans. Simultaneously, there was the emigration of members of the Ottoman Empire’s main non-Muslim minority communities, Armenians, Greeks and Jews. The bulk of these two types of migration continued well into the 1960s. The nature and composition of emigration changed significantly from the 1960s onwards. Labour migration from Turkey to western Europe evolved into the primary form of emigration. It was followed by family reunification once European labour recruitment ended in the early 1970s. The repressive aftermath of the 1980 military coup and the Kurdish problem in Turkey triggered yet another new form of emigration as many people fled to western European countries to seek asylum. These forms of out-migration persisted until the early 2000s, earning Turkey a reputation in the international community as a prominent emigration country. Simultaneously, from the early 1980s, Turkey started to become a country of ‘new immigration’. In the late 1980s and again in 1991 Turkey experienced a mass arrival of refugees from Iraq and Bulgaria, accompanied by ever-increasing numbers of irregular migrants trying to transit through Turkey to reach Europe. The end of the Cold War, growing globalisation and Turkey’s relative prosperity compared to its neighbours began to attract economic migrants to Turkey. Finally, economic and political reforms together with the EU accession process made Turkey an attractive destination for European tourists, professionals, students and retirees during the first decade of the twenty-first century. However, reversal of reforms, the turmoil provoked by the coup attempt of 2016, 674

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 675 growing authoritarianism and anti-Western narrative significantly reduced this flow, though immigration towards Turkey persisted including from the post-Soviet world together with the mass arrival of Syrian refugees, also accompanied by an increasing number of mixed flows of irregular migrants and asylum seekers from several countries and regions. Finally, this last decade also saw an uptick in emigration from Turkey driven by economic as well as political considerations. A wide range of factors have shaped both forms of migration and Turkey’s migration governance. We argue that one factor that has been critical and deserves greater academic inquiry is the role of the state elite’s preferred conception for the country’s national identity. We believe that this factor, even when it may not be the primary factor shaping policy, has always been omnipresent in the background. During the Turkish Republic’s century-long existence aspects of this identity have persisted, evolved and been contested. In broad terms, these conceptions of national ‘self’ have led to state policies that welcomed immigrants associated with the ‘self’ while those inside the country who did not fit well with the ‘self’ or were seen as the ‘other’ found themselves compelled to emigrate. We also recognise that the dynamics behind both forms of migration are complex and the state capacity to control and shape them all is often limited as well as constrained not only by the unprecedented crises that have occurred in Turkey’s neighbourhood but also by the domestic and international context, including prevailing international norms. Turkey constitutes a unique case for rethinking and contributing to the conceptualisation of migration regimes adopted by states around the world. Juliette Tolay (2012) in a rich survey of Turkey-focused literature points out that conceptual schemes developed for studying Europe’s experience are not always well suited to studying Turkey. Fiona Adamson and Gerasimos Tsourapas (2020) propose three types of migration states; nationalising, developmental, and neoliberal, to study the experience of the Global South. This chapter aims to discuss critically Turkey’s century-long migration governance by employing these three typologies of migration management regimes with some caveats beyond the Global South examples and also by proposing an additional novel type departing from Turkey’s case, that is the ‘religionising migration state’. Migration Management Regimes: Conceptual Framework States have the sovereign right to decide about managing their borders and generally have broad discretion in developing their migration policies (Aleinikoff & Chetail 2003; Teitelbaum 2002). There is a vast literature discussing the role of states and their divergent approaches in inducing, restraining or preventing international human mobility (Agunias 2009; Hollifield 1992; Teitelbaum 2002; Zolberg 1983). This literature attempts to capture state actions and policies through different explanatory migration regimes across time and space. James Hollifield’s seminal work on the ‘migration state’ (Hollifield

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676 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz 1992; Hollifield 2004) focuses on the ‘liberal paradox’ resulting from the contradiction between liberalism’s economic logic of a free market that pushes for openness and the political logic of democracies that promote rights but also push towards border restrictions. However, Hollifield’s model does not provide a comprehensive understanding on how states respond to various forms of forced migration and how policymaking develops on several migration-related issues such as management of remittance flows, return and diaspora policies. Teitelbaum (2002: 158) offers some answers to these questions by affirming the key role of the state in managing international migration and classifies states as ‘migrant-exporters, refugee-producers and emigration-limiters’. Other authors too focus on the role of the state but also focus on the impact of ideology and institutions in restraining policymakers. For instance, the national identity approach argues how policymaking in immigration is shaped by national history, identity or political institutions (Brubaker 1992; Klotz 2015; Zolberg 1978), whereas Saskia Sassen (1996) underlines the rise of an international human rights regime that limits the power of states in governing migration. Similarly, many studies highlight the policy transfer/diffusion of international norms and liberal norm adherence in shaping a state’s national immigration policies (Cassarino 2014; Risse et al. 1999; Yıldız 2016). One broad characteristic of this dominant literature is that, explicitly or implicitly, it addresses the role of the state in migration policymaking through a default problematic logic that is heavily dependent on dichotomies such as ‘Western/non-Western’ or ‘democratic/autocratic’ states (Natter 2018). Furthermore, the tendency to identify and analyse state migration management regimes categorises the world within another default framework of ‘Global North’ and ‘Global South’. The ‘Global North’ is often classified as comprising migration destinations with liberal democratic political regimes while the ‘Global South’ is depicted with migrant-sending geographies marked by authoritarian regimes or malfunctioning democracies (Natter 2018). Furthermore, migration management regimes remain poorly researched and to fill this gap Adamson and Tsourapas (2020) propose three types of migration states in the Global South; nationalising, developmental and neoliberal. The nationalising migration state is marked by the forced migration that followed the extensively studied state- and nation-building processes in post-imperial contexts of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe (Brubaker 1995; Marrus 1985; Zolberg 1983), a process driven by a politics aspiring ‘to make a state correspond to a nation’ (Cooper 2018: 95). However, this practice has continued into postcolonial and contemporary ethnic conflict situations, as pointed out by Andreas Wimmer (2002). The conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the mid-1990s followed by the ones in Iraq, Syria and Myanmar in subsequent decades demonstrate the continued persistence of this type of migration state into recent times.

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 677 The developmental type refers to migration state regimes that have used emigration to export excess labour at home often in response to demand from developed industrial countries of the North experiencing shortages of labour. A combination of factors drives these policies, ranging from relieving the ranks of the unemployed to raising financial (through remittances) and technical (through the return of skilled labour) resources to support development at home. Finally, the ‘neoliberal migration state’, closely linked to greater population mobility resulting from globalisation, refers to those states that use the practice of citizenshipby-investment schemes to generate revenue or commodify forced displacement to extract material support from external bodies (Adamson & Tsourapas 2020). These are states that are adept at monetising and commodifying the North’s, in particular the EU’s, growing reluctance to admit unwanted migrants and refugees in preference for externalising the management of migration to countries of the South (Lavenex 2006). The Nationalising Migration State of Turkey Adamson and Tsourapas’s ‘nationalising migration state’ fits well with the Turkish migration experience especially in the early decades of the establishment of the Turkish Republic. The Republic was founded against the background of the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, marked by the forced displacement of people. The rise of nationalism and the aspiration to establish states based on homogeneous national identities in eastern Europe and the Balkans eroded the multi-ethnic and multicultural imperial order of the Habsburg and Ottoman empires, precipitating the ‘un-mixing’ of peoples (Brubaker 1995). In the Ottoman case it led to a prolonged forced dislocation of large numbers of Christians, Jews and Muslims during the late nineteenth and into the early parts of the twentieth centuries (Akgündüz 1998; Karpat 1985; Loizos 1999, McCarthy 2001). The forced population displacements resulting from the Balkan War (1912–13) and the First World War (1914–18) were followed by a compulsory exchange of population between Greece and the new Turkish Republic (Arı 2000; Ladas 1932). This first-hand experience of territorial loss and mass migration shaped the belief among the ruling elite of the new Republic that migration policies could be a useful tool for constructing an identity for the ‘new Turk’ and could support a process of Turkification dating from the last days of the Ottoman Empire (Bisbee 1951; Ülker 2005). It would be an identity that was to serve the consolidation of a modern, centralised, homogeneous and secular Turkish state and society (Çagaptay 2006). In parallel, encouraging immigration would also address the demographic challenges facing the new Republic after the loss of the Armenian and Greek communities and the death of millions of Muslims in the wars of the early twentieth century. The Settlement Law (İskan Kanunu) of 1934 became the tool to construct ‘a country which would speak one single language, think and feel

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678 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz alike’ (Kirişci 2007: 181) and to repopulate the country with people keen to emigrate to Turkey from Balkan countries that were going through their own nation-building projects (Kirişci 1996). According to the Settlement Law, only persons of ‘Turkish ethnic descent and Turkish culture’ could immigrate, settle and eventually receive Turkish citizenship. The identifying features of ‘Turkishness’ as defined by state practice became the use of the Turkish language (or the willingness to adopt it) and membership of one of the Muslim Sunni ethnic groups closely associated with the past Ottoman rule (Kirişci 2007). Besides members of Turkish-speaking communities in the Balkans, Albanians, Bosnians, Circassians, Georgians, Pomaks and Tatars as well as a small number of immigrants from the Caucasus and central Asia were included in this definition and admitted into the country. Eventually, they all assimilated and became ‘Turks’ as defined by the state. In contrast, Christian Gagauz Turks were denied the possibility to immigrate while domestically, members of other Christian minorities, Alevis and unassimilated Kurds were excluded from the new Turkish national identity. By the early 1970s the state stopped actively subsidising this type of immigration. The exception was in 1989 when more than 300,000 Turks and Pomaks escaped Todor Zhivkov’s repressive policies in Bulgaria and fled to Turkey en masse. The government adopted special laws to extend accelerated citizenship and ensure their integration into Turkey by providing subsidised housing and employment. Turkey did also receive Bosnians and Kosovars escaping conflict and violence in the former Yugoslavia as refugees. However, these instances were in stark contrast to the management of the crisis resulting from close to half a million mostly Kurds fleeing Saddam Hussein’s repression in 1991. The government, due to a combination of national security and identity concerns, tried to stop them from entering the country and even refrained from referring to them as ‘Kurds’ (Kirişci & Karaca 2015), revealing the unease of the Turkish ‘nationalising migration state’ towards the Kurdish identity. The government then energetically mobilised the international community to ensure their precipitous return to northern Iraq under the umbrella of Operation Provide Comfort, led by the US. By the 2000s, the practice of preferential access to immigration and settlement in Turkey for people of ‘Turkish descent and culture’ became more difficult. Turkishspeaking individuals from neighbouring countries, especially Bulgaria and Iraq, tried in vain to settle and acquire Turkish citizenship on grounds of ethnic brotherhood and kinship (Danış & Parla 2009: 140–2). These developments signalled a gradual transformation of migration policies away from an emphasis on Turkishness, initially and briefly towards a ‘liberal migration state’. The impact of identity on patterns of immigration into Turkey also manifested itself with emigration. Emigration of non-Muslim minorities became a marked aspect of the

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 679 migration history of the Turkish Republic (İçduygu et al. 2008.) The trend that had been set in the final years of the Ottoman Empire continued into the new Republic. The legacy of the forced displacement of Armenians and Greeks during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire accompanied with a political climate steeped in Turkish nationalism perpetuated the pressure to emigrate. By the time the first census was taken in 1927 the size of the Greek and Armenian communities had shrunk to 110,000 and 77,000 from 1.5 and 1.2 million respectively in 1914 (Kirişci & İçduygu 2009: 2). In the following years as well, the primary driver of emigration was the constant administrative arrangements, especially with respect to education and ownership of religious property, and economic and social othering, very much reflected in the periodic ‘Citizens speak Turkish’ campaigns. This trend continued into the aftermath of the Second World War and especially impacted the Greek communities of Istanbul and the islands of Gökçeada and Bozcaada, which were exempted from the compulsory population exchange of the early 1920s. The events of 6–7 September 1955, when mobs, provoked by fake news that Greeks had attacked the Atatürk Museum in Thessaloniki, rampaged through the streets of Istanbul, wrecking Greek businesses and homes, as well as those of Armenians, Jews and other nonMuslims, were an important turning point. The failure of the government to prevent or quell the mob violence exacerbated the sense of insecurity, enticing Greeks to emigrate to Greece over the next decade. Additionally, the conflictful and tense climate resulting from deteriorating relations between Greece and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s, especially over Cyprus, led the size of the Greek community to decline to about 7,000 by the late 1970s (Alexandris 1983: 294). In the following decades, problematic Greek–Turkish relations and the attraction of EU citizenship would lead to further emigration, reducing the Greek community in Turkey to about 1,500 by the early twenty-first century (Oran 2004: 39). In a less dramatic fashion the size of the Armenian community continued to shrink down to around 50,000 by 2005, driven by a sense of constant insecurity resulting from Turkish societal reactions to the assassination of Turkish diplomats and acts of terrorism perpetuated by ASALA, an Armenian nationalist group in the 1980s, and then the Armenian defeat of Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in the early 1990s (Oran 2004: 38.) Lastly, the Jewish community in Turkey also saw its size shrink. They were largely descendants of a long history of Jewish immigration in the Ottoman Empire, including expellees from the Iberian Peninsula in the fifteenth century (Güleryüz 2015). They resided mostly in the Balkan territories of the Empire. In 1927 they numbered 82,000 but due to constant emigration their numbers steadily shrank. A series of acts of violence known as the ‘Thrace incidents’ were committed against Jewish individuals and properties in 1934, and the introduction in 1942 of a wealth tax disproportionately impacted nonMuslim taxpayers in general but Jews in particular (Aktar 2000). These experiences of discrimination and internment translated themselves into significant Jewish emigration

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680 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz once Israel was established in 1948 (Bali 2003) and it continued during the 1970s and 1980s, driven primarily by economic and social factors. Deteriorating relations between the two countries over the last decade induced further emigration of the remnants of the Jewish community. The size of the Jewish community in 2021 was put at around 17,000, at roughly ‘between one-fourth and one-fifth of’ of what it was in 1927 (Bali 2021). There was also emigration induced by the ‘nationalising migration state’ that impacted ethnic, religious and political minorities in Turkey beyond non-Muslims. Challenging the conception of the constructed identity of ‘self’, the ones that fell under the ‘other’ category formed this type of emigration. Political disturbances in the 1970s led many Alevis, Kurds and leftist activists to flee the country under the guise of guest workers, workers’ families and students (Sirkeci 2017: 131, Sökefeld 2003: 139). Return to civilian rule after the military intervention of 1980 did not change this trend. Instead, the instability and insecurity caused by the terrorism of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) coupled with generalised human rights violations led to more than a million asylum applications by Turkish nationals in developed countries from the 1980s to 2010 (Sirkeci & Esipova 2013: 3). This trend was broken by the mid- to late 2000s and asylum applications in the EU from Turkish nationals dropped significantly in line with the improved democracy and civil liberties that characterised the ‘liberal’ moment. (Kirişci & Ekim 2015) However, this did not last long, as will be elaborated later in the chapter. The Developmental State Turkey’s initial experience of labour emigration, which marked its sixtieth anniversary in 2021, was centred on western Europe, particularly Germany. Exporting labour was promoted by the Turkish state as part of its national economic development strategy both to alleviate unemployment and to ensure the flow of remittances as a source of foreign currency. The government negotiated and signed a series of bilateral labour recruitment agreements. Between 1961 and 1970 almost a half million Turkish nationals arrived in these countries as ‘guest workers’. Although labour recruitment from Turkey to Europe ceased in the mid-1970s, emigration continued in the form of family reunification and irregular labour migration. From the 1980s onwards a new wave of labour emigration emerged because of demand from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iraq. A similar type of labour emigration occurred towards Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union after the collapse of the latter. It is this experience that earned Turkey the reputation of being primarily an emigration country dependent on remittances for its economic development. This flow of remittances was an important source of external financing to overcome the dire lack of foreign exchange during 1970s and to tackle the current account deficits of the 1980s and

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 681 1990s resulting from the transition from a state-controlled developmental economy to a liberal market one (Aydaş et al. 2005). To attract a steady flow of remittances the government adopted banking practices such as offering higher interest rates and easing transaction costs of remittances for Turkish citizens residing abroad. In 1990s, remittances were amounting to the equivalent of 45 per cent of Turkey’s annual trade deficits (İçduygu 2006) and in 1998 the annual flow reached its highest level of $5.3 billion. However, by the early 2000s, as the Turkish economy completed its transition and became an open market economy deeply integrated with the world, the importance of remittances diminished. Instead, a ‘reverse remittance’ flow emerged by the end of the decade (Elitok 2013), generated by second- and even third-generation migrants of Turkish origin from the EU taking up jobs in Turkey. Many were attracted to the Turkish economy’s upward performance and for reasons related to culture, identity and belonging (Aydın 2016), as well as by prospects of professional advancement denied to them at home because of social exclusion and discriminatory attitudes in the EU (Sánchez-Montijano et al. 2018). In contrast to the returnees of the 1980s and 1990s, whose socio-economic impact on the country had remained limited (Gitmez 1991), these migrants brought a degree of added value to the Turkish economy especially in the tourism and industrial exports sectors (Sánchez-Montijano et al. 2018). To attract those who did not have Turkish citizenship the government adopted policies, such as the Blue Card (formerly Pink Card), granting privileges almost equal to citizenship with a few exceptions (Pusch & Splitt 2013). This period coincided with a time when Turkish migration policies resembled those of a ‘liberal migration state’, briefly discussed in the previous section, rather than a developmental one. Beyond the remittances, the socio-economic, political and transnational legacy of Turkish labour migration on Turkey and host communities in Europe has been multifaceted (Abadan-Unat 2011; Kaya 2019). Space precludes a discussion of this legacy except to mention the way in which the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government departed from previous state practice of neglecting to engage this Turkish diaspora. It invested considerable effort into this engagement, adopting such policies as granting voting rights to Turkish citizens living abroad as well as investing in institutions to support the engagement (Akçapar & Aksel 2017). The Presidency for Turks Abroad and Relative Communities, established in 2010, and the Directorate of Religious Affairs have been two such institutions actively employed in engaging this Turkish diaspora (Ünver 2013). Initially, the approach of the government was a very inclusive one with respect to this ethnically, socially, politically and religiously diverse diaspora. This spirit was very much reflected in the remarks of the then minister of foreign affairs, Ahmet Davutoğlu,

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682 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz in December 2011 when he defined the Turkish diaspora as including every individual who originated in Anatolia regardless of religion and ethnicity, specifically including the Armenians (Aydın 2014: 14). This inclusive approach changed once the AKP-led government’s democratic credentials at home eroded and this erosion was accompanied with a political narrative that promoted conservative social values and a collective identity marked by religion (Baser & Ozturk 2017). Inevitably such a narrative together with the promotion of values closely associated with a Sunni interpretation of Islam failed to appeal to minorities such as Alevis, secular Turks and Kurds, who politically did not necessarily identify themselves with the AKP, and members of Christian minorities of the diaspora. This aspect, which will be discussed as the ‘religionising migration state’ in a further section, very much converged with the practices of the ‘nationalising migration state’, especially in the 1980s, which treated Kurds, leftists and, ironically, some Islamist groups as threats to Turkish national security (Baser 2013; Şenay 2013). The Liberal Migration State From the early 2000s, a remarkable transformation of Turkey’s migration regime from the mainstream nationalising state to a relatively more liberal one took place. This period was greatly affected by globalisation and the EU-isation process (İçduygu 2014). One of the most evident outcomes of this transformation process is the adoption of the Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP) in 2013 after an unusually open and deliberative process by the standards of previous Turkish legislative practice (Üstübici 2018; Kaya 2021). The law significantly improved the rights of foreigners in the country and aligned the country’s migration management much more closely to EU standards. For the first time since Turkey’s accession to the 1951 Geneva Convention Regulating the Status of Refugees comprehensive legislation defining the rights of asylum seekers/refugees and ensuring their protection was put into place. The law also introduced a new civilian organisation to manage migration, the Directorate General for Migration Management. The preparation of the law occurred against a background of growing and diverse human mobility into Turkey and a government then committed to democratic reforms with the goal of eventually becoming a member of the EU. International visitors to Turkey jumped from a modest 2.3 million in 1990 to 20.3 million as Turkey started its accession process to the EU in 2005 and reached 32.9 million by the time the LFIP was adopted (Kirişci & İçduygu 2009: 13). The country that had long been conditioned to accepting a homogeneous conception of national identity built around ‘Turkishness’ began to ‘encounter in its daily life a British retiree in Fethiye, a Moldovan babysitter, a Brazilian or Angolan football player, an American businessman, an Afghan refugee, a Somali street vendor, a Ukrainian wife, a Kazakh student, etc.’ (Tolay 2010: 10). Turkey

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 683 became particularly popular among EU nationals and especially retirees, who constituted 30 per cent of the foreign population in the country in 2013 (Balkır & Kaiser 2015: 224). There were also ‘some Greek and Italian scholars, IT specialists and intellectuals who came to Turkey to find jobs’ after the 2008 global financial crisis (Sánchez-Montijano et al. 2018: 20). The 1990s and subsequent decades were also marked by an increasing number of nationals of post-Soviet republics, such as Armenia, Moldova, Georgia and Turkmenistan, coming to Turkey for employment purposes especially as domestic help (Toksöz et al. 2012; Lloyd 2018). This ‘new immigration’ made Turkey look much more diverse and cosmopolitan than it had ever done in its history, and it coincided with growing acceptance of Turkey’s own cultural diversity, reflected in policies expanding the cultural rights of Alevis and Kurds, long conceived as inexistent or ‘other’ by the standard Turkish national identity. The Religionising Migration State However, this liberal moment in Turkey was short lived. The country slipped into growing authoritarianism roughly from the time of the violent repression of the Gezi Park protests in 2013 (Arat & Pamuk 2019). The drift away from a relatively liberal Turkey took a quick turn for the worse by eroding the traditional checks and balances associated with democracy. This period became increasingly marked by a political discourse that put ever greater emphasis on conservative religious and narrow nationalist values at the expense of universal ones and secularism. With respect to migration, this new discourse pointed to a ‘shift away from a state-centric assimilationist melting pot model’ (Aktürk 2017: 1102–3). It helped the government’s justification in support of an open-door policy towards Syrian refugees based on Islamic solidarity become the prevailing discourse in portraying Syrians (Polat 2018; Sert & Danış 2021). Growing anti-Western rhetoric conspicuously altered the composition of international mobility into Turkey. International arrivals that came from Western countries (defined as the EU-15, Australia, Canada, Norway and Switzerland) dropped from 61 per cent of the total entries in 2000 to 32 per cent by the end of 2019, before the pandemic upended international travel. In contrast the number of entries from Muslim member countries (defined by membership of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation) more than doubled during the same period from 10 per cent to 23 per cent, and resident permits went through a similar transformation (TURKSTAT 2021). The Turkish military, otherwise known as the guardians of secularism to combat the popularity of radical ideologies of the 1970s, infused the standard Turkish identity with a nationalised adaptation of Islam into school curriculums which they called ‘Turkish– Islamic synthesis’. (Poulton 1997: 181–87.) This transformation had been in the making for a long time before it evolved into a Kulturkampf engendering a sense of exclusion among parts of Turkish society (Çarkoğlu & Kalaycıoğlu 2009). It is not the purpose of

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684 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz this chapter to discuss the continuity between the introduction of the ‘Turkish–Islamic synthesis’ and the growing emphasis put on religion by the current elite of Turkey once the liberal moment of the 2000s was abandoned. Instead, the point is that by the second decade of the twenty-first century a new Turkish national identity emerged, infused by the precepts of Islam, conservative values and insular Turkish nationalism, particularly following the formation of an alliance between the AKP and the far-right Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP) in 2015. Ultimately, these developments led to a narrative and policies that othered the more secular, liberal and Western-oriented parts of Turkish society. Unable to voice their grievances by democratic means, unwilling to yield and express loyalty to this new national identity, more and more of them became compelled to ‘exit’ (Hirschman 1970). This ‘exit’ is manifesting itself in three distinct types of emigration and in this chapter, we call this form of emigration a function of a ‘religionising migration state’. The new type of emigration results from a narrowing of public space for liberal values and social diversity that is engendering ‘a sense of being strangers in your own country’ among modern and secular individuals and families (Ağırdır 2020). One emerging coping strategy is Turkish families seeking immigration to Canada or US citizenship for their children by giving birth in the US (Altan-Olcay & Balta 2020). Acquisition of permanent residency and citizenship through investments in such EU countries as Malta and Portugal is yet another strategy. Polls are showing that this climate, accompanied with a growing sense that government employment practices are shaped by concerns of loyalty rather than merit, is driving youth to consider leaving the country (Bekdil 2020). This is aggravating the growing ‘brain drain’ problem (Özdemir & Bellut 2021). Furthermore, as unemployment soars and the economy continues to deteriorate both highly skilled and also less educated Turkish nationals are resorting to seeking jobs abroad through regular or irregular migration. The number of Turkish nationals apprehended at the external borders of the EU as irregular migrants has gone up from 1,060 in 2016 to 16,292 in total for 2018 and 2019 (Frontex 2020). Adding up to this number, Turkish nationals ‘found to be illegally present’ in the EU increased from less than 8,635 in 2014 to more than 22,000 in 2019 (Eurostat n.d.). Finally, after a period when asylum applications by Turkish nationals in the EU had significantly fallen, there has been a new upward trend over the last decade. The deterioration in the rule of law and freedom of expression noted by the Council of Europe (2021) is creating a climate somewhat like the one in the 1980s and 1990s that led to a surge in the number of Turkish nationals using asylum as a means to leave the country. The Neoliberal Migration State Turkey’s case both verifies and challenges the neoliberal migration state model of Adamson and Tsourapas in terms of how states monetise and commodify migration to generate

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 685 revenue. The first example, not being unique to Turkey, is the widely utilised citizenshipby-investment schemes. Turkey launched such a programme in 2017 extending the possibility of citizenship for foreign nationals if they acquired at least $250,000 worth of real estate or invested in a minimum of $500,000 fixed capital. It is one of the lowest-cost citizenship-by-investment programmes in the world, and it generated $1.8 billion for the government in return for 7,312 citizenship grants between 2017 and 2020 (Yılmaz 2021). Turkey, by offering citizenship through such a programme, conspicuously distances itself from the premises of the traditional nationalising migration state. Secondly, Adamson and Tsourapas discuss Turkey’s agreement with the EU from March 2016 that has provided the country with €6 billion in return for preventing onward movement of refugees as a typical case of ‘rent-seeking behaviour’. However, this deal can also be seen as a function of the EU’s long-standing policy of growing externalisation of migration controls to neighbouring countries (Yıldız 2016). A more benign interpretation of the agreement could also see it as a manifestation of burden-sharing between the EU and Turkey. Hosting and providing public services for 3.7 million Syrian refugees, including the incorporation of almost 700,000 Syrian children into the national education system, does stress Turkey’s resources and the public’s tolerance. One estimate puts just the cost of providing schooling for Syrian children at almost €900 million per annum, when 2019 is taken as a reference point, and this is without including the cost of having to build new classrooms and schools (Erdoğan 2020: 37). The government puts the cost of hosting Syrian refugees between 2011 and 2019 at $40 billion (Erdoğan 2019). Finally, there is the challenge resulting from the ‘commodification’ of the labour of refugees who seek employment to be able to sustain themselves beyond the modest cash assistance provided to them from the EU-funded Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN). Currently, it is estimated that nearly 1 million Syrians work informally, predominantly in the sectors of textiles, service, construction and agriculture. Exploitation of the Syrian labour force and their precarious work conditions is an evident fact that has been widely researched. Informality is a structural problem of the Turkish labour market, resulting from poor implementation of labour regulations, and involves almost a third of the workforce. Nevertheless, there are efforts being made to improve this situation and draw Syrian labour into the formal economy even if success has been limited. Turkey adopted the Regulation on Work Permits of Foreigners under Temporary Protection in 2016 to enable Syrian refugees to obtain work permits. This has been accompanied by the adoption of the Exit Strategy from the ESSN by the government, which recognises the need to create sustainable opportunities of livelihood for refugees by supporting their adaptation to the labour market (Frit Office of Presidency of Turkey 2018). In line with this strategy government agencies, such as the Ministry of Family, Labour and Social Services, the Turkish Employment Agency and KOSGEB (Small and Medium-size

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686 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz Business Development Agency), have been collaborating with UN’s Regional, Refugee and Resilience Plans partners, such as the International Labour Organization, the UN Development Programme, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Organization for Migration, to draw refugees into the formal economy. This collaboration has centred around programmes aiming to increase the employability of refugees and creation of small businesses by improving their life skills and command of the Turkish language, accompanied by vocational training. However, the success rate so far has been very limited and complicated by the deteriorating economic situation in Turkey. It would be unrealistic to expect Turkey to overcome the challenges of ‘commodification’ and it will require a greater effort from the international community, possibly inspired by the policy ideas offered in the Global Compact for Refugees requiring more and not less burden-sharing (Erdoğan et al. 2021). Conclusion Adamson and Tsourapas’s discussion of the Turkish experience as an example for their models of migration states enriches our understanding of Turkey’s migration governance over a whole century and offers insights to fine-tune conventional literature on theorising migration regimes. Indeed, the nationalising migration state captures well the role of nation-building in shaping the young Turkish Republic’s emigration and immigration policies. However, in the specific context of Turkey, our discussion shows that enticing emigration from and immigration into Turkey was not solely the product of the efforts to prop up nation-building. It was also shaped by demographic needs to rebuild a national economy destroyed by the incessant wars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. There was also a commitment to receive members of Turkish-speaking and Muslim communities from neighbouring states, especially in the Balkans, who were themselves being compelled to emigrate because of those countries’ own nation-building projects pushing out members of minorities that did not fit their definition of the preferred ‘self’. Furthermore, the dynamic and complex manner in which domestic politics and the international context impact a country’s migration policies needs to be added to the analysis offered by Adamson and Tsourapas. It was not only non-Muslim minorities that found themselves emigrating from Turkey. Whenever democracy and the rule of law weakened in the country political opponents, especially leftists, and members of ethnic and religious minorities such as Kurds and Alevis found themselves leaving the country and applying for asylum abroad, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Over the last decade, following the growing authoritarianism and anti-Western rhetoric, the drivers of both emigration and immigration have become increasingly influenced by a new conception of the ‘self’ and a new form identity discourse with its own particular dynamics of inclusion and exclusion.

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turkey’s migration management regimes  | 687 This new ‘self’ has been marked by an emphasis on social conservativism and religion over secular values and Turkey’s traditional Western vocation, leading to migration policies that we have called a ‘religionising migration state’. This was reflected, for example, in the government’s open-door policy towards Syrian refugees justified on Islamic solidarity. However, this did not prevent public resentment towards Syrian refugees increasing and their presence being contested on economic but also national identity and cultural grounds. This shows the enduring aspects of the traditional national identity associated with the nationalising migration state and the pushback on the religionising migration state. Yet, in a striking similarity with the nationalising migration state, the ‘religionising’ one also engendered emigration from the country of Turkish nationals that felt excluded or unwilling to become a loyal part of this new conservative and religious conceptualisation of national identity. The international context impacted Turkey’s governance of migration too and brought Turkey to adopt policies closer to those of a ‘liberal migration state’, which in the conventional literature is mostly considered as a form of migration state limited to the Global North. In the early 2000s, the impact of the EU’s engagement of Turkey as a candidate country for membership accompanied with a long-standing cooperation with international organisations helped the diffusion and adoption of values closely associated with a liberal migration state. This was best manifested in the adoption of the LFIP, which codified for the first time in Turkey’s history the rights of foreigners and refugees as well as introducing a brand-new institutional setting for managing migration into Turkey. International standards and engagement of international organisations such as the ILO and the UNDP also culminated in little-recognised efforts on the part of the government to adopt policies to improve on the adverse effects of ‘commodification’ of refugees and irregular migrants in Turkey. However, these efforts have fallen short from being realised. The EU-related economic and political reforms that Turkey adopted, together with the broader globalisation process, had their roles in the transformation of the country from one primarily of emigration into one of immigration. This transformation had several consequences. Firstly, the policies of the developmental migration state encouraging Turkish nationals to seek employment abroad and send their remittances lost their relevance as Turkey became a country from where remittances flowed to its neighbours but also to western Europe. Secondly, the state took a much greater interest in the large and diverse Turkish diaspora, especially in Europe, and put into place a range of policies and institutions to connect and engage with this diaspora. Initially this engagement was of an inclusive nature comfortable with Turkey’s ethnic, social and political diversity as reflected in the diaspora. However, as Turkish democracy eroded, practices that we associate with a religionising migration state emerged excluding parts of the diaspora that did not fit well with the new ‘self’. Thirdly, as the performance of the Turkish economy began

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688 | kermal kirişci and ayselin yildiz to stall, the weakening of the liberal migration state became more evident and instead, a ‘neoliberal migration state’ manifested itself in Turkey. The two typical manifestations of a neoliberal migration state are the citizenshipby-investment scheme and the commodification of forced displacement. The former was indeed introduced in Turkey in 2016 with a clear intent to raise income against the background of a failing economy. However, the numbers and sums involved so far have not been of much significance. On the other hand, the idea that the 2015–16 agreement between the EU and Turkey represented ‘rent-seeking behavior’ (Adamson & Tsourapas 2020) that brought ‘approximately €6 billion in exchange for controlling emigration and keeping refugees in situ’ needs to be seen in a more critical light. These funds can also be seen as a manifestation of burden-sharing, especially considering the economic and social cost of hosting 3.7 million refugees for more than ten years, rather than purely rent-seeking behaviour and a function of a Global North growing externalising policies. Adamson and Tsourapas’s conceptual framework based on three types of migration states contributes greatly to our understanding of the Turkish Republic’s century-long history of emigration and immigration. In this chapter we have tried to nuance some aspects of their framework and introduced a fourth type. References Abadan-Unat, Nermin (2011), Turks in Europe: From Guest Worker to Transnational Citizen, New York: Berghahn. Adamson, Fiona, and Gerasimos Tsourapas (2020), ‘The Migration State in the Global South: Nationalizing, Developmental, and Neoliberal Models of Migration Management’, International Migration Review 54(3): 853–82. Ağırdır, Bekir (2020), Hikâyesini Arayan Gelecek, Doğan Kitap. Agunias, Dovelyn R. (2009), ‘Guiding the Invisible Hand: Making Migration Intermediaries Work for Development’, Human Development Research Paper 2009/22, United Nations Development Programme, https://hdr.undp.org/content/guiding-invisible-hand, accessed 16 February 2023. Akçapar, Şebnem Köşer and Damla Bayraktar Aksel (2017), ‘Public Diplomacy through Diaspora Engagement: The Case of Turkey’, Perceptions 22(3): 135–60. Akgündüz, Ahmet (1998), ‘Migration to and from Turkey 1783–1960: Types, Numbers and Ethno‐religious Dimensions’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 24(1): 97–120. Aktar, Ayhan (2000), Varlık Vergisi ve Türkleştirme Politikaları, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları. Aktürk, Şener (2017), ‘Post-Imperial Democracies and New Projects of Nationhood in Eurasia: Transforming the Nation through Migration in Russia and Turkey’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 43(7): 1101–20. Aleinikoff, T. Alexander and Vincent Chetail (2003), International Legal Norms and Migration, The Hague: T. M. C. Asser.

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52 Refugees Zeynep Şahin Mencütek (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies) and Bezen Balamir Coşkun (Izmir Policy Center)

Introduction

S

ince its foundation, Turkey has encountered migration on a massive scale. Among immigrants, refugees constitute one of the largest populations. Here, we use the concept of ‘refugee’ to indicate people displaced due to fleeing from war or persecution across an international border, regardless of how they are labelled in the receiving country (for example asylum seeker, displaced, guest) and the nature of their flight (forced or voluntary). Besides being a refugee-receiving country, Turkey has also been a destination and transit country for mixed migration flows, including labour, transit and irregular migration that intertwines with refugee flows. We argue that despite changes in Turkey’s migration profile, ethnic politics and foreign policy priorities remain the main drivers of the state’s selective refugee regime, which refers to the architecture of legislations, policies and practices designed to frame the state’s response to people seeking asylum or protection in Turkey. Ambiguity has been the main characteristic of the refugee regime because policies and narratives fluctuate between humanitarianism and the religious/ethnic brotherhood of Turkey as ‘a host’ on the one hand, and legislation and policies generating precarity and securitisation on the other (Korkut 2016). Their ethnic and religious background makes some migrant groups a suspected security threat to Turkey’s unity, while some others might have enjoyed ethnic or religious privilege at least in the initial stages of their arrival. The refugee policies have been quite sensitive to geopolitics, particularly in the close neighbourhood of the country in the Middle East such as towards Iraq, Iran and Syria, which has been the main origin country of asylum seekers arriving in Turkey. Relations with the West, particularly with the European Union, have impacted the refugee regime, particularly the reformation of asylum legislation and the development of migration infrastructure. Since 2011, 694

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refugees | 695 the arrival of more than 3 million displaced Syrians, making Turkey the largest refugeehosting country, has put the refugee issue at the centre of domestic, regional and international politics. Syrians’ prolonged stay illustrates both continuities and changes in refugee policies and politics of modern Turkey with vested interests and ambiguous narratives. It demonstrates the pertinence of Turkey’s relative power and its foreign policy objectives in shaping responses to refugees, on the one hand, and the outcomes of the interaction between the international system and internal dynamics in designing refugee policies on the other (Mencütek et al. 2020). A terminological explanation is needed to begin a discussion on Turkey’s refugee regime, since it has complex legal, political and technical aspects. Since the perspectives about immigrants, including refugees, have historical roots in the nation-building process of Turkey and the broader citizenship regime, we start our review from the early period (İçduygu & Aksel 2013). Historically, the term ‘muhacir’ is used to refer to forcibly displaced people fleeing to Ottoman and Turkish territory from the Balkans and the Caucasus, while ‘mübadil’ was used to refer to those entering through a population exchange agreement between Turkey and Greece in 1923 (Hirschon 2003: xii). These groups were not called refugees, while they were immediately granted citizenship. After Turkey’s ratification of the international Refugee Convention (1951), the concepts referring to internationally displaced people multiplied further. Different terms are in use, based on Turkish legislation that centres around the country of origin and the ethno-religious identity of incomers. These include Convention refugees from European countries (mülteci, ‘refugee’), non-Convention refugees from non-European countries (sığınmacı, ‘asylum seeker’) or national refugees (göçmen or muhacir). Recently, the statuses of international protection (uluslararası koruma) and temporary protection (geçici koruma) have been added into the list to differentiate refugee-related categories. While the first one labels European asylum seekers as refugees, it grants either conditional refugee (şartlı mülteci) status or secondary protection (ikincil koruma) to non-European and non-Syrian asylum seekers. Temporary protection status is given specifically to Syrian displaced individuals in Turkey. Governing the refugee issues with more labelling, ordering and categorising has been the main characteristic of the global refugee regime (Zetter 2007). It stands as a typical policy preference pattern and the central pillar of refugee politics in several main refugee-hosting countries (Janmyr & Mourad 2018). Such a strategic ambiguity technique around labels entails some serious implications regarding rights and entitlements. It gives the state more space for manoeuvrings to discriminate against some migrants and delegate state protection responsibilities to the international community (Abdelaaty 2021; Stel 2020). We describe the refugee migration patterns in Turkey by differentiating four periods of responses: (1) the early period of modern Turkey; (2) mass flows in the 1990s; (3) the

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696 | zeynep şahin mencütek and bezen balamir coşkun asylum–irregular migration nexus in the 2000s under the influence of Europeanisation; and (4) institutionalisation attempts and Syrian refugee arrivals in the 2010s. We start the historical review with a focus on the early 1900s, then move to discuss Turkey’s ad hoc but security-oriented responses to mass migration flows in the 1990s by underlining differential treatment on the basis of ethnic politics. Following this, we address the increasing EU influence in the 2000s and briefly mention the asylum–irregular migration nexus in this context. The next section gives a short review of Syrian migration to Turkey by linking it to the institutionalisation efforts. The chapter concludes with comparisons and future trajectories. Immigrants in the Early Period of Modern Turkey Since the heyday of the Ottoman Empire, accepting immigrants was crucial since population growth was essential for the Empire’s economic development and military power (Karpat 1985). The Empire opened its doors to a large number of Muslims and a relatively small Jewish population who sought refuge. After the establishment of the Spanish Union in 1496, Sephardic Jews fleeing from Catholics settled in Istanbul, Edirne, Thessaloniki and Izmir (Karpat 1985). Ashkenazi Jews who fled Germany, Hungary, France, and Italy also settled in Ottoman provinces. In addition to the Jews, Russian, Swedish and Polish people escaping wars were also protected by the Ottoman sultans. During the 1848 riots, Polish people took shelter in the Ottoman Empire and later, they made significant contributions to the cultural and artistic life of the Empire. The leading Muslim groups seeking asylum in the Ottoman Empire were the Tatars, who had fled Crimea during the Turkish–Russian War, and the Circassians, who had escaped from the Russians (Karpat 1985; Karpat 2010; Kirişci 1995). Massive population exchanges and immigration flows happened in the last decades of the Ottoman Empire and the early 1900s, particularly from the Balkans and the Caucasus. Kemal Karpat notes 3 million immigrants arrived from the Balkans between 1877 and 1914 (Karpat 2010: 160). Other sources estimate that between 2,300,000 and 2,500,000 Rums,1 Bulgars or Turks migrated as a result of wars, forced expulsions and formal bilateral agreements for compulsory population exchange (Yıldırım 2012: 82). Large numbers of these people had identified themselves with the Empire and they were mostly the descendants of Turks who had settled in parts of the Balkans during the Ottoman expansion period (Kirişci 1995). After Ottoman control over these territories was lost, these people steadily looked to migrate to Thrace and Anatolia, where they remained under Formal identity in the Ottoman Empire was based on religion. Ottoman subjects were administered under the millet system. Orthodox Christians were members of the Rum millet, and were referred to accordingly; the term ‘Greek’ started to be used after the establishment of Greece in 1830.

 1

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refugees | 697 Ottoman rule. In the first population exchange agreement of its kind, the Progress and Unity Party and the Bulgarian government signed the Treaty of Istanbul on 29 September 1913 to organise an exchange of Bulgarians and Muslims residing in the Eastern Thrace border region (Yıldırım 2012: 82). A month later, another population exchange agreement was signed with Greece to exchange 240,000 Muslims and non-Muslims (Rums) living in Thrace and Western Anatolia (Yıldırım 2012: 82). The Republic of Turkey, which was established in the aftermath of the Ottoman Empire in 1923, has continued to be subject to an influx of immigrants, mainly from the Balkans. The most enormous immigrant flow occurred between 1921 and 1926 through population exchange. This time, Turks and Greeks signed the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations on 30 January 1923 as a part of the Lausanne peace talks. Around 400,000 Muslim Turks immigrated to Anatolia from Greece (Yıldırım 2012: 85). As the immigrants had Turkish and Muslim backgrounds, the mass movement contributed to the homogenisation of the new Republic’s population, serving to maintain the demographic structure of the nation-state (Yıldırım 2012). The exchanges made the Ottoman Muslim population the dominant group in Anatolia. At the same time, the rulers attempted to transform the Ottoman Muslims (Bosnians, Albanians, Macedonians, Pomaks, Caucasians) into a ‘civilised’, ‘homogeneous’ Turkish nation through Turkification policies bringing linguistic and cultural integration (Aktar 2003; Çolak 2006). On the other hand, remaining non-Muslims such as Greeks, Armenians and Jews residing in Turkey were recognised as citizens but remained minorities. Newly arriving Muslim migrants from the Balkans (Bosnians, Albanians) and the Caucasus were easily naturalised and accepted as part of the Turkish nation. Reading of the national historiographies in Turkey and Greece portrays that ‘the decade of 1923–33 was [a] period of national reconstruction at the center of which stood thousands of homeless, jobless and hunger refugees. The latter posed a multifaceted national challenge, called the refugee problem[,] never absent from the agendas of parliamentary sessions and general public opinion in both countries’ (Yıldırım 2006). Although Turkey did not join in the Second World War, it hosted hundreds of thousands of people who escaped from the turmoil and war in Europe, including Turkish and Muslim communities in the Balkans, and additionally German and Austrian refugees fleeing from the Nazis between 1933 and 1945. The second group substantially contributed to scientific and academic development in Turkey in those years (Kirişci 1995; Latif 2002: 6–7). Institutionally, some developments also occurred in the early period of Turkey. The Ministry of Population Exchange Development and Settlement was established in 1923, and the Turkish Citizenship Law (1928) and the Law on Settlement (No. 2510) were issued in 1934 (İçduygu & Aksel 2013). While the ministry did not continue its task later on, the laws remained valid. The Law on Settlement allowed people with ‘Turkish descent

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698 | zeynep şahin mencütek and bezen balamir coşkun and culture’ to immigrate to Turkey and settle permanently. Initially, the law applied to Turkish speakers from the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Later, it was extended to other communities, which are not considered ethnic Turks, such as Albanians, Bosnians, Circassians, Pomaks and Tatars (Abdelaaty 2021: 92). The period between the 1950 and the 1980s was relatively quiet, compared to the 1920s–1940s, in terms of receiving refugees except for a mass influx of 150,000 Turks from Bulgaria in 1950–1 due to the assimilationist policies of the communist regime in Bulgaria towards the Turkish-Muslim minority (Pınar 2017). In the same years, Turkey was seeking to be part of the emerging international refugee regime in the West. As a European ally, Turkey was among the twenty-six countries which collectively drafted the 1951 Refugee Convention (Abdelaaty 2021: 90). The Convention created the international norm and law establishing the right for an accepted refugee to have international protection. Turkey ratified the Convention and signed the 1967 Protocol, it lifted the temporal limitation but maintained the geographical limitation under Article 1B: ‘States may restrict their obligations only to individuals who fled events in Europe prior to 1951’ (UNHCR n.d.). Over the course of the years, Turkey showed no intention to lift the geographical limitation and stayed among the few countries insisting on it like Congo, Monaco and Madagascar. The limitation means that Turkey did not grant refugee status to non-European refugees directly and permanently, although almost all asylum seekers came from non-European countries. The limitation clause has implications. Turkey used to recognise non-European asylum seekers, albeit only for a temporary period, through a parallel registration system and refugee status determination (RSD) with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that would supposedly resettle them to third countries. The UNHCR started to establish a dialogue with Turkish officials in the 1950s while the UNHCR’s regional representative in the Middle East took responsibility for operations in Turkey in 1975. Until the mid-to-late 1980s, the UNHCR mainly dealt with RSD and resettlement of refugees from the Soviet Union and eastern Europe. Then it started to get involved in RSD and protection of nonEuropean asylum seekers fleeing from Iran and Iraq to Turkey (Abdelaaty 2021: 111–12). The UNHCR played a key role in assisting non-European refugees in Turkey until 2018 when the Directorate General for Migration Management took full control of RSD. Meanwhile, refugees and asylum seekers were governed through provisions of the 1934 Law on Settlement, the 1950 Passport Law, the 1950 Law on Residence and Movement of Aliens and the 1964 Citizenship Law. In 1994, a new regulation was introduced to exclusively address mass influxes and foreigners seeking asylum in Turkey. The 1990s migration context generating this law will be discussed below. We highlight that once again ethnic politics and foreign policy regarding the

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refugees | 699 Middle East re-emerged as the main drivers of refugee policies in the 1990s with a strong securitisation component (Aras & Mencütek 2018). Responses to Mass Refugee Flows in the Late 1980s and Early 1990s The end of the Cold War triggered new waves of mass movements to Turkey similar to the end of the First World War. During the 1990s, Bulgarians, Iraqis, Iranians, Bosnians, Kosovars and people from Soviet and post-Soviet states sought protection in Turkey. These refugee flows coincided with the rise of Kurdish nationalism and political Islam, making the issue more sensitive for political and security concerns. In this context, Turkey’s responses to mass refugee flows in the 1990s once again emerged as highly selective. Particularly refugees coming from the Middle East were less welcomed, being seen as a security threat to Turkey’s unity (Özmenek 2001: 57), while those from the West were more welcomed due to their loosely defined ethnic links based on linguistic closeness. In 1989, Bulgarian Turks started to cross the border to escape from Todor Zhivkov’s assimilation campaign. Around 310,000 Bulgarian Turks and Pomaks entered Turkey (Uzgel 2002: 181). The Turkish political leadership welcomed them at the discursive level and offered a favourable legal position and economic aid. New legal provisions were introduced to allow Bulgarian Turks to be recognised as immigrants, not refugees, drawing from the 1951 Convention. For example, among the groups arriving in the 1990s, Bulgarian ethnic Turks were treated more favourably at the official level due to the ethnic ties; nevertheless they were still seen as others, ‘Bulgarians’, by the local population (Parla 2003). More than half of Bulgarian Turks returned to Bulgaria after the Bulgarian communist government changed (Parla 2003). The second significant mass movement during the late 1980s and early 1990s was from northern Iraq. It started with 51,542 northern Iraqis (mostly civilian Kurds) fleeing Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s Al-Anfal campaign after the Iran–Iraq War in 1988 (Altıok & Tosun 2019: 691). This was the first mass influx of non-conventional refugees. Initially, the Turkish government was against granting asylum to the Kurdish refugees because of the ongoing conflict with Kurdish guerrillas in southeastern Turkey. Despite the domestic criticisms, the borders were opened, and Kurdish people seeking protection were named ‘temporary guests’ (Özmenek 2001: 59). As a response to Europe’s reluctance to accept Kurdish refugees, Ankara did not accept humanitarian aid since this offer was interpreted as an attempt by the EU to keep the refugees in Turkey rather than repatriate them (Özmenek 2001: 59). The crisis deepened with the arrival of around 60,000 Iraqis during Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. As the third wave, in 1991, 460,000 Iraqis arrived in Turkey due to Saddam’s military operations against civilian opposition groups (Altıok & Tosun 2019: 8). During the third wave, Turkey did not open the borders officially

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700 | zeynep şahin mencütek and bezen balamir coşkun but gradually admitted Iraqis for humanitarian reasons. The government provided essential humanitarian services, and contained them in the buffer zone camps inside Turkey. Ankara took diplomatic action and sought an exit strategy with the help of international actors. With the support of US president George H. W. Bush, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 688 on 5 April 1991. Within the context of the resolution, ‘safe havens’ were established to prevent border crossings to Turkey. The US-led Operation Provide Comfort also helped Turkey’s repatriation of most Iraqis (Erhan & Kürkçüoğlu 2002: 138–9). In a matter of months, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis had settled in the safe zone on Iraqi territory, with only 14,000 asylum seekers remaining in shelters on the Turkish side (Kaynak 1992: 45). Beyond the priority of internationalisation, the restrictive means taken by the Turkish state illustrated the securitisation that intersected with both ethnic politics and foreign policy. The Iraqi refugee population was thought likely to exacerbate domestic Kurdish nationalism. Turkey’s negotiations with the international community over Iraqi refugees were interpreted as its first attempt at playing the refugee/ mass migration card at an international level for its own foreign policy interests (Greenhill 2010), which would be repeated with Syrians in the mid-2010s. While Turkey was dealing with Kurdish refugees on the Iraqi border, in 1992, more than 20,000 Bosnian Muslims sought asylum in Turkey. Initially, Bosnians entered Turkey as ‘tourists’, based on a previous agreement between Turkey and Yugoslavia that allowed Yugoslavians to stay in Turkey for two months. Their stay was automatically extended for up to six months, and they could obtain renewable residence permits. In this context, Bosnians were not granted refugee status, they were considered ‘guests’ and given temporary protection similar to Iraqis and later Syrians (Abdelaaty 2021: 107). In contrast to the case of Kurdish refugees, Turkey requested the UNHCR’s assistance for the Bosnians. With the support of the UNHCR, a camp was established in Kırklareli to provide housing units. The UNHCR also provided cash for other essential supplies and infrastructure (Özmenek 2001: 59). In a similar vein, between 1998 and 1999, 18,000 Kosovars who entered Turkey were also identified as ‘guests’, not refugees. They were admitted as tourists and issued six-month residence permits (Abdelaaty 2021: 107). The majority of Bosnians and Kosovars lived in urban centres, while others stayed at the Gazi Osman Paşa Immigrant Guesthouse in Kırklareli. In response to mass movements of refugees from non-European countries, Turkey adopted Regulation No. 6169/1994 on the Procedures and Principles Related to Possible Population Movements and Aliens Arriving in Turkey either as Individuals or in Groups either Wishing to Seek Asylum from Turkey or Requesting Residence Permission in Order to Seek Asylum from Another Country (1994). The regulation was an attempt to formalise the processes regarding asylum applications from nationals of countries outside Europe. Reflecting a security-oriented approach, the 1994 regulation continued to cast

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refugees | 701 Middle Eastern and African arrivals not as refugees but as asylum seekers. With the introduction of the new regulation, migration experts expected the removal of geographical limitation (Kirişci 1996). However, the limitation remained in place. The legislation served as a powerful signal of Turkey’s determination to halt any mass migration from the Middle East at the border by legitimising it through border and domestic security discourse. The regulation can be also read as an attempt by the Turkish state to mitigate the perceived risk that Turkey might become a perpetual buffer zone for asylum seekers and other migrants trying to reach Europe (Aras & Mencütek 2018: 77). During the 1990s, foreign policy considerations and national security concerns impacted Turkey’s selective approach to refugees. As Ayse Parla states (2019: 1), drawing from the Bulgarian Turkish immigration case, the tensions between ethnic privilege and economic vulnerability showed ‘the limits of migrant belonging among those for whom it is intimated and promised – but never guaranteed’. As Ahmet İçduygu and Damla Aksel argue (2022), the 1990s brought a challenge to Turkey, as the arriving refugees had different ethnic and national backgrounds and the international refugee regime expected it to accommodate their needs. This was a different context from the early Republic period, when Turkey opened its borders mainly to people of ‘Turkish origin and descent’ that served for its national consolidation. Moreover, Turkey’s EU accession objective added extra considerations to reform immigration and asylum legislation. These will be discussed below. The Asylum–Irregular Migration Nexus in the 2000s under the Influence of Europeanisation In the mid-1990s and the 2000s, besides mass arrivals, Turkey’s migration profile shifted and numbers of Middle Eastern and African irregular migrants tried to reach Europe using Turkey as a transit hub (Kaya 2008: 6). This is also when both securitisation and externalisation processes moved to the forefront of irregular migration control, in which Turkey and the EU emerged as joint stakeholders (Aras & Mencütek 2018: 75). The situation intertwined with Turkey’s Europeanisation efforts, which speeded up by taking candidate status in December 1999. Hence, immigration policies, particularly border controls for irregular migration, and harmonisation of asylum legislations were placed at the centre of Turkey–EU relations. The EU’s demands from Turkey from the late 1990s onward were firmly stated in progress reports, accession partnership documents and national programmes. They emphasised the urgent need for border management coordination, harmonisation of visa policies, signing a readmission agreement, creating a national asylum system including a civilian authority to this end, and lifting the geographical limitation to the Convention (Aras & Mencütek 2018: 77). Despite fluctuations in political relations and accessions talks, Turkey looked to be gradually satisfying

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702 | zeynep şahin mencütek and bezen balamir coşkun EU demands between 2001 and 2012, particularly by undertaking several programmatic and institutional initiatives to harmonise its policies with Europe to control migration through external borders (Aras & Mencütek 2018; Memişoğlu 2014). In the process, the EU promised Turkey support in capacity-building, finance, visa exemptions and – if the other accession conditions were fulfilled – eventual full EU membership (Aras & Mencütek 2018: 77). While the first two promises were fulfilled, the other two were not realised as of mid-2021. Overall, Turkey’s policies have been driven by its national security concerns, which increased with the advent of mass migration from the Middle East. These became more relevant with the rise in the number of migrants on Turkish territory (Aras & Mencütek 2018). The Syrian mass migration that began in 2011 gave momentum to the evolution of refugee governance through more institutionalisation in line with the long-term externalisation on the part of the EU as well. In this period, the interconnectedness of irregular and mass migration became much more evident, as discussed below. Institutionalisation Attempts and Syrian Refugee Arrivals in the 2010s The sudden flow of Syrians who crossed the southeastern border of Turkey from 2011 constituted the biggest challenge to Turkey’s refugee regime. After the influx of Syrian refugees, institutionalisation efforts were firmed up in 2013–14 with the introduction of the 2013 Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP), and the 2014 Temporary Protection Regulation (TPR). Moreover, a separate agency, the Directorate General of Migration Management (DGMM) took over the duties from the Turkish National Police. Despite being Turkey’s first-ever asylum law, the LFIP did not resolve the complication about asylum legislation and the fragmentations in protection statuses, instead making them much more complex. The new law introduced three more forms of refugee status: conditional, subsidiarity and temporary protection (LFIP 2013). Drawing from the LFIP’s articles (Articles 61–95), the last status is further elaborated in the TPR. The LFIP regulates individual-level refugee status determination (RSD), while the TPR applies group-based status determination in the cases of mass arrivals. The TPR has so far only been adopted for Syrians. This new regulation is viewed as comprehensive secondary legislation conforming to international standards in the field of temporary protection (Coşkun & Nielsen 2018). It does not give millions of Syrians refugee status, but guarantees non-refoulement and access to public education, healthcare and employment. While registration and RSD for non-Syrian asylum seekers had been conducted by the Turkish authorities and UNHCR together for decades, as of 10 September 2018, the DGMM and governorates took overall responsibility for RSDs. The Syrian crisis brought new urgency and momentum to create a more concrete regime building on the ‘asylum–migration nexus’ that intentionally blurs the lines

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refugees | 703 between irregular labour migration, irregular transit migration and asylum flows towards and via Turkey (Aras & Mencütek 2018: 66). In relation to irregular migration and EU relations, two important developments were signing the Readmission Agreement with the EU (2013) and the EU–Turkey Statement (2016) in the same period. Besides similarities, there are also differences as well. Prior to 2011, Turkey had officially adopted a closed-door approach to mass migration from the Middle East, as exemplified in the Iraqi Kurdish flow. The stance was changed by the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) governments in responding to Syrian mass migration flow with an open-door policy. Nevertheless, an earlier welcoming approach was replaced by restrictive policies when foreign policy interests towards Syria changed. Ethnic politics played a minimal role in government policies towards Syrians, although it showed its impact at local levels. In general, compared to the 1990s and 2000s, Turkish policymakers have taken a more independent, less EU-oriented stance in governing the issue of migration from Syria (Aras & Mencütek 2018: 66). They have also presented refuge hosting as a grand humanitarian mission blended with the hegemonic civilisationist and Islamic populist discourses based on brotherhood. Conclusion: Continuities, Ruptures and Future Trajectories What has been continued and what transformed from the early years of the Republic to the 2020s, and what can this tell us about future trajectories? Ethnic, cultural and religious affinity and foreign policy priorities remained at the core of Turkey’s refugee regime. The early population exchange had become the part of the reconstruction of the national narratives of the Republic, while any other refugee groups in Turkey were not included in such narratives later on. The somehow similar emphasis on the ‘refugee problem’, as in the 1923–33 period, re-emerged in the mass arrivals of Iraqi Kurds and Bulgarian Turks in the 1990s, and Syrians since 2011. In all cases, the mass arrivals were linked to the multifaceted national challenge, and sparked parliamentary discussions and public uneasiness due to the ethnic origin of the refugees. The discourse of economic burden continued its relevance at least at discursive level, although there is not enough evidence to claim this. Among all refugees, the Syrians received the most intense public attention, which turned hostile over the course of time, due to their protracted stay in large numbers and the unmet expectations in Turkey’s Syria policy. Foreign policy and ethnic considerations – as a component of domestic politics – continued to shape Turkey’s responses to refugees. As refugees mainly come from neighbouring countries, geopolitical interests and domestic politics components are prominent, carrying the refugee issue from the humanitarian realm to that of internal and international politics. Coming from a country carrying a permanent real or imagined risk perception, refugees are often subject to being approached as foreigners or the usual suspects standing in the way of the glorified or far-fetched goal of national ‘unity’.

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704 | zeynep şahin mencütek and bezen balamir coşkun A general overview of periods illustrates that Turkey’s refugee policies are nuanced and marked by ambiguity, temporality and selectivity. This continues to be a strategic preference rather than being ad hoc or non-intentional due to the intertwined social, economic and security concerns. Despite the international pressure and the UNHCR’s lobbying, Turkey does not have any intention to lift the geographical limitation to be able to claim its sovereignty and self-identified role as a transit country for non-European refugees. Maintaining the geographical limitation reduces the protection commitments offered to refugees from non-European states, while it increases the risk of deportation and refoulement for refugees. Similar to other prominent refugee-hosting countries, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Pakistan, Turkey prioritises third-country resettlement as the only possible durable solution for refugees arriving in the country, while limiting local integration options in the long run. Nevertheless, Turkey needs to assume responsibility to ensure the right to asylum and non-refoulement without any exception. The influx of Afghans after the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021 showed that Turkey will continue to host refugees from its eastern and southern neighbourhood. Border control will remain an issue for successive Turkish governments and their relations with neighbouring countries like Greece and the EU. Thus, refugee politics will increasingly become a high-priority topic for both domestic and foreign policy in Turkey. In this context, European states’ own vulnerabilities will give Turkish governments more leverage to play out the refugee card. As the refugee issue turned into a crisis in Europe in 2015–16, a new window of political opportunity was open to Turkey to demand financial support to meet the needs of 4 million Syrians in the country and to negotiate the EU accession process. Lastly, as previous protracted refugee situations showed in the conflict-neighbour countries (Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon, Afghans in Iran and Pakistan), the majority of Syrians will remain in Turkey. They and their descendants will gradually integrate without a targeted policy. However, the protracted stay of Syrians requires long-term integration policies, including more authority for local governments, for ensuring the refugees enjoy political and social rights, and secure settlement and social acceptance. However, as experienced in the Altındağ district of Ankara in August 2021, populist politicians tend to exploit domestic resentments towards refugees. In this context, populist political parties will make anti-refugee stances part of their election campaigns, reminiscent of the right-wing populist European parties’ scapegoating of refugees. References Abdelaaty, Lamis Elmy (2021), Discrimination and Delegation: Explaining State Responses to Refugees, New York: Oxford University Press. Aktar, Ayhan (2003), ‘Homogenising the Nation, Turkifying the Economy’, in Renée Hirschon (ed.), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey, New York: Berghahn, pp. 79–95.

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refugees | 705 Altıok, Birce and Salih Tosun (2020), ‘Understanding Foreign Policy Strategies during Migration Movements: A Comparative Study of Iraqi and Syrian Mass Refugee Inflows to Turkey’, Turkish Studies 21(5): 684–704. Aras, N. Ela Gökalp and Zeynep Şahin Mencütek (2018), ‘Evaluation of Irregular Migration Governance in Turkey from a Foreign Policy Perspective’, New Perspectives on Turkey 59: 63–88. Çolak, Yilmaz (2006), ‘Ottomanism vs. Kemalism: Collective Memory and Cultural Pluralism in 1990s Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies 42(4): 587–602. Coşkun, Bezen Balamir and Selin Yıldız Nielsen (2018), Encounters in the Turkey–Syria Borderland, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Erhan, Çağrı and Ömer Kürkçüoğlu (2002), ‘Ortadoğu’yla İlişkiler’, in Baskın Oran (ed.), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt II: 1980–2001, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 134–52. Greenhill, Kelly M. (2010), Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hirschon, Renée (ed.) (2003), Crossing the Aegean: An Appraisal of the 1923 Compulsory Population Exchange between Greece and Turkey, New York: Berghahn. İçduygu, Ahmet and Damla Aksel (2013), ‘Turkish Migration Policies: A Critical Historical Retrospective’, Perceptions 18(3): 167–90. İçduygu, Ahmet and Damla B. Aksel (2022), ‘Turkey’s Responses to Refugees: Past and Present’, in Joost Jongerden (ed.), The Routledge Handbook on Contemporary Turkey, Abingdon & New York: Routledge, pp. 444–55. Janmyr, Maja and Lama Mourad (2018), ‘Modes of Ordering: Labelling, Classification and Categorization in Lebanon’s Refugee Response’, Journal of Refugee Studies 31(4): 544–65. Karpat, Kemal H. (1985), Ottoman Population 1830–1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Karpat, Kemal (2010), Osmanlı Nüfusu 1830–1914, 2nd ed., Istanbul: Timaş Yayınları. Kaya, İbrahim (2008), ‘Undocumented Migration: Counting the Uncountable – Country Report: Turkey’, ELIAMEP. Kaynak, Muhteşem (1992), The Iraqi Asylum Seekers and Türkiye (1988–1991), Ankara: Tanmak. Kirişci, Kemal (1995), ‘Post Second World War Immigration from Balkan Countries to Turkey’, New Perspectives on Turkey 12: 61–77. Kirişci, Kemal (1996), ‘Is Turkey Lifting the “Geographical Limitation”? The November 1994 Regulation on Asylum in Turkey’, International Journal of Refugee Law 8(3): 293–318. Korkut, Umut (2016), ‘Pragmatism, Moral Responsibility or Policy Change: The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Selective Humanitarianism in the Turkish Refugee Regime’, Comparative Migration Studies 4, article 2. Latif, Dilek (2002), ‘Refugee Policy of the Turkish Republic’, Turkish Yearbook of International Relations 33: 1–29. Memişoğlu, Fulya (2014), ‘Between the Legacy of Nation-State and Forces of Globalization: Turkey’s Management of Mixed Migration Flows’, Working Paper No. 2014/122, European University Institute, http://cadmus.eui.eu/handle/1814/33862, accessed 16 February 2023.

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706 | zeynep şahin mencütek and bezen balamir coşkun Mencütek, Zeynep Şahin, N. Ela Gökalp Aras and Bezen Balamir Coşkun (2020), ‘Turkey’s Response to Syrian Mass Migration: A Neoclassical Realist Analysis’, Uluslararası İlişkiler 17(68): 93–111. Özmenek, Elif (2001), ‘UNHCR in Turkey’, Refuge 19(5): 54–61. Parla, Ayse (2003), ‘Marking Time along the Bulgarian–Turkish Border’, Ethnography 4(4): 561–75. Parla, Ayse (2019), Precarious Hope: Migration and the Limits of Belonging in Turkey, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. Pınar, Mehmet (2017), ‘1950–1951 Bulgaristan’dan Türkiye’ye Göçler ve Demokrat Parti’nin Göçmen Politikası’, Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi Dergisi 30(89): 61–94. Stel, Nora (2020), Hybrid Political Order and the Politics of Uncertainty: Refugee Governance in Lebanon, Abingdon and New York: Routledge. UNHCR (n.d.), Submission by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’ Compilation Report – Universal Periodic Review: The Republic Of Turkey’, https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5541e6694. pdf, accessed 16 February 2023. Uzgel, İlhan (2002), ‘Balkanlarla İlişkiler’, in Baskın Oran (ed.), Türk Dış Politikası: Kurtuluş Savaşından Bugüne Olgular, Belgeler, Yorumlar, Cilt II: 1980–2001, Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, pp. 167–81. Yıldırım, Onur (2006), ‘The 1923 Population Exchange, Refugees and National Historiographies in Greece and Turkey’, East European Quarterly 40(1): 45–70. Yıldırım, Seyfi (2012), ‘Balkan Savaşları ve Sonrasındaki Göçlerin Türkiye Nüfusuna Etkileri’, CTAD 8(16): 75–92. Zetter, Roger (2007), ‘More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization’, Journal of Refugee Studies 20(2): 172–92.

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53 Revisionist, Resurgent Power, Breaking with the West, Sailing with Eurasianist Winds Cengiz Çandar (Swedish Institute of International Affairs)

T

he year 2020 is rightly depicted as an annus horribilis due to the Covid-19 pandemic. It evoked the memories of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918–19, just over a century before, and the bubonic plague of medieval times. The global system, in many ways, came to a standstill, perplexed in how to deal with the challenge. As Francis Fukuyama referred to in his essay titled ‘The Pandemic and World Order’, major crises have major consequences, usually unforeseen. He cited how the Great Depression in late 1920s and early 1930s spurred nationalism, fascism and subsequently the Second World War as well as the rise of the United States as a global superpower, and eventually decolonisation, and wrote, ‘Future historians will trace comparably large effects to the current coronavirus pandemic; the challenge is figuring them out ahead of time’ (Fukuyama 2020). The ramifications of the annus horribilis led Niall Ferguson to write, ‘Never in our lifetimes, it seems, has there been greater uncertainty about the future’, in the introduction of his Doom, The Politics of Catastrophe (Ferguson 2021). Yet, that year, in perhaps a paradoxical and ironical manner, recorded the emergence of a revisionist power on the international stage with unmistaken certainty: Turkey, alongside the already-emergent two big revisionist powers, Russia and China. For Foreign Policy, 2020 was Turkey’s Year of Living Dangerously. In its review of the year, it asserted, ‘If there is one man who didn’t let a pandemic stifle his quest for glory, it is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.’ It added: In 2020, Erdogan took the wrecking ball he’d previously slammed into Turkey’s domestic politics and turned it on the region. This year, Turkey’s military was more active around the world than it has been in decades, or perhaps ever. From Libya to Nagorno-Karabagh, the Turkish leader has used armed force to advance Turkey’s objectives. (Meakem 2020)

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708 | cengiz çandar On the eve of the centenary of the Turkish Republic, the third decade of the twenty-first century was also inaugurated with the entry of Turkey as a new revisionist power on the international stage. Regenerating the imperial glory of the past has been one of the underlying drivers for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the longest-serving leader in the Turkish Republic’s history. His foreign policy, which made a radical break with the past from the year 2016 on, has earned labels like ‘revisionism’, ‘irredentism’, ‘expansionism’ and ‘belligerence’. It is marked as neo-Ottomanist by many prominent international scholars and politicians alike from all corners of the globe. The Turkish assertive (for some, aggressive and expansionist) foreign policy that reached its glory by 2020 was, almost by consensus, seen as an exercise and implementation in neo-Ottomanism. It became increasingly reliant on hard power and militarised diplomacy and deployed the ideologically hegemonic narrative labelled as neo-Ottomanism. During 2020, Turkey became belligerently active in projecting its hard power in broad geopolitics more than ever, from north Africa to the south Caucasus, from the eastern Mediterranean to the Middle East, stretching even as far to Afghanistan and Pakistan within the context of the greater Middle East. It changed the Libyan civil war calculus, making itself an indispensable player in the Libyan riddle, at least on a par with Russia and France. In the eyes of some observers, it was at such a level as to overtake them. It challenged France, Greece and Cyprus, all members of the European Union, by subscribing to gunboat diplomacy regarding the maritime jurisdiction and delineation and engaging in drilling for and exploring hydrocarbons. During the last quarter of 2020, Turkey provided an unprecedented level of military assistance to Azerbaijan in its war against Armenia. Turkey’s military support, albeit to the chagrin of the European Union, became decisive in Azerbaijan’s stunning battlefield success and military victory that terminated the status quo that had been established and had prevailed for a quarter of a century, since 1994. Azerbaijani military supremacy in the south Caucasus, which ultimately won the Nagorno-Karabagh War thanks to Ankara’s solid political, diplomatic and military backing, brought back Turkey’s military presence in the region after almost a century. Having the lion’s share in the Azerbaijani triumph, Turkey plays as a regional power next to Russia in the South Caucasus, which is in Moscow’s ‘near abroad’ and thus, until recently, considered a Russian sphere of influence implicitly. Two neighbouring countries, both depicted as revisionist powers in the post-Cold War international system, Russia and Turkey, established a peculiar and a sui generis kind of partnership in the south Caucasus. It added to the one they have had in Syria since 2016, Turkey’s year of Eurasianist drift from the West. The Russo-Turkish

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revisionist, resurgent power | 709 partnership prejudiced and challenged Turkey’s formal status as an ally of the Western and trans-Atlantic security mechanisms. The Russia–Turkey relationship, conceptualised as ‘competitive cooperation’ or ‘adversarial collaboration’, is analysed in detail in my book Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment (Çandar 2021) within the context of Erdoğanist Turkish foreign policy, which stands out as a radical transformation of Ankara’s conventional pro-Western foreign policy. What is noteworthy to explain in Turkey’s leveraging of hard power to replace the projection of soft power in pursuing its foreign policy is its impressive use of drones in multiple conflict zones. Francis Fukuyama went so far as to say that it will change the nature of land power, with an analogy with the changing nature of naval power during the interregnum between the world wars in the twentieth century. Referring to an earlier article of his published by the Financial Times in 2010 where he had emphasised that drones would have significant implications for global politics and would inevitably change the nature of interstate conflicts, he wrote: It seems to me that Turkey’s use of drones is going to change the nature of land power in ways that will undermine existing force structures, in the way that the Dreadnaught obsoleted earlier classes of battleships, or the aircraft carrier made battleships themselves obsolete at the beginning of World War II. (Fukuyama 2021)

Fukuyama attributed Turkey’s rise in international politics to the introduction of its drones, yielding positive results from Syria to Libya and the south Caucasus and giving more ability to Turkey to shape outcomes than Russia, China, an even the United States. He mentioned Erdoğan as the main actor in this development: The main actor in this development is Turkey under its autocratic president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The country has developed its own domestic drones and has used them to devastating effect in several military conflicts: Libya, Syria, in the Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, an in the fight against the PKK inside its own borders. In the process, it has elevated itself to being a major regional power broker with more ability to shape outcomes than Russia, China, or the United States. (Fukuyama 2021)

Deployment of Turkish drones played an equally decisive role in shaping the balance of power regarding the Cyprus conflict and altering Turkey’s long-standing posture on the Cyprus question. At the end of 2019, Turkey deployed armed drones on a military base in the Turkish-controlled northern part of the island, heightening the threat perception of the Greek-administered Republic of Cyprus. In 2020, with the heavy backing of Turkey, Erdoğan’s favourite candidate for the presidency of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus won the elections on a ticket advocating a two-state solution on the island to resolve the conflict. Ankara’s foreign policy in 2021 geared for a two-state

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710 | cengiz çandar solution, abandoning the bizonal, bi-communal solution that had been its policy, which had relied on the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. That is another tangible indicator of revisionism in Turkish foreign policy in the aftermath of 2016 and the impact of drones in shaping it. The replacement of Turkey’s conventional Kemalist foreign policy with a revisionist – in the conceptual sense, a Neo-Ottomanist – policy has ramifications that go beyond Turkey due to its key position in Eurasian geopolitics. Turkey’s crucial and exclusive importance in the international balance of power had become a matter of awareness with the end of the Cold War among renowned thinkers, strategists and politicians worldwide. In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989) and the dissolution of the Soviet empire (1991), many experts and strategists characterised Turkey as a newly ‘pivotal’ country. Noteworthy among them are Zbigniew Brzezinski, who listed Turkey along with Ukraine, Azerbaijan, South Korea and Iran as playing the role of a critically important geopolitical pivot in his seminal book The Grand Chessboard (1997), and Professor Paul Kennedy of Yale University, who identified it as one pivotal state among nine (Chase et al. 1999). Geoffrey Kemp and Robert Harkavy wrote: The changes that brought about the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union radically shifted the parameters of European and Middle East strategic front lines. Turkey now finds itself at the centre, rather than the periphery, of a changing environment. It remains a key Mediterranean power with a very important role in the Balkans. (Kemp & Harkavy 1997).

Meanwhile, Richard Holbrooke, who was hailed as the most brilliant American strategic mind in the post-Cold War period, went so far as to say that ‘Turkey after the Cold War is equivalent to Germany during the Cold War, a pivotal state, where diverse interests intersect (quoted in Çandar 2021). Eric Rouleau (1926–2015), the legendary Middle East expert and journalist at Le Monde during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s who also served as French ambassador in Turkey from 1988 to 1991, captured the imperatives of post-Cold War Turkey in his seminal essay on Turkey published in Foreign Affairs back in 1993. With an intuitive sense of how Turkey would change after the Cold War and even in the mid-2010s, he had written: Today, Turks speak with pride of their Ottoman heritage even while retaining a certain critical distance . . . Former President Özal, who died earlier this year, contributed a great deal to reconciling the Turks with their past and promoting the synthesis between Kemalism and what he considered to be the positive aspects of Ottomanism. He believed that diversity in unity could contribute to strength and stability, just as it had under the Empire.

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revisionist, resurgent power | 711 Özal’s convictions were well suited to the geopolitical needs of a new international situation. The fall of the Berlin Wall ended Turkey’s long-standing strategic role in a bipolar world. Meanwhile, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent independence of the Central Asian republics opened Turkey’s eyes to a vast territory inhabited by some 150 million fellow Muslim Turkic-speakers on its northern borders. The years of claustrophobia abruptly ended. (Rouleau 1993)

I can take the credit for co-authoring a piece titled ‘Grand Geopolitics for a New Turkey’ on how Turkey and its foreign policy should evolve following the demise of the Soviet Union in what Ukrainian-Russian historian Igor Torbakov characterised as a programmatic article. In its opening section, we observed that ‘The narrow geopolitical perspectives of a Soviet-dominated region have been replaced by a brand-new geopolitical reality that leaves Turkey as the emerging great power in the region’ (Çandar & Fuller 2001). Torbakov, referring to the article, underlined that it contained some key tropes, concepts, ideas and principles that Ahmet Davutoğlu, former prime minister and foreign minister who made a reputation as Turkey’s main strategist on foreign policy in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, ‘and other like-minded Turkish strategists would later elaborate on’ (Torbakov 2017). All analyses of Turkey’s pivotal role in the post-Cold War international system and emergence as a regional power lost their validity when the mid-2010s were reached. Turkey, until then, did not seem to view its future as a binary choice between the West and Russia, trying to achieve a kind of strategic autonomy by balancing its ties with the EuroAtlantic world. The revisionist aims and the nationalist/neo-Ottomanist motivations that set Turkey on a new path became discernible in after the mid-2010s. As Turkey’s resurgence as a revisionist new power became apparent, the flaws were revealed in the Realpolitik school that consistently either disregards or underestimates the ideological element underlying specific historical circumstances that become the main driver for nations like Turkey. At the second decade of the twenty-first century and the beginning of its third, Turkey shifted its axis while remaining a member of Western institutions. It employed hard power instead of soft power in the pursuance of its foreign policy, or – at least – did not shy away from doing so. The drastic and dramatic changes that occurred in Turkey and in the regional and international balance of power that brought about the transformation of Turkish foreign policy makes an update very necessary to my widely referenced and quoted essay ‘Turkey’s “Soft Power” Strategy: New Vision for Multi-Polar World’ (Çandar 2009), published by SETA (the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research), the semi-official pro-government think tank. The passage of time and drastic and dramatic changes in Turkey and those with the regional and international balance of power have

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712 | cengiz çandar brought me to almost diametrically opposite conclusions regarding how Turkish foreign policy was transformed and the new shape more than a decade after the essay mentioned above was published. During the last quarter of 2009, Turkey was under the microscope of the Western world. Scores of commentaries, reports and op-ed articles were published in many of the prestigious and influential journals and the dailies of the Western world on whether Turkey was undergoing an axis shift. The tacit outlook was that Turkey was drifting away from the Euro-Atlantic system and heading towards the turbulent Middle East and Asia. By autumn 2009, reading titles and headings like ‘How the West Lost Turkey’, ‘Turkey: An Ally No More’, ‘Turks’ Eastern Turn’, ‘Disillusioned with Europe, Turkey Looks East’, ‘A NATO without Turkey’, and ‘An Islamist Pivot to the East’ was commonplace. The postulation of Samuel Huntington, the ‘clash of civilisations’, had become one of the major topics of global intellectual discourse during the first decade of the twenty-first century when a new elite governed Turkey with an un-Kemalist, Islamist upbringing, formerly affiliated to politically Islamist parties. Therefore, Turkey’s turn towards the East might not be impossible but would be a significant tectonic shift over the civilisational fault lines given its crucial geopolitics. Naturally, Turkey’s direction could become a matter of interest for everybody on the globe, above all a concern for the West. However, Turkey’s leaders were keen to reiterate that Turkey had not changed its foreign policy trajectory. In October 2009, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan delivered the keynote speech at a symposium in Istanbul, where he ruled out Turkey’s axis shift. Erdoğan spoke of the growing influence of Turkey in its ‘near abroad’, to its south and east, and with that emphasis, Erdogan reiterated Turkey’s pivotal role for the EU. Rather than an axis shift, he implied he wanted to leverage Turkish regional foreign policy activism versus the European Union to secure a consolidated place in the West. A month later, in November 2009, President Abdullah Gül, Erdoğan’s predecessor, who had also served as foreign minister, said, ‘What Turkey is doing is clear. Turkey, surely, is moving simultaneously in every direction, towards east and west, north and south.’ My prognosis on the trajectory of Turkish foreign policy, which came out in December 2009, was instead an endeavour to theorise Erdoğan’s and Gül’s foreign policy declarations: The shift should not be attributed to Turkey’s departure from its Western ties to be replaced by those with the East but rather, a shift of power as the inevitable outcome of the end of the Cold War and a fact of the new millennium. Men of wisdom have already predicted such a transfer of power from a Eurocentric to an Asiacentric, and from an Atlantic to a Pacific based international system. (Çandar 2009)

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revisionist, resurgent power | 713 I wrote with a token prediction of how Turkey eventually would change its foreign policy orientation during the second decade of the century. In hindsight, the reasons listed for the perceived change in the conventional route of Turkish foreign policy, except for the fifth and last one, were accurate and remain valid in explaining the transition from soft to hard power strategy, a significant departure: 1. The decline or at least the suspension of American influence in the region due to the failures of the United States in Iraq or the widespread regional perception of those. 2. The absence of Europe and/or ineffectiveness of the EU policy in a region considered as its backyard. 3. The destruction of Sunni dominance in Iraq following the war in 2003 which led to drift of power of erstwhile US allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia regionally, leaving the space open for Shiite Iran’s influence. 4. The growing economic power of Turkey leading it to become the 15th largest economy in the world, and the 7th in Europe, which consequently elevate it to be a member of G-20 Group. 5. Political modernisation of Turkey, which is still underway, thanks to the EU anchor that seemingly proved that the Turkish democracy has matured enough to accommodate a government allegedly having Islamist roots. The successful democratic ascension to government of the AK Party (Justice and Development Party) has placed Turkey as a role model for Muslim societies and public opinion in general, and the Arab world in particular. Alternatively, it has also served the international system in the post-9/11 world. (Çandar 2009)

The regime change that happened in Turkey, which moved the country from an illiberal democracy to autocracy, a kind of one-man rule which is reminiscent of the caudillo models of the past seen in South American countries, made the listed fifth reason irrelevant. My concluding statement was as follows: Turkey’s position on the international and regional scene can be envisaged as beginning to adjust itself for this future world . . . Despite mutual misgivings, Turkey’s European Western vocation has not been a variable in its outward reach. It has remained a historical constant. One reason is that Turkey is an heir to the legacy of Eastern Rome. (Çandar 2009)

Given the dramatic shift in Turkish foreign policy in the aftermath of the coup attempt on 15 July 2016, that observation proved to be very imprudent and ultimately irrelevant when the year 2020 was reached. Nonetheless, such a break in Turkey’s trajectory under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was at the helm of power from 2003, was not predictable and, when looked at in retrospect, unforeseeable as there were almost no signs that could make it possible.

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714 | cengiz çandar The timeline of developments is indicative of how Erdoğan steered Turkey away from the West, especially in the wake of the botched military coup in July 2016, which became a significant turning point in that sense. The day of the coup, 15 July, is used as if it were a foundational pillar for the un-Kemalist state crafting that Erdoğan aimed at. A new narrative developed like the Nutuk of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1927, which he sought to be the official history of the new Turkish nation-state to replace and substitute the imperial Ottoman one. What is striking about the milestone event of the 15 July coup is that Erdoğan perceived it as a machination of the Western world, above all the United States, attempting to remove him from power. That perception opened the road to Turkey’s partnership with Vladimir Putin’s Russia on an unprecedented scale, thanks to Russian acquiescence and endorsement of Turkey’s military incursion into Syria. Turkey’s military entry into Syrian territory took place five weeks after the 15 July coup attempt. It signified the introduction to the new orientation of its foreign policy, namely acting autonomously from the West in terms of defence and security policies. Turkey’s security partnership with Russia, established in Syria, superseded the transatlantic alliance, which symbolised its anchoring in the West. Years later, the Financial Times acknowledged the significance of the 15 July 2016 coup for Turkey–Russia rapprochement. Assessing what it called ‘Erdoğan’s Great Game’ in a series it described as ‘looking at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s geopolitical ambitions’, it wrote: A bloody attempted coup by rogue military factions in 2016 marked a rupture in Turkey’s dealings with the rest of the world, analysts say. It left Mr Erdoğan even more suspicious of the west, pushed him closer to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, forced him to forge new political alliances at home and enabled him to take unprecedented control of the Turkish state. (Financial Times 2021)

The coup brought a new power structure, an unusual and odd composite of Islamist, secularist, and pseudo-racist nationalists under Erdoğan. Resorting to continuous crackdowns to stifle opposition and potential dissent, an authoritarian regime was established internally in Turkey, and militarised foreign policy became its natural reflection. Extremist and nationalist pursuance of foreign policy employing populist discourse and trying to resurrect the imperial glory of the past has been one of the main features of the regime. It should not be seen detached from the regime’s repressive practices, prioritising the suppression of the Kurdish opposition on the domestic political scene. The connection between the suppression of Kurdish sentiment inside and the militarised foreign policy manifested in Syria to deny self-rule to the Kurds has been the undeniable outcome of 15 July 2016. Those Syrian Kurds had enjoyed US-led Western support in the fight against the Islamic State there.

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revisionist, resurgent power | 715 With a commitment to the shared values of the Euro-Atlantic system, Turkey could not become authoritarian at home and espouse an assertive, militarised foreign policy, setting out on a Eurasianist trajectory, moving closer to Putin’s Russia and Xi Jinping’s China. That new orientation propels Turkey towards Russia and China, but it is a twoway avenue. From political and economic perspectives, the tentative alignment to Russia and China provides Erdoğan with room to manoeuvre vis-à-vis the United States and the European Union. Moreover, China’s appetite for expansion into western Asia and Europe through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) offers Erdoğan another lifeline.  The cooperation between Turkey and China has expanded exponentially, especially since 2016, the turning point for Erdoğan’s increasingly autocratic power. The peculiar economic and financial dimension of the developing relationship between Erdoğan’s Turkey and Xi’s China is succinctly put forward in a perceptive Foreign Policy piece: China is now Turkey’s second-largest import partner after Russia. China has invested $3 billion in Turkey between 2016 and 2019 and intended to double that by the end of 2020 . . . When the lira’s value dropped by more than 40 per cent in 2018, the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China provided the Turkish government $3.6 billion in loans for ongoing energy and transportation projects . . . Sino-Turkish cooperation involves deepening bilateral military and security ties, including in intelligence and cyberwarfare . . . China has found a highly strategic foothold in Turkey – a NATO member with a large market for energy, infrastructure, defense technology, and telecommunications at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. (Alemdaroglu & Tepe 2020)

The geopolitical dimension of the ever-growing Sino-Turkish cooperation is addressed in my Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment with the following observation: ‘The ambitious Chinese BRI project offers Turkey a fresh cash source – and Beijing a strategic foothold on the Mediterranean Sea . . . Turkey’s new foothold in the South Caucasus enabling it to project its power from Transcaucasia (South Caucasus) to Transcaspian (Turkic Central Asia) in China’s proximity has crucial geopolitical importance’ (Çandar 2021) Concerning the other revisionist Eurasian power, Russia, Turkey’s political partnership with it has been accelerated in the wake of 15 July 2016. Both have already built a geo-economic partnership based on energy mega-projects. The Blue Stream pipeline carrying Russian natural gas crosses the Black Sea and has supplied natural gas since 2003. Another one named Turk Stream began operation in January 2020 to supply natural gas to southern and southeastern Europe via Turkey. Russia is also building Turkey’s first nuclear power station at a cost of $25 billion. In 2020, Turkey became the second-largest importer of Russian agro-industrial products. Most importantly, Turkey’s purchase of Russian S-400 anti-defence systems has been an unprecedented act of a NATO member, putting its political and security ties with the West in jeopardy.

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716 | cengiz çandar Conclusion In the aftermath of 2016, Erdoğan’s Turkey shared much more with the autocratic regimes of two revisionist powers, China and Russia, than it did with the West. That has been one of the consequences of the latest regime change in Turkey. In the analyses of Turkish foreign policy, ignoring the internal political scene regarding foreign policymaking is not uncommon. July 15 is a crucial episode revealing the correlation between the two. In Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment, I referred to it: Turkey’s foreign policy performance in the aftermath of 2016, the year the consolidation of autocracy took a dramatic turn, presents a mirror image of the internal political scene. The ultra-nationalist repressive regime that stifled dissent by curtailing fundamental freedoms was trying to resurrect the glory of the past. That vision, resurrecting the past imperial glory, the reflection of nationalist authoritarianism, drove Turkey’s foreign policy. Such dynamics would unavoidably push Turkey to distance itself from the West and proceed along the Eurasianist trajectory. Within a decade, in the most crucial geopolitics, Turkey had abandoned its soft power strategy and instead adopted hard power as a tool to advance its foreign policy objectives – but more importantly, especially after 2016, to set out on a Eurasianist track. (Çagdar 2021: 153)

Paradoxically, becoming repressive internally enabled Turkey’s resurgence as a revisionist power in the international arena. It happened during a period of anarchic transition from the unipolar world to multipolarity. Turkey is at the very centre of the geopolitical nexus between the West and Russia and China, two major revisionist powers of the international system. Although the dramatic evolution in Turkey’s strategic choices did not formally affect its membership of Western institutions, it is widely believed that Turkey and the West are moving steadily towards a formal break. A leading American expert on Turkey, Nicholas Danforth, who in 2020 had asserted that it was time for the West to let Turkey go, reflected the overall perception on Turkey’s trajectory: Some imagine Turkey formally leaving NATO, launching a nuclear program, or going to war with one of its neighbours. Some picture Turkey going rogue like Iran, becoming indebted to China, or entering into an alliance with Russia. In many cases these scenarios are accompanied by a more nakedly authoritarian turn in Turkey’s domestic politics. (Danforth 2021)

Danforth, insinuating the break between Turkey and the West is inevitable, argued that Turkey and the West could find themselves caught in a dynamic that neither side could control.

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revisionist, resurgent power | 717 Included in the Concert of Europe in the mid-nineteenth century along with the rest of the Western powers – France, Habsburg Austria and Great Britain; espousing the Western as its civilisational project in the aftermath of the First World War and founding a secular nation-state in the early 1920s; one of the founding countries of the Council of Europe following the Second World War; a member of the transatlantic alliance since the 1950s; declared a candidate for full membership of the European Union at the turn of the twenty-first century: all this defined what Turkey was. And Turkey, with such historical credentials, set itself on the road to gradually break with the West. It had to adopt, internally, a repressive, authoritarian regime and a revisionist foreign policy to resurrect the imperial glory that it claimed it had in the past. At the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century and on the eve of the centenary of the Republic’s foundation, it emerged as a revisionist power, if not on a global scale but no doubt in very broad geopolitics. Whether or how long such a status will be sustainable remains to be seen. References Alemdaroglu, Ayca and Sultan Tepe (2020), ‘Erdogan is turning Turkey into a Chinese client state’, Foreign Policy, 16 September, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/09/16/erdogan-isturning-turkey-into-a-chinese-client-state/, accessed 17 February 2023. Brzezinski, Zbigniew (1997), The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, New York: Basic. Çandar, Cengiz (2009), ‘Turkey’s “Soft Power” Strategy: New Vision for a Multi-Polar World’, Policy Brief No. 38, SETA, December. Çandar, Cengiz (2021), Turkey’s Neo-Ottomanist Moment: A Eurasianist Odyssey, London: Transnational Press. Çandar, Cengiz and Graham E. Fuller (2001), ‘Grand Geopolitics for a New Turkey’, Mediterranean Quarterly 12(1): 22–38. Chase, Robert, Emily Hill and Paul Kennedy (eds) (1999), The Pivotal States: A New Framework for US Policy in the Developing World, New York: W. W. Norton. Danforth, Nicholas (2021), ‘Turkey and the West: A Hostile Dance’, Policy Paper 60/2021, ELIAMEP, March, https://www.eliamep.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Policy-paper60-Nick-Danforth-final.pdf, accessed 17 February 2023 Ferguson, Niall (2021), Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, New York: Penguin Press. Financial Times (2021), ‘Erdogan’s Great Game: soldiers, spies and Turkey’s quest for power’, 12 January, https://www.ft.com/content/8052b8aa-62b9-40c9-a40c-d7187d5cd98a, accessed 17 February 2023. Fukuyama, Francis (2020), ‘The pandemic and world order’, Foreign Affairs, July/August. Fukuyama, Francis (2021), ‘Droning on in the Middle East’, American Purpose, 5 April, https:// www.americanpurpose.com/blog/fukuyama/droning-on/, accessed 17 February 2023.

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718 | cengiz çandar Kemp, Geoffrey and Robert E. Harkavy (1997), Strategic Geography and the Changing Middle East, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Meakem, Allison (2020), ‘Turkey’s year of living dangerously’, Foreign Policy, 25 December, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/25/turkeys-year-of-living-dangerously/, accessed 17 February 2023. Rouleau, Eric (1993), ‘The Challenges to Turkey’, Foreign Affairs, November/December. Torbakov, Igor (2017), ‘Neo-Ottomanism versus Neo-Eurasianism? Nationalism and Symbolic Geography in Postimperial Turkey and Russia’, Mediterranean Quarterly 28(2): 125–45.

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INDEX

Abdullah Gül, 60, 99, 130, 149, 188, 234, 246, 306, 360, 419, 712 Abdullah Öcalan, 85, 177, 256, 258, 265, 309, 668 Acquis Communautaire, 544 Adnan Menderes, 32, 58, 90, 96, 97, 137, 164, 186, 203, 356, 364, 396, 397, 490, 661 Afghanistan, 1, 207, 286, 287, 293, 298, 322, 395, 443, 445, 456, 463, 468, 708 Africa, 2, 12, 55, 284, 310, 349, 350, 393, 394, 405, 406, 407, 408, 409, 410, 411, 412, 413, 414, 415, 416, 420, 458, 460, 461, 466, 467, 468, 497, 511, 526, 691, 708, 715 agriculture, 15, 92, 164, 194, 264, 437, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 476, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483, 486, 502, 505, 506, 510, 530, 531, 532, 533, 534, 544, 545, 585, 664, 685, 686 Alevi, 6, 12, 85, 89, 154, 176, 182, 208, 209, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238, 239, 490, 492, 498

Ankara, 38, 48, 55, 58, 68, 71, 74, 78, 79, 83, 84, 86, 88, 100, 118, 152, 167, 198, 237, 242, 243, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 291, 294, 295, 299, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 313, 317, 319, 320, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 345, 346, 347, 350, 351, 356, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 382, 383, 384, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 397, 399, 400, 401, 402, 406, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 432, 433, 434, 439, 444, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 460, 490, 491, 493, 495, 502, 503, 537, 557, 572, 585, 586, 598, 616, 638, 661, 663, 665, 669, 699, 700, 704, 709 Annan Plan, 70, 335, 360, 363, 419 Arab, 72, 175, 230, 259, 260, 286, 289, 298, 303, 304, 308, 310, 349, 352, 394, 395, 396, 397, 399, 400, 401, 402, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 458, 517, 713 719

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720 | index Arab Spring, 72, 259, 304, 308, 310, 401, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 422, 423, 425, 427, 428, 429, 430, 458 Armenia, 71, 74, 75, 240, 241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 323, 326, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 388, 390, 391, 392, 683, 708, 709 Assad regime, 237, 309, 310, 313, 402, 424, 425, 427, 456 Atatürk, 2, 12, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 45, 46, 47, 49, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 80, 86, 110, 123, 134, 135, 136, 137, 143, 162, 171, 179, 184, 185, 186, 190, 195, 201, 202, 210, 221, 228, 253, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 286, 288, 289, 290, 318, 344, 352, 367, 368, 369, 381, 418, 422, 474, 503, 504, 506, 512, 515, 519, 527, 528, 563, 567, 572, 574, 575, 580, 584, 595, 612, 627, 652, 661, 662, 672, 679, 706, 714 Azerbaijan, 71, 74, 240, 243, 245, 247, 248, 249, 323, 326, 382, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 412, 459, 520, 521, 679, 708, 709, 710 Balkans, 2, 17, 18, 32, 56, 71, 75, 190, 193, 207, 211, 241, 244, 284, 320, 322, 338, 340, 348, 349, 364, 367, 368, 369, 371, 373, 374, 375, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 381, 382, 395, 398, 408, 435, 442, 445, 455, 456, 489, 674, 677, 678, 686, 695, 696, 697, 698, 710

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Bosnia-Herzegovina, 71, 373, 374, 375, 376, 445, 455, 456 Bülent Ecevit, 34, 58, 82, 85, 97, 126, 138, 147, 168, 345, 397, 408, 600 Bulgaria, 208, 284, 285, 368, 369, 371, 372, 373, 376, 378, 627, 636, 666, 674, 678, 691, 698, 699 Byzantine, 330, 526 Central Asia, 116, 139, 242, 322, 323, 380, 381, 382, 383, 385, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 408, 457, 678, 698 Cold War, 128, 136, 139, 220, 222, 291, 293, 295, 297, 299, 300, 301, 303, 306, 308, 320, 322, 339, 369, 372, 373, 396, 398, 413, 418, 432, 437, 445, 447, 699, 710, 712 constitution, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 42, 44, 47, 49, 58, 79, 82, 84, 85, 91, 114, 122, 124, 126, 127, 146, 153, 166, 174, 182, 186, 190, 196, 197, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 218, 296, 301, 307, 401, 436, 476, 533, 534, 542, 550, 574, 586, 587, 588, 600, 605, 630, 639, 640, 653 Constitutional Reconciliation Committee, 12 Council of Europe, 68, 179, 293, 299, 562, 684, 690, 717 Cyprus, 70, 75, 82, 86, 127, 128, 138, 220, 221, 291, 292, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 300, 301, 305, 321, 322, 327, 331, 332, 333, 334, 335, 336, 337, 338, 339, 341, 342, 344, 345, 346, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 355, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 370,

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index | 721 371, 381, 392, 397, 405, 407, 408, 416, 419, 423, 424, 428, 433, 434, 435, 437, 439, 442, 443, 447, 448, 452, 509, 527, 627, 679, 708, 709

First World War, 39, 242, 257, 258, 343, 356, 394, 515, 571, 699 Freedom and Solidarity Party, 85 Freedom Research Association,, 101

Democrat Party, 12, 38, 58, 96, 112, 123, 138, 145, 161, 164, 186, 202, 220, 293, 396, 476, 490, 516, 532, 573, 639, 652, 661 diaspora, 7, 232, 233, 235, 237, 245, 258, 275, 604, 609, 625, 626, 627, 628, 629, 630, 631, 632, 633, 634, 635, 636, 676, 681, 682, 687, 688, 689, 692, 693 Diyanet, 28, 34, 170, 171, 172, 185, 186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 194, 195, 197, 198, 199, 200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 231, 232, 236, 237, 239, 375, 389, 410, 464, 617, 622, 623, 629, 630, 636 DSİ, 501, 502, 504, 505, 506, 507, 508, 509, 511

gecekondu, 493, 494, 495, 496, 498 Germany, 14, 25, 56, 206, 233, 239, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 289, 311, 320, 337, 378, 395, 435, 439, 440, 449, 457, 528, 577, 584, 585, 623, 628, 634, 636, 665, 668, 680, 689, 692, 696, 710 Germany’s National Socialists, 56 Gulf states, 399, 400, 427, 465, 509

Eastern Mediterranean, 139, 141, 284, 291, 295, 331, 333, 335, 336, 338, 339, 342, 343, 344, 345, 346, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 362, 363, 364, 365, 389, 402, 423, 424, 427, 439, 523, 527 Eurasianist, 6, 63, 74, 313, 326, 707, 708, 715, 716, 717 Europeanisation, 62, 108, 109, 112, 118, 135, 348, 372, 373, 380, 420, 438, 440, 529, 530, 534, 535, 536, 538, 631, 696, 701 Fetullah Gülen, 60, 61, 88, 188, 304, 312, 313, 376, 643 Fethullah Terrorist Organisation, 376

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‘hat revolution’, 29 House of Deputies, 19, 20 International Organization of Turkic Culture, 384 Iraq, 17, 72, 86, 128, 143, 207, 255, 256, 257, 258, 259, 260, 265, 266, 268, 270, 271, 282, 287, 288, 293, 299, 304, 306, 307, 311, 319, 321, 346, 347, 351, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 400, 402, 403, 419, 420, 426, 437, 446, 447, 448, 453, 506, 517, 545, 674, 676, 678, 680, 694, 698, 699, 713 ISIS, 72, 73, 255, 271, 304, 310, 311, 312, 314, 315, 340, 402, 425, 446, 448, 645 Islamism, 4, 5, 20, 21, 24, 44, 46, 55, 68, 90, 102, 140, 190, 191, 192, 211, 217, 254, 280, 287, 289, 315, 380, 526, 577, 610, 613 İsmet İnönü, 12, 58, 80, 123, 163, 196, 253, 285, 296, 343

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722 | index Justice and Development Party, 1, 12, 34, 38, 54, 66, 86, 99, 102, 120, 128, 148, 159, 160, 177, 206, 211, 234, 239, 253, 266, 304, 306, 335, 342, 360, 368, 394, 406, 417, 436, 456, 534, 544, 576, 597, 611, 626, 638, 655, 681, 703, 713 Justice Party, 82, 125, 146, 573 Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, 1, 234 Kemalism, 3, 4, 5, 7, 23, 29, 32, 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 79, 80, 87, 88, 90, 97, 101, 132, 134, 137, 143, 183, 185, 190, 192, 234, 254, 279, 319, 328, 354, 394, 468, 610, 613, 663, 692, 705, 710 Kenan Evren, 59, 127, 139, 298, 574, 640 Kosovo Force, 374, 445 Kurdish autonomy, 176, 398, 402 Kurdish question, 3, 47, 80, 81, 85, 111, 184, 252, 253, 254, 255, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263, 265, 266, 267, 275, 276, 305, 314, 399, 404, 493 Kurdistan Workers’ Party, 306 Lausanne Convention, 55 League of Nations, 55, 68, 280, 282, 283, 285, 287, 288, 289, 319, 328, 395 LGBTIQ+, 611, 612, 614, 616, 618, 619, 620, 621 Luxembourg summit, 359 Middle East, 2, 5, 12, 24, 32, 48, 62, 71, 75, 76, 132, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 143, 159, 172, 176, 225, 239, 252, 254, 261, 262, 266, 276, 280, 286, 287, 289, 290, 292, 293, 294, 298,

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303, 304, 306, 307, 308, 309, 311, 314, 317, 320, 322, 327, 338, 341, 348, 349, 351, 352, 354, 380, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 403, 404, 408, 417, 418, 419, 420, 421, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430, 434, 448, 451, 456, 457, 459, 460, 468, 483, 489, 497, 498, 504, 523, 526, 527, 529, 539, 553, 581, 635, 660, 694, 698, 699, 701, 702, 703, 708, 710, 712, 717 Muslim, 3, 24, 27, 28, 30, 36, 39, 43, 46, 55, 99, 102, 134, 141, 143, 165, 174, 175, 176, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 191, 192, 201, 210, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 227, 231, 237, 238, 239, 243, 253, 258, 260, 263, 281, 287, 304, 306, 308, 310, 311, 323, 348, 350, 356, 368, 374, 377, 378, 400, 401, 402, 404, 405, 421, 422, 437, 456, 458, 459, 460, 465, 466, 492, 580, 607, 608, 610, 614, 615, 616, 619, 624, 626, 627, 650, 655, 674, 678, 679, 683, 686, 696, 697, 698, 711, 713 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 240, 245, 247, 249, 250, 323, 385 National Security Council, 42, 124, 127, 147, 298, 303, 574, 580, 641 Nationalist Action Party, 34, 63, 75, 146, 177, 204, 266, 389, 645 NATO, 33, 60, 68, 74, 123, 125, 131, 136, 138, 289, 291, 293, 294, 295, 296, 298, 299, 300, 302, 303, 305, 311, 313, 320, 321, 323, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330, 333, 334, 337, 338,

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index | 723 339, 341, 344, 346, 353, 357, 360, 364, 369, 370, 372, 373, 374, 387, 396, 397, 399, 407, 413, 417, 418, 426, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 456, 712, 715, 716 Necip Fasıl Kısakürek, 28, 33 Necmettin Erbakan, 33, 59, 99, 140, 148, 187, 308, 348 North Anatolian Fault Line, 553 Oslo process, 307 Ottoman Empire, 2, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 34, 40, 44, 45, 48, 67, 90, 91, 92, 93, 110, 134, 136, 162, 170, 174, 182, 184, 198, 224, 227, 230, 231, 237, 238, 240, 241, 242, 249, 250, 251, 258, 263, 279, 280, 282, 283, 286, 287, 291, 294, 318, 329, 343, 353, 356, 367, 380, 393, 403, 405, 406, 415, 418, 459, 460, 485, 486, 555, 572, 581, 607, 626, 627, 638, 650, 652, 660, 674, 677, 679, 696 Ottoman Liberals, 92 Ottoman Socialist Party, 78 peasantist ideology, 489 polarisation, 28, 42, 90, 108, 112, 113, 115, 117, 118, 144, 153, 156, 157, 158, 200, 232, 385, 397, 538, 618, 621, 637, 649, 650, 651, 652, 653, 654, 655, 657, 658, 659 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, 113, 150, 168, 456 Republican People’s Party, 5, 12, 29, 42, 57, 79, 91, 112, 124, 144, 164, 186, 202, 220, 266, 293, 531, 537, 573, 598, 614, 632, 645, 652

8321_Ozerdem & Ozturk.indd 723

Russia, 32, 60, 74, 75, 78, 141, 243, 246, 247, 261, 303, 310, 311, 312, 313, 316, 317, 318, 319, 321, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, 356, 359, 382, 383, 385, 386, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 403, 411, 413, 423, 425, 439, 446, 449, 450, 451, 452, 454, 459, 519, 637, 680, 688, 707, 708, 709, 711, 714, 715, 716, 718 S-400 missiles 313 Safavid Sufi Orders 229 secularism 12, 25, 31, 33, 36, 44, 45, 48, 54, 63, 78, 86, 89, 95, 101, 111, 145, 149, 155, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 202, 203, 210, 211, 231, 238, 239, 279, 382, 394, 478, 610, 614, 623, 642, 683, 689 sexuality, 610, 611, 612, 613, 615, 616, 617, 618, 619, 620, 621, 623 Society for the Dissemination of Free Ideas, 95 Somalia, 207, 350, 403, 408, 411, 412, 414, 456, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 509 South Caucasus, 74, 250, 380, 381, 382, 383, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 708, 709, 715 Süleyman Demirel, 82, 84, 146, 186, 204, 233, 321, 373, 381, 499, 504 Sunni Islam, 29, 30, 31, 33, 155, 231, 232, 234, 492 Turgut Özal, 43, 97, 103, 166, 171, 187, 232, 265, 297, 381, 398, 408, 415, 433, 506, 519, 527, 642, 666, 667 Türk Kadinlar Birligi, 598

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724 | index Turkish Communist Party, 78, 319 Turkish Cypriots, 70, 82, 221, 294, 295, 296, 297, 335, 336, 337, 345, 357, 358, 359, 360, 363 Turkish Grand National Assembly, 22, 49, 94, 162, 280 Turkish military, 48, 59, 65, 70, 132, 269, 270, 306, 308, 312, 353, 383, 384,

8321_Ozerdem & Ozturk.indd 724

398, 399, 401, 403, 411, 446, 630, 643, 683 TÜSİAD, 168, 171, 408, 420, 577 Washington, 303, 305, 306, 308, 309, 313 YÖK, 586, 587, 588, 591, 593, 595, 596 Young Turk, 54, 228, 251

02/08/23 12:23 pm

8321_Ozerdem & Ozturk.indd 725

02/08/23 12:23 pm

8321_Ozerdem & Ozturk.indd 726

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8321_Ozerdem & Ozturk.indd 727

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8321_Ozerdem & Ozturk.indd 728

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