ABSTRACT
Since its inauguration in the 1950 elections, when Turkey formally moved to multi-party democracy, democracy in Turkey has never been sufficiently consolidated (Özbudun 1998, 2000). Democratic practice in Turkey was interrupted completely in 1960 and 1980 by two military coups, by an indirect intervention by memorandum in 1971 and by a ‘virtual’ intervention using more subtle means in 1997. In addition to these ‘democratic breakdowns’, the problems that have curbed the development of Turkish democracy and stand in the way of further consolidation, include, inter alia, the democratic supervision of the Turkish military, the Kurdish question and ethnic and separatist terrorism related to the Kurdish problem, a weak party system, the nature of civil society and human rights abuses, and à la Turca secularism and its tensions with liberal democracy (Sunar and Sayari 1987; Heper 1992a, 1992b; 2000, 2002; Özbudun 2000).
