ABSTRACT
The abortive July 2016 coup d’état—a watershed event in Turkish history—was itself the culmination of the spectacular collapse of a decade-long (2002–2012) concordat between Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and the Gülen movement, a transnational network headed by the exiled Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gülen. This chapter argues that the AKP–Gülen Concordat constituted the ‘final front’ in an epic, decades-long battle for control of the Turkish state waged between the Kemalist state elite and a conservative-populist counter-elite. In the first round (1950–1965), the Kemalist state elite eked out a narrow victory. The second round (1965–1997) was something of a draw, with the populists nevertheless reducing the Kemalist presence in the state to two powerful strongholds: the judiciary and the military. Against this background, the AKP and the GM allied in this last, and arguably decisive, phase with the precise objective of eliminating the remaining Kemalist nodes by infiltrating the police, interior ministry and judiciary. I contend that the AKP–Gülen Concordat was most successful in directing the complementary strengths of each partner to this task. The chapter extends the findings into the present, post-2016 era, arguing that in finally vanquishing the Kemalist elite, President Erdoğan has achieved a largely Pyrrhic victory. The hollowing out of the state apparatus in the purges following this ‘final battle’ have left it fragile, fragmented and occupied by a diverse set of particularized interests ranged against one another and—perhaps most importantly of all—against Erdoğan himself.
