ABSTRACT
It is a commonplace to note that the coups d’état in the modern history of Turkey have been the decisive obstacle to the development of democratization. All coups in modern Turkish history (1960, 1971, 1980, 1997), and recently, in 15 July 2016, mark significant landmarks in Turkish history. Each of them involves its own specific socio-economic and political implications, but the last military attempt differs by the fact that it provided the crystallization of a sociopolitical process, called ‘Yeni Türkiye’, by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and aims at replacing the long-lasting Kemalist dominant narrative. Within this context, many of the reforms that the AKP launched, despite the argumentation behind it, not only serve the democratization of the country and its institutions, but also empower the party against the (secular) state as well as empower the party to become the state. All of which at the expense of the people.
Thus, this chapter starts its discussion by presenting the latest coup attempt in a comparative perspective with the previous ones; then, it moves on to the July coup attempt itself by focusing on the post-Gezi period of 2013; and finally, the chapter ends with the instrumentalization of what Jongerden calls the ‘organizational coup’ in order to show how the AKP plans to restructure and reconstruct Turkey.
