ABSTRACT
Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi [AKP, or AK Party]) in the early 2000s rank as one of the most dynamic and successful periods in terms of democratic reform. Spurred in part by the prospect of joining the EU, the AKP pushed through measures to expand freedoms of expression and organization, grant rights to the Kurdish minority, curtail the political power of the military, and end human rights abuses such as torture. Civil society also became more active. However, in the 2010s the AKP government has been accused of becoming increasingly authoritarian. This has been evidenced most clearly in the crackdown on media and on protests – the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013 rank as the largest and best known – but extends into other realms as well, including commitment to rule of law and minority rights. Political polarization is pronounced. Beyond the formal political arena, democracy remains challenged by other factors, including struggles for gender equality and a growing gap between the rich and the poor. Several commentators, including some contributors to this volume, have even raised the question of whether the problems in Turkey have grown so acute that it may make more sense to reconsider whether Turkey meets the general criteria to be regarded as democratic. Third, Turkey has unique importance as the Muslim country with the most extensive experience with democracy. The notion of Turkey as a “role model” for other Muslim states, particularly given its secular and democratic system, has often been invoked by academics and policymakers (Karpat 1959: x, xi; Lewis 1987: xi; Toprak 2005). What is emphasized in that model, however, has varied over time. Under the AKP, a self-described “conservative democratic” party that has roots in earlier Islamist parties, there has been discernible movement away from the assertive secularism of the Kemalist model and toward an approach that allows for a greater role of religion in the public sphere. For example, the vexed headscarf issue – bans on which became one of the most polarizing issues in Turkey – was solved in a manner that granted pious Muslims greater freedom. Scholars have noted the movement away from authoritarian, state-imposed secularism and the rise of a “post-secular society” (Göle 2012). For some, this is the evidence to show that Turkey stands as a good example as a “Muslim democracy” led by a “post-Islamist” party (Nasr 2005; Dağı 2006). Others, however, remain wary of the AKP’s allegedly religious agenda. Critics of the government also bemoan its increasingly oppressive policies in certain domains of politics such as media and freedom of speech. Still others note the continued difficulties faced by ethnic (e.g., Kurdish) and sectarian (e.g., Alevi) minorities. All these factors together question the validity of the argument that Turkey could be a model for the region (Kubicek 2013). Fourth, despite Turkey’s lengthy and dynamic democratic record, it is largely absent in most of the leading scholarly literature on democratization. Most of the comparative work is regionally focused, but because Turkey does not fit neatly into a democratizing region (e.g., Latin America, post-communist Europe, Africa), it rarely features in such work.1 While there are, to be sure, numerous country-level studies of Turkey, many are primarily descriptive and focus on one particular domain or policy area (e.g., the Kurdish question, party development,
the role of religion, relations with the EU, foreign policy). These studies often present historical observations of events that could benefit from more rigorous, theory-driven analysis and empirical examination. To that end, in this study we endeavor to cover a broad range of topics and their association with democracy. At the same time, while we do not develop or advance a single grand theory to account for developments in Turkey, we aim to utilize various theories with respect to democratization and advance a theory-informed common framework to orient our study. Indeed, one objective is to have our contributors, notable scholars expert in the various domains of democracy examined in each chapter, introduce theoretical perspectives that they believe best contribute to understanding the topic at hand. While not, in a strict social science manner, a test of competing theories, we believe this approach will allow us to assess the value of different theories and approaches to the multi-faceted issue of democratic consolidation in Turkey. Finally, the above-mentioned debates about Turkish democracy offer an opportunity to reflect, in a rigorous manner, upon the very notion of democratic consolidation. Despite various shortcomings – which will be analyzed throughout this volume – Turkey remains democratic in the most limited and formal sense insofar as political leadership is determined and held accountable by the vote of the people in competitive elections. The AKP’s power, although troubling to some, is a reflection of its popularity, even as its leading figure, President (formerly Prime Minister) Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, remains a source of polarization. Although the AKP’s rivals are handicapped in various ways, there is both opposition to the AKP – at times quite vociferous – and specific criticism of Erdogan’s actions and policies. No political actor has been able to successfully challenge the legitimacy of having elections determine who should wield political power. In this respect, democracy has become the “only game in town,” which Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (1996: 5) posited as the hallmark of a consolidated democracy. However, whether Turkey has a well-functioning democracy is another question, and it hinges on what one means by democracy. While acknowledging that Turkey meets the criteria of what might be called a minimal or electoral democracy whose main attribute is the holding of competitive, multiparty elections, this volume adopts a more holistic understanding of democracy. This is grounded on the idea that democracy is more than just an electoral system; a successful democracy is manifested in several arenas (Linz and Stepan 1996) and/or embedded in interdependent partial regimes and external conditions (Merkel 2004). These components have attitudinal, behavioral, institutional, and constitutional elements and may be considered at the micro and macro levels. At the micro level, we refer primarily to factors formed and operating at the individual level. These include political values, political behavior, identity, orientation toward religion, media influence on citizenry, and public opinion on governmental performance and policies. At the macro level, we refer, inter alia, to overarching conceptualizations of democracy by political elites, the institutional settings that relate to political parties, constraints on the executive, and how the
broader socio-economic context affects political development. By analyzing these factors, which will be developed more below, one can begin to unpack the concept of democracy and democratic consolidation and obtain a fuller, more nuanced view of democracy’s fault lines. In this way, our work seeks to address an additional research question – one that could be asked in a number of settings2 – namely why there is a gap between formally democratic rules on the one hand, and, on the other, practices and outcomes that are found wanting by many conceptualizations of democracy.
