For the People, Of the People and By the Military: The Regime Structure of Modern Turkey

The arrival, and subsequent longevity, of the military in politics in much of the Middle East over the last 50 years or so has elicited considerable attention. This is, perhaps, particularly so in Turkey, where, since 1909, there has been only 10 years in which a fully civilian administration has governed. Recently, the collapse of the Kurdish Workers Party and the beginning of a process of constitutional amendment aimed at meeting EU accession criteria has sharpened the controversy over the role of the military in the Turkish polity. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this debate by analysing the methods through which military rule has been perpetuated since the Second World War. Using the work of the sociologists Eric Nordlinger and Michael Mann, I argue that two succinct regime strategies are discernible. The first - semi-authoritarian incorporation - was deployed throughout Turkey during the 1960s and 1970s. Following the 1980 coup, however, it existed alongside a second method - autocratic militarism - which emerged in south-east Anatolia. Thus, the primary purpose of this paper is to offer an explanation for the structure of these strategies

The political incorporation of anti-system religious parties: the case of Turkish political Islam (1994–2011)

When and how do anti-system religious parties become incorporated into the political system of their countries? In recent decades, social scientists have sought answers to this question within the framework of the moderation literature. While moderation theory identifies key factors that influence party leaders’ willingness to seek political incorporation, it is less successful in explaining the contingent outcome of the incorporation process. This article develops an alternative analytical framework for the study of political incorporation grounded in social performance theory. Through a case study of Islamic parties in Turkey between 1994 and 2011, the author demonstrates that political incorporation is as much a function of successful cultural performances on the public stage as the right alignment of institutional incentives and sanctions. As a result of the Justice and Development Party leaders’ successful projection of a mainstream political identity between 2002 and 2011, secularist state elites in Turkey failed to establish legitimate grounds for a political intervention, which in turn provided the party with the time and opportunity to remove the institutional barriers to its incorporation