Kaya, Zeynep

LSE Research Online

The Declining Health of Turkish Democracyby Zeynep KayaUndoubtedly the recent general election in Turkey represents anotherstep in the Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) seemingly unstoppabledomination of Turkish politics, with results only further consolidating itspush towards electoral authoritarianism. What is less appreciated,however, is the fact that the reasons for the AKP’s authoritariandominance lie just as much in the historical weaknesses of the Turkishdemocratic system itself as they do in the party’s self-interested andopportunistic embrace of simple electoral majoritarianism as the optimalmodel of democracy for Turkey.Three weeks after the election results initially took many observers bysurprise in Turkey, and having had a chance to digest them fully, now is agood time to take stock and think about their implications. The AKP lostits overall majority in June, called for re-elections, and on 1 November,managed to comfortably pass the threshold for a return to a single-partygovernment.Home About Guidelines Recent Posts Book Reviews Receive our posts byemailSubscribe  @LSEMiddleEast onTwitterThe resurgence of the AKP can be attributed to their electoral exploitationof political conditions in Turkey between June and November, a merefive-months period that encompassed a series of major events. The keyethical problem here, which seems to be totally forgotten, is that asecond set of elections were unnecessary and a government could havebeen formed after the June elections. Instead, President Erdoğan and hisAKP did everything in their power to prevent this. During that period,Turkey went through an extraordinary period of insecurity and instability,experiencing the biggest terrorist attack on civilians in its history on 10October in Ankara, following earlier attacks in Suruç and Diyarbakır. Thefighting between the PKK and the Turkish army resumed, leading to alarge civilian and military death toll, injuries and the imposition ofcurfews in many cities and towns.All this was exploited by the AKP who warned of the need for tried andtested hands in government and the need for strong and decisive rule tocombat these threats. In addition, previously defecting voters were wonback by the party by emphasising the perils of coalition governments, byenabling an ‘us-versus-them’ mentality towards groups it sees as a threat,most notably the Kurds and Gulenists, and finally by deploying a Turkish-nationalist and conservative discourse against the Peoples’ DemocraticParty (HDP). An uneasy Turkish public, fearful of a civil war in Turkey,‘voted for stability not chaos’ in the AKP leader Davutoğlu’s words.What does this tell us about the health of Turkish democracy? All previouscivil and military governments claimed to know what was right for thepeople and adopted a top-down and paternalistic attitude to running thecountry long before the AKP ever monopolised the idea. This style ofgovernment is entrenched in the system and the AKP has done nothing tochallenge this tradition, instead further reinforcing it. For over a decadethe AKP has been in a position of majoritarian dominance, giving it theopportunity to tackle some of the systemic structural and politico-culturalfactors hindering Turkish democracy. Rather than pushing for a moreinclusive political system, it chose to use its electoral majority toaccumulate power, marginalise dissent, and try to equate the Turkishstate with the political party.Free and functioning elections with consistently high turnouts are one ofthe strengths of the Turkish political system. However, critical to enablingeffective participation is ensuring that citizens have adequate and equalopportunities to form their decisions through a strong public sphereDid #Turkey’s parties really care about the #Gezi Protests? @JonasDraege on our blog blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2015/12/18 pic.twitter.com/5UsUc2ErcqLSE Middle East  @LSEMiddleEastExpandWhy is no one mentioning #Hezbollah in #Syria talks? @AdamNoahWho on our blog now blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2015/12/16 pic.twitter.com/Oa009TPcOrLSE Middle East  @LSEMiddleEastExpandHezbollah’s Empty Seat at the Syria Peace Talks in Vienna blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2015/12/16 pic.twitter.com/70Egcw3Xs4LSE Middle East  @LSEMiddleEastExpandIn Yemen, “One More Day of War Means 10 More of Rebuilding” @almuslimi LSE Middle East  @LSEMiddleEast18 Dec16 Dec16 Dec14 DecTweets FollowRecent Postsopen to debate. The AKP’s increasingly determined clamp down of anymedia critical of it and its use of the courts to pursue private citizens,journalists and academics for several reasons (including insulting thePresident and Prime Minister), and limits imposed on opposition parties’visibility and audibility inhibit the possibility of open public discussion.Yet this is more rooted into the Turkish political system than a reflectionof the tactics of the AKP alone. The AKP itself faced party closure cases inthe past during its rule. Several writers, journalists, scholars and activists,even politicians, were tried and imprisoned, and newspapers andassociations were closed under Article 312 of the Penal Code forattempting to divide Turkey. The CHP also suffers from a similartendency. For instance, in early 2015, the CHP’s general secretary GürselTekin had declared that after the June elections, if they win the elections,they would close newspapers that disseminate incorrect andpropagandist information.Turkish citizens’ ability to develop informed understandings of theirpreferences is inhibited also by top-down agenda control. Citizens shouldbe able to influence the agenda, but, attempts to bring issues other thanthose identified by the government for deliberation are suppressed.Again, this is a familiar feature of Turkish democracy and is not specific tothe AKP. At no point in Turkish political history have citizens felt assuredthat their judgements and opinions may still be heeded at some level.Today, a large section of society believes their dissenting opinions are tooreadily dismissed by the ruling elites, condemning their interests to bemarginal to the political process for at least as long as the AKP is inpower. The polarising policies, actions and rhetoric of the AKP hugelyexacerbated this problem and deepened divisions among Turkish society.Traditionally, Turkey’s political parties have tended to forget thateveryone living in Turkey has a legitimate stake within the politicalprocess. The AKP is not an exception to this either. Even though itsrepresentatives adamantly deny this, the party’s actions suggestotherwise. The AKP’s actions highlight that it wants to impose its mandateupon the entire electorate, free of checks and balances. The party justifiesthis on the basis that it alone knows what is best for the Turkish people.This top-down interventionist mentality is part of the long-standingTurkish democratic culture and it is regrettable that the AKP has not beenan exception. Moreover, the ‘blame discourse’ in Turkish politics, thefocus on individuals and their actions rather than prioritising genuine andaccountable representation, limits engagement with alternative ideas and Did Turkey’s partiescare about the GeziProtests? Hezbollah’s EmptySeat at the Syria PeaceTalks in Vienna Iran’s economicpartners must pushfor a resolution inSyria How to Deal withTerrorist Acts: A Viewfrom the Gulf GCC Foreign PolicyProjections in thePalestinian-IsraeliConflict: AComparative Analysisof Saudi Arabia andQatarSee all of our blog postsTweetpolicy suggestions.The politics of consensus has little hope of being embraced any timesoon, which will only lead to further decline in the health of Turkishdemocracy. Although the AKP had the power and ability to change thecourse of politics, to date, it has shunned this. Rather, it followed in thesteps of the previous governments it criticised (recall that prior toacceding to power the AK Party leadership and the Virtue Party theyemerged from were those who were pursued through the courts andimprisoned for political dissent). They did this in order to concentratepower in the hands of its leadership, maintain and expand this power.Rather than showing humbleness to work with what the electorate votedfor in June and let democracy evolve at its own pace, it exploited politicalconditions to generate a plurality and looks set to use this rhetoric tojustify continuing their project of turning the Turkish state into the AKParty state. Dr Zeynep Kaya is a Fellow at the London School ofEconomics. She completed her PhD in InternationalRelations at LSE on the interaction betweeninternational norms and ethnicist conceptions ofterritorial identity with a focus on the Kurdish case. Sheis currently working on her book titled The Idea ofKurdistan: International Norms and Nationalism.Share this:16Share Email Print MoreRelatedKnowing How to Win:Explaining the AKP’sElectoral VictoryOnce ‘outsiders’, theHDP can become the‘protectors’ of theparliamentary regimein TurkeyIs Turkey making astrategic mistake inturning on the Kurds?November 6, 2015In "Analysis &Opinion" May 26, 2015In "Analysis &Opinion"September 22, 2015In "Analysis &Opinion"

The declining health of Turkish democracy

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