Turkey: A Look In From the Outside

By Patricia H. Kushlis

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that the Turkish police had arrested two retired generals, the head of Ankara’s main business lobby and 21 others affiliated with an ultra-right wing group in a failed coup plot against the Turkish government.

Military takeovers in Turkey were part of the political landscape for years but, if I remember correctly, they were normally restricted to the highest ranks of the active duty Turkish armed forces. They were usually successful. They only occurred when actions by civilian politicians threatened to destroy the country and, as a consequence, they also had considerable popular support.

This week’s reported coup plot and the arrests made met none of those criteria.

That was then . . .

When I first visited Turkey in January 1979, the country was on the verge of collapse. The economy was in shambles. Gas lines were long, inflation was rampant, trading on the black market for dollars was ubiquitous, even coffee – that staple of all Turkish staples – was scarce. The migration of villagers from the plains and mountains of Anatolia to the slums of Istanbul in search of a better life had already begun and the country’s infrastructure and leaders couldn’t cope with the strains.

The political system was in chaos: caught between ultra right and extreme left – street fights and murders had become all too common place. Eighteen months later – when I was filling in for three weeks on the Turkish desk at the then US Information Agency, the military moved in and restored order ushering in – as it turned out – the beginning of a new and far more prosperous and stable era.

This is now. . .

Since then Turkey – and Turkish politics – have come a long way despite ups and downs, slips and slides. Yet, every so often the Turkish political system confronts a crisis as is happening again this summer. This latest crisis – in which the Constitutional Court has not only been asked to declare the ruling moderate Islamist party illegal and ban the government’s leaders from power but has also agreed to rule on this contentious issue - is unlike any this country has ever confronted. The Bloomberg report hints, at least, that the recent arrests may be the government’s response to its establishment challengers.

A changing Turkey

Yet, what is less understood is that the rules of the game – and some of the players themselves - have changed because over the past decades Turkish society itself has substantially changed. As a result, even banning the ruling party and its leaders will not, repeat not, eliminate moderate Islamists from the Turkish political scene.

A new and large middle class has emerged beginning in the mid-1980s when the economy was freed from some of its statist restrictions. This new class’s roots are centered in Turkey’s heartland. This class, led by religiously pious businessmen and represented by the AKP (Justice and Development Party), is now the dominant governing political party which democratically successfully challenged the power of the established order, an alliance of the military, parts of the intelligentsia and large industrial and business interests located largely in Turkey’s West.

Power sharing, power challenges and power shifts in any country are never smooth. Thus far, the socio-economic changes in Turkey have more or less remained within democratic bounds. They could, however, all too easily jump the rails and in so doing lead the country into unknown territory – and not necessarily – down the path to a radiant future.

One significant problem for western understanding of what is happening in Turkey today is that the protagonists are being portrayed in dualistic “with us or agin us” terms: secularists versus Islamists. In reality, the issues, players and their motives are far more complex – as is everything else in this incredibly intricate mosaic of a country.

That’s what makes The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey, the recent RAND study by Angel Rabasa and F. Steven Larrabee, so important. Essentially, this 135 page monograph commissioned by the US Department of Defense as a guide for US policy makers, questions this simplistic characterization of Turkish political contenders that too often demonizes the moderate Islamist government. Rabasa and Larrabee raise this issue and other questions through a rigorous systematic analysis of Turkish politics and the role of religion in it, Turkish society, economics, Turkey’s position in the region, as well as the current Islamist government’s aspirations.

In short, long time American experts on Turkey, Rabasa and Larrabee present a nuanced description of the contemporary Turkish political and social landscape based on facts – not wild-eyed rumor, innuendo and hidden agendas which, unfortunately, dominate too much of the US right wing press commentary about the country today.

In doing so, the two authors rely on opinion polling data on Turkish attitudes towards Islam, an impressive bibliography and a series of personal interviews which they conducted last summer. This is what solid area studies expertise can – and should – be all about.

“The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey” concludes with a series of four possible outcomes or future scenarios. None are rosy, but the first (which the authors clearly prefer) is the rosiest.

These four scenarios form the bulk of the executive summary and as such are presumably aimed at US policymakers unwilling or unable to spend the few hours needed to read the more detailed analysis itself. Yet for those looking for a deeper understanding of the Turkish political scene and Turkish society today – this monograph is well worth taking the time to read in full.