Civil-military relations during the AK party era: major developments and challenges.

• Author: Aknur, Muge
• Position: Essay

The dominant role of the Turkish military in politics has constituted one of the significant obstacles to the consolidation of democracy in Turkey. The Turkish military has controlled politics since the establishment of the Republic in 1923 and more strongly starting in the 1960s through direct and indirect military interventions and the prerogatives received following various coups. The Turkish military sees itself as the guardian of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's reforms and principles, particularly secularism and nationalism, and has not refrained from intervening politically whenever it perceived that these values were in danger. Recently, however, the Turkish Armed Forces has slowly but significantly been losing this power. Since the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi--AK Party) took power in November 2002, there has been a dramatic shift in the balance of power at the expense of the military, establishing a more civilian dominated system. However, the progress in achieving civilian control has not yet transformed Turkish civil-military relations into a genuinely democratic model.

According to Diamond et al, the factors promoting the consolidation of democracy include political institutions, civil society, socio-economic development, international factors and particularly civil-military relations. (1) Diamond argues that democratic consolidation cannot be achieved without the subordination of a country's military to civilian control and its allegiance to the democratic constitutional order. (2) A suitable balance of power must be established between the military and civilians in which the military does not use coercive power--given to it by civilians for the purpose of protecting them in war--against civilians in order to impose its will on society. (3) At the same time, civilians are supposed to treat the military fairly. Currently in Turkey, the military appears to have fallen under civilian supremacy, while still maintaining its mindset as the ultimate guardian of the state. Meanwhile, military officers and secularist circles do not trust civilians, particularly the judiciary, as a result of the allegations of unfair treatment of military members in the recently concluded Ergenekon and Balyoz (Sledgehammer) trials. Consequently, such uneasy relations do not promote the transformation of Turkish civil-military relations into a democratic model, thus hindering Turkey's democratic consolidation process. (4)

Since coming to power in 2002, AK Party governments have aimed to decrease the military's power in politics through legal and institutional changes. First, the EU-mandated reforms pursued by the AK Party government caused the military to lose its formal (institutional) mechanisms, such as the National Security Council (Milli Guvenlik Konseyi--MGK). Second, as a result of the Ergenekon and Balyoz trials that cost the military officers their credibility due to charges of plotting a coup against the government, the military lost various informal (non-institutional) mechanisms, such as public speeches and press conferences, through which the senior military members had previously intervened in politics.

Third, the consolidation of the AK Party's political power and the desecuritization policies it followed until recently also reduced the military's significant role in dealing with internal threats, such as the rise of Kurdish nationalism in the form of PKK (Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan--Kurdish Workers Party) terror, and international threats particularly with neighboring Middle Eastern states. The decrease in PKK attacks in the early years of the government also helped this desecuritization policy. Moreover, the new political atmosphere, in which a strong ruling party had consolidated its power by increasing its support in three consecutive elections, meant that the military could not retain the power it possessed throughout the 1970s and 1990s when the weakness of civilian politicians and parties generated a vacuum of authority. Finally, the military recently lost more of its institutional power, mainly through the 2010 Constitutional amendments that limited the jurisdiction of military courts, abolished the military's right to conduct internal security operations without the consent of civilian authorities and increased civilian oversight of military expenditures. In addition, the government recently amended Article 35 of the Internal Service Law that gave the armed forces the right to intervene in the face of internal threats.

To analyze these major developments and challenges in civil-military relations during the AK Party era, this article will start with a brief overview of the military's role in Turkish politics by focusing on the institutional mechanisms through which it exerted power into politics since the 1960s. It will then concentrate on civil-military relations in two periods during AK Party's rule. (5)

First, this article will examine how the cautious policies that the military and government initially followed towards each other between 2002 and 2007 turned from a controlled power struggle to an open conflict. It will consider the EU reforms aimed at curbing the military's formal power in politics, before concentrating on the military's interference in domestic and foreign policies through informal mechanisms, particularly speeches by senior military officers. This section will end by describing the open conflict between the two sides during the presidential elections of 2007. For the second period, from 2007 until 2013, the article will mainly focus on the reasons for the dramatic decrease in the military's political power and its subordination to civilian control. It will first analyze the Ergenekon and Balyoz coup investigations and trials, as well as the investigations of the 1980 and 1997 coups, before discussing the consolidation of the AK Party's political power. Finally, it will consider further institutional powers that were stripped from the military during this period. The article will conclude with a discussion of whether or not this shift in civil military relations in Turkey represents a move towards a democratic model by mainly concentrating on the mindset of military officers who are unwilling to accept the professional culture of civilian supremacy and the members of the military, secularist circles, part of media and civil society organizations who are disturbed by the judicial system's handling of the Ergenekon and Balyoz trials.

An Overview of Turkish Civil-Military Relations prior to the 2000s

The Turkish military, having contributed to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, accepted itself as the protector of the principles and reforms of the young republic set by its founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Consequently, it has intervened in politics whenever it has perceived threats to these principles, particularly secularism and nationalism, or to general law and order. (6) It guarded the Turkish state's national interests against all kinds of internal and external threats.

Although civilians seemed to have direct political control in the early years of the Republic, it cannot be considered as full civilian control since the ruling elite, most significantly Ataturk and ismet inonii, were former military officers who became politicians after establishing the Republic. (7) The military first intervened politically in 1960, both directly and indirectly, when the Democratic Party government resorted to an authoritarian style of rule. It did so again in 1971 and 1980 when the country was dragged into chaos by struggles between extreme rightist and leftist groups. Although considerable civilian influence over military was established during the Prime Ministry and Presidency of Turgut Ozal in late 1980s and early 1990s, the Turkish military's interference into politics increased dramatically throughout most of the 1990s as a result of the rise of PKK's separatist terror and fragile coalition governments. The military also intervened in 1997, when the Islamist conservative Welfare Party (Refah Partisi--RP) was in power and seemed to be following what the military called Islamist fundamentalist policies. While the PKK was a threat to the territorial integrity of the country for the military, Islamist fundamentalism was a danger for the secular foundation of the Republic. In the 1960 and 1980 coups, the military intervened directly by overthrowing the government, banning various political parties and political leaders from politics and establishing its own junta government under martial law. That is, the military took power directly into its own hands. By contrast, the military intervened indirectly in 1971 and 1997 by pressuring the elected governments to resign through threats of coups rather than directly establishing a military administration, which left the ruling of the country to those political parties and leaders that the military favored. In the 1997 coup, for example, the military followed a method of attrition to remove the RP from power by cooperating with labor organizations, the judiciary, universities, the media and other civil society organizations. The military believed that by intervening in politics, it was helping to sustain democracy by keeping the excesses of rightist, leftist and Islamist politicians under control. This was a period in which there was complete military supremacy over civilian politics. (8)

In the aftermath of each intervention, the military increased its political power by according itself significant prerogatives. These privileges were mainly implemented in the form of important institutions, such as the National Security Council (Milli Guvenlik Konseyi--MGK), the State Security Courts, and various departments, groups and centers established by the General Staff. The MGK, which was established as a council for the military to submit its views on national security to civilian politicians, quickly turned...