Turkey has a lengthy and turbulent history with democratization. Modern day Turkey was founded on October 29th, 1923, shortly after the end of World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman Empire had long been on the decline, coming to be known as the sick man of Europe, but the first World War sealed its fate. The empire fought on the side of the Central Powers, and after their defeat much Ottoman territory was partitioned amongst the Allies. This Allied encroachment spurred a strong resistance movement against the Ottoman establishment who mostly capitulated to the Allies’ demands. After a protracted conflict with Greece, the Ottoman Army, headed by Mustafa Kemal (a prominent resistance figure), won back its previously held territory. This was a turning point for the resistance movement. The sultanate was soon abolished, and in 1923 the Turkish Republic was officially established with Ankara as its capital and Mustafa Kemal (taking on the moniker Ataturk) as its president.
Ataturk’s regime took on sweeping reforms in the hopes of distancing themselves from the antiquity of the Ottoman Empire. His ruling Republican People’s Party (CHP), ended the caliphate, adopted egalitarian measures to bolster women’s role in society, and closed religious schools in the favor of a more secularized education. Even the Turkish language was modernized, Atatürk shed the Arabic alphabet in favor of Latin, and many Persian and Arabic words were dropped from the nation’s lexicon. Kasim Gülek, writing for Foreign Affairs in his article Democracy Takes Root in Turkey, describes these reforms, “The age-old theocratic concepts of the state were abandoned and the principle of a secular republic accepted. All these reforms were sanctioned by laws voted by the assembly” (Gülek 1951, 137). In 1950 Turkey had its first free and fair election, with judicial supervision and meaningful competition from opposition parties. The Democratic Party won a majority, ending almost half a century of Ataturk’s Republican People’s Party single party rule.
Democracy as defined by Joseph Schumpeter in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy is “that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote” (Schumpeter 1942, 269). Using Schumpeter’s definition of democracy, Turkey was well on its way to a stable democracy by 1950; with free and fair elections, including meaningful competition for votes in the way of opposition parties, as well as people being able to freely voice their criticism of the government. Lauren McLaren and Burak Cop elucidate on post 1950 Turkish democracy in their essay The Failure of Democracy in Turkey: A Comparative Analysis “Other than brief interruptions in 1960-61 and 1980-83, Turkey has, in fact, met the most basic democratic requirement of holding free and fair elections since 1950. That is, parties have generally been able to compete freely in Turkish elections” (McLaren-Cop 2013, 3).
As McLaren and Cop explained, Turkey has historically had the barebones elements of a democracy. However, the sweeping victory of the Development Justice Party (also known as the AKP) in the 2002 parliamentary elections along with Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ascent into leadership put Turkey’s fledgling democratization project in danger. It is difficult to pinpoint a single event as a turning point for democratic backsliding, the party and its leadership have been slowly eroding Turkey’s democratic institutions since coming into power. For the purposes of this blog post, I will focus on one instance: Turkey’s 2017 constitutional referendum, which switched the nation from a parliamentary to a presidential system.
This switch may seem trivial, but it’s a clear-cut instance of executive aggrandizement. Nancy Burmeo defines this concept in her book On Democratic Backsliding, “Executive aggrandizement contrasts with all forms of coupmaking in that it takes place without executive replacement and at a slower pace. This more common form of backsliding occurs when elected executives weaken checks on executive power one by one, undertaking a series of institutional changes that hamper the power of opposition forces to challenge executive preferences” (Burmeo 2016, 3). The switch was part of a variety of amendments to the constitution that Turks were voting on, with one clear goal: to augment Erdogan and the AKP’s political power. The change got rid of the role of Prime Minister, consolidating even more power in the President as the sole executive. Under the new system Erdogan could potentially remain in the presidency until 2029. Part of the shift to a presidential republic meant that the executive was now directly elected through a popular vote, whereas before MP’s elected the prime minister to head the government. This switch favors the incumbent AKP, and largely strips the parliament of its power, turning the body into little more than a rubber stamp. There are obviously many instances of countries with functioning, democratic presidential systems, the United States being one of them. Turkey, however, lacks the checks and balances necessary for this kind of system to function free of autocratic encroachment. The BBC explains in their report, Why did Turkey hold a referendum, “in Turkey, where judicial independence has plummeted and which now ranks 151 of 180 countries in the press freedom index of the watchdog Reporters Without Borders, an all-powerful president would spell the death knell of democracy” (BBC 2017) Additionally, the amendments passed narrowly, and there were questions about the validity of votes, arising from the Supreme Election Council’s decision (at AKP’s behest) to accept potentially fraudulent ballots that weren’t properly stamped. International observers raised concern too. In a report, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe expressed their worry that, “Voters were not provided with impartial information about key aspects of the reform” (OSCE 2017)
Overall, the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum was nothing but a fraudulent, thinly veiled power grab by Erdogan. The blatant executive aggrandizement puts Turkey’s already strained system of checks and balances in even more peril and undermines any hope for democratization.
Hi Lily! I learned a lot about Turkey from reading your post. I am interested in democratic erosion in this area of the world. Hungary and Turkey seem to have similar political histories. They were under the control of the Ottoman Empire and only recently became a democracy, only to have that democracy come under the attack by means of a stealth authoritarian. Poland was not a part of the Ottoman Empire, but it is also following a similar pattern of erosion in recent years. Belarus is also under autocratic control and within that region of the world. I think the commonality between all these states, is right-wing populism. Erdogan along with Viktor Orbán and Andrzej Duda, use rhetoric that targets a political scapegoat, under the guise of returning to traditional values. These three leaders have taken different approaches in attacking their respective democracies, but they are all known to use rhetoric that demonizes immigrants and the LGBTQ+ community. This demonstrates how scapegoating, and this type of rhetoric is used by leaders to gain control over and suppress their constituents. Voters assessing candidates and politicians should be very wary of rhetoric that is divisive and inflammatory in nature. Not only is the content of this rhetoric offensive, but it indicates a potentially problematic leader, in terms of autocracy and democratic norms.
Hey Lilly, you’ve made some very solid points throughout this post. I really like that you chose to focus on Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary system to a presidential one. I feel that this event is not touched on nearly as much as it should be when discussing autocratic consolidation and democratic erosion. While noting that such a transition may appear rather unimportant upon first glance, you did an excellent job demonstrating the detrimental impact it has had on Turkey’s democracy. Specifically, I like that you discussed the passing of recent constitutional amendments that were designed to advantage the incumbent AKP while handicapping the opposition. Moreover, I think you did a nice job demonstrating how such a change has introduced a subsequent weakening of Turkey’s legislature and judiciary. While these two institutions weaken, the executive consolidates more power, indicating a degradation of separation of powers within the country. Based on your analysis, it unfortunately does not seem as if Turkey’s democracy will substantially improve any time soon. In fact, it seems more likely that further erosion will take place as Erdogan and the AKP continue to expand their power.
Hey Lillian! I found your background and contemporary analysis on democratic backsliding in Turkey very interesting. As someone also studying Turkey, I agree that the 2017 Constitutional referendum was a turning point for the fate of Turkish democracy. This referendum, along with the coup attempt that preceded it, provided Erdogan and the AKP with the opportunity to strengthen Turkish democracy and move forward from a history of fluctuation but instead they were drawn to crush it and consolidate power. It does amaze me that the results were as competitive as they ended up being considering how much power the AKP already harnessed and the environment of intimidation surrounding the vote. Do you believe Erdogan would have lost peacefully if the referendum had failed and he was made unable to continue on as president?
I also agree that Erdogan’s utilization of executive aggrandizement is what made the erosion particularly harmful and difficult to combat and really enjoyed your overview of the tool. In my research, I found one academic who posed the question of whether or not the AKP and Erdogan had entered power with the intention of causing as much damage to the democratic standing of the country as they now have. I found this question interesting because, as you detail in your piece, Erdogan and his party have been able to slowly and methodically dismantle democratic norms in Turkey under the guise of reform and modernization- and today there is nearly nothing left to stand between him and full executive power.
I appreciate your analysis on the referendum, its irregularities, and the damage it now poses to Turkish democracy!
Hey Lillian! I enjoyed reading your post about executive aggrandizement in Turkey and its historical context. I like how you considered Turkey’s transition from a parliamentary to a presidential system and the political implications that this transition entailed with this referendum in 2017. With the modernization of Turkey after the fall of the antique Ottoman Empire in 1923 after the end of World War 1, a new political and social age was entered by the Turkish people. However, not all is sunshine and roses as you point to when Erdogan took power. President Erdogan consolidated the AKP’s political power and took his chance to get rid of the office of prime minister to consolidate power into the president as the sole executive in the country. The parliament was largely stripped of its power with this move and are essentially a puppet of Erdogan and the AKP. After the constitutional referendum in 2017 that switched Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system, Erdogan now has very few checks and balances on his power and can continue to bolster the power of the executive and his party of the AKP. The situation looks grim in Turkey in terms of its democratic aspirations and as Erdogan continues to mass power in the executive it will be increasingly more difficult for democratic attitudes and egalitarian tendencies to be considered. I like how you focused on the constitutional referendum of 2017 as I believe it was the largest move of Erdogan and the AKP to aggrandize power in the executive and it is a very important event to consider. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading your post and considering the executive aggrandizement occurring in Turkey!
Hi, Lily! I really liked your summary of Turkey’s journey from Ottoman Empire to secular republic to fledgling democracy. I also think it’s important to note two of the events that may have bolstered Erdogan’s belief that he could pursue the presidential system. I think the 2013 protests in Gezi Park and 2016 attempted coup served as the final feathers in Erdogan’s cap to consolidate power. Where the events in Gezi Park vilified Erdogan and the brutality shown by the police force, the coup attempt legitimized his claim to the seat. He was able to enact a three-month state of emergency that he extended until the summer of 2018, long enough to change the system of government in his favor. His pattern of aggrandizement is especially concerning when paired for his seeming aspirations to restore Turkey to the grandeur of the previous empire and return to conservative religious nationalism. While secularism obviously isn’t the end-all-be-all answer, Erdogan’s vision seems to include extreme executive aggrandizement, limitations on freedoms, and a return to a more authoritarian state. Do you think that with Erdogan’s decline in popularity in recent years will allow the results of this referendum to be reversed at some point? If the presidency is now determined by popular vote, the opportunity remains for an opponent to take office in the 2023 election, but that doesn’t preclude them from perpetuating the same pattern.