The results of the November 3, 2002 general
elections marks a potential turning point in Turkish politics, not just
because only two of the eighteen competing parties managed to pass the
10% national threshold, but also because a recently established party
with Islamist roots, the Justice and Development Party (AKP), won a landslide
victory. The AKP, founded as an offspring of the Islamist Welfare Party
(RP) on August 14, 2001, obtained 34.2% of the votes cast and 363 of the
550-seats in the parliament, while the center-left Republican Peoples
Party (CHP) won 178 seats for its 19.4% of votes.
Both the AKP's disproportionate victory and the failure of other political
parties that ran the country in the last 15 years to pass the threshold
are taken as evidence of a political earthquake that caused a major realignment
of Turkey's political landscape. In fact, the election produced the first
two-party parliament since the beginning of the multi-party politics in
1946 and the first single-party government in the last 15 years. At first
sight, this new configuration seems to eradicate what is usually believed
to be the root cause of instability in Turkish politics, inefficient and
ineffective coalition governments. It also provides an opportunity to
rebuild the eroding political center around the AKP.
Yet, since the fundamental factor in attaining political legitimacy is
to be accepted by the state elite, which holds a monopoly over the definition
of such key issues as secularism and the nature of national identity,
winning a decisive election victory does not necessarily mean more stable
politics in Turkey. In this respect, the AKP's Islamist pedigree and untested
nature render it suspicious and create the risk of increased tutelage
over politics by Turkey's military-led secularist establishment, which
ousted the Islamist RP-led coalition government in 1997.
EXPLAINING REALIGNMENT
The November 3 political earthquake cannot be understood without taking
into account the prior top-down redesign of the political landscape since
the removal of the RP-led coalition in 1997. The aftermath of that intervention
was built on the assumption that with the establishment of the RP-led
coalition government, Islamism had become a fundamental threat to the
secular republic and that civilian politics had created a fertile ground
for the spread of Islamism by diluting the principle of secularism since
the beginning of competitive politics in 1946. Ultimately, the process
was about making politics subservient to the security needs of the republic
defined by the military only.
This attempt to redesign the political sphere has led to, what Umit Cizre
called, "politics of inertia", in which existing political parties
do not even pretend to provide an outlet for the demands and hopes of
society and politics cannot renew itself by even changing the incumbent
government in the face of a major economic crisis. Thus, the so-called
political earthquake on November 3 was anticipated because the electorate
was highly disillusioned with the indifference of existing parties to
societal problems.
By being new and reformist, the AKP has provided a channel for the impoverished
Turkish people to vent their anger on the existing political class. Ever
since its inception, the AKP denied being an Islamist party and employed
a moderate and non-religious discourse that emphasizes the importance
of consensus seeking. In its election campaign, the AKP claimed that the
root cause of poverty is rampant corruption and mismanagement of the rulers.
It presented itself as an honest party concerned only with the well-being
of people and promised to eradicate corruption to ensure the efficient
and effective utilization of the country's rich resources so that economic
development and social welfare can be achieved. The AKP had a pro-market,
pro-EU agenda which abstained from direct reference to issues relating
specifically to the rights and liberties of Islamic identity in Turkey.
Thus, its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared that the ban on wearing
headscarves at universities is not their first priority, while indirectly
referring to it as "hindrance to education" that should be removed.
THE AKP AND ISLAMISM
Although emerging from the remains of an ousted and intimidated Islamism,
the AKP differs from the RP in a number of aspects. First of all, the
AKP is not as hierarchical and leader-centered as the RP was. Secondly,
the most important distinguishing feature of the RP was, paradoxically,
its Kemalist outlook, which is basically an anti-political grammar that
asserts the primacy of culture in development/modernization and that sees
society as a homogenous entity and as an object of government only.
Thirdly, the RP defined the Westernizing elite/mentality as Turkey's basic
problem, for it prevented the people's moral development, which was the
prerequisite of economic development and democracy, and proposed the replacement
of this elite with the more pious cadres. As such, Turkey's problems were
essentially one of government personnel and not the non-pluralist form
of Kemalist state-society relationship. The RP picked out the secularist
substance of the Kemalist state-society relationship as its focus of challenge.
Moreover, the RP claimed that it alone represents the true essence and
will of the society, which it defined as Muslim nation. Consequently,
the RP seemed to be willing to utilize the Kemalist legal-political framework,
which was instituted to enforce a Western life-style by the republican
regime, to switch the secular bias of a non-pluralist state-society relationship
to one that was Islamic. The RP's failure to acknowledge the plural nature
of society led to an exclusionary and polarizing political style. The
RP government clashed not only with the secular state or secularist establishment
but also with the large sections of the society as well, weakening its
own legitimacy in the meantime.
Unlike the Felicity Party (SP), the other successor of the RP, the AKP
seems to have drawn the conclusion that it is not only the state or the
international context, but also the plurality of life-styles and beliefs
in contemporary Turkey that deter an Islamist politics/agenda. This does
not mean that the AKP does not problematize modernization as a culture
shift to Western civilization. But, it does so, primarily by focusing
on the institutions, instead of the secular values they uphold. In other
words, while the RP downplayed the undemocratic nature of state society
relationship by concentrating on its secularist substance, the AKP primarily
emphasizes the institutional set up of Turkish politics and problematizes
the top-down or "bureaucratic-statist" structures.
What kind of modernity does the AKP support? The party defines modernity
as the development of the adaptive capabilities of society in a rapidly
changing world. Hence, it aims at releasing the society from the strict
control of the Turkish state by adopting free market liberalism and reducing
the domains of state control. The AKP rationalizes its argument for "small
state" as a "technical" necessity required by the ongoing
globalization process, which shapes the societal institutions and political
relations in such a way that consensus rather than conflict and civil
societal participation rather than imposition from above become the rule
of the game. In the process, the state also recedes back from its traditional
dominions of control so as to leave a large sphere of discretion and initiative
for the society. Contrary to the third wordlist and isolationist political
tendencies that have been developing in the last five years, the AKP believes
that isolation from these trends could lead to the devastation of the
country.
NOTHING IDEOLOGICAL
While not fully endorsing the existing political structures, it is not
true to say that the AKP has come up with an alternative public morality
or vision of a pluralistic society. The more the AKP distances itself
from Islamism of the RP and from the existing political system, the less
it takes a political/ideological posture. In other words, the AKP advances
its criticisms and reform proposals as technical necessities of adjusting
to a changing world. Hence, the AKP de-emphasizes ideology as belonging
to the cold war era of a bi-polar world.
Presentation of a reformist outlook as necessitated by the globalization
process assists the neo-liberal discourse in dismissing ideologies as
redundant. There is, however, another reason for the AKP's de-emphasis
on ideology that springs from the peculiarities of Turkish politics. Historically
speaking, political alternatives on thorny issues have often been charged
by the state elite with being separatist or reactionary threats to the
republican regime. In such a context, the most secure way of presenting
reformist policies is to portray them as technical/non-ideological necessities
to adapt to a changing world as part of an ongoing Westernization program.
The AKP's de-emphasis on ideology and lack of a public philosophy are
both reflected in its self-definition as a non-ideological party acting
as a "transmission belt" carrying the demands of people into
the political arena. Such a definition, naturally, makes it a duty of
AKP to take up the headscarf issue when the time is ripe. Nevertheless,
the simplistic definition of the political parties as functionaries making
the state function in accordance with the will and wish of people in itself
does not exclude an authoritarian rule, if the people wished.
Regardless of its inadequacies and deficiencies, the AKP's seems to stand
for a fundamental transformation of the state-society relationship in
Turkey. This is especially true if "releasing Turkish society from
both the authoritarian political structures and the stifling ideological
dogmas of Kemalist modernity" is essential for a truly modernized
Turkey.[i]
The AKP's emphasis on consensus seeking and the supremacy of national
will is noteworthy as well. One might think that this approach is just
to allay suspicions of the secularist establishment. However, history
tells us that downplaying the importance of consensus seeking has played
a fundamental role in weakening the legitimacy of civilian politics and
stabilizing the military's tutelage over politics. Then, an opposite political
style may strengthen the legitimacy of the elected governments and break
civilian politics free from the military's tutelage. The AKP's own approach
will not be conclusive in this respect, because the cooperation of the
other political actors in strengthening civilian politics is essential.
THE AKP IN GOVERNMENT
Seventy days of the AKP government is too short a time to make a conclusive
assessment. Yet, one distinguishing feature of the period has been the
power struggle between the AKP government and Turkey's secularist establishment,
with which the opposition party, the CHP, is as always allied. This secularist
community has maintained its pre-election suspicion and charged the AKP
with being Islamist both explicitly and implicitly. Declarations made
by the leading figures of various institutions such as the top echelons
of the judiciary, the CHP, the military, the Higher Education Council
and the President of the Republic have drawn attention to the protection
of secularism as a fundamental principle of the republic. In the final
analysis, the secularist establishment's distrust of the elected government
in terms of its allegiance to secular republic aims to immobilize the
AKP government or restrict its jurisdiction. If this trend of intimidation
continues, the AKP's political identity/character and Turkey's political
development may suffer.
Does the secularist establishment use the Islamist pedigree of the AKP
as a pretext to maintain its conservative grip on politics? The AKP's
declared intentions to enact a more liberal constitution, reform higher
education to make universities more autonomous, change Turkey's traditional
stance on Cyprus issue and its impressive campaign in almost all EU-member
states to get a date in the EU's Copenhagen summit of December 2002 for
the start of Turkey's accession negotiations, can all be considered as
demonstrations of its reformist stance. In terms of issues relating to
Islamic identity, since elected the AKP has taken a few symbolic initiatives
such as preparing an amnesty bill for the students expelled from universities
for wearing headscarf. But when faced with criticism, it withdrew the
bill by re-emphasizing the importance of consensus seeking. This does
not mean that the AKP will not take up this issue later. This is so, because,
although symbolic, these issues are important political issues for the
party's conservative constituency. They have also democracatic connotations
for the non-Islamist liberal sectors of society, because Turkey's rigid
practice of secularism, which conceives the relationship between Islam
and secularism in zero-sum terms, is mostly maintained at the expense
of democracy and pluralism.
In all its deeds, the AKP has taken a non-confrontational and consensus
seeking attitude, aiming at co-operation with the opposition party, the
CHP, the civil societal organizations, and the military. Erdogan has often
declared "politics to be an art of solving problems, but not creating
them" to decrease the tension generated by the distrust of the secular
establishment.
In terms of its economic policies, the AKP has to fulfill the IMF-imposed
fiscal discipline, while trying to relieve the economic hardship of Turks
through some salary and pension payment increases. The government also
wants to amend certain laws enacted as part of the implementation of the
IMF designed plan. In doing so it aims to correct, for example, the bias
in granting construction contracts for big construction companies so that
a better distribution of wealth can be achieved. Given the fact the support
base of the AKP includes small and medium sized companies, such a policy
can also be considered as an attempt to distribute the public funds through
patronage. It seems the AKP government is trying to reconcile the conflicting
requirements of the IMF criteria and the improvement of the economic conditions
of the people by finding alternative revenue sources in an extensive privatization
program, in careful use public funds and in fight against corruption.
All in all, as opposed to the immobility of the former governments, there
is at least some political dynamism springing from the AKP's intention
to change the status quo and demonstrate some performance. Apart from
a few symbolic gestures, the AKP's policies have not been determined by
"Islamist" intentions. Yet, on the basis of the Islamist identity
attributed to the AKP, the secularist establishment in Turkey accuses
the AKP government in an essentialist manner of intending to alter the
secular foundations of the republic. In this context the question is whether
the charges of Islamism made against the AKP is a pretext or reality.