Turkey in Transition: The Dynamics of Domestic and Foreign Politics 9781626378469

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Turkey in Transition

Turkey in Transition The Dynamics of Domestic and Foreign Politics edited by

Gürkan Çelik Ronald H. Linden

b o u l d e r l o n d o n

.

Published in the United States of America in 2020 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301 www.rienner.com

and in the United Kingdom by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. Gray’s Inn House, 127 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1 5DB

© 2020 by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Çelik, Gürkan, 1976– editor. | Linden, Ronald Haly, editor. Title: Turkey in transition : the dynamics of domestic and foreign politics / edited by Gürkan Çelik and Ronald H. Linden. Description: Boulder, Colorado : Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A comprehensive analysis of the actors and factors driving recent developments in Turkish politics at home and abroad. Identifiers: LCCN 2019018834 (print) | ISBN 9781626378278 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Turkey—Politics and government—1980– | Turkey—Foreign relations—1980– Classification: LCC DR603 .T83755 2020 (print) | LCC DR603 (ebook) | DDC 956.104—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018834 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019981125

British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Printed and bound in the United States of America

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials Z39.48-1992. 5 4 3 2 1

Contents

List of Tables and Figures Preface Turkey at a Glance

vii ix xi

1 Turkey at a Turbulent Time, Ronald H. Linden and Gürkan Çelik

1

Part 1 Dynamics at Home

2 Domestic Politics in the AKP Era, Gürkan Çelik

3 Gains and Strains in the Economy, Gürkan Çelik and Elvan Aktaş 4

The Geopolitics of Energy, Mustafa Demir

5 Militarization of the Kurdish Issue, Joost Jongerden

6 The Diyanet and the Changing Politics of Religion, Nico Landman

v

19 39 55 69 81

vi

Contents

7 The Fragmentation of Civil Society, Gürkan Çelik and Paul Dekker 8 Women in the “New” Turkey, Jenny White

95 109

Part 2 Dynamics Abroad

9 Changes and Dangers in Turkey’s World, Ronald H. Linden

10 Erdoğan’s Foreign Policy: The Role of Personality and Identity, Henri J. Barkey 11 The Crisis in US-Turkish Relations, Aaron Stein 12 Turkey in the Middle East, Bill Park

13 Russian-Turkish Relations at a Volatile Time, Joris Van Bladel

14 Turkey and Europe: Alternative Scenarios, Hanna-Lisa Hauge, Funda Tekin, and Wolfgang Wessels 15 Eurocentrism in Migration Policy, Juliette Tolay

125 147 163 185 201 215 231

Part 3 Conclusion

16 Transition to What? Gürkan Çelik and Ronald H. Linden

247

Chronology of Key Events in the History of Modern Turkey List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Bibliography The Authors Index About the Book

257 261 263 297 301 311

Tables and Figures

Tables

1.1 Factors and Actors in Turkish Dynamics 7.1 Indicators of Civil Society 14.1 Three Scenarios for Turkey-EU Relations

13 105 217

Figures

1.1 2.1 4.1 7.1

7.2 9.1 9.2 16.1

Map of Turkey Key Dynamics in Turkey’s Domestic Politics Turkish Oil and Gas Pipelines Membership in Two Types of Associations in Twenty-Nine European Countries Volunteering in Twenty-Five European Countries Key Changes in Turkey’s External Environment Chinese Investment in Turkey, 2009–2017 Factors Affecting Turkey’s Transition

vii

2 21 60

103 103 127 135 248

Preface

Peace at home, peace in the world.

—Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1931

two goals stated by modern Turkey’s founder have proved elusive. Today’s Turkey has been buffeted—some would argue transformed—by many of the features of contemporary domestic and international politics that have affected its neighbors in Europe and the Middle East, its longtime allies (the United States and the European Union), and its short-term partners (notably Russia). These include a rise in nationalism and populism; the appeal of a religious perspective on modern politics; impulsive and essentially uncontrolled economic globalization; rapid transnational communication and the spread of ideas that offer gains and dangers to peoples and countries; and a profound “democracy fatigue” in what had once been promising environments. Reacting to these dynamics has produced a Turkey that, as it approaches its centenary in 2023, seems far removed from what it had been in 2000. The citizens of Turkey began the century with a vigorous, if imperfect, democracy and with a course plotted toward further integration into the European Union. Today one-party and even one-person rule seems the practice at home, while a hyperpragmatic search for political, financial, and even strategic support along a broad horizon guides foreign policy. In this book, we aim to analyze these developments along several dimensions of politics, governance, economics, and society, both domestic and international. We utilize this last distinction, noted above, but recognize that this is nowadays a more arbitrary than real demarcation. Human ideas and inclinations—and the conflicts they often bring—cross borders whether governments want them to or not. At the same time, as Turkey’s present

For the first two decades of the twenty-first century, these

ix

x

Preface

certainly shows, what happened “yesterday” is usually not confined to a library or museum but deeply affects current political choices. Our task, embodied in our request to the volume’s authors, was to consider all factors, from personal to public and across lines of politics, religion, landscape (urban, rural), gender, and source (internal, external) that might affect the phenomena under study. In doing so, we hope that each chapter, and the volume as a whole, offers a broader understanding of the many changes affecting Turkey in transition. Thus, our first thanks must go to our authors. Many presented papers at a conference on the subject of Turkey in transition that took place in Amsterdam (see TurkeyInstitute.org), under the auspices of Nederland Academia, with the participation of VU (Vrije Universiteit) Amsterdam and the Institute for Turkish Studies of Stockholm University. Those papers were revised and reformulated by the authors as chapters in response to meddling editors and the march of events. To these were added chapters by others invited to contribute to the volume in order to broaden coverage and perspective. All of our authors have been prompt, positive, and creative in their responses to the seemingly endless inquiries and reactions from the volume’s editors and the publisher’s reviewers. We all appreciate the often unacknowledged work of second (or third) readers. Each of us has benefited at various points from research assistance dealing with our topics or thoughtful suggestions by colleagues, and several authors offer individual acknowledgments at the end of their chapters. We are indebted to our talented graphic artist for the figures and our attentive manuscript reader for textual corrections and consistency. The volume would not have appeared at all were it not for the encouragement offered by Lynne Rienner and the excellent staff of Lynne Rienner Publishers, who provided technical, marketing, and editorial assistance. Our narratives may be outrun by events, but our affection, concern, and admiration for the people of Turkey and our hopes for the future they are building remain constant. —Ronald H. Linden and Gürkan Çelik

Notes: * Actual number seated varies due to death, resignation, or criminal proceedings against MPs. ** From 0 (least) to 100 (most) Democratic. *** Rank compared to 28 EU members. **** Median age in Europe is 41.8 years.

1 Turkey at a Turbulent Time Ronald H. Linden and Gürkan Çelik

in the world would find Turkey center stage. Its Middle Eastern neighbors Iraq and Syria are convulsed in upheaval and civil war, spilling more than 3 million refugees over its borders. The nuclear weapons program of Iran and the struggle for regional dominance between the Islamic Republic and Sunni powers in the Arab world often put the Turkish government’s actions—or inactions—into intense focus. Its powerful northern Black Sea neighbor, Russia, is reasserting its influence in the eastern Mediterranean and in what it considers a zone of “privileged interest,” to the detriment of the sovereignty of Turkey’s neighbors Syria, Georgia, and Ukraine (see Figure 1.1). Ankara’s long-standing aim to recover its European heritage by joining the European Union (EU) has withered close to the point of disappearing. But as the once preferred paramour—itself home to more than 4 million Turks— turns to Turkey to help it deal with its energy dependence on Russia and an unprecedented wave of human migration, the “new” Turkey is more volatile both economically and militarily. At the same time, Turkey has joined the ranks of states that are moving away from, rather than toward, greater democratic governance. Under the firm grip of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, first elected in 2002, Turkey appears headed on an unwavering path toward personalist authoritarian government. The once broad social support that was eager to remove the heavy hand of Kemalist elites and the military has been narrowed by the regime’s preference for those with a more religious orientation, nationalist inclinations, and, above all, loyalty to Erdoğan and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP).1 Starting with the Gezi Park protests in 2013 in Istanbul and the corruption scandals in the same year,

Virtually any list of the most significant and dangerous changes

1

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Ronald H. Linden and Gürkan Çelik

Figure 1.1

Map of Turkey

and especially since the coup attempt of 2016, Erdoğan and the ruling AKP seem determined to purge opponents, both potential and real, from political and state institutions, including the police, army, and judiciary, from national and local agencies, and also from the business world and the educational structure. Genuine political competition, along with hard-won gains in Turkish society (i.e., for Kurds, women, and liberal-oriented political forces) and in the economy and investments, are under siege. The power of the ruling AKP and especially of Erdoğan himself has been strengthened through constitutional changes and ratified in public ballots. Understanding these dynamics is daunting and challenges our common—and often Western-skewed—view of what is happening in and around Turkey. To help observers understand both these changes and their significance, this volume has several aims. First, as much as possible, it brings up to date our analysis of developments in both domestic politics in Turkey and the country’s external relations, as well as their mutual interactions. The book focuses on the AKP era—roughly since 2002—and especially on the most momentous changes of recent years, including the attempted coup of July 2016 and the voting that preceded and followed that pivotal event. Second, across a range of academic disciplines, the

Turkey at a Turbulent Time

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authors identify the key actors and factors that are the determinants of these developments. In their chapters, our authors address the question: What are the driving institutions, individuals, or principles that explain what has occurred in Turkey in recent times? On this basis, the volume aims to describe and comprehend the likely path of Turkey’s future within specific realms—for example, the economy, society, the political system, and relations with the United States and the EU—as part of a more comprehensive picture of Turkey’s present and future. The aim of this volume is not to predict the future—a Quixotic task even in a region less turbulent—but to help readers achieve a clearer picture of how this large, dynamic, centrally located country came to its present state and what factors will determine its future. At the same time, it offers guideposts for our expectations as to what will happen in and to a country whose actions directly affect—and are affected by—the policies and dynamics of the United States, Russia, Europe, and the Middle East. Most broadly, it offers an in-depth examination of the causes and possible courses of development in one of the most important “illiberal democracies”2 to have (re)emerged in Europe and Asia. As such, the volume can stand as an informed “thick” description of what domestic, international, and human factors contributed to this direction in the Turkish case and, in doing so, offer clues as to what underlies the troubling spread of this democratic backsliding.3

Background to Contemporary Turkey: Domestic and International A New State in Europe In 1923 the Turkish Republic created itself out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and against the wishes of the British and French empires. After defeat in World War I, the sultan had been forced to sign the Treaty of Sevres, which would have carved up what was then called “Asia Minor” and created a weak and dependent Turkish rump state. Instead, a nationalist movement, led by Mustafa Kemal, successfully resisted this fate and forcibly prevented occupation by Western forces, including those of Greece. The new state that emerged was ratified by the great powers in the Treaty of Lausanne.4 Not surprisingly, during the interwar period, the new Turkish Republic remained fearful and protective of its very existence and suspicious of numerous external powers and their designs on Turkey. During this time, at least one historical enemy, Russia, underwent revolution and civil war and then was convulsed in domestic political and economic strife. While real danger to Turkey was thus reduced, Turkish fear of Soviet communism and the reemergence of historical claims, such

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as in the Bosporus, remained strong. A modus vivendi was reached with Greece—though at the cost of massive upheaval and deprivation caused by an agreed population swap.5 As a defeated power in the global Great War, Turkey was not invited to join the League of Nations and remained on alert lest the great powers of the time, especially Great Britain and France, make territorial arrangements in the region to suit themselves, without consideration of Turkish interests or claims.6 The most serious dangers to Turkish integrity during the interwar period involved Italy and, later, Germany. Especially when Western powers and the Soviet Union proved unwilling to stop Adolph Hitler and made their own deals, such as the Munich Agreement of 1938 or the Soviet-German Nonaggression Treaty of 1939, Turkey had to rely on its own careful diplomacy and cautious action. Diplomatic and economic ties with all powers continued right up and into the hostilities of World War II. A nominal declaration of war against Germany very late in the conflict allowed Ankara to be included among the founding members of the United Nations. Overall, in the interwar period, Turkey was successful in establishing and defending its presence, aided by strong domestic government and weak and distracted global powers. Its signal diplomatic achievement was the multilateral Montreux Convention of 1936, which guaranteed free merchant passage but limited military traffic through the Bosporus and, most importantly, Turkish control of that strategic waterway. Single-Party State From the founding of the Turkish Republic, only one party was allowed: the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP). Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk, the founder of the republic and the CHP, was installed as the first president of Turkey. As the leader of the founding group, he focused on modernizing Turkey along Western lines. There was a weak parliament and a Council of Ministers. Western-style democracy was not established, but a revolutionary course brought the country effective secular laws and state institutions, equal rights for women, and a general Europeanization on the cultural level. The Republican government allowed little opposition, and civic initiatives were subordinated to the state agenda. Essentially the CHP ruled the country by itself from 1923 to the 1950s. The radical secularism of Atatürk also meant that the role of Islam was drastically reduced.7 To replace it, Kemalism, in combination with Turkish nationalism, was imposed from above as the guiding philosophy of the new state. As a result, two large groups in Turkish society—religious Muslims and the Kurds, the largest ethnic minority—were marginalized, even forcibly suppressed at times. They remained underrepresented in central state bodies such as the army, the bureaucracy, and the judiciary 8 in favor of a new Republican elite of persuaded Kemalists, supporters of Atatürk, who lived mostly in

Turkey at a Turbulent Time

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Turkey’s cities such as Ankara, Istanbul, and İzmir. Their families originated almost entirely from the Balkans, the Aegean coast, and Istanbul itself. In the vast Anatolian countryside, however, many of the old traditions in which Islam had a central place continued to play an essential role in everyday life. The Democratic Party of Adnan Menderes In 1950, twelve years after the death of Atatürk and four years after the multiparty period formally began, the country held its first truly free parliamentary elections. The Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) of Adnan Menderes won an overwhelming majority in the new parliament. The DP was a center-right party mainly supported by voters outside the large cities and committed to gradually eliminating the curtailment of the rights of religious and ethnic minorities. Although the DP did not fundamentally deviate from the secular views of Atatürk and the CHP, it was less hostile to a larger public role for Islam. That view soon led to accusations by the army and Kemalist intellectuals that the DP was undermining the secular character of the Turkish state and encouraging religious fundamentalism. Both the military and the bureaucracy, the key pillars of the Turkish Republic, were closely linked to the CHP and saw the DP as a dangerous intruder.9 Despite this, the DP won the elections again in 1954 and 1957. In the second half of the 1950s, however, the DP lost popularity as its policy of forced economic liberalization led to severe problems (inflation, unemployment) and Menderes emerged as an autocratic ruler intent on limiting democratic freedoms.10 Turkey’s external position in the postwar world and the subsequent Cold War was set very quickly. With Europe devastated and the Soviet Union among the victors, pressure grew on Turkey to yield territory to Moscow and ease passage of Soviet military vessels through the Bosporus. In response to the Soviet threat to Western influence throughout Europe, the United States, after some domestic debate, undertook to remain involved in Europe. Through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan (1947), Washington led a vigorous effort to assist Turkey, as well as Greece, in rebuilding domestic institutions and protecting its territorial integrity. Both countries then joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952, and Turkey became the site of several major NATO air and intelligence-gathering installations. Military Coups In May 1960, the army intervened against the elected government. Menderes and two of his ministers were hanged after a show trial, and under a new constitution, a National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu) was established, dominated by the military. It developed into a guardian of Turkish politics, checking the alignment of civil government policies with the Kemalist principles of the republic. Nevertheless, political instability and social unrest marked the 1960s. Subsequent elections were held, but the

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army intervened two more times. In 1971 it moved against the center-right government of Süleyman Demirel, which had obtained more than 50 percent of the vote in 1965. In 1980 it acted as a result of seriously deteriorating economic conditions and government mismanagement. This time the consequences of a military regime for Turkish politics and society were much more radical. Leftist parties lost their legal standing; hundreds of activists were killed, and many thousands fled abroad, mainly to Europe. The cruel oppression of Kurdish nationalists in Diyarbakir prison11 led to the establishment of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), the guerrilla movement under Abdullah Öcalan, which forcefully demanded Kurdish rights.12 Another new constitution was crafted by the generals in 1982, and the positions of the parliament and the government were weakened, while the army, the bureaucracy, and newly created management bodies were strengthened. An electoral threshold of 10 percent for entry into parliament was introduced to keep smaller leftist, Kurdish, and Islamist parties out of parliament. While some religious-oriented movements, including that for Islamic education, were given more room to maneuver, a state-controlled and depoliticized interpretation of Islam was used against leftist—including secular—groups. Liberalization Under Turgut Özal In 1983, to the displeasure of the army, a new center-right party, the Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi) of Turgut Özal, won the elections. For almost ten years, Özal, first as prime minister and later as president, made his mark on Turkish politics. As a passionate defender of the free market, Özal used the support of the Turkish business community to open up Turkey’s economy. National monopolies based in the Istanbul area and strongly associated with the Kemalist state elite were broken up, while new entrepreneurs from Anatolia were now able to serve both the internal Turkish and the attractive external European markets. Many of those who would later be called the “Anatolian Tigers” were—like Özal himself—conservative businessmen who combined a preference for liberal economics with conservative social views firmly rooted in Islam. More than the economy was liberalized under Özal; from the early 1990s on, the media became more diverse, with conservative Muslims permitted to establish newspapers and TV stations. A few years later, the first private schools and universities followed. Domestic repression against the Left and fear of Soviet communism riveted Turkey solidly in the Western camp during the entire Cold War (i.e., into the 1990s). Turkey sent troops to fight communist forces in Korea (1950–1953) and Vietnam (1959–1973), provided a base from which overflights and listening posts could be utilized against the USSR, and maintained the second-largest land force in NATO. Until the end of the Cold War, Turkish foreign policy was largely circumscribed. Oriented toward

Turkey at a Turbulent Time

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western Europe and the United States and fiercely anticommunist, successive governments—whether democratically elected or the product of coups d’état—were rarely out of step with the Western camp. One exception was relations with Greece, which were from time to time tense and conflictual, mostly over territorial disputes in the Aegean Sea. Most significant were differences over the nature of government in Cyprus, whose population was roughly three-quarters Greek and one-quarter Turkish. Cypriot independence from Britain in 1960 produced a shared government structure that broke down almost immediately. In 1974, in response to an attempt by the Greek military government at the time to force enosis, or union, with Greece, Turkey sent in 40,000 troops in two separate operations and effectively divided the island republic. For a time, this hurt Turkish-NATO and Turkish-US relations, with Washington even imposing an arms embargo on Turkey for using NATOsupplied weapons in its invasion. However, a severe worsening in Cold War tensions in the late 1970s and early 1980s, combined with the outbreak of war between Iraq and a new Islamic regime in Iran, reminded the West of the geostrategic value of Turkey. Though Cyprus remained (and still is) divided,13 normal ties with the United States resumed, the arms embargo ended, and the use of NATO bases in Turkey intensified. Despite the Cold War, Turkey occasionally explored improving ties with the USSR and with various Middle Eastern states on both sides of the ArabIsraeli conflict. With complementary strategic concerns in the region, Turkey and Israel were able to forge a strong—if somewhat muted—economic and even military relationship. Shared Islamic identity, plus the need for oil, facilitated some movement as well with most of Turkey’s Arab neighbors.14 Postmodern Coup in 1997 After Özal’s sudden death in 1993, unstable coalition governments and personal feuds between party leaders led to a growing dissatisfaction with the established center parties of both the Right and the Left. Consistently high inflation rates disaffected many low- and middle-income citizens and the violent confrontation between the Turkish army and the PKK cost tens of thousands of lives. A consequence of the disorder in Ankara and the stagnating economy was the rise of Islamist parties based on an ideology holding that both state and society should be organized along Islamic principles. In 1994, the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, RP), led by the Islamist Necmettin Erbakan, won the municipal elections in Istanbul and Ankara. The party managed to draw the votes of both the middle class and the impoverished residents in the new slums that were a consequence of massive migration from the Turkish countryside to the big cities. A promising young man in the party, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would become mayor of Istanbul and do well in that role, contrary to the expectations of many.15

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A year later, Erbakan won the parliamentary elections and in 1996 became the first Islamist prime minister in modern Turkish history. At the beginning of 1997, discontent grew among secularists regarding Erbakan’s sometimes provocative Islamist choices.16 For example, he proposed a socioeconomic order based on Islamic norms, 17 including abolition of the ban on wearing headscarves in public institutions,18 and favored shifting Turkey from the West toward the Islamic world. On February 28, 1997, the military presented a long list of demands to put an end to the increasing influence of Islamists in education and other parts of the state apparatus. The military leadership organized broad social and media opposition to what they saw as a threat to the secular nature of the Turkish state. In June 1997, Erbakan resigned in accordance with the military’s will. Without the use of deadly force, through a “postmodern coup,” the army had succeeded again, with the help of other pillars of the secular elite, in bringing down a government that threatened to step outside the norms dictated by the military. What the 1980 coup had been for Kurds and left-wing Turks, the 1997 action proved to be for many religious Turks: a dramatic setback in their political development and influence.19 Some lost their jobs or had to close their businesses, and some were branded as fundamentalists and excluded from politics. In 1998, the Turkish Constitutional Court banned Erbakan’s RP, and Erdoğan was sentenced to ten months in prison for citing an Islamist poem. The events of 1997 and 1998 led to a fundamental debate among Islamists about the course of their party. The chief reformers within the RP, among them Erdoğan and Abdullah Gül, concluded that Turkey needed a broad center-right party that could move beyond Islamist rhetoric. The domestic context allowed them enough space to bring this to life. In August 2001, they founded the Justice and Development Party, which presented itself as a conservative-democratic and explicitly non-Islamist party. The AKP won the November 2002 parliamentary elections, replacing a coalition government led by the left-wing leader Bülent Ecevit that had been plagued by mutual distrust, corruption scandals, and a financial crisis. Since then, Turkey has been ruled by the AKP and entered a new era. The fundamentals of Turkish foreign policy during the Cold War, while wobbling a bit, had been solidly framed by domestic politics that favored a conservative anticommunist posture and by regional and bipolar global politics. This left Turkey little room for broad maneuver. With the end of the Cold War, the disappearance of the communist threat, the disintegration of order in the Middle East, and the rise of Islamic power, both new opportunities and new dangers emerged for Turkey. At first, the Turkish response was limited. A modest effort was made— and abandoned—to exploit Turkic ties in the newly independent states of Central Asia. Turkey’s relations with key neighbors such as Iran and Syria

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remained tense—and, in the latter case, confrontational—over the presence of the PKK. But Turkey’s involvement in the Balkans was spurred by its participation in NATO-led peacekeeping missions, while agreements and trade with Russia—including in natural gas—began to grow.20 Relations with Greece gradually improved, despite the lack of a settlement on Cyprus, and were spurred by a mutual provision of aid after earthquakes hit the two countries in 1999.21 In the first post–Cold War decade, Turkey was eager to complete its movement to join the new and expanding European Union. Already linked, since 1963, to the predecessor European Economic Community (EEC) by an association agreement, Turkey formally applied for membership in 1987 but was turned down two years later. To its great disappointment, Turkey watched as several countries—including all the states of formerly communist Eastern Europe—were granted candidacy, engaged in negotiations, and became members. Negotiations did not begin for Turkey until 2005. The foundations of NATO membership were reiterated but damaged in the leadup to the US-led war in Iraq in 2003.

Turkey Under Erdoğan As the chapters in this volume detail, under Recep Erdoğan Turkey has moved from a fundamentally democratic, if imperfect, state on a slow but evident path toward the European Union to one in which a single party, worldview, and—increasingly—person dominate and determine the nature of Turkish government actions at home and abroad. Erdoğan and the AKP have skillfully stimulated and exploited support from a conservative, Islamic-oriented constituency while at times enjoying strong, if grudging, backing from those in the country who are more secular but want to see the long-standing role of the military and bureaucratic elites reduced. He has alternated between overtures toward the disaffected Kurds and Arab states in the Middle East and appeals to Turkish nationalist sentiments and military actions to gather public and political support. Domestically, the governing system in Turkey has been changed dramatically under Erdoğan. He and the AKP have used elections and referenda to strengthen and legitimize their increasingly autocratic hold on politics in Turkey. The constitution of 1980 was changed in 2010 to weaken bureaucratic and military control and modified again in April 2017 to create a more powerful presidential system. The military has been brought under firmer civilian control, and political Islam has come to dominate. Changes were ratified through presidential elections and referenda, while local and parliamentary elections gave strong, if not overwhelming, backing to the ruling party. When the AKP lost its majority in the parliamentary elections of 2015, a renewed campaign against the Kurds strengthened the government’s hand and allowed for victory in new elections later that same year.

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The coup attempt in July 2016, put down with substantial public support from all sectors of society, gave the ruling AKP greater opportunity to tighten its hold on politics, the state, the media, academia, civil society, and the business world. The aim of many emergency and other measures has been to suppress opposition, real or potential. A state of emergency, declared by the government after the coup attempt, lasted for two years.22 The government embarked on a massive cleansing operation of state institutions, sacking over 150,000 people in the army, schools, universities, and judicial institutions, and as of March 2019 more than 500,000 people have been detained.23 In their relentless search for opponents, governing authorities imprisoned people, closed media outlets, and arrested many journalists critical of the government. After its redesign and reappointments by the AKP, the judiciary does not operate independently. In June 2018, snap presidential and parliamentary elections were held in an atmosphere described by Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) election observers as unequal, giving Erdoğan a “notable advantage.”24 The leader of the Kurdish party was imprisoned, TV for opposition candidates was sharply restricted, and a variety of vote-manipulation techniques were allegedly utilized. After these elections, Turkey’s national government was transformed into a presidential system giving the president virtually unlimited powers. As it stands now, almost every decision and all state organs are tied to Erdoğan. The country’s first directly elected president has joined the world’s club of “elected dictators.”25 In the new system, the prime minister’s office has been abolished, and there are only ministers appointed by the president. Cabinet ministers— and, in fact, most appointments—no longer require parliamentary approval, for example, Erdoğan’s appointment of his son-in-law as treasury and finance minister. The president can dismiss parliament and call new elections at will. This is a small but significant shift of power from the government to the presidency. The president appoints the head of the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı, MİT), 26 the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), and the Central Bank, as well as ambassadors, governors, and university rectors, among other top bureaucrats. This vast accumulation of power to the new presidency was narrowly approved by voters in a referendum in 2017.27 In addition to these domestic developments, externally, over the past five years, Turkey’s statements and actions have carved out a policy that is ever more distinctively Turkish and Islamic. Ankara has been more active in the Balkans and the Middle East, less interested in joining the EU or keeping Washington happy, and not shy about using both “soft” and “hard” power (including military force) to advance its interests. Given both its distant and its more recent history, Turkish leaders see the

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country as a regional power that must jealously guard its prerogatives against not only traditional adversaries (Russia) and regional terrorists (the PKK and ISIL28) but also allies and sometimes friends (the European Union and the United States). Turkey is experiencing turbulent times. The present is hardly reflective of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s hope for the country: “peace at home, peace in the world.” In such a situation, with dramatic transformations both at home and abroad and changes in government actions and social responses to them, it is reasonable—indeed obligatory—for us to try to offer analyses of these dynamics. This volume does so by dividing up the landscape first into domestic and international arenas, then into key sectors such as the economy, religion, and foreign policy in the Middle East. Such divisions are, to some extent, arbitrary, but these analyses will be conscious of real-world connections and take note of ties between these spheres. In Chapter 2, Gürkan Çelik focuses on the most important dynamics and developments of Turkish domestic politics in the post-2000 period. A key theme is the emergence of the growing power of the leader of the AKP, Recep Erdoğan. Çelik analyzes the mechanisms that have been used by the AKP to secure power and the consequences, including economic ramifications. For example, declining confidence in the Turkish economy has hurt external investment and spurred capital flight. In Chapter 3, Gürkan Çelik and Elvan Aktaş address the domestic and international fluctuations in the economy and discuss the analytic question of whether Turkey can get rich before it grows old. In addition to the Turkish economy’s dynamics and its structural realities, Mustafa Demir, in Chapter 4, analyzes the internal and external factors determining Turkey’s role in energy geopolitics and reviews Turkey’s energy strategy in light of the changing dynamics of global energy supply and distribution. Joost Jongerden, in Chapter 5, addresses one of the most pressing issues facing the Turkish political establishment: the status of the country’s 20 million Kurds. He argues that Turkish actions have framed this dynamic—complicated by the war in Syria—as a terror and security problem, producing a return to violence, hostilities, and continuing gross human rights violations. Nico Landman uses Chapter 6 to discuss the growing role of Islam as a social and political force under AKP rule, with a focus on the changing role of the Diyanet as a political surrogate for the Turkish government. Landman also describes the position of other religious groups and institutions, and Gürkan Çelik and Paul Dekker, in Chapter 7, examine the role and the fragmentation of the civil society more broadly in light of recent events. They question whether or not civil society has the potential

Outline of the Book and a Review of Factors

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to play a key role in today’s Turkey, in particular in its democratic developments. In Chapter 8, Jenny White discusses the position of women. She considers their current precarious position in the new Turkey and how this relates to the legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Her chapter asks what the measures and proposals of the present government’s orientation will mean for the future societal position of women. Turkey, of course, is not alone in this world. Quite the opposite. Its geographic position and size give it a centrality that instills in its domestic and international actions an importance and an impact that is both an advantage (for bargaining) and a curse (for often unwanted attention). Ronald H. Linden begins Part 2 of the volume by describing the regional and global changes that have created a dangerous milieu for this strategic “middle power.” He demonstrates how Ankara asserts its policy preferences in a way that serves its needs but not always those of its partners. Among those partners, the United States stands as the one with the most enduring—if also the most tested—relationship. Henri J. Barkey’s approach to Turkish foreign policy in Chapter 10 focuses not on a particular partner but on the factor he sees as key to understanding the changes in Turkish policy: the power, personality, and especially the perceptions of Recep Erdoğan, once prime minister, now president. It is his worldview—and the accumulation of power enabling him to act on it—that is the key variable in Turkey’s international interactions. Aaron Stein, in Chapter 11, shows that the current conflict in Turkey’s neighbors, especially Syria and Iraq, has put Washington and Ankara at loggerheads as never before, even to the point where force has been threatened between these longtime NATO allies. Bill Park’s discussion in Chapter 12 of Turkey’s policies in the Middle East reinforces this view and complements it by including the perspective of former foreign and prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. To this tightly framed focus on the role of individuals, Joris Van Bladel in Chapter 13 adds the broad sweep of history. He argues that TurkishRussian relations are essentially a replay of the multisided battle among powers for influence in the Middle East, one in which the central conflict was between the declining but still dangerous Russian and Ottoman empires. While the twenty-first-century world is not that of the nineteenth, this comparison obliges us to consider long-standing factors (such as the role of Western powers) that affected the previous outcome and might play a role in its modern analog. For a time, the Western power most in focus for Turkish foreign policy was the European Union. Turkey first applied to join the European Community even before there was an EU. Years later, after eight western and seven postcommunist eastern European countries joined, Turkey is still waiting. In Chapter 14 Hanna-Lisa Hauge, Funda Tekin, and Wolfgang Wessels approach in a unique way a topic that has drawn a great deal of scholarly attention. They sketch out three scenarios that illustrate the possible future course of Turkish-EU relations and then explain what develop-

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ments and “drivers” will most likely hold sway. Thus, while Joris Van Bladel draws on comparisons with the past, Hauge, Tekin, and Wessels cast possible futures and then illustrate how this helps understand the present. In Chapter 15, Juliette Tolay shows how Turkish views of how to handle migration across political boundaries have been—and continue to be— an instrument of foreign policy. More significantly, Tolay shows that, as it tries to protect its own borders, and with nearly 4 million refugees from the war in neighboring Syria, Ankara is forced into a philosophical trade. It abandons its own model of migration control to reinforce the EU’s orientation in return for pledges from Brussels to bring it closer to the EU. Taken together, the chapters of this volume offer us a range of factors that we can keep in mind in our analysis of Turkey’s past, present, and future. Table 1.1 provides a list of the key factors and actors the authors identify as operating in the spheres they cover. While such a list is of necessity incomplete, it may nevertheless serve as a guide both to the emphases of our authors and to future examination of a complex country, its people, and its interactions with the world. How all of these may interact and with what effect is tackled by Gürkan Çelik and Ronald H. Linden in the concluding chapter. At the end of the book, a chronology of key events in the history of modern Turkey provides pointers for Turkey’s turbulent journey.

Table 1.1 Factors and Actors in Turkish Dynamics Domestic Developments Chapter

Authors

Outcomes

3

Çelik, Aktaş

Economic policy

4

Demir

Energy policy

2

Çelik

Domestic politics

Key Factors

Key Actors

Charismatic leadership Erdoğan Changes in political order Economic dynamics (e.g., presidential system), Rise of political Islam and the state, and society nationalism Political leaders and parties State institutions (e.g., military, police, MİT) Elections and referenda Opposition (e.g., media, market, politics) Economic changes Erdoğan Structural realities AKP ministries and Big ambitions (e.g., municipalities education, investments, Capital markets and demographics) Central Bank Geopolitics and strategies Russia and Middle Energy security Eastern states Strategic location European Union and Political developments member states State-owned and private companies (e.g., TÜPRAŞ, Botaş, Petrol Ofisi)

continues

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Table 1.1 Continued Domestic Developments (cont.) Chapter 5

6 7 8

Authors

Outcomes

Key Factors

Jongerden Policy toward Leadership strategies Kurds Failed negotiations PKK-terror Landman Role of Islamic society religion State use of Islam Religious movements (e.g., Gülen) Çelik, Changes in Political polarization Dekker civil society Social cohesion White Changing role Socioeconomic position of of women women Violence against women State policies

Key Actors

AKP HDP PKK Diyanet Religious groups Nongovernmental institutions Civil society organizations Media outlets AKP governments Universities and media NGOs, including women’s associations

External Developments 9

Linden

10

Barkey

11

12

13 14 15

Notes

Stein

Foreign relations

Foreign relations Relations with the United States Foreign relations with the Middle East

Changes in external Erdoğan environment Political parties Changes in governing system Domestic power structure Erdoğan

Views of national interest Institutional forces External developments Park Geopolitical orientation Changes in domestic power structure External events (e.g., Arab Spring) Van Relations with Imperial “nostalgia” Bladel Russia Frustration with West Charismatic leadership Hauge, Turkey and Turkish identity Tekin, the EU EU views of Turkey Wessels Domestic changes Bilateral ties Tolay Turkish Eurocentrism migration Foreign policy goals policy External events (e.g., flow of refugees)

Internal bureaucracies YPG, ISIS

Erdoğan Davutoğlu AKP

Erdoğan Putin Davutoğlu Turkish government EU institutions and member states Turkish government AKP EU institutions

1. Authors in this volume use the terms AKP and AK Party interchangeably for the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi. 2. The seminal article on this concept is Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.” For a contemporary use of the term focusing on Turkey, see Öktem and Karabekir, “Exit from Democracy: Illiberal Governance in Turkey and Beyond.”

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3. Mounk and Foa, “The End of the Democratic Century”; Bermeo, “On Democratic Backsliding.” 4. For more details on Turkey’s modern history, see Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History; Karpat, Ottoman Past and Today’s Turkey; Berkes, The Development of Secularism in Turkey. 5. Clark, Twice a Stranger. 6. An example being the infamous British-French Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, which secretly divided much of the Arab territory then under Ottoman rule. 7. Religious organizations and institutions were terminated, and a central administrative body (the Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) was created to oversee Islamic education and affairs. 8. Lagendijk, “Erdoğan en de AKP in perspectief.” 9. Kösebalaban, Turkish Foreign Policy. 10. Özel, State-Business Alliances and Economic Development. 11. Özgürel, “Kürt Sorununda Kavşak”; Orhan, Political Violence and Kurds in Turkey. 12. The PKK was formed as a Marxist Leninist organization using violence as a means to achieve its political objectives (see Marcus, Blood and Belief). 13. In 1983 Turkish Cypriots declared independence and formed the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti). It has been recognized only by Turkey, which maintains some 30,000 troops there. 14. Tocci and Walker, “From Confrontation to Engagement.” 15. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History. 16. Turan, Turkey’s Difficult Journey to Democracy, p. 169; Nas, Tracing the Economic Transformation of Turkey from the 1920s to EU Accession, p. 107. 17. Such an economic order (adil düzen) refers to Erbakan’s idea of a mechanism that operates on a separate economic system based on the principle of Islam. He introduced this as an alternative to the systems of capitalism and socialism. 18. In 1923 the first constitution prepared by the official establishment of the Republic of Turkey did not include a ban, but then there were no employees with headscarves in public institutions. The headscarf discussion began with the increase in the number of headscarved university students in the first half of the 1960s after the victory of Menderes’s Democratic Party. 19. The 1997 military memorandum refers to decisions issued by the Turkish military leadership at a National Security Council meeting on February 28. This memorandum initiated the process that led to the resignation of Erbakan’s Welfare Party and the end of his coalition government. 20. Linden, “Battles, Barrels and Belonging.” 21. Evin, “Changing Greek Perspectives on Turkey.” 22. The government’s declaration used the term “state of emergency” (olağanüstü hâl, or OHAL, in Turkish, which literally means “extraordinary situation”). It has also been referred to as a “state of exception,” which means in the Turkish context, that even after the order expires the Turkish government or presidency continues to apply similar policies and regulations for fighting terrorism. In the situation of the latter, the balance of the relationship among individual rights and freedoms and the authority of state organs is significantly altered, and executive organs gain more power; human rights and freedom of enterprise, as a consequence, have come under pressure. 23. This number includes state officials, teachers, bureaucrats, and academics who were dismissed by the government’s decrees. See Turkey Purge (www.turkeypurge.com). 24. OSCE, “Statement of Preliminary Findings and Preliminary Conclusions.” 25. Kaylan, “The New Wave of Elected Dictatorships.” 26. The MİT is the Turkish equivalent of the CIA and serves as the government’s intelligence-gathering organization. It operates directly under the president of Turkey in the new governmental system.

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27. Gall, “Erdogan, Flush with Victory.” In its 2019 report, Freedom House rated Turkey as “Not Free” with a total democracy score of 31 out of a possible 100 (most free). See “Freedom in the World 2019: Turkey,” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse .org/report/freedom-world/2019/turkey. 28. ISIL is the abbreviation for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS); it is also referred to by its official name, the Islamic State (IS), and by its Arabic language acronym Daesh.

PART 1 Dynamics at Home

2 Domestic Politics in the AKP Era Gürkan Çelik

social, and political dynamics challenge observers and policymakers alike. Turkey is at once secular and Muslim, Western and Eastern, democratic and authoritarian.1 It is, on the one hand, an Ottoman republic that encompasses an Islamic heritage and, on the other hand, a modern republic that has nevertheless undergone interventions against the country’s elected leadership since its multiparty period in 1946. Turkish society is divided economically and ideologically but apparently united around the rule of one man, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, just as it was in Turkey’s first period under its founder and first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. From its establishment in 1923 to 1946, Turkey was a one-party state governed by the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP),2 founded by Atatürk; in fact, he was the absolute ruler who, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire until his death in 1938, wanted to elevate modern Turkey to the level of contemporary civilizations and would simply brook no dissent. Similarly, since Erdoğan’s first electoral victory in 2002, Turkey has increasingly been dominated by him, the founding leader of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP).3 The widespread argument is that the very nature of Turkey’s government is currently undergoing a vast transformation process characterized by multiple internal issues and relatively few positive developments.4 Events such as the Taksim Gezi Park protests in 2013, the corruption probes around Erdoğan and his family and ministers, and the backlash after the failed July 2016 military coup have massively polarized Turkish society. Following the coup attempt, the ruling AKP declared a state of emergency (OHAL)5 and extended it at regular intervals seven times. In July 2018, Erdoğan lifted it after he and

Turkey has always been difficult to decode. Its historical,

19

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his AKP secured a victory in parliamentary and presidential elections. However, the state of emergency was replaced by a new set of antiterror laws that apply similar security measures in the country.6 During the two-year state of emergency, the AKP government embarked on a cleansing operation of state institutions, sacking over 500,000 people in the army, police, schools, universities, and judiciary.7 Numerous people are incarcerated, media outlets have been closed down, and many journalists critical of the government have been arrested. Schools and universities, charities, television channels, and other media companies have been seized, while opposition groups in parliament and society have been suppressed. Confidence in the Turkish state and economy has declined, which has hindered or delayed foreign and domestic investments.8 There has also been an exodus from Turkey to the West.9 In the postcoup crackdown, roughly 30,000 Turkish nationals have applied for asylum in countries of the European Union, mostly in Germany, Greece, and France, with nearly 1,200 going to the Netherlands.10 Including emigration to Canada and the United States, the number of people fleeing Turkey has exceeded 50,000 since the coup attempt in 2016. Moreover, the Kurdish issue remains unresolved in Turkey, and the war against the Kurdish militia (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK]) has been stepped up. The Kurdish peace process has ground to a standstill. The Turkish army has become involved in the war in neighboring Syria. Besides, Turkey has suffered many terrorist attacks. By one estimate, roughly 5,000 people were killed or injured by more than 150 terrorist attacks from 2014 to 2019.11 These tensions have been attributed to internal political developments and regional conflicts and exacerbated by the pace at which Turkey appears headed toward an authoritarian regime. Still, there is substantial electoral and social support for Erdoğan and his actions. This chapter describes the key constants and continuities since the AKP victory in 2002 that have led to the most significant developments, dynamics, and directions for Turkey’s immediate and longer-term future (see Figure 2.1).

Key Changes and Actors in the Domestic Environment in the AKP Era Changes in Political Order The political scene changed dramatically after 2002. The parties of the “old Turkey” were washed away, and a new party, Erdoğan’s AKP, earned a majority in the Turkish parliament. Thanks to the electoral threshold of 10 percent and the vote-redistribution system,12 the AKP garnered more than 60 percent of parliamentary seats with 50 percent of the vote and managed to form a majority government after decades of fragile rule by coalition

Domestic Politics in the AKP Era

21

Figure 2.1 Key Dynamics in Turkey’s Domestic Politics

governments. The party repeated its electoral victories in the parliamentary elections of 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2018 and thus gained a leading position in Turkish politics. The prime minister, the president of the Turkish parliament, and the president of the Republic of Turkey itself have come from among its ranks for the last seventeen years (since 2002). Several fundamental factors account for this rise to prominence. First was the AKP government’s highly successful economic policy. The party came to power soon after a period of instability and economic decline, stabilized the situation, and profitably promoted economic growth and the investment climate in the country.13 A second factor was a mix of Erdoğan’s charisma, popularity, and leadership; he was especially popular among excluded groups in Istanbul and the rural areas of Anatolia.14 The overwhelming majority of religious, conservative Muslims in Turkey had no say in Ankara and were not involved in Turkish politics.15 And a third factor was the absence of a strong opposition on the political landscape. The political system was fragmented and frozen.16 The Kemalists, represented by the CHP, have been the primary opposition group in parliament during AKP rule. Other groups are the nationalists (the Nationalist Movement Party [Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP], since 2018 also the Good Party [İYİ Parti]) and pro-Kurd deputies represented since 2012 by the People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP).17 Since the 1990s, there has not been a traditional social

22

Gürkan Çelik

democratic Left, as in Italy and Germany.18 Yet, in the current sociopolitical constellation in Turkey, one might argue that no one could win a (significant) minority against Erdoğan. Some polls support this argument: the Turkish electorate is 50 percent anti-Erdoğan, 70 percent anti-CHP (Kemalists), 80 percent anti-HDP (Kurdish nationalists), and 85 percent anti-MHP or anti-İYİ (Turkish and ultra-nationalists).19 In 2013, two major events affected Turkish politics: the Gezi Park protests starting in May and the corruption scandals in December. Both events led the AKP to change its course away from democratization of Turkey and resonated in the national and international media and politics. The Gezi Park protests started by a group of environmentalists were initially against cutting down the trees and the replacement of a rare green zone in Taksim with a replica of the historic Ottoman Military Barracks (demolished in 1940) that would house a huge shopping mall and luxury residences on its upper floors. The violent political reaction by the AKP government to the initial demonstrators led to such resentment that the government’s popularity fell by almost seven percentage points. Soon after, many other opposition groups with little or no real influence in the political arena entered Taksim Square, and the nature of the demonstrations changed. Destructive protests and clashes with the police followed, not only in Istanbul’s Taksim Square but also in many Turkish cities. The Gezi Park protest movement resulted in the creation of an opposition (an amalgam of different organizations, some violent) that nevertheless could not find enough popular support. The government (especially Erdoğan) used these events to evoke fear of chaos at a time “when everything was going well in the country.”20 The conspiracy theory put forth by Erdoğan claimed that the Gezi incident was not a homegrown protest movement but the plot of foreign forces and their local accomplices to destabilize Turkey. 21 The AKP grassroots and their supporters accepted this, and the 7 percent decline in support evaporated to carry the popularity level of the party to nearly 50 percent by the end of July 2013 (see below). In the same year, in December, Turkish police undertook a series of operations on bribery, corruption, fraud, money laundering, and gold smuggling directed against Erdoğan’s sons, several family members of cabinet ministers, and a number of businesspeople around the AKP, including Süleyman Aslan, director of the state-owned Halkbank, and Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab.22 In response, the AKP government published a decree removing 350 police officers from their positions, including the chiefs of the units dealing with financial crimes, smuggling, and organized crime.23 Erdoğan, then prime minister, tried to paint the corruption investigation as a “judicial coup” backed by foreigners.24 But the corruption probes dominated Turkish domestic politics for a long time, resulting in major losses for the AKP during the elections of June 2015.

Domestic Politics in the AKP Era

23

Following the elections, the AKP remained the biggest party but for the first time since 2002 no longer held a majority in the Turkish parliament.25 Several factors contributed to this decline in support: corruption became increasingly overt, economic growth lagged, and unemployment was increasing. At the same time, foreign capital investment began to decline, and many Turkish citizens were killed in the fight against the PKK and other terrorist organizations. After the elections, no coalition was possible, and after years of relative calm in southeastern Turkey, violence resumed in the Kurdish areas of the country. Snap elections were held in November 2015, and Erdoğan was able to regain an absolute majority in parliament.26 The AKP attracted nationalists from the MHP and conservative Kurds from the HDP who hoped that the Kurdish problem would be solved. Against the HDP, and to push them below the 10 percent election threshold, the AKP used force and intimidation; for example, in 2016 parliament lifted the immunity of HDP’s MPs and began arresting the leadership of the party on claims of terrorist involvement. The MHP, Turkey’s leading nationalist opposition, by contrast, was co-opted. The AKP allied with the MHP and its leader, Devlet Bahçeli, in the elections and referenda, making it more likely for nationalist voters to defect to the AKP.27 Erdoğan enjoys full support from Bahçeli for the operations against the Kurdish groups in Syria, Iraq, and eastern Turkey. To legitimate and strengthen his ability to shape Turkey’s political system further, Erdoğan has used elections and referenda skillfully. For example, Bahçeli’s party, the MHP, supported two referenda and allied with the AKP for the elections in 2018 and 2019.28 The first referendum, held in September 2010, aimed to change the National Constitution of 1980 to weaken the bureaucratic and military control of elected politicians.29 Erdoğan won that referendum with 58 percent. He used this victory to strengthen the position of the AKP and to alter the political system (see below). A second referendum— held in April 2017 and also won by the AKP with 51 percent—created a Turkish-style presidential system. This provided the legal backing to allow Erdoğan to change Turkey from a parliamentary republic into a presidential one. He gained executive power to rule the country without a cabinet or government that was politically responsible primarily to the Turkish parliament. Changes in State and Society The greatest factor in the AKP’s success was its financial and economic policy, which ensured that the Turkish economy grew considerably over a decade. From 2002 to 2011, the gross domestic product (GDP) annual growth rate was 5.3 percent, on average. For a time in 2011, Turkey was the fastestgrowing economy in the world. The national income per head in Turkey tripled from US$3.516 in 2002 to US$11.5223 in 2015, and Turks’ purchasing power went up by 38 percent. Only Russia did better in that decade.30

24

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Many Turks saw their lives improve significantly. A larger middle class had more to spend, and even a large part of the people who did not benefit from the economic growth were convinced that their children would. In addition, the government made visible improvements in infrastructure such as roads and public transportation and ensured better access to and quality of health care and education. During this period, the AKP worked for the reduction of the role of the army in politics, the gradual fulfillment of Kurdish demands in the field of language and culture, and a general expansion of democratic freedoms. In public politics, the AKP combined the traditional attraction of the conservative majority of the Turkish electorate to center-right parties with the conservative social activism of the Islamist parties in which most of the AKP leaders had grown up politically. In this respect, Erdoğan sees himself as the successor of Adnan Menderes and Turgut Özal. For him and many AKP supporters, there is a direct connection between these leaders, each of whom, in his own way, joined the established elite in Turkey. Both appealed to and relied on the religious majority among the Turkish population. The religious-nationalist movements utilize Islamic discourse to garner popular support in the political and public arena, are composed exclusively of Muslims, and are, in general, reactionary or revolutionary. 31 They seek to correct the fact that religious people were generally not allowed to hold high positions in the state, army, or universities. They were not allowed a strong position in the media to express themselves publicly and had no say about what the state did for decades. The restrictions were reinforced by periodic interventions into the political system by the country’s military. For the AKP the presence of such forces in the Turkish electorate has been a great opportunity. It is thus no wonder that the AKP remains particularly attractive for three distinct social groups.32 First, the new Anatolian bourgeoisie, economically liberal but socially conservative, receives access to power in Ankara. Second, the AKP has made the lifestyle of the Muslim middle class acceptable and has broken the cultural dominance of the old secular elite. Third, for the least fortunate, the AKP has been willing to challenge established power and able to enforce social gains or, for the Kurds, recognition of their ethnic identity. Erdoğan’s speaking Kurdish in the parliament served as a typical example of the elimination of barriers to Kurdish-language broadcasts and education. All three groups have long felt excluded by a Turkish state run by Kemalists. The general conviction among Turkish voters is that the AKP has put an end to their historical exclusion. More interestingly, the AKP is the first center-right party that has managed not only to win elections but also to take over the Turkish state from its previous overseers: the Kemalists. The old contradiction between elected politicians and the self-proclaimed defenders of the secular, Kemalist state

Domestic Politics in the AKP Era

25

no longer exists. The army, for example, has been subordinated to politics, many AKP appointments and political preferences have changed the composition of the judiciary, and the same now applies, after seventeen years of AKP rule, to the bureaucracy in Ankara. Another example is the Diyanet, Turkey’s state institution for religious affairs, which has increasingly become a political instrument for the AKP government. The Diyanet controls Muslim groups and the Turkish diaspora through its mosque organizations.33 As an illustration, on the night of the attempted military coup in July 2016, people took to the streets in large numbers, answering the calls not only of Erdoğan but also from the Diyanet mosques controlled by the AKP government. Furthermore, the Diyanet’s exclusivity as a Sunni and state organization reflects the bias of the Republican state toward religious standardization, excluding other believers.34 Such institutions strengthen the politics and policies of the AKP. At the same time, social and religious groups that do not support Erdoğan have been systematically harassed or even silenced in society, the state, and the political system. For example, the Young Party (Genç Parti) received almost 7.5 percent of the vote in the 2002 parliamentary elections. After the elections, the leader of the party, Cem Uzan, was sued (unsuccessfully) for insulting Prime Minister Erdoğan, and the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey (Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu, TMSF)35 assumed ownership of Uzan’s companies (Star TV and the Star newspaper) and later sold them.36 In Erdoğan’s second term starting in 2007, the Kemalists and some nationalist-Islamist opposition parties were weakened further in their power in the state and society.37 In this period, the AKP, with the help of the Sunni-oriented Gülen group and its cadres, took over critical positions in the state apparatus.38 In the AKP’s third term beginning in 2011, the Gülen movement notably but not surprisingly became the next target. The movement’s leading person, Fethullah Gülen, who has resided in the United States since 1999, began to criticize Erdoğan’s domestic and international politics and policies more publicly and aggressively. The Gezi Park protests and the corruption scandals were all significant excuses for Erdoğan to purge this faith-based group from both state and society. In addition to the police, the army, and the Diyanet, other influential bodies in the state, such as the Constitutional Court 39 and the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı, MİT) 40 have been taken over by Erdoğan and AKP supporters, including Doğu Perinçek, who has been serving as chairman of the left-wing nationalist Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi, VP). Since the fourth term starting in 2015, Erdoğan and his AKP have focused on weakening or eliminating the opposition of the Kurds in addition to the Gülen group. To this end, the leadership of HDP in the parliament has been dealt with harshly, and military operations have been

26

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increased against Kurdish groups inside and outside Turkey. 41 Following the coup attempt of 2016, the state of emergency declared by the AKP government allowed the Turkish executive to rule the country for two years with no parliamentary intervention even before Erdoğan’s installation as the new executive president of Turkey in July 2018. He is the supreme military commander of the Turkish Armed Forces (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri, TSK). The AKP has used the coup attempt as an opportunity to further weaken the opposition in the media and civil society, largely eliminating them from the state and the business world. The fifth and most recent term began under the presidential system just after the June elections in 2018. President Erdoğan now has the sole power to dissolve parliament, issue executive decrees, and impose a state of emergency. The prime minister position no longer exists. But Erdoğan entered his new term in the midst of a financial and economic crisis.42 Economic Decline and Currency Crisis As noted, Turkey did exceptionally well in the first fifteen years of the new millennium. Even the global financial crisis after 2008 did not stop the growth of the Turkish economy. Inflation decreased from 55 percent in 2001 to less than 10 percent in 2004. During the 2002–2015 period, the Turkish government introduced new regulations for the banking system, opted for fiscal discipline, and privatized state enterprises. The accession negotiations with the EU were an extra incentive to improve the quality of the economy and Turkey’s institutions. At the same time, the economic relationship with Europe began to change. The Turkish economy became less dependent on Europe. Exports to the EU dropped from 57 percent in 2002 to 39 percent in 2012. This was partly because more Turkish firms were selling products to countries in the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and North Africa.43 Building on reforms begun under Turgut Özal, Turkey moved from a closed to a more open economy. Despite a series of terrorist attacks and ever-increasing and unpredictable shocks from domestic political instability in Turkey’s postcoup crackdown, the total contribution of travel and tourism to the country’s GDP remained around 12 percent in the AKP era.44 These developments reinforced the position of Erdoğan and the ruling AKP. Erdoğan received a third of the popular vote in 2003 when he became prime minister; he had the support of 46 percent five years later and of half the voters in 2011. He gained 51.5 percent of the votes in favor of the presidential referendum in 2017. He repeated his electoral success on June 24, 2018, being reelected as the president of Turkey with more than 52.5 percent of the votes, and secured 42.5 percent of the seats in the parliament.45 However, this economic growth also had some negative aspects. Labor standards in Turkey are weak, and the gap between rich and poor has increased somewhat. Other shortcomings include the poor quality of the

Domestic Politics in the AKP Era

27

education system, the lack of an independent judiciary, low productivity, and insufficient foreign investment. Turkey needs significant new foreign direct investment (FDI) to meet its ambitious development goals as well as finance its current account deficit. Over the last years, FDI inflows decreased from roughly US$14 billion in 2012 to US$11 billion in 2017.46 In the same period, the FDI outflows declined from roughly US$4 billion to US$3 billion. But after the failed military coup in July 2016, investors in Turkey became increasingly wary and started to leave the country. Remarkably, in the AKP era, Turkey’s total foreign debt has increased from US$130 billion in 2002 to US$460 billion in 2018.47 Critics point to elements such as the old boys’ network, corruption, and authoritarian interference from government as hindering economic growth and stability.48 The grip of Turkey’s banking watchdog, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (Bankacılık Düzenleme ve Denetleme Kurumu, BDDK), on private banks and many well-known holdings and companies has shocked foreign investors. Under a new system, the preferred shares of these banks—and their shareholders consisting of large firms—are all transferred to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey. Within eight months after the attempted military coup in 2016, 879 companies (worth a total of 40.3 billion Turkish lira, roughly €10 billion in that period) were transferred to the TMSF.49 Also, Turkish investors are seeking safe havens abroad. Through 2009, outward foreign direct investments by Turkish business amounted to US$19.9 billion; by 2017 this had increased to US$34 billion. Nearly three-quarters of the total capital outflow in Turkey’s ninetysix-year history has occurred in the last five years. The Turkish lira has weakened dramatically against foreign currencies. The worsening international environment for Turkey, including the persistent political turmoil in the Middle East,50 has reversed years of market and investment growth there. All these developments hurt the appeal of the Turkish economy.51 The Rise of Islamism, Nationalism, and Militarism With Erdoğan’s AKP, religion has again entered Turkey’s political arena and become an influential factor. Discussions of Turkey often center on the question of Islam’s—especially political Islam’s—position in society and state. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the new Kemalist regime had a secular character and purged Islamic motifs from the public sphere. The Sheikh al-Islam52 (the administrator of religious affairs on behalf of the Ottoman sultan) was replaced by a new body, the Diyanet, or the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs. Some other measures—such as dress codes banning the traditional headscarf, the replacement of the Arabic with the Latin alphabet, and the introduction of the European calendar and European clocks—had an indirect impact on the personal lives of people from all lifestyles during that time, and not all of it was welcomed. In the multiparty

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period (beginning roughly in 1946), greater freedoms for religious life emerged. For example, freedom of religious education grew, and the ban on the Arabic call to prayer was lifted. People, including religious people, gained more space for their practices in the public sphere.53 Political Islam has always been a source of conflict in Turkey, and with the AKP, it is now again at the center of public debates and increasingly dominates daily life. As a result of sociopolitical changes and the new legal frameworks, some religious-oriented groups, such as the Milli Görüş (National Outlook) movement led by Necmettin Erbakan, used political Islam to try to secure a greater hold on society and power. They concentrated on religious education and established Islamic centers. Those Islamic groups evolved into political parties such as the AKP based on their political ideologies. Now, as a ruling party, AKP has blended nationalism and Islam to create an exceptional security atmosphere. It argues through the media that external actors are conspiring with internal actors against Turkey. Such a discourse has polarized the society deeply. Erdoğan has appealed to the nationalists and Islamists, who together form 50 percent of the electorate. He has positioned himself skillfully as the “protector” of the Turkish nation. The AKP leadership, under Erdoğan’s control, changed the internal structure of the party in a way reminiscent of the period of one-party rule in the early years of the republic. Political rhetoric similarly frames Erdoğan’s discourse: the “new” Turkey is a “great” country rooted in Islam and will be a leading world power, but Turkey is blocked and destroyed by “external” enemies and their “internal” marionettes. In addition to political Islam, a constant in Turkish politics is nationalism, which in the AKP period can be divided into three types: Turkish, Kurdish, and Islamic. The question for the future is whether a resurgence of any or all of these nationalisms will lead to unity or division. Turkish nationalism is part of the political ideology of the overwhelming majority of Turks. It promotes and glorifies the Turkish people as a national, ethnic, or linguistic group. In parliament, the MHP and part of the AKP represent this ideology. The rise of different conceptions of Turkish nationalism, such as Muslim or Islamic nationalism, has shifted the official state discourse.54 The notion of a “Turkish Islam” forms part of this Turkish nationalistic discourse. Challenging the secular or Kemalist nationalism, this view emphasizes Muslim identity as the key element in defining Turkishness and togetherness. Accordingly, the ideal Turk should have a strong moral character informed by Sunni Islamic values. Kemalist nationalists are criticized for being elitist and imitative, forcing people to change their authentic selves in the name of westernization. They are blamed for Turkey’s loss of status in the international arena. Muslim nationalists, represented by the AKP, endorse this strong sense of victimhood and present themselves as the genuine example of the Turkish nation.55

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The second and more alarming type is Kurdish nationalism. This is the ideology of some political groups and armed groups, such as the PKK, that fight for an independent Kurdistan, which would include part of eastern Turkey and the Kurds in neighboring Iran, Iraq, and Syria.56 In the Turkish parliament, Turkey’s roughly 15 million Kurdish citizens are primarily represented by the HDP, followed by the AKP.57 Since the 1980s, more than 8,000 civil servants, including soldiers and teachers, have died in the fight against the PKK, with a similar number of civilian deaths. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds and tens of thousands of Assyrians58 in the region had to leave their villages and towns; some were arrested or obliged to emigrate to other cities or to Europe.59 Both the Turkish and Kurdish peoples have suffered most dramatically from the clashing nationalist ideals of politicians who favor a homogeneous Turkey or an independent Kurdistan instead of a multiethnic democratic Turkey. As to Islamic nationalism (or pan-Islamism), Turkey under Erdoğan’s AKP has also placed more emphasis on advocating the unity of Muslims and often, but not always, a restored caliphate. In December 2017, Erdoğan hosted an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation in Istanbul in order to denounce in a broad forum US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Furthermore, neo-Ottomanism appears to be another orientation of Erdoğan, which refers to Turkey’s impact on areas that were previously part of the Ottoman Empire. The AKP’s ascension to power prompted a revival of Ottoman heritage that supported greater Turkish involvement in the Balkans, the Maghreb, and the Middle East.60 The power inherent in the idea of nationalism is used both positively and negatively by the AKP. Nationalism has been used to spur pride in Turkey and its diaspora. Such notions can be a cause for solidarity and ensure a beneficial strength. Negative nationalism, however, involves considering one’s own particular race or group to be superior and usually is accompanied by the identification of an “enemy” and an “other.” 61 Erdoğan has used the former as a means for further strengthening the notion of “Islamic brotherhood” and “togetherness” among his people. He supported, for example, Kurdish identity and put through improvements in their cultural rights because they are Muslim. But both before and after the failed 2016 coup attempt, he increasingly excluded groups such as secularists, Alevis, and Gülenists. Erdoğan also routinely blames the country’s problems on foreign enemies, the United States, “financial circles,” and a range of hostile forces. At the same time, there has been a rise in terrorism and the corresponding militarism. After the AKP lost its parliamentary majority in June 2015 and the pro-Kurdish HDP party reached the electoral threshold, Turkey experienced increased terrorism and tensions in various Turkish cities.

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The AKP decided to break off peace negotiations with Kurdish groups and instead focused on a military response to the Kurdish conflict both within and outside Turkey’s borders. Thus the fight against the Islamic State (IS) has been combined with that against growing Kurdish power in the region, leaving Turkey fighting two simultaneous wars: one in Syria against IS and one in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq against the PKK. Since Erdoğan’s presidency began on August 28, 2014, Turkey has repeatedly been plagued by terrorism. Since then, more than 2,000 people, including civilians, soldiers, and police officers, have been killed, and roughly 3,000 were injured in Turkey in over 150 terrorist attacks. 62 The opposition has accused the AKP of using the fight against IS principally as an excuse to attack Kurdish separatist groups and to build support for the AKP and Erdoğan’s preferred constitutional changes. The AKP electoral victory in November 2015 has been attributed to this more aggressive policy.63 Moreover, terrorism and government military actions inside and outside Turkey (in Iraq and Syria) also intensified before and after the failed coup attempt in July 2016. Along with cracking down politically, attacking Kurds in Syria, brushing aside US assurances, and risking clashes with Russia, militarization has become the preferred strategy in the AKP’s postcoup Turkey.64 Increase in Corruption and Decrease in Freedom Another chronic issue facing Turkey is corruption. The politically dominant position of Erdoğan has limited government transparency and public control over government economic policies and spending. Governmental, supposedly independent, bodies such as the TMSF, the BDDK, and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Merkez Bankası, CBRT) are now stacked with AKP people, the aim being to limit the independence of these bodies. Such development principally worries internal and external investors, financiers, and businesspeople. Along with other restrictions on the media and civil society, the prevalence, tolerance, and even encouragement of corruption have stimulated a growing resistance against Erdoğan and the AKP. A nationwide wave of antigovernment demonstrations in the summer of 2013 beginning in Gezi Park in Istanbul and the corruption investigations in December of that year against businesspeople, such as Reza Zarrab, who were close to Erdoğan and his ministers increased political tension in Turkey. The economic impact was seen in the fall of stock prices, the flow of money from the country, and the decline in foreign investment. At one point, the government took steps to reduce corruption in Turkey and announced an anticorruption action plan in 2010. However, progress has been limited; the country continues to confront the challenges of rampant corruption, and existing anticorruption measures are seen as inadequate.65 Civil society organiza-

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tions have a limited role to play in policymaking (see below), and currently no mechanism enables citizens to monitor government commitments. One more significant development is the increase of restrictions on freedom in the media and academia. Freedom of expression, always a challenging issue in Turkey, is at present under considerable pressure. Erdoğan and his supporters currently control most of Turkey’s media outlets and universities. Before and after the failed military coup, there were deliberate attacks on media companies, and Turkey’s government under Erdoğan’s leadership is continually threatening media outlets to silence them to prevent scrutiny or criticism of its ruthless crackdown on perceived enemies.66 The AKP government’s attitude toward journalists, bloggers, newspaper editorial boards, magazines, television stations, and academic institutions is openly hostile. More than 2,500 journalists have been laid off because of closures, and 800 have had their press cards revoked, with many also having their passports confiscated.67 The 319 journalists now in prison in Turkey constitute the highest number in the world.68 This, to critics, is a direct consequence of the increasing power of the MİT, or Turkish intelligence services, following the creation of a security state. In addition to pressure and restrictions on commercial media, civilians are also subject to censorship, with Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube blocked on many occasions. In academia, as of March 2019, more than 6,000 people have lost their jobs by government decree in Turkey’s postcoup crackdown. Introducing the new regulation on Turkish higher education, President Erdoğan acquired the power to directly appoint the rectors of state universities without having to consider the preferences of academics working at those institutions. 69 More interestingly, Turkey’s president has been authorized also to name the rectors of private universities.70 This means increasing government control of Turkey’s top universities and decreasing academic freedom and quality. The Diminished Role of Civil Society Another underreported aspect of Turkey’s domestic crackdown is the weakened civil society. Like in many countries, Turkey’s entire civil society— everything between the individual and the state—has been increasingly limited since the Gezi Park protests in 2013. In the aftermath of the coup attempt in 2016, this trend was reinforced: tens of thousands of people were arrested or prosecuted in all sectors (i.e., educators, academics, journalists, volunteers, and human rights activists), and their civil society organizations were closed. Such practices are largely destroying the role of civil society in Turkey’s democracy.71 Thus a key question in the repressive new Turkey is: Can civil society save democracy in Turkey? This is theoretically possible because one critical function of civil society is to connect people, bringing together groups

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from distinct backgrounds or with differing opinions but shared ambitions. The actions of civil society can be seen in the form of informal networks, demonstrations, and nongovernmental institutions such as human rights organizations and good-governance groups. Civil society can also include more formal associations, interest groups, and employer and labor organizations, which are considered essential pillars of democracy, especially in situations involving ethnic and religious fragmentation. In the Turkish context, there is an ever-increasing politicization and polarization of society itself. This trend has strengthened enormously under Erdoğan’s rule, making it difficult for citizens to assume the position of neutrality that is needed for civil society organizations to be independent and effective. The actions and effects of civil society are by definition unpredictable, which means positive change could occur unexpectedly.72 For instance, civilians can bring about change simply by standing up against increasing limits on freedom of the press. The 2013 demonstrations in Gezi Park, the outcome of the elections in June 2015, and protests and reactions following Turkish police and army deaths in ongoing terrorist attacks are all expressions of the Turkish people’s desire to influence their country’s future by sharing political power within a democratic system. According to Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, “almost any criticism of government officials or policy is quickly recharacterized as a ‘threat to national security,’ ‘terrorist propaganda,’ an ‘insult’ or [a similar characterization].”73 People who criticize the Turkish government or its policy or support those who do so are also under direct threat of being accused or arrested. “It is an indirect form of censorship and consequently it has a chilling effect; that is, it inhibits or discourages others.”74 Thwarting civil society actors also “has a contagious effect” on Turkey’s economy and democracy75 because such actors, along with their organizations and the media, play an important role in checks and balances in the country and give confidence to investors and businesspeople. While civil society activism alone will not solve Turkey’s political problems or improve its democracy and economy, it is an integral part of the country’s development. As the subject of intense political controversies and heated debates, Turkey’s secular system can be seen as nearing its end or at least to be severely undermined. Atatürk’s foundational ideas are no longer an immutable component of Turkey’s politics. Indeed, Turkey is becoming a textbook example of an “illiberal democracy,”76 with marginalized minorities, no separation of powers, and the extinction of critical voices. These realities might suggest the transition of Turkey from a once malfunctioning liberal democracy toward a full-blown illiberal one. This is one of the

Concluding Reflections

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critical developments in contemporary Turkey that could change the Turkish political landscape for the foreseeable future. The other is the realignment of the political party landscape in the direction of a two-party system, along with a shift to a Turkish-style presidential system that includes more power for Erdoğan. Under the new constitutional system, almost no checks and balances constrain his powers. The parliament rubber-stamps Erdoğan’s presidential decrees and decisions, because his political alliance with the MHP ensures control of a majority of seats. Together with the AKP, these actors approve Erdoğan’s actions without significant challenge.77 In addition, Turkey has lacked a strong opposition during the seventeenyear rule of the AKP. This has impeded the democratic development of the country considerably. The dominant actor, the AKP, has been something of a “shape shifter.” It emerged as the agent of democratization in Turkey and, once in power, became an authoritarian party consolidating its power and control over the state, society, and politics. In domestic politics, AKP has shifted its stand on (religious) groups, seculars, and Kurds drastically. For many observers and experts, the solution lies in the further development of a free civil society, a constitutional state under the rule of law, and the economy. Empowering the nation by providing high-quality education, media independence, and a sense of living in a higher form of democracy may offer Turkey a way out of its current difficulties. The most important determining factor for Turkey’s immediate future will probably be the functioning of the economy. The story of Turkey’s economic miracle has changed dramatically, especially since 2013, when the controversy emerged over Erdoğan’s authoritarian stances, through the postcoup crackdown. With democracy ravaged, if not destroyed, the economic weakness may undermine his control over people in Turkey. The deteriorating investment climate and slowing growth have made it increasingly difficult for Turkey to find funding for vital needs, as foreign investors want political and social stability, an independent central bank, and a free judiciary for protection of their rights. The negative state of the economy may therefore force Erdoğan to revise his governing strategy. Just after his inauguration as president, he abolished the controversial two-year state of emergency. But his parliament also quickly passed new antiterrorism laws that allow the government to continue with oppression, to suspend people’s rights and freedoms, and to shut down their organizations and enterprises.78 Such actions are part of an important development in Turkish politics: the country’s transformation into a “security state,” based on the dominance of intelligence services in ruling the country. Turkey under Erdoğan has become a country where his partisans, supporters, intelligence agents, and security units are free, but for all others, freedom represents a dangerous risk.79 Moreover, given the fact that Erdoğan controls almost all the resources of the state and the media, including the electoral system, it

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appears that no one can effectively compete with him. He remains the most powerful actor in Turkish politics, both domestic and international.80 Still, the AKP is itself vulnerable. Although the largest party, it is not invincible. The increasing polarization and Islamism, along with the unresolved Kurdish problem and the economic downturn, could lead to more significant social and political cleavages in the larger society. With roughly 12 percent of the popular vote, the pro-Kurdish HDP has emerged as a force and a threat to the AKP’s majority, together with the secular CHP (23 percent) and the new nationalist İYİ Parti (10 percent) in the parliament. Although the political leaders of HDP have been arrested and the PKK’s use of terror has been suppressed, Kurdish conflict remains a major threat to Turkey. Turkey’s people are currently paying the price for the power they have delegated, over the past seventeen years, to a single political party that has applied a winner-take-all approach and sought no compromise with the roughly 50 percent of the electorate who do not support Erdoğan. Turkey’s vast potential is not in question, but the country—today under Erdoğan— is once again in a tight squeeze between the related problems of poverty, identity, economic and political struggle, and social discord. These issues can be overcome by sound education, a healthy economy, and open dialogue and democracy. While this is the responsibility not of the Turkish people alone but primarily of their political leaders and other leading figures in society and the state, one can hope that the people will have the final say in pushing for a new direction and the recovery of their economy and democracy, before the country ends up in some sort of “civil war.” And that requires considerable patience and vigilance.

Notes

I am grateful to Ronald H. Linden for his critical reflections on this chapter. 1. Morris, The New Turkey; Scott, The New Turkey. 2. The CHP was founded on September 9, 1923, just before the establishment of the Turkish Republic on October 29 in the same year. 3. The AKP was founded in August 2001 in the aftermath of “Black Wednesday” (February 19), which resulted in a great political and economic crisis in Turkey. 4. Waldman and Caliskan, The ‘New Turkey’ and Its Discontents; Phillips, An Uncertain Ally. 5. OHAL is the Turkish abbreviation for olağanüstü hâl (state of emergency). See note 22 of Chapter 1 by Linden and Çelik in this volume. 6. TRT World, “Turkey Continues Fight Against Terror After Lifting State of Emergency.” 7. As of March 4, 2019, 150,348 people have been sacked, with 6,021 academics and 4,463 judges and prosecutors dismissed; 500,650 people have been detained, and 85,998 have been arrested; 3,003 schools, dormitories, and universities have been closed; 189 media outlets have been shut down; and 319 journalists have been arrested. This figure includes state officials, teachers, bureaucrats, members of the security forces, and academics dismissed by government decrees since July 15, 2016 (see Turkey Purge, www.turkeypurge.com). 8. Çelik, Fennema, Huijzer, and Heemskerk,“The Ebb and Flow of Turkish Money: Investment and Ownership Ties.”

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9. The population of Turkish people living abroad exceeds 5.5 million, most of them in Western Europe (see Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Turkish Citizens Living Abroad”). 10. Statistics Netherlands, “Further Increase in Number of Turkish Asylum Seekers.” 11. See, e.g., Diken, “Terör bilançosu”; Barındık, “Türkiye’de yaşanan terör olayları”; Kırmızıgül, Güneşi Gördüm. As a result of almost thirty years of terrorism in Turkey, the government spent US$350 billion in order to resolve the problem in the southeastern part of the country. Roughly 32,000 Kurdish guerrillas and more than 6,000 members of Turkish security forces were killed, including the “village guards” (Korucular)—paramilitaries recruited by the Turkish state to act as a local militia in towns and villages, protecting against attacks and reprisals from the insurgents of the PKK. Moreover, about 5,600 people have gone missing, and 3,200 villages were evacuated. More than 2 million people were forced to migrate. 12. In Turkey’s multiparty system, parties that receive more than 10 percent of the vote in a general election are represented in parliament. The votes for those parties failing to make that threshold are redistributed among the winning parties. 13. Lagendijk, “Erdoğan en de AKP in perspectief,” p. 80. 14. Lagendijk, “Erdoğan en de AKP in perspectief,” pp. 80–81. 15. Çelik and Sunier, Het Nieuwe Turkije. 16. Özbudun, Party Politics and Social Cleavages in Turkey. 17. The MHP adheres to Turkish ultra-nationalism and euroskepticism. The HDP is a Kurdish-oriented political party. The İYİ Parti, founded by Meral Akşener in 2017, is ideologically a center-right political party—nothing new in Turkey—and for many, it is poised to become an alternative to the nationalist wing in the AKP camp. This new party earned 10 percent of the seats in the Turkish parliment. For the results of the parliamentary and presidential elections in 2018, see https://secim.haberler.com. 18. Öniş, “Conservative Globalists,” p. 257; Linden et al., Turkey and Its Neighbors, p. 69. 19. Gültekin, “Tayyip Erdoğan 2019 Seçimlerini de Kazanırsa Türkiye’ye Geçmiş Olsun.” 20. Çelik and Ergil, “The Socio-political Dimension of the Gülen Movement,” pp. 128–129. 21. Guardian, “Hundreds of Turkish Police Removed from Posts.” 22. Sloat, “Why Turkey Cares About the Trial of Reza Zarrab”; Orucoglu, “Why Turkey’s Mother of All Corruption Scandals Refuses to Go Away.” 23. BBC News, “Turkish Corruption Probe Row Deepens.” 24. Guardian, “Hundreds of Turkish Police Removed from Posts.” 25. The AKP (religious conservatives) received 40 percent, the CHP (Kemalists) 25, the MHP (nationalists) 16, and the HDP (Kurds, leftists) 13. 26. The AKP again won with almost 50 percent, and CHP support stabilized, but both the MHP (12 percent) and the HDP (11 percent) lost votes. 27. Reuters, “Dissidents in Turkey’s Nationalist Opposition”; Ibrahim, “Turkey’s RightWing Alliance.” 28. In addition to the June 24 elections, the AKP and the MHP formed another alliance for the March 2019 municipal elections. 29. The results showed that the majority supported the constitutional amendments, with 58 percent in favor and 42 percent against. The changes were aimed at bringing the constitution into compliance with EU standards. Supporters of Turkey’s EU membership hoped that constitutional reform would facilitate a successful membership effort. The CHP and MHP both opposed the process. Many civil society groups publicly declared their full support for the referenda in the name of democracy and delivering the state from the tutelage of the military and bureaucracy. It was obvious, however, that this election was not determined by the support of a particular political party. 30. Karagöl, “The Turkish Economy.” 31. Çelik, The Gülen Movement, p. 15. 32. Lagendijk, “Erdoğan en de AKP in perspectief,” pp. 81–82. 33. See Chapter 6 by Landman in this volume. 34. See Chapter 6 by Landman in this volume.

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35. The TMSF is the governing body on matters of fund management and insurance in the Turkish banking system. 36. New York Times, “Turkey Seizes 219 Companies.” 37. Suddenly, during Erdoğan’s second term, Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu—the leader and founder of the Great Unity Party (Büyük Birlik Partisi, BBP), a right-wing, nationalistIslamist party—vanished from the political scene. He went missing after his helicopter crashed in southeastern Turkey while he was campaigning for local elections. His body was found five days after the accident, but his mysterious death has been questioned, because many believed he would have competed with Erdoğan in the upcoming parliamentary elections. See Daily Telegraph, “Turkey’s Grand Unity Party Leader.” 38. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History. 39. The Constitutional Court (Anayasa Mahkemesi) is Turkey’s highest legal authority for constitutional review. If necessary, it also functions as the Supreme Criminal Court (Yüce Divan) to hear cases raised concerning the president of the republic, members of the Council of Ministers, or presidents and members of the high courts. 40. Erdoğan wanted the country’s armed forces and MİT brought under the president’s control in the wake of the coup attempt of 2016. A recent change to the Turkish constitution gives MİT the right to operate outside Turkey. MİT has roughly 8,000 staff. 41. See Chapter 5 by Jongerden in this volume. 42. See Chapter 3 by Çelik and Aktaş in this volume. 43. Kirişci, “Democracy Diffusion.” 44. WTTC, “Travel & Tourism Economic Impact 2017 Turkey.” 45. Secim.haberler.com, “2018 Seçim sonuçları.” 46. UNCTAD, “World Investment Report 2018,” p. 186. 47. See “Turkey Total Gross External Debt 2018,” Trading Economics, https:// tradingeconomics.com/turkey/external-debt. 48. Lindner, “Turkey: Overview of Corruption”; Phillips, An Uncertain Ally. 49. BBC Türkçe, “15 Temmuz’dan bu yana 879 şirket TMSF’ye devredildi.” 50. See Chapter 9 by Linden and Chapter 12 by Park in this volume. 51. See Chapter 3 by Çelik and Aktaş in this volume. 52. Turkish: şeyhülislam; English: “the Master of Islam.” 53. Çelik, The Gülen Movement, pp. 39–40. 54. White, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks. 55. Aslan, “Different Faces of Turkish Islamic Nationalism.” 56. The estimated population of the Kurds worldwide is 35 million, of which about 30 million live in the Middle East. See Gunter, The Kurds Ascending; Cook, Thwarted Dreams. 57. Özpek, “Paradigm Shift Between Turkey and the Kurds.” 58. Assyrians are also known as Syrian Orthodox Christians or Syriacs; their language and practices originated in early Christianity. See Minority Rights Group International, “World Directory of Minorities.” 59. Recent emigrations have resulted in a Kurdish diaspora of roughly 1.5 million people, about half of them in Germany. See CIA “Turkey.” 60. Bechev, Rival Power. 61. Spencer and Wollman, Nationalism. 62. The amount also includes the recent losses in the Syrian conflict. See, for more details, Diken, “Terör bilançosu”; Barındık, “Türkiye’de yaşanan terör olayları.” 63. Alabbasi, “Why Did Most of Turkey’s Lost Pro-Kurdish Votes Go to Ruling AK Party?” 64. See Chapter 5 by Jongerden in this volume. 65. Lindner, “Turkey: Overview of Corruption”; Phillips, An Uncertain Ally. 66. Human Rights Watch, Turkey: Silencing the Media; Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2018: Turkey Profile.” 67. Shaheen, “Revealed.” 68. Beiser, “Turkey: A Prison for Journalists.” See Turkey Purge (www.turkeypurge .com) as of March 2019.

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69. The regulation brings an end to the practice, introduced in 1992, whereby rector candidates are elected by the academics at the universities before being presented to the president, who can either accept the recommendation or choose another scholar as rector. 70. Hürriyet Daily News, “President Given Power to Directly Appoint Rectors.” The private universities’ boards of trustees are only able to make suggestions to the Council of Higher Education (Yükseköğretim Kurulu, YÖK), which defers the final decision to the president. As of 2019, Turkey had 206 universities, of which 129 were state universities (www.yok.gov.tr). 71. Allen, “Turkey’s Huge Crackdown.” 72. See Chapter 7 by Çelik and Dekker in this volume. 73. Allen, “Turkey’s Huge Crackdown.” 74. Buyse, “Trend: Civil Society Organisations.” 75. Buyse, “Trend: Civil Society Organisations.” 76. Stated by Joost Lagendijk at the conference “Turkey in Transition” held on November 15, 2016, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands (see the conference website, www .turkeyinstitute.org). The term illiberal democracy refers to a partial democracy, lowintensity democracy, empty democracy, hybrid regime, or guided democracy. Generally, although elections take place, citizens are cut off from knowledge about the activities of those who exercise real power because of the lack of civil liberties; thus, these are not “open societies” (see also note 2 in Chapter 1 of this volume). 77. Barkey, “L’État c’est Erdogan.” 78. Peterson, “Did Turkey End Its State of Emergency?” 79. Erdoğan, “Toward a Security State.” 80. On the latter, see Chapter 10 by Barkey in this volume.

3 Gains and Strains in the Economy Gürkan Çelik and Elvan Aktaş

millennium—just before Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) entered the political arena in 2002—the Turkish economy had reached a low point. There was an acute liquidity crisis. Turkey’s economy relied heavily on short-term capital inflows as its government and banking systems lacked the financial means to support economic growth. Demirbank, for example, failed and was transferred to the Savings Deposit Insurance Fund, a Turkish government body concerned with issues of fund management and bank restructuring if necessary. Unemployment jumped from 6.5 percent in 1999 to 10.4 percent in 2002—the year of the elections that marked the entrance of the AKP governments in Turkish politics.1 The Turkish lira lost about one-third of its value against the US dollar, mainly due to political uncertainty and heavy interventions, such as currency devaluations, by the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT).2 Despite the funds provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2001, the Turkish economy shrank by 5.3 percent in that year. Gross domestic product (GDP) per capita declined by 6.5 percent. There was also an increase in foreign divestment (capital outflows were US$14.5 billion), and public debt rose to 74 percent of GDP in 2001.3 Now Turkey is once again on the verge of a major economic crisis with large gross external debt (around US$460 billion as of the end of 2018) and high inflation rates (around 20 percent as of January 2019).4 Turkish economic growth, which had been a little over 5 percent for a decade, dropped from 7.4 percent in 2017 to 3 percent in 2018,5 and the Turkish lira has fallen dramatically against the euro and US dollar, losing more than half its value in one year.6 The CBRT has intervened several times, but to little effect.

We experienced déjà vu in 2019. At the beginning of the new

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Focusing on the recent currency and economic crisis in Turkey and on the country’s change “from investor darling to crisis candidate,”7 this chapter analyzes the transformation of the Turkish economy and its structural problems. It also makes projections about the country’s economic outlook. We ask how Turkey went from a flying economy to a flagging one, and, more importantly, whether Turkey can get rich before it grows old. The young, growing population has been one of the traditional driving forces behind Turkey’s economic expansion, but with growth slowing, one may question whether Turkey can continue to depend on demographic factors to support its economic policies. Thus, another goal of this chapter is to list the main traditional strengths and weaknesses of the Turkish economy. Therefore, throughout the chapter, we aim to discuss its gains and strains in the short, medium, and long terms. First, we begin by describing the historical context and structural realities of the Turkish economy. This will enable us to identify its key actors, factors, and dynamics.

Evolution and Structural Issues of the Turkish Economy

Prior to 1923 and the establishment of the modern Republic of Turkey as an independent state, the area that we today call Turkey witnessed centuries of conflict and the shrinkage of a vast empire into a small nation-state. What remained from the ruins of a war-torn region was a devastated population of nearly 13 million with no middle class or wealthy entrepreneurs to jumpstart a free market economy. Hence, the first three decades of the young republic, which also coincided with one-party rule, were dominated by state-owned enterprises operating in a mixed economic model. The state tried to promote balanced growth in the necessary agricultural and industrial sectors. These state-owned economic structures led to the creation of a state-linked elite class that supported Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) and ruled the country with little opposition. Economic hardships, famine, and poverty during the 1940s made the population less sympathetic toward the one-party regime’s policies. And like a coiled spring, the country chose the opposition at the first real democratic election in 1950. The Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) in the late 1940s had very similar economic arguments and policies to the AKP in the early 2000s—just before its entrance into the Turkish political arena. The DP’s victory in the 1950 elections launched unprecedented economic growth and prosperity, public-project investments, and creation of a true middle class that mostly consisted of conservatives. Most prominent success stories were about the building of new infrastructure (especially roads and dams), expanded access to education, and a first and early version of the liberation

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of the press and the return of religion in public space in Turkey.8 The political instability that followed due to unsustainable economic policies— almost always—led to social unrest, which then was followed by military takeovers in 1960 and 1970, then the suspension of the democratic regime temporarily, and finally the reestablishment of a new multiparty era followed by another coup (1980). This denotes an important pattern in Turkey’s economy: there has been an ongoing strong link between political disputes and economic downturns. The most recent AKP period has shown again that the political and economic crises in Turkey are interdependent and influence each other. In other words, political unrest in Turkey is always followed by economic crises, and the reverse is also true. Another pattern is that every change of power has resulted in a recapture of the economic and political institutions by the new governing group and public investments for the sake of its electoral gain—a vicious circle that has never ended.9 Turkey’s persistent economic problems have emerged out of some structural issues.10 The country’s economic growth mainly relied on statefinanced enterprises, especially in the construction and service sectors. Such firms were not restricted to just the public sector but were also prominent in traditional sectors such as agriculture and textiles, both vital to the country’s employment. Turkey did not allow the development of a liberal and free market economy. Like unsolved corruption practices, unsustainable credits, and corporate overextension, the structural problems were grounded in the dominance of politics over the economy. The weakening independence of the Turkish Central Bank exemplified such a chronic issue. Moreover, the Turkish economy had always been inherently vulnerable to any political conflict or war in the region. Since regional trade is essential for the health of the Turkish economy, any tension between Turkey and its regional and/or Western partners has always had a devastating effect on its trade volume. During the two decades before the AKP began governing Turkey in late 2002, the country experienced two milestone events that reshaped its economy into one closer to a free market system. The first was the election of Turgut Özal in 1983 as prime minister after the military coup of 1980. The junta had appointed Özal as deputy prime minister responsible for the economy. In May 1983, he founded the centrist-conservative Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi, ANAP), and just seven months later he won the first parliamentary elections. Özal ended the decades-long policy of state-dominated industrialization based on protectionism. He opened the country to liberal trade in goods, services, and financial market transactions. Inspired by his idols and contemporaries Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, he initiated policies that emphasized deregulation, privatization of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of bureaucracy and labor unions. Those policies modernized Turkey’s economy considerably and moved the

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country toward a Western free market model. Exports and foreign investments were encouraged; the high cost of living and inflation were reduced. The second milestone was “Black Wednesday,” February 19, 2001. While the spark was a political crisis between then prime minister Bülent Ecevit—leader of the Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti, DSP)— and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the real cause was decades-old structural problems that had been ignored and made the Turkish economy unstable and unpredictable in the 1980s and 1990s. In this instance, we saw a familiar pattern: the political problems caused a tremendous economic crisis.11 Also, vast resources were wasted in the fight against rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK). The second half of the 1990s was a period of political instability again caused by weak, corrupt, and incompetent coalition governments that favored nepotism and subsidized insolvent state-owned companies. The system failed to address real issues, such as unemployment, a lack of proper housing and health care, and an outdated education system. The Turkish economy, mainly the banking sector, experienced its worst financial and liquidity crises from 1999 to 2001.12 One of the main factors of the banking crisis was the lack of an enforceable regulatory framework for Turkish banks related to risk exposure. Moreover, capital requirements for bank-holding companies were vague; they could differ substantially for private versus state-owned banks. In the mid-1990s, the country had currency devaluations that produced an acute liquidity crisis in 2001. Its government and banking systems were unable to finance the public and private sectors. Turkey’s economy had to undergo massive structural change, especially in banking regulations.13 Seventeen banks went bankrupt, the Turkish lira lost value against the US dollar at a record pace, and Turkey’s GDP lost one-third of its value in US dollars.14 Many small businesses filed for bankruptcy, and drastic measures were necessary to get the economy back on track. Prime Minister Ecevit appointed World Bank technocrat Kemal Derviş as minister of economic affairs in 2001. Derviş initiated a set of structural and institutional reforms to modernize the Turkish economy. The banking sector, for example, had to go through painful but necessary reforms, primarily in the capital ratios and risk measures on which they would be judged and regulated. These banking reforms and other fiscal-responsibility promises made to the IMF would later prove very effective in stabilizing the economy and contributing to the initial success of the economic policies of the AKP era.15 Additionally, the CBRT became independent from politics and gained a supervisory role. Inflation, which had sometimes exceeded 90 percent, dropped to around 12 percent in 2003, and interest rates declined. Derviş also modernized public finances and introduced fiscal discipline. The IMF and the World Bank approved these new policies and opened new loans for Turkey worth about US$20 billion in 2001.

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After surviving its worst financial crisis ever between 2000 and 2002, Turkey became more stable politically with a continuous one-party majority in its parliament and the executive branch. The country also made tremendous strides economically. The previous three decades had been full of political instability leading to economic turmoil, or vice versa. In the November 2002 elections, none of the previous political powerhouses won seats in the parliament, and a new force was born: the AKP. Previously dominant political parties were severely punished at the polls for corruption and the financial crisis. None of the three parties in the existing coalition government—the ANAP, the DSP, and the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP)—was able to get seats in the parliament. As a result of massive economic failures on the part of the previous coalition governments, the newly established AKP under Erdoğan won 34 percent of the votes (the largest), but the election system rewarded the AKP with nearly two-thirds of the seats in the parliament. This new “economically liberal” and “socially conservative” party, which grew out of the tradition of political Islam, profiled itself as a broad-based ruling party. Once elected, the AKP decided to continue the reform programs initiated by Derviş, the success of which led to further AKP electoral successes. The AKP made it a priority to enact economic, legal, and structural reforms that were expected to lead to EU membership for Turkey, a decades-long desire. From 2002 to 2007, the AKP introduced extensive and sometimes costly reforms: the abandonment of capital punishment, the abolition of torture practices in detention facilities, and further legal changes supporting gender equality. In addition, the easing of restrictions on ethnic and religious minorities paved the way for new Kurdish TV and radio stations. These reforms positively and rapidly changed the democratic and economic climate in Turkey. Indeed, this newfound stability and optimism, combined with budget discipline, major public-project spending, and transparency in government initially gave a significant boost to economic growth.16 In 2004, inflation fell to single digits for the first time since 1973.17 The 2008–2009 global financial meltdown provided Turkey with unexpected cheap capital inflows. Turkey had attractive high rates of return to investments, guaranteed by the AKP government, and so drew in investment. Additionally, its enviable growth rates between 2009 and 2013 enabled Turkey to present itself as a safe and rapidly growing emerging market, something the world very much needed after the meltdown. From 2002 to 2011, Turkey’s average annual GDP growth was 5.3 percent, but it stunned markets with an 11 percent rate in the first quarter of 2011, the highest in the world. Turkey was seen as the “rising tiger” of Eurasia “at a time when many of Turkey’s neighbors in the Middle East and Europe struggled with political turmoil and bailouts.” 18 Within a couple of years,

AKP’s Radical Transformations …

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ratings agencies Fitch and Moody’s upgraded Turkish government bonds to investment grade,19 based on Turkey’s robust growth, low debt-to-GDP ratio, and strengthening institutions. Reforms in almost every aspect of life—for instance, ensuring transparency in public-project bidding and finances, limiting the powers of the state against its citizens, giving individuals constitutional rights, and providing guarantees for privacy and personal freedoms—in the bid for EU membership were helping Turkey integrate more deeply than ever with the developed world. Turkey finished paying off its US$23.5 billion IMF debt in 2013. Exports tripled from US$47 billion in 2003 to US$142.6 billion in 2016. The middle class grew from 20 to 40 percent of the population.20 The European Union rewarded this reform agenda and, in the fall of 2005, began negotiations for Turkey’s accession to the EU. This vote of confidence had a positive impact on foreign investors. Turkey’s foreign direct investment (FDI) soared from US$1 billion in 2002 to US$22 billion in 2007. Multinational companies doing business in Turkey increased from around 5,000 in 2005 to 49,000 by March 2016.21 Turkey became the world’s eighth-largest food producer. Of the top 250 international construction firms, 43 were Turkish. The nominal income per capita tripled from US$3,516 in 2002 to US$10,379 in 2008, and citizens’ purchasing power increased by 38 percent. The transformation of the economic model from agricultural to industrial is made clear by the following: in 1980 the value of exports was US$3 billion, of which 90 percent was agricultural products; in 2016 exports reached US$142 billion, 80 percent of which consisted of industrial products.22 Although EU accession negotiations were an added incentive to improve the quality of its economy and institutions, Turkey was becoming less dependent on European trade. Exports to the EU dropped from 57 percent of the total in 2002 to 39 percent in 2012. This was partly due to Turkey’s growing exports to the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and North Africa. Also, European purchases dropped notably after the 2008–2009 crisis. The conservative majority of Turkish society began undergoing a social and cultural transformation; women had fewer babies, infant mortality decreased from 31.6 deaths per thousand live births in 2000 to 5.2 in 2015, and obesity, single-family households, and urbanization rates increased. In 1975, four out of ten people lived in urban areas. That number rose to around 75 percent in 2017, higher than in most European countries. Now, Turkey has Europe’s youngest population, with a median age of 30.2 years in 2019.23 These demographics and continuing urbanization have challenged Turkish policymakers and provided entrepreneurs with opportunities for decades. Key sectors in the economy, such as construction and related industries, benefited from these population trends, urbanization, and the expansion of the middle class. The construction sector, with 7 percent of GDP and 7.5 percent of employment, has been an essential pillar of eco-

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nomic growth. The remaining 20 percent of the industrial sector has been producing consumer goods such as cars, durables, textiles, furniture, and decor. The service sector was also boosted by the above developments.24 During this period, Turkey capitalized on the strong domestic demand from its young population, representing about 30 million of its 83 million25 citizens. Its central location between three continents, its direct access to 1.5 billion regional customers, and the growing capacity of its public finances made Turkey an attractive investment opportunity. This was especially true because of a fairly flat international business environment characterized by shrinking markets, economic instability, and political disputes. The golden years did not last long, however, and Turkey’s economy is now in serious danger, influenced by its domestic politics and foreign relations. Despite Turkey having one of the fastest-growing economies of the Group of 20, nominal average income per capita did not proportionately improve, remaining around US$10,000. In recent years, the purchasing power of consumers has been undercut by high inflation (around 20 percent as of January 2019) and the depreciation of the lira against the US dollar.26 Even though the Turkish lira was comparatively cheap, the sluggish pace of the European recovery, Russia’s long economic recession, Russian and American sanctions against Turkish products and Iran, political disagreements with the EU and regional states such as Egypt and Israel, and longstanding wars in Iraq and Syria were all unfavorable for Turkish exports. In addition, the share of products with high value added has been backsliding and was only 3.3 percent in 2017, while it was 7.3 percent in Indonesia and 16.3 percent in Mexico. Turkey’s gross domestic spending on research and development (R&D) did not exceed 1 percent of its GDP until 2018,27 even though R&D is a vital element in maintaining the international competitiveness of a country and thus crucial to developing economies such as Turkey’s. Cyril Muller, World Bank vice president, asked the real question: “Can Turkey get rich before it gets old?”28 And the fluctuations in the Turkish economy are reminiscent of some structural problems mentioned above. Does this signal the beginning of these persistent troubles again? Things started to change for Turkey with the Gezi Park protests in the summer of 2013. First, a small group of environmentalists and then the broader opposition protested the demolition of an old park in the heart of Istanbul; demonstrations later spread to other cities. The government responded with police force, which led to the loss of many lives.29 Corruption investigations in December 2013 against three ministers’ sons and businesspeople close to Prime Minister Erdoğan increased Turkey’s political instability. Erdoğan criticized the corruption investigations as part of an attempted “judicial

… and the Tipping Points in the Economy

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coup” and started a “cleansing” campaign against his critics in the state apparatus and the business world. Turkish stocks fell, and capital started fleeing the country.30 As a result of the pressure on exchange rates and inflation, the CBRT nearly doubled several key interest rates on January 28, 2014, to stop the collapse of the Turkish lira against the US dollar. Turkey became one of the most vulnerable emerging market economies in 2014. 31 One of the main reasons was that Turkey’s current account deficit swelled to around 5.5 percent of GDP at the time, and the country could not secure enough foreign capital inflow to avoid depreciation of its currency.32 Analysts placed Turkey in the “Fragile Five” group of countries (Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and India) with structural weaknesses that made them too dependent on foreign investments not only to finance their growth ambitions but also to refinance their existing debt at reasonable rates.33 Turkey soon experienced an even more severe shock: the failed military coup attempt in July 2016, the backlash to which rapidly transformed the Turkish state and politics and massively damaged its economy.34 The twoyear state of emergency declared by the AKP government affected all areas of public life in Turkey35 before ending in July 2018. In the interim, private banks, schools, universities, charities, television channels, and media companies were confiscated; entrepreneurs and investors were threatened and boycotted. Just before the parliamentary elections on June 24, 2018, Doğan Holding sold its large media companies, including Hürriyet and CNN Türk, to the Demirören Group, which is in the Erdoğan camp.36 Again, the political turmoil has scared away not only foreign capital but also large companies, businesspeople, and many domestic investors, who started seeking safe havens for their money. Turkey’s millionaire population in 2017 declined by 12 percent37 as the millionaires fled both deteriorating financial conditions marked by very high inflation38 and President Erdoğan’s crackdown on his critics, including those in business. The lira’s sharp decline in value against major currencies has hurt Turkish businesses that borrowed in euros and dollars for years.39 Construction, real estate, and energy companies and the banks that finance them are struggling to contend with a weak lira. Large Turkish companies with out-of-control foreign-currency-denominated debt—such as Ülker, Doğuş Holding, and Türk Telekom owner OTAŞ—have requested debt restructuring or suspension of payments. According to the CBRT, 85 percent of Turkey’s total of US$293 billion40 in corporate foreign currency loans is held by 2,300 companies.41 Despite efforts by the CBRT—for example, doubling interest rates and selling national reserves on the open market— foreign currency demand in the Turkish economy has not cooled. The continued depreciation comes after warnings by credit rating agencies and concerns expressed by international bodies such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), about, for example, the

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Turkish government’s control over the CBRT. US President Donald Trump’s announcement of doubled steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey furthered the lira’s plunge. This context both poses and helps answer the question of why Turkey’s total foreign debt has increased from US$130 billion in 2002 to beyond US$460 billion in 2018. The current account deficit has been a chronic problem for the country. In August 2016, just after the attempted military coup, the Turkish government introduced a new instrument to support its economy by arranging cheap credits: the Turkey Wealth Fund (Türkiye Varlık Fonu, TVF).42 This is a sovereign wealth fund that capitalizes on US$40 billion of assets and aims to put a lid on market turmoil in the wake of the 2016 attempted coup. The wealth fund has stakes in assets including state lenders (Halkbank and Ziraat Bank), big firms (Turkish Airlines, Türk Telekom, Çaykur), state oil and pipeline companies (Botaş, TPAO), the national postal service, the stock exchange, the national lottery, and the national railway. The fund also has lands in cities such as Antalya, Aydın, Istanbul, Isparta, İzmir, Kayseri, and Muğla; the Treasury of Turkey owned them.43 In September 2018, President Erdoğan appointed himself chairman of the fund and his son-in-law, Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, as one of the board members. Moreover, the Turkish parliament approved a measure granting the president and his son-in-law the authority to sell the remaining assets under the management of the TVF.44 This was met with skepticism from the financial markets about the country’s ability to borrow money. Such practices demonstrate again that Turkish politics rule the economy, not economic principles and institutions such as an independent central bank and independent fund management. Turkey’s relationship with the EU took an unprecedented turn on March 13, 2019, when the European Parliament voted to suspend negotiations on Turkey’s EU membership.45 EU countries are Turkey’s most important trading partners, as well as creditors and investors; thus, the implications of this move for Turkey’s ability to refinance its enormous short-term foreign debt can only be devastating. Moreover, Turkey’s recent choices in its foreign policy shifts, such as cooperation with Russia on involvement in Syria and purchase of the Russian S-400 missile defense, followed by harsh criticism and objections from NATO allies and sanction threats by the United States only add to a troubled environment.46

Big Ambitions: Education, Investments, and Demographics

The “new” Turkey articulated by Erdoğan’s AKP has grand ambitions to be a prosperous and powerful country by 2023, the centennial of the Turkish Republic. Improving the education system has been an essential element for achieving these ambitions.47 Turkish policymakers often referred to education

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as a primary driver because of its potential domino effect on Turkey’s economy. Children in cities, Kurdish families, and villages in the southeastern provinces in Turkey were accessing better education than their mostly uneducated parents between 2002 and 2012. In the same period, the Turkish government created 400,000 new teaching jobs, added 210,000 classrooms, more than doubled the number of universities from 73 to 189, and increased education’s share of the national budget from 9.4 percent in 2002 to 18 percent in 2012.48 However, the quality of education in Turkey has been problematic.49 In a 2015 assessment, students from Turkey were again in the lower levels in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) rankings and even dropped from forty-fourth in 2012 to forty-ninth in 2015 out of sixty-five countries in reading, math, science, and creative problem solving.50 As of 2016, Turkey has the largest percentage of people aged twenty to twenty-four who are neither employed nor in education or training.51 AKP policy was based on the assumption that migration from rural areas to big cities would continue indefinitely and that free and abundant capital would keep flowing into Turkey. The AKP government focused heavily on construction projects in both the public and the private sectors. Industrial production and subsidies for exporting manufactured goods, especially high-value-added goods, were abandoned for quick construction projects with populist appeal. Interest rates were kept low in order to provide cheap credits to support public- and private-sector investments. However, the value of the currency was kept very high, hurting chances for making Turkey’s economy a hub of production and exports, the only two sectors that can sustain the country’s long-term growth.52 The AKP also seemed to assume that a young and growing population, along with investments in infrastructure financed largely with cheap foreign credit, would be enough to refinance Turkey’s enormous debt, which has almost quadrupled during AKP rule. Turkey may be the nineteenth-largest economy in the world, but the Turkish economy has moved between sixteenth and nineteenth place for forty-five years, and the total debt of the nation is now out of control when both public and private sectors are included. Turkey had been properly proud of its impressive growth rates, but they were mainly boosted by consumer and public spending, rising foreign currency debts of private-sector companies (from US$6.5 billion in 2002 to over US$213 billion as of the end of 2018), and a construction boom.53 Investments by Turkish entrepreneurs in new production facilities and greenfield projects by foreign companies were quite low. A growing number of Turkish investors have begun to do business abroad instead of in Turkey.54 They primarily prefer to invest in high-income countries, including Germany, the United States, Russia, Britain, and Spain.55 But investment outflows did fall in 2015 to US$4.8 billion and in 2017 to US$2.6 billion.56

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Moreover, Turkey had one of the lowest savings rates in emerging market economies. Only 69 percent of adults in Turkey had a bank account in 2017—up from 57 percent in 2014—compared to 94 percent in OECD countries. About 60 percent reported not saving at all.57 Many Turkish families have been saving by buying gold or by investing in housing. The relatively low domestic savings rate and the high cost of energy imports have caused disturbingly large current account deficits. To achieve the 2023 goals,58 the Turkish economy has to grow by at least 6 percent per year and attract three times current FDI levels, which will require Turkey to push forward with business reforms that attract greater and more diversified FDI, targeting higher-value-added industries. As a platform to serve both Europe and the Middle East and boasting the world’s nineteenthlargest domestic market, Turkey has significant untapped investment potential.59 But during the third quarter of 2018, CBRT had to increase interest rates from 16.5 percent to a shocking 24 percent (fourth highest in the world). This shows a lack of confidence among the world’s financial markets in Turkey’s economic prospects. Such a plummet in both domestic and foreign confidence in the Turkish economy was last seen before the AKP entered Turkish politics in 2001.60 Turkey’s ability to benefit from its young and vibrant population is not unlimited. For instance, migration from rural areas to urban city centers, which provided cheap labor, has slowed down. In addition, a decrease in population growth and a longer life expectancy has resulted in a much smaller percentage of young people in the total population. These two traditional factors can no longer fuel Turkey’s economic growth. Because of slowing population growth, there are simply not enough people to migrate to the cities to continue recent trends. The cities themselves are overcrowded and have reached the limits of their ability to support such migration. Consequently, the Turkish economy is losing one of its most robust engines at the same time that it has to deal with the vast social costs of an increasing number of retirees, a universal health-care system that lacks enough young contributors, and longer life expectancy. The relatively young Republic of Turkey has had reasonably stable sources of economic wealth and opportunities and faced similar risks and weaknesses since its establishment in 1923. As to the strengths, the Turkish economy enjoys the benefits of its geopolitical location. As it is at the crossroads of three continents, transcontinental commerce has long been a key strategic strength. Several periods of political stability and peace in the region have given a much-needed boost to regional trade, and Turkey has stood out regionally for manufacturing, tourism, and investments.

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For decades, Turkey was able to take advantage of a young population and consistent rural-to-urban migration. This supported the construction sector by providing a never-ending demand for residential and commercial real estate (i.e., an economic model that relies on continuous construction and related industries not only for employment but also for growth and credit). Its youthful demographics and the potential transformation of Turkey’s economy make it an excellent potential manufacturing hub for its European neighbors. Indeed, Turkey has always needed both robust infrastructure for manufacturing and transportation and an excellent education system to supply a skilled labor force. Tourism, meanwhile, has been a critical player in Turkish economic growth, thanks to its history, warmer climate than in Europe and Russia, and pristine beaches on the Mediterranean and the Aegean. This industry is of course directly linked to peace and security, both in Turkey and the broader region. Turkey now also attracts more tourists from Russia, Asia, and the Middle East, not only from the United Kingdom and northern European countries such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands. This has happened despite a notice by AKP officials to European tourists warning against criticizing the Turkish government and possibly getting arrested.61 What’s more, Turkey has long been one of the few countries with an agricultural sector that is not only self-sufficient but also a good source of export revenue. Turkey is an active trading state—its trade was 54 percent of GDP in 2017—and its free market economy is driven by its construction industry and by its service sectors, although its traditional agriculture sector still accounts for about a quarter of employment. Turkey’s customs union with the EU, its strategic location between Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, and its internal market of 83 million people strengthen its economic position. As such Turkey is an example of an emerging market economy that benefits from an initial boost in productivity and growth, followed by a slow down at middle-income levels. Turkey can beat this middle-income trap, but only if it takes new leaps forward. That is only possible with a new growth model that seeks to rebalance the economy away from an overreliance on private consumption and low-cost labor and more toward sustainable growth based on increasing productivity, creating jobs, improving the quality of human capital, boosting innovation, and adding more high-value, high-tech goods to the export mix, using a second generation of structural reforms to end economic stagnation and boost growth well above the current average of 3.3 percent.62 The priorities are reducing the volatility of the growth process by bringing down the high current account deficit and increasing the low savings rate. Turkey needs a better macroeconomic policy and a management team that takes a longer view of productivity levels and aims for sustainable growth so that companies can make plans for the future.

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In further assessing the weaknesses, one must first note the destructiveness of potential political instability and regime crises for the economy. The military coups that took place regularly—roughly every ten years— starting in 1960 and social unrest made the country very risky for both investors and citizens. The establishment of a secular, democratic, constitutional system with checks and balances between branches of government has been a work in progress for almost a century. Turkey’s ability to benefit from its position at the crossroads of three continents is not unlimited. It is located between several politically tense areas such as the Balkans, the Caucasus, and the Middle East as well. Political risks from its neighbors and the Ottoman inheritance make it extremely difficult for Turkey to ensure the long periods of external and internal peace and stability that its economy desperately needs. Despite efforts to chart its own course since the days of Atatürk, Turkey cannot help but be affected by its neighbors’ religious, political, and economic trends and demographic shifts in both Europe and the Middle East.63 Moreover, rural-to-urban migration has shown signs of slowing in the last two decades, and population growth in the cities is now much slower due to today’s hectic and expensive lifestyles. Still, there are simply not enough people in rural areas to maintain previous levels of migration. Also, the city centers have reached unsustainable levels of urbanization: pollution, crime, housing shortages, security, and education are all major concerns. In addition, the population is an indicator of a country’s economic development. In the last decade, Turkey’s population has increased rapidly with a wave of immigration, mainly from the Middle East and Central Asia, but there has also been an enormous brain drain to European and Western countries due to the changing political climate in Turkey since the coup attempt in 2016. An unwanted side effect of the rural-urban migration has been damage to the agricultural sector, which, combined with a failure to modernize agricultural techniques, means that Turkey currently imports almost every agricultural product, although it was once a land of agricultural bounty. This raises the risk that Turkey may not be able to feed its own population. Consequently, food inflation hit record levels in 2018, to the point where the government had to open its own vegetable stalls: a direct intervention into the so-called free markets. Meanwhile, tourism has been stricken by the series of wars and terror attacks in the region. And Turkey’s education system has undergone numerous major changes after almost every election in the past half century, yet has not produced qualified youth who can deal with new technologies or be competitive internationally. Such underqualification leaves the country with one of the largest unemployed youth populations in the world (nearly 25 percent as of March 2019), a situation made worse by very high underemployment

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levels (i.e., people with university degrees working low-paying jobs with dim career prospects). Consequently, an increasing number of highly skilled Turks are leaving the country, raising fears of a potentially damaging brain drain. Interestingly, before the Gezi Park protests, there had been a return migration to Turkey.64 All in all, Turkey needs a new model that eliminates its economic weaknesses and builds on its strengths. The effects of political instability, military interventions, and the dependences of the economic structure on external financing are putting extra strains on Turkey’s economy, generating financial market volatility, and weighing on Turkey’s economic prospects. Strong and visionary leaders are central to the economic development of emerging countries, but Turkey’s way out of its problems simply cannot rest in the hands of one person or party. A review of the Turkish economy makes clear that some problems are long-standing and structural, such as the migration issue. Some observers have pointed out that Erdoğan did not invent these obstacles—nor is he the first to practice crony capitalism in Turkish history. 65 Thus Turkey’s economic recovery will depend on several factors, both domestic and international. The country awaits new leadership with a new vision—just like it did before Erdoğan in 2002—to regain international trust and rebuild the economy, because strong economies always require trust. While Turkey also needs to integrate with the developed world by reestablishing a secular constitutional democracy with checks and balances, the only sustainable model for a modern and prosperous Turkey is a carefully executed but complete reversal of the sources of the economic weaknesses outlined above. This will be important so that Turkey does not re-experience a déjà vu of its economic crisis after growing old.

Conclusion: Turkey Needs a New Model

Notes

We thank Ronald H. Linden for his thoughtful reflections on an earlier draft of this chapter. 1. Brinke, “The Turkish 2000–01 Banking Crisis.” 2. Özatay and Sak, Banking Sector Fragility; Fortune Turkey, “İşte Türkiye’nin devalüasyon karnesi.” 3. Brinke, “The Turkish 2000–01 Banking Crisis.” 4. Trading Economics, “Turkey Inflation Rate”; Trading Economics, “Turkey Total Gross External Debt.” 5. Trading Economics, “Turkey GDP Annual Growth Rate.” 6. Trading Economics, “Turkish Lira.” 7. McNamara, “Turkey: The Crisis Candidate.” 8. Acemoglu and Robinson, Why Nations Fail. 9. See also Chapter 1 by Linden and Çelik and Chapter 2 by Çelik in this volume.

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10. Acemoglu, “To Go Forward, Turkey Must Look Back”; Wasilewski, “Turkey’s Economic Problems.” 11. See also Güneş, “The Political Foundations of Economic Crises.” 12. Aktaş, “The Rise and the Fall.” 13. Rijckeghem and Üçer, Chronicle of the Turkish Financial Crises; Öniş and Bakır, “Turkey’s Political Economy.” 14. In 1988, the US dollar–Turkish lira (TL) exchange rate was US$1 to 1,300 TL. In 2001, the rate climbed to 1.65 million TL for US$1; as of August 13, 2018, it was 6.92 million old TL, and as of March 22, 2019, it was 5.7630 TL. 15. Akın, Aysan, and Yıldıran, “Transformation of the Turkish Financial Sector,” investigates the structural changes in Turkey’s financial sector after the 2001 crisis. 16. Hoekman and Sübidey, Turkey: Economic Reform. 17. Baran and Lesser, “Turkey’s Identity and Strategy.” 18. Champion and Parkinson, “Turkey’s Economy Surged.” 19. D. Butler, “Fitch Upgrades Turkey.” 20. Azevedo and Atamanov, “Pathways to the Middle Class in Turkey.” 21. T. C. Ekonomi Bakanlığı, Uluslarası Doğrudan Yatırım Verileri Bülteni. 22. Workman, “Turkey’s Top 10 Exports.” 23. Worldometers, “Turkey Population.” 24. Guillet, “Grootste uitdaging voor de Turkse economie.” 25. Index Mundi, “Turkey Demographics Profile 2018.” 26. Trading Economics, “Turkish Lira.” 27. OECD, “Gross Domestic Spending on R&D.” 28. Kömürcüler, “International Investors.” 29. See also Chapter 2 by Çelik in this volume. 30. Çelik et al., “The Ebb and Flow of Turkish Money.” 31. According to the IMF and many other international agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s. See also Çelik, “Erdogan heeft geld nodig,” and Dye, “S&P, Moody’s Send Turkey Deeper into Junk Territory.” 32. Notably, since 2002 more than 55 billion unregistered US dollars have entered Turkey, which also did not help close the financial gap in the Turkish economy. Unregistered money is shown under “net errors and omissions” (net hata ve noksan) in the balanceof-payments table (ödemeler dengesi) of the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey. See CBRT, Ödemeler Dengesi ve Uluslararası Yatırım Pozisyonu Raporu. 33. Yueh, “The Fragile Five”; Morgan Stanley, “Tales from the Emerging World.” 34. Erdemir, “Turkey’s Economy.” 35. The Turkish state of emergency allowed the Turkish executive to rule for two years without any intervention by parliament. Under the presidential system that began in July 2018, the president (currently Erdoğan) has the power to dissolve parliament, issue executive decrees, and impose a state of emergency. The prime minister position no longer exists. 36. Çelik, “Erdogan kan Turkse economie niet redden.” 37. R. Sharma, “The Millionaires Are Fleeing.” 38. As of March 4, 2019, Turkey’s producer price index (PPI) was 29.59 percent. The PPI is a weighted index of prices measured at the wholesale or producer level. It measures average changes over time in the sale prices received by domestic producers. 39. Pitel and Arnold, “Turkish Business Feels the Pain.” 40. All dollar references are to US dollars. 41. CBRT, Financial Stability Report. 42. To compare the Turkey Wealth Fund (Türkiye Varlık Fonu) with other sovereign wealth funds and their total assets, see “Top 81 Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund Rankings by Total Assets,” SWFI, accessed June 20, 2019, https://www.swfinstitute.org/fund-rankings /sovereign-wealth-fund. 43. See the offical website of the Turkey Wealth Fund for more details at http:// turkiyevarlikfonu.com.tr.

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44. Resmî Gazete, “Sermaye Piyasası Kurulundan: Yatırım Fonlarına İlişkin Esaslar Tebliği.” 45. DW, “European Parliament Votes to Suspend Turkey’s EU Membership Bid.” 46. Hoffman, “Responding to Turkey’s Purchase of Russia’s S-400 Missile System.” 47. Among the goals of this vision are (1) to become one of the top-ten economies in the world, (2) to achieve a GDP of US$2 trillion, (3) to increase annual Turkish exports to US$500 billion; (4) to attain per capita income of US$25,000, and (5) to reach a foreign trade volume of US$1 trillion. 48. Guillet, “Grootste uitdaging voor de Turkse economie.” 49. This was evident from Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) rankings, a survey of the educational achievement of fifteen-year-olds organized by the OECD. 50. OECD, PISA 2015. 51. OECD, “Youth Not in Employment.” In 2017, Turkey ranked 127th out of 137 countries in labor-market efficiency; see Schwab, “The Global Competitiveness Report 2017–2018.” 52. Guillet, “Grootste uitdaging voor de Turkse economie.” 53. Trading Economics, “Turkey—Economic Indicators”; Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkish Private Sector Foreign Debt Falls.” 54. See World Bank, “Foreign Direct Investment,” for FDI outflows for Turkey. 55. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkish Businesses FDI Outflow Rises.” 56. United Nations, “Country Fact Sheet: Turkey.” 57. Demirgüç-Kunt et al., The Global Findex Database 2017. 58. See note 47. 59. Laudicina and Peterson, “Connected Risks.” 60. Winter, “Erdogan Warns of ‘Economic War’”; Trading Economics, “Interest Rate.” 61. In 2018, the number of foreigners visiting Turkey went up to 39.5 million compared to 32.4 million in 2017. Trading Economics, “Turkey Tourist Arrivals”; Hürriyet Daily News, “Foreign Arrivals, Tourism Revenues in Turkey Rose Last Year.” 62. Trading Economics, “Turkey: Economic Forecasts.” 63. Aktaş, “Turkey at a Crossroads Again.” 64. Çelik and Notten, “The Exodus from the Netherlands or Brain Circulation.” 65. Ronald Linden noted this in a personal communication with Gürkan Çelik.

4 The Geopolitics of Energy Mustafa Demir

fictional British secret agent tries to foil a nuclear explosion in Istanbul. The brain behind the planned attack is a cunning woman who wants to build an oil pipeline from the Azerbaijani capital of Baku to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.1 She hopes to make the Bosporus impassable for oil tankers, increase the price of oil, and make the West dependent on her pipeline. The competing lines (Baku-Novorossiysk and Baku-Supsa, which came online in 1997 and 1998, respectively) cross the Black Sea and depend partly on the Bosporus to reach the West. She hopes to choke off the Bosporus and set the Russians back on their heels. The plot fit perfectly with the real-world Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC). On November 18, 1999, ten days after the film had its international premiere, an agreement between Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey for the construction of the pipeline was signed in Istanbul, in the presence of US president Bill Clinton. Turkey was represented by President Süleyman Demirel. The reasoning behind the transit of oil (and eventually gas) from Azerbaijan and the Caucasus via Turkish territory must be seen in the light of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union; policymakers in Washington wanted to keep resources in the Caspian basins out of the sphere of influence of both Russia and Iran to the greatest possible extent. The Turkish alternative to exporting these raw materials via Novorossiysk would also involve Russia as an economic tool to counteract the development of recently independent countries such as Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan. With the project, Turkey was assured of an oil supply, something that the resourcepoor country could well use. Turkey would also have the opportunity to collect transit fees and thus develop a new source of income. Another advantage

In the 1999 James Bond film The World Is Not Enough, the

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of a route via Ceyhan was to reduce the number of tankers using Turkish waters, lowering the risk of accidents and environmental degradation. The World Is Not Enough is but one of many examples of the attention paid to Turkey’s geostrategic location in recent years, all of which demonstrate that Turkey has the potential to play a key role in the energy needs of Europe. However, Turkey itself has limited oil and gas resources. The oil stock of the country is estimated at 296 million barrels, a negligible volume that is mainly in the southeast. By comparison, according to the Ministry of Oil, Iraq boasts 143 billion barrels, of which 45 billion are in the Kurdish Autonomous Region. OPEC estimates Iran’s reserves at 157.5 billion barrels, while Syria has 2.5 billion barrels. Nearby Azerbaijan, which forms the backdrop for much of the Bond film, has extensive oil reserves for a country its size: an estimated 7 billion barrels. The same picture emerges with gas stocks. Admittedly, a comparison with Iran is not entirely fair, given that it has the largest gas reserves in the world (34 trillion cubic meters). However, even in contrast with Iraq’s roughly estimated 3.5 trillion cubic meters, Turkey lags far behind at 6.2 billion cubic meters (bcm). Over the past decade, Turkey’s economy has grown rapidly, leading to an unprecedented increase in energy consumption and making energy a matter of national security for Turkey. Diversification of supply is crucial for the country’s energy security. This imperative is closely connected to Turkey’s desire to become an energy hub and corridor for European economies dependent on imported energy. This chapter reviews changes in Turkey’s energy consumption by source and by year. It scrutinizes the increases in the volume Turkey needs to import in the coming years to meet its own growing energy needs,2 underlining that the Turkish economy must rely on external suppliers, especially for oil and gas. It focuses on those suppliers on which Turkey is highly dependent (Russia and Iran), addresses diversification of suppliers as a means of energy security for Turkey, and examines the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) as a possible supplier. This chapter first addresses the relationships among economy, energy, and politics and then analyzes the internal and external factors determining Turkey’s role in energy geopolitics. Finally it reviews the strength of Turkey’s energy strategy given the changing factors affecting demand. Energy, particularly oil and gas, is central to today’s global economy, which itself is the primary shaper of world politics. Economic interests overwhelmingly drive domestic and international politics and play a key role in determining the interactions of states. Hence, political economy as a term is mainly used to refer to states, especially the industrialized ones, as the dominant agents in the international system.3 In that system, these industrialized countries operate as political economies, producing, importing, exporting,

Economy, Energy, and Politics

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and regulating the rules of trade to protect their interests, especially their economic benefits within the system.4 These political economies are highly dependent on producing and trading oil and gas to maintain their growth.5 Against this backdrop, political economies use politics in general as a tool to engineer and operate a system that maintains their energy needs; for both producing and supplying countries, oil and gas comprise an important tool for cultivating political gains, especially over dependent economies, as seen by Russia’s influence over several European political economies.6 Energy has been an especially critical factor in shaping politics, conflicts, and alliances in the Middle East, which is easily the world’s largest energy supplier, with around half of the world’s proven reserves.7 Economics is thus one of the most important factors shaping global politics, and the availability and affordability of energy lie at the heart of economic development and growth for both developed nations and developing countries such as Turkey. Three factors are crucial in determining Turkey’s role in energy geopolitics: (1) its energy security in relation to its internal market, (2) its location relative to the energy security of other regional and global actors, and (3) political developments in and around Turkey.8 Before examining these factors closely, it is important to define energy security, which varies from actor to actor, such as the European states, Turkey, Russia, and Iran.

Factors Determining Turkey’s Geopolitics of Energy

Energy Security The term energy security is widely used in the literature, but its meaning differs by country. For exporting countries, it means securing exports at high prices and is tied to the security of demand. As for oil-dependent countries, energy security means obtaining cheap and sustainable energy resources, or the “availability of sufficient supplies at affordable prices.”9 Affordability translates to cheap or “sweet” oil, which is high quality, is close to the surface to drill, and can be refined at low cost. The availability of sufficient supply, beyond reliability per se, also refers to the safety of the transit routes that make the uninterrupted flow of energy possible, especially for landlocked resources. Thus, for both consuming and producing countries, secure transit routes are as crucial as any other energy-security factor. Within this context, Turkey has an essential role in the geopolitics of energy, both as a growing market and as an alternative transit route, especially for European political economies. The reason is that the 2003 invasion of Iraq rendered possible the discovery and availability of new oil and gas reserves as an alternative to the Russian fuels on which European countries are highly dependent. Within this context Turkey’s geography as an alternative energy corridor has emerged as an important option for

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European economies seeking to diversify their energy suppliers and reduce their dependence on Russia.10 There is a strong relationship between energy consumption and economic growth in countries such as Turkey. Turkey depends on imported energy, mainly fossil fuels. The growing Turkish economy over the last decade has elevated the strategic importance of the oil and gas needed to feed the economy. Among Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, Turkey has had the highest growth rates in energy demand over the last fifteen years.11 Turkey’s oil consumption has jumped from around 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2006 to around 900,000 bpd in 2015. Natural gas use has increased from 31 bcm per year in 2006 to 47.5 bcm per year by the end of 2017.12 Turkey depends primarily on Russian gas and Iranian oil, meeting only 26 percent of its total energy demand from domestic sources. The specific sources by which Turkey meets its energy needs include coal and wind, but oil and gas account for more than half of the country’s total primary energy supply (TPES). Hydrocarbons have long been the leading energy source, and their role has been increasing year by year in line with the growing Turkish economy; while oil accounted for 28 percent of Turkey’s TPES in 2011,13 it rose to 30 percent in 2015 and 2016. Natural gas consumption appears to be competing with oil, constituting 33 percent of TPES in 2014, 30 percent in 2015, and 26 percent in 2016. Renewables account for only 4 percent of Turkey’s needs.14 The priority of Turkey’s energy policy has been diversification and finding cheap energy sources. The official strategy is as follows: (1) diversification of sources and routes for imported oil and natural gas, (2) increasing the ratio of local and renewable energy in the energy mix, (3) increasing energy efficiency, and (4) adding nuclear to the Turkish energy mix.15 The increase in the share of renewables in Turkey’s energy consumption over the years has been insignificant; they are far from replacing fossil fuels in the foreseeable future. Domestic oil production is less than 10 percent of total oil consumption. Nuclear energy could play a significant role in diversification. While working to diversify its oil and natural gas portfolio, Turkey would like to add nuclear energy, and its first two plants are under construction. The former is expected to be operational by 2023 and the latter by 2025. When both come online, they should meet at least 10 percent of electricity demand.16 However, nuclear power plants have at least as many critics as supporters because of the potential risks. Alongside the risks,17 nuclear plant construction is a high-cost investment. 18 Considering that Turkey has been planning to build a nuclear plant since the 1970s but has not actually completed one, there may not be a nuclear plant generating energy by 2023. Moreover, given the fact that Russians would own the plants, these projects may actually increase Turkey’s reliance on Russia in the two countries’ growing asymmetrical interdependence.19

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In the last decade, Turkey’s energy policies have been “based on a political conceptual framework, where its unique geopolitical position places Ankara at the center.”20 Diversification of energy supply and becoming an energy hub that offers alternative routes, primarily to the European political economies, have guided Turkey’s energy policies and shaped its foreign policy.21 Turkey’s main oil provider (44 percent) had long been Iran, but this figure was substantially reduced to 22.3 percent in 2015, thanks to Turkey’s engagement with an investment in the KRI.22 Turkey began exporting oil from the new purpose-built Kurdish pipeline, which was connected to the existing Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline in 2013. Just two years later, the 2015 figures showed that the KRI has the potential to reduce Turkey’s dependence on oil exports from Iran to an even greater extent. In 2012, Kurdish oil accounted for 17 percent of Turkey’s total oil imports; by 2014 the amount rose to 27 percent, and in 2015 it reached 45 percent, double the amount imported from Iran.23 However, in 2017, Iraq’s crude oil exports to Turkey decreased by 20.5 percent, even though Iraq had been the largest crude oil exporter to Turkey in the previous three years. Turkey witnessed a 142 percent increase in its crude oil imports from Iran in the first seven months of 2017 over the same period in 2016. Regional political developments and internal Iraqi developments played a vital role in this reversal. As for natural gas, which Turkey started using in 1982, demand has been growing steadily for a generation; it now accounts for around 30 percent of TPES. Russia has been the primary supplier, with 55 percent in 2015, followed by Iran and Azerbaijan, with 16.2 and 12.3 percent, respectively.24 With its proven reserves and potential, the KRI promises to help Turkey diversify its gas sources and suppliers and reduce its reliance on Russian supplies. It is estimated that the region has reserves of around 5 trillion cubic meters per year, a figure that is likely to increase with further exploration.25 Given that the current natural gas needs of Turkey are around 50 bcm per year, Kurdish gas from right next door offers great potential for Turkey’s economy. In November 2013 Turkey and the KRI signed a gas supply agreement26 that envisaged, after starting with 4 bcm and reaching 10 bcm by 2017,27 the region’s providing Turkey with 20 bcm of natural gas by 2020,28 or around 40 percent of Turkey’s current natural gas imports. Turkey would then be able to reduce gas imports from Russia to around 50 percent or forward any surplus to European markets. Turkey’s Strategic Location Turkey’s location has different meanings for the various actors competing in the surrounding areas.29 Turkey is strategically situated between the European continent, which is home to many large political economies, the oil- and gas-rich Caucasus to the northeast, and the Middle East to the east and southeast. Some of its neighbors have very large and virtually untapped

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oil and natural gas reserves. As noted above, the KRI is an especially promising source for Turkey to diversify its suppliers and reduce its dependence on certain actors such as Iran and Russia.30 Being an international energy hub has been a Turkish government goal for the last decade; therefore, Ankara has engaged in many international projects such as Nabucco (a gas pipeline from Turkey to Austria), the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP), and the TurkStream. There are also many other plans still in the formulation phase. For instance, the white dashed-line alongside the TANAP in Figure 4.1 refers to a proposed pipeline route to carry oil to Europe. Since the end of the Cold War, Turkey has been playing a role for the Western bloc similar to the one it played during that extended standoff, but now focused on energy.31 The existing pipelines and projects going to Europe through Turkey are a testament to this role. Despite some fluctuations since 1923, the general direction of Turkish foreign policy has always been toward the West, particularly after the country joined NATO in 1952. Political Developments In and Around Turkey Turkey-EU rapprochement and the EU membership process played an important role in the democratization of politics and especially in curbing

Figure 4.1 Turkish Oil and Gas Pipelines

Source: This map is based on one in Middle East Eye, July 30, 2015, http://www.middleeast eye.net/multimedia/infographics/oil-and-gas-pipelines-turkey-36486773.

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the Turkish military’s traditional influence over politics.32 During the 2003– 2014 period, Turkey strove to cast itself as an alternative energy-transit corridor by proposing and signing agreements serving this objective. The West has widely approved of and encouraged this role for Turkey. The United States supported Turkey and cited it as an example for the region’s countries, and Barack Obama’s first presidential trip to a Muslim country was to Turkey in April 2009. The media also reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and made an announcement “seeking to enlist Turkish help in moving forward the Middle East Peace Process” initiated by the Obama administration.33 Also in 2009, Obama announced the US military’s withdrawal from Iraq as part of this process. In a speech to the Turkish parliament, Obama described Turkey as “a critical ally, an important part of Europe. Turkey and the United States must stand together and work together to overcome the challenges of our time.” All these moves and diplomatic messages about Turkey made clear that in the new American strategic calibration, Turkey would be the regional power with which the United States could best entrust its interests in the area. In explaining the role he envisioned for Turkey, Obama did not conceal these motives, stating that the United States would continue to support Turkey’s central role as an east-west corridor for oil and natural gas.34 Turkey’s role in energy geopolitics, the strategic role it plays for both energy producers and import-dependent economies, has had an important impact on Turkey’s internal and external politics. Energy security has played an essential role in the Turkish government’s engagement with the Kurds within its own borders in the Kurdish Initiative in 2009 and 201335 and with the Kurds and their political entity, the KRI, on the Iraqi side of the border. This context has also been the strategic basis of the rapprochement between Turkey and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq. Ankara, by taking part in the pipeline project, directly or indirectly supported the Kurdish bid to control the region’s hydrocarbon resources, marking a dramatic shift in what were once regarded as Ankara’s red lines. Turkey’s increasing domestic oil and gas demand and the goal of establishing Turkey as a regional energy hub played significant roles in this change in approach,36 in motivating peace negotiations with Kurdish groups,37 and in the emerging partnership between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds.38 With the increasing strength of its economy, Turkey moved away from its traditional approach of isolating itself from its regional neighborhood; it began to engage in regional issues at multiple levels ranging from security to the economy.39 This new engagement continued until 2013. Increasing trade volumes and rich discoveries of quality oil and gas across the border in Iraq whetted the appetite of both the Turkish and European political economies. The question of route security for potential pipeline projects from the KRI brought the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) to the table

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after a thirty-year insurgency that had cost more than 30,000 lives.40 Even the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Öcalan supported this engagement between Turkey and the Iraqi Kurds, which was presented as a “stateless union” between Kurdish populations in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran that would increase integration while maintaining the current national borders.41 A referendum in the KRI in September 2017 resulted in an almost unanimous vote for independence, a result that reawakened Turkey’s traditional concerns about Kurdish separatism. In reaction, Turkey aligned itself with Baghdad, leading to a rapprochement among Ankara, Tehran, and Baghdad and straining ties between Ankara and Erbil. On the global level, the referendum and Turkey’s response increased Russia’s influence in the region. Baghdad and Tehran at the regional level and Russia at the global level were not unhappy with the friction in the KRI-Ankara partnership. Baghdad took control of the border between Turkey and the KRI and the pipelines through which the Kurds were exporting their oil to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. From the energy-security perspective, Turkey’s decision to cooperate with Iraq and Iran against the KRI contradicts its strategy to diversify its suppliers.42 This move might bring Kurdish resources under the control of Russia, which is already influential over Iran and Iraq, and further contribute to the asymmetric interdependence between Russia and Turkey. Turkey had developed an understanding of energy security tailored to meet its increasing energy demands and focused on diversifying suppliers. However, more recent policies, especially vis-à-vis the KRI after the referendum in September 2017, have put alternative supply sources under Russia’s control and further increased Turkey’s dependence on its traditional primary supplier, Russia. Alongside internal economic and political developments, the geopolitics of energy, especially the recalibration of global balances due to changes in the world’s political and economic system,43 has influenced Turkey’s foreign relations. Incidents such as the invasion of Iraq, the Ukrainian crisis, and the rising influence of Russia in the Middle East through the Syrian crisis have also affected Turkey’s role in the geopolitics of energy. Understanding Turkey’s role in the geopolitics of energy requires putting all this information into a global perspective and considering the role of energy in geopolitics. In the new reality of the twenty-first century, demand for oil has been dramatically increasing, mainly due to booming global political economies in Asia. However, oil production has already reached its peak. New methods and technologies might have made new sources possible, but cheap oil seems to be a dream of the past. Existing reserves or new discoveries are either too deep or too heavy and, therefore, costly to extract and refine. “Cars and light vehicles, however, account for

From a Global Perspective

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only one segment of oil demand.” Other emerging sectors also depend on oil, and the “demand is growing rather than falling.”44 Consequently, global political and economic actors have had to reshape their interests in line with developments in the energy sector. Resources and their routes of transportation have been instruments of foreign policies and used as tools in diplomatic relations to manipulate, threaten, launch wars, or offer rewards: Chechnya, the Gulf Wars, the invasion of Crimea, and the Syrian crisis are just a few examples. The contemporary reality of energy is the chief reason why US international military interventions since the end of the Cold War have been “opportunistic responses” to the geopolitical and global economic changes arising out of the vacuum created by the collapse of the Soviet Union.45 Energy and its geopolitics are the basic means of global dominance for the imperial states, namely the United States, Russia, and China.46 Their competing geopolitical outlooks see controlling energy resources and shipping routes as crucial to establishing hegemony.47 To control the energy sector and meet their demands, these global powers have either state-owned energy companies or large private companies (e.g., the United States’ ExxonMobil, Russia’s Gazprom, China’s Sinopec, France’s Shell and Total, and the United Kingdom’s BP) functioning to fulfill their energy needs. Some have argued that in certain cases, these states have developed and shaped policy in pursuit of these oil companies’ interests, which thus overlap with national security interests.48 In this context, Turkey’s strategic location is vital, not only for the United States and the import-dependent European economies but also for producing countries such as Russia. As for Russia, on which the EU economies are dependent, Turkey is both an important market and a potential transit country to diversify its shipping options, because the purpose of Russia’s energy strategy is “to reassert state control over ‘strategic resources’ and gain primacy over the main pipelines and market channels through which it ships its hydrocarbons to international markets.”49 The Russian outlook clashes with the European vision of Turkey, which focuses on Turkey as an alternative transit route from non-Russian resources. Western energy companies’ billion-dollar investments in the region and countries such as Iraq and the KRI document this fact thoroughly. The KRI alone has already concluded more than fifty production-sharing contracts and many service contracts with international companies.50 Diversifying its suppliers has been the primary energy strategy of the EU. Under this policy and within the context of global competition over energy resources, Turkey has always been an attractive alternative route for the EU. For this reason, the EU has supported trans-Turkey oil and gas pipeline projects such as TANAP and Nabucco. Energy is the weak spot of industrialized Europe, particularly the twenty-eight EU countries. Europe’s energy imports are increasing every year; in 1998, Europe imported around

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11 million barrels of oil per day, and imports increased over the period and reached 14.5 million in 2016.51 In 2001 total oil production in Europe was around 7 million bpd; by 2012, this number had fallen to 3 million, making the continent ever more import dependent. Europe’s gas imports show a similar pattern and may be even more critical than oil. In order for the EU to achieve its long-held strategy of “pursuing other supply options besides Russia,”52 Iraqi resources have always been on the agenda. In a 2003 discussion about the potential invasion of Iraq, France and Germany opposed the United States, although their motives were not clear at that time.53 Following the collapse of the Baath regime in Iraq, official documents showed that both countries had signed contracts to purchase oil and gas from the Saddam Hussein regime for thirty years. If those commitments had been realized, Turkey would inevitably have been the transit route. However, ending Hussein’s regime also brought an end to these contracts. Emerging economies in Asia, especially China and India, are also potential clients for the resources needed to meet the growing energy demand of their booming economies. For these countries, Turkey has no use as a transit route. Instead, it is a rival customer, with its increasing energy needs and its role as a transit route to the larger rival economies in Europe. Internally, critics argue that Turkey has been going through a slow-motion regime change since the 2013 Gezi Park protests. The historic bloc formed by the victims of the Kemalist regime—liberals, leftists, minorities, religious conservatives, and others—that brought Erdoğan into power54 has collapsed, and many of these groups are now opposed to his authoritarian policies. Within the current context, it is not clear what sort of role Turkey sees for itself in energy geopolitics. The key question is whether to look east or west: Turkey’s choice will have a profound impact on its energy policy.55 It remains undetermined whether Turkey wants to be an energy hub to reduce European dependence on Russia or an alternative energy transit corridor to Europe for Russia to diversify its shipping routes. The latter option would also increase Turkey’s existing dependence on Russia.56 For Russia, energy has been a foreign policy tool for political gains against not only the European political economies but also, whenever necessary, Turkey and other actors such as Ukraine, China, and Central Asian countries. Moscow is pursuing a policy of controlling energy resources and routes that resembles the policy the United States has followed for decades under the Carter doctrine.57 Just after Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter jet in November 2015, Russia halted two major energy projects and imposed economic sanctions on sectors such as tourism. The Turkish economy could not endure the consequences, and in June 2016, less than a year later, Erdoğan apologized for

Post-Gezi Turkey and Issues of Energy Security

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the incident and followed up with a number of official visits to Russia. The apology and visits paved the way for more than mending relations and lifting sanctions, yielding in addition reduced gas prices and the restart of the Black Sea pipeline project, TurkStream. This pipeline is projected to carry Russian gas directly to Turkey. Its construction started in May 2017, and its offshore section was completed in November 2018.58 Given that this development further increases Turkey’s dependence on Russian energy supplies, some internal drivers59 are inducing Turkey to swing with a “pendulum-like identity” between the East and the West. The Turkish government has shown great agility when difficulties arise, including in the energy sector. Just as its economy threatened to derail, the oil price collapsed, and Turkish energy bills fell sharply. Even nature could be cooperative: when limitations in the gas supply and distribution network came to light, Turkey experienced two exceptionally mild winters. But luck is always finite, and in coming years—at least until the TANAP pipeline comes online— the reliability of the country’s gas supply will to a large extent determine the health of the Turkish economy. If Turkey can secure sufficient gas and oil for its economy, it can weather the period until new pipelines are commissioned. Although the Southern Gas Corridor project is on schedule, the timely supply of Kurdish and Israeli gas is by no means certain. If Turkey’s economic growth stagnates, wars in the Middle East escalate, or severe winter weather occurs, literal and figurative harsh times could be coming for Turkey. Moreover, the country needs more than economic growth and popular happiness to develop itself into a genuine energy hub. According to Edward Chow, Turkey’s plans would benefit from a reliable, independent judiciary to resolve commercial disputes, and reforms of its financial sector are necessary.60 The Turkish government’s record is not particularly encouraging in these areas, especially in recent years, when the judiciary has been compromised and executive power is increasingly concentrated in President Erdoğan’s hands. Moreover, the stateowned firm Botaş, which is responsible for oil and gas pipelines and commodity trading, remains a dominant player in the domestic market, which hampers liberalization. Given the vigor with which BP and its partners operate in Azerbaijan, along with the role the Turkish city of Ceyhan plays as the export port for raw materials, Turkey has the potential to become a key player in the transit of oil and gas to Europe, but not on the scale that policymakers in Ankara have in mind and probably not in the short term. Oil and gas account for more than half of Turkey’s TPES. Renewables account for only 4 percent of its needs, and the increase in renewables over the years has been insignificant; they offer no realistic prospect of replacing fossil fuels in the near future. Domestic oil production is less than 10 percent of total oil consumption. Nuclear energy is one option that could play an important role in energy diversification but has as many critics as supporters because of the potential risks and the high costs associated with building nuclear plants. As Turkey has been planning to build a nuclear plant since the 1970s but has not

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actually completed one, it is perfectly plausible to wonder whether a plant will in fact be generating energy by 2023, despite the official projection that Turkey will meet 10 percent of its energy needs from nuclear sources by 2025. For the time being, plans for nuclear power appear very politically sensitive, unpredictable, and risky for investors. These figures and the slow progress in developing alternative sources to diversify the energy portfolio indicate that the Turkish economy depends today and will continue to depend on imported energy, primarily Russian gas and Iranian oil, for the foreseeable future. Turkey has sought to diversify its suppliers through positively engaging with resource-rich neighbors such as Azerbaijan and the KRI, which have seen new oil and gas discoveries. Engagement with Azerbaijan helped Turkey to procure 12.3 percent of its gas from a supplier other than Russia. Through its engagement with the KRI, Turkey has been able to reduce its oil imports from Iran by around 50 percent. As for the Iraqi Kurds, Turkey, with its unique geopolitical position, has become a growing market and a viable transit route for Kurdish fossil fuels to enter the global energy market. This motivated the Iraqi Kurds to open their markets and sources to Turkey without hesitation. In this respect, Kurdish oil, with the capacity to produce 2 to 3 million bpd and promising natural gas reserves awaiting extraction, became the primary avenue through which Turkey strove to diversify its supply network, reduce its dependency on Iran and Russia, and realize its dream of being a transit country for up-and-coming energy suppliers.

Turkey’s geographic location is crucial not only for the European political economies that depend on imported oil and gas but also for producing countries like Russia and Iran. Russia’s energy strategy is to control strategic resources and energy transit corridors, first to ship its resources to the market and second to keep alternative routes and resources under its control so as not to lose its influence over European political economies. For Russia, Turkey is both an important market and a potential transit route to diversify its shipping options. It is also important as a transit route for the European economies because shipping through Turkey opens up alternatives to Russian sourcing, especially in the Middle East. Turkey’s becoming an alternative route for Russia would not serve the European goal of diversifying its supply sources; by contrast, it would further increase its dependence on Russian supply. However, the current reality of Turkey’s global relations shows that Turkey is moving away from the West and Europe and becoming closer to Russia. It is not clear what sort of role Turkey sees for itself in the geopolitics of energy, despite the important nature of the matter. It remains an open question whether Turkey wants to be an energy hub, an alternative energy transit corridor with the potential to reduce its own and Europe’s dependence

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on Russia, or an alternative energy transit corridor from Russia to Europe that would serve Russia’s goal of diversifying its export routes. Whichever role Turkey embraces for the future, its policies so far have served Russia’s energy strategy and increased its energy dependence on that country.

Notes

1. Tran, “Q&A: The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline.” 2. To do so, it refers to data collected and presented by credible sources such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the Energy Information Administration, official governmental websites and documents, and many reports, policy briefs, and academic publications on this topic. 3. Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War.” 4. Strange, “Wake Up, Krasner! The World Has Changed”; Waltz, “Structural Realism After the Cold War.” 5. Korn, “The Real Reason the U.S. Economy Won’t Take Off.” 6. Hill, “Energy Empire: Oil, Gas and Russia’s Revival”; Mitrova, Shifting Political Economy of Russian Oil and Gas. 7. Engdahl, Myths, Lies and Oil Wars. 8. Austvik and Rzayeva, “Turkey in the Geopolitics of Energy.” 9. Yergin, “Ensuring Energy Security: Old Questions, New Answers.” 10. Aktürk, “The Fourth Style of Politics”; Boria, “One Stereotype, Many Representations.” 11. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Turkey’s Energy Profile and Strategy.” 12. Energy Information Administration, Country Analysis Brief: Turkey. 13. IEA, Oil and Gas Policy: Turkey 2013 Update. 14. Austvik and Rzayeva, “Turkey in the Geopolitics of Energy.” 15. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Turkey’s Energy Profile and Strategy.” 16. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkey Prioritizes Future Energy Diversification.” 17. Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy in the Age of BRICS,” pp. 302–304; Stulberg and Fuhrmann, The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security. 18. Topal-Namlı and Namlı, “Nuclear Power in Turkey: Pros and Cons.” 19. Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy in the Age of BRICS.” 20. T. Yıldız, “Turkey’s Energy Policy, Regional Role and Future Energy Vision,” p. 37. 21. T. Yıldız, “Turkey’s Energy Policy, Regional Role and Future Energy Vision”; Taner Yıldız was Turkey’s Minister of Energy and Resources between 2009 and 2015. 22. Demir, Geopolitics of Turkey-Kurdistan Relations. 23. IEA, Energy Policies of IEA Countries: Turkey 2016 Review, p. 72. 24. IEA, Energy Policies of IEA Countries: Turkey 2016 Review, p. 104. 25. Hürriyet Daily News, “KRG Plans 10 bcm in Natural Gas Exports to Turkey in Two Years.” 26. Pamuk and Coşkun, “Exclusive: Turkey, Iraqi Kurdistan Ink Landmark Energy Contracts.” 27. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkey Prioritizes Future Energy Diversification.” 28. Roberts, Iraqi Kurdistan Oil and Gas Outlook, p. 20. 29. Aktürk, “The Fourth Style of Politics”; Boria, “One Stereotype, Many Representations”; Theophylactou, “Geopolitics, Turkey’s EU Accession Course and Cyprus.” 30. For the KRI’s energy potential, see Roberts, Iraqi Kurdistan Oil and Gas Outlook, pp. 20–22; Demir, “Energy Security, Turkey, and the PKK or Obama, Erdoğan, and Öcalan.” 31. During the Cold War, the US-led Western bloc saw Turkey as a key flank in containing the Soviet Union. The United States and NATO used Turkey as a base for ballistic nuclear Jupiter missiles in 1961 and these missiles were removed from Turkey by 1963; however, later nukes were based in Turkey as part of that containment policy.

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32. Toktaş and Kurt, The Impact of EU Reform Process on Civil-Military Relations in Turkey. 33. Shipman, “Barack Obama Chooses Turkey for His First Presidential Visit to a Muslim Nation.” 34. BBC News, “Remarks of President Barack Obama.” 35. In 2009, the Turkish government initiated a democratization process called “Kurdish opening” in relation to the Kurds’ cultural rights. It issued statements accepting that there had been violations of such rights by the state and took symbolic steps such as allowing broadcasting in Kurdish. In March 2013, the government moved further. First, some MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party met with Abdullah Öcalan, imprisoned leader of the PKK. Öcalan then announced a cease-fire and sent a letter asking the PKK to lay down its guns and withdraw its militia from Turkey (see Demir, “Energy Security, Turkey, and the PKK or Obama, Erdoğan, and Öcalan”). 36. Aras and Görener, “National Role Conceptions and Foreign Policy Orientation.” 37. On the relationship between the global energy game and peace negotiations between the Turkish government and Öcalan in 2013, see Demir, “Energy Security, Turkey, and the PKK or Obama, Erdoğan, and Öcalan.” 38. Demir, The Geopolitics of Turkey-Kurdistan Relations. 39. In the 2008–2010 period, Meliha Benli Altunışık (see “Turkey’s Changing Middle East Policy”) wrote a number of articles about the growing political and economic relations between Turkey and certain neighboring Arab countries, with particular reference to Syria and Iraq. 40. Marcus, Blood and Belief. 41. Dombey, “Turkey Agrees Energy Deal with Kurdish North Iraq.” 42. Srivastava and Bozorgmeh, “Turkey, Iran and Iraq Pledge to Act Jointly Against Kurdistan.” 43. Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in the Asian Age; Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion”; Öniş, “Turkish Foreign Policy in the Age of BRICS”; Zakaria, The Post-American World. 44. N. Butler, “Beyond Peak Oil.” 45. Chomsky, “Status of Forces Agreement”; Gökay and Fouskas, The New American Imperialism. 46. Kupchan, No One’s World. 47. Gökay, “The United States Against the World”; Gökay and Fouskas, The New American Imperialism; Öniş and Yılmaz, “Turkey and Russia in a Shifting Global Order.” 48. Engdahl, Myths, Lies and Oil Wars, pp. 45–47. 49. Yergin, “Energy Security in the 1990s.” 50. Mills, Under the Mountains: Kurdish Oil and Regional Politics, p. 19. 51. Statista, “European Oil Imports from 1998 to 2016.” 52. Coşkun and Carlson, “New Energy Geopolitics: Why Does Turkey Matter?” p. 4. 53. Guardian, “France and Germany Unite Against Iraq War.” 54. Dağı, “Islamist Parties and Democracy”; Dağı, AKP’li Yıllar. 55. Aktürk, “The Fourth Style of Politics.” 56. Öniş and Yılmaz, “Turkey and Russia in a Shifting Global Order.” 57. “Let our position be absolutely clear. An attempt by an outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force” (Carter, “The State of the Union Address Delivered Before a Joint Session of the Congress”). 58. BBC News, “Putin Mends Broken Relations with Turkey’s Erdoğan”; TurkStream Pipeline “Project Information”; Koseoglu, “Russia, Turkey Complete Major Phase of TurkStream Gas Pipeline.” 59. Aktürk, “The Fourth Style of Politics”; Demir, “Turkey’s Unholy Alliance in Syria.” 60. Chow, of the Energy and National Security Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies (Washington, DC), cited in Gulf Times, “Pipe Dreams?”

5 Militarization of the Kurdish Issue Joost Jongerden

Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government tentatively acknowledged Turkey’s Kurdish issue as a political problem and engaged in talks with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK), it is once again approaching the Kurdish question as a security issue and the PKK as a terrorist threat. PKK bases in the Kurdistan Autonomous Region in Iraq have been targeted by airstrikes since July 2015, ending a cease-fire of more than two years, and legal organizations in Turkey struggling for the “right to have rights”1 are being hampered and closed down, their members investigated, detained, imprisoned, and even killed. Parliamentarians from the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP), including their parliamentary leaders, have been stripped of their immunity and imprisoned; municipality offices have been raided and elected officials detained and replaced by AKP trustees.2 After the failed coup attempt in July 2016, Turkey was ruled under a state of exception,3 transferring powers to the executive, which gave way in July 2018 to a presidential system, in which state power is held by the president. In connection to the Kurdish issue and Turkey’s state of exception, I pose two propositions and offer an analysis of the AKP’s approach to the Kurdish issue. The first is that the AKP government and the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan have never been seriously committed to securing peace through a deal with the PKK; rather, their goal has been to break the hegemony of the secular Kurdish movement over the Kurdish population in the southeast of Turkey, in which the PKK plays an important role. The AKP first tried to achieve this aim by enacting minor reforms while disavowing the existence of Turkey’s Kurdish issue through a discourse of Islamic

After a brief period in which the Justice and Development

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brotherhood. When this attempt to defeat the secular Kurdish movement through political means failed, and as the AKP lost popularity following opposition from different quarters, the government adopted a fallback position of Turkish nationalism that involved a reversion to military operations and the closure of political avenues to a peaceful resolution. Employing the discourse of terrorism and generally dealing with the Kurdish movement as a security rather than a political matter, this was designed to (re)produce the Kurdish movement as an enemy of the state and thus mobilize support for the AKP as its protector. Genuine progress on the issue would have demanded some major political reforms and left the AKP politically vulnerable, but the AKP choice has meant a (re)narrowing of the political domain and pushed the Kurdish movement as a whole (again) toward illegality and violence. The second proposition is that AKP politics has been informed by weakness and by fear. It was developed from a position of weakness insofar as the government did not, in fact, show an adequate grasp of the political steps necessary to resolve the Kurdish issue. This was already evident at the time of the 2009 “Kurdish opening” (Kürt açılımı), which rapidly dissolved into a project of national unity after nationalist backlash,4 refashioning an old nationalist discourse in sectarian terms in which the Kurdish issue was once again reduced to a question of security. The fear, meanwhile, was of the success of a secular Kurdish movement ideologically oriented toward PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. This came to the fore after the June 2015 national election, when the HDP pushed a nationwide, inclusive democratic line that captured the imagination of many liberals and progressives across Turkey. This was also the first time in the history of Turkey that a pro-Kurdish party managed to pass the nationwide 10 percent electoral threshold. The AKP fear was not only of a robust and assertive Kurdish movement in Turkey but also of the growing influence of Kurdish politics in Syria, Iraq, and Iran. It is also in this context that we have to understand the recent Turkish interventions in northern Syria and Iraq. In northern Syria, the Turkish military offensive has mainly targeted the Öcalan-inspired Kurdish People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG), Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin, YPJ), and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Turkey’s military intervention in Afrin in 2018, plans for the creation of a “buffer zone” in northern Syria, establishment of several military bases in northern Iraq, (failed) attempts to lead the offensive against the Islamic State in Mosul and Raqqa, and readiness to play a role in the reconstruction of these cities have all been informed by fear. Turkey fears the emergence of another Kurdish entity in the region and an expanding influence of movements inspired by the thought of Abdullah Öcalan. Focusing on Turkey, therefore, this chapter argues that the return to violence has been a deliberate strategy on the part of the AKP, both

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directly, as a political calculation, and indirectly, through its failure to move away from the historical approach of the state to its Kurdish issue. Before discussing this, however, the chapter gives some background about the Kurds, the emergence of Turkey’s Kurdish issue, and the PKK. It concludes with a discussion of the current situation in Turkey and prospects for the future. With a population estimated at 30 million to 40 million, Kurds make up the fourth-largest ethnicity in western Asia, after Arabs, Persians, and Turks. Most live in Kurdistan, an area that encompasses southeastern Turkey, western Iran, northern Iraq, and parts of northern Syria. Of Turkey’s total population of 83 million, an estimated 10 million to 20 million (15 to 25 percent) are of Kurdish origin, Iraq’s 7 million Kurds constitute some 25 percent of the total population, and the approximately 8 million Kurds in Iran and over 2 million in Syria account for approximately 10 percent of those countries’ populations.5 Although Kurdistan means “land of the Kurds,” other groups, including Armenians, Syrian Christians, Chaldeans, Arabs, Yezidis, Jews, and Turkmen, have historically inhabited it. The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims who follow the Shafi School, which distinguishes them from their Hanafi Muslim (Arab and Turkish) neighbors (although some Kurds are Shiite or Ahl al-Haq Muslims or Alevi, Jewish, or Yezidi). The Kurdish language is part of the Indo-European family, so unlike Arabic and Turkish but like Persian (to which it is closely related). The largest of the several existing Kurdish dialects are Kurmanji (spoken in the north and northwest) and Sorani (in the south); others include Zaza, Gorani, and Leki.6 A sense of national belonging emerged among the Kurds during the twentieth century—comparatively later and in a weaker form than the nationalisms of the neighboring Turks, Arabs, and Persians. The Kurds were a weak, barely relevant actor in the negotiations that redrew the map of the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I. International treaties and League of Nations’ mandates established the Republic of Turkey and the British- and French-run territories from which Iraq and Syria emerged, while the Iranian border remained unchanged—leaving the Kurds divided among these countries. Kurds rebelled on many occasions over the years, both before and after the establishment of the new state system in the region. These rebellions were geographically and politically confined, although, in the course of the military operations suppressing them, many hundreds of thousands of Kurds were killed or displaced. In the aftermath of World War II, in January 1946, Kurdish nationalists established the Republic of Mahabad in

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northwestern Iran. Although short-lived—the Iranian state had regained control by the end of that year—Mahabad became an inspirational symbol for many Kurds, and one of its generals, the tribal leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani, emerged as the charismatic leader of a Kurdish national movement in Iraq that also influenced Kurds in other areas.7 Barzani fought a guerrilla war during the 1960s, resulting in de facto autonomy, with a peace agreement between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Partîya Demokrat a Kurdistanê, PDK) and the Baath regime providing a framework for this in 1970. The collapse of this agreement resulted in a return to armed conflict in 1974 and a collapse of the Kurdish forces a year later. In Turkey, a PKK-led guerrilla war started in 1984, peaking during the 1990s. These two movements, the PDK and PKK, continue to distinguish the main political clustering and imaginations in Kurdish politics today, the former being more classically nationalist in its objectives and capitalist in orientation and the latter post-Marxist or radical democratic. The establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 ushered in an era in which the Kurds in Anatolia faced forced assimilation and concerted efforts to destroy their cultural identity.8 The Republican regime imposed its own definition of “the people,” with groups outside that category considered a threat to be expelled or assimilated. Practices swung between those that explicitly sought the extinction of certain populations and those that produced the conditions for their cultural demise and disappearance.9 In this creation of a nation in which otherness was regarded in terms of an existential conflict, the expression of cultural difference was frequently regarded as a matter of life and death, and the Kurdish language and expressions of cultural identity were not tolerated in political and public contexts. Southeastern Turkey was governed under martial law and emergency regulations almost continuously from 1927 to 2002,10 according to a Turkish nationalist agenda in which cultural difference became perceived as a national threat; Kurds were denied their existence “to the point . . . that even the Kurds themselves began to doubt their existence.”11 The emergence of the PKK between two military coups in 1971 and 1980 thus occurred in circumstances in which people had to describe themselves as Turks in order to be eligible for political rights12 and had no alternative avenue of genuine political expression.13 A committed cadre, having an organization throughout Kurdistan, formally established the PKK in 1978. The PKK had developed from the revolutionary Left in Turkey, with founding members that included both Turks and Kurds and a discourse informed by Marxist-inspired liberation movements.14 Two main objectives shaped the political outlook of the PKK at

Turkey and the Kurds

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that time: (1) the transformation of Kurdish society through the elimination of relations of exploitation, and (2) the unification of Kurdistan and the establishment of an independent state. Given that it saw no alternative avenue for genuine political expression,15 the PKK held that only a prolonged people’s war against colonization by Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria could bring about the necessary changes.16 In its 1978 manifesto, the PKK had declared the establishment of an independent state to be the only correct political goal of a national liberation movement. Around the turn of the millennium, however, following a critique and self-critique of the character of national liberation struggles and “real existing socialism,” the party started to question whether independence really ought to be conceptualized and practiced in the form of state construction.17 Taking the concept of state-construction from the principle of self-determination, the PKK thus shifted its focus from taking over state power to developing forms of self-organization and self-administration from the local level up. This radical democratic discourse translated into an organizational restructuring. Now, the organizational structure is no longer expressive of the party leading the struggle, a singular entity aiming at state power. Rather, it takes the form of a diverse movement of movements, politicizing various struggles and strengthening societal self-organization; it is “a movement that struggles for a radical democracy, one that is not based on statecraft, but upon peoples’ democratic organizations and decisionmaking powers.”18 This reorganization coincided with the emergence of a new actor in Turkish politics in 2001: the AKP. From its establishment in 2001, the AKP had claimed that it was better able than the Kemalists of Turkey’s traditional republicanism to solve the Kurdish issue.19 The sectarian Sunni National Outlook (Milli Görüş) movement from which the AKP had emerged held a strong position in the Kurdish southeast of the country, due to that movement’s close links with the Sunni (Kurdish) Naqshbandi religious brotherhood. Moreover, the AKP presented itself as the party that could reform Turkey and bring it closer to the EU. Reform, reconciliation, and abandonment of the idea of “internal enemies” formed a major part of the AKP’s rhetoric in the 2002 elections that thrust it to power. At first sight, the PKK’s discourse of democratization and the AKP’s discourse of reform and reconciliation created new possibilities for a political solution. The lifting of the state of emergency (in 2002) and the abolition of the death penalty (2004)20 were initially welcomed as tentative first steps toward a possible paradigm shift for the state with respect to the Kurdish issue, one in which the security (military) approach could finally be

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replaced by a political one. However, statements by AKP leaders were contradictory, swinging back and forth between mild toned and reconciliatory to hard-line and bombastic. Hopes for a political solution soared when, in May 2009, then president Abdullah Gül stated publicly that the Kurdish issue was the most pressing problem in the country, after which Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan announced a new initiative, the Kurdish opening. On July 29, 2009, Interior Minister Beşir Atalay stated that the government was pursuing a solution to the Kurdish issue. In mid-August 2009, Erdoğan made an emotional appeal for all parties to unite behind a solution to the Kurdish question, rhetorically asking parliamentarians, “If Turkey had not spent its energy, budget, peace and young people on [fighting] terrorism, if Turkey had not spent the last 25 years in conflict, where would we be today?”21 When the first tentative step was taken in October 2009, with thirtyfour militants and family members from Iraqi Kurdistan—eight from a guerrilla base and twenty-six from the Maxmur refugee camp—entering Turkey through the international border at Habur, nationally televized images of their welcome by cheerful crowds triggered a reaction of Turkish nationalist outrage. Rather than push through with what it had not properly prepared, the AKP government was scared off. Essentially, the Kurdish opening came to an end as soon as it started,22 and thereafter, instead of a thoroughgoing review and reform, the AKP introduced piecemeal measures only. Eventually Erdoğan proposed a “democratization package,” which was met with considerable disappointment,23 for what had started out as a Kurdish initiative now made no direct reference at all to the Kurds. Moreover, although the AKP government was regarded internationally as a force for democratization in Turkey, doubts about its intentions were growing. It was argued that the reform agenda should not be confused with a liberal pluralism since it was rather motivated by a struggle for power with the old Kemalist elite, which still had a strong grip on the state. 24 It became increasingly clear that reforms passed by the AKP were primarily aimed at extending its control.25 Yet, even as the AKP succeeded in capturing the state and marginalizing the Kemalists, still it failed to gain control over the southeast and the Kurdish population. Southeastern Turkey had increasingly come under the ideological influence of the PKK since the 1980s (at the beginning of the 1990s, before being pushed back, the PKK was even able to establish territorial control over large parts of the countryside). Then, participation in the political process since 1990 had provided the Kurdish movement with various gains, including a legitimate structure and recognized basis for public gathering, legal protection from prosecution, new access to domestic and international audiences, and new means to engage in symbolic politics (e.g., the attachment of Kurdish names to streets and parks in the municipalities the

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pro-Kurdish political party administered). In almost every election, the Kurdish party—successively banned and then reformed/renamed—had increased its vote totals, municipalities controlled, and numbers of MPs. This culminated in the breakthrough electoral victory in June 2015, when the HDP received more than 13 percent of the votes and gained eighty MPs—and in the process caused the ruling AKP to lose the absolute majority it had enjoyed since coming to power in 2002. In other words, as the Kurdish movement grew in strength and was able to reach out to larger audiences, it fundamentally undermined the AKP position of national political dominance. The government responded to its June 2015 electoral loss in two ways. First, Erdoğan effectively annulled the elections by the prevention of the formation of a coalition government (with or without the AKP) and the organization of a “corrective” election in November 2015. In addition to ending the parliamentary majority and exposing the cracks in the AKP’s Kurdish policy (with the governing party losing much of its vote in the southeast), the June election showed that the HDP could effect a “Turkish opening.” The HDP was able to mobilize and attract voters in western Turkey for a secular, progressive, and multicultural politics. Thus, the November 2015 elections aimed to push the HDP toward the margins of the political system and generally roll back the political successes and achievements of the Kurdish movement. Mandated by Erdoğan to reverse the June election results, the November election was held in an atmosphere of violence and intimidation directed against the HDP’s local offices and campaign activities. “Evidence indeed confirms that elections are no longer fair; civil liberties are being systematically violated, and the playing field is highly skewed in favour of the ruling AKP.”26 Second, following the change of tack to a more overtly nationalist positioning to recover at the polls later in the year, there was a recalibration of AKP policy generally to the traditional Republican hard line oriented around national security and terrorism. The imposition of repressive measures following electoral success that then ensued and has continued since was not a new sequence in Turkey, although the scale of the violence was. Previously, for example, after the victory of the Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi, DTP) in the 2009 local election, the party was banned, and “thousands of Kurdish politicians, mayors, journalists, academics, trade union members, and human rights activists [were] rounded up in mass arrests.”27 Now, however, multiple security agencies, including the army, were called in to oust the urban youth organizing a resistance with PKK support. This came with blanket curfews and several urban areas razed, hundreds of thousands of people displaced, and extensive human rights abuses reported, including incidents of sniper fire preventing people from reaching hospitals or burying their dead, the use of rape as a weapon of terror, and murder by burning alive. 28 Erdoğan also played the military

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card abroad, initiating airstrikes against PKK bases in southern Kurdistan and northern Iraq, as well as creating a buffer zone to forestall further development of Rojava, the PKK-linked area of Kurdistan. The resumption of military operations marked the end of communications between the Turkish state and the PKK, referred to as the “solution process.” There have been occasional contacts between the PKK and the state since 1993, and direct talks started in Ankara in November 2006, continuing in Brussels in 2007 and in Geneva in 2008, before a series of eleven meetings in Oslo between September 2008 and July 2011.29 When these talks stopped, the armed conflict flared up again, but came to a halt with the start of the İmralı process, a series of communications centered on Abdullah Öcalan between 2012 and 2015. While state delegations regularly visited Öcalan at his island prison of İmralı, the HDP acted as interlocutor between him and the PKK leadership in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan. Documents reveal that the PKK came with proposals for a solution, but the Turkish side did not respond and only insisted on disarmament.30 Still, in the 2013–2015 period, hopes were high that Turkey was on the path to a peaceful resolution of the thirty-year armed conflict. In 2013, the previously banned March 21 traditional Kurdish New Year festival of Newroz was openly celebrated in Diyarbakır by hundreds of thousands of people with PKK flags and portraits of their imprisoned leader, while a Newroz message of peace and reconciliation by Öcalan was read without police intervention. Öcalan announced,31

A Failed Solution Process

Our fight has not been and can never be against any specific race, religion, sect, or group. Our fight has been against repression, ignorance and injustice, against enforced underdevelopment as well as against all forms of oppression. . . . Today a new era is beginning. . . . The period of armed struggle is ending, and the door is opening to democratic politics. . . . We are beginning a process focused on political, social and economic aspects; an understanding based on democratic rights, freedoms, and equality is growing. We have now reached the point of silencing the weapons and letting the ideas and politics speak. . . . A great responsibility falls on all of us to create an equal, free and democratic country of all peoples and cultures, befitting the history of Kurdistan and Anatolia. On this occasion of Newroz, I call on the Armenians, Turkomans, Assyrians, Arabs, and all other peoples, just as much as on the Kurds, to behold the flame of freedom and equality— the fire that is lit here today—and embrace it as their own.

In the months and years that followed, the PKK began the withdrawal of its fighters and prepared for a congress at which it would announce the end of armed struggle in Turkey (as the logical conclusion to the unilateral cease-

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fires it had undertaken through most of the last decade and a half). However, the process stagnated, and calls from the PKK and the pro-Kurdish party in the parliament of Turkey—then called the Peace and Democracy Party (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi, BDP), and subsumed by the HDP in 2012—to involve third-party monitoring and mediation were rejected by Erdoğan. Representatives of the BDP repeatedly reported that the Turkish government failed to take concrete measures. As Gülten Kışanak, Diyarbakır’s co-mayor arrested in October 2016, noted in 2013,32 “We proposed to form a committee that would independently observe the process. However, we received no response. We have brought up the issue of concrete steps several times: new democratic reforms, removal of obstacles against freedom of the press and of expression, removal of the Anti-Terror Act. We need to change the electoral quotas and law on political parties. Not only did the government take no steps regarding these issues, its discourse portrayed an opposite attitude.” Throughout the solution process, it was the broader Kurdish movement, including the PKK and HDP, that developed an agenda and pushed the process forward, with the AKP often responding with contradictory terms and disqualifying positive steps taken by the other side.33 During this period, the position of the AKP toward the Kurdish movement in Turkey was also affected by developments in Syria, where Turkey regarded the emergence of Rojava as a threat. The atmosphere deteriorated significantly with the state’s refusal to allow Kurds to help the Kurdish YPG/YPJ militias just across the border in the Syrian town of Kobane, which came under sustained attack from the Islamic State between September 2014 and January 2015. On the contrary, the government appeared to openly prefer the jihadists to the secular Kurds. Nevertheless, talks continued, and on February 28, 2015, HDP representatives and two AKP ministers reached an agreement on a ten-point plan called the Dolmabahçe Agreement, the details of which remain vague and were rendered unimportant anyway when Erdoğan summarily ended the process. While Öcalan, referring to the Dolmabahçe Agreement, was calling on the PKK on March 21, 2015, to organize the congress for the cessation of the armed struggle, 34 Prime Minister Erdoğan declared on March 22 that he would not accept the agreement. 35 In a context of escalating rhetorical and physical violence, the solution process quickly unraveled. On July 17, 2015, Erdoğan reiterated his outright rejection of the Dolmabahçe Agreement. In an environment of escalating violence, two police officers were killed, apparently the retaliatory act36 of a local PKK cell. 37 Just as Erdoğan declared the July 15, 2016, coup attempt a “gift from God” 38 since it provided him with an excuse to organize a systematic crackdown on opponents, the killing of the police officers gave the AKP an excuse to renew military operations against the PKK, marking the beginning of a new round of violence.39

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It is difficult to believe now that a peaceful resolution to the Kurdish issue appeared within reach in the spring of 2015, and, indeed, it may not have been as close as it seemed at the time. The government’s efforts always appeared inconsistent and inadequate, and there was suspicion of duplicity (that the AKP may merely have been making political reconnaissance missions through its control over the intelligence and security agencies, exploring and monitoring the positions of the PKK and its imprisoned leader). The government did not seem to properly contemplate the fundamentals of what was necessary to achieve the peace it claimed to desire—which, in addition to third-party mediation, would have included proper preparation of the public and the creation of mutual trust—raising the question of how serious the AKP really was in the first place. The AKP seems to have become caught up in a process that it had started but ultimately did not want to go through with; it did not genuinely desire to come to a negotiated, long-term political solution with the PKK but rather wished to defeat it. Just as the AKP had implemented reforms not because it believed in democratization but as a means to weaken the Kemalist bureaucratic elite and increase its own control over state institutions and society, so had it come up with reforms to weaken the Kurdish movement rather than actually tackle the Kurdish issue.40 Finally, it would appear, Erdoğan’s own autocratic personality scuppered any remaining hope, as he became fixated on his own position and ushering in a presidential system with power highly centralized in the (president’s) palace, for which he needed sufficient parliamentary support for a referendum. The success of the HDP in the July 2015 parliamentary election, in which its leader, Selahattin Demirtaş, openly opposed and thereby thwarted Erdoğan’s plans, pushed the now president not only to revert to the old, zero-sum militarization approach to Turkey’s Kurdish issue but to take it even further, intentionally backing the Kurdish movement into a corner. Part of that movement resorted to physical defense and violent resistance, leading to an urban war. For Erdoğan and the AKP, revenge combined with political calculation; they took a hard-line stance to mobilize and stir up a Turkish-Sunni (nationalist-sectarian) popular sentiment in order to win back their parliamentary majority. Indeed, they were successful in this precisely because they regained votes previously lost to the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), notwithstanding the HDP’s repeat of its June success in passing the threshold and returning MPs to parliament. While the 1990s and early 2000s had seen wide swathes of the countryside in the southeast forcibly cleared by the Turkish state, something rather similar has now occurred in several of the region’s towns and cities. This violence in Turkey is the direct result of a deliberate AKP strategy to

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(re)produce Kurdish aspirations as a military movement that must be dealt with by force instead of politics. In order to move once again toward a nonmilitary, political solution, the Kurdish movement, including the PKK, must be accepted as a legitimate actor that has to be incorporated politically rather than fought militarily. Today, however, there are few signs that this will occur. Turkish nationalist passions have been enflamed with Sunni sectarianism, and political capital remains to be made and maintained by Erdoğan and the AKP through continuing on the present path. With what leverage the United States and European Union used to have on this issue now drastically reduced by a variety of factors (ranging from the specifics of the situation in Iraq and Syria, and the refugee issue, to worsening relations generally), a constructive movement for peace and resolution cannot be realistically hoped for in the near future. The cycle of violence, it appears, will continue as long as the legitimate aspirations of Kurds continue to go unaddressed. Positively, one can at least say that the flag of peace and resolution of Turkey’s Kurdish issue was flown, albeit briefly, and that surely it will fly again—next time, one would hope, from a more secure base.

Notes

1. Kesby, The Right to Have Rights. 2. Under cover of the state of emergency, the HDP’s co-chairs, 16 deputies, and 93 mayors have been detained and imprisoned. AKP government-appointed trustees moved into 93 of the 103 HDP-run municipalites with a total population of 5.8 million people. 3. See also the discussion in Chapter 1, note 22. 4. Casier, Jongerden, and Walker, “Fruitless Attempts?” 5. Gunter, Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, pp. 3–4. 6. Van Bruinessen, Agha, Shaikh, and State. 7. Jongerden and Akkaya, “Born from the Left: The Making of the PKK.” 8. Van Bruinessen, “Genocide in Kurdistan?” 9. J. Butler, Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly. 10. The recent hiatus of civilian rule ended in 2015, first with the (re)imposition of curfews and then through an (ongoing) state of emergency governance. 11. Cited in Jongerden, “Looking Beyond the State,” p. 722. 12. Barkey and Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question. 13. Bozarslan, Violence in the Middle East, p. 23. 14. Jongerden and Akkaya, “Born from the Left.” 15. Bozarslan, Violence in the Middle East, p. 23. 16. Jongerden, “Colonialism, Self-Determination and Independence: The New PKK Paradigm.” 17. Jongerden, “Colonialism, Self-Determination and Independence: The New PKK Paradigm.” 18. PKK, Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan PKK Yeniden İnşa Kongre Belgeleri. 19. Jongerden and Zürcher, Antwoorden op vragen gesteld door de Rechtbank Rotterdam in het kader van het PSYLOCKE onderzoek naar activiteiten en achtergronden van de PKK. 20. A key issue for the Kurdish movement, which feared that Öcalan would be sentenced to death.

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21. Casier, Jongerden, and Walker, “Fruitless Attempts?” 22. Pusane, “Turkey’s Kurdish Opening.” 23. Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads,” p. 161. 24. Bahcheli and Noel, “The Justice and Development Party and the Kurdish Question,” p. 104; Çınar, “Turkey’s Present Ancien Regime and the Justice and Development Party,” p. 22. 25. Müftüler-Baç, Judicial Reform in Turkey and the EU’s Political Conditionality, p. 19. 26. Esen and Gumuscu, “Rising Competitive Authoritarianism in Turkey.” 27. Yesil, “Press Censorship in Turkey,” p. 163. 28. Human Rights Watch, “Turkey: Mounting Security Operation Deaths.” Due to a media blackout, this conflict generally went underreported; however, see also, e.g., the reports of the various Human Rights Associations, among these, İHD (İnsan Hakları Derneği), “Doğu ve Güneydoğu Anadolu Bölgesi. Çatışmalı Ortamlarda Meydana Gelen İnsan Hakları İhlalleri.” 29. Dicle, Türkiye-PKK Görüşmeleri, 2005–2015. 30. Kapmaz, Öcalan’ın İmralı Günleri; Dicle, Türkiye-PKK Görüşmeleri, 2005–2015. 31. ANFNEWS, full text of Abdullah Öcalan’s Newroz Statement. 32. Jongerden, “An Ill-Managed Process.” 33. Kapmaz, Öcalan’ın İmralı Günleri; Dicle, Türkiye-PKK Görüşmeleri, 2005–2015. 34. “With the [Dolmabahçe] agreement on principles in the declaration, I see it as historically necessary to hold a congress to bring to a stop the nearly 40-year armed struggle carried out by the PKK against the Turkish Republic, and to determine societal strategies and tactics suitable for a new period.” HDP MP Sırrı Süreyya Önder delivered the message of Öcalan; see Mynet, “Öcalan’dan PKK’ya çağrı: ‘Silah bırakmak için toplanın’” (minutes 3.15–3.40). 35. Çiçek and Coşkun, The Peace Process from Dolmabahçe to Present-Day. 36. On June 5, 2015, a bomb explosion at an HDP election meeting in Diyarbakır killed 4 HDP supporters, wounding over 100. After the siege by the Islamic State (IS) was broken, the Kobane Reconstruction Board called for assistance for the reconstruction of the town. When youngsters belonging to the Socialist Party of the Oppressed (Ezilenlerin Sosyalist Partisi), an HDP constituent, gathered in the border town of Suruç to enter Kobane, a suicide bomber killed 33 and wounded 103 on July 20, 2015. On October 10, 2015, the election rally organized in Ankara by HDP, labor unions, and a number of NGOs was targeted by a suicide bomb attack, killing 109 people and wounding 500. See Stockholm Center for Freedom, “EU Report: Turkey’s Ruling AKP Commissioned ISIL for Ankara Massacre.” 37. The killing of the police officers took place two days after the Suruç suicide attack. PKK rejected responsibility. See Diken, “PKK yöneticisi Karayılan: Ceylanpınar’daki iki polis resmi birimlerimizce öldürülmedi.” 38. See Champion, “Coup Was ‘Gift from God’ for Erdogan Planning a New Turkey.” 39. See also Bianet, “Ceylanpınar Cinayetiyle İlgili Kim, Ne Demişti?” 40. Bahcheli and Noel, “The Justice and Development Party and the Kurdish Question”; Çınar, “Turkey’s Present Ancien Regime and the Justice and Development Party”; Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads.”

6 The Diyanet and the Changing Politics of Religion Nico Landman

and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) is often associated with the rise of Islam as a social and political force in Turkey. Alternatively, it is understood as a return of Islam to the political arena after many decades of an absence imposed by the secular forces that had dominated political life since the days of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. This association is strengthened time and again by Erdoğan’s use of Ottoman rather than republican symbols, his defense of conservative moral values (understood as Islamic values), his efforts to repeal existing bans on Islamic headscarves, and his attempts to make Turkey a major player in the Muslim world. Against the background of this “return of Islam,” it is worth noting that Islam is absent from the Turkish constitution and that the constitutional changes proposed by Erdoğan in the April 2017 referendum did not alter that. The more general word religion does occur in the constitution but only to limit its role in society. The Turkish Constitution of 1982 states in Article 2, “The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by rule of law, within the notions of public peace, national solidarity, and justice, respecting human rights, loyal to the nationalism of Atatürk.” In this secular state, freedom of religion is granted to all citizens (Article 24), but it explicitly does not include the freedom to counteract “the democratic and secular order” (Article 14). The preamble of the constitution is even clearer on the relation between religion, politics, and the state: “As required by the principle of secularism, sacred religious feelings shall absolutely not be involved in state affairs and politics.” Religion is thus valued and associated with “sacred feelings” but resolutely relegated to the private sphere.

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Finally, the 1982 constitution mentions the existence of a Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, or Diyanet) but again underlines its operation within the secular framework of the state, far away from politics (Article 136). The increased visibility of Islam under AKP rule makes it likely that religion and its institution will be an important social and political force in the foreseeable future of Turkey. This chapter raises the questions of how secularism in contemporary Turkey should be understood and how the relationship between secularism and Islam is evolving under AKP rule. The sheer demographics of contemporary Turkey make it unsurprising that non-Muslim minorities are often overlooked and that “religion in Turkey” is virtually synonymous with “Islam in Turkey.” According to the CIA World Factbook, the Turkish population is overwhelmingly (99.8 percent) Muslim, with most of the remainder being Christians or Jews.1 The number of Christians declined dramatically in the first decades of the twentieth century, mainly because of the deportations and massacres of Armenians in 1915 and the 1923 population exchange between Turkey and Greece.2 Since then, the number of Christians has been further reduced by emigration, and today the various Christian communities, such as the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, although proud of their long historical presence in Anatolia and Istanbul, constitute a scarcely visible, tiny minority within an overwhelmingly Muslim Turkish population. The official number of Muslims may be somewhat exaggerated because every newborn who does not belong to one of the recognized non-Muslim minorities is officially registered as a Muslim; official statistics are silent about those who consider themselves atheist or nonreligious.3 However, according to most surveys, the number of nonbelievers in Turkey is limited to a few million. The 2005 Eurobarometer found that 95 percent of Turks believed in God.4 More recently, the religious self-identification of Turks was surveyed in 2014 with the following question: “Irrespective of whether you attend a place of worship or not, would you say you are a religious person, not a religious person, or a convinced atheist?” In this survey, 79 percent of respondents described themselves as religious, 13 percent as nonreligious, and 2 percent as atheist; 6 percent said they did not know.5 In the same survey, 45 percent of respondents indicated that, for them, religion was the most important in a list of identity markers, with nationality coming second at 31 percent and several other markers such as ethnicity garnering 6 percent or lower. Therefore, even though the official 99.8 percent Muslim figure needs to be taken with a grain of salt, it is safe to say that Islam is the religion of the vast majority of Turks and that this religion matters for them.

Religion in Turkey: Islam

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Islam in Turkey: Which Islam? These statistics do not indicate the predominant type of Islam in Turkey. Since the Ottoman era, Islam has, in this region, been closely linked with Sunnism, specifically the Hanafi school. The sultans of the sixteenth century empowered a class of Hanafi religious scholars to shape the area’s religious and social life. Sunni orthodoxy thus influenced judges in courts, teachers at religious schools, and preachers in mosques.6 Another feature of Turkish Islam is the popularity of Sufi brotherhoods led by charismatic mystical leaders who promoted forms of piety that ranged from the ecstatic to the sober. Their dervish lodges became places of common worship, charitable efforts, and educational activities. The tombs of their deceased shaykhs were centers of pilgrimage and the veneration of saints.7 The important Sufi orders were the Naqshbandis, the Jarrahis, the Qadiris, and the Bektashis, which functioned largely as independent religious organizations but needed approval by the highest Ottoman religious authority, the Shaykh al-Islam.8 In addition to the Sunni-Hanafi orthodoxy and the officially recognized Sufi orders, religious life in Ottoman Turkey was shaped by the presence of various Shia groups now called Alevis. Some were persecuted for their real or alleged support for the Safavid rulers of Iran and survived in remote mountainous areas. Others, such as the Bektashis, who were close to one branch of Shi’ism, were incorporated into the system by being recognized as a Sufi order.9 The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the secular Republic of Turkey dramatically altered the legal, political, and social place of Islam, but the features listed above continued to be influential. Sunni orthodoxy still favored Hanafi interpretations of Islamic law, although the Kemalist reforms reduced its influence by excluding religious leaders from political decisionmaking and marginalizing religious scholars (ulama). The Sufi orders received a severe blow with Atatürk’s decision in 1925 to abolish them and close down all their centers. Some managed to survive, however, either clandestinely or by finding legal forms such as religious or educational associations that were acceptable to the secular authorities. For the Shia minorities, the Kemalist reforms had complex effects. The Bektashi order was abolished in 1925, like all the other Sufi orders. However, the secular system brought new opportunities and freedoms for Shia groups. In fact, a 2013 study shows a deliberate effort by nationalist intellectuals in the first decades of the Turkish republic to include a wide range of Shia groups in the new Turkish nation by labeling them Alevis and arguing that they constituted a legitimate Turkish expression of Islam.10

From Atatürk to Erdoğan: Secularism and Islam The received wisdom that Kemalism represents modernization and progress and that Islamic political forces in Turkey stand for backwardness and a longing for the past is an oversimplification based more on political preferences

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than historical analysis.11 The movement of political Islam from which the AKP emerged must be understood within the broader modernization processes of twentieth-century Turkey, as an element in the struggle about the place of Islam in a developing modern state. The development of this state and struggle can be divided into four stages. The first stage (1923–1945) was characterized by the creation of a new state as a successor to the Ottoman Empire. The ruling party that Mustafa Kemal had established, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), based this state on a Kemalist ideology in which Turkish nationalism, secularism, and a central role for the state were key elements. The Kemalists’ understanding of secularism required the de-Islamization of politics and law and led to attempts to modernize and reform religious culture itself. Islamic political institutions such as the caliphate—not required for a secular state—were abolished. Sharia law and courts were completely absent from the newly designed legal system. With these moves, the Kemalists completed a process of secularization of the law that had begun with the nineteenth-century Tanzimat reforms and had progressed further in the policies of the Young Turks (1908–1918). The Kemalist doctrine was taught through state school curricula in which Islamic instruction had no place. Sufi brotherhoods, seen as centers of superstition and opposition to modernizing reforms, were banned. The introduction of a new Latin alphabet for the Turkish language to replace Arabic script, the substitution of the Gregorian for the Islamic calendar, and the institution of Sunday as the weekly holiday were all powerfully symbolic breaks with established Islamic culture. Although the Kemalists legitimized their policies by referring to the will of the people, their approach was in fact very much top-down and enforced by a one-party system. Its effects were initially more visible in urban centers than in the Anatolian countryside, where the antireligious tendency of the elites was unpopular. Any resistance, sometimes led by shaykhs of the now illegal Sufi brotherhoods, was crushed. After World War II the introduction of a multiparty system paved the way for a second stage (1945–1980) in the development of the state and its relation to Islam. The CHP was defeated in the 1950 elections by the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), which defended both the cultural-religious sensitivities and the economic interests of the countryside. Without attacking the secular character of the state and its institutions, the DP government allowed more space for Islamic culture. The very unpopular prohibition of the Arabic call to prayer came to an end. Islamic education was given a place in public schools, and new training facilities for imams were made available. For electoral purposes, politicians claimed that secularism and the national hero Atatürk stood not against Islam or popular religiosity but only against the exploitation of religion by obscurantist leaders. Even more importantly, in the long run, the DP’s economic policies promoted the

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mechanization of agriculture, which led to urbanization on a massive scale and thus to drastic changes in Turkey’s social fabric. It was among a newly emerging urban middle class that the most visible expressions of political Islam were to arise in the 1960s and 1970s. The most prominent of these was the National Outlook (Milli Görüş) movement of Necmettin Erbakan, founder of the National Salvation Party (1970–1980), which sought to Islamize Turkish economy and society. The 1980 coup that marked the beginning of the third stage (1980– 2003) was directed partly against Islamists who threatened the secular order, and Erbakan was imprisoned. However, the military regime tried to reestablish national unity by including a nationalist form of Islam in the system. The so-called Turkish-Islamic synthesis merged Turkish nationalism and Islam to create an ideology compatible with a modern, scientific worldview and with the secular order of the Turkish republic. The junta promoted this thinking by making “religion and morality” an obligatory subject in state schools. Both before and after the 1980 coup, Islamic education had become even more prominent in the imam hatip schools, which were originally designed to provide imams for Turkish mosques but began to enroll many more pupils than the profession required and thereby contributed to the rise of an Islamically trained and religiously conscious generation of university students and intellectuals. The gap between urban secular elites and religiously minded agrarian commoners was rapidly narrowing. The economic policies of the governments of the 1980s (especially of Turgut Özal’s Motherland Party) also contributed to this process: neoliberal economic policies made Anatolian entrepreneurs with conservative Islamic values influential actors in Turkish society. Erbakan made a comeback, and his Welfare Party succeeded in mobilizing many of these Islamic tendencies in society. It became an Islamic force in Turkish politics but was closed by the Constitutional Court after the soft military intervention of 1997 against Erbakan’s coalition government. Stage four, which began in 2003, is characterized by AKP rule under Erdoğan, who had been Istanbul’s Welfare Party mayor. Whereas that party often clashed with the secular order of the Turkish republic and indirectly rejected it altogether—a more strident defiance was not allowed—a generation of young party members led by Erdoğan took a more conciliatory approach to the secular system. They established the AKP, which won a landslide victory in 2002 and has ruled Turkey since 2003. As for the relationship between Islam, society, and state, the AKP has never advocated the abolishment of secularism but did argue for an adjustment of its meaning, often taking Western democracies as an example. The party argued that the Turkish version of secularism needed adjustment because it limited religious freedom excessively; rather than being neutral toward religion, it strove to control religious life and impose specific expressions of Islam.

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Especially in its early years in power, the AKP has framed its positions about Islam as compatible with the separation of religion and state. In fact, the party has often claimed to be comparable with Christian Democrat parties in western Europe that draw inspiration from religious values but participate on an equal basis with others in an open process of decisionmaking. Critics of Erdoğan have dismissed his plea for a more democratic system as mere pragmatism, and his recent dealings with political opponents indeed give cause for skepticism. Institutionalized Religion: Diyanet By far the largest and most influential religious institution in today’s Turkey is the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which was created in 1924, one year after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, with the threefold task of administering religious services, managing mosques, and informing the public about religion.12 The Diyanet controls about 90,000 mosques in Turkey and supervises imams’ work through an extensive network of regional offices. The regional offices are led by a mufti (müftü), who supervises the work of preachers, imams, muezzins, teachers of Quran courses, and other local Diyanet officials.13 As of 2019, with a total of 144,250 employees,14 the Diyanet is a major institution within the Turkish state. Its sheer size and budget and its activities in every part of Turkey make it the dominant player within Turkish Islam. These activities are not limited to administration and finance but include interpreting religious doctrines, explaining their content, and applying religious regulations to contemporary ethical issues. Because the word religion in contemporary Turkey is nearly synonymous with Sunni Islam, the Diyanet’s task of “enlightening the public about religion” has always been understood as Islamic instruction, as distinguishing between correct and incorrect interpretations of Islam; in short, the Diyanet has acted as an Islamic orthodoxy. Even in the heyday of Kemalism, it showed remarkable continuity with the institutions of Islamic learning in the Ottoman past.15 It has issued fatwas, been involved in shaping the content of religious education in state schools since the 1980s, and published many books in which Islamic doctrine is interpreted and explained. The institution also determines the content of Friday sermons, the text of which is put on its website after Friday services.16 This theological activity by a state organ may come as a surprise to Western readers. It goes well beyond the financial support that some European states provide to religious institutions. It leads to the paradoxical situation that an institution of a secular state actively strives to explain the true meaning of the word of God. Indeed, there is a structural contradiction between the constitutional task of the Diyanet, which demands its defense of the secular order, and its championing of Sunni orthodoxy. This makes

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the Diyanet’s theological ambitions a delicate affair, to say the least. In its theological statements, it has always tried to walk a tightrope by basing its view on Islamic sources without violating secular principles. The Diyanet serves two masters: the secular order of Turkey and the Islamic sources. An easy way out of sensitive issues has often been a refusal to comment, as when the Diyanet’s former president, Ali Bardakoğlu, refused to become involved in the controversies over the headscarf ban in Turkey, simply stating instead that it was a political rather than a religious affair. This tendency can also be seen in the way the Diyanet has responded to religious questions, as in the fatwas it issued during the 1980s and the first decade of the twenty-first century.17 Diyanet’s theological positions are revealed in Hadislerle İslam, a sevenvolume edition in which the Hadith literature (the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad) are presented and explained. It is the outcome of a project to which many Turkish theologians contributed for many years. The books were published in 2012 and have since been made available on the Diyanet website.18 The series does much more than present a translation of Hadith literature from Arabic into contemporary Turkish. It also does more than choose a selection of this vast amount of literature. Rather, it comments on these texts and tries to make them comprehensible and relevant to the modern Turkish reader. Because the Hadith is, after the Quran, the most important classical source of Islamic knowledge, the interpretation of these texts reveals a great deal about the scholars’ religious position. It is therefore relevant to take a closer look at the religious color of this Diyanet publication. A BBC report about the Hadith project suggested that it was an attempt to harmonize Islam with modern values, a claim rejected by the Diyanet out of hand as a false accusation: it intended in no way to change anything in Islamic doctrine but merely to explain the text for the modern reader.19 This reaction may be due to concerns within the Diyanet that the charge of changing Islam would undermine its religious authority among Turkish Muslims. However, reading parts of the Diyanet Hadith collection reveals clear modernist tendencies in its Islamic interpretations, at least if Islamic modernism is viewed as an attempt to harmonize Islam with modern values. One example is the univocal defense of religious freedom, including the right to change one’s religion. This issue often arises in debates on Islam and human rights, because Sharia law includes a death penalty for apostates. The Diyanet Hadith, however, asserts the individual’s freedom to leave Islam, explaining away the death penalty for such a decision. The Hadith on which this death penalty is based (“kill the one who changes his religion”) is interpreted as referring to people who wage war on the Islamic community.20 Another example concerns the Hadith texts allowing polygamy, which are explained by noting that monogamy has become standard and polygamy is discouraged because of fear of unequal treatment of spouses. 21 This is a

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position in line with modernist interpretation of this issue elsewhere in the Muslim world. More generally, the Hadith edition pays significant attention to the historical context in which the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad are to be understood. This historical understanding of the text provides ample opportunity for harmonization with contemporary values suh as individual freedom and equality. Overall, Hadislerle İslam underlines the Diyanet’s ambition to be a Sunni religious authority, making clear that it wants to propagate a modern, moderate interpretation of that religion, based on a thorough, historical study of the classical sources. Other Religious Organizations: The Jamaats Although its resources give the Diyanet Turkey-wide dominance in Islam, several other religious organizations also shape religious life in Turkey, from local communities gathering in private houses to national movements and networks centered on influential authors or preachers. These networks are often associated with Sufi brotherhoods, which survived despite their formal dissolution in 1925 and eventually found various ways to gain legal recognition as cultural, social, or educational associations, as foundations, or as business enterprises. In secularist journalism they are usually called tarikat, a word that comes from the Arabic tariqa, which means “Sufi brotherhood” but has, in the secularist press, gained the negative connotation of clandestine, antisecular sect.22 The newspaper Hürriyet listed twenty in 2006, many of them springing from the Naqshbandi Sufi order. The İskenderpaşa community in Istanbul has been influential because its leading figures (Mehmet Zahit Kotku until 1979 and Esad Coşan until 2011) were advisers to political leaders such as Turgut Özal and Necmettin Erbakan and thus involved, behind the scenes, in the struggle about the place of Islam in Turkish society.23 The best known of these communities are the Süleymancıs and the Nurcus, from which today’s Gülen movement emerged. The Süleymancıs follow the Naqshbandi Sufi shaykh Süleyman Hilmi Tunahan (1888–1959). Tunahan followed the doctrines of the Indian shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624), whom the Turks call Imam Rabbani and who is considered by his followers to be the “reformer of the eleventh Islamic century.” Tunahan built a network of about 1,000 informal, private Quran schools. Under his son-in law, Kemal Kaçar, the movement organized nationally as a network around both Quran courses and dormitories for high school students. Reliable numbers on the size of this network are not available. Though the movement officially rejects the label of a still-banned Sufi order, its adherents observe practices and hold beliefs pertaining to Sufi traditions, such as contemplative remembrance of God, either individually or in prayer groups. Also in line with Sufi traditions, the movement employs an initiation rite

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and a clear distinction between initiated members, who have access to esoteric knowledge of the doctrine, and the uninitiated.24 Tunahan’s grave in Istanbul is an informal place of pilgrimage, although visitors come in small groups to avoid attracting attention, and his image is used in meditation.25 The Nurcu movement was established by Said Nursi (1873–1960). It centers on the spread and collective study of his main work, the Risale-i Nur (Message of Light), from which the group derives its name. The Risale-iNur is a series of treatises connected to Quranic verses, in which rational considerations such as attempts to prove the existence of God from the wonders of nature and mystical reflections about the relation with God are combined.26 One student of Nursi’s work, Fethullah Gülen, elaborated Nursi’s thought, focusing on inner devotion and avoiding confrontation with the secular elites. From his base in İzmir, he built a network consisting of dedicated, ascetic followers who lived together in study houses (dershane) and groups of sympathizers, including businessmen who supported the movement financially.27 This movement benefited after 1983 from the political support of Prime Minister Turgut Özal. Especially in the 1990s, Gülen’s followers created an extensive business and media empire, comprising an Islamic bank, magazines, newspapers, a broadcasting company, schools, and universities.28 They gained positions in all segments of society, including state organs. The soft coup of 1997 that brought down Erbakan’s Welfare Party also targeted some of Gülen’s organizations, and in 1999 he was charged in the media with encouraging his followers to infiltrate and eventually take over the state. He fled to the United States, from where he has since led his movement, which has become an increasingly global phenomenon. This was a turning point for the movement, which has evolved from an inward-looking devotional network into one that seeks cooperation with external partners in a multicultural and multireligious world to address a wide range of social and economic issues.29 In Turkey, the relations between the movement and the AKP government were initially good but turned hostile from 2011 onward, culminating in corruption charges against Erdoğan and his son by a prosecutor linked to the Gülen movement. The aftermath of the failed July 15, 2016, coup, which the Turkish authorities attributed to Gülen’s followers, has led to the dismantling of the Gülen empire in Turkey and, at least for the moment, the obliteration of one of the larger Islamic networks besides the Diyanet in the country. Outside Turkey, the movement, which calls itself Hizmet, continues its activities and has the support of many who do not believe the coup accusations; however, events in Turkey cannot help but harm the movement internationally. The Alevis The Alevis, as the various heterodox Shia groups came to be called in Republican times, kept their religious traditions alive in Anatolian villages,

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but the urbanization of the 1950s and 1960s brought many of them to provincial towns and large cities. No reliable figures are available about the group’s size: whereas sympathetic researchers offer estimations of between 15 and 30 percent of the total Turkish population, Sunni authors report far smaller numbers.30 The urbanization process undermined the social structure and religious tradition in Alevi communities. The influence of modern education eroded the authority of Alevi religious leadership; by the 1980s, Alevi religious culture was in danger of becoming derelict.31 However, several factors, including extreme-right violence against the group and concerns about the growing influence of Sunni Islam, led to an “Alevi revival” in the 1980s, which was led not so much by traditional religious leaders as by young urban intellectuals of Alevi descent who simultaneously rediscovered and redefined their roots.32 The revival was visible in a stream of books and magazine articles striving to explain Alevism to both outsiders and young Alevis. A bloody 1993 attack on an Alevi festival at a hotel in Sivas, a city in central Turkey, that killed thirty-seven prominent Alevis further stimulated the Alevis to mobilize themselves. The many organizations that have since represented Alevism in Turkey can be categorized into four groups. The first mainly wishes to retain and revive the culture and heritage of the Bektashi order and its founder, the thirteenth-century mystic Hacı Bektaş. A second group focuses on social and political issues, associating Alevism with struggles for human rights and freedom rather than religion itself. The lamentations of the sixteenthcentury poet and musician Pir Sultan Abdal regarding Ottoman oppression are a major source of inspiration for this group. A third group is trying to revive Alevism as a religion that sees both the Prophet Muhammad and his son-in-law Ali as its founders; it has developed distinctive ritual and social practices in Anatolia. The Cem ceremony, for instance, is a community meeting featuring song, dance, and a sacred meal. It used to be held in private houses in Anatolian villages, but today Cem houses have been created in several Turkish cities as places of common Alevi worship. Alevi religious and social life is also notable in that it does not include the familiar practices of orthodox Islam, such as ritual prayer five times a day, fasting during Ramadan, Friday prayers in the mosque, and Quran recitation. Finally, a fourth group is spreading Twelver Shia orthodoxy among the Alevis as the true form of Islam.33 A common complaint among all these different Alevi associations is the fact that the Turkish authorities, through both the mosques and the obligatory religious education in state schools, support a Sunni version of Islam. Alevis consider this state-sponsored Sunnism to be a violation of the secular order, and they are trying to either abolish these institutions or receive equal official recognition. The Diyanet, for its part, has long taken

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an assimilationist approach toward the Alevis, arguing that true Alevis should follow Ali and pray five times a day, and so forth. More recently, the Diyanet has begun to recognize some Alevi practices as part of Turkey’s Islamic culture but without giving the sect equal status with Sunni Islam.34 Religion in Turkey Under AKP Rule The fundamental structure of Turkey’s religious landscape—namely, a dominant state institution that monopolizes religious life in and around mosques, a variety of Sunni religious organizations often associated with Sufi brotherhoods, and an Alevi minority seeking recognition—is not likely to change overnight. However, the social roles of the various actors and their mutual relations have changed under AKP rule. The most obvious example is the elimination of the Gülen movement after the failed July 2016 coup attempt. Other religious communities with a Sufi background remained influential and even became more prominent. Several AKP leaders, including Erdoğan himself, had been members of the Naqshbandi İskenderpaşa community in Istanbul, and although they tried to give the AKP a broad basis, Erdoğan’s leadership depended on the support of religious orders and communities, whom he courted, not unlike earlier center-right parties.35 As for the Alevis, former AKP minister of state Faruk Çelik made an unprecedented effort in 2009 to open a dialogue with them to address some of their grievances. According to the official report about these Alevi discussions, disagreement among the Alevis themselves made it difficult to determine the theological character of Alevism, but the Alevi faith’s obtaining a place as an elective in the “religion and morality” curriculum in state schools was suggested. Alevi proposals to abolish the Diyanet were deemed unrealistic, and the report noted that the desire to recognize Cem houses on an equal basis with mosques might stoke Sunni fears that this would make Alevism into a separate religion and shatter the unity of Islam.36 Since then, little has changed. Although Alevism is referred to in the “religion and morality” curriculum, it is only as a cultural and folkloric expression of Turkish Islam.37 Recognition of Alevism as a separate religion or even as a distinct Islamic denomination has not progressed under AKP rule. Until 2010, the role of the Diyanet had not changed much. Under former Diyanet president Ali Bardakoğlu, the institution continued to avoid politically controversial issues, sometimes to the irritation of Erdoğan, who had expected the Diyanet to support his efforts to repeal the headscarf ban. The Diyanet continued to walk the tightrope of serving both the secular order and Islamic principles.38 In 2010, however, Bardakoğlu was replaced by Mehmet Görmez, who was much closer to the AKP. Since then, the Diyanet and the AKP government have increased their degree of mutual support.39 The Diyanet budget has been increased significantly, and the Diyanet president has often endorsed Erdoğan’s policies, as with abortion

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and gender rights and the government’s clamp down on the Gezi Park protesters in 2013.40 It will come as no surprise that in the controversy between Erdoğan and the Gülen movement, the Diyanet strongly supported the ruling party. This support went beyond ridding the Diyanet itself of Gülen supporters and following the official policy of calling the Gülenist terrorists responsible for a coup attempt. The Diyanet also published a very hostile report about the Gülen movement that included a speech by President Erdoğan himself.41 Using out-of-context quotes from Gülen’s sermons from the 1970s, the Diyanet claimed that he had stepped far beyond Islamic doctrine by portraying himself as a sort of messiah and exploited religious sentiments for political goals. The Diyanet thus provided a religious legitimation for the crackdown on Gülenists. The report went so far as to make the preposterous claim that Gülen’s engagement with Christians in interfaith dialogue aimed at “compromising the fundamental principles of Islam, e.g., disregarding the prophethood of Muhammad.”42 An interesting feature of the Gülen report is that the Diyanet used it to seize the opportunity to call for a “reconsideration of relations between religion, state, and society in our country, including building the required legal ground.”43 This call completely ignores the concept of secularism that limits the Diyanet’s constitutional mandate and instead aims at strengthening religion’s position in society. The report calls for the Diyanet’s legal power and responsibilities to be extended to “stop exploitation and abuse of religion [and] prevent movements under the guise of religion from exploiting the belief and sentiments of the public.”44 If President Erdoğan supports these suggestions, religion in Turkey will be under even greater state control, and the earlier AKP plea for a stronger separation between religion and state will have disappeared.

Notes

1. CIA, “Turkey.” 2. Zürcher, Turkey, p. 171. 3. Karaca, “Being an Atheist in Turkey.” 4. European Commission, “Social Values, Science and Technology.” 5. WIN-Gallup International, “Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism 2014.” 6. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, pp. 105–111. 7. Lapidus, “Sufism and Ottoman Islamic Society,” p. 28. 8. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, pp. 105–111. 9. Kehl-Bodrogi, Die Kizilbas/Aleviten. 10. Dressler, Writing Religion. 11. This paragraph summarizes the first chapter of Sunier and Landman, Transnational Turkish Islam. 12. Gözaydın, Diyanet. 13. Sunier et al., Diyanet, p. 41; CNNTürk, “Diyanet’e bağlı cami sayısı 2017’de 90 bine ulaştı.” 14. Kamupersoneli, “Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığının Personel Sayısı Belli Oldu.”

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15. Lord, Religious Politics in Turkey, pp. 79–126. 16. DİB, “Hutbeler.” 17. Sunier et al., Diyanet, pp. 93–100. 18. DİB, Hadislerle İslam. 19. Sunier et al., Diyanet, p. 89. 20. DİB, Hadislerle İslam, pp. 5:359–361. 21. DİB, Hadislerle İslam, p. 5:523. 22. See, e.g., Mumcu, Tarikat, Siyaset, Ticaret; Bulut, Tarikat Sermayesinin Yükselişi. 23. Cornell and Kaya, “Political Islam in Turkey,” p. 44. 24. Yükleyen, Localizing Islam in Europe, pp. 97–98. 25. Jonker, Eine Wellenlänge zu Gott, pp. 207–208. 26. Mardin, Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey, p. 214; Turner and Horkuç, Said Nursi, p. 90. 27. Van Bruinessen, De Fethullah Gülenbeweging in Nederland, pp. 15–16. 28. Van Bruinessen, De Fethullah Gülenbeweging in Nederland, p. 18. 29. Van Bruinessen, De Fethullah Gülenbeweging in Nederland, p. 23. 30. Ertit, “Secularization of the Alevis in Turkey,” p. 198. 31. Şener, Alevilik Olayı, pp. 143–159; Ertit, “Secularization of the Alevis in Turkey,” pp. 198–199. 32. Sunier and Landman, Transnational Turkish Islam, p. 203; Shankland, The Alevis in Turkey, pp. 147–148. 33. Sunier and Landman, Transnational Turkish Islam, p. 86. 34. Lord, Religious Politics in Turkey, p. 156. 35. Cornell and Kaya, “Political Islam in Turkey,” p. 52. 36. Gülalp, “Secularism in the Age of Globalization,” p. 135. 37. Kılıç, “Din kültürü dersinde Alevilik nasıl anlatılıyor.” 38. Sunier et al., Diyanet. 39. Since June 2017, Diyanet is led by Ali Erbaş. 40. Öztürk, “Turkey’s Diyanet Under AKP Rule”; Lord, Religious Politics in Turkey, p. 113. 41. DİB, Religious Exploitation. 42. DİB, Religious Exploitation, p. 147. 43. DİB, Religious Exploitation, p. 157. 44. DİB, Religious Exploitation, p. 158.

7 The Fragmentation of Civil Society Gürkan Çelik and Paul Dekker

been widely discussed in developed nations and in developing countries such as Turkey. The term civil society owes its recent popularity in public and academic debates to efforts to confront authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. 1 The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989 was a notable example of the victory of civic movements over oppressive state power. The need for greater civic engagement in Turkish public life is reflected in the 2013 Gezi Park protests, the corruption scandals around Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family and ministers, the failed military coup in 2016, and Turkey’s elections and referenda.2 With these dislocating moments in Turkish politics as milestones, this chapter examines the nature and the fragmentation of civil society in Turkey. We explore how Turkish voters make their voices heard outside elections and how Turkish civil society organizations (CSOs) function. This chapter also looks at the trends and patterns in Turkish civil society and its long-term effects on people’s lives. In discussing civil society, the first two questions are often: What is civil society? and Why is it important? Some assert that “a solid democratic society stands on several pillars: a constitution that is based on the separation of powers and contains sufficient guarantees of effective, participatory democracy; an independent, free press; and a vital civil society.”3 Civil society operates between the individual and the state and can include formal or informal organizations such as networks, platforms, (activist) groups, initiatives, and demonstrations, along with institutions such as universities, newspapers, and political parties. Civil society can encompass grassroots organizations, religious organizations, professional associations, cooperatives, interest groups, trade unions, social enterprises, employer and labor organizations,

The relationship between democracy and civil society has

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and independent foundations, all of which are considered essential pillars of democracy.4 CSOs in the form of nonprofits and associations, rather than public and commercial organizations, are the focus of this chapter. Civil society plays an unquestionably essential role in European and Western societies. As the third sector, civil society is a counterpart of the state (first sector) and the market (second sector). It organizes activities when the first and second sectors fall short or even fail.5 CSOs, also known as civic organizations, are vital partners of the public and private sectors. They are the nonstate actors that include nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and not-for-profit organizations (NPOs). Their key trait is being independent of the state and organizing themselves from the grass roots for social causes. They may be active in fields such as human rights, poverty reduction, education, and the environment. Additionally, we can argue that civil society operates as a means of social engineering to promote social integration and cohesion in democratic societies. Every society, democratic or otherwise, has social, religious, ethnic, and economic fissures that politics alone cannot bridge. Therefore, CSOs have an essential function in creating bonds among citizens. Civil society is a means by which democracy is initiated and consolidated.6 Effective CSOs operate independently of purely political affiliations and represent an agenda that stands above political parties and their interests. Those who worry about a free press do so for all media: liberal, conservative, and social democratic. The organization committed to gender pay equity advocates as strongly for members as for nonmembers. Lobby groups for excellent facilities for people with disabilities are not based on political affiliation. A functioning civil society can play an important role in bridging a country’s ethnic, religious, political, and social divisions, with the effect of strengthening democracy. Civil society is more than organizations; it is the sphere in which people and their voluntary associations are dominant and accompanied by informal relationships.7 The framing of citizens’ activities in commercial and public form could also be possible, as with the media, cultural institutions, and any other places at which citizens meet one another, discover common problems and interests, develop mutual understanding, and plan collective action. Despite the important role of civil society in developing countries, their different patterns of transformation and regime changes can accelerate or decelerate the progress of civil society. How has it developed—or not developed—in Turkey? Civil society activism was by no means novel in the Turkish Republic’s early years. There were civic actors and civilian initiatives in Ottoman times, particularly in the areas of trade, religion, education, and the role of

The Evolution and Position of Turkish Civil Society

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women in society.8 For example, the Ottoman guilds (lonca) that emerged as institutions encouraging cooperation in Anatolian trade functioned as a bridge between tradespeople and the central government. Although Islam does not make a sharp distinction between state and religion, religious institutions, foundations, communities such as ulama, waqfs, mosques, masjids, tariqas (mystical Sufi orders), and their local centers (tekkes and zaviyes) functioned in a space between religion and the state.9 Individual civic actors such as Halide Edib Adıvar (1884–1964), the renowned Turkish novelist, were important actors: Adıvar delivered numerous speeches in Istanbul and became a social activist in the late Ottoman and early Republican years. She encouraged people to fight for national liberation and justice and for women’s political rights. In the Republican period, civil society was chiefly connected to the country’s democratization process; much of it was created by the state itself to mold the nature of civil society according to its preferences, such as implementing and supporting Kemalist reforms such as the separation of state and religion, freedom of thought and belief, and equal gender rights. Turkey’s civil society gained momentum in the multiparty period in the 1960s. Civic movements began to organize themselves in public space, using the structures of political parties. However, these efforts ended badly, as evidenced by the three coups d’état in 1960, 1970, and 1980. The central turning point of Turkish civil society started with Prime Minister Turgut Özal after the 1980 coup. Despite the dominance that the state regularly exercised over individuals and groups, civic groups experienced noteworthy transformations; Islamic education and some social-religious movements, in particular, were given more room to maneuver. Özal’s implementation of neoliberal policies between 1983 and 1989, privatization, and globalization all led to the expansion and complexity of Turkey’s civil society arena, followed by an increase in social activism by NPOs. Nonstate actors, including the media and intellectuals, began to play a significant role in the country’s democratization. The revival of CSOs in Turkey is generally associated with the earthquake in Adapazarı in 1999. 10 The many citizens’ initiatives that arose to help the victims led to a revaluation of independent associations and foundations.11 Where the state and army fell short or even failed in certain vital functions, citizens appeared quite capable of organizing themselves and displaying self-reliance. Notably, the growing civil society in Turkey coincided with European leaders’ decision to make Turkey a candidate country for EU admission in 1999, a move that had been a long time in coming.12 As for the first Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) government periods starting in 2002, civil society actors received considerable space to organize themselves and act as counterparts to the state and the market. After the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013,

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however, everything began to change dramatically in the Turkish public sphere. Gezi Park was a public outburst that started with spontaneous protests in Istanbul in 2013 against the replacement of a rare green zone in the congested city, the Taksim Square in Istanbul, with a replica of the historic Ottoman Military Barracks (demolished in 1940) and a vast shopping mall with luxury residences on its upper floors. The reaction of the police was harsh, and the AKP government completely abandoned its democratic stance on civic actors, marking a watershed in Turkish history. Gezi Park became a symbol of control and the restriction of civic power by the state. Another example is the civil disobedience of the Saturday Mothers (Cumartesi Anneleri), who have gathered for half an hour every Saturday at noon since May 27, 1995, in Istanbul’s Galatasaray district. This group, mainly composed of mothers whose children have gone missing, demonstrates against state-forced disappearances and political murders, holding photographs of their missing ones. In keeping with the general crackdown, these efforts have also recently been suppressed by the Turkish government. These two examples recall the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s.13 Civil society was an important part of those democratization processes, both driving them and capitalizing on citizen mobilization, just as Turks were mobilizing themselves under Özal. However, more recent developments have put Turkey on a different path, with the AKP restricting independent participation in policymaking and depriving people of freedom of expression and movement, as well as other liberties. Today, Turkey’s diverse civil society plays a vastly diminished role in its political agenda. Even though Turkey now has more than 100,000 associations and roughly 5,000 foundations in areas ranging from solidarity, charity, education, and health to human rights issues,14 they do not constitute a robust civil society in Turkey because CSOs have traditionally lagged far behind official governmental structures since imperial times in terms of interests, functions, and even existence. The main obstacle has been limits on freedom and autonomy enforced by those in power, as is the case throughout the Middle East.15 Turkey’s recent postcoup crackdown has simply repeated this trend, only now under Erdoğan; it is difficult for citizens to assume the politically neutral position that many say is vital if CSOs are to be independent, active, and capable.16 Erdoğan’s actions affirm the view that the existence of different activist or ideological groups or citizen-run initiatives in Turkey inherently threatens political stability, so the state tends to control them tightly. However, the EU participation process and the Helsinki decisions of 1999 that granted Candidate status to Turkey led to many reforms in Turkey that have increased the freedom and capacity of civil society to organize. The Foundation and Associations Law (2004) abolished the obligation for bodies and associations to obtain the state’s preliminary permission. It also became pos-

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sible for CSOs to develop international connections and receive funding from abroad. The new law had the potential to strengthen civil society as part of the process of EU harmonization. Turkish CSOs have traditionally been reluctant to receive funding from the state or municipalities, especially in sensitive areas such as human rights, while business organizations avoided political risk by not funding such groups. Under these circumstances, many CSOs have turned to foreign sources to support their activities.17 Civil society initiatives in education, culture, and human rights have been supported by EU funds and by the business world and individuals outside Turkey. The increasing dominance and almost untouchable position of Erdoğan and his AKP conceal a broad range of massive social fissures. It appears that the process and progress of Turkey’s democratization have stagnated dramatically since the 2013 protests because of the ever-increasing politicization and polarization of society and the government’s continuing control over civil society initiatives, the free press, and open debate. Following the failed military coup in 2016, deep-rooted and century-old dichotomies in the sociopolitical history of modern Turkey—Turks versus Kurds, secularists versus fundamentalists, Kemalists versus Islamists, Sunnis versus Alevis, and so on—have evolved into much more volatile conflicts. Turkey’s long-established fault lines have not diminished in recent decades. The issue of Kurds versus Turks is among the most controversial. Turkey’s Kurdish population of roughly 15 million resides throughout Turkey (with a population of 83 million), though mostly in the east and southeast. Many Kurds feel stigmatized as second-class citizens, and there have been regular outbreaks of conflict and the inevitable nationalist rhetoric.18 Kurdishrelated clashes have already cost more than 40,000 Turkish citizens’ lives and been a major challenge for every Turkish government since the outbreak of hostilities between the Kurdish militants (members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK]) and the Turkish military in 1984.19 Turkey also contains minority Armenian, Syrian Orthodox, Jewish, Lazi, and Greek populations. The Alevis, a heterodox Muslim group of around 12 million people, have complained of discrimination by dominant Sunnis. While these groups all have advocacy organizations, they consider themselves comparatively powerless before the authorities. In addition to these ethnic-religious divisions, Turkish civil society features ideological groups such as Kemalists, Islamists, and nationalists. The social groups organize themselves in different civil society domains.20 The first is comprised of major labor union confederations in both the public and private sectors. Also, there are organizations, some long established and others comparatively new, that are dedicated to the concerns of big business.

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The second domain includes private organizations related to the mass media. In addition to the press and publishers, countless companies operate in the media sector. The burgeoning private TV and radio stations are particularly important; they are slowly forcing changes in the state control of the media. Third is the issue-oriented category of NGOs, some secular and others Islamist, concerned with human rights in general and women’s organizations that advocate for gender equality, assist abused women, and champion more radically feminist positions. The fourth domain comprises NGOs focused on concerns related to culture, ethnicity, and/or ideology. A succession of organizations have tried to appeal to Kurdish citizens, though most did not last very long, while others have addressed themselves to Turkey’s Alevis. More recently, organizations formed by segments of society generally interested in Islamic thought and practice have thrived. Of special importance are Islamic organizations devoted to banking and other economic functions, which offer religiously acceptable alternatives to interest-driven traditional banks. Today, Turkey is seeing more and more foundation-based efforts involved in cultural, educational, and service activities with an Islamic outlook that exist alongside organizations supporting secularism, both Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s founding vision and more modern perspectives. The formal and informal structures and relationship networks of larger sociocultural conservative groups are also essential elements in understanding and interpreting Turkish civil society. For example, the Hizmet group (the Gülen-supporters representing a more civic and progressive Anatolian Islam), the Süleymancı (representing Turkish mystical Islam), and the Milli Görüş (representing the group favoring political Islam) are widespread and socially—and sometimes politically—active, organizing various educational, cultural, and social projects both inside and outside Turkey.21 In addition, Alevis, Kemalists, and nationalists form a substantial part of Turkey’s political and social landscape. Alevis have associations and federations throughout Turkey, while Kemalists have their own structures in the wider society. The Ülkü Ocakları (unofficially known as Grey Wolves [Bozkurtlar], representing ultranationalists) act as the primary body of the Turkish Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). Almost all political parties in Turkey address the electorate through religious and ideological associations and media outlets. The Milli Görüş represent political Islam, which forms the main body of AKP support; its members use the Anatolia Youth Association (Anadolu Gençlik Derneği) and the National Youth Foundation (Milli Gençlik Vakfı),22 among others, for their civil society activism. Like other political parties, the ruling AKP has also developed its own CSOs, such as Turkey’s Education Foundation (Türkiye Maarif Vakfı). The AKP also communicates through the structures of other faith groups such as the Süleymancı and Naqshbandi (Nakşibendi), which represent the spiritual and mystical aspects of Islam in Turkey. Hizmet

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shared the same outlook as AKP policy regarding the support of democratic values during the first two periods of Erdoğan’s rule, from 2003 to 2012.23 Kemalist and Alevi organizations represent mainly secular groups and seek to influence Turkish politics and society using the structures of civil society, including the media. Moreover, Turkish entrepreneurs have united in associations through the structures of those social, religious, and political groups: examples include entrepreneurial organizations such as the Turkish Industry and Business Association (Türk Sanayicileri ve İş İnsanları Derneği, TÜSİAD), the Independent Industrialists and Businessmen Association (Müstakil Sanayici ve İşadamları Derneği, MÜSİAD), and the Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists (Türkiye İşadamları ve Sanayiciler Konfederasyonu, TUSKON). By category the former two associations represent, respectively, the secular group—mainly Kemalists—and the Islamists, including the governing AKP. The latter was an initiative of the Hizmet movement and was closed by the AKP government after the attempted military coup in July 2016. These business organizations are now under strict governmental control. Erdoğan has occasionally silenced the TÜSİAD business association. Muharrem Yılmaz, then chairperson of TÜSİAD, like many other influential business people, expressed concern about the AKP government: “A country where the supremacy of law is not heeded, where judicial mechanisms do not operate with EU norms, where the independence of regulatory institutions is tainted, where there is pressure on companies through tax penalties and other kinds of punishments, where regulations on tenders are changed regularly . . . it is not possible for foreign capital to come to such a country.” He was then directly targeted by Erdoğan, who replied, “The TÜSİAD chair cannot say, ‘Global capital will not come to such a country.’ If he said that, then that is treason against this country. After you said that, with what nerve will you come to this prime minister and his government to solve your problems regarding your investments?”24 After a while, Yılmaz backed away from his mission of representing TÜSİAD. Those with influence who dare to criticize Erdoğan’s policies have been denounced as “traitors” or “terrorists” by him and AKP supporters, a worrying development that feeds the ongoing political instability fueled by a vendetta culture, intimidation of critical entrepreneurs, and Erdoğan’s hypersensitivity to criticism. These authoritarian practices have had a clear chilling effect by restricting or discouraging other opponents of the regime. Historically, the ruling elites, such as the Kemalists and now the Islamists, have determined the contours of Turkey’s democracy in a top-down fashion, without input from and control by the people or civil society. Indeed, one may argue that the recent repression of civil society is a repetition or continuation of what previous regimes have done in Turkey. In Turkey’s postcoup reality, almost all those who protest the situation, including individual citizens, have been rebuffed or repressed by the AKP-controlled state.

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Here, we offer some comparative data about aspects of the Turkish civil society. They inform us in a very rough way about how Turkey compares with other European countries as regards associational behavior, civic ideals, and attitudes toward politics in public. We provide two graphs with data from the European Values Study and European Social Survey 2008–2009 for a large number of countries and a table with data from the 2014–2015 citizenship module of the International Social Science Programme for a smaller selection of countries. Figure 7.1 presents the percentage of the adult population (eighteen years and older) who belong to one or more leisure activity organization (sport, culture, recreation, etc.) and one or more organization promoting an idealistic goal (trade unions, political associations, human rights groups, environmental movements, etc.). There is a strong relationship between the two types of organizations (ideological interest organizations and recreational associations) even at the individual level: people are more or less “joiners” rather than specialists in entertainment or social causes. Denmark (DK) and the Netherlands (NL) have high scores on both types, while Poland (PL) and Turkey (TR) score low on both. Such organizations in Turkish civil society are linked to or ideologically associated with political parties. Especially after the Gezi Park protests in 2013, citizens who voluntarily or leisurely were active in organized social life have been marked as political opponents and have been systematically punished by the ruling AKP government and its judiciary. As pointed out in several chapters of this volume, tens of thousands of people were arrested or prosecuted (i.e., educators, academics, journalists, volunteers, and human rights activists), and civil society organizations of all types were closed. Such practices discourage the participation of people in civil society groups and in each other’s activities both in Turkey and abroad. The data from 2008–2009 show that civil society participation was already low, and to many observers the post-coup-attempt period has discouraged civil participation in associational life further; citizens have become cautious and increasingly prefer not to participate in ideological or interest-based organizations. Figure 7.2 plots two measurements of volunteer work that correspond to two ways of looking at volunteers: as especially active members of associations (the Nordic view) or as people who do unpaid work for others or their community (the Anglo-Saxon view). The horizontal axis shows the percentage of people who have done voluntary work for associations. The vertical axis shows the percentage of people who have done voluntary work in the past month. There is a strong relationship between the two measurements. The Netherlands (NL) scores highest on both, with Turkey (TR) scoring the lowest in active membership and, along with other southern European countries, in unpaid work. Taking into account that voluntarism is an important indicator of a country’s democratic and social development, Turkey’s volunteering

From a Comparative European Perspective

103 Figure 7.1 Membership in Two Types of Associations in Twenty-Nine European Countries

Source: European Values Study 2008–2009. Figure 7.2 Volunteering in Twenty-Five European Countries

Sources: European Social Survey 2008–2009 and European Values Study 2008–2009. Country codes for Figures 7.1 and 7.2: AT (Austria), BE (Belgium), BG (Bulgaria), CH (Switzerland), CY (Cyprus), CZ (Czech Republic), DK (Denmark), DE (Germany), EE (Estonia), ES (Spain), FI (Finland), FR (France), GR (Greece), HU (Hungary), IE (Ireland), IT (Italy), LV (Latvia), LT (Lithuania), LU (Luxembourg), MT (Malta), NL (Netherlands), NO (Norway), PL (Poland), PT (Portugal), RO (Romania), SE (Sweden), SI (Slovenia), SK (Slovakia), TR (Turkey), UK (United Kingdom).

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shows little sign of positive change since the AKP came to power in 2002. Low participation in civil society—using active memberships and doing unpaid work (volunteering)—denotes little involvement in the society and its democracy through, for instance, religious organizations, educational or cultural activities, labor unions, political parties, local political actions, human rights organizations, environmental or peace movements, professional associations, or voluntary associations concerned with health or poverty reduction. Table 7.1 compares Turkey with six European countries from various regions on a variety of activities and opinions. The data are from 2014–2015. The first block is about active memberships and political activities. Compared to the other countries (except Poland) the involvement in leisure organizations (and the number of these organizations) is extremely low in Turkey, but the involvement in political parties is a little higher (6 percent). But Turkey’s level is not exceptional. Active membership in political parties is not reflected in the level of political activities (measured as at least once in one’s lifetime), as the 10 percent for all three forms of activity is similar to the low levels of Poland and much lower than in the other countries. The third block is about strong support for nine characteristics of good citizenship. As the average percentage shows, the overall enthusiasm for following ideals of good citizenship is highest in Turkey (75 percent). Helping deprived people (in one’s own country and elsewhere) is a more important citizenship value in Turkey (and Spain) than elsewhere. In the fourth block, with three trust items, we see extremely low levels of social trust (“most people can be trusted”) in Turkey but a relatively high level of trust in people in government (“most of the time we can trust people in government to do what is right”),25 surpassed only in Sweden. In its general sense, political trust (trust in the state) in the Turkish context is deeply rooted in the paternalistic role of the state. This means that the state has the responsibility to organize the life of the nation and resolve all its problems.26 The Turkish expression devlet baba (the father state) has been popular since Atatürk’s time, among the lower classes, as it was in Ottoman times.27 In other words, considering the crackdowns referred to earlier in this chapter, the people in Turkey seem to trust the state more than the state trusts them. The fifth and last block of the table again shows a relatively positive public opinion about government in Turkey: the two statements about unresponsive government (“we have no influence” and “government does not care about us”) are rejected more than elsewhere. The highest level of rejection of ideas that “ordinary citizens are not taken into account” by politicians is again with Sweden at the same level. The last two opinions about responsiveness to protests and readiness to protest do not differ much between Turkey and the other countries.28 Overall, the most surprising finding about Turkish civil society in a comparative European perspective is its low levels of social association and social trust and its relatively high level of political trust. The opinion data

Table 7.1 Indicators of Civil Society

Is an active member of a: Sports, cultural, or other leisure association Trade union, business, or professional association Political party

Has ever been involved in these “forms of political and social action”: Boycotted certain products for political or idealistic reasons Taken part in a demonstration Attended a political meeting or rally

Strongly supports the following ideals of good citizenship:a Always vote in elections Never evade taxes Always obey laws and regulations Keep watch on the actions of government Be active in social and political associations Try to understand the reasoning of people with different opinions Choose products for political, ethical, or environmental reasons Help people in [your country] who are worse off than yourself Help people in the rest of the world who are worse off than yourself Average of the nine above Agrees with statements showing social and political trust: Most people can be trusted Most people try to be honest Most of the time we can trust people in government to do what is right

Opinions about politics: Rejects “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does” Rejects “I don’t think the government cares much what people like me think” Would protest against an unjust lawb Would expect government to be responsive to the protestb

Percentage of Population Engaging in Activity TR

SE

UK

NL

DE

PL

ES

3

27

27

37

32

6

18

10 10 10

67 29 30

39 17 16

37 23 25

54 32 33

12 5 9

29 50 29

89 89 86 69 54

83 78 75 70 13

64 87 88 61 17

68 73 73 63 22

61 75 72 46 14

61 68 79 48 18

63 86 78 58 29

65

44

31

33

36

22

54

2 6

66

8 4

64

6 1

67

7 2

68

7 3

55

3 0

44

8 3

76

84

50

53

58

54

50

80

15 24

74 73

50 64

61 87

54 80

21 48

50 48

50

37

29

33

44

19

27

23

24

18

25

19

18

11

73 75

35

39 37

41 58

47

40 39

35 56

28

24 44

40 55

32

32 43

34 50

24

30 38

31 47

11

10 22

64 65

17

15 44

Source: ISSP citizenship module 2014/15. Notes: Country codes: TR (Turkey), SE (Sweden), UK (United Kingdom), NL (Netherlands), DE (Denmark), PL (Poland), ES (Spain). a. Scores 6–7 on a scale from 1 (“not at all important”) to 7 (“very important”) in reply to the question: “There are different opinions on what it takes to be a good citizen. As far as you are concerned personally . . . how important is it to . . .” b. Replies “very” and “fairly likely” to the following questions: “Suppose a law were being considered by [appropriate national legislature] that you considered to be unjust or harmful. (1) If such a case arose, how likely is it that you, acting alone or together with others, would be able to try to do something about it? . . . (2) If you made such an effort, how likely is it that [appropriate national legislature] would give serious attention to your demands?”

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indicate a culture that is not supportive of building up socially inclusive civil society organizations. However, the data are from 2014–2015, and political developments after the attempted coup in 2016 might have affected the political culture substantially. Much as in the Dutch pillarization period (from the 1920s to 1960s)—when Catholics, Protestants, and sociocultural groups (socialists and liberals) lived “apart and together”29 harmoniously—in the first period under AKP rule, associational life and peaceful coexistence in Turkey intensified, despite many obstacles. Turkey’s CSOs united individuals, and groups coalesced to a significant extent around themes such as education, solidarity, charity, and human rights. The civic actors aimed to improve social relations, heighten educational quality, maintain social cohesion, and repair social cleavages. But CSOs have appeared politically impotent since the attempted coup of 2016. One explanation is that there is a “strong state” tradition in Turkey in which the state routinely distrusts civil society.30 The military coups in 1960, 1970, and 1980 and the two-year state of emergency declared after the 2016 attempted coup certainly suggest that the state distrusts its citizens. The “new” Turkey has become a security state. Some may argue that the idea of creating a “strong state” based on security and intelligence control over the society is not only inherent to Erdoğan and his AKP but also an underlying code related to raisons d’état that are the common denominator of Turkey’s political and state tradition.31 If that is the case, that would stand in the way of the country’s democratic development. Yet the question of what civil society can still achieve in Turkey remains. The present answer is disappointing: not much more than it is doing in Turkey’s postcoup crackdown. Civil society groups have been under increasingly intense pressure since the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013. In response, some activists have emigrated, while others have isolated themselves completely. The children of key groups—Kemalists, Kurds, Alevis, and Sunnis—are ideologically linked in one or another way to political conflicts. They have grown up with the idea that involvement in politics or civic initiatives is either pointless or dangerous. For these generations, social-cultural engagement and political protests were a wake-up call. Primarily due to the state’s treatment of different social groups after the attempted military coup in 2016, civil society initiatives and organized protests have again become politicized, which has led to a dramatic polarization of society. It seems that no one wants to cooperate with or even attend other groups’ civic activities. Beyond those who expressed critical or challenging opinions, everyone from the teenage boy to the senior citizen became vulnerable to denunciation or declaration as a political enemy, which has a devastating effect on citizens’ social activism. Consequently, an essential role

Concluding Reflections: A Bleak Future?

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for Turkish civil society could be the political socialization of citizens. By participating in CSOs, citizens can learn the views of others, obtain insights into coalition building and decisionmaking, make compromises, and learn how they can access and eventually affect politics. In addition, the concentration of power in Turkish political culture leads to a winner-take-all environment ruled by the maxim “Who is not with us is against us.” This is true not only of the current AKP government but also of other political forces. People most often talk with their allies; they most often act against those who are not allies. Civil society has become completely polarized—each movement has its own media, universities, charities, business associations, and so on—and organizations that prefer to remain neutral make themselves suspect. This is an important dilemma that Elif Shafak has noted: “You do not have a luxury of being apolitical” in democracies such as Turkey.32 As long as the current structure endures, civil society will continue to serve as a social power platform for politicians rather than an arena for nonpartisan civic organizations that offer alternative policies and practices. Is today’s civil society sufficient for Turkey’s democratic development? The answer, for now, is no, because virtually all civic initiatives are under the active control of the AKP-dominated state. Therefore, a key turning point could occur when people are mobilized and groups are formed that are not extensions of the state, just like the civic movements that organized themselves to confront oppressive state power in Eastern Europe three decades ago. In the Turkey of 2019, however, CSOs have scarcely started down this road, let alone reached the destination. Finally, a more optimistic view holds that the effects of civil society are unpredictable: things can happen, as occurred recently after the 1999 Adapazarı earthquake or during the Turkish War of Independence almost a century ago. So, history confirms that people can be successful against the dangers of authoritarianism and populism and bring about positive change by standing up to increasing limits on media freedom and by depoliticizing religion and national culture. The direction Turkey takes will depend partly on the extent to which civil society develops and partly on the creation of a fully democratic social and constitutional system.

Notes

We would particularly like to thank Ronald Linden for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this chapter. We also owe a special debt of gratitude to Ibrahim Bakisgan for his thoughtful insights and his technical support, which greatly facilitated our work. 1. Ekiert and Kubik, “Myths and Realities of Civil Society”; Forbrig, “Civil Society.” 2. Lindner, “Turkey: Overview of Corruption.” 3. Sprangers, “Kan de civil society Turkije redden?” p. 153; cf. Bermeo and Nord, Civil Society Before Democracy; Gellner, Conditions of Liberty. 4. Kaviraj and Khilhani, Civil Society; Taylor, “Modes of Civil Society”; Giddens, The Third Way; Edwards, Civil Society; Gellner, Conditions of Liberty.

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5. Vandor et al., Civil Society. 6. Çelik, “Breakpoint or Binder.” 7. Dekker, “The Sphere of Voluntary Associations”; Dekker, “Civicness.” 8. Anastasopoulos, “The Ottomans and Civil Society”; Çaha, Women and Civil Society in Turkey. 9. Çaha and Karaman, “Civil Society in the Ottoman Empire.” 10. Sprangers, “Kan de civil society Turkije redden?,” p. 154. 11. Factsheet NGO-GO Confluence in Turkey, Turkey Institute 2009, compiled and commissioned by the European Law Academy. 12. Kubicek, “The Earthquake, Europe, and Prospects for Political Change in Turkey”; Center for American Progress, Trends in Turkish Civil Society. 13. Bernhard, “Civil Society and Democratic Transition.” 14. “Civic Freedom Monitor: Turkey,” International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, http://www.icnl.org/research/monitor/turkey.html. 15. Karaman and Aras, “The Crisis of Civil Society in Turkey.” 16. Erdoğan was prime minister for eleven years before becoming president in August 2014. 17. Belge, “Observations on Civil Society.” 18. Islamoglu, “The Kurdish Referendum.” 19. Islamoglu, “The Kurdish Referendum.” 20. Çaha and Karaman, “Civil Society in the Ottoman Empire.” 21. Çelik, Leman, and Steenbrink, Gülen-Inspired Hizmet in Europe. 22. These are the foundations, cultural associations, and youth organizations established by the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi), led by Necmettin Erbakan, an Islamist political party in Turkey founded in 1972 as the successor of the banned National Order Party (Millî Nizam Partisi). 23. The period of AKP rule can be divided into three parts. The first was from 2002 to 2007, when the AKP was trying to convince both Turks and Europeans of its commitment to democracy. During the second period from 2007 to 2012, Turkey’s economy was flourishing, and Erdoğan’s government came to dominate the state. The third period, characterized by increasing repression, began between the 2011 elections and the Gezi Park protests in 2013. 24. See, e.g., Reuters, “Erdogan Threatens to Unveil Graft Accusations Against Rival.” 25. “Political trust, generally defined as citizens’ confidence in political institutions, is an important indicator of political legitimacy—the belief in the righteousness of these political institutions and the regime of which they are part.” See Turper and Aarts, “Political Trust.” 26. Özbudun, Contemporary Turkish Politics, p. 128. 27. Landau, Atatürk and the Modernization of Turkey, p. 39. 28. The last item should not be understood as an indicator of the probability of individual protest behavior. It expresses support for a social norm and is indicative for the public sphere, which is more or less protest prone. 29. Lijphart, The Politics of Accommodation. 30. Heper, State Tradition in Turkey. 31. Erdoğan, “Toward a Security State.” 32. Shafak, “Turkey and the Loss of Democracy.”

8 Women in the “New” Turkey Jenny White

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hailed his people as representatives of a “new Turkey,” a nation ruled by its people and shaped in their image, with Erdoğan himself as the physical embodiment of the people’s rule. The “new Turks” are pious Muslims who value their religion as the foundation of national unity and who revere the traditional conservative family that mirrors and models the nation. The traditional family is patriarchal and requires modesty, loyalty, and obedience from its members, much like model citizens in their interaction with the state. President Erdoğan is the patriarch, the strong, protective leader who cannot be questioned. This differs from the previous Kemalist national model built upon the secular views of Turkey’s national hero, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The Kemalist model rested on the idea that Muslim Turkish blood was what united the nation, engendering a continual state of fear that purity of blood and national unity would be undermined by enemies from abroad. The greatest duty of a citizen was to be ready to shed that blood to defend the country from evilintentioned outside powers. Certain themes of the new Turkey have deep roots, however. The Kemalist nation, although it encouraged women in education and the workforce, also was modeled on the traditional family, with the military as guardian and ultimate arbiter of the safety and unity of the national family. A citizen’s duty was to obey and support the state. Women had a national duty to marry, have children, and be modest in their behavior, regardless of their status in society. Polls show that a majority of the Turkish population has been and still is pious, highly conservative, and intolerant of outsiders.

In the rallies that followed the 2016 failed coup in Turkey,

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Familiar social and cultural expectations continue to guide women’s actions and how they are perceived in society. In the new Turkey, what has changed is the introduction of overtly Islamic rationales for expectations of women in place of national duty.1 This has had the effect of expanding the realms of political and economic practice, higher education, and professional life for pious women, who under the Kemalists had been constrained in these realms, for instance, by laws that until recently forbade the wearing of headscarves in the civil service and universities. In another notable example, the expansion of the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, or Diyanet) under the present government has created many professional positions for women as religious specialists but also as social welfare counselors.2 In a country where women’s labor force participation is extremely low, the government has encouraged mothers to work part-time outside the home and pays them a wage for caring for disabled or elderly family members in the home. Between 2002 and 2007, goaded by European Union accession requirements, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) pushed through legal and structural reforms that improved the rights of women, including changes to the penal code that redefined sexual crimes against women as crimes against the individual rather than against community values and removing reference to such patriarchal concepts as custom, honor, chastity, and morality. The 2003 Labor Law recognized the need for measures to prevent sexual harassment. Between 2002 and 2007, the government continued to pass progressive legal regulations. For instance, municipalities were ordered to build shelters for victims of domestic violence, law enforcement authorities were authorized to issue protection orders, and the government instituted paid maternity leave, breastfeeding breaks, and training programs for women.3 Since 2007, several factors have led to a steep decline in women’s rights in Turkey. One was Turkey’s estrangement from the EU, after which the accession process lost its ability to move Turkey toward a liberal agenda. Another has been the increasing use of religious rationales for political and social policy. This has undermined women’s legal rights, not least by creating what Ayşe Güneş-Ayata and Gökten Doğangünü call a religio-conservative gender climate that is inconsistent with gender equality but rather envisions a “sacred family” that is built around motherhood and women as care providers.4 Rather than gender equality, the AKP advocates what it calls gender justice, which strengthens women and aims to protect them, but only within the family. In the new Turkey, the party points out, Islam is the main source of the moral order of the Turkish nation.5 This has led to legal changes that allow religious officials to carry out civil marriages, which reduces protections against underage marriage. 6 In 2018, a Diyanet official suggested that Islam allows underage marriage,

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which caused pushback from opposition parties and women’s groups. The third factor is the steep decline in the rule of law, which has reduced the impact of the above-cited legal changes and increased impunity and violence against women whom people judge to have broken normative codes, though they have done nothing illegal. The postcoup state of emergency allowed the AKP government to rule by fiat and occasioned a breakdown in the rule of law. This weakened the independence of the courts and allowed some parts of the population to act with impunity in the belief that the conservative government approves of their actions and will not punish them. Among other things, this has encouraged sometimes violent public confrontations between conservative men and women whose clothing or actions they find objectionable, though they are perfectly legal. In July 2018 Turkey elected an “executive president,” a new form of governmental system that formalized the president’s de facto control. It did away with the prime minister position and allows the president to control the cabinet, appoint senior judges and officials, and rule, to a large extent, by decree. Parliament has some power but is relatively toothless.7 The new system allows Erdoğan to shape Turkey in any way he wishes with less interference from parliament and, thus, from pressure by women’s groups. Since the coup attempt, civil society has been largely repressed or co-opted, with hundreds of women’s organizations forcibly closed down, then reopened under new management by cronies or family members of government officials.8 These government-organized organizations, or GONGOs, advocate gender justice and support government policies and actively undermine voices that support gender equality. The welfare of women can be measured by a number of yardsticks; some have macro-level national or international dimensions, while others are subjective. They do not always coincide. Low labor-participation rates, for instance, tell us little about women’s satisfaction with home life or their desire to work outside the home. The point that unemployed women are more helpless in the face of domestic abuse must be put alongside women’s desire to express upward mobility by showing that they no longer have to work, especially if their families have migrated from the countryside and its unending, backbreaking labor. Women’s actions, attitudes, strengths, and vulnerabilities are shaped from both above and below: by government policies and rhetoric, by family and community norms, and by their own desire for valued goals such as security and upward mobility. These defining forces are also in conversation with each other. Government leaders, through their statements and policies, model behaviors and attitudes that are communicated to their citizens as national ideals. At the same time, government policies influence macroeconomic processes that, in Turkey’s case, have extended the benefits of a liberal economy to small businesses, thus promoting a pious middle class, and

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encouraged international travel and global communication in a society that had been relatively closed until the mid-1980s. The accompanying social changes have created new knowledge and desires that have affected both women and men, whether religious or secular. However, after 2011, the AKP shrank back from its liberal outreach and began to close Turkey’s doors to the outside world by restricting media sources, arresting journalists, and hampering electronic communication. The government’s modeling behavior became more overtly Islamic conservative. In some ways this contradicts the aspirations that the AKP government itself had encouraged among lower- and middle-class pious women when it first came to power in 2002, such as encouraging women to be politically active, to work, and to educate their daughters. Here, I will consider the issues of the status of women in the economy and violence against women, examining whether and how these have changed under AKP rule. From its founding in 1923, the Turkish nation-state has embraced social engineering. Turkey is a majoritarian democracy with a winner-takeall system in which it is assumed that whichever party wins the vote has the right to impose its ideals on the nation. There is no widely shared understanding that the government should also represent and protect the views, practices, and ideals of those parts of the population that do not share its values or agenda. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Kemalist ideal was a conjugal nuclear family living a secular lifestyle that had already become popular among the urban elites of the Ottoman period.9 Women were encouraged to obtain an education, work, become professionals, and enter government and the civil service, although these opportunities were not equally distributed in practice among women beyond the secular, urban middle and upper classes. There also was a price to pay for this freedom, which state discourse represented as women’s duty to the state and their expression of love for the nation, rather than as self-fulfillment, which would have been seen as selfish and damaging to the nation’s survival. Women, regardless of their educational or professional standing, were expected to bear children and, like men, to keep their piety to themselves. Being Muslim became an ethnic characteristic; being Turkish meant having Muslim blood, even if one was not religious.10 Another price for the freedom of being a “new Republican woman” active in the public arena was the abdication of power in the household, where men’s will took precedence.11 Until the civil code was changed in 2002, men were officially the heads of their households; for example, they unilaterally decided where the family would live. Formally, if not always in practice, a woman was obliged to obtain her husband’s permission before she could work outside the home. Under the new civil code, married women were entitled for the first time to an equal share of joint assets in the event of divorce.12

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Until the 1980s, when an individualistic feminism took hold and displaced Kemalist state feminism through publications and activism, crimes against women were considered to be crimes against the community.13 Under the relevant laws, if a woman who was raped married her rapist, this essentially made the crime “disappear,” since intercourse within marriage was legal and communally approved. The laws defining women first and foremost as family and community members, rather than as individuals, were changed in 2004, in line with European Union accession requirements and after much lobbying by both pious and secular feminist groups. The new Turkish penal code assigned crimes against women the same status as those against men and offered women new protections by the state against abusive husbands.14 Until then, the state had shown little interest in what went on inside the nation’s homes. In 1998, Turkey adopted Law 4320 on the Protection of the Family, which was intended to combat domestic violence. It was amended in 2007 to establish a system under which a person subject to abuse could apply for a protection order from a family court.15 In 2011, Turkey was the first country to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention. Following a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights that Turkey had failed to protect a victim of domestic violence, Turkey enacted further domestic violence legislation in 2012.16 Nonetheless, the numbers of women killed by their husbands or other family members has continued to rise,17 though some have argued that this is the result of better reporting. According to a 2009 survey, 42 percent of women in Turkey older than fifteen have experienced physical or sexual violence from their husbands or partners at some time in their lives. 18 The Law of Municipalities was amended in 2005 to require the 244 municipalities with more than 50,000 inhabitants to open women’s shelters, but the total number of shelters was only 54 by 2009, with just 19 operated by municipalities.19 In 2016, there were 137 shelters operating in Turkey, most under the auspices of the Ministry of Family and Social Policies.20 Despite the removal of issues such as virginity, marital status, and honor from legal considerations of women’s status, these issues continue to resonate in many social spheres. The discourse about women’s sexual honor is deeply rooted in other realms of Turkish society, mirrored in both religious and national discourse. 21 In 2011 the Ministry of Women and Family was replaced by the newly established Ministry of Family and Social Policy, signaling a return to positioning women as members of the family and community whose rights derive from that status rather than as individuals with inalienable human rights. Women, in this view, are to be protected rather than afforded the same rights as men. Deniz Kandiyoti

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suggests that the AKP has reinstituted what she calls a “patriarchal bargain” in which women trade loyalty and obedience for protection and welfare. Kandiyoti originally used the term to refer to women’s position in the household, but she points to a similar bargain being constructed between government and citizen. Women receiving aid and services (up to 60 percent of welfare aid recipients are women) may experience a new sense of “citizenship through entitlement” that builds on the familiar masculinist protection regime of the family in which women are not bearers of rights but appreciative subjects of their protectors. This means that to gain rights, women must establish victimhood, and any noncompliance or defiance can result in loss of those rights. Kandiyoti points out that this “normalizes” violence against women who do not comply with the dominant image of the helpless (and appreciative) victim or claim rights outside the family.22 There is also a disconnect between law and practice. Under the new laws, the police are required to protect women through restraining orders and the like, but time and again individual police or judges send women back to their families in the belief that domestic violence is not an issue for the state to address.23 In the case of Opuz v. Turkey, the European Court of Human Rights recognized that “judicial passivity” in Turkey created a climate conducive to domestic violence.24 Loopholes and poor enforcement have allowed judges to insert conservative norms back into the courtroom, such as reducing the perpetrator’s sentence if he claims to have been “provoked” by a woman’s attire, if the perpetrator is well behaved in the courtroom, or if the victim does not appear to have been sufficiently “damaged.” Over the past few years, this kind of thinking has been empowered by statements from senior government officials who have held up the image of “good” women who are protected by men in their families, as opposed to “bad” women who depart from conservative communal norms and thus do not deserve the same level of protection. President Erdoğan has made clear that, while he condemns violence against women and believes women should become educated and work if they wish, in his view women are not equal to men. Men are custodians of women, whose duty it is to bear three or more children and to be present in the homes in which they are protected. 25 While Erdoğan has framed these views in Islamic rhetoric, he also has pointed to a need to reverse the decline in Turkey’s fertility rate,26 which has reached exactly replacement level. As under AKP’s Kemalist predecessors, women still are considered, first and foremost, bellwethers of national well-being rather than self-fulfilling individuals. Turkey ranks very low on international measurements of the status of women. The 2015 World Economic Forum ranked Turkey 130 among 145 nations, behind Benin. This low ranking is due primarily to women’s extremely low labor-participation rate and the low numbers of women in public life.

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In 2009, men’s labor force participation rate in Turkey was 71 percent, while women’s was 26 percent, compared to a global women’s labor force participation rate of 53 percent. While Turkish women’s labor participation rose to 30 percent in 2016,27 Turkish women have lower wages than their male compatriots and tend to be employed in low-quality jobs without insurance or other benefits. Agriculture employs more than a third of all working women, even though 73 percent of Turkey’s population lives in cities. Most work as “cost-free laborers” in family businesses. Of women who are informally employed, just over half are unpaid household laborers. In urban areas, where only one in five women above age fifteen is employed outside the home, women are steered into certain sectors (such as textiles and small industry) with no job security and no social protection.28 The economic restructuring that occurred in the 1980s created radical changes in the organization of labor. In less industrialized countries like Turkey, this took the form of subcontracting, while in the United States the process drew workers into the service sector. What these forms of labor have in common are the insecurity of the work, low wages, and the predominance of women. Home-based work, in particular, tends to be part-time, temporary, or subcontracted labor, often paid by the piece instead of hourly, with no fringe benefits, opportunities for promotion, or job security.29 It attracts women in part because they are able to combine child care with income earning. Cultural definitions of the abilities and responsibilities of women and men—particularly women’s responsibility for care of family, children, and the home—negatively affect women’s ability to retain jobs or upgrade their working conditions.30 Women’s NGOs have criticized AKP policies that support primarily part-time work for mothers, arguing that these push women into arrangements that reinforce their responsibility for providing care services at home.31 All of these pressures are exacerbated by continuing poverty and male unemployment. Under the AKP administration, the ban on wearing headscarves at universities and in the civil service and other public professions was lifted, allowing pious women to pursue careers that had previously been closed to them. The government launched a number of initiatives in cooperation with the World Bank,32 Turkish banks, and private businesses to help women find jobs and encourage young female entrepreneurs by providing start-up loans. According to a 2016 International Finance Corporation report, 40 percent of small- and medium-sized enterprises in Turkey are owned by women, but only 15 percent of them have access to finance. The AKP also expanded social services, funneled in part through the Diyanet, which employs women in professional capacities, along with female preachers who give sermons to women in mosques and lectures to mixed-sex audiences about a variety of subjects.33 In 2009, parliament established a Commission for the Equality of Opportunity

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for Women and Men, a move that strayed from feminist demands that the commission be concerned with gender equality, not equality of opportunity. What are the obstacles to women working, whether in agriculture or family businesses, informally cleaning homes, employed as bank clerks, or as entrepreneurs? There are multiple, overlapping variables at play in determining women’s work: structural conditions that lead women to believe— not always correctly—that staying home is safer and more cost-effective than entering the public sphere, cultural messages about the proper roles and arenas for women, access to education and educational level achieved, and social class and financial capital. Turkey’s tight labor market prefers male employees. If women do find work, they receive lower wages than men for the same job;34 in professional work, by the government’s own statistics, they receive 19 percent less.35 Transportation to and from work is a challenge; while some private businesses provide shuttle services, women generally face harassment on the street, in the workplace, and at home. 36 One in three women in Turkey is subject to physical violence, and there are only 137 shelters for 39 million women. Thus, the home is considered by many to be the only safe place for women, even though half to two-thirds of women experience physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands.37 However, in a 2004 survey only 8 percent of respondents thought that women put their reputation and virtue at risk by working. The majority thought that the need to fulfill housework and child-care responsibilities are what restrict women from employment.38 It is certainly the case that the lack of infrastructure for child and elder care keeps women busy with unpaid family labor. The AKP government’s message, spread through the media, impresses upon women their duty as caretakers of the family, in essence relieving the government of part of the social welfare burden.39 In 2016, Turkey had the lowest expenditure for family benefits of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) states, less than 0.4 percent of gross domestic product, compared with an OECD average of 2 percent.40 School textbooks show no successful role models for women, who are usually described as passive and patient, even in the face of violence, and as carrying out domestic tasks. While women’s economic and social dependence on husbands and family limits their choices, the consequences of the loss of family support and community standing are severe. The low divorce rate is due to the great cost of divorce for women, especially those with children, who lose social support and protection and face increased harassment in the workplace and their community. This also applies to widows and affects both middle- and working-class women.41 Social pressure to stay at home after marriage or the birth of a child often means that women do not complete their education, which affects their

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later ability to join the labor force. The 2015 labor-participation rate was 16 percent for illiterate women, 27 percent for women with less than a high school education, 33 percent for women who graduated from high school, and 72 percent for women with higher education degrees.42 In other words, more highly educated women have higher labor force participation rates, particularly at the professional level, where women are well represented in Turkey.43 However, they are less well represented at higher administrative levels, for instance, on corporate boards (10 percent in 2012) and in management (7 percent), showing no appreciable change over the past decade.44 Self-employment generally does not imply entrepreneurship. Threequarters of self-employed women are unpaid family workers, and most of these work in agriculture.45 In 2012, only 12 percent of entrepreneurs in Turkey were women. This percentage grew only slightly between 2003 and 2012. Almost half of female entrepreneurs worked part time, compared to just 13 percent of male entrepreneurs.46 Most women-owned enterprises were micro- or small businesses in the service sector; only 7 percent of these businesses employed others. The lifecycle of these businesses was closely tied to that of their owners, especially once children come onto the scene.47 In a study of female entrepreneurs in Ankara, 23 percent said that their biggest problem in entrepreneurship was “being a woman,”48 and in a separate study, half of professional women surveyed considered marriage to be a hindrance to their careers. Among the strategies used by women to pursue careers successfully are postponing marriage or not marrying at all. 49 In a 2003 study of professional women’s work experience in computer programming in Turkey, half of the women in the study had never married, and 15 percent were divorced, separated, or widowed. This echoes a situation I encountered during my fieldwork in a Black Sea coastal village where a woman in her late twenties ran a thriving international trade in women’s clothing, mainly by mail order, while living at home with her parents, who tolerated this activity as long as she did not marry. Indicators of violence against women, women’s labor force participation and entrepreneurship, the effect of educational level on these, and workgender imbalance show little sign of change since AKP came to power in 2002. The same impediments remain, but it is also possible to point to a different rationale for women’s lack of labor force participation that has less to do with the policies of the new Turkey, which remain contradictory, than with larger social trends, such as rural-to-urban migration and the rise of a pious elite. The declining rate of female labor force participation in Turkey has coincided with a movement from agricultural labor to city living, upward mobility, and a desire to gain attributes of distinction within

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that context, including the luxury of not working, whether in the fields or a factory or any workplace thought dangerous to women. Professional work, by contrast, provides women with social distinction and demonstrates their class status. This likely contributes to the outsize effect of higher education on women’s labor force participation. However, even if they choose to stay at home, women need some form of income beyond basic household sustenance. In today’s Turkey, young urban women’s trousseaux are increasingly purchased, often consisting of cheap goods manufactured in China rather than artisanal and handmade items. Modernity and dreams of upward mobility mean that women disdain “peasant-style” work with their hands, but they need money to spend on increasing their social capital. Trousseaux are financed by a woman’s family, but after marriage, women have no means to increase their financial capital (generally held in the form of gold received as gifts at marriage and childbirth), so they invest heavily in networking and accumulating social capital. Even for that, though, they need money because food preparation and gift giving are crucial to networking, and following fashion is important for status and, for the young, marriageability. In the 1980s, poor women earned money by making handicrafts for their neighbors’ trousseaux. Women’s groups put on small fairs at which these handicrafts could be sold. Women had rotating savings clubs (gün) in an economy measured in pennies. Today, by contrast, poor women sell Tupperware, Amway, and Avon through their female networks. Avon started in Turkey in 1993, Amway in 1994. By 2014, Amway had 283,000 “independent entrepreneurs” and $93 million in revenue. Turkey is now Amway’s third-largest and Tupperware’s fourthlargest market in Europe.50 Should women be encouraged to leave the house and enter a dangerous and exploitative workforce? It makes sense to a lot of women not to, and the social imperative to be a housewife often is understood as well-meaning protection, not simply an attempt to control women’s lives. Women who stay at home have entrepreneurial potential that, while limited in scale, builds on existing strengths—their networks among other women and their children. An argument can be made for an increase in the availability of affordable center-based early-childhood education that promotes children’s development while allowing mothers to scale up their businesses in a more systematic way.51 However, in 2017 only 2.8 percent of children attended a nursery or kindergarten; 86 percent of children aged zero to five were cared for by their mothers.52 Child care has been on various government agendas since the 1980s, but policies have been weakened under the AKP as the state has withdrawn from welfare service provision. Instead, the government marketized such services, accrediting expensive private child-care centers that reserve a quota of vouchers for disadvantaged children. This was not well publicized, and uptake was limited. AKP care policies are

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built to support and serve “deserving dependents” in the context of the family as a sacred unit in which women are the primary care providers.53 Responding to European Union accession requirements and highly visible global activities around women’s rights (such as the 1995 Beijing Conference on Women) that required the participation of individual states, Turkish political authorities began to consider issues such as women’s rights and poverty as matters of concern to the state, not merely issues of private benevolence and voluntary initiatives. Social assistance began to be situated within an administrative framework that aimed to both assist and control these populations.54 The consolidation of nationalism has historically meant a rediscovery of women as symbols to be displayed in the “shop window” of the nation-state. In the nationalist pantheon, women represent family, propriety, and sexual vulnerability. They are carriers of Muslim and national values and bearers of sons to repopulate the Turkish nation. The AKP leadership discursively places women “at the heart of the culture which is deemed essentially different from European civilization.”55 At the same time, the government has institutionalized services to women and the poor and accommodated women professionally into these social services. Meanwhile, an increasing number of pious women have taken advantage of the demise of the headscarf ban to become educated and gain professional training. They aspire to careers and more equitable gender relations at work and at home and, in lieu of an accommodating husband, increasingly choose to stay single or divorce, thus significantly challenging traditional gender roles.56 Martin Raiser of the World Bank has argued that, despite the AKP’s contradictory but generally conservative policies toward women’s roles in society, socioeconomic and normative access barriers to younger women’s participation in education and the labor market have been significantly relaxed, particularly among poorer and more pious parts of the Turkish population. He bases this on evidence provided by the economist Insan Tunali, who looked at labor participation rates by cohort, and by Eric Meyersson, who compared 1994 school enrollment rates for girls in municipalities where the Islamic Refah Party had won local elections and in those where it lost. Meyersson suggests that “Islamic rule reduced barriers to female participation among the poorer and pious segments of society by making them more comfortable about sending their girls to school.”57 However, despite the AKP government’s expansion of social services and encouragement of girls and women to obtain an education, its conservative agenda promotes women as family caregivers for children, the elderly, and the disabled. For many women, breaking away from social expectations to work or start a business outside the home without their own capital is simply not feasible or desirable under present conditions.58 Political and economic life become manifest not only through formal channels but also, in the words of Anna J. Secor, through “a multitude of

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explicitly gendered local channels . . . at the intersection of practices and discourses that circulate across multiple scales.”59 State and government policies and discourses are clearly intended to have an impact on women’s welfare, but as institutions intersect with the fears and desires of citizens grappling with new opportunities and constraints, the results are not always neatly predictable. Current political events in Turkey have added another layer of uncertainty. Since the failed coup in 2016, more than 100,000 people have been detained and fired from their workplaces, which affects their families as well. The purges have disproportionately affected teachers and other professionals. Universities and civil society organizations, including women’s associations, have been closed down.60 In this atmosphere of fear and social unrest, women’s choices have narrowed as well. A stable future for Turkey rests on a well-functioning economy and educational system, the rule of law, and the integrity of the family, arenas central to women’s lives that are at present under siege.

Notes

1. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey. 2. Maritato, “Performing Irşad.” 3. Güneş-Ayata and Doğangünü, “Gender Politics of the AKP,” pp. 613–614. 4. Akkan, “The Politics of Care in Turkey.” 5. Güneş-Ayata and Doğangünü, “Gender Politics of the AKP,” p. 617. 6. Butcher, “Turkey’s Highest Religious Body Suggests Children as Young as Nine Could Marry Under Islamic Law.” 7. See Gürkan Çelik’s discussion in Chapter 2 of this volume. 8. Akkan, “The Politics of Care in Turkey,” p. 75. 9. Duben and Behar, Istanbul Households. 10. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey. 11. White, “State Feminism and the Turkish Republican Woman.” 12. Çarkoğlu and Kafescioğlu, “For Whose Sake Is It Anyway?” p. 243. 13. White, “State Feminism and the Turkish Republican Woman.” 14. Acar and Altunok, “The ‘Politics of the Intimate’ at the Intersection of Neo-liberalism.” 15. Human Rights Watch, “He Loves You, He Beats You.” 16. Opuz v. Turkey, App no 33401/02, ECHR, June 9, 2009. 17. KCDP, 2016 Yılı Raporu. 18. Human Rights Watch, “He Loves You, He Beats You.” 19. Coşar and Yeğenoğlu, “New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey?” pp. 562–563. 20. Ekal, “Women’s Shelters as State Institutions”; Ekal Şimşek, personal communication. 21. White, Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks. 22. Kandiyoti, “Locating the Politics of Gender,” p. 108. 23. Human Rights Watch, “He Loves You, He Beats You.” 24. Opuz v. Turkey, App no 33401/02, ECHR, June 9, 2009. 25. Ayata and Tütüncü, “Party Politics of the AKP (2002–2007).” 26. Göksel, “Female Labor Force Participation in Turkey,” p. 46. 27. World Bank, “Labor Force Participation Rate, Female, 2016.” 28. Benli et al., “A Statistical Examination of the Condition of Women in Turkey”; KEIG, “Women’s Labour and Employment Problems in Turkey.” 29. White, Money Makes Us Relatives: Women’s Labor in Urban Turkey.

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30. European Commission, “The Current Situation of Gender Equality in Turkey,” pp. 7–8. 31. Akkan, “The Politics of Care in Turkey,” pp. 80–81. 32. World Bank, “Turkey Launched a Project to Increase Economic Opportunities for Women.” 33. Hassan, “Women Preaching for the Secular State”; Kocamaner, “Strengthening the Family Through Television.” 34. OECD, “Earnings: Gross Earnings: Decile Ratios”; but see European Commission, “The Current Situation of Gender Equality in Turkey,” p. 13. 35. SIS, “Gender Pay Gap by Educational Attainment and Major Occupational Group in 2010.” 36. Altınay and Arat, Violence Against Women in Turkey. 37. UN Implementation of General Assembly Resolution 60/251; see also Human Rights Watch, “He Loves You, He Beats You.” 38. Toprak and Kalaycioğlu, Women Who Cannot Join in Politics. 39. Kocamaner, “Strengthening the Family Through Television.” 40. OECD, “Family Benefits Public Spending 2016.” 41. Yakut-Çakar and Özar, “‘Women Without Men’ in Turkey”; Kavas and GündüzHoşgör, “Divorce and Family Change Revisited.” 42. SIS, “Press Release 21519.” 43. SIS, “Press Release 24643,” p. 2. 44. Kavas and Gündüz-Hoşgör, “Divorce and Family Change Revisited,” pp. 105–106. 45. Ökten, Female Entrepreneurship in Turkey, p. 26. 46. European Commission, “Study on ‘Statistical Data on Women Entrepreneurs in Europe,’” pp. 8–9. 47. Ökten, Female Entrepreneurship in Turkey. 48. Takay et al., Ankara’da Kadın Girişimciliği: Örnekler ve Yol Haritası, p. 81. 49. Kavas and Gündüz-Hoşgör, “Divorce and Family Change Revisited,” pp. 106–107. 50. WODS, “Some Do It the Right Way in Turkey.” 51. Munoz-Boudet and Aran, “Investing in Women and the Next Generation.” 52. Akkan, “The Politics of Care in Turkey,” pp. 81. 53. Akkan, “The Politics of Care in Turkey,” pp. 81–85. 54. Ekal, “Women’s Shelters as State Institutions”; Buğra, “Poverty and Citizenship.” 55. Ayata and Tütüncü, “Party Politics of the AKP (2002–2007),” p. 383. 56. Jelen, “Educated, Independent, and Covered.” 57. Raiser, “A Working Future for Turkey’s Women?”; see also Coşar and Yeğenoğlu, “New Grounds for Patriarchy in Turkey?” 58. Çarkoğlu and Kafescioğlu, “For Whose Sake Is It Anyway?” 59. Secor, “Toward a Feminist Counter-geopolitics,” p. 208. 60. See Turkey Purge (www.turkeypurge.com).

PART 2 Dynamics Abroad

9 Changes and Dangers in Turkey’s World Ronald H. Linden

that “great powers do what they can and small powers do what they must.” This means that all powers, great and small alike, operate in environments over which they have only modest control. Thus, even great powers only do what they “can,” not all that they want, something that political leaders— and sometimes analysts—do not like to admit. Turkey is not a great power but neither is it a small or weak one. It is, one might say, a “middle power.” William Hale termed it such in his classic study of more than two hundred years of Turkish foreign policy.1 It is a state with some control over the external world, mostly in its immediate neighborhood. To use economists’ terms, it is a “price taker.” In contemporary times, it might be more the recipient of or responder to its outside world than the maker of that world. For Turkey, this is perhaps a more problematic dynamic than for other countries because Turkey’s immediate “outside world” is so dangerous. Its neighborhood includes the Middle East, Southwest Asia, the Black Sea, the frontiers of the EU and NATO, and the front yard of Russia, including Crimea and the Caucasus. Turkey sits not only on the detritus of past empires—including its own—but at the intersection of competing military powers (including the United States) and, more recently, the transit routes of epoch-making shifts of energy and people. Turkey lives in a place where, if there really is a “clash of civilizations,” it is likely to be evident. Moreover, history does not sit still. The Cold War is over but so is the post–Cold War era. The dissolution of the Soviet Union has yielded the return of Russia; the hopeful Arab Spring has given way to the disintegration of what were, in many cases, artificial nation-states. The soft power

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appeal of a confident EU, once so influential, has yielded to the centrifugal pull of populism and national interests. Nor is the dominance of Western hegemony assured, as China is making a powerful case to supplant the long-dominant institutions and dynamics in which the allocation of resources and application of policies are determined. For Turkey, this has meant a serious deterioration in the conditions of its neighborhood, both near and farther away, and its predictability. What had once seemed a favorable field for “zero problems with neighbors”—in policy and in practice—now seems to offer nothing but “zero neighbors without problems.”2 This volatility has created a dangerous and rapidly changing set of challenges for Turkey (see Figure 9.1), though some opportunities are also evident. These will apply regardless of what kind of regime emerges in post-coup-attempt Turkey. But judging from what has been established most recently (see Chapter 2 by Gürkan Çelik), the foreign policy system will be more leader centered than at any time since Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. While this mirrors the structure of some key partners (Russia, the United States, China), it also makes it more likely that Turkey’s multiple interactions with its environments, near and far, will be subject to sharp changes.

Key Changes in Turkey’s Foreign Policy Environment Changes in the Middle East Order The most significant changes affecting Turkey have occurred in the Middle East. Turkey’s relationships in this region have shifted from good, workable relations with most actors—Egypt, Iran, Israel, Syria, Iraq, and Iraqi Kurdistan3—to cold, even hostile situations with almost all of these actors, Iran excluded. Some ties have been repaired (e.g., with Israel), and others could be.4 Turkey has reinforced its friendship with Qatar—buttressing it against isolation and blockade by four Arab states—with a new military base.5 But without question the tally here is worse for Turkey. Central government control has been compromised in some neighboring nation-states, such as Iraq, and almost completely disintegrated in others, such as Syria. In its place have come decidedly not–Turkish friendly actors—for example, the Islamic State (IS) and powerful Kurdish actors, like the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. This has produced Turkish military interventions into Syria designed to block or weaken the position of Kurdish forces, especially near the Turkish border. At the same time, Turkey has had to cope with an influx of some 4 million refugees, most of whom are in desperate need of housing, medical assistance, and other forms of aid.6 In addition to the economic burden, this situation has put Turkey squarely in the middle of the Europe–Middle East nexus on the broader issue of migration control.7

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Figure 9.1 Key Changes in Turkey’s External Environment

Two other fundamental shifts have changed the nature of Turkey’s Middle Eastern neighborhood. One is the reduction in the centrality of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and its replacement by others with greater potential impact on Turkey—that is, those between Sunni (Saudi Arabia) and Shia (Iran) states, among Sunni forces,8 and between Islamic extremists of both the state and nonstate (e.g., ISIS) variety. Finally, we should not lose sight of the fact that recent years have seen a “flanking” of Turkey by the Russian military (see below). Russian naval forces have moved into the eastern Mediterranean, and ground, air, and missile forces are operating in Syria—sometimes very near Turkey. This means Turkish forces have to be exceptionally careful that in pursuing their goals (e.g., weakening Kurdish forces in Syria), they do not set off actual conflict with nearby Russian troops.9 Overall, the Russian presence puts Turkey in a much more vulnerable position from a strategic point of view than it was at the beginning of the decade and is linked to the second key change. Assertive Russian Nationalism Russia’s rejection of integration with the West and Vladimir Putin’s use of aggressive Russian nationalism to support his rule have led to major territorial changes on Turkey’s borders. These include the invasion and dismemberment of Georgia, the forcible excision and accession of Crimea from Ukraine, and the effective removal of Ukrainian central government control from eastern Ukraine by supporting insurgents there and essentially eliminating the Ukrainian-Russian border.

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These actions do more than simply challenge the post–Cold War order. For Turkey they are major changes, politically sponsored and militarily imposed, on their northern border. They have implications for the militarization of the Black Sea, which now holds a privileged place in Russian geostrategic planning and budgetary allocations.10 This runs directly counter to Turkey’s long-standing aim to keep the Black Sea from becoming another front in a cold (or hot) war or another outpost for either the Russian or US military.11 Russian determination to change the strategic balance in its favor was demonstrated by its completion in 2018 of a bridge across the Strait of Kerch and steps taken to secure militarily (against Ukraine) the resulting enclosure of the Azov Sea.12 At the same time, Russia’s decision to pursue a major role in Syria is keyed to demonstrating that its interests must be considered if any new arrangements are made there. It is very much tied to Russia’s assertion of its role: it will not simply stand back and allow the West, with or without Turkey, to reorder the region as it pleases.13 It has backed this up with the insertion of substantial naval, air, and some ground forces into the region.14 This has effectively outflanked NATO member Turkey and put its forces and people in harm’s way as Turkey pursues its own goals. In addition, of course, Turkey has important links to people in two of the affected regions. This includes long-standing ties with both Abkhazians and Georgians and a professed interest in the fate of some 240,000 Tartars in Crimea. To the extent that these territorial changes worsen the situation for any of these groups, pressure increases on Turkey (from at home and abroad) to act on behalf of their friends or coethnics.15 Russia has made it clear that it will not allow economic ties to hinder the reassertion of what it sees as its proper role. Despite many frequent and warm meetings with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for example, Russian leader Vladimir Putin was quick to impose import restrictions, bans on group travel and Turkish investment, and a halt to two major energy projects after Turkey shot down a Russian fighter in November 2015. Russian-Turkish trade had reached $30 billion a year by 2014, and roughly 3 million Russian tourists were visiting Turkey annually. After the air incident, trade and investment fell sharply, and Antalya—a favorite destination for Russian tourists—lay empty. The bite of these sanctions was illustrated in summer 2016 when President Erdoğan apologized to the Russians for the shoot-down and made a pilgrimage to Moscow. In return, Putin not only welcomed the Turkish visitor without chiding him for postcoup purges but allowed Turkish trade, tourism, and investments to resume. This was followed soon after by agreement to restart the Black Sea gas pipeline (TurkStream) to carry Russian gas to Turkey at reduced prices and the building of the country’s first nuclear reactor.16 In addition to the demonstrated volatility—and the clearly personal nature—of Russian-Turkish relations,17 fundamental differences remain and

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have become more, not less, acute in recent times. These include contrasting postures toward both the present and future of the Assad regime in Syria and Turkey’s membership in and support of NATO. In calm times, the latter has not burdened bilateral relations. But these are not calm times. After Russia’s actions in Ukraine, NATO made rhetorical and concrete moves in Europe to reassure nervous East European allies.18 In response, Russia raised a variety of threats, most related to preparation for possible use of arms, including nuclear arms, in western Russia and Kaliningrad. Whenever the temperature goes up in the US-Russia conflict/ cooperation cycle, pressure increases on Turkey to “do its share.” As relations with the United States soured after the coup attempt in 2016, some critical observers suggested that it was time to cut Ankara loose: “All of this should be a clarifying moment for American policy makers, demonstrating that Turkey and the U.S. no longer share values or interests. Rather than overlook Turkish excesses while hoping Mr. Erdoğan will come around, it is time to search for more reliable allies.”19 This was before a new administration came to power in Washington (see below) that is extremely sensitive to what it sees as poor treatment by allies. Ankara’s decision in late 2017 to purchase S-400 surface-to-air missiles from Russia and the American administration’s reaction to this proposed deal demonstrates the zero-sum quality of Turkish-US-Russian relations: improvement of ties with Moscow usually means worsening of relations with the United States.20 As one conservative commentator wrote, “Wishing Turkey to be a ‘strategic partner’ won’t make it one. . . . In his New York Times op-ed [of August 10, 2018], Erdoğan threatened to ‘start looking for new friends and allies.’ Let him. In fact, he already has.”21 Crises in the European Union Not all developments have been negative for Turkey. Some are significant because they represent a major change and introduce an element of uncertainty, which Turkey may or may not be able to exploit. Chief among these are the ongoing, pervasive, and simultaneous crises that have seriously eroded the once prodigious soft power pull, underlying economic strength, and political unity of the European Union. These crises are the product of several chronic failings: first, a persistent inability to stimulate economic growth across the region, leading to high levels of unemployment, lower investment, and a “lost decade” for large parts of Europe; second, a NorthSouth divide in economic health and growth that is exacerbated by harsh austerity programs imposed by the “haves” (Germany) on the “have-nots” (Greece); third, an inability to put in place a coherent, effective plan for dealing with the greatly increased migration of desperate people, chiefly from the conflict areas of North Africa and the Middle East; and fourth, a demonstrated inability to act collectively on key issues and to justify the

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existence and purpose of the EU, which has both led to and reinforced a loss of faith in a common European project.22 To this list can be added the most serious blow to European unity since the end of the Cold War: the vote of the people of the United Kingdom in 2016 to leave the EU (Brexit). This tortured process will likely take out of the organization its third most populous member (after Germany and France), its second-largest economy (after Germany), and the EU’s most capable military ally. The global weakening of the EU is not necessarily bad for perennial applicant Turkey. But it does add to the mix an element of uncertainty and volatility that had been missing from its European neighborhood. The EU has been an enduring symbolic and concrete example of an alternative to a Europe of conflicting and sometimes warring nation-states. Its current weakness and possibly crippled future dramatically change a key element of the environment that, whatever its ambivalent relationship with Turkey, provided for stability and predictability, something all foreign policy leaders prefer. Rise of Nationalism and Populism Part of the rising dysfunction of the EU can be attributed to a cause that is, by itself, one of the more severe challenges facing Turkey. That is the rise of nationalism and populism throughout Europe. In France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and parts of east-central Europe, a nativist, popular movement, which had always been there, has recently been able to exploit either the economic malaise or the migration crisis or both to challenge national governments and the European enterprise of which they are a part.23 This has occurred in Turkey itself, of course, and most recently in the United States (see below). In Europe, the rise of nativist populism is a negative development for Turkey for several reasons. First, it is profoundly antiMuslim, and it is fair to say that distinguishing among African, Arab, and Turkish Muslims is not a strong suit of nativist movements. Second, some 5 million Turks live within the EU and thus find themselves a target both as an ethnicity within Europe and as coming from a country seen as not quite part of it.24 Any “othering” of foreigners does not bode well for Turkey. In addition, this movement is hostile to engagement with the Middle East. Indeed, it sees the Middle East as the source of great danger to Europe. In such an environment, in which the choice is between “us” and “them” where “them” is the Middle East, Turkey is likely to wind up on the other side of a reinforced border. This distinction was already part of the antipathy in much of Europe to Turkish membership in the EU even before wars and state collapse in the region brought danger, terrorism, and migration. It is likely to increase in such a frightening milieu. It is also bad news because Turkey is a “trading state” whose economy is increasingly sensitive to gains and losses from trade.25 In 1990 the ratio

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of trade to gross domestic product (GDP) in Turkey was 5.6 percent; by 2015 that figure was nearly 50 percent. Turkish exports grew by 400 percent in the 2000–2015 period. In 2018, of the top fifteen export destinations for Turkey, nine were EU countries.26 To the extent that nationalism spurs protectionism in Europe and/or the United States, this will hurt Turkey’s economic prospects and its integration into the world economy. Almost certainly, nationalism abroad will spur a reciprocal nationalism and populism at home, where it needs precious little urging. It will increase the perception in Turkey that the country is on its own, that it needs to make what deals it can on its own (e.g., with Russia) and worry less about the aims and needs of once and future “allies.” European nationalism and populism thus meld with and reinforce Turkish sentiments of a similar nature to push the country away from a contribution to a collective European purpose and toward a more popular but ultimately more precarious “independence.” Rise of China In 1980, China’s share of the global GDP was less than 5 percent. China now accounts for more than 17 percent of global GDP and nearly 10 percent of the world’s foreign direct investment (FDI). It is the world’s largest national economy (as measured by purchasing power parity), most active national trader, and largest consumer of most major commodities. Globally and in its own neighborhood, it seeks a level of political involvement and respect befitting its role as a major power. This “rise” has been accompanied by major initiatives to link China to Eurasia and Europe, both physically and institutionally. The “One Road, One Belt” policy, announced in 2013, is designed to build and improve infrastructure linking Asia to Europe both on land and across the Pacific and Indian Oceans to the Mediterranean—the two “silk roads” of trade and investment. The policy, also known as the Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI), is designed to support investment and trade for a huge but slowing Chinese economy. In 2015 China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to counter the financial and trade institutions dominated by the West.27 For Europe, this has meant an enormous increase in trade, to the point where China is the EU’s leading source of imports and second-leading trade partner overall. In this last decade, Chinese investment in Europe surged, reaching €80 billion in 2017. For both Europe and Turkey, economic and policy goals must now take into account the role of China. Once a selfabsorbed marginal actor with little impact in Turkey’s neighborhood, China, through its prominence in trade, investment, energy, and influence, has begun to offer a balance to long-standing European (or Russian) dominance, as the “silk road” has reached Turkey’s shores (see below).

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Changes in Energy Environment Crude oil brought in $80 a barrel in 2000; by 2015, the price was less than $50. Natural gas in the same year sold for 75 percent of the price it had fetched in 2010. As shale, liquified natural gas, and other fuels become more significant and the price and centrality of these primary products declines, the value of location, such as that of Turkey as a putative “energy hub,” has declined.28 Pipelines become uneconomical and are cancelled (e.g., Nabucco and South Stream); investment in permanent, nonversatile gas infrastructure, together with the land on which it is located, become less valuable. At the same time, demand has grown, especially in Europe, for the increased use of renewables. Germany, for example, has pledged to reduce greenhouse gases by 40 percent by 2020 and to base its electricity supply 100 percent on renewables by 2050. Even if such plans falter, movement in this direction is popular and weakens the leverage Turkey might have had with regard to pipelines. Prices could rebound, of course, and the politics of pipelines could run counter to a refreezing of the Cold War, as Germany and Russia demonstrated with the signing of an agreement to build the Nordstream 2 pipeline bringing Russian gas to Europe. But overall, the drive to build huge pipeline projects, some of which had put Turkey center stage, has declined. As Dimitar Bechev has pointed out, the renewed Turkey-Russia TurkStream pipeline will operate at only half its capacity, with Turkey buying half of that and the European market for the rest remaining quite soft.29 Changes in US Administration One of the most significant recent changes also brings with it the highest level of uncertainty. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency brought to the office someone without a known ideology or any record of involvement in international affairs except for his private business ventures. During the administration of George W. Bush, Turks resented and resisted being drawn into the second war against Iraq, and when Barack Obama gained the White House in 2008, public approval ratings soared.30 During the two Obama terms, US-Turkish relations were cooperative but cool31 and included some sharp criticisms (e.g., of perceived US sluggishness in condemning the coup attempt of July 2016). But the Obama administration was at least responsive to such sensitivity and tried to mollify hurt Turkish feelings.32 While the new administration is Republican, there is no helpful template to guide Turkish policymakers. Donald Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements—including tweets and extemporaneous remarks—are often harsh and ill considered, ranging from bragging (e.g., on trade wars), to aggressive threats, directed at North Korea and Iran, to scolding and isolationism (e.g., toward NATO). Nor has Turkey itself been spared, as the president’s use of both sanctions and tariffs over the detention of US pas-

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tor Andrew Brunson has demonstrated.33 For Turkey, the challenge lies not only in what might be termed “traditional” US misunderstanding of Turkey’s aims but in the volatility of presidential (and therefore US) policy. As Donald Trump is ultimately a businessman unused to public accountability and seems not to hold to any particular foreign policy ideology beyond “America first,” deal making of any sort is possible. This might be a good thing for President Erdoğan if, for example, Washington and Ankara can strike a quid pro quo with respect to the detention of each other’s citizens.34 But high-level individual diplomacy is subject to multiple human obstacles35 and, in the Trump administration, to sharp and often unpredictable changes, such as the president’s unexpected announcement in January of an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Syria.36 It could be troublesome for Turkey if the Trump White House were to reach a condominium with Vladimir Putin—before whom Trump appears supine—on Europe, the Black Sea, or Eurasia. And the unraveling of previous security agreements, such as the Intermediate Range Nuclear Weapons Treaty of 1987, which the United States scrapped in 2019, leaves Turkey vulnerable to nuclear intimidation as Russian intermediate range missiles can now be deployed without restriction. As noted above, not all changes in Turkey’s external environment are in a negative direction. Some, though worse for external actors, might work to Turkey’s benefit. For example, weaker enthusiasm for collective action in the EU, combined with rising populism at home, gives Turkey significant leverage over that organization on the issue of migration. The deal on refugees reached in March 2016 is one that European leaders can hardly go back on, as none of them would want to see an uncontrolled flow of people through their borders, as was occurring before the deal. The political cost of this would be disastrous domestically. While a collapse of this deal would cost Turkey the visa-free travel it wants and end what little progress on EU membership was being dangled as inducement, it would be catastrophic for Europe’s remaining centrist parties.37 Given the pressures of this particular two-level game, the EU and its members need Turkey more than Turkey needs them.38 In addition, the death of regional trade pacts such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) works in Turkey’s favor. TTIP was a deal negotiated by the EU and the United States and would have obligated Turkey, as a customs union partner of the EU, to respect any deal made, but without having a say in the negotiations.39 The United States has not withdrawn from TTIP, as it did from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but it seems likely to be replaced by a new deal that is closer to Donald Trump’s

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preferences. And the US government has made clear that these dictate arrangements that are more favorable to the United States.40 As Turkey is not an EU member, its ability to arrange its own favorable bilateral deals with the United States might improve (eventually). Furthermore, tough talk and action by Washington toward China makes Beijing even more eager for strong multilateral arrangements not dominated by the United States, such as the AIIB (which Turkey has joined), and bilateral trade and investment ties with productive and well-located partners, such as Turkey. For its part, Ankara is eager to demonstrate to the United States that it has choices. One positive change in Turkey’s neighborhood was the signing of the nuclear pact with Iran in 2015 to restrict that country’s development of nuclear weapons in return for an end to sanctions by the United States and other major economic actors. This eased pressure on Turkey to “get in line” with regard to sanctions and gave a boost to prospects for trade and investment. Turkey receives 30 percent of its natural gas and 15 to 20 percent of all energy imports from Iran. It also earns some $15 billion a year from Iranian tourism. Trade between the two countries had reached more than $21 billion in 2012 but, under the pressure of sanctions, declined to roughly $10 billion in 2015.41 After the nuclear agreement was signed, trade with Iran immediately improved—by some 30 percent in 2016 alone.42 In addition, the pact reduced dramatically the chances of a military attack on Iran, something that most Turks could only regard with horror. But the Trump administration rejected the agreement and wants to negotiate a new one. In October 2017 the president refused to certify that lifting US sanctions against Iran was the “appropriate and proportionate” US response. Such certification was specified in US law agreed to by the Obama administration in order to pacify a hostile Congress.43 In May 2018 Trump formally withdrew US participation in the pact and in July began to reimpose sanctions. The other treaty partners—Russia, China, Britain, Germany, and France, as well as the EU—have pledged to continue to deal and thus to trade with Iran. Turkey has rejected the US order as nonbinding and pledged to continue trading with Iran, especially for the crucial energy it needs.44 This will only contribute to a new “cold war” relationship with Washington that already is burdened by several tensions.45 The rise of China also provides an opportunity for Turkey, which it has been exploiting. After Germany and Russia, China is Turkey’s third-leading trading partner—largely on the strength of more than $20 billion in Turkish imports a year. The trade is significantly unbalanced, showing a deficit of nearly $18 billion in 2018.46 Chinese investment in Turkey has also grown. By 2015 its value ($624 million) was three times what it had been for the entire previous decade.47 Though the amounts are still small compared to European investment—less than 2 percent of total inward FDI—the trends show increasing Chinese interest in Turkey (see Figure 9.2). Equity projects

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Figure 9.2 Chinese Investment in Turkey, 2009–2017 (millions US$)

Source: Created by David McCoy from International Monetary Fund data (http://data.imf .org/regular.aspx?key=61227426).

reached nearly $1.5 billion in 2017 and include some key infrastructure sites, such as Kumport, Turkey’s third-largest container port (and the one closest to Istanbul), which is now two-thirds owned by a Chinese sovereign wealth fund.48 As mentioned, China’s “balancing” organizations such as AIIB and, even more, its “One Belt, One Road” policy work to offer alternatives both to Europe and to Russia for the Turkish economy. Ankara is eager to take advantage of the global shipping and transportation links suggested by the BRI and has offered its own “Middle Corridor” of rail and port projects as components of China’s broad initiative.49 And for a time Ankara muted its criticism of Chinese treatment of its Uighur (Turkic-speaking, Muslim) minority of more than 10 million and even arrested some 100 Uighurs trying to travel to Saudi Arabia on false passports.50 But when global attention was drawn in 2018 to a vast system of “re-education” camps for Uighurs operated by China, the Turkish government did issue a broad criticism of China’s actions, calling them “a shame for humanity.”51 As indicated by its apology to Russia for the shooting down of its jet and by the reestablishment of working relations with Israel, Turkey has been pragmatic and accommodating with key actors with whom it sees cooperation as beneficial. Past disagreements—

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even when accompanied by harsh rhetoric—are no barrier to pragmatic cooperation that might benefit Turkey.52 In this world that has changed so much in recent years, with whom can Turkey partner? Who might be its allies, recognizing that, even if it were a great power, it could not ensure peace and success all by itself. Since it is not a great power and especially since Turkey’s neighborhood is a volatile and exceedingly dangerous one, Turkey will need partners. These may not be enduring friendships, but as analysts we should be mindful of Lord Palmerston’s famous dictum that “nations have no permanent friends or allies, they only have permanent interests.” Turkey’s aim to serve those interests could lead Ankara to specific and mutually beneficial partnerships that will help it navigate this new perilous environment. But even within the limited goal of a search for partners, Turkey’s choices are constrained. Consider the following “candidate” partners.

Turkey’s Potential Partners in a Dangerous World

Russia. While Russia is a very valuable economic partner for Turkey, Ankara has learned that such ties can be cut quite quickly and effectively— one of the advantages of autocratic rule. While both Turkey and Russia might see themselves in an “axis of the excluded,”53 Moscow is not above punishing Turkey when fundamental differences produce negative acts (e.g., in Syria). Turkey and Russia are historical adversaries who often articulate goals that harken back to their days atop empires (tsarist, Ottoman).54 Right now the two governments have differing views of the present and future in Syria. Moscow sees it as a valuable site to extend its influence and deny that of the West, while Turkey’s concerns are more proximate: blocking direct threats coming from terrorism and the power of the Kurds. Turkey remains a NATO member with a large US military base on its territory and asserts a proprietary interest in the Black Sea that does not conform with Moscow’s views or actions. Historically both powers have found cooperative paths when circumstances dictated. As a partner, Russia is willing to cultivate good ties when the opportunity arises, and Turkey has profited by this opportunism.55 But Moscow will also cut them off when displeased. This is not the best recipe for a long-term relationship.

United States. Russia is not alone in seeing Turkey through the lens of its own worldview. The United States has long been guilty of fitting Turkey into its preferred milieu of a “model Muslim democracy” and demanding that it be a compliant ally (e.g., on sanctions on Iran). More recently, the United States and Turkey have held sharply divergent views of the role of the Kurds in fighting the wars against ISIS in Iraq and especially in Syria.56

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Turks are fearful of a separate major Kurdish power emerging in the region and are unwilling to jettison that perspective to support an ally in Washington that does not always seem very cognizant of its perspective. Moreover, that ally, as they see it, has been either complicit in supporting Fethullah Gülen against the regime or at the least not appreciative of how close the country came to a return to military rule and possible civil war. Washington has at times been an imperious friend, insisting that Turkey conform its behavior to—or at least not block—US-defined actions in the region. Under Donald Trump both the substance and the tone of relations have worsened markedly. Clashes over the US recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2018, the proposed purchase by Turkey of S-400 antimissile batteries from Russia, and the recriminations over Turkish arrest of US citizens and Turks working for the US embassy, combined with both presidents’ penchant for impetuous and occasionally incendiary rhetoric, have strained relations.57 Even when the United States does things that Ankara approves of, such as announcing in December 2018 its imminent withdrawal from Syria and thus weakening support for Kurdish forces there, threats and unvetted tweets have a negative impact.58 However, under Trump’s “transactional” approach to foreign policy (i.e., a preference for deals that benefit the United States), Ankara does not have to worry about Washington preaching democracy.59 And, as the deal on Pastor Brunson showed, the calculus involved in keeping Washington—or at least Donald Trump—happy is hardly opaque.

European Union. It used to be that both Brussels and Ankara maintained the (increasingly thin) premise that negotiations toward eventual membership had at least some promise. The EU remains Turkey’s most important economic partner, and its decades-old customs union has contributed significantly to Turkish economic and political development.60 But many complex and thorny issues burden multilateral relations, even apart from the unlikely prospect of Turkish accession. The March 2016 deal on refugees has, from the Turkish point of view, been damaged by European inaction, and threats to abandon it are frequent.61 The Turkish government was particularly displeased over what it saw as a weak and vacillating European response to the coup attempt of July 2016.62 In November 2016, in response to the widespread crackdown on Turkish institutions and civil society and the changes to the constitution implemented by President Erdoğan, the European Parliament voted to recommend suspension of accession negotiations.63 Progress on these negotiations is absent, and after the European Commission issued a comprehensive, scathing report on Turkey in 2018 saying the country is “moving away from the European Union,” little can be expected.64 The creation of a new Turkish presidency with enhanced powers and Erdoğan’s election to that post did little to assuage EU concerns about democracy in the country.65

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Further, as noted, the EU’s multiple crises have weakened its soft and hard power instruments. And that was the case even before Brexit. Now it may be that Turkey’s best hope for European partners lies in purely “transactional” ties with the EU66 or bilateral deals with member states. Germany, as the dominant economic and—with Brexit looming—political power in Europe, is most important. But sharp attention to the refugee issue, the growing authoritarianism in Turkey, and the presence of some 3 million Turks living in Germany have contributed to negative pressure on those relations.67

Middle East. Turkey’s immediate southern neighborhood is fragmented, violent, and subject to movements and states whose battles are both political and religious. As the British, French, and Americans learned, it is a part of the world not easily subject to control even by those countries with a long history of regional dominance. The most salient conflict in the area is no longer that between Palestinians and Israelis—though that continues to provide opportunities for exchanges of fire, literally, such as between Hamas in Gaza and Israel, as well as between Ankara and Jerusalem.68 Rather region-wide conflicts across several dimensions—for instance, between Sunni Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Shia forces led by Iran, or between regimes practicing religious extremism and those seen as more moderate, including Turkey—seem at least as likely to determine the future of the region. For Turkey, conflicts such as those involving the smaller Arab states of the Gulf, caught in the crosshairs of Saudi-Iranian competition, put Turkish assets, including its military personnel in Qatar, in some jeopardy.69 Five years ago there were prospects for at least workable ties and rich prospects for Turkey across the region. Now, with the failure of the Arab Spring, state fragmentation exploited by ISIS, clashes within and across Islam’s divisions, and, not least, the enlarged military role of outside powers such as Russia, Turkey’s range of options has narrowed rather than broadened. For example, Turkish policy in Syria aims to blunt the growing power of the Kurds in the region, but its cross-border actions to achieve that goal, such as Operation Olive Branch in 2018, put it at odds with both the United States and Russia and have implications for both domestic and external security.

The Wider World. Nor do the broader aspirations for influence offer much prospect for complements to enhanced Turkish power. Turkey’s prominence in the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and its recent return to vigorous diplomacy in Africa give Ankara rhetorical and trade platforms but little proven muscle.70 The same can be said for Turkey’s renewed efforts to gain prominence and influence through the BRICS movement.71 And episodic Turkish efforts to gain prominence in the Turkicspeaking Central Asian republics (Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan,

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Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan) have met with skepticism among those countries and competition from Russia.72 What are Turkey’s alternatives then? While neither regional nor global dynamics suggest that Turkey will stop pursuing useful relations with any of the powers or in any of the regions mentioned above, the present environment does hold promise for some useful and enriching ties with other key actors. Those listed below, in particular, have seen their value to Turkey grow as a result of the upheaval in the world of the last few years and might provide some productive ties or support for a foreign policy with more limited goals than those promoted in the past.

Alternatives for Turkey?

1. China is an attractive partner because of its ambitious economic plans and because those plans (“One Belt, One Road”) bring it right to Turkey’s doorstep. In this case Turkey’s geographic position constitutes an advantage. It offers China a key link on its “silk road” through Eurasia to Europe. For Turkey, China can be a valuable balancer vis-à-vis both the United States and Russia. As noted, China is already an increasingly important provider of imports and investment and, unlike the EU, is willing to develop economic ties without the political conditions that typically accompany that organization’s initiatives. 2. Turkey and Israel share many similar strategic views of the Middle East, especially concern about religious extremism, terrorism, and the disintegration of stable, if problematic, nation-states. Both have modern governing structures and robust, externally oriented economies that extend beyond the region, and they share an energy complementarity. Israel has natural gas; Turkey needs it.73 Turkish-Israeli trade has continued to be robust—and favorable to Turkey—despite the ups and downs of politics. 74 But for Erdoğan, expanding ties requires a delicate balancing of external needs, domestic politicking (e.g., in reacting to the US decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital),75 and dampening of nasty rhetoric.76 But this is a path he has found before, as with the resolution of the consequences of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident.77 3. As Bill Park’s chapter in this volume (Chapter 12) demonstrates, Turkey’s relationship with Iran contains shared interests (e.g., defeating ISIS and restraining the influence of the region’s Kurds),78 as well as serious complications. Turkey imports nearly half its oil and one-fifth of its natural gas from Iran, but that trade—as with overall trade exceeding $10 billion—is affected by US attitudes.79 President Erdoğan has expressed support and affection for the regime in Tehran and repeatedly met with the Iranians, plus Russia, in an attempt to find a way to end the civil war in Syria

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on a basis that is most favorable to Turkey. If that happened and Ankara could find a way to build these ties despite US hostility to continued Turkey-Iran trade, a valuable relationship could emerge.80 4. The Balkans provide the intriguing possibility that Turkey’s best future prospects may lie in mining its past. Turkish business, cultural, and religious leaders know the region well, of course, and recent years have seen a substantial increase in Turkish investment, construction, and trade in the region.81 While not accounting for a major economic share for Turkey, involvement in Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, and elsewhere in the region, does keep Turkey in Europe and allows for a continued presence there even if some of these states, such as Macedonia, eventually join the EU and especially if they do not. Moreover, if the proposed Russia-Turkey TurkStream pipeline does come to fruition, it is through the Balkans to Europe that such exported energy will move.

Productive ties with each of these partners (or sets of partners) will not proceed without significant challenges. Some of these involve unexpected flare-ups that force Turkey’s hand, such as in the Middle East. Some involve struggles for influence against both contemporary challengers, such as Russia in the Balkans,82 and the legacy of one’s own past (e.g., the Ottoman Empire).83 In the case of China, drastic action against the Uighurs or an upsurge in terrorist actions on their behalf could undermine good ties with Beijing.84 But as the winding course of ties in each of these cases demonstrates, none of these obstacles is insurmountable.

At the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, Turkey finds itself in a much more dangerous neighborhood than it did at the end of the first decade. Developments within and among Turkey’s immediate neighbors, out in the broader regions of Europe and the Black Sea, and in global power struggles have moved in directions that hold both acute and longer-term dangers. Such changes are happening at a time when the domestic dynamic and structure of Turkey are being turned in dramatic ways certain to affect Turkish foreign policy. Of greatest significance is the rise to autocratic power of a duly elected political leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. As Henri Barkey makes clear in this volume (Chapter 10), it is now Erdoğan’s personal views and power that drive the direction of Turkish orientation toward the outside world. This is not entirely unprecedented in Turkish history (recall Atatürk), but it does represent a skewing of recent dynamics into a situation in which the power of previously influential actors such as the prime minister or the military has been reduced or eliminated alto-

Turkey in a Changing (and Dangerous) Neighborhood

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gether. At the same time, and as Nico Landman (Chapter 6) makes clear, other state organizations, such as the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), have gained greater power in foreign policy.85 The relentless pursuit of greater power, outlined in Gürkan Çelik’s discussion of domestic politics (Chapter 2), has eroded the power of other actors to affect foreign policy in Turkey. Generally speaking, even in more robust democratic systems, executive power in foreign policy has several advantages: the ability of a single actor, as opposed to a legislative body, to act forcefully; executive control of the budget and powerful ministries; dominance in the ruling political party; influence or control over the judiciary and the military; and media attention. In Turkey, Erdoğan has expanded and utilized all such powers and backed up political and structural changes with legitimizing elections and referenda. Political parties other than the Justice and Development Party (AKP) are systematically disadvantaged, decapitated by imprisonment, as in the case of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), or co-opted into the government, as happened with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). In this latter case, this party’s acceptance—even encouragement—of an explicitly nationalist agenda creates the possibility that its influence will move Turkish policy further in that direction.86 Returning to Barkey’s point, though, it will still be Erdoğan who is the instigator, decisionmaker, and symbol of such policies. And he has demonstrated substantial enthusiasm for nationalist— and often anti-American—fulminations.87 Two other sources of influence have also seen their fortunes diminish. As numerous examinations have documented, the media environment in Turkey has moved from what was once a varied and independent milieu to an increasingly narrow perspective by force of political and financial as well as physical attacks, especially after the July 2016 coup attempt.88 Thus the check on and possible balance to the government’s international actions that might be provided by a free media have dramatically diminished. Finally, as the previous narrative has made clear, key external actors such as the United States and the European Union, which might once have had influence over Turkish actions, now find themselves so distant from Ankara’s concerns and so often in the crosshairs of Recep Erdoğan’s animosity that their ability to affect movement in Turkish foreign policy has atrophied. It has not disappeared completely, even in a time of exploited hostility to “global elites.” A 2017 study found that while Turks are quite nationalistic in their foreign policy views and nearly half prefer to confront the United States, almost as many (44 percent) feel that alliance with the United States benefits Turkey or both countries.89 Countries from the EU still dominate Turkish trade and foreign investment, and US and NATO military presence brings with it the possibility of influence. Harsh rhetoric—like political leaders themselves—could change with little

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notice.90 Turkey has shown that the external world can bring opportunity as well as danger, and the ability to adapt can strengthen both the country’s international position and the domestic regime’s standing. In a way, Turkey is like a builder changing the architecture of her house even while the local neighborhood and broader surroundings are changing dramatically. To return to the notion of Turkey as a “middle power” and using Hale’s definition of this notion as a frame, Turkey does have “some ability to resist pressure from more powerful states” and “may sometimes be able to influence the policies of weaker ones, especially if they are geographically contiguous.”91 Having extensive history with and ties—both geographic and political—to all its neighbors, Turkey is, willynilly, affected by what they do. As a regional or global actor, it is often less able to control these external actions or their effects, even if political pronouncements proclaim the opposite. As a foreign policy actor, whether a middle or great power, 92 its power and perceptions are both stimulated and bounded by external changes and the shifting domestic power dynamics. In Turkey’s case, the external world—both near and far—presents heightened danger and uncertainty for a people and a country that cannot pick itself up and move elsewhere.

Notes

1. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774–2000. For an analytical comparison of the distinction between small and middle powers using Turkey as an example, see Baba and Önsoy, “Between Capability and Foreign Policy.” 2. For a review of the earlier period, see Linden et al., Turkey and Its Neighbors. For other examples of this comparison, see Hatem, “From Zero Problems with Neighbors to Zero Neighbors Without Problems”; Zalewski, “How Turkey Went from ‘Zero Problems’ to Zero Friends”; EADaily’s Middle East Bureau, “Turkey-China.” 3. Tocci and Walker, “From Confrontation to Engagement”; Stein, “Turkey’s New Foreign Policy.” 4. Ahern, “After Five Frosty Years, Israeli Ambassador Returns to Turkey”; Barnard, “Egypt and Turkey Soften Opposition to Assad.” 5. Al Jazeera News, “How Turkey Stood by Qatar amid the Gulf Crisis.” 6. International Crisis Group, Turkey’s Refugee Crisis. 7. A. G. Yıldız, The European Union’s Immigration Policy, ch. 3. 8. See the discussion in Agha and Malley, “The Middle East’s Great Divide Is Not Sectarianism.” 9. This delicate dance became more tense in January 2018 after Ankara launched “Operation Olive Branch” against the YPG in the Syrian canton of Afrin. See Jones, “Turkish, Russian Leaders Speak as Syria Strains Grow.” 10. Delanoe, “Russia Has a Deadly Plan to Defend the Black Sea.” 11. Korsu, “Turkey’s Black Sea Policy”; Bodner, “Black Sea Rising: Rebirth of a Russian Fleet”; Larrabee and Flanagan, “The Growing Importance of Black Sea Security.” 12. BBC News, “Ukraine-Russia Sea Clash: Who Controls the Territorial Waters Around Crimea?” The Kerch Strait connects Crimea—forcefully annexed by Russia in 2014—with the Taman Penninsula of Russia. Russian military control of the strait blocks the only exit from the Sea of Azov from important Ukrainian ports such as Mariupol. 13. Lukyanov, “Putin’s Foreign Policy.”

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14. Gorenburg, “What Russia’s Military Operation in Syria Can Tell Us About Advances in Its Capabilities”; Borshchevskaya and Vaughan, “How the Russian Military Reestablished Itself in the Middle East”; Baev, “What Drives Moscow’s Military Adventurism.” 15. Davies, “Escalation in Crimea Threatens Erdoğan-Putin Rapprochement.” President Erdoğan, however, has shown the ability at times to satisfy both “constituents,” as in November 2017 when he secured the release of two imprisoned Crimean Tartar politicians, apparently in return for two alleged Russian spies. Radio Free Europe, “Report: Turkey Swapped Two Alleged Russian Spies for Crimean Tartar Leaders.” 16. BBC News, “Putin Mends Broken Relations with Turkey’s Erdoğan.” 17. For a mapping of Erdoğan’s communications with Vladimir Putin and various US presidents, see Korsu, “The Resiliency of Turkey-Russia Relations,” p. 15. 18. North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Warsaw Summit Communique. 19. Cook and Koplow, “Turkey Is No Longer a Reliable Ally.” 20. Reuters, “Pompeo Presses Turkey on S-400 Missiles Purchase from Russia”; Zanotti and Thomas, “Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations.” 21. Bandow, “Time for President Donald Trump to Bury the U.S.-Turkey Alliance.” 22. Krastev, “3 Versions of Europe Are Collapsing at the Same Time.” 23. Dennison and Pardijs, “The World According to Europe’s Insurgent Powers”; Kundnani, “How Europe’s Refugee and Euro Crises Are Linked”; Algan et al., “The European Trust Crisis and the Rise of Populism.” 24. Estimates of the size of the Turkish population in Europe vary. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs puts the number of Turks living in “Western Europe” at “around” 5.5 million (“Turkish Citizens Living Abroad,” Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.mfa.gov.tr/the-expatriate-turkish-citizens.en.mfa). For a detailed discussion, see Fassmann and İçduygu, “Turks in Europe.” 25. The original term is from Rosecrance, The Rise of the Trading State. For its application to Turkey, see Kirişci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy.” 26. See “Main Statistics,” Turkish Statistical Institute, http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/Ust Menu.do?metod=temelist. 27. Ferdinand, “Westward Ho—The China Dream and ‘One Belt, One Road.’” 28. See Chapter 4 by Demir in this volume. 29. Bechev, “Russia and Turkey: Read the Fine Print.” 30. German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Trends: Key Findings 2009. 31. By 2014 Turkish approval of President Obama had already declined from 50 to 34 percent. See German Marshall Fund, Transatlantic Trends: Key Findings 2014, p. 18. 32. For a review of US-Turkish relations, see Sloat, “How to Save the U.S.-Turkey Relationship”; and Zanotti and Thomas, “Turkey: Background and U.S. Relations.” 33. Tankersley, Swanson, and Phillips, “Trump Hits Turkey When It’s Down, Doubling Tariffs”; Ward, “Why the US and Turkey Are Fighting over a US Pastor.” 34. In October 2018 Andrew Brunson was convicted in a Turkish court of aiding terrorism but sentenced to time served and released. Though President Trump said there had been “no deal,” US officials acknowledged lifting sanctions on two Turkish cabinet ministers. Cunningham, “U.S. Pastor Andrew Brunson Leaves Turkey After Being Detained for 2 Years.” Erdoğan reportedly proposed to release the American pastor in return for the United States handing over Fethullah Gülen, whom Turkey accuses of masterminding the July 2016 coup attempt. Pitel, “US Pastor Caught in Global Politics Goes on Trial in Turkey.” 35. Zaman, “Understanding the Failed Deal with Turkey That Sparked Trump’s Fury.” 36. Ryan and Dawsey, “U.S. Troops to Be Pulled Out of Syria Quickly, White House Says.” This announcement was subsequently modified by US officials. Specia, “The Planned U.S. Troop Withdrawal from Syria: Here’s the Latest.” 37. Kingsley, “Migration to Europe Is Down Sharply. So Is It Still a ‘Crisis’?” 38. For a review of the deal as of 2018, see DW, “The EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement: A Review.”

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39. Kirişci, Turkey and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. 40. Buxbaum, “Ross: US Still Open to TTIP.” In July 2018, Trump declared Europe to be “possibly as bad as China” in its trade policies toward the United States. Houck, “Trump Calls Europe ‘as Bad as China’ on Trade.” 41. “Turkey-Iran Economic and Commercial Relations,” Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.mfa.gov.tr/economic-and-commercial-relations-with-iran .en.mfa. 42. PressTV (Iran), “Post-Sanction Iran Trade Boosts Turkey.” 43. Friedman, “Trump Isn’t Certifying the Iran Deal—What Happens Next?” 44. Jones, “Ankara on Collision Course with Washington over Iran Sanctions.” 45. See the discussion in Chapter 11 by Stein in this volume. 46. “Main Statistics,” Turkish Statistical Institute, http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/UstMenu .do?metod=temelist. 47. “International Investment Position,” Central Bank of Turkey, May 2018, http:// www.tcmb.gov.tr/wps/wcm/connect/EN/TCMB+EN/Main+Menu/Statistics/Balance+of +Payments+and+Related+Statistics/International+Investment+Position. 48. Doi, “China Investment to Jointly Acquire Majority Interest in Turkish Port.” 49. Çolakoğlu, China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Turkey’s Middle Corridor: A Question of Compatibility. 50. Jin, “After the Failed Coup: A New Dawn for China-Turkey Relations?” 51. Al Jazeera, “‘Shame for Humanity’: Turkey Urges China to Close Uighur Camps.” 52. For a comprehensive survey of Turkish-Chinese relations, see Atlı, “Turkey’s Relations with China and Its Repercussions on Transatlantic Relations: The Turkish Perspective.” 53. Hill and Taspinar, “Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?” 54. See Chapter 13 by Van Bladel in this volume. 55. On Russian pragmatism in the region, see Bechev, Rival Power. 56. See Chapter 11 by Stein and Chapter 12 by Park in this volume. 57. Arslan, Dost-Niyego, and Wilson, “US-Turkey Relations: From Alliance to Crisis”; Gordon, “Turkey and the US Face the End of a Promising Partnership.” 58. In January 2019, Donald Trump tweeted that the United States would “devastate Turkey economically if they hit Kurds.” Cohen, “Trump Speaks with Erdogan After Threatening to ‘Devastate’ Turkey’s Economy.” 59. Carothers and Brown, “Can U.S. Democracy Policy Survive Trump?” 60. Kirişci and Bülbül, “The EU and Turkey Need Each Other.” 61. After substantial delays, a second tranche of €3 billion for Syrian refugees was released to Turkey in 2018. 62. Kirişci, “Election Fever and the Downward Spiral Between Turkey and Europe.” 63. Toksabay and Karadeniz, “EU Parliament Calls for Turkey Accession Talks to Be Suspended.” 64. European Commission, “Turkey 2018 Report.” 65. European Union External Action Service, “Statement by HR/VP Mogherini and Commissioner Johannes Hahn on the Elections in Turkey.” 66. See Chapter 14 by Hauge, Tekin, and Wessels in this volume. 67. Kirişci and Bülbül, “The EU and Turkey Need Each Other”; Gall, “Chill in Relations Puts Much at Stake for Turks and Germans.” 68. AFP, “Turkey, Israel in New War of Words.” 69. DW, “Why Turkey Is Standing Behind Qatar in the Gulf Crisis”; Al Jazeera, “Turkey and Qatar: Behind the Strategic Alliance.” I am indebted to Gürkan Çelik for drawing my attention to this aspect. 70. In December 2017 Turkey used the meeting of the OIC to declare its rejection of the Trump administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Independent, “Turkey’s President Erdoğan Tells Jerusalem Summit Israel Is an ‘Occupying’ and ‘Terror’ State.” On Turkey’s renewed diplomacy in Africa, see S. Sharma, “Turkey Scrambles for Africa.”

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71. BRICS stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. At a summit in July 2018 in South Africa, Turkey proposed that the name be changed to BRICST (to include Turkey); Atlı, “Explaining Turkey’s Interest in BRICS.” 72. Odintsov, “Turkey and Central Asia”; Ibrahimov, “Russia, Iran, and Turkey in Central Asia.” 73. Ozerkan, “Turkey, Israel to Examine Building Gas Pipeline.” 74. Peretz, “An Angry Erdogan Stands to Harm Israel-Turkey Economic Ties.” 75. Tarnopolsky, “Responding to Trump.” 76. In May 2018, in response to violence on the Gaza border, Erdoğan ordered the Israeli ambassador to leave. In November, Israel formally lowered the level of its diplomatic representation. Keidar, “Israel Lowers Level of Representation in Turkey.” 77. Arbell, “Tensions over Jerusalem Expose Vulnerability of Turkey-Israel Relations.” 78. Barkey, “The Kurdish Awakening.” 79. Gauthier-Villars, “Turkey’s Erdogan Says He’ll Defy U.S. Sanctions on Iran.” 80. When US sanctions were reapplied to Iran, Washington allowed some countries, including Turkey, to continue to import some Iranian oil for a short time. Then, despite sharp criticism of US policy, Turkey did in fact stop purchasing Iranian oil while continuing to work with Iran on the conflict in Syria. Ahval, “Erdoğan Says U.S. Sanctions Against Iranian Oil Are Cruel”; Jones, “Turkey Slams US as Tensions Escalate over Iranian Sanctions.” 81. Linden and İrepoğlu, “Turkey and the Balkans”; Weise, “Turkey’s Balkan Comeback”; Harxhi, “An Overview of Turkish Foreign Policy in the Balkans: 1990–2016.” 82. Stronski and Himes, Russia’s Game in the Balkans; Bechev, Rival Power, esp. ch. 5. 83. Yilmaz and Yosmaoglu, “Fighting the Spectres of the Past.” 84. See the interview with Çolakoğlu, “Why Turkey Finally Criticized China’s Uighur Internment Camps.” 85. See also Öztürk and Sözeri, “Diyanet as a Turkish Foreign Policy Tool.” 86. Ülgen, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy.” 87. Hoffman, Makovsky, and Werz, “What Turkey’s Political Changes Means for U.S.-Turkish Relations.” 88. Freedom House has labeled Turkey’s media as “Not Free” since 2013 (“Turkey Profile,” Freedom House: Freedom of the Press 2017, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom -press/2017/turkey). See also Human Rights Watch, Silencing Turkey’s Media. Freedom House reported that there were more than 20,000 investigations and 6,000 prosecutions for “insulting the president” in 2017 alone. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2019,” p. 5. 89. Hoffman, Werz, and Halpin, “Turkey’s ‘New Nationalism’ amid Shifting Politics.” 90. On the ability of President Erdoğan to affect public opinion on foreign policy (before the recent changes in the power of the office), see Aytaç and Çarkoğlu, “Presidents Shaping Public Opinion in Parliamentary Democracies: A Survey Experiment in Turkey.” 91. Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy, 1774–2000, pp. 1–2. 92. Yilmaz and Yosmaoglu, “Fighting the Spectres of the Past,” p. 687.

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Erdoǧan’s Foreign Policy: The Role of Personality and Identity Henri J. Barkey

2019 municipal elections would have been surprised to encounter a narrative emanating from the government to every media outlet that Turkey was suffering from a massive attack orchestrated by outside powers. Accordingly, these attacks explained the poor performance of the Turkish economy, the relatively high inflation rate, the decline of the Turkish lira in international markets, and the looming recession. At the root of this malfeasance was the Western powers, especially the United States—in other words, Turkey’s traditional allies. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, having decided that these elections were critical to him, had become his party’s primary campaigner, deploying unusually strident and polarizing rhetoric against the opposition. Perusing Turkish newspapers at the beginning of 2018, the same observers would have come away with the impression that under the leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkish foreign policy was galloping from one victory to another. Erdoğan had singlehandedly managed to rally all of the United Nations in condemning President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to declare Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and just concluded a triumphant tour of African countries where he berated “imperialists” for their avarice and inhumanity. The other unquestioning theme of 2017 was the relentless anti-Americanism that characterized both official and unofficial discourse. The image of a Turkish president on the move and “determining” the course of international events, “standing up” to his country’s most important NATO ally, and challenging the status quo at home and abroad is a relatively new phenomenon. No matter how one interprets these stands, one factor is incontrovertible: Erdoğan has succeeded in constructing a new foreign policy that is now solely centered on himself and also projects

An observer of the Turkish scene on the eve of the March

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an image of Turkish world leadership. Gone is the image of a subservient nation that limped out of the Ottoman Empire’s ashes. Erdoğan, whose party, the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), swept into power in 2002 to the consternation of traditional Turkish elites, has systematically upended established Turkish foreign policy positions. At times, these have taken the form of almost afterthoughts in speeches, as when, for example, in the midst of the 2016 Mosul crisis Erdoğan revived long-dormant Turkish claims over that city. He referred to the 1920 National Oath (Misak-i Milli) document voted on by the Ottoman parliament that claimed territories under Ottoman control when the 1918 cease-fire agreement was signed, ending the empire’s participation in World War I.1 The claim came on the heels of another statement by him that challenged the legitimacy of one of the fundamental building blocks of the modern Turkish Republic, the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, by asserting that the West had “tried to foist [it] . . . on us.”2 These utterances, while symbolic, were not as consequential as other forays, some of which were well received by Turkey’s allies. Among the more noteworthy was the acceptance of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s 2004 plan on Cyprus, which ultimately failed when the Greek Cypriots rejected it. Erdoğan also engineered the beginning of a reconciliation process with Kurds at home and in Iraq. Both of these policies were anathema to Turkish nationalists, on the left and the right. In the end, the 2011 Syrian civil war upended all calculations. The rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and its successes in those countries forced the United States in 2014 to align itself with the Syrian Kurds to defeat it. In turn, this alarmed Erdoğan, who perceived the rise of the Syrian Kurds as a strategic threat to Turkey. This led him to abandon both the domestic peace process in 2014 and eventually his support for the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in 2017. During his time in power since 2002, as both prime minister and president, Erdoğan has restructured Turkey’s identity, vision, and foreign policy direction. In this chapter I argue that the root of these changes lies not only in Erdoğan’s ideological core beliefs, which he undoubtedly has, but also in his need to consolidate his own power. His policy changes, many of which were quite pragmatic and sometimes even contrary to his ideological roots, were calculated moves designed to solidify his rule. A sense of vulnerability at home has been the major driving force, and the packaging of the new Turkish identity places him at its center. It is essentially a play for the continuation of his rule. His ascendancy to power and survival was always questioned by established elites, and knowing this, he has navigated to neutralize and undermine every single source of potential opposition to him. Foreign policy, in this respect, has been a tool both for achieving this goal and, increasingly, for his own self-aggrandizement. The end result is the conflation of a new ideological approach with Erdoğan’s personality and ambitions.

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If Erdoğan is restructuring Turkey’s identity, vision, and foreign policy direction, what is he offering in its place? Turkey’s twentieth-century trajectory was tumultuous; what often appeared as a consensus was bitterly contested by societal groups. With regard to any possible revision of Turkish identity and foreign policy, the starting point lies in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The empire’s defeat in World War I was a catastrophic event for its modernizing elites, who, in the last century of the empire, had begun to reform its institutions with the intent of salvaging what was left of its territories. The empire itself in 1918 was an amalgam of ethnicities and religious groups, many of which rarely interacted with each other. It was, however, an empire that was Islamic and Turkish at its core. Defeated despite valiant resistance, it was but a shadow of what it had been: the most potent imperial state in Europe and the Middle East, which had twice knocked on the doors of Vienna. The new Turkish state that would emerge from the ashes of the empire could not escape its inheritance. When it came to the religious identity of the state, Ottoman Islam, as Sultan Tepe argues, was both “a source of state power” and “an important aspect of communal life.”3 That communal aspect allowed for the disparate communities to converse and share a common narrative. Once in power, Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) went about reordering both political and communal life; he had fought not only the foreign armies that had occupied Anatolia but also had to deal with what was left of the Ottoman government in Istanbul that resisted his attempt to refashion a new state centered on its Turkish core.4 Kemal then proceeded to forcibly, even single-handedly, take a backward and defeated country out of its morass into what he termed “modernity.” His goal for Turkey was to become part of what he termed a “contemporary civilization.” Critical to this mission was the secularization of politics. His trademark of strident secularism had to do not only with his desire to have Turkey join the club composed of mostly “civilized” Western European states but also with his personal distaste for and distrust of religiosity. According to its opponents, “the cardinal sin of Kemalism was to impose its inauthentic collective identity on Turkey through a top-to-bottom social engineering that estranged people from their own values.”5 Secularism in Turkey was both an attempt at controlling the daily lives of individuals—for example, by banning headscarves in public places—and a way of controlling religion and religious officials. To this end, in time all the religious officials in Turkey became government employees, and Friday prayer speeches were written by Ankara. Although secularism was directed at the bulk of the population that was pious, Kemal’s vision also targeted the Kurds as he refused to countenance any ethnicity other than the Turkish one. The first sign of trouble

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emerged with the 1925 Sheykh Said Rebellion, an Islamist Kurdish revolt that was suppressed very violently by Ankara. Other rebellions would also be suppressed. 6 In the face of a centralizing and secularizing state, resistance in the countryside took the form of greater attachment to religious orders, or tarikats. In turn, this attachment to Islam would come to serve as a source of social cohesion not just within the Kurdish community but also between Kurds and Turks. For the balance of the twentieth century, Kemal’s definition of the Turkish state held sway, both internationally and among the elites. In the absence of an industrial bourgeoisie, the state undertook building the necessary infrastructure itself. The top-to-bottom approach was reflected everywhere, from education to the economy to politics, as a single party ruled. The ruling group was molded into a quasi-bureaucratic-military elite. Internationally, Kemal tried to navigate some difficult times: Turkey had to ride out the Great Depression and later avoided the mounting pressure to take sides in World War II. Under his successor, İsmet İnönü, Turkey in 1952 did commit to joining the burgeoning postwar Atlantic Alliance, as Stalin demanded Turkish eastern and northeastern territories as punishment for the country’s neutrality during World War II. Kemal was no democrat. His one-party authoritarian system may have been at home in the turbulent 1920s and 1930s, but it clearly was out of place in the post–World War II environment, and under his successor it slowly began to change. First, in 1946 an opposition party, the Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP), was allowed to form and, in a surprise to the ruling elite, won a resounding victory at the national polls in 1950, putting an end to Kemal’s party’s dominance. The results of this election and the two successive ones, when the DP easily bested Kemal’s (now İnönü’s) Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), showed the animosity that had built up against the bureaucratic-military elite that had dominated the state. DP prime minister Adnan Menderes (1950–1960), who embodied the politics of a center-right politician in Europe, would ultimately fall victim to a military coup in 1960 and was accused by the soldiers, among other crimes, of compromising secularism. He was hung and would eventually assume martyr-like status and be revered openly after the AKP came to power.7 Menderes’s demise was an indication that the bureaucratic-military elite would not give up the reins of power easily. Society, however, was moving away from a form of rule that continued to contain what it saw as divisive and nefarious forces in society: the Left, the Kurds, and the pious. The military would intervene three more times, in 1971, 1980, and finally in 1997. In each case governments were forced to resign or be overthrown; in 1971 and 1980 the coups were followed by massive efforts at repression. In 1980, the generals effectively tried to institute a bureaucratic-

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authoritarian regime à la Latin America, complete with a new constitution and institutions intended to further contain and control society.8 Interestingly, in every election that eventually followed a military coup, the party or parties victimized by the generals ended up winning a majority or plurality. The Turkish public seemed to indicate that it did not appreciate the soldiers’ interference in politics. The most dramatic such instance occurred in the 1983 elections when the head of the junta and architect of the 1980 coup, Kenan Evren, on the eve of the vote went on television and strongly suggested that the public disregard the Motherland Party and its leader, Turgut Özal. The next day, the Motherland Party won a crushing victory against the generals’ preferred two other parties. Once in power, Özal ushered in a liberal economic program designed to transform Turkey into a competitive country capable of absorbing large amounts of foreign capital. As a result of the measures under Özal, the Turkish middle class burgeoned, not only in traditional locations such as Istanbul but also all over Anatolia. Özal was comfortable in both of Turkey’s realms, among the western Anatolian and Istanbul-based elite and the pious Anatolian petit bourgeois. His reforms, however, enabled the emergence of a new, richer business elite not based in Istanbul, pious and ambitious and willing to compete domestically and internationally. This new elite would provide Erdoğan the support he needed as he ascended power. In the long run, Özal’s reforms paid off, and the main beneficiary was Erdoğan, under whose tenure Turkey exhibited all the marks of a dynamic, fast-growing, and internationally open economy. The 1997 “postmodern” coup, which overthrew the government of Erdoğan’s mentor, Islamist Necmettin Erbakan (a coalition with a centerright party), would later be successfully woven into a narrative of victimhood by Erdoğan and the AKP. The fact that Erdoğan, then mayor of Istanbul, spent a brief sojourn in jail proved to be the added ingredient to make him a hero among conservative and religious voters. He deftly used his newly acclaimed visibility and promise of a new beginning when in 2001 he parted ways with his mentor to form the AKP. Paradoxically, then, it was the evolution of civil-military relations, down to the failed July 15 coup, that shaped the trajectory of Erdoğan’s rise in politics. The military, with its intransigent approach and role as the power behind the throne, had alienated large numbers of citizens. Erdoğan’s real success in the early years of his rule was not interfering with the growing and dynamic Turkish economy. On the contrary, he facilitated economic expansion by getting the state out of the way, becoming a powerful cheerleader, encouraging foreign capital inflows, and investing in infrastructure. This early period, roughly until 2007, also saw a successful liberalization of constraints on free speech. Simultaneously, the overtures to Europe and the positive responses from both the United States and the European Union heralded a new atmosphere of openness in the country.

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The first sign of confrontation occurred in 2007 when the military high command issued a warning to the government not to elevate Abdullah Gül, then foreign minister and the second most senior AKP member, to the presidency of the republic. Presumably the officers objected because Gül’s wife covered her hair and they deemed it unthinkable for such a person to live in Atatürk’s house. When the government called the military’s bluff by convening national elections, the public once again rebuffed the generals by giving the AKP a much bigger mandate than it had received in 2002. The generals had gambled and lost; this would be their last gasp (I discuss the 2016 coup attempt later). With his feared military-bureaucratic adversary defeated and with a weak and ineffective parliamentary opposition, Erdoğan was free to slowly assume control of all the levers of the state. He faced one other unlikely challenger, the movement headed by Fethullah Gülen, with which he had made an alliance. The Gülen movement’s leader was a disciple of Said Nursi, one of the charismatic Islamic leaders of the early Republican period. Gülen, with his emphasis on both Islamic learning and math and science, had developed a large cadre of highly competent individuals who were recruited by Erdoğan into the bureaucracy to help him run the state. This alliance fell apart in 2013 primarily because the two leaders perceived each other as having become far too strong. Gülen, who had found refuge9 in the United States long before the ascendancy of Erdoğan, fired the first salvo when his followers in the judiciary tried to derail Erdoğan’s nascent efforts at negotiating an end to the Kurdish problem. The same individuals are also suspected of leaking embarrassing conversations between Erdoğan and family members as well as ministers that demonstrated extensive graft and corruption. Four ministers were sacked, but Erdoğan managed to turn the tables on Gülen and unleash an effective counterattack. Calling the graft accusations a coup attempt against him by a terrorist organization, he proceeded to sack judges, police officers, and prosecutors; parliament refused to investigate or punish the corrupt ministers.10 Erdoğan consolidated his hold on Turkish politics and society in the subsequent years. No aspect of state or society was spared, and he put into motion plans for the largest restructuring of Turkish state institutions since the advent of the DP in 1950. He proposed a presidential system to replace the current parliamentary one. He also made sure that dissent was controlled and managed; his allies slowly took over key press outlets, and others were intimidated to follow his line. He used state institutions to punish newspapers and journals critical of him. It started with minor steps, such as the national carrier, Turkish Airlines, not offering its passengers dissenting newspapers and state institutions, including banks, ending advertising in them, forcing many to go out of business. These efforts metamorphosed into a full-fledged effort to suppress the press. Journalists, authors, opposition politicians, and

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dissidents found themselves purged and/or jailed. Many of the leaders of the third-largest party in the parliament, the People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP), including its leader Selahattin Demirtaş, who challenged Erdoğan’s wish to become an all-powerful president, have found themselves in jail on political charges. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) found that Turkey had by far the largest number of journalists behind bars.11 At the beginning of 2018, Freedom House, in a dramatic movement, downgraded Turkey to not free from partly free.12 On the evening of July 15, 2016, elements of the military attempted a poorly planned and executed coup. It is not clear if the military hierarchy was part of this effort; in fact, much is unknown about the coup primarily because the Turkish government quickly created its own narrative, contradictions notwithstanding. The failed coup attempt may have surprised and rattled Erdoğan—although it is possible that the endeavor was detected in advance—but he once again quickly used it, as with the graft crisis, to his advantage. The Turkish government initially blamed the putsch exclusively on the Gülen movement (and later on the United States). Within days the Turkish bureaucracy, civil and military, was subjected to extensive purges. Some 46 percent of the generals and admirals were cashiered even though the number of troops who participated in the failed attempt was quite small. Whether or not it was the work only of Gülenists or of a larger cabal of Kemalists and other discontented officers 13 is unclear, but the reaction was comprehensive and relentless. The coup attempt gave Erdoğan the opportunity to finally dismantle not just his former ally’s network once and for all but also to rid himself of military officers suspected of not being completely loyal. The bureaucracy was also purged, with more than 160,000 civil servants getting sacked, not to mention countless academics, journalists, Kurdish politicians and activists, and other real or imagined opponents who were fired or jailed.14 The coup attempt allowed Erdoğan to do what he always wanted to do—reshape Turkey—except that now he could do it faster and with seeming popular support harnessed by the failed coup. In the process, he also polarized and divided society. As Jenny White has argued, his “rhetoric has become ever more divisive as he assigns a scapegoat—the traitor—to every wayward incident. The traitor is the insider who questions the narrative, breaks with the hierarchy, and upends social order, bringing chaos.”15 No one is immune to these accusations, including members of Turkey’s institutions, opposition leaders, and even his own comrades in arms, as former president Gül discovered when he dared to criticize one of the edicts issued by the government.

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Erdoğan is the personification of anti-Kemalism. He and his core followers have always argued that the Kemalist reforms were imposed from above and had little to do with the values or affiliations of the bulk of the population. The primary drive of Erdoğan’s opposition to Kemalism is his distaste for the “radical secularist” policies that rendered the pious secondclass citizens in their own country. He views Kemalist reforms as an attempt to westernize Turkey—which they were—at the expense of the population’s dominant Islamic traditions and its Ottoman legacy. Perhaps nothing exemplifies the revival of Ottomanism at the expense of Kemalism more than the sudden veneration of Sultan Abdülhamid, the last absolute ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Long considered a ruthless autocrat, the sultan, who founded the secret police and its cruel practices and opposed the Young Turk movement, has been rehabilitated. “He is spoken of with admiration by government ministers, who refer to him as the ‘Great Emperor’ and—again in reaction to Atatürk, whose campaign of language reform removed many Arabic words from the Turkish lexicon—couch his name with reverential, Arabic adjectives.”16 Erdoğan has certainly succeeded in freeing and bringing religion back, not only in schools and the bureaucracy but also in the daily discourse and approach to issues. But Erdoğan’s views are not necessarily in conflict with other elements of Kemalist ideology. Erdoğan has embraced Atatürk’s ideas of developmentalism, nationalism, and even what can best be described as nonaligned foreign policy (see below). From the presidential system to his regional ambitions to Turkey’s global role, Erdoğan is in direct competition with Atatürk. Erdoğan’s written comments for the ceremony held on the ninety-third anniversary of the republic’s founding at the Atatürk mausoleum on October 29, 2016, are perhaps one of the best indicators of this competition. He wrote, among other things, that “by protecting our democratic gains we will by 2023 surpass the heights of ‘contemporary civilization.’”17 This was a clear reference to one of Atatürk’s most important maxims and a signal that under him Turkey would surpass the founder’s accomplishments. One important challenge to Atatürk’s maxims involves Turkey’s relationship with the Ottoman Empire. While Atatürk tried to dissociate the new “nation” from its imperial past, Erdoğan embraces the Ottoman past with relish. Moreover, he has also challenged another of Atatürk’s taboos: the physical boundaries of the new state. As Nicholas Danforth has demonstrated, Erdoğan’s “aggressive nationalism” has questioned Turkey’s boundaries, even giving “voice to an alternative narrative in which Atatürk’s willingness in the Treaty of Lausanne to abandon territories such as Mosul and the now-Greek islands in the Aegean was not an act of eminent pragmatism but rather a betrayal.”18 In transforming Turkey’s parliamentary system into a presidential system, Erdoğan paradoxically is returning to Atatürk’s mode of government.

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His goal is to concentrate back in the presidential palace powers that had been dispersed to a variety of institutions such as the parliament, the cabinet, political parties, the judiciary, and others. He is seeking to transform the basis of Turkey’s political system from a legal, institutional, and rulebased, albeit imperfect, one into a personalistic one in which legitimacy is derived, in Max Weber’s formulation, from “charismatic authority.” Herein also lies the difference with Atatürk. Atatürk did not inherit a functioning political system and had to construct his own; in effect, he was engaged in state building. In contrast, Erdoğan is interested in maximizing and solidifying his own power. It is clear, however, that the construction of his power base inside the government and outside, especially with the encouragement of a subservient business elite, relies solely on those who have expressed loyalty to him.

Erdoğan’s Foreign Policy

Erdoğan’s foreign policy has two overarching goals. The first is to distinguish his rule from that of his predecessors while regaining for the country a lost sense of pride. In attempting to differentiate himself, Erdoğan has demonstrated an expansive vision for Turkey, in which the nation should by right assume a leadership position in the world and create a path that is totally independent of its traditional allies. The second goal is instrumental: to bolster his own and his party’s hold on power. Here, Erdoğan has shown a great deal of agility, often pursuing policies that are at odds with his expressed ideas and beliefs. Together, these two goals meld into the creation of a new Turkish identity, one that is both historically determined and wedded to his own personality. First and foremost, what distinguishes his policies from his predecessors’ is an almost romantic attachment to the glories of the Ottoman Empire. This serves as the foundational claim to Turkish grandeur, global importance, and civilizational standing. It is this attachment that distinguishes Erdoğan most from the previous era. His former prime minister, erstwhile foreign policy authority Ahmet Davutoğlu, argued that “the Ottoman Empire constituted the political structure of the only civilization that succeeded in establishing its rule directly against Europe.”19 The Ottoman Empire is therefore the ideal. Not only are its institutions, successes, and sultans revered, but the empire’s legacy must be defended at all costs. One of the more emblematic events occurred when the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) retweeted a negative allusion to the Ottomans’ last commander in the Arabian Peninsula, Fahreddin Pasha. Erdoğan unleashed a series of invectives against UAE leaders, and the Ankara municipality changed the name of the street on which the UAE embassy sits to that of the commander whose memory had been disrespected.20

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The invocation of the Ottoman legacy allows Erdoğan to reemphasize the important role Islam played (and should play) in the cultural construction of modern Turkish society. Erdoğan could openly state that “first and foremost he was a Muslim.”21 Unlike Atatürk, who was a Turkish nationalist, Erdoğan is both a Turkish nationalist and a Muslim nationalist, or a better characterization would be a Turkish Muslim (Sunni) nationalist. Building on the Ottoman heritage, Erdoğan and the AKP have maintained that Turkey’s geography, economic prowess, strong military, and ability to bridge the Western and non-Western worlds provided it with unique leadership capabilities. Erdoğan and the AKP successfully constructed a narrative, buttressed by occasional bursts of opposition to Western policy, and Israel specifically, that projected an image of a capable and independent power. In the early years of AKP rule, the emphasis on soft power, designed not to antagonize and alienate potential allies, was rolled out under the rubric of “zero problems with neighbors.” The Middle East viewed Turkey’s new identity and energy as a welcome change from the old approach that had kept the region at arm’s length. Turkey’s relations with its neighbors improved markedly. Syria was to become the test case of the new approach. Damascus had been perceived as an adversary if not an enemy by Turkish elites for having until 1998 harbored the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê), Abdullah Öcalan.22 After that, Erdoğan went out of his way to establish a relationship with Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad. Ankara invested a great deal in its relationship with the Syrian regime to the point of referring to their mutual arrangement as “two peoples, one government.” Erdoğan and Assad managed to establish a personal relationship as the two leaders vacationed together with their families. Wherever and whenever an opportunity presented itself for him to show the flag, he did not hesitate. Erdoğan in 2010, together with Brazil, surprised the Barack Obama administration as they came up with a proposal in the Iran nuclear crisis that almost derailed Washington’s painstaking efforts to put together an international coalition to pass a Security Council resolution.23 The Iran episode occurred at a time when Erdoğan was flying high in the region for having publicly admonished Israeli leader Shimon Peres in Davos in 2009 by walking off the stage in a fit of temper. Tourists poured into Turkey from the region; Turkish TV shows became the rage all over the Middle East, and Erdoğan was hailed by many as the new regional leader, especially as long-powerful rulers such as Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Qaddafi came under challenge. With time, Erdoğan increasingly came to view his own and Turkey’s role in the world in expansive terms. Ultimately the 2011 Arab Spring would put the brakes on his growing influence, create new problems for Turkey, and upend the “zero problems with neighbors” policy.24 Syria par-

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adoxically proved to be the greatest disappointment as Assad refused to follow his friend Erdoğan’s recommendations on how to deal with the growing insurrection. Assuming that Assad, like the Tunisian and Egyptian leaders, would quickly succumb to the popular revolt, Erdoğan abandoned him and made cause with the Syrian leader’s enemies. But Assad upset Erdoğan’s calculations by surviving, and the AKP leader suffered another reversal when his ally, Egyptian president and Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, was overthrown by the Egyptian military in a move that appeared to have been countenanced by the West.25 By the end of 2017, Erdoğan found himself isolated in the region; his support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and Qatar alienated the Gulf kingdoms, particularly Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Nevertheless, Erdoğan retained his belief in the future of Turkey’s global role and his own. In October 2017, he stated, a strengthened “Turkey with 100s of millions of brothers and sisters is determined to take its rightful place in the world.”26 Turkey, he had argued earlier, is not just the hope of all the world’s downtrodden but has an enormous responsibility in this regard.27 Since 2013, he has insistently articulated the refrain that “the world is greater than five, meaning the five permanent members of the Security Council” and suggested that the United Nations be revamped to include new permanent members, including Turkey.28 He has also hinted that from 2018 onward, Turkey will take more risks in attempts to reshape its own neighborhood.29 The Turkish press, which is dominated by pro-government outlets, has echoed and amplified the message. A representative of this trend is the widely read columnist İbrahim Karagül, who argues that “without doubt in the Muslim world’s view, Erdoğan is a great revolutionary and leader of a great reckoning. . . . If we are in Somalia, Syria, Qatar and the Sudan, it is to defend those territories. Just like we defend Jerusalem today we will defend Mecca and Medina tomorrow.”30 In sum, as one of his primary advisers argues, Erdoğan’s quest is nothing short of a “historic” defense of all oppressed against those who are trying to exploit them, redesign their borders, and ignore their wishes.31 While none of the major states in the region asked Turkey to take up this challenge, Karagül suggests that Turkey has a natural right to seize the opportunity. Similarly, the pro-Erdoğan press has continuously heralded the supposed foreign policy successes of Erdoğan. The Star newspaper, for instance, claimed that Erdoğan had singlehandedly relieved the Gulf countries’ pressure on Qatar by not only sending Turkish troops to Doha but also handing the “US leadership a defeat” by forcing the American president to reverse course and abandon Washington’s strategy of isolating Qatar.32 Still, with all the emphasis on Muslim solidarity and Turkish leadership of the Islamic world, the tensions generated by the tumultuous Arab Spring and its consequences have allowed for the reemergence of old stereotypes about

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Arabs. The episode with the UAE demonstrated a contempt still evident for the very Arabs expected to fall behind Turkish leadership: for many Turks, Arabs remain “back stabbers”33 who collaborated with British imperial forces against the Ottomans. The Arabs are not the only ones who come up short in Erdoğan’s expectations. His anger has been directed mostly against the United States and the West, his once and future allies. These countries are all pictured as jealous of Turkey’s accomplishments and therefore in active collaboration with each other to undermine Turkish advances, usually by trying to overthrow Erdoğan and his government. Such conspiracy theories are not new to Turkey, but their espousal on a daily basis by senior government officials and representatives is unprecedented. This is manufactured for domestic consumption to demonstrate how well the country’s leadership is doing in achieving success abroad while simultaneously beating back conspiracies hatched against the homeland. It is mostly for public consumption, considering that behind the rhetoric the Turkish government engages in daily exchanges—diplomatic, military, and commercial—with these “conspirators.” And no one asks publically why, if the United States is trying to overthrow Erdoğan’s government, it is allowed to have access to numerous military bases in Turkish territory, including the mammoth Incirlik base that is the heart of the anti-ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq. Erdoğan’s approach can be contrasted with that of Davutoğlu, who in 2011 argued that the “vision . . . is Turkey as a global power, Turkey as an active contributor to global order in cultural economic political sense. Turkey as a country having relations all over the world with all international organisations.”34 He went on to say, “Our role will be much more diversified in the next 12 years. Not only in strategic issues but as a strategic country we will be more active in human rights issues, environmental issues, poverty and prosperity type of social issues. In short this is our strategic objective.”35 While both entail an activist global vision in which Turkey is a leader, Davutoğlu was exploring one that was cooperative and interested in collective action. By contrast, Erdoğan today is articulating a vision that emphasizes a leadership role for Turkey, but his is far more combative and antagonistic to the West. In contrast, Russia, Turkey’s traditional nemesis, has been spared Erdoğan’s bombast. In large measure, it is because Vladimir Putin, perhaps because of proximity and temperament, has signaled to Erdoğan that he is not afraid to push back when necessary. When the Turks in 2015 downed a Russian warplane that had strayed into their territory, both Erdoğan and then prime minister Davutoğlu claimed credit for the action. The Russians responded with immediate sanctions, including banning vegetable imports from Turkey and travel by Russian tourists to Turkey. Soon thereafter, Erdoğan apologized, and blame was ascribed to “Gülenist pilots” who, it

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was said, acted on their own.36 More importantly, Moscow and Ankara have been on opposite sides of the Syrian conflict; Assad—now vilified by Ankara—would not have survived without Russian intervention, and yet Erdoğan has had cordial relations with Putin following his apology. Domestically, Erdoğan aims to use foreign policy to build support at home for himself. The intended target of the narrative of Turkish successes abroad and conspiracy rhetoric is the average citizen. Success abroad, even if imaginary, serves to instill loyalty to the leader, deter would-be opponents, and put the opposition on the defensive. After all, only Erdoğan, as president and leader of the country, can dispatch troops abroad, conduct negotiations, and emerge victorious from confrontations with foreign leaders. A key reason for this approach is a sense of vulnerability, that the regime is not as solid as it is perceived to be. The April 2017 referendum on the presidential system was won with the barest of margins, and perhaps, as suggested by one statistical study, Erdoğan lost the vote and extensive manipulation of the vote counting ultimately delivered the desired result.37 The referendum results, doctored or not, demonstrated that despite his almost complete control of the media, Erdoğan is vulnerable at home. To bolster his standing he has amplified his attacks on all enemies, domestic and foreign, real and imaginary. The vitriol against the West and especially the United States increased significantly first in the summer of 2018 and later on the eve of the March 2019 municipal elections. The Turks arrested American Christian pastor Andrew Brunson, claiming he was engaged in spying, and kept him detained for two years. Similarly, three Turkish employees of the State Department working for American consulates were also detained on fictitious charges. Brunson was finally released in October 2018 when negotiations failed and President Donald Trump issued a series of threats that roiled Turkish currency markets and drove the Turkish lira down dramatically. Soon after Brunson was released, Hamza Uluçay, one of the three Turkish employees, was also released. Why Erdoğan would risk antagonizing the United States with symbolic detentions has remained a mystery, except that it helps feed the domestic anti-American narrative. Through the press that he controls and directly in his speeches, he has encouraged the view that Turkey is in the midst of an existential struggle. The stagnation of the economy and high inflation rates have all been attributed to attacks from the United States and its allies, including Israel and “international financial networks.” Needless to say, disagreements with the United States over the decision to purchase Russian antiaircraft S-400 missiles and over cooperation with Syrian Kurds are added ingredients of this narrative. This unprecedented rhetoric against Turkey’s main ally serves the purpose at home of sowing confusion and defensiveness among opposition parties and demonstrating that a fearless Erdoğan can take on anyone. Washington is partially responsible if Erdoğan

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has managed to get away with such rhetoric; the United States has chosen to ignore it and not to reproach him. Although the latter years of Erdoğan’s rule have been characterized by an increasingly confrontational style, this was not always the case. Early on, Erdoğan adopted a more cooperative attitude toward Europe, for example, to solidify his position at home. The acceptance of the Annan Plan over Cyprus, the improvement of relations with European Union nations, and the constant efforts to make progress toward EU accession were all helpful in fending off fears among Western-oriented constituencies that the Turkish military would intervene yet again. And Europe proved supportive of Turkish government efforts to limit the military’s role in politics as well as other reforms. The European buy-in to Erdoğan’s policies was, in effect, an insurance policy against Western-oriented secularist elites. After all, how could such groups oppose him when the West appeared to be supportive of his policies? Subsequently, the stronger he became at home, institutionally and politically, the more confrontational his style became. This illustrates the instrumental aspect of Erdoğan’s approach; once he determined that he longer needed Western support to legitimize his rule at home, he could jettison his allies and turn on them to use the confrontation for domestic politics. Some of the most pronounced confrontational incidents occurred during the 2017 constitutional referendum campaign. Angered by European leaders’ reluctance to allow his ministers to canvas for votes among Turks living in Europe, Erdoğan routinely accused the Germans and Dutch of being “Nazi remnants and fascists.”38 Others in his administration parroted the same line as Turkish foreign policy has undergone an unprecedented degree of personalization under Erdoğan. In their study, Aylin Ş. Görener and Meltem Ucal conclude that Erdoğan’s personality casts a long shadow not just on the formulation of foreign policy but also on its tone and preferences and vision of Turkey’s global role. They argue that Erdoğan’s predisposition to see the world in black-and-white terms, his intense distrust of all but the most loyal supporters, his subjective interpretation of his and Turkey’s environment, and his confrontational style make for flawed policymaking.39 The evisceration of the military’s influence is one of the structural factors that has allowed Erdoğan to personally define Turkish identity and foreign policy. 40 The personalization of foreign identity and foreign policy has one unintended benefit, and that is flexibility. As with the case of the downing of the Russian plane, Erdoğan can pivot easily and change tack. Often rhetoric notwithstanding, Erdoğan is quite successful in maintaining commercial relations that benefit Turkey, hence his constituents. A prime example is Israel. The demonization of Israel by Erdoğan

Key Changes

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and by his press has not prevented the two countries’ trade from continuously increasing, with calls in early 2017 by Turks to triple the volume in the following five years.41 The relationship with Israel also demonstrates that, rhetoric aside, practical considerations sometimes rule the day. Kurdish oil from northern Iraq piped to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan then gets shipped to Israel in tankers that change identity.42 Even with the United States, Erdoğan has maintained cordial relations with Trump. He even managed to get the American president to make an on-the-spot decision during a phone call to withdraw US troops from northern Syria without consulting his military brass or advisers. Trump had to at least partially modify this decision after domestic counterreaction. In the final analysis, Erdoğan sees in his leadership the final victory of the true national will and in Turkish history a clear demonstration that this national will can be maintained only with constant vigilance against enemies within the state itself.43 A sense of permanent combat is therefore likely to characterize Turkish foreign and domestic politics as long as Erdoğan remains in power. The danger for Turkey is that unchecked personalization will undermine the institutions that are necessary to sustain transitions of power, from one leader or party or generation to another. In time, what passed for the pragmatism of the leader could be replaced by whims and reverses on the home front and create incentives for a more combative foreign policy by a leader who will make use of it to bolster his or her charismatic authority.

Notes

1. Akyol, “Büyük Türkiye.” 2. Yetkin, “Lozan var ki Yenikapı var.” Paradoxically, only a few months earlier, at its ninety-third-year commemoration, Erdoğan had praised the Lausanne Treaty and Atatürk (Cumhuriyet, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan’dan Lozan mesajı”). 3. Tepe, Beyond Sacred and Secular, p. 88. 4. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History, pp. 158–164. 5. Tepe, Beyond Sacred and Secular, p. 191. 6. Olson, The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism. 7. On the anniversary of Menderes’s death in 2015, then prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu lauded him as a martyr and a pioneer in the struggle for democracy. 8. Barkey, “Why Military Regimes Fail.” 9. Having run afoul of the secular establishment in Turkey, Gülen moved to the United States in 1999, ostensibly at first for medical reasons, and obtained permanent residency. 10. Orucoglu, “Why Turkey’s Mother of All Corruption Scandals Refuses to Go Away.” 11. The CPJ (“Record Number of Journalists Jailed”) listed 73 journalists in prison, with China a somewhat distant second with 41; however, others put the number as high as 150. The CPJ, for instance, does not consider as journalists the brothers Mehmet and Ahmet Altan, who were jailed for their television performance. Ahmet Altan was also publisher of the daily Taraf and was on trial in a separate case relating to his work at Taraf. In “Restoring Balance in the U.S.-Turkey Relationship,” Nate Schenkkan of Freedom House argues that the number of incarcerated journalists in November 2017 was 153.

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12. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2018: Turkey Profile.” 13. Aydintasbas, The Good, the Bad and the Gülenists. 14. Eissenstat, “Uneasy Rests the Crown.” 15. White, “The Turkish Complex,” p. 21. 16. de Bellaigue, “Turkey: The Return of the Sultan.” 17. Cumhuriyet, “İşte Erdoğan’ın Anıtkabir Özel Defteri’ne yazdıkları.” 18. Danforth, “Turkey’s New Maps Are Reclaiming the Ottoman Empire.” 19. Quoted in Hintz, “Take It Outside!” p. 347. 20. Reuters, “Turkey Plans to Change Embassy Street Name in Row with UAE— Report.” 21. Diken, “Laikliğin tanımını yeniden yaptık’ diyen Erdoğan.” 22. Marcus, Blood and Belief, pp. 278–279. 23. Kessler, “U.N. Vote on Iran Sanctions.” 24. See Chapter 12 by Park in this volume. 25. For a comprehensive analysis of the period, see Stein, “The End of ‘Zero Problems.’” 26. TRT Haber, “Türkiye artık gücünün bilincinde bir ülkedir.” 27. Milliyet, “Türkiye’nin Duruşu.” 28. Anadolu Ajansı, “The World Is Greater Than Five.” 29. Anadolu Ajansı, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan’dan yeni yıl mesajı.” 30. Karagül, “Artık ‘Türkiye Ekseni.’” 31. Akdoğan, “Erdoğan Teslimiyet İçine Girer mi?” 32. Star, “O Küreyi Çatlattık.” While Turkey has provided Qatar important support, this coverage, like much of the coverage of the Turkish leadership by a subservient press, is designed to demonstrate to the public at home how “successful” Erdoğan is abroad. 33. Hanioğlu, “Arkamızdan vuran Araplar söylemi neden değişmiyor?” 34. Davutoğlu, “Vision 2023.” 35. Davutoğlu, “Vision 2023.” 36. Roth and Cunnigham, “Turkish President Apologizes for Downing of Russian Warplane Last Year.” Moscow’s ambassador to Ankara was also murdered by a former police officer; that event was blamed on Gülenists as well. 37. Klimek et al., “Election Forensic Analysis.” 38. BBC World News, “Turkey’s Erdogan Calls Dutch Authorities ‘Nazi Remnants.’” 39. Görener and Ucal, “The Personality and Leadership Style of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” pp. 357–381. 40. Görener and Ucal, “The Personality and Leadership Style of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” p. 364. 41. Udasin, “Turkish Industrial Leaders Call for Increased Trade with Israel.” 42. Cohen-Tzemach, “The Mystery of the Disappearing Tankers.” 43. Eissenstat, “Uneasy Rests the Crown.”

11 The Crisis in US-Turkish Relations Aaron Stein

and obligated to defend one another in the event of external attack. However, the foundation of the alliance is in crisis, with both sides blaming each other for supporting terrorist groups that are committed to carrying out attacks abroad—and, in the case of Turkey, to undermining the territorial integrity of the state. The two countries have also failed to resolve mutual antagonisms about the detainment of each other’s citizens. This had resulted in the levying of US sanctions on Turkey for the imprisonment of Americans following the failed July 2016 coup attempt and Turkish accusations that the United States harbors Turkish individuals committed to overthrow of the government. The breakdown of US-Turkish relations stems from sharp disagreements on policies, the threats nonstate actors pose to each country’s security, and the intrusion into bilateral relations of differing views on the Middle East. The US-led wars in the Middle East, beginning just after the end of the Cold War and continuing in the wake of 9/11, have exposed divergences in Turkish and American threat perceptions. In Iraq, following the 2003 US-led invasion, these differences eventually resulted in a Turkish military invasion there in 2008 and a yearlong operation designed to clear the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) from the border. The United States, in turn, pledged more counterterrorism support for Turkey and more real-time intelligence sharing to enhance the Turkish air force’s ability to strike PKK targets. These same intelligencecollecting aircraft, beginning in 2015, were used by the United States to support the Syrian branch of the PKK in the US-led war against the Islamic State (ISIS)1 in Syria. As Turkey considers the PKK an existential

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threat, this represents an important example of the incongruity of interests despite the history of alliance. Turkey, meanwhile, has intervened in the Syrian civil conflict to clear Kurdish fighters from its border. Turkish military incursions upended the US-led war against the Islamic State in eastern Syria, and disagreements about post-combat political and security arrangements have prevented cooperation after President Donald Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops and then changed his mind. The two allies are, ostensibly, in the same coalition committed to defeating ISIS, but Ankara views the main US partner in that effort, the Syrian Kurds, as a strategic threat. These clear bilateral fissures have repercussions for the institutional relationship that the United States and Turkey share as members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). However, the way each side views the other has also changed considerably over the past two decades. This change in perceptions stems from a shift in focus, away from the shared Soviet threat during the Cold War toward substate actors active in the Middle East and on Turkey’s borders. The change in security perceptions has opened up space for each country to question the foundation of the Turkish-US alliance and whether the dynamics that fueled close cooperation during the Cold War are still present today. In parallel, the changes in Turkish and US politics have contributed to the current crisis. In the wake of the Cold War, the strong institutional ties between the US and Turkish militaries frayed and were never replaced with robust, working-level bureaucratic ties. Instead, the bilateral relationship has become dependent on the two countries’ elected leaders. The election of Donald Trump, an “America first” president with little regard for supranational institutions, and the concurrent consolidation of authoritarian governance in Turkey under Recep Erdoğan empowered two men who question the underpinnings of the transatlantic security architecture—and the very reasons for the US-Turkish alliance. This chapter explores the roots of the US-Turkish alliance, dating back to Turkey’s inclusion in NATO, and then tracks the reasons for the current tensions between the two. The chapter concludes with a short-term forecast about the future of the relationship and underscores how key bureaucratic actors in both countries see the relationship and what that could mean for the future of US-Turkish relations. In 1946, the then twenty-three-year-old Turkish Republic faced a series of security challenges linked to the Soviet Union, Great Britain’s financial troubles following World War II, and Turkish military weakness. The United States, facing off against its former World War II ally, the Soviet

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Union, sought to prop up and support western Europe, while also trying to manage relations between Greece and Turkey without overstretching American forces. The “Turkey question” loomed large in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and the United States was eager to include Ankara in the nascent, US-led alliance taking shape in Europe. The roots of the US-Turkish defense partnership stem from the British retreat from the eastern Mediterranean and a shared interest in preventing Russian control of the strait and blocking Russian territorial claims in Turkey, along with preventing Moscow’s access to the East Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East.2 In a landmark speech to a joint session of Congress, President Harry Truman made the case for Turkey and Greece and the necessity of American financial support to defend against communist expansion. In his famous words: “We shall not realize our objectives, however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence the security of the United States.”3 In response, Congress appropriated US$400 million, money that helped to fund the Joint American Military Mission to Turkey (JAMMAT) and to support the Turkish government. This shift in policy was dramatic. The United States was signaling its intent to extend its security and economic commitments to the Mediterranean, where it would replace Great Britain as the dominant external power, in order to block Soviet expansionism. US military aid helped strengthen the Turkish armed forces, rehabilitate infrastructure, and build roads to connect the country (and to help move equipment in the event of war with Russia). Five years later, in 1952, Turkey and Greece were invited to join NATO, a decision that extended the US security umbrella to the Mediterranean and Black Seas and established the Turkish military as the “tripwire” along NATO’s eastern flank. For Turkey, the extension of a US security guarantee was a diplomatic triumph and ensured security from Soviet aggression in and territorial claims to the straits and the Mediterranean Sea. For the United States, Turkey’s proximity to the Soviet Union—its geography—made it a particularly valuable ally for intelligence collection of Russian communications, missile launches, and nuclear tests, as well as the jumping-off point for surveillance flights and to aid in navigation in both the Mediterranean and Black Seas.4 The Turkish government, throughout the Cold War, was dependent on US aid and financing to train and equip its military. The relationship experienced a series of ups and downs during the Cold War, including an early divergence over the rise of Baathism in Syria in the 1950s and then two interrelated conflicts over the island of Cyprus in 1964 and 1974. The

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showdown over Cyprus changed the nature of the military-to-military relationship after the US Congress imposed an arms embargo against Turkey in 1974 following its invasion and occupation of 30 percent of the island. Subsequently, Ankara began to pursue policies intended to wean the Turkish military from its dependence on the United States. In 1980, some two years after the arms embargo was lifted, the Turkish government renegotiated the terms of the status of forces agreement governing the US military presence in Turkey and how JAMMAT functioned. The new Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement (DECA) restructured the distribution of aid and obligated the United States to use its “‘best efforts’ to provide economic and defense support and strengthen the Turkish defense sector.”5 This narrow effort with the United States moved in parallel with the broader push to transform Turkey from a statist to an export-oriented capitalist economy. Ankara’s intent was to take steps to build up Turkey’s private sector. The DECA, which was later updated and is still in force, limits US military activities in and from military bases in Turkey to NATO-related missions, a condition that mandates Turkish government approval for so-called out-of-area missions. The end of the Cold War resulted in a drawdown of the American presence in Turkey and centralized much of the US footprint at Incirlik Air Force Base near Adana.6 The reduction of US facilities paralleled Turkey’s desire to lessen dependence on US military-assistance funding and, beginning in the mid-1980s, stress domestic military production. These twin factors, the US drawdown from Turkey and Ankara’s increased emphasis on domestic production, combined with the ramping up of military operations in the Middle East after the end of the Cold War, planted the seeds for current US-Turkish diplomatic tensions.

Out of Area: The Invasion of Iraq and the Hood Incident

The United States and Turkey have divergent interests in the Middle East. In the abstract, the two sides share an interest in pressuring nonstate actors, ensuring political stability, and cooperating where these interests overlap. However, in practice, the immediate threats each country faces differ, and, increasingly, the long-term political priorities of the elected leaders in each country are strategically incongruous. The post–Cold War conflicts in the Middle East have hastened US-Turkish divergence and, importantly, have created cross-institutional antagonisms that shape how each country’s bureaucracy makes policy. As a result, the bureaucratic relationship now is less stable, which decreases the number of individuals, in both countries, who effectively make the case for the US-Turkish alliance. This phenomenon has also elevated the importance of each country’s leader in the process

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of resolving tensions and managing a complicated relationship. The USTurkish relationship has become highly personalized and top-down. The election of volatile leaders such as Presidents Trump and Erdoğan means that the normative understanding of the importance of the relationship is more dependent than ever on the personal views of each country’s president. US-Turkish reactions to developments in Iraq and Syria illustrate the differing security interests of the two countries. To fully understand the drivers of the current, post-2015 tensions over Syria, one must begin with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where differences about Kurdish expansionism and domestic politics foreshadowed the more serious challenges Syria posed in 2015. In the wake of Iraq’s military defeat in 1991, Saddam Hussein deployed 60 percent of his forces north of Baghdad, arrayed in three defensive tiers to protect against the nascent threat of Kurdish political empowerment and, possibly, the breakup of the Iraqi state and the creation of an independent Kurdistan. As the Bush administration prepared for war in 2003, the task of defeating these forces was left to the US Army’s 4th Infantry Division and Army Special Forces, tasked with entering Iraq before the start of the official invasion, linking up with CIA assets already on the ground, and preparing for the invasion. The Turkish government was hesitant to support the US invasion plan, and because the 2003 Iraq invasion was out of area, the Turkish parliament was required to approve the presence of US forces in Turkey for the war and the invasion of Iraq from Turkish territory. For the newly elected Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), the choice was a poor one. The Turkish public was against the US war in Iraq, and Ankara feared a massive flow of refugees to Turkey’s Kurdish majority southeast, which might reignite a dormant conflict with the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist militia active in Turkey since 1984. For Turkey, the PKK is an existential threat, owing to a more general concern about Kurdish nationalism dividing the Turkish state. As such, the PKK is a military problem for the Turkish government. The United States, in contrast, faces no threat from Kurdish groups, and cooperation with Ankara on the PKK issue stems from a broader effort to manage an alliance with Turkey. Washington and Ankara do share a commitment to combat the PKK, as indicated by the American decision to designate the PKK a terror group in 1997. The incongruity in interests and threat perceptions helps elucidate much of the disagreement about US military activity that could destabilize Kurdish-majority areas along Turkey’s borders and indirectly empower the PKK. However, the AKP, a party rooted in political Islam, was under pressure in 2003 to signal its pro-Western bona fides to its traditional allies, especially the United States, and to members of the Turkish bureaucracy and military. The latter had intervened in the past to oust governments

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deemed a threat to Turkish secular governance. This included one headed by the AKP’s predecessor, Necmettin Erbakan’s Refah Party, in 1997, after which Bülent Arınç, Abdullah Gül, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan oversaw the creation of the Justice and Development Party. This Islamist-rooted party rebranded itself as religiously conservative and modeled on Germany’s Christian Democratic Union.7 The AKP won the 2002 election with just 34.3 percent of the total vote but, because of the weakness of its rivals, was able to secure a parliamentary majority. Arınç became the speaker of the parliament and was placed in charge of making sure that AKP parliamentarians voted in favor of the US request to invade northern Iraq.8 During the debates in Turkey, and before the vote was held, US Army Special Forces deployed to Romania. US supplies for the regular army’s invasion were floating offshore in Turkey’s Iskenderun port, waiting to be brought ashore. The debate in Turkey delayed the insertion of US special operations forces into Iraq. The United States had promised Turkey US$6 billion in direct aid to offset the costs of invasion,9 but the speaker of the parliament, Bülent Arınç, allowed for his caucus members to vote their conscience and not as a singular block. To pass, the resolution needed an absolute majority of 267 votes, but the final vote tally was 264. Ninety-nine AKP members voted no, with another nineteen abstaining.10 After the no vote, the regular US military forces were moved to Kuwait and began operations in mid-April 2003. Turkey’s refusal to sanction an overland invasion caused significant logistical issues for the United States and forced last-minute changes to the war plan. In at least one case, US special forces were obligated to fly a long circuitous route through Iraqi air defenses to link up with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. During the flight, at least one plane was nearly shot down, which has prompted distrust of and antagonism with Turkey ever since.11 The Turkish parliament, on March 20, voted to open Turkish airspace for coalition overflights, which allowed for greater air coverage in the north. The US military’s toppling of the Iraqi government was swift. However, for US forces in the north deployed alongside the Kurdish militias, Turkish concerns about Kurdish empowerment in the cities of Kirkuk and Mosul were a constant irritant and an issue that required continued diplomatic management.12 This early period in the US-led war in Iraq foreshadowed many of the more acute problems that now affect the relationship, particularly in Syria. These frictions also planted the seeds of institutional antipathy toward Turkey among different branches of the US military, including within Central Command (CENTCOM) and Special Operations Command (SOCOM), two powerful bureaucratic actors during times of conflict in the Middle East. For Turkey, the fall of Saddam Hussein gave rise to concerns that the United States was not doing enough to combat the PKK and that this group was tak-

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ing advantage of the collapse of central authority to launch attacks across the border into Turkey.13 The Turkish military, from its constellation of military bases in the Iraqi Kurdistan region, monitored coalition forces in the area and, at times, reportedly “pointed guns at [coalition forces, CF], including following CF vehicles with their tank tubes.”14 These incidents on the ground signaled the tensions inherent in the broader incongruity of interests over the Kurdish threat in Iraq and over counterterrorism priorities. In 2004, the PKK ended its cease-fire with Turkey, ending a five-year truce following the capture of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan in Kenya. For Ankara, the instability following the US invasion of Iraq allowed for the PKK to regroup and, once again, carry out attacks inside Turkey from safe havens in Iraq. However, for the United States, the PKK was not a priority. Instead, Turkey’s efforts to put pressure on the Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq risked upsetting nascent American efforts to impose political stability in the contested cities of Kirkuk and Mosul. The Turkish government’s presence in Iraq also led to bilateral problems, linked to divergences over how to manage the PKK issue after the US invasion. In July 2003, for example, the US Army detained and placed hoods over the heads of Turkish soldiers at a Turkish facility in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya. The details of the arrest remain murky, with Kurdish officials claiming that the Turkish team was tasked with assassinating the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk, Abdulrahman Mustafa. But, for Turkey, the images of hooded soldiers in US custody stirred a nationalist backlash. Months earlier, the US military had intercepted a Turkish arms shipment, purportedly en route to allied Sunni Turkmen groups in Kirkuk.15 The two sides remained at odds for three more years over the “green line” separating Arab Iraq from the Kurdish region in the north and the extent of Kurdish control, before the United States appointed a special envoy for countering PKK, Joseph W. Ralston, a retired air force general.16 After Ralston’s appointment, the two sides did agree to a “joint intelligence cell” to share live video imagery for the targeting of PKK, but the United States resisted Turkish requests to directly attack PKK targets with Iraq-based assets.17 However, Ralston resigned his position in 2007, reportedly over divergences with the US commanders in Iraq about the necessity of cracking down on the PKK.18 The United States was not ultimately able to adequately address Turkish security concerns and commit the resources necessary to prevent cross-border PKK attacks. In February 2008, the Turkish military invaded northern Iraq to clear the PKK from positions on the border and to respond to a wave of attacks that had taken place in southeastern Turkey the year before.19 The Turkish operation continued for a year until troops were withdrawn in February 2009. Between 2007 and 2011, the United States focused on defeating alQaeda in Iraq, the Sunni insurgent movement that would later morph into

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the Islamic State. The US military did not have the mandate or the means to expand its fight to include the PKK, underscoring the divergence in threat perceptions with Turkey. However, for Turkey, the uptick in PKK attacks in 2007, combined with nascent efforts by Turkey’s intelligence service to start talks with the PKK leadership in Oslo, resulted in a different policy choice. The Turkish state, it appears, was intent on weakening the PKK before talks began and had run out of patience with United States’ refusal to take Turkish security concerns as seriously as Ankara had wanted. The Turkish government’s talks with the PKK would eventually collapse in 2011, prompting another round of violence that killed “at least 920 people, 90 percent of them combatants, the majority from the PKK,” according to the International Crisis Group.20 In 2011 the United States decided to withdraw its forces from Iraq and, importantly, to transfer equipment from that war to Turkey to increase Turkish capabilities to strike PKK targets in Iraq. Ankara requested attack helicopters to offset a shortage while it negotiated with foreign suppliers for an attack helicopter coproduction agreement.21 The United States had been sharing imagery collected from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with the Turkish government. The UAVs were based in Iraq. As the United States prepared to draw down, Ankara requested that these UAVs be based in Turkey to continue this level of cooperation.22 The two sides agreed to the deployment, and, to date, the UAVs remain at Incirlik Air Force Base, where they now assist with the US-led war against the Islamic State. Despite the negative impact of the Iraq war on the bilateral US-Turkish bureaucratic and military-to-military relationships, the United States and Turkey managed to come to a consensus on the PKK. In 2012 after years of fighting, the AKP and PKK leaderships resumed cease-fire negotiations. In March 2013, the AKP and PKK agreed to a cease-fire, ushering in a twoyear period free of fighting.23 This removed one issue between Washington and Ankara, but the temporary pause in the insurgency was quickly overshadowed by the political upheaval in the Middle East, starting with the overthrow of the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan governments and the start of civil war in Syria. In each instance of the “Arab Spring,” the United States and Turkey found themselves supporting different outcomes and employing different policies. The sharpest break happened in Syria over how best to fight the war against the Islamic State (see below). The tensions previously present in Iraq—Kurdish empowerment and divergent security interests—have played out in Syria. The same bureaucratic antagonisms remain in place, with CENTCOM and SOCOM once again thrust into prominent roles, where their voices in the US policy debate are prominent. In Turkey, since June 2015 the policymaking process has become more authoritarian and centralized. President Erdoğan’s further consolidation of power in July 2016,

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following a failed coup attempt,24 has reinforced a crisis in US-Turkish relations beyond the frictions over the PKK presence in Iraq. The dynamics driving this current crisis in Syria and the actors involved suggest that the current exacerbation of tension will not subside anytime soon and may be systemic within dominant bureaucratic actors involved in the shared battle spaces in the region. The rise of the Islamic State (ISIS or Daesh) in Syria once again exposed a sharp divergence in American and Turkish security perceptions in the Middle East. ISIS formed in Iraq during the US occupation. Its former leader, Abu Musa al Zarqawi, traveled from Afghanistan to Iraq at the outset of the conflict. The United States killed Zarqawi in June 2006, but the group’s bureaucratic infrastructure proved resilient. In 2012, the group moved into Syria, under the guise of Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat alNusra. In 2013, the Islamic State broke with Nusra and went on to capture large swathes of Syria and Iraq, prompting a US-led intervention to defeat the insurgent group.25 The group’s historic stronghold in Iraq is in Sunni-majority Anbar and Ninewa. In 2006, on the Arab-controlled western bank of the Euphrates River in Mosul, Iraq, the Turkish government reopened its consulate. At the time of opening, the Sunni insurgency was centered in Mosul and Ninewa’s rural areas, extending out to the border with Syria. 26 Despite the risks, the Turkish government prioritized its geopolitical interests in Iraq and was eager to use its diplomatic presence in Mosul to deepen economic links with Iraq. Ankara intended to use the Sunni Arab political parties to undermine Kurdish political gains in the city and in Ninewa more broadly. Eight years later, in June 2014, the Islamic State planned to take over Mosul. The fight for the city was remarkably brief, with many of the city’s security forces fleeing. The Turkish government, despite having been warned about the impending advance, failed to evacuate the consulate. On June 11, the Islamic State took control of the city and kidnapped forty-nine diplomats and their families.27 The kidnapping, combined with the spillover of Islamic State violence into Turkey in 2015 and 2016,28 prompted Ankara’s entrance into the ISIS war and into an uneasy partnership with the United States. However, the two allies differed considerably over how best to fight IS and how to incorporate local groups into the fight. In particular, US and Turkish perceptions about Kurdish groups prompted serious disagreement. For the United States, the Syrian Kurds emerged as a vital local actor, committed to fighting the Islamic State with direct American support. Ankara, in contrast, argued in favor of training and arming the majority Sunni Arab insurgents and asserted that fighting one terrorist group (ISIS) with another

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(the People’s Protection Units [Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG], a Syrian branch of the PKK) was a mistake.29 As the war against the Islamic State accelerated, the US plan and actions triggered a severe backlash inside the Turkish government, setting in motion the worst crisis in the history of the bilateral relationship. In the aftermath of the Islamic State’s victories in Iraq, the ISIS-Kurdish conflict spilled over the border into Turkey, which helped to upend the Turkish government’s ceasefire talks with the PKK. It also led to the US partnership with the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat) and its militia, the YPG. The US-Kurdish partnership is a microcosm of the broader breakdown of US-Turkish relations, stemming from differing interests and unrealistic expectations about the Syrian civil war. In August 2011, after months of direct talks with the Syrian government to try to reach a compromise following a rash of rural protests against Bashar al-Assad’s rule, Turkey broke ties with the regime and joined the United States in calling for a change of government. In addition, Ankara took the proactive step of supporting the nascent insurgency, working with regional states to provide weapons to the various groups forming in northern Syria and providing a safe haven for them in Turkey.30 This early arming effort eventually included US assistance. Different opposition groups were vetted by US intelligence and given arms from allied European countries in the former Soviet bloc.31 From the outset of the covert arming program, the United States and Turkey differed over the means to achieve the same end: the forced capitulation of the Syrian regime. The Turkish government gravitated toward Islamist militias, many of which cooperated with Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, then dubbed Jabhat al-Nusra. The United States, too, turned a blind eye to the cooperation of armed groups working alongside the al-Qaeda affiliate but was more discerning as to which groups it worked with directly. However, as is always the case with the covert arming of groups, a lucrative black market in arms developed, leading to the proliferation of US acquired arms to virtually all groups active in the Syrian civil war.32 The rise of the Islamic State prompted the United States itself to take military action in Syria and Iraq in 2015, albeit with the deployment of only a relatively small number of troops in Syria, backed by airpower. This approach required that the small numbers of Special Operations Forces work “with and through” local actors committed to fighting the Islamic State while also ignoring the concurrent civil war between the Syrian regime and rebels in the west of the country.33 This framing of the US-led military mission against ISIS as a narrow counterterrorism mission that left the regime intact prompted a backlash in Turkey. For the United States, the establishment of a coalition to fight ISIS, particularly along the Turkish-Syrian border, would logically include

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Ankara’s support and the opening of its territory to US and coalition aircraft for air strikes. However, Ankara saw granting US access to Incirlik Air Force Base for this purpose as a tool to try to derive concessions from the United States. Turkey especially wanted the United States to enforce a no-fly zone over northern Syria, including the city of Aleppo, because of its political and military importance to the anti-Assad opposition.34 The wide disagreement between ways and means, beginning with these discussions in 2014, ultimately resulted in the fracture over the subsequent war in northeastern Syria. There the challenge for US policymakers stemmed from the composition and effectiveness of the “resistance force” and the US success in harnessing the YPG to lead the ground war against IS. Turkey, in contrast, argued in favor of working with and through the Arab-majority opposition based in northern Aleppo and Idlib—some of which also received US support—to fight ISIS west of the Euphrates River.35 For a time the flashpoint was the city of Manbij, which was a transit point for foreign fighters.36 The fate of this city—and who controls it—has brought the United States and Turkey to near clashes, despite its having so little geostrategic relevance before the ISIS war that few in either country had ever heard of it. The United States was committed to taking Manbij in order to set up the battle for Raqqa, the Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. The Raqqa battle was intended to coincide with the start of the push in Iraq to retake Mosul. These simultaneous assaults would then put pressure on the Islamic State and help set the conditions for its territorial defeat. Turkey, wary of the expansion of Kurdish control in Syria, pushed for an alternative and slower approach centered on the training of more Arab-majority forces to spearhead the assaults on Manbij and then Raqqa. The roots of the current crisis over Manbij began in September 2014, after ISIS forces besieged Kobane and threatened to topple the Kurdishmajority town. The United States, still standing up its military footprint in the region, began airstrikes in the area.37 During the battle, the United States determined that the YPG elements on the ground needed weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies to fend off the ISIS advance. The Turkish government, according to a former US government official, warned that an airdrop of weapons and supplies would be a hostile act and contrary to Turkish national security interests.38 President Barack Obama decided to proceed with the airdrop, setting in motion the political military disagreement that continues to this day.39 In the months that followed, the YPG reversed the tide in Kobane and began to go on the offensive, closing in on the border town of Tel Abyad. The battle for Tel Abyad was not really a battle at all. ISIS withdrew south toward Raqqa, allowing for the YPG to walk into the city and assert control over the population in June 2015.40 The fall of the city, without direct

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Turkish support, prompted a change in policy. Up until this time, Ankara had sought to use Incirlik Air Force Base as a bargaining chip with the United States. The US military had requested access to the base at the start of the war against ISIS, but Ankara’s condition of establishing a no-fly zone over parts of northern Syria exceeded what the United States was prepared to accept. The success of the US-YPG partnership, independent of Turkey, eventually changed Ankara’s mind and led to the opening of Incirlik Air Force Base after the fall of Tel Abyad. The United States also sought to reach a compromise with Turkey, creating a vehicle to give direct support and training to non-Kurdish elements, who would fight alongside the YPG. This effort would eventually result in the creation of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a YPG-led militia that includes Arab fighters and Arab-led militias. The US-Turkish-supported program was dubbed “Train and Equip” and placed under the direction of the US Department of Defense. The Train and Equip forces would be independent of the Kurdish-led SDF and tasked with taking and holding ISIScontrolled territory along the Turkish border. The Turkish government was also grappling with the spillover of the Syrian conflict into Turkey. In 2015, Ankara sought to manage a conflicting set of policy priorities. The challenge for Turkey was how to contain the growing Kurdish threat in Syria while also working to push ISIS from the border. In addition, local Islamic State members in Turkey had begun to attack “soft targets” linked to the Kurdish-majority political party, the People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi). The first attacks targeted Mersin and Adana, followed by an attack at a political rally in Suruç, the Turkish town opposite the Kurdish-majority Syrian city of Kobane, in June of that year. These attacks helped to collapse the AKP-PKK peace talks.41 The PKK blamed the Turkish government for the attacks, citing a longheld conspiracy theory that the AKP gave support to ISIS to undermine Kurdish ambitions along the border, and in response killed two police officers in Urfa.42 The tit-for-tat attacks prompted the Turkish air force’s bombing of PKK-held territory in Iraqi Kurdistan’s Kandil mountains in July and, beginning in December 2015, a military-led ground operation in Turkey’s southeast against a PKK-led urban uprising. This violence came amid political upheaval in Turkey following the AKP’s loss of its parliamentary majority in the June 2015 election.43 The rise in violence framed the tense talks ostensibly aimed at forming a coalition government. These talks failed, and in November 2015 snap elections were held, in which the AKP, campaigning on the promise of restoring law and order to a country racked by terrorist violence, reclaimed its dominant parliamentary position.44 The AKP’s consolidation of its electoral dominance prompted a more aggressive counterinsurgency effort in the southeast, which included lengthy curfews—78 days in Cizre and Silopi and 101 days in Sur. In total, more

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than 355,000 people were displaced, and the fighting totally destroyed a large proportion of each urban area.45 The military operations in Turkey’s southeast were part of the Turkish military’s renewed war against substate actors in the Kurdish-majority southeast and, beginning in late summer 2016, in northern Syria. The deterioration of the AKP-PKK cease-fire talks has had a direct impact on US combat operations against the Islamic State. As the Turkish counterinsurgent campaign accelerated in the southeast, Ankara and Washington reached agreement on Turkey’s integration into the counter-ISIS coalition and, importantly, on a shared strategy to create an “ISIS-free zone” west of the Euphrates River, in Syria, without Kurdish-led forces spearheading the offensive.46 The Turkish and American air forces committed to giving direct air support to the jointly supported opposition groups active along a front line with ISIS running from the Turkish border to the city of Aleppo. The United States, in turn, would lead a Train and Equip effort to jointly build a ground force to take and hold territory.47 The Train and Equip program, however, was upended after Russia entered the war in defense of Bashar al-Assad. Ironically, Russia’s intervention stemmed from, arguably, the greatest Turkish-US triumph in the unconventional war raging inside Syria. In March 2015, a collation of Islamist opposition militias led by Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, and Ahrar al-Sham, an Islamist rival,48 took control of Idlib, and the Syrian government appeared to be severely weakened from years of fighting. To prop up the regime, Russian aircraft were deployed to Khmeimim Air Base in September 2015 to aid in the fight against the anti-Assad opposition.49 In late November 2015, the Turkish air force downed a Russian bomber that had strayed into Turkish airspace while bombing opposition forces along the border. The incident prompted the Russian air force to concentrate its bombing campaign on the highway connecting the city of Aleppo with the Turkish border—and the area from which the US-Turkish effort to clear IS from the border was based. Moscow’s bombing campaign after Turkey downed the Russian bomber concentrated on the force slated to move east to capture territory from ISIS in the “free zone” Ankara and Washington had agreed to work on together. The Russian bombing put severe pressure on the Train and Equip program because it targeted key supply lines and groups that the United States and Turkey hoped would contribute to the anti-IS offensive. The failure of Train and Equip has had a lasting effect on the US-Turkish relationship because it ended any hope of a joint US-Turkish offensive to clear ISIS from the border. Instead, the United States deepened its cooperation with the Syrian Kurds, a policy choice anathema to Turkish security interests. The deepening of the USKurdish relationship coincided with the end of the Turkish-PKK ceasefire. The increase in Turkish-Kurdish tension heightened tensions over the

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US-led war in Syria and the American reliance on the PKK offshoot, the YPG, to fight the Islamic State. The challenges in implementing Train and Equip led to the US decision to sanction the SDF-led battle for Manbij in late May 2016. The city fell two and a half months later. In response, Turkey invaded northern Syria. The intent, at least on paper, was to clear ISIS. However, the military offensive also intended to block the westward expansion of the SDF via the town of Al-Bab to Afrin, a former YPG stronghold. During the planning for the operations, Ankara kept Washington in the dark, choosing instead to first travel to Moscow and Tehran for permission for the cross-border offensive. On the eve of the invasion, the Turkish military informed its American counterparts, which by this time had already determined that a military operation was imminent. The two sides then hastily worked out an arrangement to include limited US special forces participation. This is yet another indicator of how little trust Turkey has in the United States. As planning for the invasion intensified, the United States first learned of impending military action through intelligence collection,50 not a courtesy phone call or briefing from a NATO ally.51 The Turkish invasion stumbled around Al-Bab, prompting Ankara to try to blame its slow progress inside the city on the lack of coalition support.52 The Turkish military and its allied militias began the assault on the city in mid-November 2016, and the city fell in early February 2017. The defeat of the Islamic State brought Turkish-backed forces to the edge of US-controlled territory west of Manbij and began a new phase in the Syrian civil war. The United States, working through the SDF, started preparations for the war in Raqqa, a battle that officially began in June 2017 and ended four months later in October. The Turkish government, in contrast, deepened its ties with Russia and Iran. It apologized for the downing of the Russian jet, and the three powers established the so-called Astana process, acting as guarantors of future agreements the meetings might produce. The three powers worked together to establish a series of de-escalation commitments to wind down fighting in Syria. Turkey represented much of the anti-Assad opposition in the negotiations. For the United States, which was not included, the Russian-led process directly challenged the UN-sponsored and American-supported talks in Geneva. The Turkish-Russian partnership also poses a broader challenge to the American military presence. Turkey’s two Astana coguarantors, Russia and Iran, view a long-term, open-ended American presence in northeast Syria as anathema to their security interests. Ankara shares this sentiment, owing to US sponsorship of the SDF and the creation of Kurdish-led governance structures along the border.53 The Syrian regime shares the three powers’ hostility toward the United States. However, this quadripartite partnership is also rife with internal rivalries and outright hostility, exemplified by the Syrian regime’s hatred of the Turkish government for its sponsorship of an opposi-

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tion movement committed to overthrowing the government. Iran shares more interests with the Assad regime and in time might also be expected to take steps to try and force Turkey (and the United States) to leave Syria.54 Against this complicated geopolitical backdrop, the Turkish government took advantage of its relationship with Russia to gain support for cross-border military operations targeting the YPG. The Russian air force controls the skies in western Syria, and Turkey first had to secure permission to facilitate its January 2018 invasion. Ankara targeted Afrin, the isolated YPG-administered canton that had largely been spared violence over the course of the seven-year-old civil war. The fighting, for the first forty days or so, was intense. The Turkish military made slow and steady progress before the YPG’s defenses collapsed and the militia’s fighters withdrew from Afrin City. This allowed for the Turkish military to take the city without engaging in urban combat. The militias that fought alongside the Turkish army looted the city soon after it fell.55 The Turkish army has since consolidated control over much of northern Aleppo (4,000 square kilometers), connecting Afrin with the territory taken during Operation Euphrates Shield. The YPG has vowed to carry out an insurgency to regain control. The fighting displaced 167,000 people, according to the United Nations; the majority of those fled to the contested city of Tel Rifaat or regime-held areas north of Aleppo.56 For the United States, the start of Operation Olive Branch resulted in the end of SDF offensive operations in eastern Syria against the Islamic State.57 The “operational pause” in the ISIS war has coincided with renewed Turkish government threats to attack Manbij, where US military forces regularly conduct deterrence patrols in support of the council the SDF left behind after taking the city from the Islamic State. The situation was tense, and in a sign of how bad things had become, Turkish president Erdoğan threatened to kill American soldiers. The US military, in turn, has threatened to defend itself from external attack. In the end, the United States and Turkey reached agreement over a narrow security relationship, dubbed the Manbij Roadmap.58 In the months that followed, the two sides debated how to implement the arrangement, culminating in a mid-December 2018 phone call between Presidents Trump and Erdoğan to discuss Turkish threats to invade northeastern Syria.59 During the conversation, Trump said he would order the withdrawal of American troops from Syria. Without having consulted with US military officials, he also pledged to coordinate the withdrawal with Turkey.60 However, subsequently, the US administration walked back Trump’s guidance and indicated that several hundred US and European forces would remain in northeastern Syria, which effectively reversed the president’s initial call for all troops to withdraw. Efforts to find a common position with Turkey that addressed Ankara’s security concerns while also ensuring the protection of the Syrian Democratic Forces are to continue.61 Turkey has rejected any role

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for the SDF and argued that it should retain sole control over northeastern Syria, leading to a political stalemate with Washington. On July 15, 2016, a pair of Turkish F-16s left their hangars at Akıncı Air Force Base, accelerated into the wind, and took off carrying laser munitions. In a brief conversation with Ankara’s Esenboğa civilian air traffic controller, the pilot of one of the aircraft, “Aslan 1,” informed his civilian counterpart that he was on a “special mission.” He diverted from his stated flight plan, descending to a few hundred feet over the low-slung buildings in Turkey’s capital for a series of high-speed passes with his wingman, “Aslan 2.”62 A coup was underway—with the aim of ultimately killing or capturing President Erdoğan.63 The coup attempt failed, and in the waning hours of the plot, F-16s that had been making supersonic passes over the terrified residents of Ankara bombed the parliament and other sites. Attack helicopters also opened fire on the main intelligence building. Istanbul was spared aerial bombardment, but groups of soldiers raided media offices and took up positions on the bridge connecting Istanbul’s European and Asian sides and in central Istanbul. From the outset of the coup attempt, people took to the streets to protest.64 Turkish president Erdoğan, speaking on an iPhone on national television, made a call for people to resist the unfolding coup. By morning, the coup plotters had either been arrested or were in the process of fleeing. The Turkish government imposed a state of national emergency, allowing for rule by presidential decree. This decree was extended seven times before it was lifted just after the June 24, 2018, presidential election. As Gürkan Çelik outlines in Chapter 2 of this volume, President Erdoğan campaigned for a change to the Turkish constitution to create a centralized presidential system, devoid of checks and balances. The state of emergency also allowed for the Turkish government to execute a series of bureaucratic purges to arrest followers of the Gülen movement, which Turkey has listed as a terrorist group.65 The hypernationalist atmosphere in Turkey helped to justify the massive scale of the arrests and may have contributed to the detainment of some twenty American citizens, including Pastor Andrew Brunson. The detainment of Americans eventually devolved into “hostage diplomacy,” whereby President Erdoğan insinuated that Turkey would release Americans jailed only after Washington took steps to extradite Gülen, which then prompted the United States to impose sanctions on Turkish officials for human rights violations.66 The verbal tit-for-tat had wide support from the AKP’s new political coalition. The failed coup led Turkey’s far-right nationalist party, the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP), to throw its weight behind the AKP’s efforts in parliament to secure enough votes to

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hold a referendum on a series of changes to the constitution. In January 2017, Erdoğan received enough parliamentary votes to hold a referendum, which was then scheduled for April 2017. In a narrow victory, marred by claims of fraud, Erdoğan’s yes campaign received 51.4 percent of the vote, paving the way for Erdoğan to remake government for himself and to assume power following a national election scheduled for June 2018.67 Erdoğan, fresh from his referendum victory, began his campaign for the executive presidency almost immediately on a platform of hypernationalism and anti-Westernism.68 In Turkey’s domestic politics, Operation Olive Branch has been framed as a conflict with the United States, and Turkish victories over the YPG are treated as a military defeat of the United States.69 According to the independent Turkish polling company Metropoll, only 3 percent of the “Turkish electorate view the United States as a friend.”70 The AKP’s negative campaign has been very effective, particularly in how it has framed the American response to the failed July 2016 coup attempt. For example, President Erdoğan has used allied media outlets to shape the narrative about the United States and to drive home the idea that Washington had a hand in the failed plot. In doing so, Erdoğan has drawn parallels between the failed coup and the US partnership with the Syrian Kurds in order to underscore how the United States is a state sponsor of terror. In contrast, the United States has sought to remain focused on the task at hand in Syria, where the war against the Islamic State remains a priority. On the ground in Syria, senior-level US officials serving in the Trump administration include senior military officers from CENTCOM, most of whom have had a negative experience with the Turkish government. In Syria, for example, US forces in-country have pledged to defend American positions “aggressively” from a Turkish-backed (or -led) attack on Manbij.71 The broader trends, therefore, suggest that key institutional actors at the top of the Turkish civilian leadership and through the ranks of the Turkish military view American support for the YPG as a betrayal and a serious national security threat. In the United States, the dominant combatant US commands, CENTCOM and SOCOM, view Turkey as an irritant, at best, and as a terrible ally, hindering the fight against ISIS, at worst. In both countries, different government agencies struggle to ascribe value to the USTurkish relationship. This is a considerable change from the Cold War, and even the immediate post–Cold War environment, in which the dominant US combatant command, European Command, and the Turkish General Staff worked very closely together, even during times of political tension. In Turkey specifically there is a confluence of civilian and military leadership that may view Ankara’s war in Syria against the YPG as an indirect war with the United States. The same is also true in the US military, where US Special Operations Forces have once again deployed alongside Kurdishmajority units and therefore have had to contend with Turkish threats.

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In Turkey, the new cadre of leaders does not have a positive view of the USTurkey relationship, and mid-level officers (once so critical to the relationship) have been at war against the PKK and allied proxies since 2015. The United States is now the backer of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in Syria, where more than two hundred Turkish soldiers have been killed since Turkey’s ground operation crossed the border into northern Syria. The deaths and continuous Turkish military deployments against the PKK and YPG are the major reason for the broader downturn in Turkish trust in the United States. The schisms, apparent since the US-led military operation in Iraq in 2003 and continuing into Syria in 2015, have grown wider. The United States, in contrast, remains singularly focused on combatting Sunnimajority jihadist groups, which are treated as a law enforcement issue and therefore given lesser priority by the Turkish government, especially in comparison to the fight against the PKK and Kurdish forces in Syria. These dynamics are certain to remain present in the bilateral relationship, even if the two sides can overcome the current tensions and try to refocus on areas where interests overlap. The challenges also extend beyond counterterrorism and now include broader legal disagreements. The Turkish government has severely criticized Washington for refusing to extradite Fethullah Gülen, the US-based preacher Ankara accuses of organizing the failed coup in July 2016.72 The United States has also tried Turkish nationals for overseeing a state-backed campaign to circumvent US sanctions on Iran.73 As mentioned, the Turkish government has imprisoned US citizens, including Pastor Andrew Brunson, who has strong ties with the Trump administration.74 The Turkish government accused Pastor Brunson of having links to the PKK and Fethullah Gülen.75 The United States and Turkey engaged in serious discussions to resolve differences over Pastor Brunson and only agreed to his release after President Trump directly intervened and the United States imposed sanctions on two Turkish ministers, using the Global Magnitsky Act. The saga further soured Turkey’s image in the United States, and around the world, and has left unresolved other, looming tensions, such as the multiple American investigations into Halkbank’s violation of US sanctions on Iran.76 The Halkbank scandal is linked to the internal fight between President Erdoğan and Gülen and is a major scandal in Turkey. Audio recordings detailing the scheme and the payment to government ministers were uploaded to YouTube and formed the core of the US government’s case against Mehmet Hakan Atilla, the Halkbank banker and a dual IranianTurkish national.77 For Erdoğan’s supporters, the airing of these tapes in a US courtroom adds to the pervasive belief that the United States is intent on toppling the Turkish government. The US Congress has also threatened to block the transfer of F-35 fighter jets to Turkey, citing Ankara’s pur-

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chase of a Russian missile system. These actions represent a sharp escalation in bilateral tensions and underscore the highly personalized nature of the relationship between the two countries. Common interests are now harder to identify but might include broad agreement on the need for effective counterterrorism cooperation and NATO cooperation. Ankara has solidified ties with Moscow, a Western adversary, because of its shared interests in Syria. Turkey even agreed to purchase a Russian missile system although the acquisition could jeopardize defense cooperation with the United States. The US-Turkish relationship was born out of a shared threat and upheld by the Turkish dependency on the United States for protection. But Ankara has a different self-perception in 2019 than it did in 1952, the year it joined NATO. The leadership appears genuine in its belief that America is covertly backing elements committed to dividing the Turkish state and is willing to put its soldiers in harm’s way to prevent this, even if that action risks relations with Washington. As might be expected, Ankara is committed to a self-interested relationship with the United States. Turkey pursues the same kind of policy with Russia.78 This means the Turkish leadership views the two countries as means to the same end: a more independent and powerful Turkey, capable of acting alone. The United States and Turkey will remain treaty allies; Ankara is a NATO member and shows no sign of wanting to leave the world’s most powerful alliance. However, Turkey’s willingness to challenge even its most important ally in areas it sees as vital, its democratic decline, and the consolidation of authoritarian rule are powerful indicators of the current Turkish government’s decisionmaking calculus. These dynamics do not appear to be subsiding, so the current status quo may very well be the theme of bilateral relations for the foreseeable future. The roots of tensions stemming from the divergences in threat perceptions may have long-lasting effects.

Notes

1. The United States also refers to this group as ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria; Turkey refers to it as Daesh, an acronym for the Dawla al-Islamiya (Islamic State). 2. The US ambassador to Turkey, Edwin Wilson, neatly summarized US policy in a 1946 telegram to Secretary of State James F. Byrnes: “It strikes me maintenance Turkish independence has become vital interest US. If Turkey falls under Soviet control last barrier removed in way Soviet advance to Persian Gulf and Suez and temptation would be more than human nature could withstand. Once this happens fat is in fire again. Fortunately Turks are tough obstinate people, determined defend their position. They represent great asset in struggle maintain peace, stability Middle East and we should not permit this asset to be frittered away” (see United States Department of State, telegram, 1946). 3. Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, “The Truman Doctrine.” 4. As of May 1982, the United States had access to twenty-seven installations in Turkey for intelligence gathering, flight operations, long-range navigation, nuclear weapons storage, and NATO-specific military operations. See United States Government

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Accountability Office, “The Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement—US Interests and Turkish Needs.” 5. United States Government Accountability Office, “The Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement.” 6. The most important facilities the DECA covered included Incirlik Air Force Base, nuclear weapons storage facilities at Eskisehir and Akinci Air Bases, and three monitoring facilities in Sinop, Diyarbakır, and Ankara. The United States also has a naval navigation waypoint in İskenderun and a long-range radio-navigation site at Kargaburun. In addition, the United States has access to a variety of NATO facilities, including the eastern Mediterranean headquarters at İzmir for Land Forces, Southeast, and for the 6th Allied Tactical Air Force. Near İzmir, there is also a Turkish air base at Çiğli, which provides support for US personnel assigned to NATO. See Senate, Congressional Record, February 20, 1990. 7. Hale, “Christian Democracy and the AKP.” 8. Peuch, “Turkey: Parliamentary ‘No’ Vote on U.S. Troops Puts Government, Ruling Party in Straits.” 9. “The United States would have provided Turkey with a US$6 billion assistance package, some of which could have been used to support US$24 billion loan guarantees. Until the funds were available, the Administration would have provided a bridge loan of US$8.5 billion. It also would have provided enhanced trade benefits to Turkish businesses.” See Migdalovitz, “Iraq: Turkey, the Deployment of U.S. Forces, and Related Issues.” 10. Migdalovitz, “Iraq: Turkey, the Deployment of U.S. Forces, and Related Issues.” 11. Migdalovitz, “Iraq: Turkey, the Deployment of U.S. Forces, and Related Issues.” 12. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, pp. 90–92. 13. Cagaptay and Koknar, “The PKK’s New Offensive.” 14. Dobbins et al., Occupying Iraq, pp. 91–92. 15. Howard and Goldenberg, “US Arrest of Soldiers Infuriates Turkey.” 16. United States Department of Defense, “Turkey: Special Envoy for Countering the PKK.” 17. Whitlock, “U.S. Considering Ankara’s Request.” 18. Strobel, “Former Envoy: U.S. Driving Turkey, Iran Together.” 19. Dalmaz, “Hakkari’de yine mayın 2 er sehit”; Rainsford, “Turkey Determined to Crush PKK.” 20. International Crisis Group, “Turkey and the PKK.” 21. Former US government official, personal communication with the author, February 2014. 22. Whitlock, “U.S. Considering Ankara’s Request.” 23. Letsch, “Kurdish Leader Abdullah Ocalan Declares Ceasefire.” 24. See Chapter 2 by Çelik in this volume. 25. Fishman, The Master Plan. 26. Johnston et al., Foundations of the Islamic State. 27. BBC News, “Turkish Hostages Held by IS in Iraq Released.” 28. Stein, “Islamic State Networks in Turkey.” 29. Cavusoglu, “America Has Chosen the Wrong Partner.” 30. Chivers and Schmitt, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands.” 31. Conflict Armament Research, Weapons of the Islamic State. 32. Rawnsely, Woods, and Triebert, “The Messaging App Fueling Syria’s Insurgency.” 33. Stein, “Partner Operations in Syria.” 34. Kahl, “The United States and Turkey Are on a Collision Course.” 35. Entous, “U.S., Turkey Narrow Differences.” 36. Dodwell, Milton, and Rassler, “The Caliphate’s Global Workforce.” 37. Callimachi, “Inside Syria: Kurds Roll Back ISIS.” 38. Former senior US government official, personal communication with the author, July 2017. 39. Letsch, “US Drops Weapons and Ammunition to Help Kurdish Fighters in Kobani.”

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40. Sly, “They Freed a Syrian Town from ISIS.” 41. Stein, “Islamic State Networks in Turkey.” 42. Al Jazeera, “Kurdish Group Claims ‘Revenge Murder.’” 43. Sabah, “Seçim Haziran 2015.” 44. Sabah, “Seçim Kasım 2015.” 45. T24, “Güneydoğu’daki operasyonlar yüzünden 355 bin kişi göç etti.” 46. Selvi, “Suriye ile savaşa mı giriyoruz?”; Nissenbaum, “U.S., Turkey Agree to Keep Syrian Kurds Out of Proposed Border Zone.” 47. Stein, “Partner Operations in Syria.” 48. Heller, “The End of the Army of Conquest?” 49. Black and Luhn, “Syria Confirms Receipt of Russian Jets.” 50. US government official, personal communication with the author, April 2016. 51. US government official, personal communication with the author, October 2016. 52. Ünal, “Turkey Finds Lack of US-Led Coalition Air Support to Free al-Bab Unacceptable.” 53. Loveluck, “Turkish President Threatens to ‘Drown’ U.S.-Backed Force in Syria.” 54. Stein, “Strategic Incoherence.” 55. Andriukaitis, “Looting Follows ‘Olive Branch’ in Afrin.” 56. World Health Organization, “WHO Is Providing Urgent Health Services.” 57. Zaman, “Anti-IS Coalition Paralyzed as YPG Faces Turkey.” 58. Gumrukcu and Toksabay, “Turkey, U.S. Agree Roadmap to Avert Crisis in Syria’s Manbij.” 59. TRT World, “Turkey to Start Operation in East of Euphrates in ‘Few Days.’” 60. DeYoung et al., “A Tumultuous Week Began with a Phone Call.” 61. Youssef, “U.S. Still Hunting for Allied Cooperation in Syria.” 62. Cenciotti, “Exclusive: All the Details About the Air Ops and Aerial Battles over Turkey.” 63. Srivastava, “Erdogan Assassination Plot Suspects Go on Trial in Turkey.” 64. Ünver and Alassaad, “How Turks Mobilized Against the Coup.” 65. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkey to Add Gülen Movement to List of Terror Groups.” 66. Reuters, “Turkey’s Erdogan Links Fate of Detained U.S. Pastor to Wanted Cleric Gulen.” 67. Secim.haberler.com, “Türkiye’de Genel Referandum Sonuçları.” 68. Stein, “Turkey: Managing Tensions and Options to Engage”; Halpin et al., “Is Turkey Experiencing a New Nationalism?” 69. İLKHA, “PKK Suriye’ye yerleşti arkasında ABD’nin desteği var.” 70. According to Metropoll (“Turkey’s Pulse”), “The February Turkey’s Pulse survey was carried out using stratified sampling and weighting methods on 1,802 people in 28 provinces based on the 26 regions of Turkey’s NUTS 2 system between February 10 and 17. The survey used face-to-face questioning with a margin error of 2.31 percent at the 95 percent level of confidence.” 71. Nordland, “On Northern Syria Front Line.” 72. Reuters, “Turkey to End Extraditions to U.S. Unless Cleric Is Turned Over.” 73. Weiser, “Turkish Banker in Iran Sanctions-Busting Case Sentenced.” 74. Gall, “Turkey Rebuffs U.S. Appeals.” 75. Daily Sabah, “US Priest Brunson Faces Prison for Espionage.” 76. DeYoung and Sonmez, “U.S. Sanctions Two Turkish Officials.” 77. Pierson, “U.S. Jury Finds Turkish Banker Guilty.” 78. See Chapter 13 by Van Bladel in this volume.

12 Turkey in the Middle East Bill Park

region has become so fast moving and fluctuated so much that it is hard to clearly identify Turkish objectives, detect underlying patterns, or make predictions. In this chapter I nevertheless endeavor to do so. Following an initial period of caution, during which the Islamist-inspired government of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP), first elected in November 2002, remained wary of the secular Kemalist hold on state institutions, Turkish foreign policy underwent significant shifts. Initially, these were associated with Ahmet Davutoğlu in his roles first as adviser to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then as foreign minister from 2009 until 2014, when he himself became prime minister. Davutoğlu was dismissed from the government in May 2016 and is now out of favor, although in broad terms his thinking continues to underpin and articulate the basis of much of Turkish foreign policy under the AKP. His appointment as foreign minister also represents an early example of a phenomenon that has been a hallmark of the AKP’s—or, rather, Erdoğan’s—approach to government, as he was plucked from beyond the realm of officialdom—he had been an academic— and even as adviser tended to bypass the Kemalist, secular, and somewhat disapproving state bureaucracy in his conduct of foreign policy. Ideationally, the AKP does not share the regional policy perspectives of the generally Kemalist governments that preceded it. As Islamists and Ottomanists, AKP leaders have regarded themselves as an integral part of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and have been far readier to engage actively with it. The traditional Kemalist leadership class of the Turkish Republic had generally regarded the Middle East as a quagmire to be avoided as much as possible. Additionally, Turkey’s turn-of-the-century

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economic dynamism and its emergence as a regional “trading state,” based in no small measure on the rise of the new and typically AKP-friendly “Anatolian tiger” enterprises1 and Turkey’s growing energy needs, also obliged its policymakers to follow up with more comprehensive diplomatic stances toward its regional economic partners. Although Davutoğlu insisted on Turkey’s continued commitment to its Western alliances and EU membership ambitions, he also believed that the era of Western political, economic, and cultural domination is waning, to be gradually replaced by a more multipolar, regionalized, and culturally pluralistic world order. Alongside states such as Russia, India, and China, Turkey now sees itself as an emerging and important power in its own right. From this perspective, Turkey is to be understood as a central rather than a peripheral country, located at the hub of a geopolitical map that connects it simultaneously to MENA, Europe, and Eurasia. For both Davutoğlu and Erdoğan, Turkey is emerging as a regionally significant economic powerhouse and strategic actor and should not be defined as an exclusively or primarily European, Western-aligned state—it has “strategic depth” in other words.2 Davutoğlu’s belief in Turkey’s regional destiny, shared by Erdoğan certainly, and the country’s vulnerability to the region’s backwardness, rivalries, and instabilities gave Ankara an incentive to seek to reduce the neighborhood’s tensions and to encourage positive regional interaction. Under Davutoğlu’s guidance, Turkey thus set about mediating local conflicts, such as that between Israel and Syria, and removing obstacles to travel, trade, and cultural interaction. This explains the proliferation of visa-free regimes, trade agreements, “soft power” cultural exports, and intergovernmental councils of various kinds that Turkey signed with Russia and other postSoviet states, as well as with Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran, and other MENA states during Davutoğlu’s tenure as foreign minister. This approach was dubbed “zero problems with neighbors” and seemed to offer a refreshing and adaptive policy paradigm. However, Turkey’s Western allies and its non-Muslim neighbors sometimes detected an anti-Westernism and Islamification of Turkish foreign policy under Davutoğlu,3 a feeling that has intensified since his departure and Erdoğan’s increased grip on power. Furthermore, Muslim states in Turkey’s more immediate neighborhood were and are sometimes sensitive to a “big brother,” seemingly self-aggrandising Turkish neo-Ottomanist flavor in Ankara’s new foreign policy approach. The fond myths about the Ottoman era that Turks can sometimes conjure up are not universally shared in the Arab world.4 Furthermore, other countries, such as the United States, Russia, Iran, and the former colonial powers in the region, the United Kingdom and France, retain considerable influence and capacity. So do Arab states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Ankara’s conviction that it could play a major role in re-engineering the region through the pursuit of

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an independent foreign policy untrammelled by alliances and multilateral diplomacy was always likely to collide with larger realities. Before we embark on a critique of recent Turkish foreign policy toward the Middle East, it might be helpful to remind ourselves of the regional context within which it has had to be formulated. The MENA region is in uproar, from Iraq to Syria to Yemen to Libya. These states are in danger of failing altogether, while question marks can be put even against the future stability of states such as Lebanon, Egypt, and Tunisia. Throughout the region, the threat of fundamentalist Islam, Sunni-Shia tensions, Iranian activism, and now a newly assertive Saudia Arabia are pervasive and destabilizing. The perennial Israel-Palestine question and the region’s general economic and political dysfunctionality form a backdrop to its more immediate tribulations. The very viability of the regional map and of any recognizable regional political order is open to question.5 For Turkey, which borders Iran, Iraq, and Syria and shares its Ottoman legacy and Islam with much of its geographical neighborhood, with which it also has wider economic and especially energy stakes, MENA’s turmoil is seen as existentially threatening. It has brought to Turkey floods of refugees, terrorist attacks, and a downturn in trade with the region and has added to the country’s own domestic Kurdish travails. External interventions in the region, such as the overthrow of the Libyan and Iraqi regimes and the multilateral interference in Syria, have generally added to the disorder. The pro-Damascus bias of Moscow and the anti–Islamic State (IS) preoccupation of the west are contributing to the region’s conflicts in ways that do not accord with Ankara’s perspectives and preferences and have added to the complexities Turkey is obliged to address. It is easy to be critical of Turkey’s policies, which have at times been confusing and ill judged, and to note that the “zero problems with neighbors” policy rapidly evolved into serious problems with almost every neighbor. However, the region’s deeper failures and the unhelpful interventions by external actors provide a depressingly difficult backdrop for Turkey’s sometimes ill-considered efforts to pursue its own perceived interests. The Arab Spring also raised the question of precisely which “neighbors” Turkey should seek to engage in order to pursue its “zero problems” agenda—the states and governments of the region or their populations? This dilemma first emerged in Egypt and Tunisia, where Ankara quickly switched its support to Muslim Brotherhood (MB) factions in its opposition to autocratic rule in those two countries. In Egypt, the MB came to power in 2012 in the form of Mohamed Morsi. However, Ankara’s relationship with Cairo has yet to recover from Turkey’s condemnation of his overthrow

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a year later in a coup led by General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi.6 Indeed, Turkey’s differences with Egypt have been worsened by disputes over energy exploitation in the eastern Mediterranean, in which Turkey has also aroused the animosity of Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and some Western states.7 As an illustration of Ankara’s pro-Sunni rather than democratizing disposition, in Bahrain it lent its weight to the Saudi-led suppression of a revolt on the part of the country’s Shia majority population against its Sunni minority government. In Libya, Turkey had considerable economic stakes, with Erdoğan having developed a close relationship with Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi. Ankara was initially reluctant to swing behind the West’s military campaign against the regime but eventually accepted the reality of Qaddafi’s demise. However, its continued meddling in Libyan affairs has aroused hostility to and mistrust of Turkey on the part of that country’s leading factions.8 The interception in December 2018 of a ship carrying Turkish weapons seemingly bound for Libya’s Islamist rebels—the latest of a number of such shipments—both drew the wrath of Libya’s internationally recognized elements9 and intensified the wariness toward Turkey of almost all Middle Eastern actors with the exception of Qatar.

Domestic Factors and Erdoğan’s Rise

Alongside these external factors, the transformation and disruption that have characterized Turkey’s domestic political scene in recent years have impacted significantly on the conduct of Turkey’s external policy. The AKP government’s response to its inheritance of a wary secular state machinery was to bypass institutions wherever possible or to penetrate them over time by appointing more compliant officials. Both Erdoğan and Davutoğlu surrounded themselves with a bevy of advisers and fast-tracked officials, which enabled them to conduct policy with relatively minimal input from established foreign and other ministry officials.10 These developments in Turkish domestic politics have led foreign policy to become more de-institutionalized, personalized, and reflective of the personalities and mind-sets of a small number of people, notably Erdoğan himself and, until recently, Davutoğlu. Bureaucratized, considered, and consultative approaches to foreign policy making in Ankara have eroded. For Erdoğan, this inner circle has frequently consisted of business associates and family members, and his foreign as well as domestic dealings have grown increasingly murky and subject to suspicions of corruption. Since Davutoğlu’s removal as foreign minister in 2014, Turkish policymaking toward the Middle East has become increasingly dependent on a small number of handpicked Erdoğan loyalists who pursue his ambitions and protect his interests.11 Particularly in the wake of the July 2016 failed coup attempt, state institutions have been progressively taken over by AKP

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stalwarts, ultra-nationalists, and anti-Western Eurasianists who, for the moment at least, are aligned with Erdoğan not only in their fervent nationalism but also in their hostility to Gülenists, liberals, and indeed anyone deemed overly sympathetic to the West. Over time, Erdoğan also managed to oust or marginalize AKP personnel whom he did not trust or could not control. The more liberal and moderate wing of the AKP has been progressively weakened, intimidated, and excluded, and the party is now molded very much in Erdoğan’s image. Aided by the presidential nature of the constitutional amendments approved in a referendum in April 2017, Erdoğan has become ever more actively involved with all aspects of government policy, including foreign policy. For example, differences over the handling of Turkey’s domestic Kurdish “peace process” were apparently among the factors that led to Davutoğlu’s fall from grace. Erdoğan’s enhanced control over the direction of Turkish foreign policy has augmented the role of Turkish nationalism and even introduced an element of overt revisionism. This tendency has intensified in the wake of his victory in the June 2018 presidential election and his electoral alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). Turkish foreign policy has also come to reflect his sometimes emotional, impulsive, and pugnacious nature and is now characterized by a level of risk taking and aggression that Davutoğlu might have shied away from. Under Erdoğan’s direction, Turkish foreign policy has appeared increasingly unpredictable, confrontational, and prone to dramatic swings of direction.12 An example might be Turkey’s emphatic readiness to take Qatar’s side in its falling out with a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf states, to the extent of establishing a permanent military presence there.13 This has further eroded Ankara’s already fraught relationship with the Saudis, which had worsened as a consequence of Turkey’s support for Muslim Brotherhood elements in the region, notably in Egypt. Both Turkey and Qatar have backed Hamas and some elements in Syria of which the Saudis disapprove, and both are seen as generally pro-MB in the stances they take throughout the region. Furthermore, the readiness to risk a deepening of differences with Washington and the EU over a range of issues—such as Turkey’s proposed purchase of Russian S-400 missiles and more general cultivation of Moscow, the activities of Turkish officials abroad, anti-Western rhetoric, sanctions against Iran, the refugee crisis, and Erdoğan’s support for Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro—all indicate less sensitivity toward the maintenance of good relations with the West. An intensified hostility toward Israel has also been in evidence, with Turkey displaying fierce opposition to the US recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in December 2017.14 These factors need to be taken into account when we try to make sense of the evolution of Turkish foreign policy in the Erdoğan era and its approach to the problems and opportunities that currently confront it.

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The Turkish General Staff (TGS) had long acted as the bulwark of Turkey’s secular order and a factor in its cautious engagement with the politics of the Middle East. The Ergenekon, Balyoz, and related trials against the so-called deep state from 2008 onward culminated in the imprisonment of hundreds of military officers, including former chief of the general staff İlker Başbuğ, and the resignation of hundreds more. 15 By 2013, when the majority of sentences were handed down, the traditionally secular armed forces were emasculated as a major and independent factor in the formulation and implementation of Turkey’s foreign as well as domestic politics, notwithstanding the 2016 annulment of the guilty verdicts. Government intrusion into the internal management of the armed forces, particularly as it related to recruitment and promotion of the officer corps, served to desecularize the military command in the hope that it would become still more compliant toward the AKP government. Paradoxically, this led to an influx of officers with some level of affiliation with the movement of the cleric Fethullah Gülen, whom the government subsequently held responsible for the failed July 15, 2016, coup attempt in Turkey. In its wake, the purges of the military and other institutions, such as the police, the judiciary, government bureaucracies, educational institutions, and the media, have been justified by the alleged need to rid Turkey’s state machinery of the Gülenist “parallel state.” This is despite the fact that Gülenists had been fast-tracked into government positions by the AKP and typically represented the more educated and religiously moderate of the new brand of Islamist bureaucrats.16 However, the purge has extended well beyond them, not least in the military, where hundreds of officers, many of them secular and unlikely to have any connection with the Gülen movement or any involvement in coup plotting, have been recalled from abroad, suspended, sacked, or detained. This has further atrophied the Turkish military, both as a political actor in Turkey’s domestic politics and foreign policy formulation and also as an effective fighting force. In short, Turkish foreign policy throughout the MENA region and beyond has, under AKP governments since 2002, shifted through the gears from an initial caution, to “zero problems with neighbors,” to a more activist, revisionist, and MB-inclined stance, to a personalized and impulsive approach that reflects the personality and power of President Erdoğan. We will now trace the evolution of events in Turkey’s two most troubled immediate neighbors, Iraq and Syria, and Turkey’s response to them to illustrate Turkey’s foreign policy approach toward MENA in finer detail. Ostensibly, Turkey, Iran, and the United States share a commitment to Iraq’s territorial integrity, economic reconstruction, and political stability. How-

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ever, the Shia domination of Iraq’s political scene and the priority afforded to the defeat of IS in Iraq by both the United States and Iran threatened to leave Ankara somewhat marginalized in the struggle over Iraq’s future. Ankara had cultivated Iraq’s Sunni leaders since the US invasion in 2003 and worked hard to encourage Sunnis to participate in Iraqi elections and government. However, Turkish frustrations with the divisive and sectarian policies of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki soon worsened, and in 2011 Ankara granted asylum to Tariq al-Hashemi, a leading Sunni and MB-affiliated politician and former vice president, who had fled Iraq to avoid trial for murder. IraqiTurkish relations deteriorated from then on and took an increasingly sectarian tone.17 With the fall of Mosul to IS in June 2014 and the collapse of the Iraqi army, Ankara’s criticisms of Maliki’s divisive policies and of US support for him appeared to be vindicated. In September 2014 the United States and Iran engineered Maliki’s replacement as Iraqi prime minister by Haider al-Abadi, drawn from the same Shia political party as Maliki. Ankara supported this initiative, although it understandably had only limited faith in the Abadi government’s prospects. Abadi’s government has since fallen, and Iraq continues to suffer fractiousness within the political leadership and unrest throughout much of the country. When IS turned its attention to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) in August 2014, Ankara failed to come to the aid of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). In contrast, Tehran very quickly provided military assistance. Erbil was clearly disappointed with Ankara’s response. Turkey’s absence at that juncture and the IS threat to Iraq more generally enabled Iran both to compete with Turkey for influence with the KRG and to intensify its presence in Iraq more generally. Not only was and is Ankara suspicious of the Iraqi army’s links to Tehran, but it also fears the Iranian-backed Shia militias, known as Hashd al-Shaabi, or Popular Mobilization Units, which went on to play an important role in liberating Mosul from IS control in 2017. That sectarian tensions are far from exhausted in Iraq and Shia dominance there is assured will cause continuing concern in Ankara. Ankara seemed more agitated by the presence of Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) forces in northern Iraq and the access it gave them to their Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat, PYD) allies in Syria than it was by IS advances. Fearing the loss of this part of its southern border to pro-Iranian and PKK forces, and perhaps in order to reassure KRG president Masoud Barzani of Ankara’s commitment to the struggle against IS, Turkey sent a small contingent of troops to Bashiqa, near Mosul, in March 2015. The Bashiqa area is mostly controlled by Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga and claimed by the KRG, although it is outside the KRG’s recognized boundaries. When Ankara increased its presence in Bashiqa in December 2015, Baghdad insisted the move amounted to a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and that the force be withdrawn. Erdoğan’s reaction

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was to declare Iraqi prime minister Haider al-Abadi “below his level” and to tell him to “know his place.” Washington joined the condemnation of Turkey, as did Tehran and Moscow. In fact, Turkey maintains around thirty bases in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, and rhetorically at least Baghdad regards them and the activities associated with them as an affront to Iraqi sovereignty. Turkey’s augmentation of its forces in the KRI was seen by some as a crude attempt to ensure its inclusion in discussions concerning the future of Mosul and Iraq more generally. Ankara criticized Washington for its exclusion of Turkey from the planning to liberate Mosul. It hoped to use its Sunni Arab and Iraqi Kurdish allies to balance Iranian influence as well as keep an eye on the PKK and prepare against a rush of refugees from Mosul toward Turkey’s border. However, the Turkish contingent was not integrated into the US-led effort in northern Iraq and came to be seen as a rogue and unpredictable element of the political and military complexities that surrounded Mosul’s future. Erdoğan’s rhetorical flourishes concerning Turkey’s long-standing dissatisfaction with the post-Ottoman inclusion of Mosul province into British Iraq rather than Turkey added to the anti-Turkish uproar in Baghdad. Ankara had reasonable concerns, but distancing itself from both Baghdad and Washington to the extent that it did was surely a portent of future difficulties. Relations with the KRG offer yet another example of the turmoil in Turkey’s foreign policy in recent years. In 2007 Erdoğan had refused to meet Masoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (Partîya Demokrata Kurdistanê, PDK) and KRG president, referring to him as a “tribal leader.” Ankara held the United States responsible for the emergence of the KRG in 1991 and would not formally deal with Erbil, the KRG capital. The prospect of an independent Kurdistan was a Turkish nightmare, and Turkey’s formal diplomatic relationship with Iraq was channeled exclusively through Baghdad. Yet, by 2010 Turkey was opening a consulate in Erbil and had come to dominate the Iraqi Kurdish economy, and Barzani soon found himself being treated like a head of state in Ankara and referred to by Erdoğan as a “brother.” Leaders in Ankara and Erbil began describing the relationship between them as “strategic.” The KRG’s dynamic approach to the development of its energy resources synergized with Ankara’s energy dependency and its aspiration to develop as an energy “hub.” Encouraged by the arrival of major companies such as ExxonMobil in 2011, Turkey began accepting oil trucked directly from Iraqi Kurdistan in 2012. By early 2014 the KRG was exporting oil via a newly constructed pipeline for export from the Turkish port of Ceyhan in the face of opposition from both Baghdad and Washington.

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Turkey’s rapprochement with the KRG and especially with Barzani’s PDK was spurred by several factors. Burgeoning trade with the KRG, Ankara’s realization that its struggle with the PKK might stand a better chance of success if it could gain Erbil’s acquiescence or support, a shared antipathy for Maliki’s increasingly sectarian tendencies, an unease concerning Iranian influence in Iraq, Davutoğlu’s pursuit of “zero problems” relationships with Turkey’s neighbors, and the discovery of ever-greater reserves of oil and gas within the KRG area all provided impetus. The decline of the Turkish General Staff’s role in Turkish foreign and security policy also served as an enabling factor, as the TGS had long been uneasy about the KRG’s existence and sensitive to Kurdish issues more generally.18 By September 2015 the KRG claimed to be exporting 700,000 barrels per day via the Turkish port. In the longer term, earnings from energy exports could have gone a long way toward financing any eventual independence the KRG might achieve, although the scale of misuse of its oil earnings is staggering. The paradox was that Ankara remained uncomfortable with the prospect of Iraqi Kurdish independence and opposed the expansion of its territory to include Kirkuk and other regions that were under Iraqi Kurdish control. Yet the relationship it forged with Erbil and the role it has played in enabling KRG energy exports helped facilitate Kurdish autonomy from Baghdad and surely stimulated Kurdish aspirations. Barzani’s repeated threats to hold a referendum on the issue was generally greeted with a muted response from Ankara. Given Ankara’s sympathy for Sunni Mosul’s autonomy from Baghdad too, as well as its encouragement of closer relationships between Iraq’s Sunni Arabs and its Kurds, Turkey appeared to be seeking to develop a general northern Iraqi dependence on Turkey as a counter to Iranian influence in the primarily Shia remainder of Iraq. All this was turned on its head by Barzani’s calling of an independence referendum that took place on September 25, 2017, and resulted in a resounding “yes” vote. Erdoğan was so unhappy with what he regarded as Barzani’s betrayal that he threatened the KRG with an economic embargo that could include shutting down the oil pipeline, declared that Turkey’s relations with Iraq—including those relating to energy—would henceforth be conducted exclusively via Baghdad, and entered into security understandings with both Iraq and Iran vis-à-vis Iraqi Kurdistan.19 Ankara again found itself cooperating with its erstwhile adversaries and confronting its former friends, this time in Erbil. Having liberated Mosul without Turkish aid, Iraqi government forces, backed by the Shia militias and Iran, took advantage of Erbil’s isolation and Kurdish divisions and now took back the disputed territories, including oil-rich Kirkuk, from Kurdish control. Although the establishment of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan now looked even less likely, the position of the Kurds and Turkey’s relationship with

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them was profoundly undermined, Shia domination of and Iranian influence in Iraq now seemed greater than ever, and the mutually beneficial ErbilAnkara energy relationship was shaken. The PKK and its Syrian affiliates, however, remain present in northern Iraq and have been the target of hundreds of Turkish bombing raids and artillery attacks. Iraqi Kurds are occasionally killed and maimed by such raids, which in January 2019 provoked an Iraqi Kurdish civilian attack on one of Turkey’s thirty or so bases in the area. Although Erbil sought to quell the outbreak of anger toward Turkey in the hope of restoring the relationship, its unease was palpable, while Baghdad again condemned Turkey for its infringement of Iraqi sovereignty.20 Neither Erbil nor Baghdad now regards Ankara as a reliable and trustworthy partner. The evolution in Turkey’s relations with Syria offers another example of the volatility of Turkish foreign policy. With the two countries at odds over the Cold War, water resources, relations with Israel, and Damascus’s hosting of PKK training camps and PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, Turkey-Syrian relations had long been in deep freeze. However, there was a considerable softening in the wake of the 1998 Adana agreement, which resulted in Öcalan’s expulsion from Syria, his eventual capture, and Syrian withdrawal of support for the PKK. Even so, it took another decade before Syrian leader Bashar alAssad emerged as the centerpiece of Ankara’s new region-friendly “zero problems” foreign policy, much to the annoyance of Washington. Yet Turkey converted almost overnight from being Assad’s most assiduous courtier into his most determined adversary in the wake of his regime’s harsh crackdown against Syria’s “Arab Spring” protesters in 2011.21 Turkey quickly began to work for his overthrow and sponsored the formation in August 2011 of the Syrian National Council (SNC), which was initially hosted in Istanbul. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) was also headquartered in Turkey, where it received training and arms. Turkey joined the Arab League, the European Union, and the United States in imposing sanctions on the Damascus regime. Turkey has proved highly vulnerable to the ongoing conflict in Syria. It has received a substantial flow of refugees, currently numbering over 3 million. Following earlier incidents of cross-border fire from Syria, in which two Turkish civilians were killed, and the shooting down of a Turkish fighter jet in June 2012, Turkey shelled Syrian military positions. The May 2013 bombings in the Turkish town of Reyhanlı on the Syrian border offered ample demonstration of Turkey’s vulnerability to Syria’s turmoil. However, once it became evident that the Assad regime was not going to fall so easily and also that there was little support from Turkey’s NATO and EU allies for direct intervention, Ankara was exposed. Turkey’s Western

Syria

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allies also became more mistrustful than Ankara of the increasingly radicalized nature of much of the opposition to the regime and were also uneasy concerning Ankara’s relationships with jihadi groups that were fighting against it. For example, Turkey had dragged its feet for almost a year before it followed the United States in proscribing Jahbat al-Nusra, the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate. This suspicion has never quite evaporated.22 Initially, Ankara seemed not to have anticipated the Kurdish implications of the struggle in Syria. The PKK-affiliated PYD emerged as a key element and in early 2013 established Rojava, consisting of three geographically discontiguous self-governing Kurdish cantons along Syria’s border with Turkey. This seriously rattled Ankara as it implied the establishment of PKK-controlled havens on its southern border, which could herald similar initiatives in Turkey’s southeast. Turkey believed it was now confronting an existential threat to its territorial integrity. When IS embarked on a siege of the Kurdish border town of Kobane in 2014, the Turkish military looked on impassively as US forces dropped military supplies to the PYD defenders from distant bases due to Ankara’s denial of US access to the NATO base at Incirlik. Turkey also held aloof from an anti-IS global coalition of Arab and Western countries that Washington assembled in September 2014, arguing that the overthrow of the Damascus regime should be the priority. However, in the wake of the alleged IS suicide bombing in the Turkish border town of Suruç on July 20, 2015, Ankara finally committed itself to the US-led fight against IS in Syria and gave the green light to the US attacks against IS targets from Incirlik. Within days of the Suruç attack, Turkish forces retaliated against an IS base in Syria from which cross-border fire had killed a Turkish soldier. Furthermore, Ankara now embarked on successive rounds of detentions of alleged IS activists throughout Turkey. However, in a pattern that has since persisted, most were subsequently released, and the crackdown was in any case overshadowed by that against the PKK and its alleged affiliates, with the breakdown of Turkey’s own “peace process” during the second half of 2015—a development that was closely associated with developments in northern Syria. Turkish security forces resumed a violent campaign of bombardment of PKK targets in Turkey and in northern Iraq, imposed extended curfews on Kurdish towns and cities, and cracked down on Kurdish politicians, civil society, and media outlets.23 The elected leaders of the Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi) and many of its elected mayors were imprisoned. The Turkish state–PKK conflict reached an intensity not seen since the 1990s, and the government declared its determination to defeat the PKK once and for all. Inside Syria, Ankara increasingly focused on obstructing Syrian Kurdish forces from linking their cantons and extending their control westward,

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rather than on Assad’s overthrow, and continued to assist, along with Qatar and other Gulf states, an alliance of jihadi groups. From Ankara’s perspective, the chief advantage of a jihadi-controlled zone was twofold. It would serve to prevent PYD control of the entire border with Syria and might also contribute to the overthrow of the Damascus regime. The United States, however, had tired of its failure to train and equip a viable moderate Syrian force to fight IS and of Ankara’s curmudgeonliness and elected instead to ramp up its support for the significantly more effective Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Force (SDF), formed in October 2015 but very much led by its Kurdish contingent.24 This contributed to a serious downturn in Turkish-US relations. Turkey under the AKP had sought improved ties with Moscow, based on energy considerations, the chemistry between Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin, and Ankara’s growing frustration with the scant progress toward EU accession. Erdoğan had even expressed a preference for the Shanghai Cooperation Council over the EU. However, Russia’s September 2015 augmentation of its military support for the beleaguered Damascus regime put them at odds. With the Turkish shooting down of a Russian jet in November 2015, which Ankara initially refused to apologize for, Turkey’s relations with Russia entered a deep freeze. The Russian retaliation was fierce and included a ferocious bombing campaign against Turkey’s proxy forces in Syria as well as trade and other sanctions against Turkey.25 However, the wider regional Kurdish issue now became even more important as a factor in Turkish foreign policy, given PYD successes in Syria. Following Davutoğlu’s departure from the government, Ankara patched up its relationship with Moscow, which freed Turkey to launch its Operation Euphrates Shield in September 2016. Composed of a small contingent of Turkish forces and a larger number of Syrian rebel fighters, the ostensible target of the campaign was IS, against which there were indeed some successes—for example, the liberation of undefended Jarablus. More tellingly, its capture served to block the SDF path westward. By February 2017 Operation Euphrates Shield had also captured Al-Bab. Ankara had now created a Turkish protectorate where FSA forces could be based and to which refugees could return from Turkey. However, Moscow’s onslaught against opposition forces intensified, and it appeared that, in return for Moscow’s acquiescence to Euphrates Shield, Ankara had now downgraded its support for the opposition and its commitment to the downfall of the Syrian regime. Then, quite abruptly, at the end of March 2017 Ankara announced the end of the operation. It was hard to see what had been achieved beyond obstructing the PYD’s progress.26 Washington’s continued assistance to the PYD, particularly in its lead role in the battle for IS-controlled Raqqa, and the fact that Moscow was now in a position to obstruct any Turkish move inside Syria served to nudge Ankara toward dealing with Russia—notwithstanding Moscow’s crit-

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icism of Turkish cross-border shelling into the Kurdish-controlled canton of Afrin. In September 2017 Turkey participated in the Astana talks between itself, Russia, and Iran. The three nations agreed on the establishment of socalled deconfliction zones in Syria, which took operational form with a Turkish deployment into Idlib province in October. The ostensible rationale was to neutralize jihadi groups in the region, but within a year Ankara was more concerned with forestalling a Russia-backed attack in Idlib, which was now the last true stronghold of Turkey’s FSA allies. It thus agreed to accept responsibility for preventing rebel attacks against government forces located around Idlib’s periphery. In early 2019 this plan fell apart when Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the name now adopted by al-Qaeda in Syria, expelled Turkey’s rebel allies from the province and took control. What now beckoned was a deepening Turkish quagmire in Syria or a betrayal of its erstwhile jihadi allies—or both. In January 2018, Turkey sent forces into Afrin, accompanied by their FSA allies, obliging the PYD to vacate the area.27 Turkey’s allies then proceeded to cleanse the area of Kurds and to “Turkify” it, suggesting a long stay. Moscow acquiesced but, with Damascus, kept the pressure on opposition forces that Ankara had hitherto championed. Afrin soon degenerated into a state of near anarchy, as Ankara’s FSA factions embarked on a binge of looting, kidnapping, torture, killing, smuggling, squabbling, and Islamification and were subjected to a series of PYD bombings and shootings against Turkish targets. This again looked like a Turkish quagmire that could in due course test the patience of Moscow and, even more so, Damascus, which seeks further control over its own territory. The United States had little stake in Afrin as there was no IS presence there, but elsewhere in northern Syria Turkey’s presence risked clashes with PYD and even US forces, notably around Manbij, despite Ankara and Washington’s arriving at some kind of agreement in June 2018 governing force presence in the area.28 By early 2019 Turkish threats and preparations to send forces into Syria east of the Euphrates were mounting, alongside a shocking decision by Donald Trump to terminate the US presence in northern Syria (a policy quickly modified). Were Turkish forces to enter the region in what would be its third military intervention in northern Syria, the Turkish determination to end the PYD’s experiment at self-determination would surely enter a bloody stage and likely spill over into Turkey itself. It would also alienate Washington, whether US forces fully withdrew or not. Yet another quagmire was beckoning, which could in due course intensify the Assad regime’s hostility to the Turkish presence on Syrian soil. Furthermore, Turkey’s future in Syria is now dependent on an understanding with Russia that remains far from assured. Once again, Ankara’s Syrian adventures have amply demonstrated its capacity to arouse unease and even hostility among friends and adversaries alike.

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Ankara’s relationship with almost all participants in the Iraqi and Syrian conflicts had become fragile by early 2019, and quagmires or serious military embarrassments continued to beckon. Its regional behavior had become increasingly driven by its concerns over advances made by the Iraqi, Syrian, and indeed Turkish Kurds rather than by the threats posed by IS, the Iranianinspired Shia advance, or a heightened Russian presence in the region. It is tempting to interpret Ankara’s moves as a shift away from its alignment with the United States, and it is—perhaps terminally so. But it would be too simplistic to argue that Turkey is now locked into a Russian-led camp that includes Damascus, Baghdad, and Tehran. Turkey has behaved in what it sees as its own interests, but in doing so it has drifted toward uncomfortable alignments with countries with which it has many differences and which are not at all its natural allies and away from those that have long been its friends. Since the advent of the Arab Spring and Erdoğan’s tightening grip on Turkish foreign policy, Ankara has flip-flopped in its relationships with Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, most of the Gulf states, Tehran, Tel Aviv, and Erbil. It is no longer trusted by its NATO allies, and its relationships with Moscow, Tehran, Baghdad, and Damascus are transactional, tentative, and fraught. It has inserted forces and conducted military raids into Iraq and Syria and has been suspected—by many Middle Eastern as well as Western governments—of supporting jihadi and MB elements within the region. It is in serious danger of chronic political isolation, while its enmity toward Kurds and its neglect of the jihadi threat could lead to grave challenges to its domestic peace and security. The impulsiveness and rhetorical excess emanating from Ankara have not helped, but nor has the erosion of an institutionalized and considered approach to foreign policy. Turkey—or perhaps, rather, its key foreign policy decisionmakers—has been driven by a range of conflicting impulses, including neo-Ottomanism, activism, nationalism, Sunni Islamism, pro-MB sentiment, anti-Westernism, and commercial considerations. This, combined with the churning of events in its neighborhood and an insensitivity toward the concerns of others, has produced inconsistencies, about-turns, the alienation of friends, a propensity toward risk, and unpredictability. By mid-2018, Turkey’s only regional friendship was with Qatar, and this came at the expense of its relationships with other Gulf states and Egypt. To some, Turkey had begun to appear as a rogue state. Only a return to a more modest foreign policy, based on an awareness of Turkey’s own limits, and a degree of bureaucratic process and a readiness to consult with others is likely to restore Turkey’s reputation and faith in its reliability. For this to happen, Turkey’s domestic politics will have to dramatically shift its direction of travel, away from growing autocracy and one-man rule and toward a greater inclusivity and sharing of power and authority. In the light of Erdoğan’s June 2018 electoral victory

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and Turkey’s more presidential constitution, this sort of transformation does not appear to be on the immediate horizon.

Notes

1. Kirişci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy,” pp. 29–57. 2. For explanation and critiques, see Aras, “The Davutoğlu Era,” pp. 127–142; Grigoriadis, “The Davutoğlu Doctrine and Turkish Foreign Policy”; Murinson, “The Strategic Depth Doctrine,” pp. 945–964; Özkan, “Turkey, Davutoglu and the Idea of Pan-Islamism,” pp. 119–140. 3. Park, “Turkey’s Isolated Stance,” pp. 581–600. 4. Jung, “Turkey and the Arab World,” pp. 1–17. 5. Fisk, Cockburn, and Sengupta, Arab Spring Then and Now. 6. Baban and Nawara, “The Lost Promise.” 7. Pamir, “Energy and Geopolitics.” 8. Gurbuz, “Turkey’s Policy Towards a Fractured Libya”; Schanzer, “Turkey’s Secret Proxy War.” 9. Middle East Eye, “Turkey and Libya to Open Joint Probe.” 10. Tremblay, “The (De-)evolution of Turkey’s Foreign Ministry.” 11. Cagaptay, The New Sultan; George, “A Tyranny”; White, “Spindle Autocracy,” pp. 23–37. 12. Hamargren, “Authoritarian at Home.” 13. Cochrane, “Secret Details.” 14. Kanat and Hannon, “Turkish-Israel Relations,” pp. 64–86. 15. See the work of Gareth Jenkins and other authors on this topic at www .turkeyanalyst.org. 16. Stein, “Take to the Streets.” 17. Yegin and Ozertem, “Turkey-Iraq Relations.” 18. Park, “Turkey-Kurdish Regional Government Relations”; Romano, “Iraqi Kurdistan and Turkey.” 19. Park et al., “On the Independence Referendum,” pp. 199–217; Uyanik, “Turkey and the KRG.” 20. Url, “Iraq Condemns Turkey’s Deadly Intervention.” 21. For insights into Turkey’s evolving policy toward the Syrian crisis, see Heller, “Turkey’s ‘Turkey First’ Syria Policy”; Stein, “Turkey’s Role”; Stein, “Turkey’s Evolving Syria Strategy”; Stein, “The Origins of Turkey’s Buffer Zone.” 22. For allegations, suspicions, and evidence, see Bozkurt, “ISIS Suspects Released”; Bozkurt, “Turkish Government Suspended Monitoring”; Özkan, “Untangling”; Phillips, “Research Paper”; Tahiroglu and Schanzer, “Islamic State Networks”; Zaman, “For Turkey”; Bipartisan Policy Center, “Turkey vs ISIS and PKK.” 23. International Crisis Group, “A Sisyphean Task?” 24. Lund, “Syria’s Kurds.” 25. See Chapter 13 by Van Bladel in this volume. 26. Candar, “Operation Euphrates Shield.” 27. Kasapoğlu and Ülgen, “Operation Olive Branch.” 28. Stein, “What’s the Matter in Manbij?”

13 Russian-Turkish Relations at a Volatile Time Joris Van Bladel

volatile and dangerous, and Turkey’s relations with key powers have become strained. The bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey epitomize these sobering realities. That these relations have become unpredictable and even extreme became thoroughly clear on November 24, 2015, when the Turkish air force shot down a Russian tactical bomber near the Turkish-Syrian border. Russian president Vladimir Putin quickly expressed his wrath with his now infamous “stab in the back” metaphor,1 while Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan responded by pompously warning the Kremlin “not to play with fire.” Thus, relations between Ankara and Moscow abruptly turned confrontational in late 2015, despite a decade-long effort to build a strategic partnership.2 Later, in the summer of 2016, the relationship between these Eurasian powers took yet another surprising turn. Erdoğan sent an apologetic letter to Moscow on June 27, after which Putin and Erdoğan met three times in three months, followed by a formal restoration of cooperation in the fields of trade and defense in October.3 Many observers expressed doubts about the sustainability of this new and unanticipated diplomatic initiative, which was said to be motivated by necessity rather than purely voluntary choice.4 Nevertheless, Russian-Turkish cooperation gained momentum in the following years when Ankara and Moscow, in cooperation with Tehran, worked together to achieve critical military and diplomatic successes in the Syrian conflict. With these achievements, the “Sultan” and the “Tsar” not only sidelined the Western world and the regional Sunni powers in Syria but also displayed the possibly epoch-changing effects of their renewed cooperation in the region. When Turkey publicly confirmed in

In the past decade, the region around Turkey has grown more

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March 2019 the purchase of an S-400 missile defense system from Moscow, Ankara raised even more questions about its relationship with Washington and Brussels. Looking at these recent events, two central issues become apparent. First, why has the relationship between Russia and Turkey become so turbulent? Second, how have certain key actors influenced and shaped bilateral relations between these two countries? Before exploring possible answers, it is helpful to first situate Russo-Turkish relations within their historic context. Today’s situation is not especially strange, let alone unique; ties between Russia and Turkey have long proven volatile. We can better understand this relation in light of the “Eastern Question,” a nineteenth-century notion that refers to a period of strategic rivalry among the great European powers accompanying the decline of the Ottoman Empire.5 In the context of this rivalry, the Russian and Ottoman Empires conducted savage wars in alternation with brief periods of fragile collaboration. The current developments in Russo-Turkish relations appear to be following the same dynamic: the rise and fall of Turkey against a broader background of great power rivalry. Beyond the obvious differences, the relationship between Ankara and Moscow is thus a result of another “clash in the South-Eastern lands of Europe.”6 After reviewing the historical implications of the Eastern Question, this chapter focuses on and compares internal sociopolitical developments in both Russia and Turkey, which we consider to be “nostalgic” empires. Finally, it briefly touches on the strategic implications of the renewed Eurasian rapprochement in the 2016–2019 period. What are the implications of close Russo-Turkish collaboration in the field of energy and weapons procurement and their intense coordination regarding policies in Syria? Are we seeing the emerging contours of a sustainable Russo-Turkish axis, or is the relationship so unstable that we should consider Turkey a swing state between Eurasia and the West? The world seems to be repeatedly confronted, in one way or another, with some kind of Eastern Question, although it is posed in different ways, depending on the specific era, the perspective adopted, or the problem targeted. With respect to the contemporary era of globalization, for instance, with its great eastward shifts in global power, the Eastern Question relates to challenges posed by the rise of China and the corresponding reactions of major powers such as the United States, India, and Russia.7 But other observers see the Eastern Question as a competition between Russia and the West, a rivalry lately renewed and given a new dimension by Vladimir Putin’s arrival in the Kremlin in 2000.8

The Eastern Question Redux

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In strictly historical terms, however, the Eastern Question first arose in the nineteenth century and concerned the competition between Europe’s major powers on the southeastern periphery of the continent.9 This diplomatic, military, and religiously inspired struggle between the European powers resulted from the protracted decline of the Ottoman Empire. Russo-Turkish relations thus originated within a context of struggle for influence over a vast area stretching from the Balkans through the Black Sea and the Caucasus toward Central Asia. As might be expected from two struggling empires, RussoTurkish relations were regularly marked by suspicion and hostility.10 Our question is this: To what extent, beyond obvious differences, are these same forces at work once again on Europe’s southeastern periphery? What can we learn by viewing Russo-Turkish relations against their traditional background? Are we, for instance, again dealing with Turkey as “a sick man,” as Tsar Nicolas I apparently called the Ottoman Empire in 1853?11 At the beginning of this century at least, there seemed to be little basis for such a strong statement; however, contrary to appearances, the reality that unfolded would prove quite different. Euphoria on the Bosporus When the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) rose to power under Erdoğan’s leadership in 2002, there were several signs that Turkey was moving in a positive direction. The country was experiencing a period of exceptional economic prosperity, political stability, and renewed hope for the future. For instance, between 2002 and 2006, the Turkish economy grew by 6 percent per capita annually, driven by structural changes, productivity growth, and a broadening base of economic activity in geographical and social terms.12 In parallel, Ankara became more self-confident in the international arena. Turkey saw itself as developing into a regional power; it was sometimes referred to as a “rising middle power.”13 This confidence was clear in the writings of Ahmet Davutoğlu, a foreign policy adviser to Erdoğan who was appointed minister of foreign affairs (2009–2014) and then prime minister (2014–2016). With the publication of his influential book Strategic Depth in 2001, he became the architect of Turkey’s foreign affairs.14 The Davutoğlu Doctrine may be summarized as follows: • Turkey’s history and geopolitical position give it strategic depth and a unique role in the region. The Ottoman past, the Turkish identity, and the Muslim religion all contribute to this strategic depth. • In geopolitical terms, Turkey should shed its status as a “wing country” on the perimeter of the European continent, aspiring instead to become an autonomous, assertive, and influential powerhouse. Under Davutoğlu, Turkey sought to play a “stabilizing role” in the region. In concrete terms, Turkey began to focus its diplomatic efforts on the

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Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, seeking to project its influence in the Black Sea, the eastern Mediterranean, and the Caspian Sea.15 With this geopolitical reorientation, Ankara hoped to shed Western tutelage and dominance and cease being a peripheral buffer state for the West. Instead, the Turkish aim was to serve as an essential bridge between Europe, northern Africa, and Central Asia. • The primary goal of the doctrine was to reduce Turkey’s historic tensions with its neighbors. A “zero problems with neighbors” policy was undertaken, the key to which was soft power. 16 Dialogue, confidence-building measures, and cooperation in both the cultural and economic spheres became the basic tools of Turkey’s foreign policy. Finally, Ankara sought to position itself as a mediator in this conflict-riven region.17

For the first decade of AKP rule (2002–2012), the Turkish authorities succeeded quite well in applying this doctrine. In contrast with the 1990s, tensions with neighboring countries were significantly reduced. A state of rapprochement was attained with Greece, Cyprus, Syria, and even Armenia. Within this context, relations with the Russian Federation also improved dramatically.18 After the Cold War, bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey had been marked by an antagonism that was especially evident in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans—namely, in all areas in which the power vacuum after the fall of the Soviet Union led both countries to reassert what they regarded as their traditional privileged status.19 In 2002, however, Turkey made its first major attempts to cooperate with Russia by forging new economic and trade relations. In 2008, bilateral trade reached a record high (US$37.9 billion); though impressive, this figure was still far from the target of US$100 billion.20 The energy, construction, and tourism sectors benefited the most from these trade connections. Notably, at the peak of Russo-Turkish cooperation, Turkey imported two-thirds of its natural gas from Russia. Since some Turkish leaders aspired to make Turkey a new regional energy hub, Russia stood to gain a great deal by this arrangement.21 Under the circumstances, Ankara could rely on favorable prices in its energy deals with Russia. All these promising economic and trade relations contributed to a political rapprochement between the two states and their leadership. This political honeymoon period also included Putin’s visit to Turkey in early December 2004, which was reciprocated by Erdoğan’s trip to Moscow less than a month later. The two leaders seemed to have a personal bond based on certain shared convictions, including a common aversion to the unipolar world order led by the United States.22 Indeed, both Putin and Erdoğan shared a growing frustration with Brussels and Washington. Turkey even

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considered joining the Chinese- and Russian-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a disparate group designed to balance and challenge Western influence. In the summer of 2015, Ankara considered purchasing various Russian weapons systems.23 Surprisingly, it was during this cooperative period, with its positive signs, successful developments, and collaboration, that future conflicts were already taking root. Disaster in Syria No matter how smooth the cooperation between Moscow and Turkey appeared on the surface, several underlying issues ultimately undermined Russo-Turkish ties. These began appearing in 2011, when the Arab Spring unsettled the entire Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and again in 2012, when Turkey took a position on the Syrian civil war that Moscow found unacceptable.24 At the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011, Turkey adopted a largely neutral stance, seemingly to demonstrate its moral outlook and diplomatic influence in the region. In line with the Davutoğlu Doctrine, Turkish leaders convinced the United States and other involved parties to accept Turkey as a mediator in Syria’s civil war. Erdoğan, who called Bashar al-Assad his “brother,” hoped to take advantage of his personal relationship with the embattled Syrian leader. Yet, when Erdoğan proved to carry very little weight with the Syrian authorities in reality, Turkey responded by radically changing its position in the conflict.25 From August 2011 and especially from June 2012 onward—when Syria shot down a Turkish jet above the eastern Mediterranean26—Turkey pursued three main goals in Syria: (1) preventing the Kurdish minority there from gaining autonomy in the northern part of the country; (2) keeping radical Islam under control; and (3) installing a new government in Damascus favorable to Ankara that would ensure Turkey’s influence in the country. In concrete terms, this meant getting Bashar al-Assad to leave the political scene. When Turkey, in concert with its Western allies, started to lobby for military intervention in Syria, Moscow grew increasingly nervous, since that effort clashed with the Kremlin’s commitment to Assad. This entire dynamic became clear at the end of September 2015, when, after four years of civil war, the Assad regime found itself on the brink of collapse. Assad’s political agony alarmed the Kremlin. In response, on September 30, Russian air forces, supported by two hundred to five hundred Russian naval infantry and an unknown number of military advisers and special forces, launched a limited campaign in Syria.27 The Syrian authorities confirmed Russia’s claims that they had requested aid, allowing Moscow to frame its military intervention as an operation against “international terrorism” (i.e., the Syrian opposition).28 In actuality, Russia’s military actions in the first weeks after its involvement were mainly targeted against the moderate opposition to Assad that was supported by Turkey.

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Such actions revealed that Moscow’s primary objective in Syria was to keep Assad’s regime in place.29 With this bold move, Russia prevented Turkey, with the support of its Western allies, from instituting a no-fly zone in northern Syria. Rumors about such a Turkish intervention had already begun circulating in the summer of 2015; by September they were growing steadily stronger.30 Moscow’s concern about a potential Turkish and Western effort to install a no-fly zone over Syria certainly influenced Russia’s decision to intervene militarily in the Middle East, but it was not the sole motivator. Broader geopolitical and security considerations were involved. For instance, by intervening in Syria, Moscow seized the opportunity to remedy its absence from the region since the end of the Cold War, an opportunity facilitated by the West’s strategic miscalculations in the Middle East and its subsequent retreat from it. In other words, with its calculated anti-Western move, Moscow showed the world, particularly the United States, that it had reemerged as a global power, both willing and able to project its military capacity wherever necessary. In addition to this geopolitical motivation, Russia was concerned about the Islamist threat. Given Russia’s own experience with Islamic extremism both inside and outside its borders and the estimated presence of approximately 2,000 Russian-born and up to 7,000 Russian-speaking Islamic State (IS) fighters in Syria, its intervention was also a preemptive move against the Islamist threat.31 Finally, the intervention in Syria has also had some practical consequences. By engaging directly on Syrian soil, Moscow could ensure its continued access to the naval facilities in Tartus, to the Khmeimim Air Base in the city of Latakia, and to strategically important signals intelligence posts in the country. As a side effect of its involvement in Syria, the Russian Ministry of Defense and the defense industry could use the Syrian battlefield as a testing ground and as an opportunity to display Russian weapons systems in action.32 Russia’s projection of its status and power in Syria came at a political cost. Given that Russia and Turkey both saw themselves as having a unique, privileged status in Syria, Russia’s intervention there brought the previously steady improvement in Russo-Turkish relations to an abrupt halt. On November 24, 2015, Turkish forces shot down a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 bomber in Hatay, near the Turkish-Syrian border. Russia refrained from military retaliation against Turkey; it demonstrated its power by other means, with economic sanctions and targeted strategic actions. In the economic sphere, Russia banned the import of Turkish vegetables, poultry, and salt and barred Russians from buying charter holidays to Turkey. Furthermore, it prohibited Turkish construction firms from taking on new projects in Russia and halted the construction of TurkStream, a gas transportation project that connected Russian gas reserves with Turkey’s

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gas transportation network. In the sphere of security policy and defense, Russia turned to an old Soviet client, the Kurds, reestablishing relations with Kurdish minorities in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey itself.33 Russia also utilized its newly unfettered access to the Black Sea to bolster its forces in the region, which clearly intimidated Turkey. For instance, Russia modernized its naval infrastructure on the Crimean Peninsula and in Novorossiysk, and the Black Sea Fleet received two additional Kilo-class attack submarines and two frigates in 2016.34 Russia also installed advanced air defense systems on the Crimean Peninsula and in Syria and Armenia.35 These military actions resulted in Erdoğan’s nervously warning his NATO allies that the Black Sea was becoming a “Russian lake.”36 Russia’s actions played upon Turkey’s long-standing fear of being encircled. With Russo-Turkish relations turning hostile in November 2015, an extraordinary chapter in Turkey’s foreign policy had come to an end. Indeed, the laudable zero-problems policy prescribed by the Davutoğlu Doctrine had been entirely reversed by early 2016. Erdoğan’s harsh antiAssad stance in the Syrian conflict not only cost him a favorable relationship with loyal allies of Syria such as Russia and Iran but also complicated Turkey’s trade, ethnic, and security relations with other neighboring countries, including Armenia and Iraq. These developments in turn had an impact on Turkey’s domestic security situation, including an increased terrorist threat. By the spring of 2016, there was nothing left of the euphoria of the first decade of the 2000s and its spectacular diplomatic successes, except a few nostalgic memories.37 The symbolic end came when, on May 24, 2016, Ahmet Davutoğlu resigned as prime minister of Turkey and as leader of the AKP. Clearly, the party had to change direction quickly if it wished to rescue what remained of a failed foreign policy. A Sudden Leap in the Dark Very soon after Ahmet Davutoğlu left office, certain momentous decisions were made in Turkey’s foreign policy circles. Ankara decided to dramatically alter its confrontational stance toward Russia. Apparently, key military officers and influential businessmen were involved in this decision,38 so both security and economic motives seem to have been important. On June 27, 2016, Erdoğan wrote a letter to Putin that included his condolences to the family of Oleg Peshkov, the Su-24 pilot killed over Syria. He conveyed his regret for the incident and expressed his desire to reestablish an “axis of friendship.” Significantly, Russia, facing Western economic pressure due to the Ukraine crisis, was quick to respond to this face-saving step, and intensive diplomatic activity soon took place between the two countries. In the months following, Erdoğan and Putin met on the sidelines of international gatherings in St. Petersburg (August 9), Hangzhou (September 24), and Istanbul (October 10). The economic sanctions and travel

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limitations were gradually lifted, and strong economic ties, especially in the energy industry, were reestablished over time. During their Istanbul discussions, for instance, the two leaders decided to continue the construction of the TurkStream gas pipeline across the Black Sea. In the shadow of these public announcements, Turkey and Russia were also engaged in an intense dialogue on security issues. This became public on August 25, 2016, when Turkey and Syrian rebel groups started Operation Euphrates Shield, a military intervention in northern Syria against IS. Russia’s tacit authorization of this military operation on Syrian soil stood in sharp contrast to Moscow’s reactions to Turkey’s plans to intervene in Syria in the summer of 2015. Moreover, major military and diplomatic collaboration took place in late December 2016, further illustrating the growing cooperation between Turkey and Russia. For example, Russia conducted targeted air raids in support of Turkey in the Battle of Al-Bab, a crucial target in Turkey’s military campaign against IS and Kurdish forces in northern Syria. Soon afterward, Turkey, Russia, and Iran proposed an alternative peace plan for Syria in Moscow on December 20, 2016. The Moscow Declaration envisaged a nationwide cease-fire in Syria, peace talks in Kazakhstan, and the creation of safe zones across Syria. Further evidence of this renewed cooperation came soon enough when Moscow chose to treat the murder of Russian ambassador Andrei Karlov in Ankara on December 20, 2016, as the deed of a radicalized individual rather than an act of war perpetrated by an untrustworthy strategic partner. Moreover, when Russian bombers accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers near Al-Bab on February 9, 2017, both presidents agreed to intensify the exchange of information between the two countries; in doing so, they avoided a potentially dangerous confrontation. The contrast with the reaction to the earlier downing of Russia’s plane could not have been greater. Further proof of the Russo-Turkish rapprochement was not long in coming. On March 10, 2017, Ankara and Moscow revitalized the Russian-Turkish Cooperation Council, leading to the signing of several cooperation agreements in the fields of the economy, trade, and diplomacy. By the summer of 2017, the long-circulating rumors of Turkey’s intended purchase of Russia’s S-400 surface-to-air missile system had grown louder, which was all the more challenging to the West in light of the deteriorating relations between Ankara, Brussels, and Washington. On September 12, 2017, Erdoğan finally announced the Russian missile deal, which the New York Times cited as “the clearest sign of his pivot toward Russia and away from NATO and the West.”39 Predictably, this evoked nervous reactions and bitter comments in Washington and Brussels.40 A significant marker of this renewed cooperation was Putin’s immediate support for Erdoğan during the July 15, 2016, coup attempt in Turkey. Erdoğan explicitly expressed his appreciation for the prompt Russian support during his first postcoup trip abroad when he met Putin in St.

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Petersburg on August 9, 2016. During this meeting, which was also their first personal encounter after the Su-24 incident, the leaders expressed their intention to restore their relationship to its precrisis level. This rapprochement stood in sharp contrast with Turkish-Western relations. Western reactions to the coup were strikingly hesitant and cautious, much to the deep frustration and bafflement of the Turkish leadership. Although Turkish ties with the EU had already been stressed by the immigration crisis and Turkey’s democratic deficit, Erdoğan’s frustration with the United States risked causing an even deeper fracture within the NATO alliance.41 In contrast, by mid-2017, cooperation between Ankara and Moscow had grown both in intensity and in scope. This is not to say that the relationship between Russia and Turkey is now perfectly smooth or that no critical issues remain between these two Eurasian powers. Despite public announcements of good neighborly relations and the enormous trade potential between the two countries, Moscow scaled down its economic and diplomatic sanctions against Turkey rather slowly. For instance, it was only on September 7, 2017, that the Russian minister of agriculture, Alexander Tkachev, announced the end of the ban on Turkish tomatoes.42 Surprisingly, on March 20, 2017, Ankara imposed restrictions on Russia’s grain imports; it placed limitations on the ferry services between Turkey and the Crimean Peninsula that same month. On October 12, 2017, Turkey decided to close its harbors to ships coming from Crimea. With these actions, Turkey complied with the Western-imposed Crimea Blockade, a position Erdoğan signaled during his official visit to Kiev on October 9, 2017. On that same trip, Erdoğan publicly restated his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, said that he would not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and stressed that he was closely following the fate of the Turkish-speaking Crimean Tatars on the peninsula.43 Obviously, these public declarations touched a nerve in Moscow. In short, despite the remarkable and unexpected rapprochement in Russo-Turkish relations, their underlying relationship remains sensitive and fragile.44 While the new relations between Russia and Turkey have been primarily influenced by the Syrian conflict, the context of their diplomatic and military competition is, as described above, far broader. We can view this presentday competition as a renewed Eastern Question because the current lines of confrontation are in the Levant and the major Western powers are involved. In this section, we explain the behavior of both Russia and Turkey by taking account of their histories in the Levant. Turkey and Russia appear to value safeguarding and improving their geopolitical status more than the economic benefits that would result from

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their cooperation. That is, both countries prioritize their national security interests and international positions above economic prosperity and social welfare. This is typical of “nostalgic imperial powers,” a psychopolitical term used to describe states that justify their present conduct based on their former imperial status irrespective of how much their current condition falls short of their glorious pasts.45 Both Russia and Turkey are seeking greater international status without necessarily having the required underlying foundation of being entirely modern. The symptoms of nostalgic imperialism present themselves in many areas. In the international sphere, afflicted states tend to execute tactical maneuvers without a strategic plan, demonstrate functional strength without having the required reserves, and be represented by influential, charismatic leaders who govern weak states. As a result, they carry out risky and expensive military operations while their national economies are in crisis, nourish and maintain the illusion of national unity and political stability despite the obvious existence of social discontent and even potential revolt, and imagine themselves as besieged while they provoke conflict in the near abroad. The ambiguous conduct of these states serves to cover up their fundamentally paradoxical condition. The past glory of such states, veiled in ceremony and mythology, is at odds with their present structural weakness. This is why their actions remain a source of permanent surprise; indeed, they may be a sign of imminent collapse.46 This puzzling structural weakness or unfinished modernization has many far-reaching consequences. For instance, to manage and control the political effects of the paradox, the leaders of these states rely on a strategy of dominance and manipulation, as is evinced by authoritarian tendencies in both Russia and Turkey, their reliance on nationalistic narratives, their spinning of webs of conspiracy theories to shirk their responsibility, and their relentless manipulation of reality. In both Russia and Turkey, we observe an increasing tendency toward societal surveillance and control, a glorification of state leaders and their parties, and an Orwellian use of euphemism, doublethink, and newspeak to go with the rewriting of history. One reason why both Russia and Turkey thought they could play a new and independent geopolitical role is that their respective leaders brought about substantial economic success in their first five years in power. These performances improved their countries’ social welfare and political stability. It was upon this basis that their leaders could consolidate and capitalize on their power. Both Turkey and Russia enjoyed a period of rapid growth and stellar economic performance between 2002 and 2008. The reasons for these successes are multiple, combining a bit of luck with sensible decisionmaking. Russia, for instance, was able to profit from historically high oil prices, while Turkey followed a rational economic policy; both countries were able to ride a wave of worldwide economic

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expansion.47 However, the 2008–2009 financial crisis brought this period of rapid growth to an abrupt end. Russia underwent a profound economic crisis of its own in 2014–2015, due partly to economic setbacks imposed from without and partly to internal factors such as economic mismanagement, foreign and domestic political adventures, and increased political and societal instability.48 In Turkey, the economy began contracting in 2016 for the first time since mid-2009. The manufacturing industry (the backbone of the Turkish economy) and the construction, agricultural, and services sectors all contracted while the demand side of the economy slowed and Turkey’s currency depreciated.49 Nevertheless, both political leaders still appeared to profit from their economic achievements of 2002 to 2008, suggesting that they had accumulated significant political capital during that short time frame. Both, for instance, boast impressive approval ratings that remain, despite the odd fluctuation, quite stable. Between 2000 and 2016, Putin’s approval rate ranged between 60 and 90 percent.50 Erdoğan’s approval rates are slightly more erratic, moving between 39 and 70 percent over his years in office. Significantly, Putin’s approval rates spiked when he launched military campaigns abroad (Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014, Syria in 2015), and Erdoğan’s popularity soared just after the attempted coup, rising to 68 percent. It is fair to say that both leaders cast themselves as protectors of the nation, a role that is rich with symbolic connotations befitting a transformative leader of historic dimensions. Putin, for instance, is often compared with Peter the Great, while Erdoğan is sometimes referred to as Büyük Usta (Great Master).51 In their respective societies, Putin and Erdoğan are both viewed as strong, charismatic leaders who can overcome enormous internal problems and defeat external enemies—real or imagined—who threaten the existence of the state. Both are shrewd politicians who know how to arouse societal sentiments and how to pick and survive political fights. At the same time, they have also proven to be risk takers who do not shy away from taking bold, sweeping decisions. One of Putin’s rules of thumb, for example, is “If a fight is inevitable, go ahead and hit first.” 52 Erdoğan, for his part, has been accused of being increasingly impulsive and emotional in his decisionmaking.53 Both leaders have an erratic and bold streak in their characters that manifests itself in both their political leadership and their foreign policy. These leaders’ personalities contribute to the status-driven and unpredictable nature of the relationship between Turkey and Russia. The shadow of “nostalgic imperia” is long and elusive. Indeed, the economic and demographic foundations of both Russia and Turkey do not guarantee the stability of the state. Yet manipulation, seduction, and coercion, the three methods skillfully used by both regimes to mobilize and control their respective populations, make their power effective. The reelection of both leaders in 2018, Putin on March 18 and Erdoğan on July 14,

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shows the tenacity of both regimes. However, authoritarianism embedded in a conservative and nationalistic discourse makes the political situation and the decisions of its leaders less predictable. The ultimate goal of this type of regime is the survival of its leaders at all costs. And thus, what if both Russia and Turkey consider it in their interest to forge an alliance in order to secure their survival, both domestically and internationally? Or what if both regimes experience the pressure of Brussels and Washington— real or imaged—in such a way that they see their alliance as the ultimate strategy to face the West? In this case, the metaphorical “bang” could precede the comforting “whimper.” We have seen that three main factors influence the bilateral relations between Russia and Turkey. First, each nation operates on the principle that it is or should be considered a great power. Second, both share a mounting frustration with the West, each according to its own logic. 54 Finally, both Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdoğan are charismatic leaders of weak states who hold fast to their positions of power in the name of stability. This is a complex, sometimes conflicting combination of factors that unquestionably leads to a fragile and unstable relationship between the two countries. If Russia’s and Turkey’s frustrations with the West are likely to bring the two Eurasian states closer to each other, their individual histories, each referring to an imperial past, nevertheless contain many sources of intrinsic conflict. Given this situation, the West faces a difficult political dilemma. Not only does the West remain an essential factor in the relationship between these two Eurasian powers, but also the uncertainty and unpredictability surrounding a potentially hostile strategic axis on the periphery of the Western world create an important strategic problem for both Washington and Brussels. In this context, the West is confronted with two significant questions. The first concerns the sustainability of the Russo-Turkish relationship: Might either Turkey or Russia attain its dream of renewed great power status before collapsing from internal pressures? On a related note, how long might the new rapprochement between the two countries continue before it takes another spectacular U-turn? The second question is that of strategic adjustment: What are the implications of relatively stable and long-term cooperation between Turkey and Russia for the strategic situation of Europe and the transatlantic world? The answers to these questions are impossible to know with any certainty and will have far-reaching implications. Yet three basic principles should be borne in mind as we attempt to address them. First, the roots of Russia’s and Turkey’s conduct are guided by the West’s posture toward them; in this sense, Russia’s and Turkey’s faith is deeply rooted in Europe,

Conclusion

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whatever one may think about their identity. Second, for both Russia and Turkey, the twenty-first century is an extension of the nineteenth century. Finally, Russia and Turkey paradoxically draw strength from their weakness. Therefore, restraint and critical thinking remain crucial in how we deal with emerging new alliances in southeastern Europe, a region where mistakes carry a high cost.

Notes

I am grateful to Ronald H. Linden, Gürkan Çelik, Sharon Joyce, and an anonymous reviewer for thoroughly reading and commenting on this chapter. 1. Other Russian reactions demonstrated the same bewilderment. For instance, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev viewed the Turkish action as a “casus belli,” while other voices inside the Russian establishment spoke of “the hypothetical World War III acquiring real contours.” Zygar, All the Kremlin’s Men, p. 338. 2. Alaranta, “Turkey’s New Russian Policy,” pp. 3–5. 3. The rapprochement between Russia and Turkey in the field of security and defense has been viewed warily by the West. Several warnings have been issued concerning the far-reaching repercussions of Russia’s penetration into Turkish military communications. See, e.g., Blank, “Erdogan: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Russian Encirclement.” 4. Chudziak, Kardas, and Rodkiewicz, “Turkey-Russia”; Idiz, “Can Turkey Really Turn to Russia.” 5. Frary and Kozelsky, Russia-Ottoman Borderlands. 6. Marriott, The Eastern Question, p. 1. 7. Rachman, Easternisation. 8. Hamilton and Meister, The Eastern Question. 9. Marriott, The Eastern Question, p. 1. 10. Reynolds, Shattering Empires; Bechev, Rival Power, pp. 141–144. 11. Spector, The Soviet Union and the Muslim World, p. 7; Figes, Crimea, p. 105. 12. Acemoglu and Ucer, “The Ups and Downs of Turkish Growth,” pp. 1–4. 13. Davutoğlu, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy Vision,” pp. 77–96; Dal, “On Turkey’s Trail,” pp. 107–136. 14. Grigoriadis, “The Davutoğlu Doctrine and Turkish Foreign Policy”; Evin et al., Getting to Zero; Economist, “The Davutoglu Effect.” 15. Kirişci, “The Transformation of Turkish Foreign Policy,” pp. 29–57. 16. Kalın, “Soft Power and Public Diplomacy in Turkey,” pp. 5–23; Wilson, “Hard Power, Soft Power, Smart Power,” pp. 110–124. 17. Kinzer, Crescent and Star, pp. 213–228; Fuller, Turkey and the Arab Spring, pp. 126–146, 205–207; Sulik, Mediation Capacity of Turkey. 18. Bagci, “Strategic Depth in Syria.” 19. Danilov, “Some Features of Russian-Turkish Relations”; Aktürk, “TurkishRussian Relations After the Cold War,” pp. 337–364; Ekinci, “Russia-Turkey Relations,” pp. 151–172. 20. Masumova, “The Current State of Trade.” 21. Winrow, “Realization of Turkey’s Energy Aspirations.” 22. Devlet, “When Russian Eurasianism Meets Turkey’s Eurasia”; Flanagan, “The Turkey-Russia-Iran Nexus,” pp. 163–178; Usul, “Turkey Between Russia and the West.” 23. Keck, “NATO Beware.” 24. Stein, “Turkey’s New Foreign Policy,” pp. 34–87. 25. Fuller, Turkey and the Arab Spring. 26. Guardian, “Turkey Goes to NATO.”

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27. Russia’s military engagement and the complexity of the operation increased over the next year in terms of logistics, applied weapons systems, and command-and-control procedures. At the high point of its engagement, Russia had approximately 10,000 people on the ground, including 5,000 personnel at Hmeimim Air Base, 2,500 Wagner Group mercenaries, and 1,000 North Caucasian military police. However, Russia has assiduously kept its involvement to a bare minimum in order to avoid the danger of mission creep. See Kofman, “The Russian Quagmire in Syria”; Galeotti, “Not-So-Soft Power.” 28. Reuter, “Why Assad Has Turned to Moscow.” 29. Birnbaum, “The Secret Pact Between Russia and Syria.” 30. Krespin, “Russian Intervention.” 31. Europol, “Northern Caucasian Fighters in Syria”; Fitzpatrick, “How Many Russians Are Fighting for IS?” 32. MacFarquhar, “Questions Linger over Russia’s Endgame in Syria”; Luhn, “Russia’s Campaign in Syria.” 33. Tol, “Why Is Turkey Silent.” 34. Delanoë, “La stratégie maritime russe,” p. 38. 35. Weinberger, “Russian Anti-access and Area Denial (A2AD) Range.” 36. Kucera, “Erdogan, in Plea to NATO.” 37. Stein, “Turkey’s New Foreign Policy,” pp. 92–93. 38. Yetkin, “Story of Secret Diplomacy.” 39. Gall and Higgens, “Turkey Signs Russian Missile Deal.” 40. Hoffman, “Responding to Turkey’s Purchase of Russia’s S-400 Missile System”; Stein, “The Russian Missile.” 41. Relations between Turkey and the West have been deteriorating since at least 2003, when the United States intervened in Iraq without considering Ankara’s position and with scant coordination with Turkish armed forces. The increasingly strained relations between Western capitals and Ankara in recent years has many causes, including the European Union’s ambivalent attitude toward Turkey’s EU membership, the Armenian genocide, the Kurdish question, the immigration crisis that emerged due to the civil war in Syria, and especially the military coup in July 2016 and Erdoğan’s harsh reaction against its alleged perpetrators. 42. Agro-Industrial Union of Russia, “Tkachev.” 43. Chulkovskaya, “Erdogan’s Antics.” 44. Bechev, Rival Power; Kortunov, “Russia-Turkey Relations.” 45. Psycho-politics comes from the work of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk. It refers to the study of the impact of psychological emotions, affects, and disorders on politics; see Sloterdijk, Zorn und Seit. In addition to Russia and Turkey, I view the United Kingdom, France, and Austria as nostalgic imperial powers, although their frustrations are expressed in a slightly different way. See, e.g., Kahler, Decolonization in Britain and France. The conduct of the new American administration shows signs of the same tendencies. 46. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers. 47. Macovei, “Growth and Economic Crisis in Turkey.” 48. Eberhardt and Menkiszak, “The Economic and Financial Crisis in Russia”; Koshkin, “Why the Russian Economic Crisis Is Far from Over.” 49. Petersson, “Overcoming the Time of Troubles”; Cook, False Dawn, p. 118. 50. Economist, “Putin’s Popularity.” 51. Petersson, “Overcoming the Time of Troubles”; Cook, False Dawn, p. 118. 52. President of Russia, “Meeting at the Valdai International Discussion Club.” 53. Cheviron and Pérouse, Erdogan: Nouveau père de la Turquie? p. 377. 54. For a similar view, see Trenin, “The Astonishing Likeness of Turkey and Russia”; Hill and Taspinar, “Turkey and Russia: Axis of the Excluded?” pp. 81–92.

14 Turkey and Europe: Alternative Scenarios Hanna-Lisa Hauge, Funda Tekin, and Wolfgang Wessels

relationship with Europe has been intertwined with positive and negative aspects. On the one hand, relations during the twentieth century deepened steadily in all spheres, from politics to the economy to culture. Since the 1960s, Turkey’s status as an associate of the EU and since the 1990s as an accession candidate has added a new dimension. On the other hand, Turkey has remained in the accession negotiation process for more than a decade, and developments within the EU and Turkey challenge the relationship. Turkey-EU relations can thus be described as “tortuous,”1 “cyclical,”2 or “rocky,”3 with observers often invoking the marriage/divorce metaphor.4 In November 2015, after almost a decade of negotiations had come to a standstill, the Turkey-EU relationship intensified in response to the refugee surges toward Europe. The EU offered financial support within a Refugee Facility for Turkey amounting to a total of €6 billion as well as facilitation of visa liberalization and revitalization of accession negotiations by opening new chapters. In exchange, Turkey agreed to intensify controls at its Mediterranean shore and accepted the return of irregular migrants having reached the Greek islands from Turkey. Not long after these promising developments, however, the Turkey-EU relationship hit rock bottom in light of the purges in the aftermath of the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, in Turkey. In November 2016, the European Parliament (EP) even demanded a freeze of the accession process in reaction to Turkey’s consideration of reintroducing the death penalty.5 Similarly, in March 2019, the EP voted to suspend the accession talks, which in turn led to harsh reactions in Turkey.6

Dating back to the times of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey’s

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This political turmoil, however, seems to affect other dimensions of Turkey-EU relations only to a lesser extent so far. The EU remained by far Turkey’s most important trading partner, and Turkey was the EU’s fifthlargest trade partner in 2017.7 At the same time, EU countries are a major source of foreign direct investment in Turkey,8 and both sides have launched efforts to upgrade the already existing customs union (CU).9 Hence, in economic terms, the relationship seems to continue to flourish and is marked by deepening rather than alienation.10 At the same time, it is politically contested, as in the case of the controversial plans for upgrading the CU, which are currently blocked by a group of EU member states for political reasons.11 Besides the political and economic spheres, the cultural and social dimension and linked discussions on Turkey’s European identity also play a role in the Turkey-EU relationship. Recent research shows that identities on both sides continue to be contested and are marked by “fluidity.”12 Turkey and Europe have entertained intensive cultural and societal relations for many centuries, with recent examples being the tourism sector and increasing numbers of student-exchange programs. Today the large Turkish community in several EU member states is an important variable in these societal ties, particularly for Germany and the Netherlands, where some 4 million people of Turkish origin are living.13 This chapter describes the main past and present dynamics in the Turkey-EU relationship by mapping them against three scenarios.14 It then highlights the different reasons why Turkey represents a unique partner for the EU. After that, it discusses developments and crises and how they have affected the relationship in recent years. On this basis, the chapter concludes by delineating possible implications for the nearer future. This analysis frames Turkey’s relationship with “Europe” primarily through its links to the European integration process in its various stages from the time of the European Economic Community (EEC) to today’s EU with twenty-eight member states.15 Hence, the three ideal-type scenarios presented here aim to capture the different forms that relations with the EU could take (see Table 14.1). Instead of employing them only as traditional tools for projecting future trends,16 we utilize them as reference points for the analysis and assessment of past and present dynamics within the Turkey-EU relationship. Given the mercurial nature of the EU-Turkey relationship, these scenarios—despite their ideal-type nature—provide a useful framework for the analysis of these ties. The membership scenario represents the closest form of cooperation as it implies Turkey being a member of the EU. This is admittedly a rather

Three Scenarios for the Analysis

Turkey and Europe: Alternative Scenarios Table 14.1 Three Scenarios for Turkey-EU Relations Degree of relations Type of relationship

Examples

Membership

Partnership

Distant Neighbor

Closest

Medium

Distant

Membership

Full membership; possibly associated membership (e.g., a possible new form of association for the UK)

Cooperation below membership

217

Conflict in the form of diplomatic tension between Turkey and EU member states and abandonment of the accession process Rules-based cooperation/ No membership prospect association (e.g., upgrade like relations with Russia; of CU) like relations with Partnership or Association Norway or Switzerland; Agreement on hold, (mutual) functional/transactional/ sanctions. Turkey joins ad-hoc cooperation (e.g., in other regional organizations policy fields of migration (e.g., Shanghai Cooperation management or Organisation); further antiterrorism) like relations alienation of Turkey and with Tunisia or Morocco EU also within NATO

Source: Categorization by the authors based on an adaptation of Tocci, “Turkey and the European Union: Scenarios for 2023.”

unlikely scenario from a present point of view. However, it is one that needs to be included because membership for Turkey in various forms has at various points been discussed as a serious option. In addition, the goal of full membership had been a constant and dominant element of the Turkish official narrative.17 Other notions of differentiated18 or associate19 membership have resurfaced especially in the past years and are still linked to the membership scenario.20 Hence full membership might take a more differentiated form with Turkey not participating in all EU policies or with long or permanent transitory periods. A precondition of this kind of membership would be overcoming the main hurdles in the current accession procedure. This would require, among other things, a change for the better with regard to public opinion and political will in the EU and member states,21 some sort of solution to the Cyprus conflict, and, in Turkey, a significant shift away from the recent authoritarian trends and toward fulfilling the Copenhagen Criteria.22 Situated between the two extremes of membership and distant neighbor, the partnership scenario implies a deepening of cooperation in areas of joint interests, without, however, Turkish membership in the EU. This could, for example, include the intensification of the high-level dialogues in the dimensions of politics, economics, energy, and security as well as more purely functional and ad hoc forms of cooperation. A form of partnership, however, could include rules or norms—as the recent agreement

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on migration (see below) and discussions on upgrading the CU have proven.23 Several policy areas such as energy, ecology, and free trade might qualify for such cooperation as they directly link to the EU’s rules or other incentives for Turkey such as visa liberalization. In March 2019, the EP officially demanded a suspension of the accession negotiations in favor of an “effective partnership”24 along with a modernization of the CU. So far, however, Turkish governments have rejected any concepts under the term “partnership”25 or any replacement of full membership. The distant neighbor is the worst-case scenario. It implies high levels of conflict and alienation in all spheres, as well as a full abandonment of the accession process. An increasingly erratic Turkish foreign policy, for example, or the rise of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim sentiment as well as Euroscepticism and populism in the EU would drive escalation of diplomatic crises between Turkey and EU member states and possibly other international actors. 26 For Turkey, this implies in the long term that instead of pursuing a strong EU anchor, it will search for forms of political, security-related, and economic cooperation with other partners (e.g., Russia, Eurasia). These three scenarios are ideal types that provide a basic framework for analysis. The complexity and uniqueness of the Turkey-EU relationship will match none of them perfectly but will represent a mixture that allows us to identify key features of both conflict and cooperation. Two particular features characterize the Turkey-EU relationship and render it exceptional. First, relations have had a mercurial character as they regularly alternate between phases of alienation and rapprochement, and sometimes these coexist. Second, almost from the outset, particularly in Turkey, there has been a lack of trust on the Turkish side in the EU’s commitment to Turkish membership. Since the accession negotiations started (2005), the EU has stressed the “open-ended” character of the process. Due in part to this vagueness, political leaders in Turkey regularly express their disappointment with the EU and its enlargement process.27 Turkey’s efforts to be part of Europe date back almost to the beginning of the European integration process. Together with Greece, Turkey applied for association with the EEC28 in 1959, two years after its foundation. Turkey and the six founding member states signed an association (Ankara) agreement in 1963.29 Turkey pursued two aims with that agreement: establishing a customs union and strengthening its membership prospects. This objective was reinforced by the first president of the European Commission, Walter Hallstein, who said at the signing of the agreement that “one day the final step is to be taken,”30 and Turkey should become a full member.

A Unique Path Toward the EU

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While the association agreement’s nature was mostly economic, security also played a decisive role in light of the worsening East-West conflict.31 A principal aim for Western policymakers was to ensure Turkey’s anchor in Western structures. From a Turkish perspective, the association with the EEC was also the “logical extension of Turkey’s pursuit of inclusion in all Western organizations”32 and was therefore just as essential as its membership in the Council of Europe since 1949 and in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) since 1952. In these early days, Turkish participation in European integration seemed more likely because—at least in their public statements—there was a quite considerable degree of consensus between Turkish and European elites, despite the shortcomings of Turkey’s economy at the time. In the 1970s and 1980s, domestic crises in Turkey mainly prevented the relationship from developing: a military coup in 1980 followed successive economic crises and political instability in the 1970s.33 During the years following that coup, Turkey’s European partners harshly criticized the military rule, violations of human rights, and lack of democratic institutions.34 The institutional bodies of the association agreement, the Association Council as well as the Joint Parliamentary Committee, suspended relations with Turkey from 1982 onward. Thus the years after the 1980 coup were an example of a predominately distant neighbor scenario. In 1987, the first democratic elections after the coup took place, and Turkey immediately applied for full membership to the EEC. Alongside this reinvigoration of the democratization process, Turkish governments made serious efforts toward a liberalization of the Turkish economy with the aim of enhancing its competitiveness.35 Yet, in its opinion of 1989, the European Commission rejected Turkey’s membership application on grounds of the substantial development gap in economic terms and the democratic deficits.36 For Turkey, one of the most traumatic milestones in its history and another sign that the EU did not share its objective of full membership was the meeting of the European Council in Luxembourg in December 1997, shortly after the customs union had entered into force in 1996. Here the heads of state or government decided to recognize the central and eastern European countries as candidates but to exclude Turkey. Instead, the EU suggested a specific “European Strategy” only for Turkey, which aimed at preparing the country for a future candidacy. The “European Strategy” represented an example of partnership because it de facto delayed membership in favor of a form of rapprochement with Turkey. Ankara, which felt “left in the cold,”37 fiercely rejected this offer and froze its relations with the EU.38 In Turkish eyes, this decision cemented the interpretation of special and discriminatory treatment against Turkey. However, only two years later, in a major “positive turn”39 for Turkey’s European vocation, the European Council granted Turkey candidacy status.40

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Afterward, many reforms were passed in Turkey to bring law and practice in line with EU expectations. The Turkish Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) adopted a record thirty-four amendments to the 1982 constitution, addressing, in particular, the field of human rights and opening a “golden age of reforms” in Turkey. Several positive progress reports by the European Commission followed, and in 2004 the European Council decided to open formal negotiations the next year. Throughout the whole history of relations, Turkey’s geostrategic relevance for the EU and that organization’s fear of losing Turkey as a reliable partner41 have been major drivers for rapprochement.42 Such considerations are also linked to Turkey’s potential to function as a “bridge” to the southern neighborhood or even as a “model for the Islamic world.” The latter aspect has also been one motivation for the traditional US support for Turkish EU membership.43 Yet, as mentioned above, from the beginning of accession negotiations, the EU expressed its commitment to Turkish accession in blurry and at times controversial terms. In the negotiation framework document with Turkey, the EU stated that, although the official aim of the process was full membership, “negotiations [were] an open-ended process, the outcome of which [could] not be guaranteed beforehand.”44 The EU used similar wording for the candidate Croatia and all following accession countries, but in the Turkish case, the negotiating framework further mentions the possibility of establishing some sort of privileged partnership, stating that “if Turkey is not in a position to assume in full all the obligations of membership it must be ensured that Turkey is fully anchored in the European structures through the strongest possible bond.”45 This lack of commitment undermined the Turkish government’s orientation and represented a major reason that the reform process lost momentum right after 2005. Without a “membership perspective” the conditionality on which the success of the accession process is based dramatically weakened.46 For its part, the EU has often argued that Turkey’s accession is different from other enlargements due to the specific characteristics of the country, such as its large population, which make it very difficult for the EU to absorb Turkish accession. At the same time, unlike for Poland or Croatia, a debate in Europe emerged on Turkey’s alleged difference from “Europe” from a cultural and identity-related perspective.47 Turkey’s prospects for membership have also been affected by bilateral conflicts with members and, in particular, the conflictual and competitive relationship with Greece and the interlinked conflict over and with Cyprus. Despite numerous settlement talks, the division of the island of Cyprus continues. 48 Since it acceded to the EU in 2004, Cyprus has become a major veto player and blocked negotiations with Turkey on several crucial chapters.

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Due to this complex set of reasons, combined with a slowing and eventual backsliding of the democratic reforms in Turkey, the accession process began to stagnate almost immediately after its opening in 2005 and came to a halt in recent years. Only one out of thirty-five negotiation chapters has been “provisionally closed,” and fourteen have been blocked, eight by the EU’s Council of Ministers and six by Cyprus. 49 Thus, ironically, after the beginning of accession negotiations, relations deepened in some areas but also included elements of alienation. One explanatory factor for this dynamic is that relations between Turkey and the EU as a whole are relevant, but so are bilateral dynamics between Turkey and individual member states (e.g., Cyprus) and other organizations such as NATO. Compared to the ideal-type scenarios, the membership scenario is currently very unlikely. While an escalation along the lines of the distant neighbor scenario might still occur, so far the relationship has rather played out within the medium, or cooperation scenario, of partnership, with some conflictual tendencies. As highlighted above, changes in direction are one of the trademarks of the Turkey-EU relationship. In most recent years, relations went from a substantial level of strategic cooperation in 2015 to the current substantially negative, even conflictual period. We can trace four main developments in the relationship during this period as explanations for such contrasting trends: (1) migration as a joint challenge for Turkey and Europe, (2) profound changes in Turkey’s political system, (3) the election mode in Turkey and individual EU member states, and (4) the unresolved Cyprus and Kurdish questions and their effect on Turkey’s foreign and security policy.

Contrasting Trends Since 2015

The Refugee Crisis: A Catalyst for the Relationship? In 2015, both Turkey and the EU faced a serious migration challenge. Turkey had received almost 3 million refugees from the Syrian civil war and the fragmentation of Iraq, and the EU registered about 1.3 million asylum seekers by that year.50 In the EU, in the Schengen area51 without internal border controls, the existing migration and asylum policies were put under pressure. The EU was not able to find solutions acceptable to all member states.52 Turkey’s proximity to the Greek islands put Turkey directly in the path of thousands of refugees and also in the EU’s spotlight because of its efforts to find an external solution to the crisis. Turkey itself was searching for international economic support to accommodate its own refugee challenge.53 Hence, in Turkey, the EU found a “key strategic partner” with which it was “determined to confront and surmount the existing challenges in a concerted manner.”54 Consequently, the EU and Turkey agreed on a set of joint

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actions. These included the return to Turkey of “irregular migrants” arriving on the Greek islands after March 20, 2016, and the resettlement in Europe of one Syrian refugee from Turkey for each person being returned from Greece to Turkey—the so-called 1:1 mechanism. The agreement also specified that Turkey would enhance measures to prevent new routes for irregular migration through the country. The EU agreed to provide Turkey with €6 billion for projects of migration management. In its statements after the meeting of the heads of state and government with Turkey in November 2015, the EU acknowledged Turkey’s status as a “candidate country”55 and linked cooperation in migration policy to a revitalization of accession negotiations, a facilitation and acceleration of visa liberalization, and an intensification of high-level dialogues on other issues.56 Thus, strategic relations, in this case the migration crises, were linked to other issues in the relationship, such as membership or visa liberalization. Yet the accession negotiations and procedure for visa liberalization both had their own specific conditions and criteria that mutual interest in the refugee crisis could not leverage. The EU paradoxically announced plans to revitalize its accession negotiations with Turkey at a time when the European Commission for the first time officially identified a “backsliding”57 of democratic reforms in Turkey. Additionally, unilateral vetoes by member states on opening important negotiation chapters persisted.58 In terms of visa liberalization, Turkey was required to fulfill seventytwo requirements that the EU had previously laid out. 59 Although Turkey had put a lot of effort into launching respective reforms, the current government is opposed to the required change of its antiterror law, which the EU sees as a broad limitation on democratic rights. Since the failed coup attempt and the purges after summer 2016, the visa-liberalization procedure was put more or less on hold for two years.60 Considering these different aspects, the assessment of cooperation on the refugee crisis through the lens of Turkey-EU relations is a mixed one. On the one hand, the agreements intensified Turkey-EU strategic cooperation and successfully managed the crisis itself in terms of the numbers. The number of first-time asylum seekers in the EU in 2016 dropped by 43 percent compared to 2015 and decreased further in 2017 to about 50 percent of the 2015 numbers.61 On the other hand, the refugee deal raised some substantial criticism on both sides. In Turkey, concerns emerged that the intensification of this strategic partnership would replace Turkey’s accession prospects.62 European concerns focused more on the EU’s dependence on the EU-Turkey migration deal, given the widespread concerns of a possible new wave of immigration and the resulting (domestic) implications. This provided the Turkish government a potential tool for influencing and shaping the Turkey-EU relationship by threatening to cancel the deal.63 However, strong mutual interest in the deal allowed it to continue.

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Hence, even though at the end of 2015 hopes were high that the joint migration challenge would put the Turkey-EU relationship on a more positive path after a decade-long standstill, the relations gained complexity rather than stability. This was further aggravated by the developments that were to follow in 2016. The Effects of Political Changes in Turkey Two events in 2016 and 2017—a failed coup attempt and a referendum on constitutional changes—deeply affected the political system in Turkey and with it the Turkey-EU relationship. On the night of July 15, 2016, parts of the Turkish military attempted a coup against the government. Even though they failed, this event had farreaching consequences for the Turkish political system. For the following two years, the government ruled under a state of emergency, which allowed the president to rule by decree. In the coup attempt’s aftermath, about 140,000 federal employees lost their jobs or were suspended and about 150,000 people were arrested or investigated because of their alleged links with the Fethullah Gülen movement or with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê)—both designated terrorist organizations by the Turkish government.64 Furthermore, the Turkish government has increased pressure on journalists, universities, and independent NGOs. In various global rankings on rule of law and democracy, Turkey has fallen several places, and the Freedom House Index for the first time assessed Turkey as “not free.”65 The “backsliding on democracy and rule of law” that the Commission had criticized in 2015 thus continued and grew worse. The Commission’s 2018 report on Turkey detailed these shortcomings,66 which alienated Turkey further from the EU. The reintroduction of the death penalty, proposed by the Turkish government after the failed coup attempt, would have definitely closed the door to full EU membership. 67 For its part, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Turkish government officials criticized their Western allies for not reacting quickly or vigorously enough to support the government or condemn the coup attempt.68 The second important domestic development was the referendum of April 16, 2017, on changes to the constitution that would introduce a presidential system in Turkey.69 The referendum’s turnout was high, with 70 percent participation, but the results were almost tied, as only a very slim majority of 51.4 percent voted in favor of such changes. EU institutions and the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission criticized the proposed changes in terms of separation of powers and a “lack of necessary checks and balances required to safeguard [the system] against becoming an authoritarian one.”70 The constitutional amendments of the referendum officially came into force with the presidential and parliamentary snap

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elections that were held in Turkey on June 24, 2018. Turkey has become what Turkish authorities describe as a “Turkish-style” presidential system (or presidential system à la Turka). President Erdoğan’s victory in this first round of presidential elections (with 52.5 percent) since then granted him “exceptionally broad powers.”71 In view of these transformative trends in Turkey’s political system, the country has become increasingly distant from the EU and its democratic norms and values as defined by Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. Thus, in this area, one can identify a clear dominance of the distant neighbor scenario as introduced above. Turkey and Individual Member States: No Modus Operandi? These conflictual relations have even increased due to tensions in Turkey’s bilateral relations with individual member states. In the run-up to the 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey, representatives from the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) wanted to campaign within EU member states. The Dutch government and several municipalities in Germany objected, which generated a vicious spiral in rhetoric. Turkish president Erdoğan even accused the Dutch and German governments of operationalizing methods of the Nazi regime,72 which caused a diplomatic outcry across Europe. Turkey-EU relations were politicized particularly in Germany in the runup to the country’s general elections in 2017. The migration challenge and the EU-Turkey deal were still fresh, and a series of domestic incidents weighed down the German-Turkish relationship.73 As a result, political parties in Germany started discussing a reorientation of Germany’s Turkey policy and EUTurkey policy, including reconsideration of allowing so-called Hermes-Bonds to cover trade with Turkey74 and Turkey’s EU membership perspective.75 At the end of 2017, Turkey’s bilateral relations with Germany had slowly recovered to a certain degree, with less harsh rhetoric and the revitalization of diplomatic ties through meetings of the ministers of foreign affairs and officials, along with a controversial visit by President Erdoğan to Germany in September 2018. Still, at the beginning of 2019, for example, relations were overshadowed again when several German journalists were not able to renew their media accreditations.76 Foreign Policy Issues In geostrategic terms, there is no doubt that Turkey is a highly relevant strategic partner for the EU and other global actors. Yet, in the view of some commentators, Turkey’s foreign policy moved the country “ever further from the West.”77 In this context, the Cyprus and Kurdish issues have had corrosive effects on the Turkey-EU relationship.

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The conflict between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus has caused various problems in Turkey-EU relations for many decades, including the failure of the most recent talks, announced in summer 2017.78 The search for energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean has also engendered conflict in Turkey-EU relations. In February 2018, a Turkish vessel forcefully blocked a drillship of an Italian energy company that had been contracted by Cyprus to search for gas off its coasts within Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone. Turkey strongly opposes such “unilateral” gas searches without the participation of the Northern Republic of Cyprus. The EU strongly reacted to this by officially condemning Turkey’s actions “in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea and underlining its full solidarity with Cyprus and Greece.”79 Nevertheless, in February and March 2019, Turkey held its largest naval drilling in history in the Black Sea, Aegean, and eastern Mediterranean. At the same time, the Kurdish issue, which had for many years caused severe conflicts in Turkey’s domestic politics, gained foreign policy relevance due to the destabilization of the Middle East, the fighting in Syria and Iraq, and the quest for autonomy in Kurdish-led regions in both countries. The Turkish government feels threatened by the possibility of a “Kurdish corridor” at its southern border, and its actions in the region have been driven by these security interests.80 In addition to reviving the internal Kurdish conflict in Turkey in 2015, this has caused increasing tensions with international actors involved in the region, in particular the United States and the European Union.81 Turkey sees the territorial expansion of the Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat) and the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) with the support of the United States and some EU member states as problematic for its national security.82 This agenda became even clearer when the Turkish government started its Operation Olive Branch military offensive on January 20, 2018, with the aim of putting an end to Kurdish control of Afrin, which it achieved in March 2018. This Kurdish question sharpened differences between Turkey and the Western partners, particularly the European Union and United States, because, unlike Turkey, they do not classify the YPG as a terrorist organization and in fact rely on it in fighting the Islamic State. In contrast, Turkey reached an agreement with Russia over establishing a buffer zone in Syria.83 However, it is difficult to say whether Turkey will find a permanent ally in Russia, because relations between these two countries have not been easy in the past either.84 Overall, one can conclude that in recent years, the foreign policy dimension has been marked by more strife in the Turkey-EU relationship. This particularly applies as compared to earlier times—for example, during the Cold War, when Turkey was mostly perceived as a reliable partner of the “West.”

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Turkey’s relations with the EU are the longest, most complex, and volatile of any state with a formal membership perspective. Notwithstanding the recent heated debates and harsh rhetoric, ups and downs are regular elements of the Turkey-EU relationship. As Nathalie Tocci puts it, “Oscillation and coexistence between conflict and convergence captures the very essence of the (un)steady state of Turkey’s place in Europe.”85 The framing of that relationship through the three ideal-type scenarios allows us to conclude that neither membership nor full-blown conflict represents a likely near-term outcome for Turkey-EU relations. At the same time, past and recent developments indicate that aspects of these two scenarios are nevertheless crucial for understanding the relationship. From a policy perspective, although actors in the EU are aware of the interdependence and necessity of closely engaging with Turkey, it is highly controversial and mostly doubted whether Turkish membership should be the consequence of this interdependence. In contrast, in Turkey, the membership possibility continues to form part of the official narrative. However, the establishment of the presidential system in Turkey with the elections in June 2018 has rendered the membership scenario or even partial membership more unrealistic. Instead, Turkey is moving further from the European values utilized in the political accession criteria. Yet Turkey’s European partners are aware of the negative implications of provoking a clear-cut end to the accession perspective, and both sides fear the consequences of total alienation, as described in the distant neighbor scenario. This is because Turkey is distinctive in its prominent strategic importance for Europe. In light of these considerations, it seems that partnership—or close cooperation in key policy areas (yet still short of membership)—is the most likely scenario. Such a partnership could take the form of rules-based cooperation, mainly in trade. The ties of Norway and Switzerland with the EU represent such rules-based partnerships because Norway is part of the EU’s single market through the European Economic Area and Switzerland is associated with the EU via bilateral agreements. Turkey also already has a form of economic association with the EU through its CU. There are plans for further intensification and modernization of this CU, which would then become the main reference frame for such an EU-Turkey partnership. Moreover, the upgrade of the CU would require not only economic but also norm- and rules-based reforms in Turkey—regarding procurement policies, for example. It could even include some form of conditionality in the human rights and fundamental freedoms fields, as was demanded by the European Parliament in 2017.86 From an EU perspective, this means that such a modernized CU could potentially preserve some of the EU’s leverage in view of rule of law and democratic values through the back door of functional-based cooperation. This would still be limited compared to the accession procedure.

Conclusion: A Work Forever in Progress

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Cooperation could also be transactional or functional in individual areas of mutual interests, such as security, migration, or energy. This would remain more ad hoc and would not include any conditionality. There is one fundamental obstacle to both variations of this partnership scenario: the fact that Turkey so far has rejected the concept of partnership. A possible option would be to avoid the partnership terminology while also avoiding a formal end to accession. For example, a joint statement by Turkey and the EU in November 2018 said that the accession process could provide “an important framework for fully realizing the potential of the EU-Turkey relationship as well as for the economic, social and political reforms in Turkey.”87 Other factors that might affect the likelihood of a partnership scenario are the different strategic threats that Turkey and its Western partners face. Currently, this is seen most clearly in the case of the civil war in Syria and the resulting multisided conflict there. Other potential causes for clashes in the foreign policy dimension and a “disengagement from the West”88 might include, for example, trends of further rapprochement and even strategic cooperation between Turkey and Russia.89 Thus, while a complete breakup of the Turkey-EU relationship is unlikely due to its severe consequences for both sides, the basic challenge for framing and realizing forms of cooperation under the medium-scale scenario of partnership is to balance conflictual trends against the still existing need to cooperate. Ultimately both Turkey and the EU share numerous joint interests and challenges, creating a constant incentive for stable cooperation.

Notes

1. Casanova, “The Long, Difficult, and Tortuous Journey.” 2. Narbone and Tocci, “Running in Circles?” 3. Müftüler-Baç, “Turkey’s Future with the European Union,” p. 1. 4. See, e.g., Paul, “Turkey-EU Relations: Forever Engaged, Never to Be Married?” 5. European Parliament, “Resolution, November 24, 2016.” 6. European Parliament, “Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Turkey”; Daily Sabah, “Turkey Blasts EU Draft Report That Calls to Suspend Accession.” 7. Daily Sabah, “Turkey EU’s 5th Largest Trade Partner.” 8. In 2017, 65 percent of the equity investment, which represents the main part of foreign direct investment, stemmed from EU countries (see Anadolu Agency, “Turkey: Net Foreign Investment”). 9. Already in 2012, the European Commission stressed the mutual benefits of a modernization of the customs union with Turkey in its enlargement strategy (European Commission, “Enlargement Strategy,” October 10, p. 17). In May 2015, a meeting of Commissioner Cecilia Malmström and Turkish minister of economy Nihat Zeybekçi concluded with the decision to work jointly on a modernization of the customs union. Consequently, the European Commission asked for a mandate from the European Council, which it has not received at the time of writing. Germany has opposed the initiative publicly. 10. Akçomak, Erdil, and Cetinkaya, “Knowledge Cohesion”; Cömert, “The Financial Flows”; Mertzanis, “Understanding the EU-Turkey Sectoral Trade Flows.”

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11. Kirişci and Bülbül, “The EU and Turkey Need Each Other”; Daily Sabah, “German Coalition Rules Out Customs Union.” 12. See, e.g., Aydın-Düzgit et al., “Turkish and European Identity Constructions in the 1946–1999 Period,” p. 19. 13. See Soler i Lecha, Tekin, and Sökmen, “It Takes Two to Tango,” pp. 12–17; Reiners and Tekin, “Taking Refuge in Leadership?” 14. This chapter draws from the research done in the FEUTURE project (an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project, coordinated by the University of Cologne). The scenarios, as conceptualized in Tocci, “Turkey and the European Union: Scenarios for 2023,” were adapted for this chapter. See also the project website (www.feuture.eu) for further information. 15. See, e.g., www.feuture.eu; Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci, Turkey and the European Union; Eralp, “The Role of Temporality and Interaction”; Eralp and Torun, “Europeanization of Turkish Politics and Policies”; Hauge et al., “Mapping Periods and Milestones”; Hauge and Wessels, “EU-Turkey Relations”; Müftüler-Baç, Divergent Pathways; Narbone and Tocci, “Running in Circles?”; Öniş, “An Awkward Partnership”; Tekin, “Quadratur des Kreises”; Yılmaz, “The Relations of Turkey with the European Union.” 16. Schwartz, The Art of the Long View. 17. Hauge et al., “Narratives of a Contested Relationship,” pp. 31–32. 18. Müftüler-Baç, “Turkey’s Future with the European Union.” 19. Duff, “The Case for an Associate Membership.” 20. Karakaş, “EU-Turkey: Integration Without Full Membership”; Müftüler-Baç, “Turkey’s Future with the European Union”; Ülgen, “Avoiding a Divorce.” 21. Soler i Lecha et al., “It Takes Two to Tango.” 22. The Copenhagen Criteria, or accession criteria, lay down the conditions that a candidate state needs to fulfil in order to accede to the EU. They comprise (1) political and (2) economic criteria as well as (3) the ability to take on the obligations of membership and the capacity to implement the EU’s body of common rights (known as the acquis communautaire). 23. N. Eralp, “Upgrading Customs Union”; Kirişci and Bülbül, “The EU and Turkey Need Each Other”; Ülgen, “Trade as Turkey’s EU Anchor.” 24. European Parliament, “Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Turkey,” p. 10. 25. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkey Against ‘Privileged Partnership.’” 26. See also Tocci, “Turkey and the European Union,” pp. 5–10, 15. 27. Hürriyet Daily News, “EU Cannot Treat Turkey like a Beggar.” 28. The European Economic Community was founded in 1957 with the aim of economic integration among its member states. The founding member states were Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and West Germany. It was one of three communities with the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. In 1993, all three communities were subsumed into the European Union. 29. Ankara Agreement, “Agreement Establishing an Association.” 30. Hallstein, “Address,” p. 3. 31. See, e.g., A. Eralp, “The Role of Temporality and Interaction,” p. 152. 32. A. Eralp and Torun, “Perceptions and Europeanization in Turkey,” p. 16. 33. Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci, Turkey and the European Union, p. 13f. See the discussion in Chapter 2 by Çelik in this volume. 34. E.g., European Parliament, “Resolution, April 10, 1981.” 35. Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci, Turkey and the European Union, p. 14. 36. European Commission, “Commission Opinion,” pp. 5–7. 37. Müftüler-Baç, “Through the Looking Glass,” p. 1. 38. See Kinzer, “Turkey, Rejected, Will Freeze Ties to European Union.” 39. A. Eralp, “The Role of Temporality and Interaction,” p. 157. 40. European Council, “Presidency Conclusions,” December 10–11, 1999. 41. See, e.g., A. Eralp, “The Role of Temporality and Interaction,” p. 159; AydınDüzgit and Tocci, Turkey and the European Union, p. 18; Turhan, The European Council Decision, pp. 362–365.

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42. Hauge et al., “Narratives of a Contested Relationship.” 43. See, e.g., Sloat, “The West’s Turkey Conundrum,” p. 21; Tocci, “Turkey as a Transatlantic Neighbor,” pp. 199ff. 44. Council of the European Union, “Turkey Negotiating Framework,” p. 1. 45. Council of the European Union, “Turkey Negotiating Framework,” p. 1. 46. Ülgen, “Avoiding a Divorce”; Tekin and Deniz, “Tracing Ebbs and Flows in Political and Legislative Reforms in Turkey.” 47. For the role of identity and culture in EU-Turkey relations, see, e.g., AydınDüzgit et al., “Turkish and European Identity Constructions in the 1815–1945 Period”; Aydın-Düzgit et al., “Turkish and European Identity Constructions in the 1946–1999 Period”; Cautrés and Monceau, La Turquie en Europe; Macmillan, Discourse, Identity and the Question of Turkish Accession; Rumelili, “Negotiating Europe.” 48. Tocci, “The End of the Road in Cyprus.” 49. Turkey does not recognize the Cypriot government. For further information on how this affects Turkey’s accession procedure with the EU, see Schröder and Tekin, “Institutional Triangle.” 50. Eurostat, “Asylum in the EU Member States.” 51. Twenty-six European states (among them twenty-two EU members) abolished border controls at their mutual borders by establishing the Schengen area in 1995. 52. See Reiners and Tekin, “Taking Refuge in Leadership?” 53. Kirişci and Ferris, “Not Likely to Go Home.” 54. European Commission, “EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan.” 55. European Council, “Press Remarks by President Donald Tusk.” 56. European Council, “Meeting of Heads of State or Government with Turkey.” 57. E.g., European Commission, “Enlargement Strategy,” p. 29. 58. Hence, in December 2015 and June 2016, the EU only opened the chapters on financial and budgetary provisions and on economic and monetary policy, while Chapters 23 and 24, which treat judiciary and fundamental rights as well as justice, freedom, and security, respectively, remained closed. 59. European Commission, “Roadmap.” 60. A joint statement by High Representative for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief Negotiator Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in November 2018 was the first sign of revitalization of the visa liberalization after this break (European External Action Service, “Joint Statement”). 61. Eurostat, “Asylum Quarterly Report”; Eurostat, “File: First Time Asylum Applicants.” 62. Şenyuva and Üstün, “A Deal to End ‘the’ Deal”; Saatçioğlu, “Turkey and the EU.” 63. See, e.g., Howitt, “Is Europe’s ‘Refugee Deal’ Giving In to Blackmail by Turkey?” 64. There are multiple statistics on such figures; for one source, see Turkey Purge (https://turkeypurge.com). 65. Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2018 Turkey Profile”; Freedom House, “Freedom in the World 2019.” 66. European Commission, “Turkey 2018 Report.” 67. E.g., Reuters, “Death Penalty in Turkey.” 68. See, e.g., Soler i Lecha, “Turkey, One Year After.” 69. For more details, see also Chapter 2 by Çelik in this volume. 70. Venice Commission, “Turkey, Opinion on the Amendments to the Constitution,” p. 29; von Steinsdorff, “Presidentialism à la Turka or What?” 71. Ülgen, “Erdoğan the Magnificent.” 72. Hürriyet Daily News, “I Will Describe Europe as Nazis.” 73. These included the so-called Böhmermann affair in 2016, when the Turkish president’s legal action against a poem about him by the German satirist Jan Böhmermann fueled discussion about the state of freedom of speech and the press in Germany and Turkey. In June 2016 the German Bundestag passed a resolution that declared the

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killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 a genocide. A conflict also arose over German access to the airbase at Incirlik in 2017. Further, German journalists with Turkish origins were detained for political reasons—most prominently, Deniz Yücel and Mesale Tolu as well as the German human rights activist Peter Steudtner. 74. The Hermes-Bonds are an export credit guarantee by the German federal government provided to companies investing in other countries (i.e., in this case German companies investing in Turkey). See also, e.g., Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “Gabriel prüft Wirtschaftshilfe.” 75. This critical positioning vis-à-vis Turkey became particularly evident in the TV debate between the candidates from the Christian Democrats, Angela Merkel, and the Social Democrats, Martin Schulz, in early September 2017. Surprisingly, it was Martin Schulz who clearly stated that his party would suspend accession negotiations with Turkey. Merkel, although generally taking up that idea, chose her words more carefully by highlighting that Germany could not take that decision alone but would need to find support among the other EU member states. 76. Euronews, “Relations Tense as Turkey Expels German Journalists.” 77. Seufert, “Ever Further from the West.” 78. See Tekin, “Türkei.” 79. European Council, “European Council Meeting—Conclusions, 22 March 2018.” 80. Seufert, “Ever Further from the West,” p. 2. See the discussion in Chapter 12 by Park in this volume. 81. See Chapter 11 by Stein in this volume. 82. See also Ergun et al., “The Role of the Middle East,” p. 13. 83. Guardian, “Russia and Turkey to Set Up Idlib Buffer.” 84. See Chapter 13 by Van Bladel in this volume. 85. Tocci, “Beyond the Storm.” 86. European Parliament, “Resolution, July 6, 2017.” 87. European External Action Service, “Joint Statement.” In contrast, the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee in March 2019 officially demanded a partnership replacing the accession procedure. European Parliament, “Report on the 2018 Commission Report on Turkey.” 88. Ülgen, “Get Ready for a More Aggressive Turkey.” 89. See Chapter 13 by Van Bladel in this volume.

15 Eurocentrism in Migration Policy Juliette Tolay

ingly attractive destination for many migrants, mostly from Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. They have used different routes in the Mediterranean Sea to reach European shores in search of better life prospects. In the summer of 2015, the Aegean route that connects Turkey with Greece and thus the European Union experienced a sudden intensification in the number of crossings. In great part, this was due to the deterioration of the civil war in Syria, which led large numbers of Syrians to flee beyond neighboring countries in an attempt to reach EU states. As a response, on March 18, 2016, Turkey and the EU reached a landmark agreement that in essence envisioned cooperation between the EU and Turkey on migration issues: Turkey agreed to prevent further irregular border crossings of migrants and accept the return of those who had crossed. In exchange the EU committed to assisting Turkey financially (€6 billion in total) and with the resettlement of Syrian refugees from Turkey. Brussels also rewarded Turkey with the restart of discussions on visa liberalization, the customs union, and EU membership.1 The agreement marked an important turn in Turkish foreign policy: after years of strained relations, resistance, and stalled membership negotiations, Turkey and the EU seemed to have found a space of agreement and cooperation. But at what price? Many have commented on the merits and flaws of this agreement. For instance, some praise its pragmatic nature in the midst of a humanitarian and ideational crisis,2 its efficiency in reducing both the number of irregular crossings and the number of deaths in the Aegean Sea,3 its inclusion of some consideration for human security in EU policy;4 and its potential to relaunch cooperation on migration and asylum between Turkey and the EU.5

Since the end of the Cold War, Europe has become an increas-

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But others criticize the legality and morality of the deal. They argue that the agreement is possibly in violation of EU and international human rights law (in particular of the non-refoulement principle), 6 may prevent asylum seekers from access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, 7 and will deepen the EU trend of externalizing refugee protection to third countries. 8 Beyond violation of refugee protection and the objectification of asylum seekers, critics also emphasized the dubious nature of the deal as tying refugee protection to unrelated political goods 9 and legitimizing an increasingly authoritarian Turkish government.10 Beyond these normative assessments of the deal, many commentators have focused on its foreign policy implications. Migration can indeed be used instrumentally in the pursuit of other foreign policy goals. Of particular interest here is how much Ankara benefits from this deal. The argument has been made that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (or his then prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu) accomplished a coup de maître by managing to leverage the refugee management crisis of 2015 to extract benefits long sought by—but denied to—Turkey.11 The reopening of a chapter in the Turkey accession process, the acceleration of the visa-liberalization process, the renegotiation of the customs union, and an increase in financial contributions from other countries to share the costs of hosting refugees had all long been demands of the Turkish government. President Erdoğan was able to use the sense of panic generated by increased migration flows across the Mediterranean to reach these goals. Even further, Turkey may have created a situation in which it can now use the deal to blackmail the EU on all kinds of issues simply by threatening to open the door to mass migration to Europe (already expressed several times).12 This chapter, however, argues that the above analysis identifying Ankara’s success in instrumentalizing migration misses another important foreign policy implication of the EU-Turkey deal. And this implication is not so favorable to Turkey. One of the foreign policy goals of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) rulers has been to affirm an international system that would be organized no longer around European (or Western) interests but rather around a more egalitarian—and, in fact, post-Eurocentric—practice of international politics. Since 2008, Turkey has been using its border, migration, and asylum policies as a means to achieve this reconceptualization. However, with an EU-Turkey deal, Turkey symbolically and materially gives in to Eurocentric demands based on European interests and in doing so becomes one of the forces reinforcing a Eurocentric regional order on migration from which it is excluded. Based on its own symbolic and moral standards, Ankara falls below the bar. The next section reviews the nexus between Turkish migration and foreign policy in the twentieth century and stresses that Turkey has often used migration instrumentally to further foreign policy goals. The chapter then

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looks specifically at Turkish migration and asylum policy in the twentyfirst century and shows how Turkey used these policies first to get closer to the EU, then to build more ties with multiple (and mostly non-European) countries. But now Turkey finds itself obligated to “return” to Europe. The last section situates this return to Europe within Ankara’s foreign policy goal of moving beyond Eurocentrism. Even though domestic concerns have always historically affected migration policies, Turkey has also used migration and migration policies as a tool to further its foreign policy interests.13 In the early twentieth century, the new Turkish Republic used migration as a means to build and secure the nation but also as a means to protect its territories from neighbors’ suspected expansionist policies. It also used migration as a means to establish good diplomatic relations or to signal good neighbor practices.14 Later, in the 1950s, Turkey’s joining of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was a way to affirm its membership in the Western block, its commitment to the international legal system, and its identification with Europe.15 At the end of the Cold War, Turkey’s policies toward the refugee inflows coming from Iraq in 1988 and 1991 can be understood in the broader context of Turkey’s relationship with Iraq, with the United States, and with the international community.16 Kelly Greenhill uses Turkey’s handling of the Iraqi refugees in 1991 (by initially closing the border) as a successful example of Turkey coercing the United States into taking responsibility for the refugees.17 Soon after, Turkish president Turgut Özal’s decision to open the border and accept Iraqi refugees can be tied to “Turkey’s strong aspirations to position itself as a rising power” and to keep strong political ties and alliances with Europe and the United States.18 During that same period, Özal engaged in a policy of visa liberalization with foreign countries as a means of rapprochement: this was done with Greece and countries of the Black Sea, Balkans, and Central Asia.19 Visa-facilitation agreements were also reached with Arab states.20 These were often tied to trade agreements but also designed “to build a rich range of cultural, commercial, social and political bridges” with countries seen as representing new opportunities for foreign policy. In addition, in the 1980s and 1990s, policies in place toward the immigration of people of “Turkish descent and culture” would also be used as means to extend spheres of influence in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia. 21 It is therefore clear that beyond domestic pressure, foreign policy concerns have always affected Turkish migration policies. Indeed, throughout the Turkish Republic, migration and migration policies have been—and should be seen as—part of the foreign policy toolbox. This has continued into the twenty-first

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century, but in this century, Europe became the main focal point of the nexus between migration and foreign policy.

Moving Away from . . . and Back to . . . Europe 2000–2008: Europeanization and Externalization This nexus between foreign policy and migration policies became even more prevalent in the twenty-first century and revolved mostly around the issue of Europeanization. Starting with the recognition of Turkey as an EU candidate member in 1999, many of the reforms undertaken in Turkey were implemented because of the desire to satisfy the Copenhagen Criteria—a set of political and economic criteria adopted in 1993 to broadly define who is eligible to join the EU. Once negotiations were open (2005), the aim was to complete harmonization in line with EU requirements and the acquis.22 With regard to migration from 2002 to 2008, Turkey adopted many legislative reforms on work permits for foreigners, citizenship, human trafficking, settlement, passport law, and land registry. This period also saw the planning of further comprehensive changes in migration policy with the adoption in 2005 of the National Action Plan for the Adoption of the EU Acquis in the Field of Asylum and Migration. During that period as well, Turkey was aligning its visa policies with the EU’s, and in 2005 it adopted the Schengen visa negative list for a few countries (i.e., required visas from the same countries that EU members of the Schengen zone did).23 In parallel with this process of Europeanization, there was also a process of externalization at stake, in which the EU pushed third countries to adopt policies that supported the implementation of EU migration and asylum policies.24 Turkey was one of the target countries of the EU externalization policy, which reinforced Turkey’s adoption of migration policy change as mandated by the EU, in particular regarding border control and management of irregular migration. This combination of Europeanization from the Turkish side and externalization from the EU side contributed to the emergence of Turkey as a critical and viable partner on migration with the EU.25 In both of these processes, the interests and the demands of the EU lay at the core of the policy changes adopted by Turkey. In the early years of the twenty-first century, while some in Ankara would express occasional reserve regarding these EU-centered policies, Turkey was overall willing to undergo these changes given its avowed objective of becoming an EU member state. 2008–2012: Diversification of Foreign Policy Options This relatively strong push for Europeanization needs to be understood in all its complexity. While Turkey aspired to and made efforts toward EU membership, Turkish governments also regularly questioned and at times

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resisted some of the requirements for being part of the European Community.26 This became a stronger trend after 2008 when Ankara sought to diversify Turkish foreign policy horizons beyond the EU and beyond the West. At the time, Turkey’s foreign policy ambitions and leadership (together with negative signals and obstacles from the EU) led to a cooling of relations with the EU and a diversion of its attention to other partners in the North, East, and South.27 Turkey was actively pursuing a policy of achieving “zero problem with neighbors” and therefore sought to engage those neighbors more directly. Along with discussions aimed at relaxing historical tensions (such as with Armenia) and the opening of a broader trade system (such as the one planned with Arab states), one idea was to use an open-border policy as a tool of soft power to facilitate societal relations across borders.28 On the one hand, this new approach to visa policy after 2005 presented a clear reversal of earlier attempts to align with the Schengen visa negative list. By 2006, Turkey had actively started to sign visa-free agreements with countries for which Schengen required visas.29 It was clearly engaging in a form of “de-Europeanization,” or rather “counterconduct,” whereby Ankara tactically and selectively endorsed some aspects of the EU conditionality and refused some others.30 By doing so, Turkey was signaling that it was no longer taking for granted the assumed convergence of EU and Turkish interests. Instead, it affirmed that Europe was only one possible foreign policy partner and that it also valued its nearby neighborhood. The idea was bounced around in 2010 to create a form of economic, commercial, and political union between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, dubbed “Shamgen” (a pun on “Sham,” Turkish/Arabic for Damascus, and “Schengen”). This plan had the advantage of creating an alternative project as EU membership was becoming more elusive.31 On the other hand, it also showed that Turkey had internalized the idea of open borders as a means to create a common future and to further Turkey’s foreign policy interests in the region (which was the idea behind the European Community’s integration and elimination of internal borders within the Schengen system). So while the policy demonstrated a political departure from the EU accession goal, it also demonstrated a symbolic convergence with traditional EU values. While Ankara’s reversal on visa policy obviously marked Turkey’s distancing from the EU, similar but more subtle moves could be observed through asylum policy. One concerns Turkey’s resistance to the lifting of the geographical limitation of the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees. According to this limitation, Turkey can only recognize as conventional “refugees” individuals coming from Europe. This is a product of the early Cold War when the assumption was that refugees would only come from the Soviet Bloc. The EU has been demanding, to no avail, that Turkey lift

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the limitation for many years in order to align with EU countries’ asylum obligations and protection of asylum seekers and refugees.32 At times, in particular around 2008, Turkish authorities considered lifting this limitation but eventually refused to do so unless and until Turkey becomes an EU member. Ankara’s main concern was the lack of a burden-sharing mechanism with EU countries and the risk that Turkey would be turned into a buffer zone. Somewhat paradoxically, Turkey also distinguished its asylum policies from European policies at the onset of the Syrian civil war, when it adopted an open-border approach, while most of the EU kept strong barriers against the arrival of Syrians into Europe.33 In this instance Ankara was using mass migration as a tool of an assertive foreign policy, both to further Turkey’s foreign policy goals in Syria and the broader Middle East (asserting itself as a regional power) and to affirm itself on the international stage (as a responsible normative power).34 Overall, Ankara’s stances on visa policy and asylum demonstrated a willingness to explore additional foreign policy options beyond the EU, even at the cost of alienating the EU. As seen with other foreign policy decisions (overtures to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Eurasian Economic Union, the BRICS, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation), Turkey’s new goal was to become more autonomous, to be seen as a rising power, and to contribute to the creation of a post-Eurocentric international system. 2012–2018: An EU Realignment? The Syrian crisis (and the broader aftermath of the Arab Spring) would mark the end of Turkey’s ambitions to create an open space with its Arab neighbors. And while the movement of populations was opening new doors to Turkish foreign policy in the earlier years, this window of opportunity soon started to shrink. At the core of the issue was the massive inflow of refugees from Syria. Starting with a few hundred in 2012, the number of Syrian refugees had reached 1 million by October 2014 and 2 million by October 2015; it has remained at over 3.5 million since January 2018. Since 2014, Turkey is the single-largest refugee-hosting country according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.35 Mass migration does not necessarily mean crisis and loss of power/control for the receiving state. Indeed, Turkey has been instrumental in trying to shape an international image whereby it would be seen as a responsible and ethical power, one that receives and welcomes these suffering populations. It is also strong enough to handle the costs to and stresses on the state. 36 But the long duration of the refugee influx, coupled with complex domestic and regional politics interwoven with the Syrian crisis, meant that Turkey could not completely mold the political implications and make them fit its foreign policy aspira-

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tions. In particular, it meant that Turkey’s dream of creating a union with its southern neighbors could not be realized. While Syria and Iraq (and the broader Middle East) remain a central concern for Turkish foreign policy, they are no longer a geography of opportunity. More dramatically, in January 2016 we saw a reversal of policy, with the closing of the border and the reinstatement of a visa requirement for Syrians (coming by sea or by air).37 The active policy of reaching visa-free agreements with a wider number of countries has also stopped. As a result, Ankara seems to be turning back to Europe as the place where foreign policy can be exerted to extract benefits for Turkey. In this respect, the European refugee management crisis of 2015 provided a great opportunity to Turkey, which was able to leverage its strategic position within the refugee outflows and get important concessions from Europe. As refugees from diverse geographies (Syria, sub-Saharan and North Africa, Central and South Asia, etc.) started to cross the Mediterranean to reach European shores in 2015—and in greater numbers than in previous years38—European countries found themselves in the middle of a crisis. On the one hand, thousands of human beings were dying in the Mediterranean (an estimated 3,800 people lost their lives in the Mediterranean in 2015, and 5,000 perished in 2016).39 On the other hand, different European countries (whether in the EU or not) felt suddenly overwhelmed by the increase in numbers, leading to reactive and sometimes contradictory policies, such as closing borders but also openly welcoming all migrants, which added to the overall chaos. Domestically, diverse politicians were using the crisis to galvanize support for more restrictive policies intended to reduce the number of migrants and fed a strong anti-EU, antimigrant populist wave across Europe. Public opinion was sharply divided between those who wanted to assist and welcome these populations and those who felt overwhelmed by the seemingly uncontrolled nature of these arrivals and the potential impact on the future of European societies. As theorized by Greenhill, such a divided public opinion creates a vulnerability in democratic countries that can be exploited by third countries exerting control over refugee flows.40 Turkey took advantage of this situation. Eventually, by the fall of 2015, a plan, initially dubbed the Merkel plan, emerged.41 The idea was to associate Turkey in a broader agreement with the EU in order to prevent migrants from crossing, reduce the number of deaths, and regain control over border crossing. With higher numbers of refugees coming in and the multiple crises that were occurring within EU member states and at the EU level, Turkey had the upper hand. As part of the deals agreed on (first in November 2015 and again in March 2016), Ankara agreed on the return to Turkey of irregular migrants apprehended in the Aegean Sea. In exchange, for every Syrian returned to Turkey, a Syrian refugee from Turkey would be resettled in the

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EU. In addition, Turkey would receive a total of €6 billion to be invested in building capacities to receive and host a large number of migrants. Furthermore, Turkey gained a restart of its accession process (with the reopening of Chapter 33 of the accession negotiation dealing with financial and budgetary provisions), an opening of negotiation on the customs union, and renewed commitment to moving forward with visa liberalization for Turkish citizens in the Schengen space.42 It is important to note that a few years after the deal, negotiations with the EU on accession negotiations, the customs union, and visa liberalization were characterized by a high level of scrutiny, criticism, and resistance, and all stalled.43 Nevertheless, back in March 2016, being able to negotiate such an agreement represented a great win for Erdoğan’s government. As illustrated by Greenhill, it was a textbook example of migration-engineered coercion, a tool of statecraft used by Turkey.44 But while this deal may be construed as a strategic gain for Turkey, it can also be seen as a symbolic loss for Turkey, given its desire to move away from Eurocentrism. The EU-Turkey deal came on top of Turkey finally signing in 2013 the readmission agreement it had long tried to avoid.45 On these two fronts, Turkey was forced to reengage with Europe on migration issues. In 2016, Ankara did so in a position of force. However, by doing so, Ankara also implicitly joined a migration management scheme defined by and revolving around the interests of the European Union.

Eurocentrism and Turkish Foreign Policy Expressions of Eurocentrism Under the AKP, Turkey’s discursive criticism of the West is well documented.46 But within a wider range of critical discourse toward the West, there is also a subtler but persistent criticism of Eurocentrism. This criticism of Eurocentrism is rooted both in an academic project based on critical theory and postcolonialism and in a political project of affirming the emergence of non-European rising powers, which will define the future of international relations. Elements of this discourse focus on the need to situate Turkey in the center—and not on the periphery—of international politics47 and an expression of “resentment toward this hierarchy of importance.”48 Both Ahmet Davutoğlu (minister of foreign affairs from 2009 to 2014 and prime minister from 2014 to 2016) and İbrahim Kalın (senior foreign policy adviser to Erdoğan) have explicitly talked about moving past Eurocentrism as a historical move and a goal for Turkish foreign policy. In 2013, Davutoğlu affirmed, “Now we are living in such an accelerated flow of history, we cannot be static. We cannot have prejudices in our minds, we cannot have stereotypes, if we want to understand this new global transformation.

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How should we address this? First of all, there is a political change. There is no—like Cold War—a Eurocentric or Euroatlantic plus Soviet Union center of world politics any more. There are new rising powers.”49 While Davutoğlu focuses on the inevitability of a post-Eurocentric future, Kalın has expressed concerns about the persistence of Eurocentrism. There is “an immense self-confidence and hubris to build a new world based on a Eurocentric worldview,”50 and “Eurocentrism is still very much alive in the arteries of the current world system. . . . But this is a selfdefeating approach.”51 This explicit critique of Eurocentrism is an attempt “to break free of the impositions of the hierarchical nature of the international system. . . . As such, there is a story of resistance and hegemony being told here whereby Turkey and the AKP government are located within the resistance.”52 This criticism of Eurocentrism and Turkey’s attempts to overcome it are seen in the debates over migration. Turkish officials have long criticized Europe for putting EU states’ interests ahead of third countries’ and migrants’ interests.53 The process of externalization of European migration policies mentioned above, a Eurocentric push by definition, was criticized and resisted by Turkish officials from 2005 on. The concerns were that European demands would turn Turkey into a buffer zone for keeping refugees and migrants out of “Fortress Europe,” with little burden sharing. “As expressed at diverse political levels, Turkey does not want to fall into a buffer zone of first asylum countries surrounding the EU or turn into a safe third country in case membership fails.”54 Accordingly, Turkey resisted the EU demands on the lifting of the geographical limitation, the EU-Turkey readmission agreement, and, as detailed above, the adoption of the Schengen visa. While material reasons might explain these areas of resistance, the official justification was more principled and based on a criticism of the Eurocentrism of these norms and practices.55 More specifically, the criticism was that it was working for EU interests, not Turkish interests; that it was working for EU interests, not migrants’ interests; and that it was hypocritical and not aligned with proclaimed EU values. Interestingly, by criticizing Europe, Turkish counterparts were also owning the values identified as European.56 Whose Interests? In light of the policy goals of resisting Eurocentrism and pushing for a postEurocentric world, how can the EU-Turkey deal of March 2016 be evaluated? For Turkey, the deal was a quid pro quo that generated material and symbolic gains for Turkey (negotiating as an equal and obtaining concessions on the accession process, customs union, and visa liberalization). For the EU, the goal was to trade concessions to Turkey for a halt of uncontrolled migratory movements that were generating instability at the core of

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Europe. In fact, the deal also opened the door for the EU to be blackmailed by Ankara, which could threaten to “open the doors of migration.” President Erdoğan has indeed several times used this rhetoric.57 After two years of implementation of the deal, achievements remain mixed. The European Commission provided impressive numbers showing that “irregular arrivals remain 97 percent lower than the period before the Statement became operational . . . while the number of deaths in the Aegean decreased from 1,175 in the twenty months before the Statement to 130.”58 However, both the number of individuals returned from Greece to Turkey and the number of resettlements from Turkey to EU member states remain low. The deal has also put additional constraints and pressure on the already overwhelmed Greek asylum system, with thousands of asylum seekers stranded and awaiting a decision on islands with only half the accommodation capabilities.59 More difficult to measure is the extent to which migrants and refugees have access to protection and appropriate aid in Greece and Turkey. For Turkey, as of March 2019 there had been no substantial development on the negotiations to modernize the customs union. Visa liberalization for Turkey had not been delivered due to disagreement on Turkey’s terrorism law. And the discussion on Turkey’s EU membership was suspended on November 2016 in response to Turkey’s domestic crackdown following the failed military coup the previous July. Looking into the future, some predict a short life to the deal, which has already been pronounced dead a few times.60 But others argue that the deal is “too big to fail.”61 Beyond these material gains—or lack thereof—the symbolism of the EU-Turkey deal should be assessed.62 Given Ankara’s goal of undermining or replacing Eurocentric migration policies, the deal represents a loss for Turkey. Together with the signing of the readmission agreement, the deal means that Turkey accepts the fact that European interests are prime in this international refugee management deal. Effectively, it transforms Turkey into a migratory buffer zone, particularly useful to Europe. And it situates Turkey geographically outside European boundaries, symbolically sealing off the perspective of having Turkey in Europe in the future. Turkey is now openly complicit in reinforcing the Eurocentric system of migration management, both symbolically and materially. It is worth noting that Turkish parliamentarians, when discussing the deal, have partially recognized this: “We all know what it means to accept an agreement that unilaterally seeks the interests of the European Union. This is similar to the capitulations during the last period of the Ottoman Empire.”63 However, the AKP leadership did not comment on this particular aspect. The Reproduction of Eurocentrism There are several ways in which this unwitting Eurocentrism can be interpreted. One is to think of it as a choice made between idealism and prag-

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matism. In this case, an ideal (to combat Eurocentrism) is put aside in a bow to pragmatism in order to consider other payoffs. Kemal Kirişci has discussed how Turkish foreign policy under the AKP has alternated between idealist and pragmatic periods, and from 2016 on, he has observed a turn toward pragmatism.64 That explains how “Prime Minister Davutoğlu, who enjoys espousing the rhetoric of principles and virtues, put his signature under a . . . deal worth 3 billion euros.”65 Such a deal, however, makes it more difficult to claim the status of a normative power when you move away from a “value-based foreign policy.”66 In addition, the EU-Turkey deal does not simply put aside the undoing of Eurocentrism; it actually goes further by reproducing and reinforcing Eurocentrism. Nurcan Özgür-Baklacıoğlu highlighted this even before the EU-Turkey deal was signed, saying that by adopting the agenda set by the EU’s externalization policy, Turkey was complicit in symbolically and materially building Fortress Europe.67 Furthermore, it is creating a Fortress Europe whose border does not include Turkey. This in turn compromises any long-term plan of Turkey integrating into the EU project. Bianca Benvenuti called this a “migration paradox”: “This raises the first paradox: while Turkish cooperation in stemming the flow of migrants has been guaranteed via a reinvigorated accession process, migration itself hampers it. In other words, the EU is using the accession process to persuade Turkey to cooperate on this issue, but actual accession would render Turkey’s borders—adjacent to troubled regions—EU’s external borders, which runs counter to the EU’s interest in keeping Turkey as a buffer.”68 Or, as put more bluntly by Didem Danış, “The EU will never accept as a member a country which has turned into a buffer zone at such a high cost.”69 This realization that Turkey unwittingly ends up reproducing a Eurocentric policy regarding migration, in turn, raises a broader question: Is it even possible to escape Eurocentrism? As Zeynep Çapan puts it, “Europe or the West is the maker of history and definer of the international, and Turkey can do nothing but to react to it. As such, the argument of Turkey resisting a hegemonic structure itself comes into question whereby it is their conceptualization of this structure that is part of the reason for its reproduction.”70 In constructivist language, the tools used to deconstruct a particular international narrative often adopt the very norms they are supposed to undo. As with many countries around the world, Turkey has always used movements of population and asylum and migration policies instrumentally in order to advance foreign or domestic policy interests. At the same time, the context of both foreign and domestic policies exerts a set of constraints that

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limit the range of possibilities. Toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Turkey was capitalizing on its human connections with neighbors, near and far, to improve its positioning. Liberal visa policies, open borders, and a flexible implementation of existing migration regulations were the instruments of this approach, which was aimed at accompanying Turkey’s rise as an autonomous, virtuous regional power. A decade later, the state of Turkey’s relations with its neighbors has turned sharply negative. Accordingly, so have its ambitions regarding the use of movements of population as a means of soft power. Now the use of migration policy is more reactive and aims, less ambitiously, at taking advantage of the opportunities a crisis offers, in particular in Turkey’s relationships with Europe. Turkey has witnessed a shrinking of foreign policy opportunities when it comes to migration. But, while having fewer options, Turkey has been able to capitalize on those remaining and leveraged its position toward the EU. The so-called EU-Turkey deal of March 2016 has shown dramatically how Turkey was able to take advantage of the European refugee management crisis of 2015 in order to mitigate the foreign policy losses in the Middle East and superficially reanchor itself in the European foreign policy landscape. However, by doing so, the Turkish leadership has also bound itself to the very conceptual Eurocentrism ingrained in EU migration policies that it had been criticizing. On the discursive and moral levels, the Turkish leadership may have lost the high ground. From the perspective of accepting or rejecting Eurocentrism, we can see that Turkish policy on migration (e.g., asylum, refugee management) has returned to Europe after having experimented with other geographical horizons. In a deeper meaning of Eurocentrism, Ankara has accepted the definition of a key global issue solely through the prism of European narratives and interests. While the AKP leadership has long criticized Eurocentrism, it nevertheless continues a century-old tendency of criticizing a normative framework while aspiring to it and eventually contributing to its robustness and longevity. This analysis is meant to examine specifically the role played by immigration in Turkey’s broader foreign policy. It should not, however, overlook the crucial role that the Turkish state and society have played in welcoming over 3.5 million Syrians to their territory since 2011. Despite some shortcomings in theory and practice, Turkey’s Syrian refugee policy remains one of modern history’s strongest examples of an intentional and welcoming approach to mass refugee influx. Notwithstanding this important contribution from Turkey, it is also crucial to understand how this policy is, at times, used strategically for other purposes. This instrumental use, in the realm of foreign policy, can lead to unintended consequences that most are unaware of, such as how the Turkey-EU deal sealed Turkey’s contribution to a Eurocentric understanding of migration governance.

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1. European Council, “EU-Turkey Statement, 18 March 2016.” 2. Kale, “The EU-Turkey Action Plan Is Imperfect.” 3. European Commission, “Managing the Refugee Crisis, EU-Turkey Statement.” 4. Radeva, “A Need for Deconstruction.” 5. Haferlach and Kurban, “Lessons Learnt.” 6. Gogou, “The EU-Turkey Deal.” Non-refoulement is a principle of international law (found in the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights and the 1951 UN refugee convention, to which many EU members and Turkey are parties) stating that no individual can be sent back to a country where she or he risks persecution, torture, or degrading treatment. 7. Alpes et al., “Post-deportation Risks.” 8. Sala, “The EU-Turkey Statement on Migration.” 9. Niemann and Zaun, “EU Refugee Policies.” 10. Toygür and Benvenuti, “One Year On: An Assessment of the EU-Turkey Statement on Refugees.” 11. Karnitschnig, “How Turkey Held the EU for Ransom.” 12. Niemann and Zaun, “EU Refugee Policies.” 13. This chapter analyzes the interaction between Turkish foreign policy and Turkish policy toward immigrants and refugees. As such, the emigration of Turks—for instance, to Europe—and Turkish diaspora politics are not the main focus. 14. Tolay, “Coming and Going,” p. 126. 15. Tolay, “Coming and Going,” p. 126. 16. Kirişci, “Provide Comfort or Trouble.” 17. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration, p. 316. 18. Özerim, “Stretching, Opening or Sealing,” p. 7. 19. Kirişci, “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System.” 20. Özerim, “Stretching, Opening or Sealing,” p. 11. 21. Danış and Parla, “Nafile Soydaşlık”; Özerim, “Stretching, Opening or Sealing,” p. 12. 22. As defined by the European Commission, the acquis (short for acquis communautaire) is “the body of common rights and obligations that is binding on all the EU member states.” It includes all the treaties, legislations, and binding administrative decisions of the EU and must be adopted and implemented by candidate countries before they can join the EU. “European Neighbourhood Policy and the Enlargement Negotiations,” European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/policy /glossary/terms/acquis_en. 23. Aygül, “Locating Change in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 24. Lavenex and Uçarer, Migration and the Externalities. 25. Dimitriadi et al., “EU-Turkey Relations and Irregular Migration.” 26. Rumelili, “Constructing Identity.” 27. Linden et al., Turkey and Its Neighbors. 28. Kirişci, “A Friendlier Schengen Visa System”; Öktem, “From Soft Power to Soft Borders.” 29. Aygül, “Locating Change in Turkish Foreign Policy.” 30. Cebeci, “De-Europeanisation or Counter-conduct?” 31. Kirişci, Turkey and the West. 32. Heck and Hess, “Tracing the Effects of the EU-Turkey Deal.” 33. Tolay, “The EU and Turkey’s Asylum Policy.” 34. Gokalp Aras and Sahin Mencutek, “The International Migration and Foreign Policy Nexus.” 35. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends. 36. Tolay, “Mass Migration and Images of State Power.” 37. Hürriyet Daily News, “Turkey’s New Visa Law for Syrians Enters into Force.” Those coming by land (i.e., crossing the land border) would still be able to come to Turkey

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and seek temporary protection. The goal was to stem the flow of Syrian migrants coming to Turkey (and possibly onward to Europe) from third countries such as Lebanon or Jordan. 38. The number of people applying for asylum alone peaked in 2015 with 1.26 million applicants. European Parliament, “EU Migrant Crisis.” 39. European Parliament, “EU Migrant Crisis.” 40. Greenhill, Weapons of Mass Migration, pp. 48–50. 41. European Stability Initiative, “The Merkel Plan.” 42. European Council, “EU-Turkey Statement, 18 March 2016.” 43. Among others, see Kirişci and Bülbül, “The EU and Turkey Need Each Other.” 44. Greenhill, “Open Arms Behind Barred Doors.” 45. İçduygu and Aksel, “Two-to-Tango in Migration Diplomacy.” 46. See, e.g., Kirişci, Turkey and the West; Cebeci, “De-Europeanisation or Counterconduct?” 47. Özerim, “Stretching, Opening or Sealing.” 48. Kirişci, “Turkey’s Role in the Syrian Refugee Crisis,” p. 84. 49. Davutoğlu, “Speech Delivered by H. E. Ahmet Davutoğlu.” 50. Kalın, “The Age of Unreason.” 51. Kalın, “The Age of Terrorism and Hypocrisy.” 52. Çapan, “Enacting the International/Reproducing Eurocentrism,” p. 662. 53. Tolay, “Critical Europeanization.” 54. Özgür-Baklacıoğlu, “Building ‘Fortress Turkey,’” p. 116. 55. Tolay, “Critical Europeanization.” 56. Tolay, “Critical Europeanization.” 57. Economist, “A Year On from a Deal with Turkey.” 58. European Commission, “EU-Turkey Statement: Two Years On.” 59. European Stability Initiative, “Refugees and Asylum in the Aegean.” 60. Beser, “EU-Turkey Deal: A Dead-Duck”; Tamkin, “Did Turkey Just Kill the Refugee Deal?” 61. Dudden and Ustun, “EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement.” 62. In addition to Turkey’s acceptance of a Eurocentric deal, another symbolic (and moral) argument can be made in which Turkey loses its ground. Since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis, Turkey had prided itself on being a virtuous and responsible power providing humanitarian help and protection to refugees. With the deal, Ankara is now complicit in a system that bargains with asylum seekers’ bodies for other political goods. It therefore also marks a loss in terms of depicting Turkey as a normative power. 63. Demirsu and Muftuler-Bac, “The Turkish-EU Cooperation on the Refugee Crisis,” p. 11. 64. Kirişci, Turkey and the West. 65. Danış, “A New Period in Turkish Migration Policy,” p. 26. 66. Oktav and Çelikaksoy, “The Syrian Refugee Challenge,” p. 411. 67. Özgür-Baklacıoğlu, “Building ‘Fortress Turkey.’” 68. Benvenuti, “The Migration Paradox and EU-Turkey Relations,” p. 12. 69. Danış, “A New Period in Turkish Migration Policy,” p. 26. 70. Çapan, “Enacting the International/Reproducing Eurocentrism,” p. 663.

PART 3 Conclusion

16 Transition to What? Gürkan Çelik and Ronald H. Linden

domestic and external developments, this volume aims to offer a comprehensive view of developments in contemporary Turkey, especially those since the attempted coup in July 2016. This chapter reviews the conclusions of each contribution, offers a synthetic analysis of Turkey’s key dynamics—mapping the factors affecting Turkey’s transition (see Figure 16.1)— and suggests what might be expected in the near future for Turkey, its people, and its interactions with the world.

Through chapters addressing a wide range of topics reflecting

The Erdoğan Factor: The Only Power and Purpose

As argued in Chapter 2, Recep Erdoğan, the dominant figure, has been something of a shape-shifter, emerging in 2002 as a change agent in Turkish politics championing democratization of the country. But once in power, he has become the sole ruler, an autocratic leader who has consolidated his power over state, society, and markets. This is neither a new story for Turkey nor one unique to this country. In many parts of the world—Russia, India, Hungary, the Philippines—power has been consolidated in the hands of one person or a small group.1 In Turkey, the firm grip of this one man has given political Islam a dominant place in Turkey’s politics. Erdoğan’s political Islamic background has helped him succeed in reaching the Muslim population in Turkey and abroad. He came to power and then gave conservative Muslims the opportunity and means to blend their religious views with political action. Consequently, Turkey’s orientation has shifted from the European Union and the United States toward the Turkic and the Islamic world. 247

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Figure 16.1 Factors Affecting Turkey’s Transition

Erdoğan’s repressive regime is currently moving from consolidating internal power to projecting it beyond Turkey’s borders. Domestically, Erdoğan has regularly switched his stance on (religious) groups, secular citizens, and the Kurds. As denoted by Joost Jongerden (Chapter 5), Henri Barkey (Chapter 10), Aaron Stein (Chapter 11), and Bill Park (Chapter 12), the centralization of internal power has been accompanied by aggressive foreign policies and military strategies against the Kurds in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, and Syria. Over the seventeen-year rule of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) in Turkey, Erdoğan has become the only power. He has changed Turkey’s governing structure to a presidential system. He uses presidential decrees as the main means of arranging the state and society to suit his preferences. The majority of Turks accept this consolidation of power by one person, but as Barkey puts it, this is the AKP’s Achilles’ heel: “its reliance [is] on only Erdoğan; he is its only raison d’être.”2 Erdoğan still presents himself skillfully as the only constant, promoting the idea that he keeps careful watch on the Turkish nation’s domestic and foreign dangers and enemies.

Structural Factors: Charismatic Leadership and State Power

As noted in several chapters in this volume, a critical factor in Turkey today is the AKP’s dominance, achieved with broad social support for that party, as a majority of society appears to embrace its political ideology, programs, and local organizations. Through Erdoğan’s person, the AKP has been able to

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attract and retain legions of voters. Erdoğan and his AKP control almost all state and media resources, including the electoral system, and continuously operate in “electoral mobilization mode.”3 Henri Barkey notes further that their extremely active and effective local apparatus “has direct knowledge about voters at the local level, can mobilize supporters, bring them to the polls and ensure high participation rates.”4 Beyond the referenda that led to the governmental system changes, parliamentary, presidential, and local elections have contributed to ever greater concentration of power in Turkey. Elections, as “democratic” instruments, have been used effectively by the AKP to demonstrate its power and public support to both internal and external audiences. Erdoğan’s leadership has been crucial to winning election after election. Generally, contemporary leadership rhetoric in Turkish politics stimulates uniformity and suppression of diversity while undermining criticism and alternative thinking. Critical voices against Erdoğan or his potential opponents within the AKP (e.g., Ahmet Davutoğlu, Ali Babacan, and Abdullah Gül) have been silenced and isolated. Journalists, academics, and political opponents are not allowed to use platforms to express their opinions, or they do not dare to articulate their criticisms publicly due to possible prosecution that can be initiated by AKP-controlled prosecutors. Charismatic—actually, often narcissistic—leaders tend to demand blind obedience from their followers. The widely praised strong national culture in the current Turkish context takes the form of a drive to get the nation behind one ruler to make “a more independent and powerful Turkey, capable of acting alone,” as Aaron Stein puts it in Chapter 11. This kind of leadership resonates powerfully among the Turkish electorate but also has a side that means a further shift from democracy toward autocracy and one-person rule. Most of the authors in this volume identify the AKP’s control over the state as a key factor in social, political, and economic developments. Today’s harsh rhetoric and political practices in Turkey, such as a presidential system that gives so much power to one man, do not suggest that a transformation is coming shortly. Since the Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013, civil society organizations have witnessed a shrinking of opportunities to exercise substantial opposition. Critical voices are systematically intimidated by state organs and AKP groups in the media and society. In the aftermath of the 2016 attempted coup, the government has intensified its crackdown on political opponents and critics in society. For many observers, including the contributors to this volume, the direction of modern Turkey will depend both on the capacity of civil society to actively participate in shaping the country and on the creation of a genuinely democratic and constitutional state, one that is based, for example, on EU standards and the rule of law. While there are many indications that

Societal Factors: Civic Actors, Religion, and Women

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things are not going well for Turkey, there are reasons for hope, as increasing numbers of citizens become disillusioned with the authoritarian regime, the negative consequences of its economic policy, and its contempt for a free judiciary. The victory of the opposition groups during the 2019 municipal elections in Istanbul illustrates such a disillusionment. In Chapter 7, Gürkan Çelik and Paul Dekker are comparatively optimistic, taking the view that the effects of civil society are unpredictable, and thus positive change can happen unexpectedly. For example, civic actors might achieve such change merely by speaking out against deteriorating economic conditions and increasing limits on their freedoms. Religion, chiefly Islam, is a central dynamic in Turkish society and politics. Turkish society remains heterogeneous and fragmented. It is divided into separate camps: Muslims and non-Muslims, seculars and nonseculars, Sunnis and Alevis, Turks and Kurds, Kemalists and nationalists, “patriots” and “traitors,” among others. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s principles of “peace at home, peace in the world” and separation of religion and state are no longer an immutable component of Turkey’s national and international politics. As Nico Landman makes clear in Chapter 6, the new political role for the Diyanet, the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs, 5 shows the close connections between it and the AKP. Atatürk used the Diyanet to keep the imams in check and ensure that they told the people what he wanted; its infrastructure is now similarly used to disseminate AKP-friendly information. Diyanet imams’ use of espionage to control people in Turkey and beyond and the announcements from Diyanet mosques on the night of the attempted military coup in 2016 to take to the streets in large numbers demonstrate the directorate’s instrumental role in the AKP era.6 In addition, the role and position of women in Turkish society have changed, if modestly. Women’s equal status in Turkish society has been supported in the AKP period, and their drive for access to (higher) education and full participation in social and professional life has not explicitly been inhibited. Yet there remains a conservative bias regarding women’s place in society. As detailed by Jenny White in Chapter 8, women in the AKP’s “new” Turkey have a national duty to marry and to bear sons to repopulate the Turkish nation. The capacities and abilities of women, no matter how powerful and important, are constrained by traditional and conservative gender roles. 7 They represent family, propriety, and sexual vulnerability. The attendance of violence against women, their unimproved participation in the labor market, and the work-gender imbalance indicate little change since 2002. White concludes in her chapter that “a stable future for Turkey rests on a well-functioning economy and educational system, the rule of law, and the integrity of the family, arenas central to women’s lives that are at present under siege.”

Transition to What?

The Kurdish Factor: Security Issue or Militarization Strategy?

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It is worth recalling that Turkey’s population, with a median age of just over thirty, is expected to swell to 100 million by 2050. The lack of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as education in their native language, for the country’s roughly 15 million Kurds and the restriction of their political participation raise questions about whether a resurgence of the Kurdish conflict will lead to separatism. In Chapter 5, Joost Jongerden discusses Kurdish developments in the AKP period, recognizing two contradictory sets of policies. During its governance, the AKP developed plans in 2013 to tackle Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish dispute through a resolution process. Restrictions on the public use of the Kurdish language were eased, Kurdish radio and TV stations were opened, and a series of talks, known as the Oslo Process, began. But this Kurdish opening did not lead to a long-term political solution with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) because of the revival of violence in eastern Turkey against Turkish military and police forces. From roughly 2015, the AKP used the Kurdish conflict to justify militarization. This strategy resulted in more electoral support for the AKP and more control over state and society for Erdoğan. These seemingly contradictory policies resulted from strategic policy choices made by Erdoğan and the AKP at different times. Both the Turkish and Kurdish peoples have suffered greatly as a result of the nationalist ideal of a homogeneous Turkey and an independent Kurdistan rather than a multiethnic, democratic Turkey. As Bill Park discusses in Chapter 12, the historical difficulties are reinforced by the deeply unfavorable political climate in today’s Middle East. After the AKP lost its parliamentary majority in June 2015, Turkey was plagued by a wave of violence and terrorist attacks. Following the bombing in Suruç and the murder of two police officers in Ceylanpınar in July 2015, the AKP broke off peace negotiations with Kurdish groups and joined the war against the Islamic State (IS).8 The Turkish government’s focus is on fighting Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria as well as in Turkey. While the US-led international coalition against ISIS gained a new ally in Turkey, Kurdish separatism remains the biggest threat to the Turkish state. The Turkish government holds that terrorist attacks by ISIS and the PKK endanger national security and vows to fight all such groups. Turkey is therefore waging two wars at once: in Syria against ISIS and in Turkey, Syria, and Iraq against the PKK. In the meantime, the opposition (e.g., Republican People’s Party [CHP], People’s Democratic Party [HDP]) and some international organizations accuse the AKP of using the fight against ISIS as an excuse to attack Kurdish groups. Is the war against ISIS indeed merely cover for the fight against the Kurds? Certainly many Kurdish leaders think so. The government’s strategy is not

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without risk, as political escalation and social unrest might follow if certain groups within the Kurdish movement were to respond to Turkish government attacks, causing considerable harm to Turkey’s internal stability. While it is unlikely, the Turkish government could instead choose to become the Kurds’ gateway to the world through education and economic development of the Kurdish region. This would mean avoiding a solely security-oriented approach to the Kurdish issue. The flag of peace and conflict resolution with Turkish Kurds has flown before and can fly again, as Joost Jongerden, among others, fervently hopes. But the Kurds will probably not want to negotiate peace again without another country as guarantor besides Turkey. As discussed in Chapter 3 by Gürkan Çelik and Elvan Aktaş, the state of the economy is and will be a key factor in Turkey. The country’s free market economy relies on industries, especially in the construction and service sectors, while its traditional agriculture sector remains vital, accounting for roughly a quarter of total employment. Turkey is increasingly paying more attention to the automotive, petrochemical, and electronics industries in addition to traditional sectors such as textiles. But the recent period of political instability, especially during the postcoup crackdown, has increased risk. In addition, the ongoing armed conflicts in the Kurdish area of Turkey and across the border in Syria remain a heavy burden for Turkey’s economy and economic growth and handicap Turkey’s trade activities in the region. Also, the decline of confidence in the Turkish democracy hinders both foreign and domestic investment, and many Turkish investors are seeking safe havens abroad, especially in Europe and the United States. These all cause financial market volatility and influence Turkey’s economic prospects negatively. The Turkish government’s economic politics emphasize financial measures (e.g., capital control by the Turkish central bank or government to limit the outflow of money), easy credit, and the use of the new Turkey Wealth Fund to finance public and private investments. Implementation of structural economic reforms has slowed. Since the attempted coup in 2016, credit ratings agencies have reduced Turkey’s credit ratings, citing concerns about the rule of law and the lack of economic reforms. These alarming trends, along with destabilizing shifts in investor confidence and rising unemployment and inflation (around 20 percent as of January 2019), have weakened the Turkish lira against the euro and the US dollar. As for the energy sector, Turkey has for a long time tried to become a transit hub for oil and gas based on its geostrategic location. Such a development would give Turkey the opportunity to collect transit fees and thus to tap into a new source of income. As discussed by Mustafa Demir in Chapter 4, that goal can only be achieved if import volumes, infrastructure

Economic Factors: Weaknesses Versus Strengths

Transition to What?

253

capacity, and storage capacity all keep pace with Turkey’s own growing energy needs. Turkey remains highly dependent on imported oil and gas and is taking steps to increase the use of domestic energy sources, including nuclear, renewables, and coal. Moreover, to ensure its own gas supply, it is immensely important that Turkey reduces its energy dependence on Russia and Iran in particular, since relations with both countries are not without serious challenges. However, all the alternatives to Russian and Iranian gas—for example, the area around the Caspian Sea, the Kurdish Autonomous Region, and the eastern Mediterranean—are encumbered with their own political and economic obstacles. Turkey’s economy is more exposed to international forces than it was at the beginning of the new millennium. Turkish GDP growth slowed to 5.3 percent in 2018, down from 8.5 percent expansion in 2013. Previously, international institutions had praised Erdoğan for leading Turkey out of economic autarchy, even calling the country an economic miracle. In the first quarter of 2011, Turkey was the world’s fastest-growing economy. Since the Gezi Park protests and corruption probes in 2013, when controversy began over Erdoğan’s authoritarian stances, and especially with the postcoup crackdown in 2016, the story has changed dramatically. The key economic and political question now is: With democracy significantly weakened, if not destroyed, will economic weakness undermine Erdoğan? Above all, can Turkey get rich before its 100th birthday in 2023? Might all of these elements soon stimulate a broader unrest in Turkey? As discussed broadly by Ronald Linden in Chapter 9, Turkey is a middle power. Regionally, Turkey is a key player because of its Islamic and historical role, its membership in NATO, and its customs union with the EU. In the Middle East, Central Asia, the Balkans, and the Maghreb, Turkey holds a position of strategic importance, not only in terms of its geographical location but also because of its cultural heritage and relations between the Turkic and Arab worlds. In the Middle East, Turkey is a military power, sharing borders with Iran, Iraq, and Syria, all of which have experienced war and political unrest, the latter for some time. As Europe’s immediate neighbor, Turkey has always been eager to join the European Community. But European sentiment toward Turkey’s accession to the EU is generally negative.9 Opposition to membership is based on the question of whether Turkey is sufficiently European or is too Eastern, too big (with a population roughly equal to that of Germany, the largest EU country), or too poor. The cities and the eastern part of Anatolia are economically underdeveloped. The prevailing sentiment that Turkey is not yet ready to join the EU is likely to remain the case for the foreseeable

Regional and International Factors: A Middle Power

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future. Additional factors that may hinder or advance Turkey’s EU accession rotate around its development toward or away from democracy. As Erdoğan’s increasingly autocratic leadership gains power, Turkey’s relationship with Europe will become further stressed. Negotiations for Turkey’s full EU membership were opened in 2005. Since then, only one of thirty-five chapters has been provisionally closed (see Chapter 14 by Hanna-Lisa Hauge, Funda Tekin, and Wolfgang Wessels). The massive postcoup purges, along with the Turkish constitutional change to a presidential system, have effectively halted Turkish accession.10 The reality is that Turkey is functionally firmly planted in Europe already. As Chapters 14 and 15 report, Turkey is a leading trade and investment partner for Europe, has a customs union with the EU, and is a NATO member. And with more than 5 million Turkish people living in Europe, the strategic interdependence of the two regions is beyond question. Both need each other not only for economic purposes but also for security and management of migration (see Chapter 15 by Juliette Tolay). However, as Erdoğan’s move toward authoritarianism makes clear, Europe’s ability to move Turkey toward democratic development is limited. As for Turkish-US cooperation, relations between the two countries have a long history going back to the Korean War and Turkey’s entry into NATO. Nowadays, however, bilateral relations are tense due to several issues concerning the Middle East, Erdoğan’s stance on military cooperation with Russia, and economic ties with Iran, as Aaron Stein outlines in Chapter 11. Some Turkish politicians say that Turkey does not belong in NATO, a sentiment echoed by some in the United States and other NATO allies.11 And the European Union and the United States are not Erdoğan’s only potential suitors. Ronald Linden discusses a set of “alternatives” for Turkey in a changing world in Chapter 9. Turkey’s domestic and foreign politics have often generated confusion, puzzling both experts and the general public. In addition to the multiplicity of factors and the often opaque interactions, the cross-border passage of people and ideas in and out of the country produces effects that are hard to measure precisely, much less predict. Turkey’s complexity, like that of many countries, raises several questions. What are the fundamental political forces in Turkey, and what are the interdependencies between them? Which (political) parties or public and private organizations hold power, and how is this reflected in the actions of the business or religious communities, civil society, or the Turkish diaspora? What are the dynamics and consequences of Turkey’s power struggles? Must these inevitably involve a “backsliding” from democratic practice? Is the once robust Turkish economy losing its vigor, and what will that mean for the ruling party? Con-

The Complexity of Turkey: An Additive Approach

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versely, what does the growth in power and appeal of Islam mean for Turkish society, its neighbors, and allies? Does Turkey have a special—or any— role to play in the EU, in Europe more broadly, or in the Middle East? Most fundamental—and most challenging for analysts—is the question of where Turkey and its 83 million people are headed as a nation and a country. Our capacity to offer answers is further put to the test by the fact that people and their actions are variable, and their motives may not be immediately apparent. In this respect and in relation to the larger world in which people act, students of Turkey and Turkish society must make their observations in the presence of incomplete information. For example, we know that humans often act in political collectives or in the name of states in ways that they might not on an individual level. Populism and illiberal democracy are proof of that; yet this will likely look different in Turkey than elsewhere. And of course, students of any topic—including one as fascinating and changing as Turkey—will often bring to it their own underlying assumptions or preconceived notions. Here, at least, we can be aware of such biases and their possible effect on our work. While daunting, the questions are not beyond our ability to investigate, and there are many models and approaches to such projects. Some studies of national development, for example, use the notion of complexity itself to guide inquiry.12 The intensive and comparative study of democratic change in Latin America and East Europe produced a (controversial) paradigm of “transition.”13 The authors in our volume were not given a preset framework; nor were they confined to a single conceptual approach. Rather they were asked to identify within a given sector (e.g., civil society) key factors that might explain how the people of Turkey and the forces that govern them have reacted to a dangerous and rapidly changing world. They were asked to both bring the reader up to date as much as possible and to help us understand what lies behind—and perhaps ahead—of these developments. This approach may be less parsimonious than one might want in a comprehensive and definitive model, but our aim is more modest: to make a contribution to building an understanding of contemporary Turkey by closely studying its various dimensions. This “brick-by-brick” approach is painstaking and includes its own frustrations but can offer, we hope, an appreciation for—and comprehension of—the key dynamics driving a changing country that, willy-nilly, finds itself in the center of significant social, political, regional, and global change.

Notes

1. Taussig, “Order from Chaos.” 2. Barkey, “L’État c’est Erdogan.” 3. Barkey, “For Erdogan and His Cronies.” 4. Barkey, “For Erdogan and His Cronies.”

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5. The Diyanet is a state institution and serves as a part of the Turkish government. 6. Winter, “Turkish Imam Spy Affair.” 7. Sebnem, “An Example for the Construction of Masculinity in Turkey.” 8. See Chapter 5 by Jongerden in this volume. 9. Euronews, “Turkey Is No Longer an EU Candidate”; Çelik and Sunier, Het Nieuwe Turkije. 10. Pierini, “EU-Turkey Relations Reaching a Crossroads.” 11. Cook and Koplow, “Turkey Is No Longer a Reliable Ally”; Lévy, “NATO Should Give Turkey the Boot.” 12. Walter Clemens argues that “the capacity to cope with complexity” depends on the social systems of each society and might become a key factor in our complicated and interrelated world. Clemens, Complexity Science and World Affairs. 13. On transition, see Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” and the Freedom House “Nations in Transit 2018” research project, which measures the transition toward democracy of the East European countries (https://freedomhouse.org/report /nations-transit/nations-transit-2018).

Chronology of Key Events in the History of Modern Turkey

1923 1924 1925 1936 1938 1946 1948 1950 1952 1960 1963 1971 1974

1978 1980 1982 1983 1984 1989 1990

September 9. The Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP) founded. October 29. The Republic of Turkey founded.* The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, or Diyanet) created. The Sufi brotherhoods (tariqas) dissolved. Religious education removed from primary schools’ curriculum. President Atatürk dies and is succeeded by İsmet İnönü. First opposition Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti, DP) allowed to form. Religious education reintroduced as an elective. Multiparty politics begins with the electoral victory of DP. Turkey abandons Atatürk’s neutralist policy and joins NATO. The first military coup staged against Adnan Menderes (DP). Association (Ankara) Agreement signed with European Economic Community (EEC). The second military coup staged against Süleyman Demirel. Turkey sends troops to northern Cyprus in response to an attempted coup on the island. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK) established. The third military coup staged against Süleyman Demirel. Religious education becomes compulsory. Economic liberalization starts under Turgut Özal. Turkey recognizes the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Hostilities between Kurdish militia (PKK) and the Turkish Armed Forces break out in eastern Turkey. Turkish application in 1987 to join EEC deferred. Turkish parliament approves US-led coalition air strikes from Turkish bases against Iraq (First Gulf War). Start of measures taken against Kurdish People’s Labor Party (Halkın Emek Partisi, HEP).

*Events in boldface mark major milestones.

257

258 1992 1995 1997 1998 1999

2001 2002

2004

2005 2007 2008 2009

2010 2011

2013

Chronology of Key Events in the History of Modern Turkey Turkish troops enter Kurdish safe havens in Iraq in anti-PKK operation. Major Turkish military offensive launched against PKK in northern Iraq. Start of the Saturday Mothers’ demonstrations in Istanbul against state-forced disappearances and political murders. Turkey and the EU sign an agreement to form a customs union. Nonviolent “postmodern coup” staged against Necmettin Erbakan’s coalition government. European Council Summit in Luxembourg refrains from granting Turkey candidate country status. Law on Protection of the Family is passed (amended 2007) to protect women against domestic violence. Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the PKK, captured in Kenya while being transferred from the Greek embassy to Nairobi. Fethullah Gülen leaves Turkey and settles in the United States. Earthquake in Adapazarı leads to unprecedented Greek-Turkish cooperation. European Council Summit in Helsinki grants candidate country status to Turkey. Political crisis between Premier Bülent Ecevit and President Ahmet Necdet Sezer results in a major economic crisis, known as “Black Wednesday.” The Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) founded. New Civil Code adopted that gives married women more rights; Turkish men are no longer regarded by law as head of the family. The first government period of the AKP starts. Turkish parliament declines to support a resolution to allow US forces to invade Iraq from southeastern Turkey. Death penalty is banned to bring Turkish law in line with EU. New penal code gives crimes against women the same status as crimes against men. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s plan for the reunification of Cyprus fails when the Greek Cypriots reject it. Law of Municipalities amended to require municipalities to open women’s shelters. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline (BTC), carrying gas from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish Black Sea port of Samsun, opens. EU opens accession negotiations with Turkey. The second governing period of the AKP starts. Trials start against members of an alleged clandestine organization, labeled Ergenekon, accused of plotting against the Turkish government. Russia invades Georgia; two microstates, Abhazia and South Ossetia, are established. AKP government initiates a “Kurdish outreach” (e.g., abolishing restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language). US president Barack Obama makes Turkey his second presidential trip (after Canada). Obama announces the US military’s withdrawal from Iraq to be completed in December 2011. Arab Spring uprisings begin in Tunisia. Referendum approves changing the national constitution of the 1980s military junta. The third governing period of the AKP starts. Turkey ratifies the Council of Europe’s Convention on Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, known as the Istanbul Convention. Turkey sponsors the formation of the Syrian National Council (SNC), in opposition to the Assad regime. Major Gezi Park protests start in Taksim Square in Istanbul.

Chronology of Key Events in the History of Modern Turkey

2014

2015

2016

2017

259

EU-Turkey readmission agreement signed and visa-liberalization dialogue launched. Corruption scandals emerged around Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family and ministers. Hundreds of police officers who carried out a major anti-corruption operation against Erdoğan’s family and ministers are fired and themselves prosecuted. Russia annexes Crimea from Ukraine and supports insurgent forces in the eastern part of the country. The Islamic State (IS) takes control of Mosul, Iraq, and kidnaps forty-nine Turkish diplomats and their families and holds them for 101 days. The Kurdish city of Kobane is besieged, prompting American airstrikes and military support for the People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel, YPG), a Kurdish militia in Syria linked to the PKK. Turkish forces do not intervene. The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) begins exporting oil via a pipeline to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. The fourth governing period of the AKP starts without a parliamentary majority. The People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP) enters the Turkish parliament with 13 percent of the vote and eighty seats. Turkish government renews the use of large-scale force in Kurdish areas of the country. The body of three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi—one of the thousands of refugees making the journey from Turkey to Greece—is found on the shore in Bodrum, galvanizing international demands for a response to the migration crisis. Snap elections called by Erdoğan result in the AKP regaining an absolute majority in Turkish parliament. Russia intervenes in Syria in support of the Assad regime; first airstrikes hit targets in the province of Homs. Turkey shoots down Russian jet said to be violating Turkish airspace from Syria. Adoption of the “EU-Turkey statement” for cooperation on refugee migration. The Supreme Court of Appeals overturns Ergenekon convictions because of unproven existence of organization or illegally collected evidence. President Erdoğan apologizes to Russia for downing the Russian jet, which initiates a process of normalization of economic and other ties between Russia and Turkey. Military coup attempted against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (July 15). Declaration of state of emergency (OHAL), lasting for two years, enables the Turkish government to purge opposition groups. Turkish military and the local aligned Syrian opposition groups launch Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria against the Kurdish groups; Turkish occupation of northern Syria blocks westward expansion of US-backed Kurdish forces in Syria. HDP cochairs and MPs are arrested. The European Council halts membership negotiations in response to government actions after the coup attempt. Russia, Turkey, and Iran hold talks in Moscow on a peace deal in Syria. Talks on a cease-fire agreement in Syria begin in Astana, Kazakhstan. A constitutional referendum to create a Turkish-style presidential system is approved by 51.41 percent. Turkey announces plan to buy a Russian S-400 missile system for air and missile defense.

260

2018

2019

2023

Chronology of Key Events in the History of Modern Turkey Referendum in the KRG for independence—opposed by Turkey and not recognized by Iraq—yields 92 percent support for secession. President Donald Trump, on a telephone call with President Erdoğan, announces an immediate withdrawal of American forces from Syria, a decision that is subsequently modified. Operation Olive Branch carried out by the Turkish Armed Forces and allied Syrian forces in northwest Syria against the Islamic State. United States pulls out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on Iran to restrict its nuclear development. Turkey says it will continue to abide by the agreement. The fifth governing period of the AKP starts with the presidential system. The TurkStream project to bring Russian gas to Turkey begins operation. Turkey releases US pastor Andrew Brunson, held for two years on charges of cooperating with Fethullah Gülen and Kurdish terrorists. Turkey breaks a long silence and criticizes the operation of “re-education camps” for Uighurs by the Chinese government. The European Parliament votes to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey, citing violations of human rights and the rule of law. Turkish economy reaches its lowest point since 2001—with the Turkish lira and foreign investment levels falling. AKP loses municipal elections in Istanbul and Ankara for the first time under Erdoğan’s government. The Turkish Supreme Election Council (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu, YSK) invalidates the Istanbul mayoral election, but the opposition candidate, Ekrem İmamoğlu, wins again at the second round. First shipment of the Russian S-400 antiaircraft system arrives in Turkey. Turkish parliamentary and presidential elections scheduled. October 29 is the centennial of the Turkish Republic.

Acronyms and Abbreviations

AIIB AKP ANAP BBP bcm BDDK

BRI BRICS BTC CBRT

CENTCOM CHP cmpy CPJ CSOs CU Daesh

DECA DİB DP DSP DTP EC EEC EP EU FDI FSA

Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) Motherland Party (Anavatan Partisi) Great Unity Party (Büyük Birlik Partisi) billion cubic meters Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (Bankacılık Düzenleme ve Denetleme Kurumu) Belt-and-Road Initiative Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Merkez Bankasi) United States Central Command Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) cubic meters per year Committee to Protect Journalists civil society organizations customs union al-Dawla al-Islamiya al-Iraq al-Sham (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı) Democratic Party (Demokrat Parti) Democratic Left Party (Demokratik Sol Parti) Democratic Society Party (Demokratik Toplum Partisi) European Commission European Economic Community European Parliament European Union foreign direct investment Free Syrian Army

261

262

Acronyms and Abbreviations

GDP HDP IMF IS ISIL ISIS JAMMAT KKTC KRG KRI MB MENA MGK MHP MİT

NATO NGO NPO OHAL OIC OSCE PDK PKK PYD RP SDF SOCOM TANAP TGS TMSF

TPES TPP TSK TTIP TÜSİAD

TVF UAV VP YPG YPJ YSK

gross domestic product People’s Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi) International Monetary Fund Islamic State Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Joint American Military Mission to Turkey Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti) Kurdistan Regional Government Kurdistan Region of Iraq Muslim Brotherhood Middle East and North Africa National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu) Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) Turkish National Intelligence Organization (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı) North Atlantic Treaty Organization nongovernmental organization not-for-profit organization olağanüstü hâl (state of emergency) Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Kurdistan Democratic Party (Partîya Demokrata Kurdistanê) Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê) Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekitiya Demokrat) Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) Syrian Democratic Forces Special Operations Command Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Turkish General Staff Savings Deposit Insurance Fund of Turkey (Tasarruf Mevduatı Sigorta Fonu) total primary energy supply Trans-Pacific Partnership Turkish Armed Forces (Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri) Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Turkish Industry and Business Association (Türk Sanayicileri ve İş İnsanları Derneği) Turkey Wealth Fund (Türkiye Varlık Fonu) unmanned aerial vehicle Patriotic Party (Vatan Partisi) People’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel) Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin) Supreme Election Council (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu)

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The Authors

The Editors

Gürkan Çelik is the initiator and director of TurkeyInstitute.org. He is the founder and president of Nederland Academia, a research foundation and private graduate school. He has worked at Utrecht University and Windesheim University of Applied Sciences and recently as professor of cross-cultural entrepreneurship at Inholland University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. His books and edited volumes on Turkey include Het Nieuwe Turkije: Europa’s naaste buur in perspectief [The New Turkey: Europe’s Near Neighbor in Perspective] (with Thijl Sunier, 2015); Gülen-Inspired Hizmet in Europe: The Western Journey of a Turkish Muslim Movement (with Johan Leman and Karel Steenbrink, 2015). Çelik was knighted in the Order of Orange-Nassau in 2016 for his service to the Dutch Society.

Ronald H. Linden is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pittsburgh. At Pitt he was director of the European Studies Center, a National Resource Center and Jean Monnet European Union Centre of Excellence, and director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies. From 1989 to 1991 he served as director of Research for Radio Free Europe in Munich, Germany. Linden is the coauthor and editor of the volume Turkey and Its Neighbors: Foreign Relations in Transition (2012) and with Yasemin Irepoğlu, “Turkey and the Balkans: New Forms of Political Community?” (2013). He was a contributing author to The Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later (2009) and is the author of “The New Sea People: China in the Mediterranean” (2018) and “The Open Door Swings Back: The Challenge of Chinese Investment” (2018). 297

298

The Authors

The Contributors

Elvan Aktaş is professor of finance and director of graduate programs at Langdale College of Business Administration of Valdosta State University. His latest publications include “Sustainable Equilibrium in a Stock Market: Agent-Based Modeling with Evolutionary Game Theory Applied to Traders” (with Orhan Akal and Tugba Karabiyik, 2017) and “The Rise and the Fall of the Turkish Economic Success Story Under AKP (JDP)” (2017). Henri J. Barkey is the Bernard L. and Bertha F. Cohen Professor at Lehigh University and adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was the former director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and served on the State Department’s policy planning staff. His most recent publications include “The Kurdish Awakening” (2019) and “Managing Post-Democratic Turkey” (2018).

Paul Dekker is professor of civil society at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and head of the Values and Public Opinion Program of the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP). He is author of “From Pillarized Active Membership to Populist Active Citizenship: The Dutch Do Democracy” (2019) and with Pepijn van Houwelingen and Jurjen Iedema, “Convergence on Political Values?” (2018).

Mustafa Demir is associate lecturer at Staffordshire University and research fellow at the Turkey Institute based in London. Demir’s most recent book is The Geopolitics of Turkey-Kurdistan Relations: Cooperation, Security Dilemmas, and Oil Economies (2019).

Hanna-Lisa Hauge was research associate and project and financial manager for the EU-funded project “FEUTURE—The Future of EU-Turkey Relations” at the Centre for Turkey and European Union Studies at the University of Cologne. For this project, she published articles on the history of EU-Turkey relations as well as the political debate about Turkey in Germany.

Joost Jongerden is an associate professor at the Rural Sociology Group and the Center for Space, Place, and Society at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and has a special appointment as professor at the Asian Platform for Global Sustainability and Transcultural Studies at Kyoto University in Japan. Jongerden is coeditor with Zeynep Gambetti of The Kurdish Issue in Turkey: A Spatial Perspective (2015) and author of “Learning from Defeat: Development and Contestation of the ‘New Paradigm’ Within Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)” (2019).

The Authors

299

Nico Landman is associate professor of Islamic studies at Utrecht University, where he coordinates the undergraduate program in Arabic and Islamic studies and the master’s program in religion and society. He is coauthor of Transnational Turkish Islam: Shifting Geographies of Religious Activism and Community Building in Turkey and Europe (2015) and reports about Turkish religious movements and organizations in the Netherlands.

Bill Park is a visiting research fellow at King’s College London; a visiting scholar at TOBB-ET University, Ankara, Turkey; and an adviser to the Centre for Turkish Studies, Shaanxi Normal University, Xian, China. He is a frequent commentator on Turkey for TV and radio and has testified on Turkish issues to both UK Houses of Parliament. Among his publications is Modern Turkey: People, State, and Foreign Policy in a Globalized World (2011). Aaron Stein is director of the program on the Middle East at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Previously, he was a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, where he managed the Turkey-related research program and oversaw work on nonproliferation in the Middle East. Stein has published in a variety of international affairs periodicals.

Funda Tekin is director of the Institute for European Politics in Berlin. Previously, she was vice director of the Centre for Turkey and European Union Studies at the University of Cologne, where she directed the H2020 project “FEUTURE—The Future of EU-Turkey Relations” and the Jean Monnet Network “Enhancing Visibility of the Academic Dialogue on EUTurkey Cooperation.” In addition to EU-Turkey relations, she has published on flexible integration, BREXIT, and decisionmaking procedures in the EU.

Juliette Tolay is assistant professor of political science at the School of Public Affairs at Penn State University, Harrisburg. Her publications have appeared in journals and several edited volumes. With Laura Batalla, she coauthored Toward Long-Term Solidarity with Syrian Refugees? Turkey’s Policy Response and Challenges (2018). Tolay is a former fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund and was the 2010 recipient of the first prize of the Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award for a paper on multiculturalism in Turkey.

Joris Van Bladel is a member of the Scientific Council of the Austrian Ministry of Defense and an associate fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy. He is a regular commentator on security and defense issues and Russian affairs on radio and television. Among his recent publications is “Russlands Kleinkrieg in der Ukraine: Wie der Russische Adler seine Flügel Schlägt” [Russia’s Small War in Ukraine: How the Russian

300

The Authors

Eagle Beats Its Wings], in Gordischer Knoten Ukraine: Eine gesamtstrategische Betrachtung [Gordian Knot Ukraine: A General Strategic Reflection], with Walter Feichtinger and Christian Steppan (2017).

Wolfgang Wessels holds the Jean Monnet Chair ad personam for political science and is director of the Centre for Turkey and European Union Studies at the University of Cologne. His numerous honors include the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary European Studies Award of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (2011), the “Universitätspreis Forschung” by the University of Cologne for his excellence in research (2015), and the “Vision for Europe” award by the Prague European Summit (2016). He has published widely in and is coeditor of the “Jahrbuch der Europäischen Union” [Yearbook of the European Union] (35th edition) and the “Europa von A–Z, Taschenbuch der europäischen Integration” [Handbook of European Intergration] (14th edition). He was coordinator for the “FEUTURE—The Future of EU-Turkey Relations” project. Jenny White is a social anthropologist and professor at Stockholm University Institute for Turkish Studies. She has served as president of the Turkish Studies Association and of the American Anthropological Association Middle East Section. White is the author of Islamist Mobilization in Turkey (2002), Muslim Nationalism and the New Turks (2013), and Money Makes Us Relatives: Women’s Labor in Urban Turkey (2014). She has published three historical novels set in nineteenth-century Istanbul: The Sultan’s Seal (2006), The Abyssinian Proof (2008), and The Winter Thief (2010).

Index

Abdülhamid, Sultan, 154 Accession process: Copenhagen Criteria, 228n22, 234; as economic incentive, 26, 44; factors slowing, 253–254; Merkel on, 230n75; suspension of, 215, 218; Turkey-EU relations impacted by, 218– 221; women rights and, 119 Acquis Communautaire, 234, 243n22 Additive approach, 254–255 Adıvar, Halide Edib, 97 Agriculture: employment from, 50; migration negatively impacting, 51 AIIB. See Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank AKP. See Justice and Development Party Alevism: 89–91, categorization of, 90; civil society in relation to, 100–101; Diyanet relations with, 90–91; urbanization impacting, 89–90 Allen, Kate, 32 Ambitions, 47–49, 54n47 ANAP. See Motherland Party Arab Spring, 187–188 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), 131 Al-Assad, Bashar: emergence of, 194; Erdoğan relations with, 156–157; protests against, 172; Russia helping, 175, 205–206 Association (Ankara) Agreement, 9, 219

Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal: authoritarianism under, 149–150; Erdoğan compared to, 154–155; on Kurdish population, 149– 150; for modernization, 149; nationalist movement led by, 3–4; president of Turkey, as first, 4, 19; secularism from, 149. See also Kemalism Authoritarianism: under Atatürk, 149–150; civil society for confronting, 95; under Erdoğan, 1–2; opposition to, 64 Azerbaijan: BTC pipeline from, 55; oil reserves in, 56

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, 55–56 Balkans, 5, 29, 51, 140, 203–204, 233, 253; Turkish policy on, 9, 10 Balyoz, 190 Banking crisis, 42 Barzani, Mullah Mustafa: emergence of, 72; Erdoğan relations with, 192; referendum by, 193 BBP. See Great Unity Party BDDK, 27, 30 Bektashis, 83 Belt-and-Road Initiative (BRI): as economic alternative, 135; investment and trade from, 131 Black Sea, 128, 207 Black Wednesday, 42 Bosporus: euphoria on, 203–205; oil transportation on, 55

301

302

Index

Brexit, 130, 138 BRI. See Belt-and-Road Initiative BRICS, 138, 145n71 Brunson, Andrew, 143n34, 159 BTC pipeline. See Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline

Carter, Jimmy, 68n57 CBRT. See Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey Censorship: indirect forms of, 32; statistics, 34n7 CENTCOM. See Central Command Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT), 39, 46 Central Command (CENTCOM), 168, 179 Checks and balances: civil society for, 32; Erdoğan lacking, 33; from media, lack of, 141; as work in progress, 51 Child care, 118 China: BRI of, 131, 135; investment in Turkey, 134–135, 135fig; partnership potential of, 139; rise of, 131 CHP. See Republican People’s Party Christianity, 82 Civil society: AKP diminishing role of, 31– 32; in AKP era, 99–101; Alevism in relation to, 100–101; authoritarianism confronted by, 95; for checks and balances, 32; democracy improvements from, 31–32, 96; domains, 99–100; European countries comparing of, 102– 106, 103fig, 105tab; evolution of Turkish, 96–99; future considerations on, 106–107; indicators of, 105tab; Kemalism in relation to, 100–101; military coups influencing momentum of, 97; Özal helping develop, 97; polarization of, 106–107; popularity of, 95; public and commercial organizations of, 95–96; as societal factor, 249–250 Civil society organizations (CSOs): following coup attempt, 106; functions of, 96; funding for, 98–99; NGOs and NPOs as, 96; restrictions on, 98; revival of, 97 Cold War: migration since, 231; US base used in, 67n31; US-Turkish relations during, 165–166 Commission for the Equality of Opportunity for Women and Men, 115–116 Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), 153, 161n11 Complexity, 254–255

Copenhagen Criteria, 228n22, 234 Corruption: AKP era increase in, 30–31; AKP impacted by, 22–23 Coup attempt (2016): attacks during, 178; CSOs impotence following, 106; economic decline following, 27; Erdoğan using, 153–155; freedom restrictions following, 223; polarization from, 153; Putin support after, 208–209; state of emergency following, 15n22, 19–20, 26, 46; Turkey-EU relations impacted by, 215, 223; US reaction, 132, 163, 171, 179; women impacted by, 120 CPJ. See Committee to Protect Journalists CSOs. See Civil society organizations CU. See Customs union Currency crisis, 26–27 Currency devaluation: CBRT and, 39, 46; consequences of, 46–47 Customs union (CU), 216, 226, 227n9 Cyprus: EU veto by, 220–221; invasion of, 165–166; Turkey-EU relation problems regarding, 224–225

Daesh (Dawla al-Islamiya), 16n28, 171, 181n1. See also Islamic State in Iraq and Syria Davutoğlu, Ahmet: doctrine of, 203–204; Erdoğan compared to, 158; on Eurocentrism, 238–239; foreign policy influenced by, 185–186; on Ottoman Empire, 155; Russian-Turkish relations after, 207–209 Death penalty: abolition of, 73; consideration on reintroducing, 215, 223; Islam and, 87 Debt, 27, 47, 48 Defense and Economic Cooperation Agreement (DECA), 166, 182n6 Demirel, Süleyman, 6, 55 Democracy: AKP delaying development of, 33; civil society for improving, 31–32, 96; illiberal, 32, 37n76; majoritarian, 112; movement away from, 1, 249, 254; pillars of, 95–96; PKK for radical, 73; volunteer work as indicator of, 102–104, 103fig Democratic Left Party (DSP), 42–43 Democratic Party (DP): CHP losing to, 40– 41; Islam defended by, 84–85; of Menderes, 5; urbanization under, 84–85 Democratic Society Party (DTP), 75 Democratic Union Party (PYD): FSA fighting, 197; US supplying, 195

Index Democratization: AKP using, 78; Erdoğan promoting, 247; Kurdish opening as, 68n35; Öcalan message on, 76 Demographics: ambitions regarding, 47– 49; as economic strength, 50; urbanization and, 44–45 Derviş, Kemal, 42 DİB. See Diyanet Directorate of Religious Affairs. See Diyanet Distant neighbor scenario, 216–218, 217tab Diversification: of energy sources, 58, 66; of foreign policy, 234–236 Divorce rates, 116 Diyanet: AKP relations with, 25, 91–92, 250; Alevism relations with, 90–91; Gülen movement opposition from, 92; on Hadith literature, 87–88; religion institutionalization from, 86–88; as state-sponsored Sunnism, 90–91; on underage marriage, 110–111 Dolmabahçe Agreement, 77 Domestic politics: under AKP, 19–34, 21fig; changes in political order, 20–23; changes in state and society, 23–26; civil society diminishing role from, 31– 32; corruption and freedom regarding, 30–31; economic decline and currency crisis from, 26–27; foreign policy in relation to, 188–190; future considerations on, 32–34, 254–255; history of, 19; Islamism, nationalism, and militarism rise from, 27–30; key dynamics in, 21fig Domestic violence, 113–114 DP. See Democratic Party DSP. See Democratic Left Party DTP. See Democratic Society Party Eastern Question, 202–203 EC. See European Commission Ecevit, Bülent, 8, 42 Economy: accession process as incentive for, 26, 44; AKP era decline of, 26–27; AKP era growth of, 23–24; AKP transformations of, 43–45; ambitions regarding, 47–49, 54n47; Black Wednesday impacting, 42; BRI as alternative, 135; CU and, 216, 226, 227n9; demographics strengthening, 50; EU relationship with, 26, 44; evolution and structural issues of, 40–42; free market, 6, 41–42, 50; gas supply determining health of, 65; GDP, 23, 43,

303

130–131; low point of, 39; military coups weakening, 51; modernization of, 41–42; neighborhood impacting, 51; political, 56–58; politics over, 41; PPI, 53n38; of Russia, 210–211; Russian-Turkish relations boosting, 204; strengths and weaknesses of, 49–52; tipping point of, 45–47; tourism strengthening, 50; trade importance to, 130–131; as transition factor, 252–253; underemployment levels, 51–52; women in, 115–117 Education: ambitions, 47–49; childhood, 118; promotion of Islamic, 85; women encouraged participation in, 119 EEC. See European Economic Community Egypt, 187–188 Emigration, 20 Energy: diversification, 58, 66; EU strategy for, 63–64; foreign policy environment changes in, 132; geopolitics of, 55–64, 60fig; nuclear power plants for, 58, 66; political economies relationship with, 56–57; renewables, 132; Russia for, dependence on, 57–58, 62, 63; Russia strategy for, 66–67; TPES of, 58. See also Gas; Oil Energy security: geopolitics of energy determined by, 57–59; PKK and, 61–62; post-Gezi Park protests and, 64–66 Entrepreneurs: unification of, 101; women, 117 EP. See European Parliament Erbakan, Necmettin: for Islamic education, 85; postmodern coup in relation to, 7–8 Erdoğan, Recep Tayyip: approval ratings of, 211; al-Assad relations with, 156– 157; Atatürk compared to, 154–155; authoritarianism under, 1–2; Barzani relations with, 192; on Black Sea, 207; checks and balances on, lack of, 33; coup attempt used by, 153–155; Davutoğlu compared to, 158; democratization promotion by, 247; Dolmabahçe Agreement rejected by, 77; as “executive president,” 26, 111; foreign policy of, 147–148, 155–161; Germany relations with, 224, 229n73; Gülen relations with, 25, 152; Halkbank scandal involvement of, 180; HDP election annulment by, 75; on Israel, 144n70; Karagül on, 157; Kemalism opposition from, 154; Kurdish opening announcement by, 74; leadership

304

Index

charisma of, 248–249; leadership personality of, 211; liberalization under, 151; media suppression by, 152–153, 161n11; on “new Turkey,” 109; Putin relations with, 128, 158–159, 201, 207– 208; referendum victory for, 178–179; refugee crisis used by, 232; rise of, 188– 190; as RP member, 7–8; Russia working with, 65; as transition factor, 247–248; Trump relations with, 161; Turkey under, 9–11; as TVF chairman, 47; on Ukraine, 209; on women, 114. See also Justice and Development Party Ergenekon, 190 EU. See European Union Eurocentrism: acceptance of, 242, 244n62; expressions of, 238–239; reproduction of, 240–241; Turkey-EU relations impacted by, 239–240 Europe: civil society comparisons to, 102– 106, 103fig, 105tab; Eastern Question regarding, 203; Fortress, 241; nationalism and populism rise throughout, 130–131; oil and gas pipeline route for, 60fig; renewables demand in, 132. See also specific countries European Commission (EC), 137, 218–220, 222, 227n9 European Economic Community (EEC), 218–219, 228n28 European Parliament (EP), 215; human rights in Turkey, 226; suspension of negotiations, 137 European Social Survey, 103fig European Union (EU): accession process, 26, 44, 119, 215, 218–221, 228n22, 230n75, 234, 253–254; Acquis Communautaire, 234, 243n22; crisis in, 129–130; economic relationship with, 26, 44; energy strategy of, 63–64; externalization process, 234; migration issue for blackmailing, 232; partnership potential of, 137–138; Turkey denied access to, 9, 47, 219. See also Turkey-EU relations European Values Study, 103fig Europeanization, 234–235 Exports: and China, 131, 134–135, 139; energy security influencing, 57–59; to EU, 26, 44, 65, 131, 140; expansion of, 44; factors influencing, 45; and Middle East, 44, 139, 186; strategic location influencing energy, 59–60, 60fig Externalization process, 234

Foreign direct investment (FDI): attraction of, 49; and China, 131, 134–135; decline in, 27; EU, 216; increase in, 44 Foreign policy: Arab Spring complicating, 187–188; consequences of, 198–199; after Davutoğlu, changes in, 207–209; Davutoğlu Doctrine architecture of, 203– 204; Davutoğlu influencing, 185–186; diversification of, 234–236; domestic politics in relation to, 188–190; of Erdoğan, 147–148, 155–161; Eurocentrism and, 238–241; future considerations on, 254–255; goals, 155; history of, 149–153; on Iraq, 190–192; key changes to, 160–161; regarding KRG, 192–194; toward Middle East, 185–199; migration and, 233–238, 241–242; nationalism driving, 189; neighborhood changes impacting, 140–142; on Syria, 194–197; of Trump, 132–133; Turkey-EU relations impacted by, 224–225 Foreign policy environment: benefits of changes to, 133–136, 135fig; China changing, 131; danger influencing, 125– 126; energy changes in, 132; EU crisis changing, 129–130; Europe nationalism and populism changing, 130–131; key changes in, 127fig; Middle East changing, 126–127; Russian nationalism changing, 127–129; US administration changing, 132–133 Fortress Europe, 241 Foundation and Associations Law (2004), 98 Free market economy: factors driving, 50; model, 41–42; Özal defending, 6 Free Syrian Army (FSA): PYD fighting, 197; training of, 194 Freedom: AKP era decrease in, 30–31; coup attempt aftermath restricting, 223, 249; Hadith literature on religious, 87; Kurdish population lacking, 195, 251; of media (and restrictions), 6, 8, 10, 22, 24, 30–33, 34n7, 100, 107, 112, 141, 145n88, 224; state of emergency impacting, 46; Turkish Constitution on religious, 81 FSA. See Free Syrian Army Funding: for CSOs, 98–99; for migration problem, 222; from TVF, 47 Gas: dependence on, 57–58; economic health in relation to, 65; pipelines of Turkey, 60fig; price drop in, 132; reserves in Iran, 56; suppliers of, 59; TANAP for transporting, 60, 60fig, 65, 206–207

Index GDP. See Gross domestic product Gender equality: over equality of opportunity, 115–116; gender justice over, 110, 111 Geneva Convention on Refugees (1951), 235–236 Geopolitics of energy: BTC pipeline and, 55–56; energy security determining, 57– 59; global perspective on, 62–64; political developments determining, 60– 62; strategic location determining, 59–60, 60fig Germany: Erdoğan relations with, 224, 229n73; Merkel of, 230n75, 237; renewables pledge by, 132 Gezi Park protests: AKP reactions to, 22, 45; energy security following, 64–66; as watershed moment, 97–98 Global financial crisis (2008), 43 Global Magnitsky Act, 180 Great Unity Party, 36n37 Greece: Cyprus conflict regarding, 225; invasion of, 7; migration from, 222; Truman assisting Turkey and, 5, 165 Gross domestic product (GDP): China share of global, 131; growth rate of, 23, 43; trade in relation to, 130–131 Gül, Abdullah, 8, 74, 152, 168, 249 Gülen, Fethullah: Erdoğan relations with, 25, 152; Halkbank scandal in relation to, 180; Nurcu movement inspiring, 89 Gülen movement: AKP agreeing with, 100– 101; AKP targeting, 25; beginning of, 89; Diyanet in opposition to, 92

Hadith literature, 87–88 Halkbank scandal, 180 HDP. See Peoples Democratic Party Headscarves, 15n18 Hizmet. See Gülen movement Hood incident, 169

Idealism, 240–241 Illiberal democracy: definition of, 37n76; Turkey as, 32 Imperialism, nostalgic, 209–212, 214n45 Imports: agriculture reliance on, 51; energy security influencing, 57–59; Putin restrictions on, 128; strategic location influencing energy, 59–60, 60fig İnönü, İsmet, 150 Interwar period, 3–4 Investments: ambition, 47–49; from BRI, 131; of China, 134–135, 135fig; FDI, 27, 44, 49, 131; TTIP for, 133–134

305

Iran: KRG assistance from, 191; nuclear pact with, 134; oil and gas reserves in, 56; oil from, 59; partnership potential of, 139–140; trade with, 134; US sanctions against, 134, 145n80 Iraq: foreign policy on, 190–192; KRG of, 72, 191, 192–194; KRI in, 59, 62, 192–193; oil reserves in, 56; refugees from, 233. See also Islamic State in Syria and Iraq Iraq invasion (2003): hood incident, 169; PKK in relation to, 167, 168–169; political economies impacted by, 57–58; US-Turkish relations impacted by, 166– 171; voting on participation in, 168 IS. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), 11, 16n28. See also Islamic State of Iraq and Syria ISIS. See Islamic State of Iraq and Syria İskenderpaşa community, 88 Islam: Alevism tradition of, 89–91, 100– 101; death penalty and, 87; division of, 250; Diyanet interpretations of, 86; DP defending, 84–85; Hadith literature of, 87–88; as religious majority, 82; secularism and, 83–86; Turkish Constitution absence of, 81; types of, 83; regarding underage marriage, 110–111 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS): commitment to fighting, 195; diplomats kidnapped by, 171; KRI attention from, 191; Operation Euphrates Shield against, 196, 208; PKK in relation to, 251–252; rise of, 171; US-Turkish relations impacted by, 136–137, 163– 164, 171–178; YPG fighting, 173–174 Islamism rise, 27–30 Israel: Erdoğan on, 144n70; partnership potential of, 139; trade with, 160–161 Istanbul Convention, 113 İYİ Parti, 21, 34, 35n17

Jabhat al-Nusra: cooperation with, 172; ISIS in disguise as, 171 Joint American Military Mission to Turkey (JAMMAT), 165 Justice and Development Party (AKP): cease-fire between PKK and, 170; cease-fire deterioration between PKK and, 174–175; changes in political order under, 20–23; changes in state and society under, 23–26; civil society diminishing role under, 31–32; civil society in era of, 99–101; corruption

306

Index

and freedom changes under, 30–31; corruption impacting, 22–23; democratic development delayed by, 33; democratization used by, 78; Diyanet relations with, 25, 91–92, 250; domestic politics in era of, 19–34, 21fig; economic decline and currency crisis under, 26–27; economic transformations under, 43–45; establishment of, 8; Eurocentrism resistance from, 238–239; Gezi Park protest reactions from, 22, 45; Gülen movement agreeing with, 100–101; Gülen movement targeted by, 25; Islamism, nationalism, and militarism rise under, 27–30; Kemalism replaced by, 24–25; Kurdish population and, 73–76; liberalization and, 111–112; on MENA region, 185–186; MHP allying with, 23; opposition groups of, 21–22, 34, 35n17; PKK position of, 69– 70; purge by, 1–2, 10, 20, 153, 190; religion under, 91–92; ruling periods of, 108n23; secularism approach of, 85–86; “solution process” failure between PKK and, 76–77; state of emergency declared by, 19–20; state power of, 248–249; Sunni National Outlook movement and, 73; vulnerability of, 34; women rights reform from, 110

Kalın, İbrahim, 238–239 Kandiyoti, Deniz, 113–114 Karagül, İbrahim, 157 Kemalism: AKP replacing, 24–25; beginning of, 4–5; civil society in relation to, 100–101; Erdoğan opposition to, 154; “new Turkey” compared to, 109; secularism from, 84; women under, 109, 112 Key actors/factors, 13tab–14tab KRG. See Kurdistan Regional Government KRI. See Kurdistan Region of Iraq Kurdish opening: as democratization process, 68n35; Erdoğan announcing initiative of, 74; failure of, 251; nationalism in relation to, 70 Kurdish population: AKP and, 73–76; Atatürk on, 149–150; background on, 71–72; freedom for, lack of, 251; future considerations on, 78–79; Middle East divisions of, 71; stigmatization of, 99; as transition factor, 251–252; Turkey and, 72–73

Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK), 72, 192–193 Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI): ISIS attention on, 191; oil from, 59, 192– 193; referendum in, 62 Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG): Barzani of, 72, 192, 193; foreign policy regarding, 192–194; Iran assistance to, 191; trade with, 192–193 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK): AKP position on, 69–70; cease-fire between AKP and, 170; cease-fire deterioration between AKP and, 174–175; cease-fire request to, 68n35; energy security and, 61–62; establishment of, 6; influence of, 74–75; Iraq invasion in relation to, 167, 168–169; ISIS in relation to, 251–252; manifesto, 73; nationalism of, 29; objectives of, 72–73; Öcalan of, 68n35, 76, 77, 80n34; for radical democracy, 73; secularism of, 69–70; “solution process” failure between AKP and, 76– 77; as terrorist threat, 69; US supporting, 163–164; war against, 20, 75–76 Labor unions: civil society domain, 99; terrorist attack on, 80n36 Liberalization: AKP and, 111–112; under Erdoğan, 151; under Özal, 6–7; visa, 222, 233, 234, 235, 238 Libya, 188

Majoritarian democracy, 112 Al-Maliki, Nouri, 191 Manufacturing potential, 50 Maps: of Turkey, 2fig; of Turkish oil and gas pipelines, 60fig Marginalization, 4–5 Marriage, underage, 110–111 Mavi Marmara, 139 MB. See Muslim Brotherhood Media: checks and balances from, lack of, 141; civil society domain, 100; freedom restrictions on, 31, 145n88; polarization from, 28; suppression of, 152–153, 161n11 Membership scenario, 216–218, 217tab MENA region. See Middle East and North Africa region Menderes, Adnan: coup, 5; death of, 150; DP of, 5; election, 5; image of, 24 Merkel, Angela: on accession process, 230n75; refugee plan of, 237

Index MGK. See National Security Council MHP. See Nationalist Movement Party Middle East: foreign policy environment changes from, 126–127; foreign policy toward, 185–199; Kurdish population divided among, 71; partnership potential of, 138; Russia energy relations with, 57; US-Turkish relations breaking in, 163–164. See also specific countries Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region: AKP on, 185–186; Arab Spring in, 187–188 Middle power: transition factors, 253–254; Turkey as, 125, 142 Migration: agriculture negatively impacted by, 51; after Cold War, 231; emigration, 20; EU blackmail issues from, 232; Eurocentrism and, 238–241; Europeanization and, 234–235; foreign policy and, 233–238, 241–242; from Greece, 222; Turkey-EU relations cooperation on, 231–232, 237–238; for urbanization, 49, 51. See also Refugees Militarism rise, 27–30 Military coups: background on, 5–6; civil society momentum influenced by, 97; as economic weakness, 51; elections following, 150–151; postmodern, 7–9; Turkey-EU relations impacted by, 219. See also Coup attempt (2016) Ministry of Family and Social Policy, 113 MİT. See Turkish National Intelligence Organization Modernization: Atatürk for, 149; of CU, 216, 226, 227n9; of economy, 41–42; of religion, 83–86 Motherland Party (ANAP), 6, 41, 43, 151 Muslim Brotherhood (MB), 187–188

National security: Kurdish cultural identity threat to, 72; oil pursuit in relation to, 63 National Security Council, 5, 15n19 Nationalism: AKP era rise in, 27–30; Atatürk leading movement of, 3–4; Europe rise in, 130–131; foreign policy driven by, 189; Kurdish opening in relation to, 70; of Kurdish population, 71–72; of PKK, 29; of Russia, 127–129; regarding women, 119 Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), 23 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Neighbor scenario, distant, 216–218, 217tab

307

Neighborhood: danger from, 125–126; economy impacted by, 51; Turkey in changing, 140–142; volatility of, 1. See also specific countries “New Turkey”: Erdoğan on, 109; trends in, 117–120; women expectations in, 110 Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs): civil society domains, 100; as CSOs, 96; terrorist attack on, 80n36 Non-refoulement principle, 243n6 Normative power, 241, 244n62 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): Greece joining, 165; Russia relations with, 129; Turkey joining, 5, 165; US joining, 5 Nostalgic imperialism, 209–212, 214n45 Not-for-profit organizations (NPOs), 96 Nuclear pact (2015), 134 Nuclear power plants, 58, 66 Nurcu movement, 89 Nursi, Said, 89

Obama, Barack: speech to Turkish parliament, 61; US-Turkish relations under, 132, 156 Öcalan, Abdullah: cease-fire request of, 68n35; Dolmabahçe Agreement support from, 77; HDP delivering message of, 80n34; peace and reconciliation message from, 76 OHAL. See State of emergency OIC. See Organisation of Islamic Cooperation Oil: Bosporus transportation of, 55; demand for, 62–63; dependence on, 57– 58; from KRI, 59, 192–193; pipelines of Turkey, 60fig; price drop in, 132; reserve statistics, 56; suppliers of, 59 Operation Euphrates Shield, 196, 208 Operation Olive Branch, 179 Opuz v. Turkey, 114 Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), 138, 144n70 Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 10 OSCE. See Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Ottoman Empire: Eastern Question in relation to, 202; legacy of, 155–156 Özal, Turgut: civil society development from, 97; economic modernization by, 41–42; free market economy defended by, 6; Gülen movement support from, 89; Iraq refugees accepted by, 233;

308

Index

liberalization under, 6–7; reforms of, 151

Partnership potential: of Balkans, 140; of China, 139; of EU, 137–138; of Iran, 139–140; of Israel, 139; of Middle East, 138; of Russia, 136; of US, 136–137 Partnership scenario, 216–218, 217tab PDK. See Kurdistan Democratic Party Peoples Democratic Party (HDP): detainment of, 79n1; election reversal for, 75; terrorist attacks against, 80n36 People’s Protection Units (YPG): ISIS fought by, 173–174; as threat, 225; Turkey targeting, 177, 179 PKK. See Kurdistan Workers’ Party Polarization: of civil society, 106–107; from coup attempt, 153; events, 19–20; from media, 28; trend of, 32 Political economies: energy relationship with, 56–57; Iraq invasion impacting, 57–58 Populism rise, 130–131 Postmodern coup (1997), 7–9 Power: consolidation of, 33–34, 247–248; middle, 125, 142, 253–254; normative, 241, 244n62; state, 248–249 PPI. See Producer price index Pragmatism, 240–241 Producer price index (PPI), 53n38 Psycho-politics, 214n45 Putin, Vladimir: approval ratings of, 211; coup attempt support from, 208–209; Erdoğan relations with, 128, 158–159, 201, 207–208; import restrictions from, 128; leadership personality of, 211 PYD. See Democratic Union Party

Qaddafi, Muammar, 188 Al-Qaeda: Jabhat al-Nusra affiliate of, 171, 172; US focusing on, 169–170 Qatar, 126, 138, 157, 162, 188–189, 196, 198

Ralston, Joseph W., 169 Referendum: by Barzani, 193; in KRI, 62; on Turkish Constitution, 178–179, 223– 224 Refugees: deal made on, 133; from Iraq, 233; Merkel plan for, 237; from neighbors, 126; non-refoulement principle on, 243n6; protection violations, 232; from Syria, 221–222, 236, 242; Turkey-EU relations impacted by, 221–223

Religion: under AKP rule, 91–92; of Christianity, 82; freedom of, 81, 87; institutionalization of, 86–88; modernization of, 83–86; as societal factor, 249–250; statistics, 82; Turkish Constitution on, 81–82; types of, alternative, 88–89. See also Diyanet; Islam; Secularism Renewables, 132 Republican People’s Party (CHP): background on, 4–5; DP taking over from, 40–41 RP. See Welfare Party Russia: al-Assad help from, 175, 205–206; Black Sea militarization from, 128, 207; economy of, 210–211; energy dependence on, 57–58, 62, 63; energy strategy of, 66–67; Erdoğan working with, 65; gas from, 59; Middle East energy relations with, 57; nationalism of, 127–129; NATO relations with, 129; partnership potential of, 136; Syria involvement of, 127, 214n27; Syria motivations of, 206; Turkey cooperation with, 47; Ukraine involvement of, 127 Russian-Turkish relations: Bosporus euphoria and, 203–205; after Davutoğlu, 207–209; Eastern Question and, 202–203; factors influencing, 212; future considerations on, 212–213; missile defense system from, 129, 201– 202, 208; nostalgic imperialism and, 209–212; Syria impacting, 205–207; trade from, 204; unpredictability of, 201

Saturday Mothers, 98 Saudi Arabia, 189 Savings Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), 25, 27, 30, 36n35 Savings rates, 49 Schengen area: establishment of, 221, 229n51; visa liberalization in, 234, 235, 238 Schulz, Martin, 230n75 SDF. See Syrian Democratic Forces Secularism: AKP approach to, 85–86; from Atatürk, 149; end of, 92; Islam and, 83– 86; from Kemalism, 84; of PKK, 69–70; Turkish Constitution on, 81–82 Sexual crimes/violence: reforms on, 110; against women, 113 Silk Road. See Belt-and-Road Initiative Societal factors, 249–250 SOCOM. See Special Operations Command “Solution process,” 76–77

Index Soviet Union: US policy on, 181n2; USTurkish relations countering, 164–165. See also Russia Special Operations Command (SOCOM), 168, 179 State of emergency (OHAL), 10, 33, 34n5, 53n35, 73, 79nn2,10, 106, 111, 178, 223, 259, 262: consequences of, 15n22, 26, 46; from coup attempt, 19–20 Strategic Depth (Davutoğlu), 203–204 Strategic location, 59–60, 60fig Structural factors, 248–249 Sufi brotherhoods: background on, 83; ban on, 84; networks associated with, 88–89 Süleymancıs community, 88–89 Sunni National Outlook movement, 73 Sunnism: Diyanet as state-sponsored, 90– 91; Islam linked with, 83 Syria: arming of groups in, 172; al-Assad of, 156–157, 172, 175, 194, 205–206; foreign policy on, 194–197; FSA, 194, 197; interventions in, 70; oil reserves in, 56; refugees from, 221–222, 236, 242; Russia involvement in, 127, 214n27; Russia motivations in, 206; Russian-Turkish relations impacted by, 205–207; Turkey goals in, 205; Turkey invasion of, 176. See also Islamic State in Syria and Iraq Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF): creation of, 174; political stalemate between US and, 177–178; US sponsorship of, 176

TANAP. See Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Tanzimat, 84 Terrorism: Brunson arrested for aiding, 143n34, 159; consequences of fighting, 35n11; against HDP, 80n36; PKK threat of, 69; rise in, 29–30. See also Islamic State in Syria and Iraq TGS. See Turkish General Staff Thucydides, 125 TMSF. See Savings Deposit Insurance Fund Total primary energy supply (TPES), 58 Tourism, 50 TPES. See Total primary energy supply Trade: from BRI, 131; and China, 131, 134, 135, 139–140; economic importance of, 130–131; exports, 44, 45, 57–60, 60fig; GDP in relation to, 130–131; imports, 51, 57–60, 60fig, 128; with Iran, 134; with Israel, 160–161; with KRG, 192– 193; pacts, 133–134; from Russian-Turkish relations, 204; TTIP

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for, 133–134; from Turkey-EU relations, 216 Traditional family model, 109 Train and Equip program: creation of, 174; failure of, 175 Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP): construction halted on, 206– 207; restart of, 65; route, 60, 60fig Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), 133–134 Transition factors: economy, 252–253; Erdoğan, 247–248; Kurdish population, 251–252; middle power, 253–254; societal, 249–250; structural, 248–249; types of, 248fig Trousseaux, 118 Truman, Harry S., 5, 165 Trump, Donald: Erdoğan relations with, 161; foreign policy of, 132–133 TTIP. See Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership Tunahan, Süleyman Hilmi, 88–89 Turkey Wealth Fund (Türkiye Varlık Fonu), 47, 53n42, 252 Turkey-EU relations: accession process impacting, 218–221; coup attempt impacting, 215, 223; regarding CU, 216, 226, 227n9; Eurocentrism impacting, 239–240; foreign policy impacting, 224–225; future considerations on, 226–227; individual member states and, 224; marriage/divorce type relationship, 215; migration cooperation in, 231–232, 237–238; military coups impacting, 219; refugee crisis impacting, 221–223; rock bottom of, 215; scenarios for analyzing, 216–218, 217tab; trade from, 216; Turkish Constitution referendum impacting, 223–224 Turkish Constitution (1982): amendments to, 35n29, 220; referendum on changes to, 178–179, 223–224; on secularism, 81–82 Turkish General Staff (TGS): CENTCOM and SOCOM working with, 179; KRG and, 193; trials impacting, 190 Turkish Grand National Assembly, 220 Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT), 15n26 TurkStream. See Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline TÜSİAD business association, 101 TVF. See Turkey Wealth Fund

310

Index

UAE. See United Arab Emirates UAVs. See Unmanned aerial vehicles Ukraine: Erdoğan on, 209; Russia involvement in, 127 Ülkü Ocakları (Bozkurtlar, Grey Wolves), 100 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 233 Underage marriage, 110–111 Underemployment levels, 51–52 United Arab Emirates (UAE), 155 United States: administration changes in, 132–133; arms embargo by, 7, 166; Brunson of, 143n34, 159; CENTCOM, 168, 179; Cold War base in Turkey, 67n31; conspiracy theory rhetoric toward, 158; covert arming program, 172; Global Magnitsky Act used by, 180; Gülen fleeing to, 89; Iran sanctions from, 134, 145n80; Iraq refugees regarding, 233; JAMMAT, 165; NATO joined by, 5; partnership potential of, 136–137; PKK support from, 163–164; PYD supplies from, 195; al-Qaeda as focus of, 169–170; SDF political stalemate with, 177–178; SDF sponsored by, 176; SOCOM, 168, 179; Soviet Union policy of, 181n2; TTIP withdraw of, 133–134; Turkey support from, 61; Turkish population polling on, 141; YPG working with, 173–174. See also US-Turkish relations Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), 170 Urbanization: Alevism impacted by, 89–90; demographics and, 44–45; under DP, 84–85; migration for, 49, 51 US-Turkish relations: alliance roots of, 164–166; crisis in, 163–164; DECA and, 166, 182n6; future considerations on, 180–181; Iraq invasion impacting, 166–171; ISIS impacting, 136–137, 163–164, 171–178; Middle East views

breaking, 163–164; under Obama, 132, 156; realities of, 178–179; Soviet Union countered by, 164–165; Train and Equip program, 174, 175; Trump foreign policy impacting, 132–133

Vatan Partisi (VP), 25 Violence: domestic, 113–114; sexual, 110, 113 Visa liberalization: criticism toward, 238; Özal engaging in, 233; as part of refugee deal (2016), 215, 218, 231, 232, 233, 240; requirements for, 222; in Schengen area, 234, 235, 238 Volunteer work, 102–104, 103fig

Welfare Party (RP), 7–8 Wilson, Edwin, 181n2 Women: accession process and rights of, 119; AKP reforms on rights of, 110; civil code benefiting married, 112; coup attempt impacting, 120; decline in rights of, 110–111; in economy, 115–117; education participation of, 119; entrepreneurs, 117; Erdoğan on, 114; gender roles challenged by, 119; Kandiyoti on rights of, 113–114; under Kemalism, 109, 112; nationalism regarding, 119; “new Turkey” expectations of, 110; “new Turkey” trends regarding, 117–120; NGOs concerned with, 100; obstacles for working, 116–117; as societal factor, 249–250; violence against, 113–114 Women’s Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Jin), 70, 77 The World Is Not Enough, 55, 56 Yazıcıoğlu, Muhsin, 36n37 Young Party (Genç Parti), 25 YPG. See People’s Protection Units YPJ. See Women’s Protection Units

About the Book

politics raises a number of crucial questions. What explains the movement toward one-party, and even one-person, rule? What role does Islam play in the ideology and policies of the ruling party and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan? Is the country’s long commitment to secular rule a thing of the past—and if so, with what consequences for Turkish society? What is Turkey’s likely international role in the Middle East and beyond? These are among the key issues addressed in this comprehensive analysis of the actors and factors driving recent developments in Turkish politics at home and abroad.

The ongoing turbulence in Turkey’s domestic and international

Gürkan Çelik is director of TurkeyInstitute.org. Ronald H. Linden is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Pittsburgh.

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