Presidentialism: What It Holds for the Future of Turkey Serap Gur Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected]
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2015 Presidentialism: What it Holds for the Future of Turkey Serap Gur Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Gur, Serap, "Presidentialism: What it Holds for the Future of Turkey" (2015). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 3414. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/3414 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. PRESIDENTIALISM: WHAT IT HOLDS FOR THE FUTURE OF TURKEY A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Serap Gur Doctoral Candidate B.A., Marmara University, 2007 M.A., Gaziantep University, 2009 December 2015 To my daughter Mehtap Sare Gur and my husband Furkan Amil Gur ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT I could not complete this long journey without the guidance of my committee members and the support of my family. First of all, I would like to thank Professor William Clark for his generosity, his guidance, and his patience. He was a wonderful advisor and mentor and also I learned a lot from him as a person. He took every possible step to support me during my doctoral studies and became a perfect role model that I will always look up to my entire life. I am so thankful that I had a chance to work with him and it is difficult to find proper words to express my gratitude to him. I would like to also thank the members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Joe Clare and Dr. Wonik Kim, who provided their most invaluable comments and contributed to completion of my dissertation. I am especially thankful to Dr. Clare for his advice on methodological issues; his recommendations contributed to the rigor of my study and made my life easier. I also wanted to thank Bob Mann from Manship School of Communication at LSU for his extraordinary support and his willingness to read and edit my dissertation chapter by chapter. Finally I want to thank my husband, Furkan Amil Gur for his support and understanding through this process and to my daughter, Mehtap Sare Gur who brought joy and happiness to our lives and made every hurdle much more bearable. Without them, I could not finish this dissertation. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT ............................................................................................................... iii LIST OF TABLES ..........................................................................................................................v LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... vi ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1 1.1. Literature Review ............................................................................................................4 1.2. Research Design ...........................................................................................................19 1.3. The Organization of the Project ...................................................................................22 CHAPTER 2: THE STRUCTURE OF THE MODERN TURKISH REPUBLIC .......................23 2.1. Constitutional Development from the Ottoman Period to the Turkish Republic ........23 2.2. Turkish Parliamentary System .....................................................................................29 2.3. New Presidential Election in Turkey ...........................................................................33 2.4. Presidential System Discussion in Turkey ...................................................................37 CHAPTER 3: PARTY STRUCTURE OF TURKEY: IS IT APPLICABLE TO PRESIDENTIAL SYSTEM ...........................................................................46 3.1. Literature Review .........................................................................................................46 3.2. History of Turkish Party Systems ................................................................................48 3.3. Data and Examination ..................................................................................................66 3.4. Results and Conclusion ................................................................................................75 CHAPTER 4: THE IMPACTS OF FORM OF GOVERNMENT FORMATION ON POLITICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT ............................77 4.1. Introduction ..................................................................................................................77 4.2. Literature Review and Arguments ...............................................................................78 4.3. Data and Methodological Issues ..................................................................................87 4.4. Empirical Analysis and Results ...................................................................................91 4.5. Country Comparisons ................................................................................................101 4.6. Conclusion .................................................................................................................112 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................114 REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................................122 APPENDIX: VARIABLES ........................................................................................................138 VITA ...........................................................................................................................................141 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: Number of Free, Partly Free and Not Free Countries in the World…………………...3 Table 3.1: Governments in Turkey, 1983-2011………………………………………………….56 Table 3.2: Political Parties According to the Traditions…………………………………………59 Table 3.3: Electoral Volatility and Fragmentation in Turkey, 1965-2011………………………60 Table 3.4: Turkish Electoral Systems, 1950-2011……………………………………………….64 Table 3.5: Number of Parties, Number of Parties that Gained Seats, Number of Effective Parties by seats and by votes, 1950 -2011……………………………………………..65 Table 3.6: Stable Democracies, 1946-2010……………………………………………………...68 Table 3.7: Party Fractionalization in Stable Democracies……………………………………….70 Table 3.8: Number of Effective Parties and Disproportionality in Presidential Democracies……………………………………………………………………………………...72 Table 3.9: Number of Effective Parties and Disproportionality in Parliamentary Democracies……………………………………………………………………………………...73 Table 3.10: Number of Effective Parties and Disproportionality in Mixed Democracies……………………………………………………………………………………..74 Table 4.1: Dickey-Fuller Test for Unit Root…………………………………………………….91 Table 4.2: Durbin’s Alternative Test for Autocorrelation……………………………………….92 Table 4.3: Breusch-Godfrey LM Test for Autocorrelation………………………………………92 Table 4.4: The Tolerance and VIF test…………………………………………………………..93 Table 4.5: Countries with Presidential Systems from 1975-2012……………………………...102 Table 4.6: Country Comparisons from Economic Perspective…………………………………104 Table 4.7: Country Comparisons from Political Perspective…………………………………...106 Table 4.8: Country Comparisons from Electoral Perspective……………………………….....109 Table 4.9: Country Comparisons from Social Perspective……………………………………..111 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: Classification of Parliamentary, Presidential, and Semi-Presidential Democracies.....................................................................................................................................7 Figure 1.2: Features of Parliamentary, Presidential and Semi-Presidential Systems……………..8 Figure 1.3: Advantages / Disadvantages of Parliamentary, Presidential and Semi-Presidential Systems……………………………………………………………………….11 Figure 3.1: Percentage of Votes and Number of Seats Won by Parties in Parliamentary Elections, 1983-2011…………………………………………………………………………….55 Figure 4.1: Political Development……………………………………………………………….94 Figure 4.2: Economic Development……………………………………………………………..96 Figure 4.3: Social Development…………………………………………………………………97 vi ABSTRACT A transformation from parliamentarism to presidentialism has been an important debate in Turkey since 1980s. After 2010, discussions turned to creating a Turkish-style presidential system which brings many uncertainties for Turkey. Different scholars and politicians focus on the adaptation of presidential system; however, none of these studies provide any empirical work. They only evaluate the literature and conclude that a presidential system will provide political stability and improve Turkey’s economic, political, and social development. In order to fill this gap, this dissertation examines the applicability of a presidential