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New Turkey” Narrative and Public Policy Change in Turkey1

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New Turkey” Narrative and Public Policy Change in Turkey1 THE “NEW TURKEY” NARRATIVE AND PUBLIC POLICY CHANGE IN TURKEY1 Dr. Fethi Ufuk OZISIK* Introduction AKP and the Evolution of Its Rule since 2002’s Legislative Elections The Justice and Development Party (“Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi”), abbreviated JDP in English and AK PARTİ or AKP in Turkish, is a social conservative political party in Turkey. It has developed from the tradition of Islamism, but has officially abandoned this ideology in favor of "conservative democracy" (Duran, 2008; Akdogan, 2006). The party is the largest in Turkey, with 312 members of parliament. Its leader, Ahmet Davutoglu, is Prime Minister, while former party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan is President of Republic since 2014. Founded in 2001 by members of a number of existing conservative parties, the party has won three general election victories in 2002, 2007 and 2011, winning 34.3%, 46.6% and 49.8% respectively. Having almost won a two-thirds majority of the 550 parliamentary seats in 2002, the party won 341 seats in 2007 and 327 in 2011. The party currently forms a third- term majority government since 18 November 2002, having had their electoral success mirrored locally in the municipal elections of 2004, 2009 and 2014. Shortly after formation, the AKP portrayed itself as a pro-Western and pro- American2 party in the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market economy including Turkish membership in the European Union3. The party has been described as a “broad right-wing coalition of Islamist, reformist Islamists, conservatives, nationalists, centre- right, and pro-business groups.” (Soner, 2014). The party has for a long time been supported by the Cemaat Movement of exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whose influence in the judiciary has helped to weaken the opposition against the AKP. 1 International Conference On Public Policy, 1-4 July 2015, Milan-Italy *Assistant Professor, Marmara University, Faculty of Political Sciences 2 http://www.iuee.eu/pdf-dossier/12/VsjcpWMGTq1zMjSMgwnh.PDF 3 New to Turkish politics? Here's a rough primer". Turkish Daily News. 2007-07-22. Retrieved 2008-07-22. 1 Controversies over whether the party remains committed to secular principles enshrined in the Turkish constitution despite their Islamist origins have dominated Turkish politics since 2002 and has resulted in numerous unsuccessful closure cases. 4 Critics have accused the AKP of having a 'hidden agenda' despite their public endorsement of secularism. Both the party's domestic and foreign policy has been perceived to be Pan- Islamist or Neo-Ottoman, advocating a revival of Ottoman culture often at the expense of secular republican principles, while increasing regional presence in former Ottoman territories5. Reforming the Constitution was one of the main pledges of the AK Party during the 2007 election campaign. The main opposition party CHP was not interested in altering the Constitution on a big scale, making it impossible to form a Constitutional Commission (Anayasa Uzlaşma Komisyonu).6 The amendments lacked the two-thirds majority needed to instantly become law, but secured 336 votes in the 550 seat parliament – enough to put the proposals to a referendum. The reform package included a number of issues: such as the right of individuals to appeal to the highest court, the creation of the ombudsman’s office, the possibility to negotiate a nation-wide labor contract, positive exceptions for female citizens, the ability of civilian courts to convict members of the military, the right of civil servants to go on strike, a privacy law, allowing legal authorities to judging military officials of the putsch of 1980 and the structure of the Constitutional Court. The referendum was agreed by a majority of 58% in 2011. Nationwide protests (“Gezi Park” Protests) broke out against the alleged authoritarianism of the AKP in 2013, with the party's heavy-handed response receiving international condemnation and stalling the party's once championed EU accession negotiations.7 Since then, the party has brought about tighter regulations on internet use, abortion and alcohol consumption, having temporarily blocked access to Twitter and YouTube in March 2014.8 Especially after the government corruption scandal involving several AKP ministers in 2013, the party has been increasingly accused 4 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/jul/30/turkey.nato1 5http://arsiv.taraf.com.tr/haber-davutoglu-neo-osmanlici-degil-pan-islamist-162144/, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/05/akp- great-neo-ottoman-travesty-201451974314589207.html 6 "AKP'nin Anayasa hedefi 15 madde". NTVMSNBC. 2009-02-17. Retrieved 2009-02-17 7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23044600, http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Gezi-Park-protests-The-AKPs- battle-with-Turkish-society-316870 8 http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/21/turkey-blocks-twitter-prime-minister 2 of crony capitalism. The AKP favors a strong centralized leadership, having long advocated a presidential system of government and significantly reduced the number of elected local government positions in 2013.9 In the presidential election of 2014, the AKP's long time leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected President. In the party's first extraordinary congress, former foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu was unanimously elected unopposed as party leader and took over as Prime Minister on 28 August 2014. 2015’s Legislative Election and the “Second Leap Period” through New Turkey Narrative Representatives of the AKP define the period of 2002-2015 as First Leap Period (“Birinci Atilim Donemi”) for Turkey. The first AKP government was formed in 2002 and governments of the AKP hold power since then without interruption. The governments of the AKP, since 2002, have carried out various political, democratic, economic, social, and institutional reforms. Certainly, the frequency and intensity of these reforms have been characterized and altered in different contexts and political strategies, obviously connected with the processes of political competition. The reformist character of the governments of the AKP has attracted growing support of a fairly diverse electorate bringing the popular classes, conservatives, nationalists, emerging Anatolian bourgeoisie, various groups of businessmen as well as some of liberal-democrats. The latter, until recently, more precisely until the Gezi protests (2013), have provided to the AKP a strategic support that nurtured his legitimacy among Kemalist voters and senior civil and military bureaucracy, anxious to preserve the secular and democratic character of the state. The support of these liberal democrats, -mostly from the revolutionary leftist movements of the 1960s and 1970s-, was also a significant source of legitimization beside the European Union and other international forces as the United States. Furthermore, during the first mandates of the AKP, a narration entitled "The Second Republic" ("Ikinci Cumhuriyet") has been mobilized by those liberal democrats, praising the reforms of the AKP that allowed finally make its "democratic character" to the Turkish Republic, hitherto marked by a repressive government and Jacobin logic conveyed by the bureaucratic and military elite, inspired by an official ideology of the state, Kemalism. 9 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/presidential-system-tops-akps-election-campaign.aspx?pageID=238&nID=77644&NewsCatID=338 3 Political legitimization changed course after Gezi protests. The support of some liberal democrats declined and even many of them have become fervent opponents of Erdogan’s regime, now described as "authoritarian". During this break, some representatives of the AKP also indicated that they will continue to not align with the guidelines of these liberal democrats and their legitimacy would be based more on values and aspirations of the people and / or the nation called "millet” and/or “millî irade”. Indeed, the AKP, having consolidated his power and his electorate, following many political struggles against the military tutelage and against its illegal components (the trials of Ergenekon and Balyoz etc.), had to eliminate some of its political partners highlighting a political speech less consensual but more exclusive, favoring the more traditional, local, nationalist, and religious values that refer more to the legacy of the Ottoman Empire (as the glorious past of the Empire), as well as in the subconscious of Turkish society who always dream of a Turkey that would become a regional or even international economic force. According to the AKP, this would be possible in revitalizing the values and symbols of the past and rejecting the political and societal alienation caused by the authoritarian policy of Westernization implemented since the Tanzimat reforms (1839) and continued to more radically by the Kemalist regime. To the extent that the AKP tends to consolidate and legitimize its power around a political ideology that is based on conservative and nationalistic references devaluing the Westernization policy implemented since the 19th century, the break with these liberal democrats appear obvious since they claim that Turkey remains and must remain a westernized country and that Western values and standards must maintain their predominance in the political and social imagination. Thus, the new Prime Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu puts forward a political narrative that situates and defines the period 2002-2015 as First Leap Period. The parliamentary elections will be held on June 7, 2015 and these elections signify a new stage, a
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