Masaryk University Faculty of Social Studies

MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES

Department of International Relations and European Studies

Can the new expansionism of Turkey overcome its troubled past with nation question? Master’s Thesis

Serap Güneş

Supervisor: Prof. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D. UČO: 443716 Study Field: European Politics Year of Enrollment: 2015 Brno, 2017 Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis I submit for assessment is entirely my own work and has not been taken from the work of others save to the extent that such work has been cited and acknowledged within the text of my work. Date: Signature

Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, Prof. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D., for his patient guidance, encouragement and advice during my study. I have been especially lucky to have a supervisor who cared so much about my work, and who responded to my questions and queries so promptly. I am also very grateful to all staff members of the European Politics Program who made this study possible with their contributions to my academic knowledge and skills.

Table of Contents Introduction ...... 5 Research question ...... 7 Methodology ...... 9 Primary resources ...... 9 Primary concepts and theories ...... 12 Imperial legacy ...... 14 Early military revolution and medieval constitutionalism ...... 15 The millet system ...... 19 The role of Islam and ulema ...... 21 Reform efforts in the 19th century ...... 22 Eastern Question as the international context ...... 25 The CUP period ...... 34 “Ottoman” identity and emergence of the Young Turk opposition ...... 34 The Weltanschauung of the CUP ...... 37 The curious case of Young Turk “Revolution” ...... 38 Towards the CUP dictatorship: 1912 “Big Stick” election and defeat in Balkans ...... 41 From the fraternity atmosphere of 1908 to the shameful act of 1915 ...... 43 The AKP period ...... 55 The re-emergence of the notion of a Muslim geopolitical unity ...... 55 EU enlargement and Turkey’s EU accession process ...... 59 Foreign policy shift...... 62 Refugee crisis/deal and end of EU conditionality ...... 68 NATO’s loosening grip and end of Turkey’s embeddedness...... 69 Turkish state tradition ...... 73 Bothersome parallels...... 76 Conclusion ...... 79 Bibliography ...... 83 Appendices ...... 90

Introduction A map of Turkey, with new and improved borders, circulates the Turkish media. In fact, it’s an old map, showing the territories claimed by the last Ottoman parliament, Meclis-i

Mebusan (the Chamber of Deputies) in January 1920 as the national borders: Misak-ı Milli or the National Oath.1 The map went viral after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticized the Treaty of Lausanne (24 July 1923) and claimed that the country had interests beyond its current borders (Danforth, 2016). This was the climax of an increasingly assertive foreign policy line pursued by the consecutive Justice and Development Party (AKP, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) governments. Traditional Turkish foreign policy has been a modest one, fully aware of the hard-sealed national borders. After all, Kurdish question could cause losing the lands already in hand if an adventurous foreign policy was to be pursued. Then, could this new assertiveness in foreign policy be regarded as an AKP exceptionalism? Or is AKP only reacting to a new call from the deep old “survival of state” instinct?

This study argues for the second explanation on the grounds that the peculiar modernization of Turkey which can be equated to the transformation from a multi-ethnic empire to a nation-state and dates back to the 19th century reform efforts in the Ottoman

Empire, reproduces an irresolvable dilemma for the Turkish political elites in their each and every reform effort. It’s clear that the country is in desperate need of reforming itself but every reform attempt seems to be predestined to failure, adding even more burdens to the political system. The dilemma is the imbalance between the extent of the reforms and the insufficiency of the agency role. The required reforms are extensive, necessitating substantial

1 National Oath sets the minimum conditions of the Turkish side in the peace negotiations after the end of World War 1. Although the borders claimed by this declaration were fluid (even today subject to dispute among historians) and the geopolitical concerns are another matter, it can be said that its main idea was that the Ottoman territories lost without a battle (for example, British-occupied Mosul, etc.) would belong to the Turkish side. There are many National Oath maps circulating around because the borders actually were not set precisely and definitely. The borders have changed even between the first adoption of the National Oath document and its official declaration (not even a month of time).

5 changes to the institutional structure, but it is the same institutional structure which effectively suppresses the reformist dynamics and transforms the actors that could lead them, into watchdog of the state. AKP is an exception indeed, since it chose to push further when faced with this institutional trap, changing the political system. However, the trajectory of the push was not towards democratization. On the contrary, it chose to cut loose from the delimiting external status quo to pursue the interests of the inner one. So, however substantial the regime change might seem, it is in fact nothing more than a re-alignment of the political system in order to preserve the hardcore interests of the Turkish state.

This study argues that the current shift in Turkish foreign and domestic policy have considerable parallels with the late Ottoman period (particularly the Hamidian Regime and the Committee of Union and Progress or CUP era, 1876-1918) and are highly dependent on the state reflexes acquired in this period and that the analysis of this historic period leads to a clearer understanding of the neo-Ottomanist new expansionism of Turkey.

Research question Many international commentators, including prominent political scientists, evaluated the rise of AKP in Turkish politics as a positive development. Especially the period of reforms under AKP rule in relation with the EU accession negotiations and Kurdish peace process had led to these considerations. AKP’s Turkey was pointed to as a democracy model for the Islamic world. However, after fifteen years in power, AKP’s Turkey is at odds with the West to an unprecedented extent. The AKP appears to have failed all expectations and the country is now on the verge of authoritarianism2 after the disputed referendum of 16 April

2017 “to change Turkey’s system of government from parliamentary to presidential-on- steroids” (Cizre, 2017). The fact that yet another government is stuck within the democracy deficient institutional structure of the country urges to look into the preeminent institutional nexus to which even the governments with the highest democratic aspirations surrender.

Consequently, the main research interest of this study is the path-dependence of Turkish state which seemingly exhausts all the democratizing dynamics and turns each and every government into merely the protector of the status quo, and the slow-motion authoritarianization of Turkish politics under the AKP rule via the analysis of this path- dependent structure. So, the main research question of the study is:

What is the role of path-dependent institutional configuration in the transformation of

Turkey's political regime under the AKP rule?

During its progress, this study will also try to find answers to secondary research questions:

(1) Since Turkey has an old and deep-rooted state tradition, what is the role of the

Ottoman past in the path-dependent development of Turkish state?

2 Especially after the 25 April 2017 decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to reinstate political monitoring procedures for Turkey.

(2) As Gleditsch and Ward (2006) note3, regime changes do not occur merely within a

domestic context and are conditioned by external context. Then, what is the specific

international context that forms the background of this authoritarianization and the

accompanying change in foreign policy line?

(3) We argue that the regime change in Turkey occurs in connection with a shift in its

foreign policy under AKP. What is the extent of this shift and what are the risks it

poses for the global peace and stability?

3 “In this article, we argue that international factors influence the prospects for democracy, and that transitions are not simply random but are more likely in the wake of changes in the external environment. The temporal and spatial clustering in democracy and transitions suggests diffusion, or enduring, cross-boundary dependencies that influence the development and persistence of political institutions.”

Methodology This study will be based on the comparison of two periods with regards to the Turkish ruling elites’ policy choices and the international context that made those choices possible or inevitable. The first period is the late Ottoman period and will be dealt comprehensively. The second period is AKP era. It will be a case study, employing a qualitative methodology.

Capoccia and Kelemen’s study (2007) would be employed as a guiding framework for the implementation of the primary concepts—path-dependence, critical junctures—in the analysis. Process tracing as a qualitative method will also be employed to provide a concise but descriptive account of the historical periods. Data collection will be based on first-hand accounts of politicians, bureaucrats, academicians, experts, and journalists through their statements, articles, scholarly studies, interviews and on the official documents, newspapers, and secondary sources. In brief, this study is a macro-historical comparison using the concept of path-dependence to analyze the slow-motion authoritarianization of Turkey’s regime under the AKP rule.

Primary resources Any study dealing with the history of late Ottoman period and the emergence of modern

Turkey has to look into Erik J. Zürcher’s works; “The Young Turk Legacy and Nation

Building” (2010), “Turkey: A Modern History” (2013a). His works are indispensable as they shed light on the transition period in a way that provides answers to the democratization problem of Turkey. Zürcher notes that “the key to an understanding of the emergence of modern Turkey lies in linking the processes of forced migration, war, the imperial legacy and nation building.”4 This study will try to follow this framework.

Nearly half a century ago, Johan Galtung (1971) formulated a general theory of typical empires as functioning on center-periphery interactions which allows understanding the

4 https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/erik-jan-zurcher#tab-1

9 multifaceted feature of the interactions and relations between center and periphery both within and among the empires from a historical perspective. In this study, the particularities of the

Ottoman Empire such as the millet system will be placed in this formulization in an attempt to explain the inequalities and uneven political representations of Ottoman millets in their failed venture to reform the empire.

After Barrington Moore’s groundbreaking book Social Origins of Dictatorship and

Democracy (1966), Downing (1992) made a remarkable contribution to this line of scholar investigation with his study on the impact of medieval constitutionalism movements and military revolutions on the transformation of states and the rise of western liberal democracies. In this study, his analyses will be referred to with regards to the modernization issue of Ottoman empire.

As a direct result of the examined period, this study will considerably refer to the extensive and diverse Armenian genocide historiography (among others, Der Matossian,

2014; Moumdjian, 2012; Dadrian, 1999; Kévorkian, 2012). Since the issue is surrounded with heated political debates, a specific level of cautiousness is necessary when referring to this literature. A considerable volume of this historiography features an evidencing and refuting effort based on documents. However, the scholarly interest that might be stimulated by political controversies could also lead to insightful studies produced with utmost scrutiny.

There are indeed such efforts (especially that of Der Matossian), which have resulted in many recent works to understand the reasons as to why the reform efforts undertaken in an alliance by CUP and Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) have failed. Not only can they shed light on the late Ottoman history but also make invaluable inter-disciplinary contributions to the sub-disciplines of political science such as comparative politics and conflict and peace studies.

The author of this study was often disappointed by the apparent inexplicability of the so-called strong state tradition of Turkey within the vast scholarly literature of political sciences. Besides not being able to provide its citizens with any enduring social peace, political stability or economic prosperity, it’s this exceptional “strength” which ironically represents the main obstacle before any meaningful reforms; a strength that is defined in an imbalanced institutionalization between the state and its citizens. Turkey has a serious institutions problem: “it’s a country with stronger-than-average state powers combined with weaker-than-average citizens’ rights.” (Meyerson, 2014)5 Neither realist nor normative approaches seem to sufficiently deal with this exceptionality.6 One current example to the characteristic “shoot in the foot” irrational behavior of this state tradition, which not only limits its own maneuverability but also complicates the international efforts to bring an end to the Syrian conflict, is its animosity with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) of Syria.

Finally, in addition to the abovementioned historiographical studies, Söyler’s (2015) and Gingeras’ (2010a, 2010b) studies on the Turkish deep state will serve as a guidance for this study to discern and trace the path-dependence and rupture-in-continuity in the institutionalization of Turkish state.7

There are many other sources which this study draws upon their analyses. Some are not directly related to its core research interest however contain very useful inferences like that of

Galtung. On the other hand, some are very much in line with the research interest, like that of

Söyler. Compared to the latter group, this study has the advantage of having more obvious empirical evidence to draw upon since it can be safely argued that there has been a significant

5 This meticulous analysis of Turkey’s institutions problem is from 2014. After the failed coup attempt of 15 July 2016, declaration of state of emergency, widespread purges with government decrees, and the recent 16 April 2017 referendum that formalized the de facto authoritarian presidential system, the situation has clearly worsened. 6 For example, “rational choice” theory by realist accounts of International Relations is in no way explanatory to this exceptionality. 7 Both authors use “deep state” but since the difference between the “deep” and formal state disappears so often, here only “state” will be used.

11 regime change in Turkey with the 16 April 2017 referendum which gave the president sweeping powers undermining the checks and balances system. In general, the political turmoil that Turkey had gone through after 2013 has revealed ample empirical evidence.

Apart from this advantage, this study also draws apart from other studies with the same research interest in two aspects: first, it specifically focuses on and discerns the impact of the developments at the international level in its analysis of the change in Turkish regime; secondly, it does not employ the “deep state” term to differentiate it from the perceived formal or normal state in the case of Turkish state.

Primary concepts and theories The main examination unit of the study is a nation state which has risen from the ashes of a multi-ethnic empire. Therefore, the study will employ and refer to the theories and concepts of nation, nationalism(s), nation-state, empire and particular concepts such as the millet system, medieval constitutionalism and military revolution. Since one of the studied periods is a transition and supposedly a democratization period, it will also look into the transition, regime change and democratization theories. Besides this general conceptual framework, in relation with the particularities of the main examination unit—the Turkish state—concepts such as deep state, state tradition, ontological (in)security will also be referred to.

Finally, since we deal with a case featuring complex problems of the world politics, analysis will be at multiple levels: Individuals as the leading figures of the period, states with their respective ontological characteristics and policies, sub-state groups such as ethnoreligious minorities and social classes, and the international system level.

Critical juncture is a concept employed by historical institutionalism in connection with path dependence concept. The latter is originally developed by economists to explain how a series of decisions made by an actor or actors in the past under given circumstances still

12 continue to limit and shape its/their decisions in future although the past circumstances are no longer relevant. Decisions made during critical junctures, on the other hand, give rise to such institutional arrangements that they lay down paths which are then very difficult to alter

(Capoccia and Kelemen, 2007, p.342).

Path dependence theory, which was used by institutional economics to explain technological and economic developments8 was then borrowed as a concept by other social sciences. Critical juncture is also employed by institutional economics but Capoccia and

Kelemen underline the nuance between economics and other fields of social sciences in using the concept: the role of key dimension of politics; power. That is, even if the events accumulate in a way that would supposedly give rise to a particular institutional arrangement, when power relations come into play, a totally different institutional arrangement might develop.

Path dependence is a crucial causal mechanism to understand the historical development of institutions and critical junctures constitute the starting points for many path-dependent processes.

8 For example, QWERT keyboard and right/left hand traffic.

Imperial legacy Socio-economic history of the Ottoman Empire is a widely-studied field, especially from a comparative perspective to understand the reasons as to why it had missed the industrialization, modernization and accompanying democratization processes which were the case for its Western counterparts. In fact, the late Ottoman history is often told as a history of how the West came to rule. This chapter will examine the Ottoman legacy in terms of its own focus, that is, the failure of institutional innovation which diverted its path away from the

Western model.

Lybyer (1913) notes that Ottomans should not be considered as a “general” type of

Islamic government and that the empire had its originalities. He defines the Ottoman empire as a bureaucratic one with two institutions: (1) ruling institutions, whose members were almost entirely consisted of the devşirme class (recruited slaves) and who wielded military and administrative power, and (2) Muslim institutions, members of which consisted of freeborn Muslims, the ulema, and controlled the (Islamic) judiciary and education realms.

Shinder’s (1978) observations are in line with Lybyer’s.

Shaw and Shaw (1976) formulate the Ottoman Empire as a corporate society with two basic classes:

• Military or ruling class: o Men of the Sword (kılıçlılar or seyfiyye) o Men of the Pen (kalemiye or küttab plus ilmiyye or ulema) • Subjects or reaya: o Men of Negotiation (merchants, tax collectors, artisans) o Men of Husbandry (peasants, cultivators, breeders) All three authors’ categorizations devise a society divided between the state/ruling classes and those who do not participate in the process of government. The state (ruling) classes are comprised of devşirme and ulema who wield power in military, administration, education and law. The remaining ordinary subjects (reaya) engage in non-governmental

14 businesses. All are under the Sultan’s authority. The only legitimate power holder in an semi- autonomous way is the ulema class, bearers of the religious belief. However it must be noted that the domestic balance of power continuously changed and even the Sultans could be overthrown.

This structure was not present from the beginning and it evolved in time in parallel with the evolution of the Ottoman state.

Early military revolution and medieval constitutionalism Early military revolution and medieval constitutionalism are two terms used by

Downing (1992) to explain the emergence of Western liberal democracies and both phenomena are limited to the Medieval Europe. On the other hand, Chaney (2012) explains the emergence of Europe’s peculiar institutional nexus in comparison to the Middle East prior to Ottomans. The first two phenomena along with the analysis of the institutional developments of Europe and the Middle East through a comparative perspective allow for a revealing account of the emergence of East-West gap.

Chaney notes that through the use of slave armies, Middle Eastern rulers have circumvented the emergence of a landed aristocracy and consequently separation of powers.

Slave armies (freed but under direct authority) of the Sultan, continued to be a decisive source of status quo during the Ottoman Empire.

Downing’s early military revolution and medieval constitutionalism, which are prerequisite for institutional developments that led to the Western European liberal democracies were absent in the Ottoman Empire. As Söyler states (2015, p.196), the first one was impeded by the presence of a standing army (Janissaries), the second by the patrimonial domination of the Sultan which was consolidated by the ulema class who continuously reshaped the balances in favor of a strong central state by devising new mainstays for it like the devşirme class (Chaney’s slave army) as a counterforce against landed aristocracy’s

15 potential rise or sometimes having powerful officials executed like Candarli Halil Pasha the

Younger.9 The army (Janissaries) itself has been the main obstacle before any military renovation for centuries and the ulema class was the protector of the status quo, impeding any reform effort.10 Söyler (2015, p.60) points to the property relations behind the patrimonial domination and its institutional equilibrium:

The preclusion of private land ownership, the non-hereditary feature of granted lands, confiscation, and Islamic inheritance laws prevented the emergence of landed aristocracy. First, officials could endow their estate to a religious estate (vakıfs) and hold its surplus, but the vakıfs belonged to the state. Moreover, the fate of all officials was separately tied to the state; thus, the servant elite could not become an autonomous entity. Chaney’s comparison allows us to understand how this status quo preserving institutional mechanism had emerged. Chaney notes that while the Middle East was economically more advanced than Europe in 1000 CE; in the 17th century the opposite was true and points to the link between the unique institutional development in Europe with its sustained economic growth (Chaney, 2012, p.117). According to his explanation, a series of shocks which followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire led to a gradual separation of powers between the sovereign, clergy and landed aristocracy, providing a political environment that was favorable for growth-enhancing institutional innovation. These shocks were first the German, then the Muslim invasions into Europe which weakened the sovereign and allowed the emergence of landed aristocracy, thus leading to a decentralization of power and emergence of power-sharing and negotiation politics. On the contrary, the Middle Eastern

9 “Candarli” is the name of one of the notable families/houses in northern Anatolia which provided the Ottoman house with many high-level officials. Candarli Halil Pasha the Younger served as a grand vizier to the Ottomans. Murad II used the power of Candarli house as long as they supported his plans and Candarli Halil Pasha the Younger was his grand vizier before he began serving for Mehmed II. When Candarli saw that the new slave army of the Ottomans was to change the balance of power in Anatolia to the detriment of other Turkish principalities, he proposed more peaceful policies and advocated an end to the European conquests. Mehmed II had him executed after the conquest of Constantinople and this signaled the end of Turkish notables’ autonomous powers. The following grand viziers were of non-Turkish devşirme origin. 10 For a detailed account of the power struggles between the Ottomans and other Turkish principalities and the centralization of the Ottoman state, see Shaw and Shaw, pp. 44-46.

16 sovereigns preserved their patrimonial status quo and this was reproduced during the Ottoman

Empire with Sultanate, ulema and Janissary trio.

Centralization of the Ottoman state began before it developed into an empire with the conquest of Constantinople (Zürcher, 2013b) with the pençik (one fifth) system in 1362 under the reign of Murad I (1362-1389) and then the devşirme (recruitment) system under the reign of Murad II (1421-1451). The pençik system stipulated that the one-fifth of war spoils

(including the slaves) to be transferred to the central authority (the Ottoman sovereign). The devşirme system introduced a specific method of recruitment to the army from among the male Christian children through the conquests or purchases from the slave markets (Söyler,

2015, p.60). Both systems changed the primus inter pares (first among equals) status of the

Ottoman sovereign vis-à-vis other families/houses and raised him to the Sultanate level. This transformation is regarded as an influence of the Seljuk (and consequently Persian) statecraft traditions.11

The devisers of this transformation were the ulemas. Ulema class brought the slave- recruiting system to undermine the power of the ghazis and other Turkish principalities in an attempt to consolidate the state power after the defeat of 1402 Battle of Ankara against Timur which was followed by a long Ottoman civil war (1402-1413). Contrary to the Reformation in the Euopean system, ulema’s power was never challenged. Second consolidation step of the ulema class was extending the devşirme system into the administration. Muslim-born “free”

Turks were eliminated from the administration since the devşirme class, who had undergone an ideological formation process through an education devised and controlled by the ulema, began to fill into ranks as the personal slaves of the Sultan.

11 Seljuk Empire, under its Turk rulers, reigned over from their central Persian lands and the Persian culture was dominant in governance. The centralization was inspired by this culture, for example, grand vizierate was actually a Seljuk tradition and starting with the powerful Candarli family, it would gain an indispensable role in the Ottoman governance.

Centralization of the Ottoman state coincides with the conquest of Constantinople and its developing into an empire. Zürcher enumerates the characteristics of the empire as

“multilingual, multi-ethnic and multireligious in composition, held together by a hegemonic ideology with dynastic and religious components,” and he notes that the imperial turn had occurred in 1453 (2013b, p.21).12

17th century signaled the decline of the Ottoman Empire and in a similar fashion with what happened in Europe after the shocks that shook the status quo-preserving institutional nexus, it was followed by the emergence of centrifugal forces (landed aristocracy and an increasingly disobedient Janissary). After the patrimonial authority was weakened and the decline was indisputable, first reform efforts came during the reign of Selim III (1789–1807) with the creation of New Order Army (Nizam-i Cedid Ordusu) in 1797 as a part of the attempts to recentralize the financial and political power under control of the Porte. Selim III did not succeed in his efforts, was overthrown by the Janissaries and his new army was disbanded by those who opposed the western-inspired reforms. The second attempt came during the reign of Mahmud II (1808-1839). During the first period of his reign, he pursued a balancing policy vis-à-vis the emerging peripheral powers (Turkish notables, ayans). Their elimination was conditioned to the elimination of Janissaries (since they were not reliable in this effort) and would come afterwards. In this period, he finally managed to disband the

Janissaries in 1826 by having them effectively crushed by his newly-founded army Victorious

Soldiers of Muhammad (Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediyye).

With the disbanding of Janissary devşirme corps, an important pro-status quo force was eliminated. However, it was too little and too late for a military revolution that would match its counterparts in the West and avoid the military decline.

12 “[I]t is not as easy to say when the Ottoman state developed into an empire. We may, however, say that from the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 onwards, the Ottomans certainly claimed imperial status.”

Ottomans were more Westernized than the general type of Islamic government and after the conquest of Constantinople and furthering into formerly Roman European lands, both

Seljuk and Roman statecraft traditions inspired them and the Ottomans also developed their own originalities, like the millet system.

Before proceeding with the millet system, Galtung’s formulation of typical empires

(1971) should be mentioned. Stamatopoulos (2005) applies Galtung’s formulation into the

Ottoman context for exactly the same purpose intended in this study. This formulation explains the functioning of a typical empire through the interactions between the center and periphery:

There are four rules defining this particular interaction structured: (1) interaction between Center and Periphery is vertical (2) interaction between Periphery and Periphery is missing (3) multilateral interaction involving all three is missing (4) interaction with the outside world is monopolized by the Center, with two implications: (a) Periphery interaction with other Center nations is missing (b) Center as well as Periphery interaction with Periphery nations belonging to other Center nations is missing. (Galtung, 1971, p.89) This formulation not only explains the patrimonial structure of the empire but also reveals how the minorities governed under the millet system were deprived of engagement in the politics of Ottoman Empire. Söyler (2015, p.60) comments on this issue in a parallel manner, saying “heterogeneity was secured by precluding the interaction between members of different groups, which were organized as collectives in congregations, religious orders, and guilds.”

The millet system Millet system is a particular Ottoman governance way granting a non-territorial autonomy to the ethnoreligious minorities. Although millet means “nation”, the groups defined under this system were not necessarily divided in accordance with their ethnicities but according to their religious beliefs. The main ethnoreligious groups governed under this

19 system were Jews, Greeks and Armenians. Each millet had a (religious) leader (“millet başı”, head of nation) responsible for the administration of their members. Since the system didn’t stipulate national divisions, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch was also responsible from Serbs,

Bulgarians, Albanians, Macedonians and Romanians, and the Armenian Patriarch for the

Copts in Egypt.

After the conquest of Constantinople, Sultan Mehmed II granted—in a way, he had to, because Constantinople was inhabited by non-Muslims—some administrative, judiciary and legal autonomy first to the Orthodox Greek subjects, then to the Galata zimmi. With this autonomy, for example, Orthodox Greeks became a community under the leadership of their

Patriarch.

The degree of the autonomy devised by Sultan Mehmed II’s edict was in line with the

Islamic law. The zimmi contractual bond between the Muslim ruler and non-Muslim (but

“people of the Book”) population stipulated the conditions under which certain groups would be allowed to live and practice their religion in return for payment of a head tax (cizye) and certain other signs of subjugation.

In this governance system, political representation or participation was out of question.

The system was devised only for smooth functioning of tax collection and for preserving the confessional boundaries within the empire which stipulated non-Muslims as inferior subjects in relation to the Muslims.

The millet system allowed rulers to efficiently organize the empire’s population into communities and to devolve power to trusted intermediaries and community leaders. (Barkey and Gavrilis, 2015, p.24)

However, there was also a power asymmetry13: Paradoxically, although Greeks,

Armenians and Jews had a significant control over the Ottoman finances, large-scale agriculture and trade, they couldn’t transform the empire like the Magyars did with the

Habsburgs.14 The system allowed the elites of non-Muslim communities to maintain their privileges in exchange to contribute to the stability and prosperity of the Empire. For example, Greek Phanariots (Feneryotlar) ruled over the Moldavia and Wallachia principalities until the Greek uprising, under Sultan’s exclusive appointment.15

Galtung’s model provides an explanation to some extent but some Ottoman originalities are also involved. First of all, they were sincere “Ottomans” so much as to embrace and reproduce the patrimonial ideology. They didn’t have a say in politics, an area exclusive to the ulema and the Sultan. All other political dynamics like the Janissary mutinies etc. were de facto, not illegitimate but also not totally legitimate; besides, Janissaries always sought for ulema’s blessing in their actions. Secondly, these ethnoreligious groups were internally stratified. Their elites benefitted from their links to the Porte. Thirdly, Ottoman originalities such as the millet and devşirme systems provided those groups with both a space for unmediated acknowledgment on the Sultanate level and a vertical mobility chance.

The role of Islam and ulema Islam and the ulema class as the bearer of religios affairs had a key role in shaping the state ideology and regulating the social relations. Ottomans have never been “secular” but

Islam’s ascendence to the official state religion was linked to the centralization of the state.

13 “A state in which differences in status exist between individuals and groups of individuals within an organizational hierarchy and these differences result in differential ability to take action or cause action to be taken.” http://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/power-asymmetry/41808 14 Obviously, it was the military power of Hungarian Kingdom that made it possible while the non- Muslim subjects of the Ottoman Empire didn’t have that kind of power; they were, more than anything, “civilian” subjects. 15 See: Ferguson, S. and Griffith, Z. (2017). Ottoman Governance and the House of Phanar with Christine Philliou. [podcast] Ottoman History Podcast. Available at: http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/01/phanariots.html

Sultan Mehmed II had even considered converting to Christianity but eventually Hanafi

(Hanefi, from Abu Hanafi16) school of Islam was adopted because of its perceieved usefullness for statecraft/governing, its mundanity and for it allowed more space for raison d'etat. This is very similar to Chasey’s observation about the Roman Empire and Christianity:

Importantly, the first Christian emperor seems to have noted the unique ability of monotheism to harness popular support. Scholars have found support for this insight, noting that the emergence of monotheism gave those in positions of religious authority “tremendous power.” (Chaney, 2012, p.118) Here it should be noted that “the role of Islam” is not equal to “the role of the ulema.”

There is distinction between the institutionalized religion and how the religion was practiced by the Muslim population. Although there has never been a clergy and an autonomous religious hierarchy in the Ottoman Empire comparable to that of Catholism or the mullah of

Iran, ulema had a semi-autonomous status vis-à-vis Sultan but still under control of it.

Ulema’s significance within the institutional nexus was its function to regulate the societal relations and reproduce the legitimacy of the state actions, both within the borders of the empire and for the conquests to expand the territory of the Islamic State. So, the role of the ulema was bound with the fate of the state. We’ll revisit this matter in the following chapters to examine how the elements of the Turkish state have evolved for counterbalancing each other in a continuity-in-rupture manner.

Reform efforts in the 19th century 19th century reforms were a response to the rise of the West that inflicted upon the

Ottomans unprecedented military defeats and accompanying economic predicaments due to the loss of high tax incomes from the lost territories. Capitalist production relations, rerouting of the world trade and the advancements in the military technology in the West were detrimental to the Ottoman Empire. Throughout the century, as a result of the modernization

16 A renowned Islamic scholar and the founder of the Sunni Hanafi school of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).

22 efforts a bureaucratic stratum, who would generate the Young Turk movement at the end of the century, has emerged. These reform and reorganization steps were the Charter of Alliance

(Sened-i İttifak) in 1808, the Imperial Edict of Reorganization (Tanzimât Fermânı) in 1839, the Ottoman Reform Edict (Islâhat Fermânı) in 1856, and the 1st Constitutional Era (1.

Meşrutiyet) in 1876.

1808 Charter of Alliance was a form of Turkish Magna Carta but in the reverse style, not to curb the powers of the central authority but of the periphery. While Magna Carta limited the powers of the sovereign vis-à-vis the nobles (periphery), Charter of Alliance, on the contrary, was an attempt to limit the powers of ayans’ (tax farming local notables, periphery), whose rise “was further enhanced by a series of wars which ended in Ottoman defeats with the treaties of Carlowitz (1699) and Passarowitz (1718),” (Karpat, 2002, p.338) by trying to impose at least a legal framework which would prevent their arbitrariness and exploitation, and ensure their subordination to the Sultan’s authority (center). Mahmud II resorted to unconventional confiscation procedures against the peripheral powers with unprecedented scales, and effectively erased first the economic, then the political power of them (Güven, 2016).

The reign of Mahmud II (1808-39) was a restoration and state consolidation period. His reign can also be considered as a period during which the seeds of nationalism were planted, both into the state ideology and the society.17 It was ironic because when Mahmud II said “Of my subjects, I recognize the Muslims in the mosque, the Christians in the church, and the

Jews in the synagogue; there is no difference whatsoever other than this. I have a strong

17 Ortaylı argues that “Turkishness was an identity whose birth had been deliberately delayed out of necessity [until the last decades of the empire]” (“Türklük, İmparatorluk varoldukça doğumu zaruret nedeniyle ve ihtiyatla geciktirilmiş bir kimlikti.” 1999, p.81). This actually confirms that it was very much in place for quite some time.

23 affection and justice for all them and all are my true children,”18 (Demir, 2011, p.336) he had the opposite intention; he was trying to introduce for the first time an inclusive Ottoman citizenship against the erosive effects of the nationalist ideas of French Revolution which rendered the millet system and the ruling nation (millet hakime) perception unsustainable.

Ayans were mainly unproductive usherers extracting huge sums via tax farming and were negative for the economic progress since there was no investment in this economic cycle. Therefore, regarding the center-periphery or state-civil society interactions and democratization analyses, it would be a mistake to regard this center-periphery tension as a source of democratization. There are no simplistic parallels with the Western counterparts of this state-civilian dichotomy regarding the democratization and civil society’s emergence. As

Heper states (1992, p.178), “If civil society, as an entity effectively impinging on the affairs of the state, has been a limited one in the Prussian-German context, it has been virtually absent in the Ottoman-Turkish case.” The main reason was the absence of a further link with the peasantry and it hindered the emergence of collective action as a transformative force that would challenge the state monopoly on violence. Söyler (2015, p.60) points to the intermediary role of the ulema, which prevented peasants’ allegiance to the landholder and tied them to the state, as a method employed by the Ottoman state to prevent the collective action potential of the reaya. With the absence of this kind of a collective civil action, the power struggles in the Ottoman Empire resembled a cliques’ or elites’ war within the state and never challenged the system itself but sought for a status within. This absence can also be observed in the top-down bureaucratic revolution of 1908 by the civil-military bureaucracy who emerged and gradually consolidated their powers in parallel with the modernization efforts of this century.

18 Translated by Serap Güneş. Original Turkish text: “Ben tebaamdan Müslümanı camide, Hıristiyanı kilisede, Musevisini de havrada fark ederim, aralarında başka güna bir fark yoktur. Cümlesi hakkındaki muhabbet ve adâletim kavidir ve hepsi hakiki evladımdır.”

Even if the domestic socio-economic and political structures did not allow a modernization driven by the bottom-up pressures resulting from the progress of the relations of production, the international system had to have an impact and it did. This occurred at a point when Galtung’s 4th rule of center-periphery interactions formulation, where “interaction with the outside world is monopolized by the center, with two implications; first, as periphery interaction with other centers is missing, and second, as center as well as periphery interaction with periphery nations belonging to other center nations is missing,” was overridden by the international pressures. This brings us to the Eastern Question as the international context which created the critical juncture that made it possible for the CUP to seize power.

Eastern Question as the international context [I]f the Turks were driven out of Europe, the question would still be, who shall command the Danube? Above all, who shall hold Constantinople?19 “Eastern Question” is the term used to define the concerns of the European Great

Powers over the increasingly unstable situation in the European provinces of the Ottoman

Empire in relation with its decline from the late 18th to the early 20th century. The declining military strength of the Ottoman Empire and its consecutive territorial losses against the

Russian Empire were a threat to the fragile balance of power formed by the European Concert of 1815. It was a combination of various interrelated elements such as the weakening grip of

Ottoman administration in the region which contributed to the ethnoreligious strives in connection with the rise of nationalist movements, the institutional insolvency to which the

Ottoman modernization efforts could not address, and the strategic competition and power struggles among the Great Powers.

Eastern Question is important for two aspects; it made a lasting impact on the mentality of the prospective Turkish political elites (from the CUP cadres to the Kemalists and even today’s leaders), and shows how the “low politics” level concerns could be sacrificed for the

19 Mill, J. (1876). The Ottomans in Europe. London: Weldon, p.245; cited in Özdemir, 2013, p.22.

25 sake of “high politics,” especially for its impact on the fate of the Armenian subjects of the empire.20

Eastern Question dates back to the Ottoman defeat against Russia in 1768-74. As M.S.

Anderson states in The Eastern Question, 1774-1923: A Study in International Relations

(1966, p.143) which became a classic on the subject, “The Ottoman Empire in 1774 was still stagnant and archaic. Its chances of survival now seemed to many observers very small.”21

This signaled the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire igniting a power struggle between

European powers to secure their economic and strategic interests in case of a power vacuum that would result. Russia had the upper hand in the region and this didn’t suit the interests of other powers who preferred the status quo rather than a Russian hegemony. The spectrum of strategic options varied from preserving the integrity of the Ottoman Empire to partitioning its

European provinces which were the main source of trouble. The latter was futile since it was impossible to set the terms and conditions of such a partition due to the increased strategic competition among themselves. The only way to realize this option was by force and all of them could sense that it would require a major war; an option which, after tiring and subversive years of Napoleonic Wars and nationalistic upheavals, they were reluctant for. The only viable solution seemed to externally impose reforms to the Ottomans that could help restrain the situation in the region. Of those externally imposed reforms, two were the most significant: the Mürzsteg Reform Programme and the reform proposals of the Reval Meeting.

The first was an Austrian-Russian joint initiative, the latter was the result of first’s failure due to the changing equilibrium in Europe with the emergence of Germany as a Great Power, and a first step of a consonance of British and Russian interests from the Balkans to the Persian lands.

20 World War I, which can be considered as an extension of the Eastern Question, resolved the “nation question” for European continent while the arbitrary borders drawn in the Middle East have left a legacy that the region has not been able to overcome. 21 Cited in Ahmad, 2005, p.5.

Until the Mürzsteg Reform Programme, the Ottoman Empire had already lost a considerable amount of its European territories. The first step was the Serbian national and social22 revolution (1804–15). The second step was the Greek War of Independence (1821–

32). Along with Montenegro, Serbia secured de facto independence by 1867, which was confirmed in 1878 with the Treaty of Berlin. Romania was another nation state emerging from this treaty.

The Eastern Question, which had started with a Russian victory in 1768-74 against

Ottomans, shaking the balance of power, saw a relative subsidence with a Russian defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-56. The immediate reason was who would be the protector of the rights of Christian subjects of the Ottoman Empire in the Holly Land; France as the protector of Catholics or Russia as the protector of the Orthodox. The root cause was not even in the

Balkans and Catholic and Orthodox churches had already settled the matter and come to an agreement, yet the incompetent diplomacy failed to resolve the matter and the war began in the Balkans with a Russian expansionist move. Backed by Britain and France, Ottomans declared war against Russia and Russia eventually lost to the alliance of British, French and

Ottoman (along with Sardinia). As A.J.P. Taylor states (1954, p.61), “The Crimean war was fought for the sake of Europe rather than for the Eastern question; it was fought against

Russia, not in favour of Turkey […] The British […] fought Russia out of resentment and supposed that her defeat would strengthen the European Balance of Power.”

The resulting Paris Peace Treaty of 1856 guaranteed the Ottoman territorial integrity in line with British, French and Austrian interests; only Prussia remained friendly to Russia.

However this friendship would also diminish in the ever-changing alliances atmosphere of the period. Austria also exhibited a shift in its alliance policy. Ottomans had ceased to be an

22 “Social” because it brought about significant changes to the social structure by abolishing feudalism, and thus, it is considered the easternmost bourgeois revolution.

27 expansionist Great Power long ago, why to side with Russia against it instead of (kind of) bandwagoning with the new emerging power, Prussia.

The defeat in the Crimean War merely postponed Russian aspirations to have a fleet in the Black Sea, control over the Straits, and access to the warm waters. The Russian-Ottoman

War of 1877-78 resulted in Bulgarian de facto independence among many other devastating consequences for the Ottoman Empire. In the resulting Congress of Berlin in 1878, the Great

Powers abandoned their policy of preserving the integrity of the Ottoman Empire and the principle of non-interference in its internal affairs which were the case in the Paris Congress of 1856 after the Crimean War. The Ottoman Empire not only lost territory but was also forced to reconcile with the foreign intervention which took the shape of overseeing the reforms aiming at impoving the conditions of its non-Muslim subjects. This became the breaking point where Galtung’s 4th rule of center-periphery interactions formulation was overridden.

The original position of Austria to solve the Eastern Question through a mixture of reconciliatory reform policies and preservation of the status quo was due to the fact that as a declining great power and a multiethnic empire sitting on the nationalistic fault line of

Europe, it had too many complexities which had to be addressed simultaneously (Ottomans,

Balkan nationalisms, Russian expansionism via pan-Slavism, Italians, Hungarians…) and often required contradicting solutions. However, an over-energetic Prussian foreign policy activism would gradually undermine the Austrian efforts in the region.23

By the time the Mürzsteg Reform Programme of 1903 was adopted, the Eastern

Question had evolved into Macedonian Question (including Kosovo and Albania) since it was the last European domain of the Ottoman Empire apart from Thrace or Eastern Rumelia. In

23 For a detailed account of the said problems, see “The Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire, 1900-18” chapter by F.R. Bridge in M. Kent, ed., The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass, pp.31-50.

1903, Interior Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) staged a revolt, Ilinden–

Preobrazhenie Uprising, against the Ottoman rule. It was violently suppressed by the

Ottomans. “About 4,500 people were killed, 200 villages destroyed, and 30,000 people forced to emigrate” (Detrez, 2015, p.246). The brutality of the Ottoman suppression and the resultant humanitarian crisis led to the first international humanitarian mission of the history: Mürzsteg

Plan. It was both a humanitarian mission and a reform programme proposal to the Ottomans.

Mürzsteg basically envisaged a Macedonia still under Ottoman rule but proposed important improvements to the economic and security conditions of the non-Muslim population.24 To do this, it stipulated amnesties and tax breaks for returning insurgents and refugees. It also sought to incorporate the non-Muslim popultion into administration, judiciary and local gendarmerie. A joint military commission under command of Italian General Emilio

Degiorgis would oversee the implementation of the reforms. However, the Ottoman Empire did everything to obstruct their implementation through never-ending delays, passive resistance and general inertia. But the true responsibility laid on the devisers and supporters of the plan. Similar to its contemporary examples, the first international humanitarian mission of history was underfunded, understaffed and to a large extent, nothing more than the extension of the Great Power rivalries and eventually sacrificed to the individual interests of states.

Below is a lengthy but revealing excerpt from the correspondences between the Russian

Emperor Nicholas II and the German Emperor Wilhelm II25, written by the latter on 19

September 1903. It is a perfect summary of the European Great Power struggles, the political aspirations of the individual Balkan nations, the reluctance of the Ottoman Sultan to implement the reforms and also the palace intrigues going on in the Ottoman politics:

24 For a concise account of the uprising, its suppression, the international reaction and the articles of the Mürzsteg Reform Programme, see Lange-Akhund, 1998, pp.125-145. 25 Willy-Nicky Letters between the Kaiser and the Czar. Available at: https://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/XXVIII_Neues_Palais_19/IX/1903

You remember our conversation about the Balkans and Turkey, and my later telegram with my instructions to my Ambassador to give the Sultan an energetic lecture that it was hightime for him to at least conform himself to the "Mürzsteg Programme"? Well these instructions have led to a conversation between my Ambassador and the Sultan a few days ago, which took an hour and three quarters. The Sultan was very tough; and decidedly in the idea, that a refusal to comply with the wishes of Russo-Austria backed by me, would bring no great harm to him! The Ambassador had to make use of every power of expression feasible for him versus a Monarch, to bring the gravity of the situation home to His Majesty, and left him "a sadder but a wiser man" after he had made it quite clear to him that on no account whatever would I raise a hand in his support or speak a word for him, should he involve himself and his country into serious consequences, by refusing to fullfill the wishes of H. M. the Russian and the Austrian Emperors, who had shown almost angelic patience and forbearance with his bearing, and who strictly adhered to the February and Mürzsteg Programm backed up by me. The Ambassador is under the impression that very animated intrigues are going on in the Palace among a band of organs of very shady nature who surround the Sultan and with incredible lies managed to abuse of his credulity and to keep away the Grand Vizier, whose influence is feared by them, and who is perfectly in harmony and loyally "d'accord" with our 3 ambassadors. Another interesting piece of news reached me from Sofia. The Prime Minister of the "Archplotter" in a conversation after dinner, gave utterance of his and the country's extreme dissatisfaction at the Mürzsteg Programme! That it was not enough for them, and that they must insist on getting more. But as he was quite sure that the Imperial Powers would not grant more, they all in Bulgaria turned to Italy, England and France! From these countries alone hope was forthcoming for the future of Bulgaria and Macedonia; alone they would bring "freedom"-- i.e. Parliaments and Republics -- for the suppressed Balkan Races! This shows you again, what I hinted at in our conversation, that the "Crimean Combination" is forming and working against Russian interests in the East. "The democratic countries governed by parliamentary majorities, against the Imperial Monarchies." History allways will repeat itself. Sultan Abdulhamid II was well aware of the fragile equilibrium and successfully played with it via a subtle diplomacy. In 1908, he approved a railway concession to Austria-Hungary.

This sent alarm signals to Britain, France and Russia which saw the railway project as a part of the growing German influence, and triggered immediate reaction on the British-Russian side which resulted in Reval Meetings in 1908. Although Austria-Hungary claimed that the railway deal with the Ottomans wouldn’t change its commitment to the Mürzsteg plan, it was seen as a violation of the agreement. Bridge (2011, p.36) aptly explains how the Prussian hyperactive foreign policy together with Sultan Abdulhamid II’s sinister diplomacy was behind the failure of Mürzsteg:

Certainly, there is no evidence of an Austro-Turkish deal. The Turks tried to give that impression in order to disrupt the Concert, and even circulated spurious telegrams— allegedly emanating from the Ottoman embassy in Vienna—to that end. Resented by this move, “For the first time in the history of Europe a British monarch has met the Czar of all the Russias on Russian ground.”26 The Reval Meeting was considered as an imminent risk of dismemberment of the empire by the CUP cadres since the two major antagonists of the Eastern Question, Britain and Russia, were finally burrying their differences and coming to an understanding.

Reval Meetings were the final stage of the Eastern Question. Throughout the examined period during which the Ottoman Empire, having lost its great power status and started to decline towards its dissolution, became the sick man of Europe; we saw how the strategic options and choices of the Great Powers have evolved from preserving the integrity of the

Ottoman Empire to a potential partitioning of it. The impact of these international-level developments on the mentality of political elites of the empire is analyzed with parallel observations by Kévorkian, Söyler, and Zürcher.

Kévorkian (2012, p.46) notes that the gradually increasing foreign interventionism into the internal affairs of the Ottoman Empire from the late 18th century to the early 20th century has “facilitated the recruitment of rebel officers and made it possible to mobilize Muslim public opinion in the Balkans, which had been unsettled by the prospects opened by the

European plans for the region.” This points to a radicalization of the Turkish political elites with the imminent threat of “partition and extinction of the Ottoman State and expulsion of

Turks from Europe.”27 “Reform” meant “partition” for them and they were scared of becoming “a second or even a third class Asiatic power.”28

26 The Meaning of the Reval Meeting. Available at: https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OAM19080825.2.7 27 Remarks of a CUP official on the British-Russian Reval Plan, cited in Kévorkian, 2012, p.46. 28 Ibid.

Zürcher (2010, p.31) points to the radicalization of the Turkish political elites ignited by the “state surviving instict,” saying that “Many in the CUP felt they needed to act now or it would be too late,” and underlines the role of their military background and having served in the lost territories (2010, p.117):

Almost without exception the Young Turks made their careers in the service of the Ottoman state. This factor undoubtedly left a deep imprint on their worldview. As had been pointed time and again, the most urgent question they faced was: ‘How can this state be saved?’ Söyler (p.73) analyzes the Reval Meetings within the framework of her path-dependent explanation:

The Reval meeting of June 1908 affected the timing of the revolution to a great extent. It heightened contingency by allowing the revolutionaries of Salonica, Manastir, and Skopje to risk everything. For path-dependent explanations, the timing and character of triggering events have high relevance. Public anxiety grew, due to the perception of an imminent threat, which certainly accelerated the pace of revolution. As Söyler examines, Reval Meetings had a decisive effect on the timing of the 1908 revolution. The imminent threat of dismemberment with the foreign intervention triggered the

CUP cadres to act at once. In 2 July 1908, a CUP member, Ahmet Niyazi Bey from Resne (a town in southwestern Macedonia), took the hills in Macedonia and three weeks later, in 24

July, the constitution was reinstated.

Before proceeding with the CUP era, one more specific aspect of the late Ottoman period, the deteriorating conditions of the non-Muslim populations of the eastern provinces of the empire should be addressed.

One of the elements constituting the Eastern Question is the Armenian Question, which has arisen for the same reasons as the question of Macedonia. And if the latter has been capable of bringing about a war that must entail its ﬁnal solution, it is natural that the Armenian Question should now be the next on the agenda, especially since the situation in Armenia has always been worse than in Macedonia. (Trockij, 1980, p.236) The Eastern Question is mostly confined to the Balkans in the historiography but in all reason, it was also related to the eastern Anatolian provinces where a large non-Muslim, mostly Armenian population lived under conditions even harsher than the Balkans. As

32 mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, the humanitarian concerns constituted the “low politics” level for the Great Powers that could be sacrificed for the sake of “high politics.”

Armenians could never attract enough attention to raise the concerns to the strategical interests level since they lived between two absolutist regimes which hated any kind of revolutionaries and one of them was on the table in Reval.

The 1894-1896 pogroms against the Armenian population were in a way Sultan

Abdulhamid II’s response to the increasing external pressure. As a preemptive measure, he created the Hamidieh Regiments, “also known as the Hamidiye Light Cavalry Regiments

(Hamidiye Hafif Süvari Alayları) as irregular militia composed of select Kurdish tribes ordered to protect the empire’s eastern border from Russian incursions, suppress Armenian activities, and bring the region into the Ottoman fold. (Der Matossian, p.186) Since the non-

Muslim population didn’t have a right to carry arms, these Hamidieh Regiments, immune to law, soon started looting, plundering and massacres which turned into widespread pogroms during 1894-1896.

The CUP period “Ottoman” identity and emergence of the Young Turk opposition During the classical era (1300-1600) of the Ottoman Empire, “Ottoman,” as a dynastic name, was a term used to define the group that governed the Ottoman state (the askeri class).

As a result of the modernization efforts in the 19th century, it gained a more civilian meaning and the word came to denote a citizenship. As Ortaylı (1999) notes, from the very beginning it has been attributed different meanings; while it was an exclusively Muslim identity for some, others regarded it as an inclusive identity for all Ottomans regardless of their religion and language. That’s why the latter group was against the religious role of the Sultan as khalifa and they argued for a “secular” Sultanate (Ortaylı, 1999, p.77). The Tanzimat reformers tried to establish an Ottoman identity in an effort to overcome the divisive influence of nationalist ideas but as Ortaylı underlines, the results of this effort to create an Ottoman identity have been paradoxical; it did create a cosmopolitan Ottoman intelligentsia (a more elite, upper class stratum) from all national and religious backgrounds but on the other hand, inevitably led to the mobilization of nationalistic sentiments at the relatively lower-class levels. These two strands followed opposite trajectories in the following disintegration years of the empire.

This paradoxical duality would continue within the Young Turk opposition.

The introduction of the Tanzimat reforms in 1839 had promised all subjects of the

Ottoman Empire equality before the law and a restoration of the Ottoman state to tackle with its decline. However, the inability of the Ottoman statesmen to deliver these rights would lead to the disillusionment of ethnoreligious groups and to the eventual disintegration of Ottoman-

Armenian relations (Millan, 2011), and the continuation of the decline would radicalize the opposition among the Turkish civil and military bureaucrats mainly as a state survival instinct. Sultan Abdulhamid II’s autocratic regime—he ascended in 1876 and declared the first constitution of the Ottoman Empire the same year, however, after the defeat in the

Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78 facing with harsh criticism from it, he suspended the

34 parliament and installed a dictatorial regime that would continue 30 years until the 1908

Young Turk Revolution—worsened the resentments among both groups: a pan-Islamist turn would flare-up the anti-Christian sentiments among the Muslim population and this in turn would bring an interrelated chain of reactions: the atrocities against the Christian population, the foreign interventionism as condemnations and reform imposition, and the alienation of

Turkish nationalism from liberal ideals, resulting in a more reactionary line. Paradoxically, the only unifying element for the ARF-CUP alliance would be the Hamidian Regime itself, covering the antagonism between their ultimate aims.

In 1889, a handful of students from the Military Medicine School of Constantinople held a secret meeting and founded the “Committee of Ottoman Union” (İttihad-ı Osmanî

Cemiyeti). Six years later they merged with the anti-Abdulhamid group led by Ahmed Rıza and took the name of the Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti). It regarded itself as the bearer of the Ottomanist ideology and a liberal patriotic organization. It was one of the several organizations in the Ottoman Empire which constituted the wider

Young Turk opposition. The CUP was influenced by the secretive methods of the Internal

Macedonian Revolutionary Organization.

The Young Turk movement grew rapidly after 1895. In 1902, first congress of Young

Turks was held in Paris. This congress brought together almost all opposition groups from different nations of the empire. It resulted in a division within the Young Turk movement over the question of minorities, especially the Armenian question. The liberal Young Turk faction lead by Sultan’s nephew, Prince Sabahaddin, together with the Greek and Albanian delegates, declared support for the Armenian cause and their right to call for European intervention to end their sufferings. At that point, this view had the majority, however, there was a minority group opposing any kind of foreign intervention, led by Ahmet Rıza, the

35 chairman of the Paris section of CUP. After the majority group’s failed coup attempt supported by the west, the CUP took control of the Young Turk opposition.

The İTC was an umbrella organization against the absolutist regime until the first congress in 1902. Between 1902 and 1905, the Young Turk movement was organized in exile; it had quite limited organizational activity inside the Empire. During this period, the “majority” focused on coup and assassination plots and perished after a fiasco of a coup attempt (1902–3) and its inability to carry out a coup despite British backing. On the other hand, the “minority” pursued organizational groundwork through journalistic activities to reinstall constitutionalism in exile in centers in Geneva and Paris as well as in Egypt and in the Balkans. The latter assumed leadership of the organization in 1906. (Söyler, 2015, p.70) In 1906, Mehmet Talat (Talat Pasha), a postal manager in Thessaloniki, founded the

Ottoman Freedom Society and got in touch with the Young Turk movement. He received a considerable support among the state bureaucracy in the region, and also in the army, with the help of an influential military officer, Ahmet Cemal (Cemal Pasha). All these opposition groups once again came together in Paris on 22 December 1907 for the second congress of the

Young Turks. The CUP imposed conditions such as respecting the territorial integrity of the empire and rejecting the foreign intervention. Despite the criteria imposed by the CUP, the driving force behind the meeting was actually the Armenian opposition group ARF because of their dynamism and more sophisticated organizational structure throughout the empire. The congress has resulted in an alliance between the CUP and ARF. This second congress also united the Ottoman opposition movements under the banner of Union and Progress (CUP).

On the other hand, the weak working class and the large peasantry were still under the influence of the clergy and consequently away from the revolutionary ideals. The Turkish

Muslim bourgeoisie didn’t have a significance. A long historical evolution had transformed them into a military and civil service caste while the Christian bourgeoisie continued to deal with industry and commerce. Neither had political rights or privileges. In a nutshell, the

Young Turk movement was a reaction of the Turkish upper and middle classes who held the military and administrative posts (the bureaucracy in general), with the aim of saving the

Ottoman state, while the other ethnoreligious groups had more libertarian aims. As the

Ottoman identity failed to take hold on the popular base and to perform a unifying role, these two strands would diverge from each other gradually, and after toppling the common enemy, the Sultan Abdulhamid II, it would become impossible to pursue a common cause.

The Weltanschauung of the CUP The ideological inclinations within the wider Young Turk opposition varied in accordance to their political pluralism but in parallel with the rise of CUP and their eventual control over the movement, a more opportunistic, (Turkish) nationalist and Islamic (in the form of anti-Christian) world view has prevailed.

While the non-Muslim elements of the wider Young Turk movement were more inclined to egalitarian and even socialist ideas, the CUP was positivist, social Darwinist, and elitist, dismissing any type of egalitarianism or socialism based on their extreme materialist world view (Söyler, 2015, p.70). From the very beginning they despised democracy and mass movements. Their disdain for collective action was inherited from the Ottoman legacy, which would be a persistent element of the Turkish state. Collective action and mass movements were tolerated and even induced and manipulated as long as they served the interests of the state.

Their opportunism, which could be easily discerned from the inconsistency between their actions and the ideals they propagated in their official papers, was striking. Although they were mostly atheists, they saw no problem in appealing to Islamic propaganda while at the same time using “Turk” and “Ottoman” interchangeably to conceal their staunch nationalism. Hanioğlu (2001, p.178) links this “extreme opportunism” to the realities on the ground—to lead a politically pluralist umbrella organization and have to address a multi- ethnic/multi-religious popular base—and underlines the conspiratorial nature of their mentality which makes it difficult to reveal their true aims (emphasis added):

Since the CPU welcomed everyone to its organization, the central committee was unable to carry out a single-faceted and clear-cut propaganda campaign. This does not mean, however, that the center itself did not have any ideological tendencies. When one examines all the CPU correspondence, its propaganda material, its secret documents, and its official publications, it becomes clear that the CPU followed the path taken by the former CUP and the coalition, leaning toward Turkism and a Turkish-led Panislamism. Inclination toward these ideas does not mean that the CPU abandoned all the other ideas embraced by its various members. Rather, it seems that the CPU was, in contrast to the coalition, extremely opportunistic. This opportunism was best summarized by Bahaeddin Şakir when he advised the Caucasian Muslims “not to express [their] real aims in letters.” Thus not even the secret letters that the central committee sent to CPU branches and members can be considered as revealing the CPU’s true aims.29 The curious case of Young Turk “Revolution” When appraised in light of the aforementioned ideological and historical background

(Great Power strategic competition in which the Ottoman Empire, having lost its great power status, suffered huge territorial loses and was exposed to foreign interventionism at an increasing rate), the most striking observation about the Young Turk Revolution is that it was more against the “Western powers” and a reaction to status lose than it was against the absolutist regime. It emerged almost entirely as a state-survival operation. The top-down bureaucratic characteristic also adds to this curious case of “revolution” as Zürcher notes

(2010, p.26):

The constitutional or Young Turk revolution in the Ottoman Empire in July 1908 in many ways is a curious ‘revolution’. It did not result in regime change as Sultan Abdülhamit II, who had been on the throne for 32 years, remained so after the revolution. It did not result in the establishment of a radically new revolutionary order, merely in the promise of the palace to act according to the Ottoman constitution adopted in 1876 and to reconvene parliament, which had been prorogued in 1878. As mentioned before, the Reval Meeting of 1908 was considered as an imminent risk of dismemberment of the empire, triggering the CUP cadres to act at once to save the state. The

Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reinstated the Ottoman constitution of 1876 but did not overthrow the Sultan. Even the incumbent imperial government remained in its position under

Grand Vizier Sait Halit Pasha. Only after the Sultan insisted on appointing the war and navy

29 Here, Hanioğlu follows a different naming version; CUP is the umbrella organization (including various Ottoman ethnoreligious groups) under which the wider Young Turk opposition operated and CPU is the merged organization after the second congress.

38 ministers instead of merely approving his grand vizier’s choice (contrary to the constitution) and Sait Pasha sided with him, that the CUP forced Sait Pasha to resign and replaced him with pro-British, liberal Kamil Pasha on 6 August in hope of a window dressing and easing the relations with the West.

Elections were held for the first time after 30 years. The CUP was mainly organized in the European part of the empire and started to get organized in Anatolia only after 1908.

Having done a meticulous research on individual cadres who led the 1908 revolution, Zürcher notes that “a coalition of professionals (teachers, lawyers, doctors), Muslim merchants and guild leaders and large landowners” (2013a, p.95) constituted the CUP cadres. The original constitution which was suspended (de facto by abolishing the parliament) by Sultan

Abdulhamid II didn’t allow parties. It was altered and two parties competed in the elections: the CUP and the Ottoman Liberty Party (Osmanlı Ahrar Fırkası, the liberal current within the wider Young Turk opposition), which was founded under the leadership of Prince

Sabahaddin.

Zürcher (2013a) states that the CUP didn’t have a reliable base in Anatolia and they lacked both the age and seniority conditions which were seen important in the Ottoman society for exercising authority, therefore they had to rely on local notables and put their names for the candidacy, which led to a weak parliamentary discipline on the CUP side.

Grand Vizier Kamil Pasha resented the pressure of the CUP and got closer to Ahrar but

CUP had him voted out of office in parliament and replaced with Huseyin Hilmi Pasha on 14

February. This caused bitter criticism from the opposition press; one of their editors, Hasan

Fehmi, was assassinated by a Unionist.

During this first period, the CUP wasn’t faced only with liberal opposition. The second group was the conservatives, mainly the ulema and their zone of influence. This opposition group organized large-scale anti-CUP propaganda campaigns with at least two violent

39 demonstrations especially during the Ramadan of 1908 demanding “closure of bars and theatres, the prohibition of photography and restrictions on the freedom of movement of women.” (Zürcher, 2013a, p.96)

These resentments turned into an armed insurrection on the night of 12 April 1909 which would be named as the 31 March Incident (by the Islamic calendar). The ulema members, the entire battalion of Macedonian troops stationed in the capital, and the students of religious schools marched to the parliament and declared their demands which seemed to be very much in line with Sultan Abdulhamid II’s previous demands, such as replacing the ministers of war and navy, purging leading Unionist from their posts and restoration of sharia

(although it has never been abolished despite the reforms). The rebels had their victorious moments since the CUP cadres had fled the capital. But it had kept its position in Macedonia and as of 15 April they started organizing countermeasures. The Action Army (Hareket

Ordusu) under CUP control departed from Salonika and suppressed the insurrection. Some rebels including the prominent ulema Derviş Vahdeti were executed and the parliament deposed Sultan Abdulhamid II and replaced him with his younger brother Mehmet Resit as

Sultan Mehmet V.

The friction within the army was between the mektepli officers who graduated from military schools (modern schools founded throughout the reform and modernization efforts) and the alayli officers who had risen the ranks. The latter was in favor of the old regime and was under the influence of ulema while the former was the main catalyst of the 1908 revolution. Therefore, one result after suppressing the insurrection was discontinuation of the system of promotion from the ranks. The events didn’t spread to the provinces with one exception, Adana in Cilicia region, where it turned into large-scale anti-Armenian pogroms impacting the fate of the alliance between the Turkish and Armenian revolutionaries to a great extent.

Towards the CUP dictatorship: 1912 “Big Stick” election and defeat in Balkans As noted before, the CUP did not have a consistent party structure and control over its parliamentary group. They also lacked the diplomatic skills to deal with the ongoing international turmoil. They covered up their incompetence with conspiratorial tactics. Balkan

Wars and their aftermath provide a perfect example to this.

The landscape of Ottoman politics between 1909 and 1913 was truly chaotic as a combination of political rivalries between the liberals, Unionists and reactionaries, and the resentments of ethnoreligious groups and their alienation. These rivalries and resentments resulted in a broad alliance of liberals, conservatives and ethnoreligious minorities who formed the Party of Freedom and Accord (Hürriyet ve İtilaf Fırkası) and won in a by-election in 1911 (Söyler, 2015, p.74). The CUP reacted to this stronger than ever coalition against itself by rigging the January 1912 general elections which came to be called as “the Big Stick

Election.” The extent of the electoral corruption was so stunning that they won almost entire seats leaving only a few to the opposition. The Libya War against Italy from September 1911 to October 1912 and the following First Balkan War against the Balkan League (the kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) from October 1912 to May 1913 resulted in disastrous defeats for the Ottomans and forced a government change in which the liberal

Kamil Pasha became grand vizier. However, the CUP would once again manage to turn things around, assuming no responsibility in the defeats and even rising as heroes.

Kamil Pasha was a deliberate choice since he was seen as a convenient negotiator for the peace treaties after the disastrous defeats. Nevertheless, the CUP exploited the occasion for consolidating its domestic power at the expense of external loses. On 10 January 1913, paramilitaries headed by Enver, supposedly by coincidence, learnt the peace negotiations with

Bulgaria and raided the Sublime Porte in a move which came to be known as the Raid on the

Sublime Porte (Bâb-ı Âlî Baskını). They assassinated the chief commander of Ottoman army

Nazım Pasha and forced Kamil Pasha to resign. This was a preplanned and swiftly executed coup since the CUP knew beforehand that the European naval ships were awaiting and that

Kamil Pasha relied on them against any CUP intervention.

After the coup, Enver Bey (he, 33 at the time, would rise in ranks rapidly and soon become a Pasha) spoke to the French magazine L'Illustration (Project Gutenberg, 2014) about their justification:

“I sincerely regret having been obliged to intervene a second time to overthrow a government, but it was impossible to wait; a delay of a few hours, and the country would have been shamefully delivered to the enemy; our army has never been stronger, and I really see no reason that compels us to capitulate to such monstrous demands.”30 Enver extracted an imperial decree for the appointment of Mahmut Shevket Pasha as the grand vizier. The new cabinet under Mahmut Shevket Pasha, who was also the Minister of

War, comprised entirely of CUP members. The response of Europe was to end the ceasefire.

Clashes resumed and the new government lost Yanya (Ioannina), Edirne (Adrianopolis) and

İşkodra (Shkodër), being forced to sign much harsher conditions than Kamil Pasha has negotiated. With the London Agreement, all European territories were lost and Albania gained independence, other islands were left to Greece.

The conditions were extremely monstrous, rebutting Enver’s justification of the coup.

Edirne was lost and this caused an immense trauma. So, the question arose, what was the point of the coup, since with Kamil Pasha in power, the Ottomans would at least have a negotiation chance. Everyone began to talk about the nonsense of the raid on the Sublime

Porte. In this atmosphere, Mahmut Shevket Pasha was assassinated and a state of emergency declared. A new cabinet was formed and Sait Halim Pasha, who was one of the main

30 Translation by Serap Güneş. Original French text: “Je regrette sincèrement d'avoir été obligé d'intervenir une seconde fois pour renverser un gouvernement, mais il n'y avait plus moyen d'hésiter; un retard de quelques heures et le pays allait être honteusement livré à l'ennemi; jamais notre armée n'a été plus forte et je ne vois réellement aucune raison qui nous oblige à capituler devant des exigences si monstrueuses.” Available at: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37526/37526-h/37526- h.htm

42 perpetrators of the Armenian genocide and assassinated by an Armenian in 1921 in Italy, became the grand vizier. He formalized the policies that led to the destruction of Ottoman

Armenians. He reinstated order with a heavy hand and consolidated CUP’s dictatorial powers.

He appointed Enver, Cemal and Cavit Pashas as ministers of war, navy and finance respectively.

The assassination of Mahmut Shevket Pasha (the perpetrators were never discovered but the prime suspect was the opposition, Freedom and Accord Party (Hürriyet ve İtilaf Fırkası), and its secret organization in the army Halaskar Zabitan, as they sought revenge for the assassination of Nazım Pasha during the Bab-i Ali Raid) also played into the hands of CUP which used the occasion to further its suppression of the opposition. The triumvirate dictatorship which started with Bab-i Ali Raid reached new levels after this assassination and coupled with censorship and erased the opposition entirely. The CUP used every occasion to consolidate its power. They had realized that the disintegration was inevitable, and started to focus on contingency plans which included demographical engineering of the remaining territory, Anatolia, in order to secure the survival of Turkish state.

The defeat in the Balkans was a “disaster,” a “nightmare” for the Ottoman state and its

Muslim-Turkish population because although they were used to military defeats for quite some time against the European powers, it was the first time that “Turks came to the bitter realization that under certain favorable conditions, the so-called infidel, and previously servile, subject nationalists were not only capable of defending themselves with arms, but also capable of unusual acts of military bravery and strategic expertise.” (Chorbajian and

Shirinian, 1999, p.105)

From the fraternity atmosphere of 1908 to the shameful act of 1915 The euphoria and the fraternity atmosphere of the revolution, the public agitations in support of equality of all Ottoman citizens before the law regardless of their religion or

43 ethnicity, condemnation of the atrocities of Hamidian Regime and blaming the misfortunes the empire and its peoples had endured during his reign on Sultan Abdulhamid II have led to the expectation that the constitutional order would be its antithesis. But all these dreams would eventually shatter under the CUP rule. The CUP was quick to copy Sultan’s policies, suspending the freedom of press, assembly and expression, and above all, carrying the

Hamidian Massacres of its predecessor to a genocidal level.

“The most far-reaching change of the war was undoubtedly the demise of the great continental empires of Europe” (Zürcher, 2013b, p.21) and emergence of new nation states.

Paradoxically, for Armenians the war resulted in losing their lands. Sèvres (1920), the peace treaty that ended the war for Ottoman Empire, stipulated an autonomous Armenia but was repealed by the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. The fate of the Armenian people during and after the World War I was shared by other non-Muslim peoples of Anatolia, however, the

Armenian case was a kind of “shattered dream,” (Der Matossian, 2014) which started as being partners of the revolution and ended up in a shameful act (Akçam, 2013).

Turkey witnessed a promising period of democratization under AKP rule. One of the issues that a relative easing was witnessed was the Armenian question. In 2009, Ankara and

Yerevan signed accords to establish diplomatic relations and open their land border.31 What followed was the limited opening of archives about the events of 1915 and the relative easiness to discuss these events in the public space. In this relatively eased environment, many in Turkey were quite surprised to learn that the Young Turks and the Armenian intellectuals were so close before the Armenian genocide.

Meanwhile a small group from Nor Zartonk [an Armenian political organization in Turkey] was telling a French journalist about the Armenian intellectuals who were deported from Istanbul in 24 April 1915:

31 See Harding, L. (2009). Armenia and Turkey agree diplomatic thaw. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/apr/23/turkey-armenia-diplomatic-relations

“Krikor Zohrab [one of the Armenian intellectuals who would be deported the next day] played backgammon with Talat Pasha32 [one of the main perpetrators of the Armenian genocide] just the night before [deportation]…” (Karakaş, 2015)33 How could that close a relationship end in one side organizing the destruction of the other, to whom they previously had the courage to propose a kind of Austria-Hungarian model? Was it the war which sharpened the land and border anxieties, led to a gradual evolution in CUP tactics towards nationalism and conservatism in pursue of domestic alliances, or was it an empty dream from the very beginning, just a deception of CUP to brand their opposition to Sultan Abdulhamid II as a progressive, secular one? Many, maybe all of these factors were involved.

After the territorial losses in the European lands of the empire and when it became evident that the Arab territories would also be lost eventually, the borders demarcating a viable Turkish state—which were more or less representing today’s Turkey—were inhabited by potentially “traitor” non-Turkish and non-Muslim peoples, among which Greeks and

Armenians made the majority.

However, the CUP-ARF alliance was also problematic from the very beginning, not merely because of CUP’s intentions. Der Matossian (2014, p.2) points to the ahistoricism of the constitutional project on which the alliance was struck:

In fact, the revolutionaries’ uncritical adaptation, acceptance, and implementation of constitutionalism became counterproductive in an era in which it proved impossible to forge a unified nation and preserve the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.

32 Krikor Zohrab was Istanbul deputy of Ottoman Chamber of Deputies. He was arrested in Istanbul on May 1915. See: Koptaş, R. (2016). From Agos' archive: How were two Armenian deputies killed? [online] Agos. Available at: http://www.agos.com.tr/en/article/15092/from-agos-archive-how-were- two-armenian-deputies-killed 33 An anecdote from an Armenian Genocide commemoration event in Turkey. Translated by Serap Güneş. Original text: “Öte yanda Nor Zartonk'tan küçük bir grup, Fransızca konuşan bir gazeteciye tercüman aracılığıyla 24 Nisan 1915'te İstanbul'dan sürülen Ermeni aydınları anlatıyordu: "Ki Krikor Zohrab bir gece önce Talat Paşa ile tavla oynuyordu...” Available at: http://bianet.org/bianet/kadin/164165-nar-lekelerinde-bile-etkili

He also notes that the kind of vague constitutionalism based on a newly invented

Ottoman identity had spelled ambiguity and ambiguity played into the hands of CUP (p.3).

The CUP managed to sustain an unevenly advantageous position in relation to the ARF in their alliance which allowed it to delay the reforms, break its promises and deceive the ARF.

The major reason was that the Young Turks were not wholeheartedly committed to constitutionalism. For them, constitutionalism was only a means to an end: to maintain the integrity of a centralized Ottoman Empire. In fact, the Young Turks were determined to preserve the empire even if that meant violating the spirit of constitutionalism itself, as they demonstrated in their coup d’état of January 23, 1913, during the Balkan Wars. (Der Matossian, 2014, p.3.) Der Matossian’s observations about CUP’s sincerity in the revolution and its true intentions for the alliance are in line with that of Söyler who notes that, for the CUP,

“constitutionalism was seen as a means of overcoming difficulties on the way to save the

Empire” (2015, p.70).

1915 was different from what had been going on since 1890 (anti-Christian sentiments were on the rise since 1860 and as a result of Sultan Abdulhamid II’s pan-Islamist policies aiming at consolidating the state power, had already turned into state-sanctioned violence against Armenians). It was committed in less than a year as a demographical engineering that even inspired the Nazis. The planners were the CUP leadership who seized total power as of

1913. They organized a special organization (Teşkilatı Mahsusa) based on the security apparatus of Hamidian Regime, tasked with organizing the deportations and coordinating the local authorities and Kurdish tribes (sometimes urging those who acted softly).

How could the transition from the fraternity atmosphere of 1908 to the shameful act of

1915 be possible? We need to look into the roots of the ARF-CUP cooperation to answer this question. What did the ARF’s cooperation mean for the CUP (and vice versa) in the first place? For the CUP, striking a deal with the ARF would make their secular project more convincing in the eyes of the international community. For the ARF, CUP was the only viable ally given the atrocities the Armenian population had gone through under the Hamidian

Regime. CUP’s motivation might appear inconsistent with its ever-present dislike for “foreign involvement.” Here, it must be stated that the CUP sought legitimacy wherever they could find. Zürcher (2013a, p.103) notes that:

The Young Turks had expected the re-establishment of the constitutional regime in the empire to earn it credibility and support in the liberal states of Western Europe. Another motivation for the CUP was that since they were mostly from the Balkans and

Caucasus, they needed the organizational structure of the ARF in Anatolia.

This already problematic relationship would change dramatically after the 1909 Adana pogroms. As mentioned before, the events during the reactionary insurrection of 31 March

Incident didn’t spread to the provinces with one exception, Adana in Cilicia region, where they turned into a series of anti-Armenian pogroms (in two waves, 14-17 April and 25-27

April) since Armenians were regarded “as the catalyst of the new ideas and as agitators for independence.” (Akçam, 2013, p.69) The significance of these pogroms was that the troops sent by the government to suppress the rebellion actually joined the pogroms and on the local level, the CUP authorities were directly complicit. When everything had cooled down, an estimated fifteen to twenty thousand Armenians had been massacred.

But the most significant impact of the 31 Mart Incident was on CUP’s tactical choices.

What Zürcher notes as a true regime change at the end of 31 Mart Incident (2010, p.27) was actually a radical transformation in CUP’s tactical priorities. The CUP realized that the

Turkish-Muslim population was deeply antagonistic against the constitutional principles and they didn’t accept the full equality of non-Muslims. Besides from this reactionary ideological background, Adana incident also featured a socioeconomic aspect. The reactionary rebels destroyed the mechanized-modernized agriculture structure (owned by the wealthy

Armenians) along with the Armenian neighborhoods and churches.

The violence against the local Armenian population was also a result of the concerns arising from the significant changes in the political framework the revolution had

brought about. The weakness of the public space in Adana played the most important role in increasing these concerns and perturbing the local population and the notables of the old regime. Rather than being simply political, these concerns were related also to very serious economic consequences in a time when the modern agricultural technologies superseded the old ones and caused resentment among the poor migrant workers who still relied on premodern production techniques. Therefore, the dominant role played by the migrant population in the massacres can be interpreted as an antagonism against the modernization represented by the significant changes in the means of production. As attested by the military tribunals and investigation commissions sent from Istanbul, the complicity of the local authorities [in the massacres] is an undeniable fact.34 This special element in the Adana pogroms points to a missing aspect of the Young

Turk “revolution:” it was a top-down, bureaucratic one that lacked any socioeconomic aspect to attract the masses and transform the inter-community tensions into solidarity against the old regime. It was impossible to implement any civic reforms without somehow improving the lives of the poor peasantry.35

Since the CUP had neither the social base nor the program to resort to this kind of socioeconomic policies, it moved even further away from reforms and limited its actions to intrigues within the power domain.

34 Translated by Serap Güneş. Original Turkish text: “Yerli Ermeni nüfusuna uygulanan şiddet, devrimin getirdiği siyasi çerçevedeki büyük değişimden kaynaklanan endişelerin tezahürü ̈ olarak da görülmelidir. Adana’daki zayıf kamusal alan; bu endişelerin artmasında ve yerli nüfus ile eski rejimin ileri gelenlerinin kaygılanmasında en önemli rolü oynadı. Bu endişeler sadece siyasi değildi; daha ziyade, modern tarım teknolojilerinin eskilerinin yerini almasının, premodern üretim tekniklerinden yararlanan fakir göçmen işçileri huzursuz ettiği bir zamanda çok ciddi ekonomik sonuçlar da yaşanıyordu. Bu nedenle, göçmen nüfusun katliamlarda oynadığı baskın rol, üretim araçlarında yaşanan büyük değişimlerin temsil ettiği modernleşmeye yönelik bir saldırı olarak da yorumlanabilir. İstanbul’dan gönderilen askeri mahkemelerin ve soruşturma komisyonlarının da delalet ettiği gibi, yerel yetkililerin suç ortaklığı yaptığı, şüphe götürmez bir gerçek.” See Varjabedyan, R. (2017). Interview with Bedross Der Matossian: İdealler ve ilkelerle gelip katliamlarla sonlanan 1908 II. Meşrutiyet devrimi. Agos, [online] pp.12-13. Available at: https://www.academia.edu/31845690/Interview_with_Agos_Newspaper_on_the_Turkish_translatio n_of_Shattered_Dreams_of_Revolution_February_17_2017_pp.12-13 35 Der Matossian currently works on this issue: “Currently, I am working on a project entitled Revolution and Violence: The Adana Massacres of 1909. Considered one of the major acts of violence during the turn of the century, these massacres still remain a source of historiographical contention. The research will culminate in a book that examines the massacres through a comparative perspective on communal violence and in the context of revolution, violence, the public sphere, and the political and socio-economic transformations taking place in the region in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries.” Jadaliyya (Ezine). (2015). Interview with Bedross Der Matossian on Shattered Dreams of Revolution: From Liberty to Violence in the Late Ottoman Empire. [online] Available at: http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/21670/new-texts-out-now_bedross-der-mat

The counter-revolution had shown up the fragility of the constitutional regime and of the type of modernizing policies the Committee stood for. In that sense it was both a traumatic experience and a lesson that would not be forgotten by the Unionists or by their successors after 1918. (Zürcher, 2013a, p.99) Dadrian, in his chapter discussing the implementation and execution of the Armenian genocide by the CUP regime in Turkey under the cover of World War I, aptly articulates

CUP’s opportunism and pragmatism in utilizing the religion as a Turkification tool and cooperating with reactionary movements which seem to be at odds with its “progressive” ideology (1989, p.232):

The Ittihad's adherence to the ruling nation principle is particularly noteworthy because the Ittihad were not followers of the tenets of Islam. While the Ittihad continued to run the state largely as a theocracy, its leaders were personally atheists and agnostics. These leaders, however, recognized the pervasive influence of Islam in the country and resolved to exploit it in their plans to eliminate the sources of domestic nationality conflicts. Geopolitical and economic factors also tempered this tactical change. 1912-13 Balkan

Wars proved that the strongest dynamic was nationalism. Having realized that the empire was to be confined almost entirely to Anatolia, two options emerged: a military campaign towards

Turkic lands to compensate the territorial loses in Europe or to build a nation state on the remaining lands which meant Turkification of Anatolia. The Caucasus Campaign of 1914 was the implementation of the first option.36 After the disastrous failure of the Caucasus

Campaign, the second option came forward: Turkification of Anatolia. This option appeared more feasible with Muslim Kurds than the Christian population. German-inspired economic doctrines were also in favor of this “solution.” The mainstay of the strong state would be the national bourgeoisie which would replace the “foreign” minority bourgeoisie. Confiscation of

Armenian properties in parallel with their deportation order was a product of this approach.

36 The CUP asked ARF to facilitate the Caucasus Campaign by inciting a rebellion among the Russian Armenians against the tsarist army. This event is often cited in the Armenian Genocide historiography as a proof of the patriotism of Ottoman Armenians, refuting the claims over their “collaboration with the enemy”.

The reason as to why the most radical “solution” was devised and could be implemented was the war conditions. Consecutive defeats in the Balkans had caused an escape towards Anatolia. This process also helped the most radical elements within the

Ottoman politics seize leadership. After the Bab-ı Ali Raid in 1913, the CUP seized total power. The atrocities against the Greek population inhabiting the Aegean coastal region began a year later. Tens of thousands of Greeks lost their lives until these violent actions ceased with the ultimatum of Western powers. Then the CUP turned its attention to the eastern provinces inhabited by Armenians who had already been weakened by previous massacres and deportations and were away from the Western attention: French had no forces in the region, British were stuck at the Dardanelles and Russia had halted its advance.

While some authors locate the tactical change in CUP policies right after the 1909 reactionary insurrection, others argue that it was rooted even before the revolution, when they were operating underground in Macedonia during the Hamidian Regime. Macedonia, they argue, had been the nest in which they had mastered the politics of ethnic conflict.37 However, based on second-hand evidence (“The Salonika Congress; The Young Turks and their

Programme,” The Times (London), 3 October 1911, p.3), it is also argued that this

Turkification plan was officially adopted in the (secret) congress of the CUP in 22 September

1909 in Salonica (emphasis added):

It is clear that the CUP (also known as the Young Turks), despite expressing a secular agenda, was in no hurry to abolish the existing religiously-based social system, reflected in the resolutions adopted by the 1910 CUP Congress in Thessalonike (Salonika): “Musulmans generally should retain their arms, and where they are in a minority arms should be distributed to them by the authorities. ... Emigration from the Caucasus and Turkestan must be encouraged, land provided for the immigrants, and the Christians prevented from purchasing property. ... Turkey was essentially a Moslem country, and Moslem ideas and influence must preponderate. All other religious propaganda must be

37 “The komitadtji method of rebellion in Macedonia would later become a source of inspiration for the Young Turk opposition movement, which toppled the absolutist regime of Abdülhamit II.” (Söyler, 2015, p.69)

suppressed, as no reliance could be placed on Christians, who were always working for the downfall of the new regime. ... Sooner or later the complete Ottomanization of all Turkish subjects must be effected, but it was becoming clear that this could never be achieved by persuasion, and recourse must be had to force of arms.” Moreover, genocidal language became increasingly common, laying the groundwork for the broader acceptance of massacre and deportation, with one of CUP’s chief ideologues, Dr. Behaeddin Sakir, stating in 1911, “The nations that remain from the old times in our empire are akin to foreign and harmful weeds that must be uprooted.” (Armillei, Marczak and Diamadis, 2016, p.103) According to the CUP position, which is still held by the official Turkish historiography, the 1915 was a deportation operation, not a preplanned genocide; there were legitimate security concerns behind the deportation decision because it was highly possible that Armenians would cooperate with the enemy and compromise the security at the Russian front. The chaotic war conditions, the bad weather conditions, hunger and attacks of uncontrolled Kurdish tribes have led to heavy casualties.

Those justifications were not in line with the facts. Armenians who lived in areas far away from the war front or supposedly strategic supply routes were subjected to deportation.

There were indeed three Armenian voluntary brigades in the Russian army but the ARF, the prominent Armenian organization, had always reminded Armenians their duty as loyal citizens of the Ottoman state. That’s why the CUP had asked ARF’s help for infiltrating the

Russian lines before the Caucasus Campaign. Before the deportations, Armenian revolts were against unjust taxes and extortions and even limited to the provocations of the Ottoman law enforcers (Akçam, 2013). The actual Armenian reprisals came after the genocide in line with the resuming Russian offensive in 1916. And the deportations supposed to be temporary but there had been no relocations. Besides, the auction style sales of the Armenian properties started only days after the deportation orders. It is almost impossible that those who gave the deportation orders didn’t know or weren’t aware of the hostility between Armenians and

Kurds or that the deportations would turn into an Armenian Golgotha under the present conditions.

With its destructive opportunism, using the war as a distraction and justification, the

CUP was in the intention of implementing a final radical solution against the Armenians who were already weakened by the previous two massacre and deportation waves.

The Young Turks are still remembered for the 1908’s wave of hope rather than the 1915 atrocities they had committed, such that many continue to believe that the perpetrators of these crimes were some other Turks. The CUP also wanted to get rid of their guilt of

“cooperation with infidels” which almost cost them losing power in 1909.

To conclude the “fraternity to shameful act” dialectic, it is important to note one particular difference between the CUP and ARF which rendered their alliance bound with the not-guaranteed sincerity of the former. Although he does not come up with the comparison intended here, Zürcher, drawing upon his research on the first-hand accounts (memoirs of the

CUP leaders), reveals an important difference between the CUP and ARF (2010, pp.37-38):

According to Enver, the CUP had no foothold in the villages, but quite a few of the large landowners, who although they lived in town were very influential in ‘their’ villages, were CUP members and it was their influence that mobilized the villagers in support of the CUP. […] The officers also court the villagers by explicitly capitalizing on the already existing fears about foreigners taking control of Macedonia. They constantly point out that the country is in danger and that foreign (Christian) control will mean the end for the Muslim ‘majority’ in Macedonia. While CUP was refraining from any pro-constitutionalist propaganda and appealing to religious sentiments of the Muslim population in an openly anti-reformist and even anti-

Christian tone, “representatives” of the non-Muslim communities were very euphoric:

My Ottoman brothers: Ladies and gentlemen, I am addressing you as my Ottoman brothers, devoid of epithets and titles and stripped of veneration and glorification, as I do not find a sweeter expression on the Ottoman ear than this simple phrase, and there is no expression more desirable to the Ottoman and dearer to his heart than this simple phrase after we tasted the sweetness of Ottoman freedom and made the commitment to brotherhood and equality under the patronage of our empire.38

38 Dr. Faris Nimr, A Greek Orthodox from Hasbeya, Lebanon, during his speech in the ceremony that took place in the Armenian Apostolic Church of St. Gregory the Illuminator (Surb Grigor Lusavorich‘)

The reason to place the “representatives” in quotation marks for the non-Muslim communities is the insufficiency of their agency roles. From the very beginning of the organization of revolution, despite their elitism, the CUP cadres had the advantage of forming an agency role appealing to the already-in-place “protector of the religion and Muslim subjects” symbols which had been thus far symbolized in the personality of the Sultan. On the contrary, non-Muslim population was scattered geographically, internally stratified, and during the erosion of the former millet system, they hadn’t gone through a transformation of agent-principle relation comparable to that of the Muslim Turkish population. In the case of non-Muslim minorities of Anatolian provinces, neither the revolutionaries nor the wealthy elites had a strong foothold in the countryside. They were mostly confined to the capital and coastal cities. This point is still debated within the Armenian genocide historiography: The

Armenian revolutionaries, who were marginal in their communities, naively seeking liberation through cooperation with the newly emerged Turkish “revolutionaries,” on the one side; and the wealthy Armenian community leaders and the Patriarchate hierarchy as the traditional elites, who had always been in good relations with the Porte, highly skeptical of the revolutionary ideals, on the other side.

The Armenians were led in turn, however, by a politicised vanguard often living cosmopolitan, urban lives remote from rural eastern Anatolia—and in the case of the influential intellectual developments stemming from Russian Armenia, even living outside the empire altogether—yet harking back to it as the ancestral home of their people. Thus whatever ideas were seeping into Armenian elite consciousness, and whatever economic strength some Armenians possessed, this was not matched in the majority of the Ottoman Armenian population, the peasantry, which was primarily concerned with its own grinding poverty, and was joined in its plight by Kurdish and Turkish peasants. Nor did Armenian political leaders have the wherewithal on their own to ameliorate the conditions of their rural brethren. (Bloxham, 2007, p.304) CUP legacy has been important in two aspects for the Kemalist regime; firstly, they had preserved the territorial integrity at least on the Anatolian lands; secondly, they had spared

in Cairo, in August 30, 1908, celebrating the Young Turk Revolution of July 24, 1908, cited in Der Matossian, 2014, p.1.

53 them the “shame of cooperating with infidels” to implement the modernization projects of the republic since there were no infidels left. This favor didn’t remain unreturned. After the end of war, war tribunals were set up to try the crimes committed by the CUP. Most of them received death penalties. However, the liberal government in Istanbul was soon to lose its influence and didn’t have the authority to execute the punishments. The tired Allies also had lost their interest in the war all along with the crimes. Besides, during the war time, all issues had become a matter of security and the militaristic rational had overridden the humanitarian concerns, thus the view of allies was no different from the CUP regarding the Armenian issue

(Varnava, 2014).

Mustafa Kemal, who had previously criticized his predecessors, was to include the mid- level CUP cadres into his movement to reinforce its organization throughout Anatolia. He regarded the war tribunals as a tool of Western powers for occupation and responded by abolishing them and putting the families of the executed war criminals on state payroll. All references made to the 1915 events were regarded as aggression aiming at dismembering the country and the CUP version of the events was adopted to confront them. Mustafa Kemal made the occupation of the Armenian lands a priority in order to undermine the Serves

Treaty, which was signed by the Ottoman government of occupied Istanbul but never ratified.

He convened the first congress of independence movement in Erzurum (the prospective capital of Armenia) in 1919, also securing the alliance with Kurds. The Allies were too war- worn to honor their promises and all of them followed the Soviet’s suit, each signing another peace treaty with Mustafa Kemal and thus repealing the Serves Treaty. The new treaty,

Lausanne (1923), provided the religious minorities including Armenians, Greeks and Jews with basic rights but does not include any references to the right to land.

The AKP period Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey after 2002 elections.

Söyler analyzes this development in relation to her path-dependent explanation of the decline and restoration of Turkish deep-state during the same period. She points to the increased geopolitical strategic role of Turkey for the US in the post 9/11 atmosphere and the democratic conditionality of the EU as the international anchors that contributed to the rise of

AKP but focuses mainly on domestic antecedents such as “the rise of the provincial capital and the erosion of the political center after the 1997 putsch,” whose effects were amplified by the outcome of 2001 economic crisis in Turkey (2015, p.163). Here the international context will be given a more salient role compared to her analysis and in the following chapter on

Turkish state, we’ll discuss how discerning this salience makes an important difference.

The re-emergence of the notion of a Muslim geopolitical unity39 Erdem (2011) notes that, during the Cold War period, the research on democratization and regime change focused mainly on domestic factors with a lower attention to the role of international context, and determines the unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union as a serious challenge to this bias. This former domestic bias can be considered as a natural result of the relative stability of the international context, since it was a bipolar system demarcated by the liberal democratic West and communist East dichotomy. The demise of this bipolar system with the collapse of one of the poles as a political system was marked as “the end of history” in a victory for the liberal Western values (Fukuyama, 1989). However, the ensuing trajectory of world affairs didn’t corroborate the heralded victory; instead, a multiplicity of centrifugal forces was gradually unleashed and the long-buried tensions were unearthed in the form of

39 On the discussion about the re-emergence of “Muslim geopolitical unity,” this subchapter made use of the podcast episode “Cemil Aydin on the illusion of the Muslim world” by Turkey Book Talk: https://turkeybooktalk.podbean.com/e/cemil-aydin-on-the-illusion-of-the-muslim-world/ As a recently published work, Cemil Aydin’s book could not been obtained within the writing process of this study.

“clash of civilizations” (Huntington, 1993). These two adverse opinions regarding the future of world politics still continue to constitute the essence of the present debates.

The breakup of Yugoslavia and the ensuing war provided the first laboratory for the future prospects. The Yugoslav turmoil confirmed that the security environment has changed fundamentally from the Cold-War period world order and stability based on the nuclear deterrence and tangible threats to a world disorder and instability of less tangible, multiple, and yet-to-define threats and enemies. The ensuing NATO operation was also important since it changed the nature of foreign intervention from peace keeping to peace enforcement. But still, Russia and US could work out the situation together and both had an important role in peace enforcement.40 Therefore, this first occasion neither corroborated nor confuted the said two opinions. However, we would soon see that the collapse of one pole as a political system didn’t necessarily change the geopolitical antagonisms. Strategic tensions inherited from the

Cold War period continued to increase cumulatively. The conflicts in Ukraine and Syria, which have been going for several years and become almost chronic, are actually an unleash of this cumulative build up at a limited scale at the expense of destruction of two countries.

Söyler’s emphasis on Turkey’s increased strategic role after 9/11 is indeed right when considered along with this background. However, this alone does not explain the reformism wave which brought AKP to power and increased with it because Turkey has always been a

“functional ally” for NATO with a crucial geostrategic location and a powerful, large army but normatively it has never been one of the drivers of the broader Western grand strategy of a liberal world order (Aybet, 2012). Turkey’s introduction to a broader Western grand

40 The Russian military provided the largest non-NATO contingent (approximately 1,500 troops) to the UN-mandated, NATO-led peacekeeping forces. See: http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2004/issue4/english/special.html

56 strategy41, after decades of being mainly a NATO outpost in its region, came within another context: the rise of political Islam.

What Huntington had foreseen as the clash of civilizations has indeed been a determining theme of the world politics since the end of the Cold War. The Cold War has been a period of struggle between two grand narratives, Karl Marx’ communism and Adam

Smith’s liberal capitalism. Fukuyama’s ‘end of history’ was in fact a declaration of the triumph of the latter. However, this triumph didn’t bring the promised peace and stability.

Multilateral, “benign” NATO interventionism (Yugoslavia) quickly turned into unilateral US interventionism with the Afghan and Iraq wars leading to regional instabilities and large-scale human rights abuses. On the other hand, neoliberal policies and over-financialization of world economy led to destructive global crises (along with other devastating consequences on the social fabric of countries), overshadowing the triumph of liberal capitalist narrative. In the absence of any convincing grand narratives, the world entered into a trajectory that is in line with Huntington's projection of a looming clash between Islam and the West.42 Ironically, the notion of a discrete Muslim world came to be cherished by Islamophobes and pan-Islamists alike.

41 It would be incorrect to claim that there has been a consistent Western grand strategy in the post- Cold War period. NATO suffered a serious cohesion problem during the run-up to the Iraq War in 2003 with the disagreement between the US and some of its allies on the one hand and others led by France and Germany on the other hand. This 42 Keck (2013) argues that “Huntington’s acknowledgment that none of the conflicts in the post-Cold War era at the time of his writing had constituted a ‘full-scale war between civilizations, but each involved some elements of civilization rallying,’ has often continued to hold true. Still, the clash of civilization has not dominated world politics in the post-Cold War world and the fault lines between civilizations have not been the battle lines of the era, nor do they appear likely to be in the future.” However, with the announcement of the formation of a broad international coalition to defeat The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on September 10, 2014, regardless of whether or not they represent the civilization they claimed to, there emerged two belligerent sides who fight each other in the name of their respective civilizations.

The re-emergence of the idea that a discrete Muslim world exists is studied by Cemil

Aydin in his recent book.43 He sees this idea as a new racialization form and argues that the notion of a discrete Muslim world with a set of shared values and civilization-defining characteristics is an illusion and such a world has never existed in any meaningful form.

Aydin highlights that, in all their diversity, it is naive to categorize them in any kind of unity, particularly a political one. He places this racialized notion of Muslim world as the basis of not seeing them as individuals or peoples with citizenship, claims, and rights, but as representatives, tools or extensions of a geopolitical block.

Accordingly, assuming the existence of a Muslim geopolitical unity brings about political implications. On the Western side, the right-wing populist politicians amplify this dichotomy with “fear politics” while the liberal ones also don’t hesitate to embrace it in a different form. For example, Barack Obama’s 2009 “A New Beginning”44 speech relies on this racialized notion of Muslim world which also encourages those who want to be the leader of the Muslim world to appeal for Muslims as an infiltrating tool of an expanding Islamic world (or in the case of Obama, for infiltrating into the Islamic world.)

The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) is maybe the predecessor of

Obama’s declared vision. It is an initiative proposed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (the

President of the Government of Spain) at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations

(UN) in 2005. It was co-sponsored by the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

AKP’s rise as a moderate Islamic party occurred with this international-level ideological

(and also geopolitical) re-posturing at the background. The foremost importance of Aydin’s observations for this study is the parallel he draws between today’s Islamism and that of the

43 Aydin, C. (2017). The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History. 1st ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 44 Barack Obama, A New Beginning. Cairo University, Cairo. 4 June 2009 Available at: https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo- university-6-04-09

19th century. He argues that the notion of a Muslim geopolitical unity dates back to the late

19th century. As we have pointed out in the previous chapters, the disintegration of the

Ottoman Empire took place within the international context of “Eastern Question” and the ideological background of Sultan Abdulhamid II’s (and then CUP’s) pan-Islamism against the

West.

In his recently published article, Robert D. Kaplan analyzes AKP’s rise and its neo-

Ottomanism within the same context of geopolitical re-posturing45:

Turkey’s dynamic regional policies under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan mark a return to a more historically rooted Ottoman imperial strategy – something, in turn, that was first introduced by the late Prime Minister Turgut Ozal in the 1980s and early 1990s. Ozal, a deeply religious Muslim like Erdoğan (but without the latter’s authoritarian tendencies), saw so-called neo-Ottomanism as pluralistic and multi- ethnic, thus providing a basis for peace between Turks and their fellow-Muslim Kurds, and also allowing for Turks to reach out to Turkic peoples in Central Asia, as well as to fellow Muslims in the Arab and Persian worlds. It was not an aggressive and antidemocratic strategy, in other words. To be sure, the “narrow . . . western orientation” of Turkish foreign policy that we in the West both admired and considered normal during the middle decades of the Cold War, when the military ruled Turkey, was actually an aberration – the singular invention of that fierce secularist, Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk,” who abjured Ottoman imperialism, and by the way, was no democrat.15 The dictatorial Kemalist state so geopolitically convenient to the West will never come back. Turkish society has become too sophisticated for that. And yet, it must also be said that Erdoğan, in his own very compulsive authoritarianism, and in his attempt to subdue the Kurds within Anatolia itself, is to some degree a Kemalist, striving in vain for a monoethnic Turkish state, even as his vision of Turkey as a power broker in the Levant is very Ottoman. This is not a contradiction, though. Because of the way that ethnic Kurdish areas overlap Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran, protecting Turkey’s modern, Kemalist borders at a time of war in Syria and Iraq requires a forward policy of Ottoman-like expansion. Turkey’s worst nightmare is losing control of ethnic-Kurdish areas in eastern Anatolia. Thus, it must always be on the offensive in some oblique form. EU enlargement and Turkey’s EU accession process If the EU enlargement towards the Central and Eastern Europe was the fourth-wave of democratization (McFaul, 2002), it wouldn’t be a mistake to regard Turkey’s accession as the last and a logical extension of it; which is a case argued by the post-Cold War era geopolitical readings of many IR accounts (Dahlman, 2004; Minchev, 2006; Bagdonas, 2012).

45 Robert D. Kaplan, “The Return of Marco Polo’s World and the U.S. Military Response’ May 12, 2017. See: http://stories.cnas.org/the-return-of-marco-polos-world-and-the-u-s-military-response

Of these account, the ones written by authors from CEE countries have a tellingly straightforward language about the geopolitical aspect of Turkey’s EU accession. Here are two examples, the first one in favor of, the second one against it:

Lithuania’s interest in having Turkey in the EU stems from the country’s commitment to Atlanticism, as well as from the perceived potential benefits in terms of reducing Russia’s influence in the EU. (Bagdonas, 2012, p.178)

There are only two arguments – though rarely publicly referred to – in favor of Turkish membership in the EU. First, without Turkey, the geopolitical construct of the West, called upon facing the challenges of the 21st century, could not be completed and consistently protected. The West needs consolidated borders moved eastward which guarantee the control on the Middle East and Central Asia. The affluence of energy resources, the resurgence of radical Islam and the transition of China into a super- power are all challenges that cannot be faced without a critical minimum of economic, political and military control of the West over these two regions of key strategic importance. Second, the necessary depth of geopolitical penetration in these regions cannot be accomplished only through military-political and technological instruments. It is needed that the social structures, representing the identity of the Western civilization – open economy, democratic political system, and pluralistic culture – ‘take roots’ in traditionally non-Western societies on the eastern periphery of Europe in order to provide for the strategic sustainability of the Euro-Atlantic hegemony. The necessary – and in many aspects sufficient - condition for this is the full-fledged membership of Turkey in the main institutions of the West, including the EU… After both referenda [French and Dutch] the observers were unanimous – negotiations with Turkey and Ankara’s membership in the EU will be delayed for indefinite future. Several months later, on October 3, the EU decided to start negotiations with Turkey. It happened despite the European public opinion, despite the “enlargement fatigue”, despite the actual institutional blockade following the rejection of the constitutional project. (Minchev, 2006) In any case, the fifth enlargement wave of the EU had an indisputable agenda setting impact in favor of democratic values and thus facilitated the commencement of Turkish accession negotiations.

AKP’s ascendance to power was contingent on an international context with two interrelated variables: the re-emergence of the notion of a discrete Muslim world which necessitated Turkey’s further integration to the Western system, and the fifth EU enlargement which can be regarded as the fourth-wave of democratization.

It is important to note that the EU membership was not originally an AKP initiative however it provided favorable conditions for it since the party used the values which

60 constitute EU conditionality as a weapon in domestic political rivalries, especially arguing for a more circumscribed role for the military.

The real credit has to be given to İsmail Cem (Turkey’s Minister of Foreign Affairs from 30 June 1997 to 11 July 2002, the exact period which covers the European Council’s decision to recognize Turkey as a candidate on equal footing with other potential candidates

(12 December 1999)) and before him even to Turgut Özal (the liberal-conservative46 8th president of the republic between 1989 and 1993). The AKP foreign policy has actually been a misappropriation of his visions. Despite the obvious parallel between the below statements, the change of tone and the connotations the latter brings to mind attest to this misappropriation:

Turkey’s history was moulded in Kosovo, Bosnia, Edirne and Manastır, or any other Turkish European centre as well as in Bursa, Kayseri, Sivas, Van or any major Turkish city in Asia. (İsmail Cem)47

Our physical boundaries are different from the boundaries of our heart. We should differentiate between them. We of course show respect for physical boundaries; but we cannot draw boundaries to our heart, nor do we allow it. Some ask us, ‘why do you care about Iraq, why do you care about Syria.’ They are asking, ‘why do you care about Georgia, Ukraine, Crimea, Azerbaijan, Karabakh, the Balkans, North Africa.’ These questions might be expanded. However, note that no one is asking the countries that come to our immediate environ from thousands of kilometres away ‘what business do you have here.’ None of the places for which they ask us ‘what business do you have here,’ are foreign to us. I am asking you Rize my dear bothers. Is it possible to separate Rize from Batumi? Or is it possible to think Edirne apart from Thessaloniki or Kardzhali? How come you can regard Gaziantep and Aleppo, Mardin and al-Hasakah, or Siirt and Mosul as places that have nothing to do with each other? You see something from us in any Middle Eastern and North African country you stop by between Hatay and Morocco. You definitely come across a trace from our ancestors at every step you take along the geography extending from Thrace to Eastern Europe. (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan)48

46 He is also the first Turkish statesman to articulate a neo-Ottomanist perspective. “The liberal- conservatism, which is a synthesis of liberalism that advocates market economy and “restricted state” principles, and conservatism that emphasizes social values, was first implemented in the United States and the United Kingdom. Then it was implemented in Turkey post 12th September 1980 military takeover, during Turgut Özal’s administration. Özal introduced a liberal-conservative understanding in Turkey by synthesizing liberal approach in politics and economics with conservative values.” (Uluç, 2014) 47 Cited in Ilgaz and Toygür, 2011. 48 http://www.tccb.gov.tr/en/news/542/53641/pyd-ve-ypg-teror-orgutleri-pkknin-atigidir.html

Foreign policy shift Turkish foreign policy under AKP rule has been the focus of scholarly interest for quite some time. The analyses of this change vary from diagnosing a “subtle shift” to an “axis shift” (Öniş, 2011). Ahmet Davutoğlu’s appointment as the Foreign Minister in 2009 and his

“Zero Problems (with neighbors) Policy” marked the start of a more assertive foreign policy line.

As a prominent scholar of Turkish foreign policy observes, “in the Ottoman Empire, the security culture evolved from offensive realpolitik to defensive realpolitik. In the Republic, the defensive non-involvement realpolitik was moderated by the adoption of liberal economic policies and an activist multilateralism in foreign policy in the 1990s.” The AKP foreign policy represents a return to the traditional power politics, or realpolitik, but not to the defensive realpolitik, [or to] the moderated defensive realpolitik, but to the moderated offensive realpolitik. (Ersoy, 2017, p.117) AKP’s neo-Ottomanist foreign policy commenced as a rejection of the Kemalist foreign policy line. The Kemalist or classical Turkish foreign policy line was Western oriented, the country was a functional NATO ally since 1952; had a regional perspective based on preserving the status quo, coupled with a border obsession which originates from the fact that the national borders are highly questionable since they were established through demographical engineering, forced deportations, and population transfer. This cautious framework had been articulated in Mustafa Kemal’s “peace at home, peace in the world” motto.

The dilemma of the AKP foreign policy was trying to push the limits of traditional

Turkish foreign policy line without coming to terms with several historical questions of the country: the Kurdish question, the Armenian Genocide, the invasion of Northern Cyprus and the dispute with Greece over the Aegean islands.

It is posited that to be successful, Ankara’s new posture necessitates a priori the resolution of several bilateral disputes, ranging from Armenia to the Aegean and troop withdrawal from Cyprus. (Theophylactou, 2012, p.1)

If not to be pursued solely by coercion, the kind of foreign policy activism with apparent expansionist aspirations (whether it involves expansion of borders or just the zone of influence) requires, both at the domestic and international levels, a robust leverage reserve that can be translated into soft power. AKP ran out almost all of the leverages of this kind during the period of 2009-2016 and the decline continues especially in US-Turkey relations now on a collision course after the last decision of US to arm Kurdish forces in Syria.

So, regarding the debate about “shift in the Turkish foreign policy”, it can be argued that there are two periods of AKP foreign policy (very much in parallel with its reformist- authoritarian periods), but actually AKP did have the same framework—neo-Ottomanist expansionism, whether it be border or just the zone of influence—from the very beginning.

The shift is related with two variables: the methods chosen to implement the neo-Ottomanist vision and the array of alliance relations in which AKP tried to pursue this vision. For the first variable, AKP began with soft power tools and ended in purely power politics.49 For the second one AKP was steadyingly within the Transatlantic array of alliance relationships and ended in a position where even its NATO membership is being questioned.50

AKP did try to address almost all of the country’s historical problems relying on soft- power tools and in the meanwhile trying to build up leverage in the country with Kurdish peace process like policies. Kurds should be seen in the middle of all this turmoil and of

AKP’s (in fact, of the Turkish state’s) frantic efforts to tackle the upcoming storm in its region. That’s why the zenith of “benign” AKP neo-Ottomanism was the period it pursued a

49 Here, power politics is “using any means including resorting to war, to further national interests and gain advantage at the cost of other nations.” 50 “If NATO were being formed today, Turkey would not qualify as a member.” (Phillips, 2015). See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-l-phillips/centennial-of-the-armenia_b_7103004.html Also “If Erdogan’s power grab continues unabated, NATO will have to confront a very uncomfortable conflict between its twin commitments to shared democratic values and shared security. Turkey is proving that the two may be mutually exclusive.” (Gramer, 2016). See: http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2016/07/21/on_turkey_nato_succumbs_to_geopolitics.htm l

63 reconciliation with the country’s Kurds in a peace process while after the collapse of this process the neo-Ottomanism gained a pejorative meaning and the shift became clear. Here are the examples of how AKP tried to address the country’s historical problems.

The reconciliation period with Armenia

Armenia-Turkey relations officially do not exist. Although Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize the modern Republic of Armenia after its independence in 1991, the two countries never established formal diplomatic relations and after the 1993 Nagarno-

Karabakh War, Turkey closed its border with Armenia and imposed an illegal economic embargo on Armenia. In very much in line with the aforementioned international context, the first efforts to change the situation began in the early 2000s. The Turkish-Armenian

Reconciliation Commission (TARC) was launched on 9 July 2001 “to promote mutual understanding and goodwill between Turks and Armenians and to encourage improved relations.”51 In its final recommendations, TARC suggested confidence-building measures between Turks and Armenians, called on Turkey to end its embargo and open its border to

Armenia, recommended bilateral civil society programs in the fields of education, science, culture, trade, and tourism, and proposed intensified government-to-government contacts leading to negotiations on normalization and opening the border for normal travel and trade.

TARC delegated the genocide matter to the International Center for Transitional Justice

(ICTJ). In turn, ICTJ facilitated an independent legal analysis which concluded that no legal, financial or territorial claim arising out of the Events could successfully be made against any individual or state under the United Nations Genocide Convention since the Convention could not be applied retroactively. However, it also concluded that the events of 1915 can be said to

“include all of the elements of the crime of genocide as defined in the Convention, and legal

51 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:GCRh2kC9PbUJ:www.tol.org/client/article /1481-10-16-july-2001.html+&cd=4&hl=tr&ct=clnk&gl=cz

64 scholars as well as historians, politicians, journalists and other people would be justified in continuing to so describe them.”52 On 14 April 2004, TARC announced that it has achieved its main objectives and was disbanding in order to clear the way for future initiatives.

On 19 January 2007, Hrant Dink, an ethnic Armenian and Turkish national was assassinated. He was the editor of weekly Agos and an outspoken advocate of human rights and democracy. His murder sparked an unprecedented reaction from Turkish society. Over one hundred thousand people marched in his funeral, demanding the annulment of antidemocratic laws limiting the freedom of expression, and pointing to the Turkish state as the perpetrator behind the assassination.

When Turkish and Armenian national football teams paired with each other for the

World Cup qualifiers in 2008, Turkish president Abdullah Gül used the occasion for an

“unofficial and totally social” visit to Armenia. The first round of 2000 normalization efforts had somehow remained away from the public attention. This time the plan seemed to focus more on that side. The following year, two countries agreed on a provisional roadmap for normalizing the diplomatic relations. However, in the following year, the diplomatic thaw came to an end due to the obvious disagreements between the two countries.

Many believed that the US government was the driving force behind both processes, basing their claims on Phillips’ (chairman of TARC) confirmation that the idea of such a commission was suggested to him by the US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs

Marc Grossman, the number three figure in the State Department under the Clinton and Bush administrations.53

Cyprus negotiations and the dispute over Aegean Sea

52 Phillips, D. (2005). Unsilencing the past. 1st ed. New York: Berghahn Books, p.113. 53 For a concise account of the TARC period, see “Reconciliation: A Case Study of the Turkish- Armenian Reconciliation Commission” by Moorad Mooradian, Working Paper No. 24, March 2004, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University http://scar.gmu.edu/sites/default/files/wp_24_mooradian_0.pdf

Another matter that felt the magic touch of 2000s and EU enlargement was the Cyprus issue. During the election campaign, AKP pledged to solve the Cyprus question, criticizing the previous Turkish governments for pursuing a “the solution is no solution”54 policy to preserve the status quo in Cyprus at all costs. AKP abandoned this stance and proposed a solution through a federal system based on the ‘Belgian model.’ During his prime ministry,

Erdoğan several times publicly stated that Turkey was in favor of a ‘win-win solution’ in

Cyprus and pledged that the Turkish side would always be co-operative and open to multilateral solution efforts.

This dynamism has motivated the international motivations to solve the matter and led to a new UN initiative. The negotiations that started in February 2004 yielded ‘the Annan

Plan.’ The Annan Plan, which stipulated a bi-zonal and bi-communal federation, was the first comprehensive solution plan that resulted from the inter-communal negotiations which started in 1968 between the two Cypriot communities (Sözen, 2013, pp.48-49). It was put to vote in simultaneous referenda in both sides of Cyprus on 24 April 2004 and rejected since the 76% of Greek Cypriots voted ‘no’ despite the 65% support by the Turkish Cypriots. 2004 Cyprus talks took place with the background of upcoming EU enlargement wave, in an effort to avoid the unnecessary future complications a divided Cyprus would bring for the Union. Turkish side resented the admission of Cyprus despite its rejection of the UN plan, and developed an apathy. In 2011, Erdoğan adopted a tough language first against EU, criticizing it for letting

Greek Cypriots in despite their rejection of the Annan Plan55, and then against Turkish

54 Infamous remark of Rauf Denktaş, the late Turkish leader of Northern Cyprus. 55 “We don’t recognize Cyprus as a state. During [the Republic of Cyprus’] presidency, we will never meet them. Relations with the EU will freeze. There will not be any relation between Turkey and the EU for six months. We will only watch the process from Turkey. It is out of the question for us to meet Greek Cypriots. We don’t meet a country that we don’t recognize. We consider it degrading to even sit at the same table with the Greek Cypriot administration in the United Nations. We don’t care what the EU would think about it. The EU should have thought about it while accepting [Cyprus] into the EU.” See [in Turkish]: http://www.yeniduzen.com/erdogan-kibrisi-tanimiyoruz-21085h.htm

Cypriots who protested the Turkish invasion.56 This harsh language would continue after

2015, with the election of Mustafa Akıncı to Turkish Cypriot presidency. He is a left-wing politician who advocates the inter-communal rapprochement and endorses “sister nation”

(Turkish: “kardeş ülke”) concept in relations with Turkey, as opposed to the “foster-land”

(“yavru vatan”) concept officially maintained by Turkey. The two engaged in a polemic over the nature of the relationship between their countries.57 The most recent Cyprus talks, which have started in the first days of 2017, still continue, with the most contentious element being the withdrawal of Turkish troops.

Cyprus issue constitutes an important and the more publicized part of the Greece-

Turkey relations. However, Greece and Turkey have other problems, too, such as the dispute over sea and air borders and operational (military) control in the Aegean. There are rocks and islets whose sovereignty is disputed and fighter jets and boats of both countries often engage in dogfights over the Aegean Sea mostly as a result of Turkish violations. For example,

Turkey violated the Greek airspace 2244 times in 201458, after a stable decline of years, which may be a sign of the aggressive turn in Turkey’s stance. Monitoring and deterring these violations cost the crisis-torn Greek economy heavily. After the refugee crisis, Turkish arbitrariness increased and Greece, knowing that it was on its own with the closure of Balkan

56 “Those protesters tell us to get out of Cyprus. Who the hell do you think you are? Our presence in Cyprus is for the same strategical reasons as Greece. We sacrificed in Cyprus, we gave martyrs for Cyprus. They are fed by us but still protesting us!” See [in Turkish]: http://www.gazetevatan.com/kktc-de--besleme--krizi--357226-gundem/ 57 When Erdoğan was asked by journalists to comment on Akıncı’s words who had said that the status of the relationship between Turkey and the TRNC should change to one between brothers/sisters and not remain a relationship of a motherland and her child, he responsed saying: “Even working together as brothers has its conditions. We paid a price for Northern Cyprus. We gave martyrs and we continue to pay a price. For Turkey, Northern Cyprus is our baby. We will continue to look at it the way a mother looks at her baby.” Akıncı responded by highlighting that he was the elected president of Turkish Cypriots and added: “Doesn’t Turkey want to see its baby grow up? Should we always stay a baby?” See: http://www.brtk.net/?english_posts=akinci-erdogan-crisis- smoothened 58 See: http://www.politico.eu/article/turkey-buzzes-weakened-greece-military-airspace/

67 route by EU, resigned to a de facto status of hybrid operational control in the Aegean.59 But the real problem regarding the Greek-Turkish relations doesn’t come from Greece’s dilemma of tackling the refugee crisis and confronting the Turkish aggressions simultaneously.

Greece’s real worry, as Angelos Chryssogelos states, “should be that it lies on the frontline of

Erdogan’s next stage of confrontation with the EU: a strategy of soft unconventional disruption of European politics punctuated by the weaponization of refugees, the politicization of the Turkish diaspora, and meddling in European elections (as happened recently in the Netherlands and Bulgaria).”60

Refugee crisis/deal and end of EU conditionality EU Chryssogelos’ emphasis on refugee crisis’ role in undermining and eventually ending the conditionality of EU is important. He is bold (bolder than most of the EU politicians) when saying that “after the refugee crisis Turkey is dictating terms to the EU, controlling the flows of migrants and with it the fortunes of European politicians.”61

Turkey has gained the upper hand in its relations with the EU especially after the refugee crisis. In so much that the President Erdoğan declared Turkey didn’t care or recognize the PACE decision on degrading Turkey’s status to ‘under monitoring.’ He was confident that

Turkey was an indispensable partner for the EU, and that controlling the flows of migrants meant controlling the fortunes of European politicians. That’s why after the referendum, with all their audacity, Turkish statesmen declared they had only good intentions for the EU and

59 See: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/the-strange-calm-of-greek-turkish-relations 60 See: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/the-strange-calm-of-greek-turkish-relations 61 It is quite interesting to see how exactly the same countries in Europe who used Turkey’s EU membership and the refugee crisis for fearmongering in their domestic politics and relations with the EU, are now getting along with Turkey quite well “Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade Péter Szijjártó described Germany's recent decision to ban Turkish ministers from speaking in public as a ‘double-standard.’” “EU is 'unfairly' criticizing Turkey, Hungarian PM Orban says” “Turkey to remain an indispensable partner after Brexit: UK Foreign Minister Johnson”

68 offered a way out: let’s forget about normative trivial and play the geopolitical game together.

On 9 May 2017 Europe Day, Turkish President Erdoğan said (emphasis added):

Our country, which has historically, geographically and culturally been a part of Europe for centuries, has the will to continue its EU membership process, which it sees as a strategic target, based on mutual respect, quality and a win-win concept… Our wish is to carry our cooperation with the EU to the utmost level in fields such as migration, economy, energy, the customs union and membership negotiations.” Erdoğan also said that the cooperation developed with the EU at the peak of the migrant crisis in 2016 was the “most concrete and up-to-date example” of the country’s aspirations. If the most concrete and up-to-date example is the disgraceful refugee deal, we can be sure of the nature of the EU-Turkey relations.

NATO’s loosening grip and end of Turkey’s embeddedness 2000s have witnessed a return of geopolitics with the entrance of two players who were seen “in essence outsiders to the global system of international relations” (Orsi, 2014) into game: China and Russia.

[W]ith a dramatic acceleration from the early 2000s, China has become the main centre of industrial growth for the global economy, emerging as the largest market in terms of material goods being produced and consumed, and the largest importer/consumer of commodities and raw materials worldwide. … Russia on the other hand has managed to avert the complete annihilation prospected by Zbignew Brzezinski in his The Great Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (Brzezinski, 1998), and has at least partially re-emerged as a great power from the mid 2000s onwards, assuming the role of key energy producer and exporter, but also becoming a vast market for (especially) European industries and investments. (Orsi, 2014)

NATO’s future was already being discussed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The alliance was in need to formulate a new grand strategy, a normative reason to exist. It was also faced with new security challenges different than those of the Cold War period which rendered its capabilities to meet them inadequate. Therefore, the NATO agenda since the

Prague summit of 2002 has been focused on the “capability gap.” But the set of events after the 9/11 attacks made things more complicated. The Afghan and Iraqi wars, the increasingly

69 unilateral interventionism, and the state building and regime change policies soon caused divergence within the Transatlantic alliance. While debates over each of these issues continued, NATO and in general Western devised international policies were failing. The US withdrawals left a mess in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Resulting was the history’s largest and most serious refugee crisis, making the security concerns even more complicated.62 These developments were on the other hand accompanied by a reorientation in

US foreign policy towards Pacific. The US, without being able to achieve its targets in the

Middle East, was rushing to tackle with the game-changer rise of China.

The developments on the NATO side would have an impact both on the foreign policy and the political regime of Turkey. The problematic relationship between the Turkish regime and NATO was evident, as can be seen from Hilleren’s words (2007, p.24):

NATO has also had a history of supporting authoritarian regimes when it served their security interests. This was evident during the cold war, when its main strategic goal was to counter the Soviet Union. It accepted the authoritarian Salazar regime in Portugal and the military regimes in Greece and Turkey in the 1960s and 1970s. In his “Embedded and Defective Democracies” article, Merkel (2004, p.47) distinguishes between four diminished subtypes of defective democracy—exclusive democracy, illiberal democracy, delegative democracy and tutelary democracy—and argues that even membership to the international organizations does not automatically bring democratization and even lead to the persistence of authoritarianism, which is very much the case for Turkey:

The examples of Portugal (until 1974) or Turkey show that both authoritarian states and defective democracies violating civil and human rights can survive in such alliances, since their inner power structure is subordinate to the particular purpose of foreign policy security.

62 In his recent essay, Kaplan argues that the refugee crisis is an escape from the Muslim “prison- states” and omits the role of Western interventionism. He even carefully avoids using the word “intervention”: “But those Muslim prison-states have all but collapsed (either on their own or by outside interference), unleashing a tide of refugees into debt-ridden and economically stagnant European societies.”

Another parallel argument comes from Reiter (2001, p.54) in his article “Why NATO

Enlargement Does Not Spread Democracy”:

In a dangerous environment, the threat to eject autocratic states from the alliance may not be credible, because the democratic members of the alliance may prefer to retain a useful alliance member even if it is autocratic. This explains why neither Greece nor Turkey was ejected from or even sanctioned by NATO when they reverted to autocratic rule. In a low-threat environment, however, the possibility of ejection will not deter a state from reverting to autocracy, as long as the state believes that it can afford to be unallied in the absence of significant international danger. These observations attest to NATO’s main motivation in not coming to terms with

Turkey’s authoritarianism. Security interests are preferred over the normative concerns. After all, the authoritarianism is also constrained in the embedded security politics.

Mayer (2011), in his article which scrutinizes the institutionalization of new functions, mechanisms and operational roles within NATO and the EU’s Common Foreign and Security

Policy, employs the analytical concepts of internationalization (the increasing importance of political or administrative authorities beyond the nation-state) and the embedded security politics (emphasis added):

The resulting process of internationalization can be labelled embedded security politics, a political order characterized by fragmented responsibilities in which underlying national preferences are altered by transgovernmental and transnational contacts and pressure to reach consensus, by thicker institutional structures of rules and common practices that constrain national decision-making, and by schemes that subject national capabilities for autonomous action to institutional and physical constraints. It is less likely for a military alliance to lose its conditioning and constraining power compared to an international organization like EU which champions mainly normative power.

But what happens if the “thicker institutional structures of rules and common practice” which constrain the national capabilities for autonomous action (in our case authoritarianization and foreign policy shift) are themselves diluted and loosened? Just a look at the Turkish case under the AKP rule would suffice to answer.

Notwithstanding the fact that it has been a failure up to now, AKP’s Syria policy is part of a larger regional projection with various dimensions like economic and military

71 convergence with Gulf countries. The President has just returned from an official visit to

India. It is sure that Erdoğan recalls the strategic geography of the Ottoman Empire and khalifate’s international prestige and potential power in India.

So, if it would be discussed whether there is a shift in Turkish foreign policy under the

AKP rule, it is clear that, in case it resolves to pursue its ambitions at the expense of its

Western allies, today AKP is faced with less obstacle and constraint than it previously used to be. But this does not mean that the neo-Ottomanist aspirations can be pursued only by risking an axis shift. Obama’s 2010 A New Beginning speech was in fact a declaration of intention to work together with the re-emerging “Muslim world.” Former foreign and prime minister

Davutoğlu’s persistent calls for a safe zone in northern Syria were actually calls for the US to realize the intensions declared by Obama. After the dispute over how to solve the Syrian crisis

(the West has turned a deaf ear to calls for a safe zone, US decided to arm and work with

Syrian Kurds), it is unclear whether this option is still relevant. But in any case, Turkish foreign policy still does not indicate the decisive signs of an axis shift (it is still a NATO member) and that is quite hard to happen at least in the midterm given the still very relevant and constraining economic embeddedness within the Western system. However, we live in a transitioning world with large scale shifts at the background, making the revisionism of

AKP’s foreign policy fade away on the foreground.

Turkish state tradition The rise of political Islam in Turkey with AKP has been viewed as a fundamental change in the secular identity of the Turkish state (Waxman, 2010). This view originates from an oversimplified understanding of the relationship between Turkish state and Islam. As we tried to demonstrate, Islam has always been a constituent element of the Turkish state and what is regarded as secularization during the Kemalist era was actually a gradual accommodation of the religion into the ofﬁcial state ideology. The core elements that constitute the Turkish state’s ontological identity have never changed, what changed was only the prioritization and instrumentalization of them.

The role of the ulema within the Ottoman institutional nexus was of a counterbalancing nature and also bound with the fate of the state. The continuity of state tradition during the transition from empire to nation-state can be traced by examining how this “counterbalancing relationship” has evolved in the Kemalist era. Mustafa Kemal, the founder of the modern

Republic of Turkey and its first president, is widely regarded as the secular father of modern

Turkey. It is true that his line had been to secularize the state. But on the other hand, it was also imperative since the dual role of sultan-khalifa was abolished. Ottoman sultans’ khalifa role was an assurance against the emergence of collective actions that might derive legitimacy from religion. Secularization was in fact a countermeasure to secure the unity and survival of the state against this possibility. That’s why many critics consider the official historiography and the Kemalist secularism as a replacement for the religion. Religion was replaced with nationalist historiography in its function to connect the individual to its past and future, more importantly to the state.

Another aspect of the Turkish state in which a fundemental change didn’t happen is the state-society relationship. Regime change didn’t transform the institutional imbalance in this

73 relationship. Although the civil society was not absent anymore, it was still dictated by the top-down influence and infiltration of the state.

During the Ottoman Empire, the absence of a civilian public political space often showed itself with outbursts of violence, banditry, and mutinies. This was applicable also for the CUP era, when a non-negotiated dissolution of the old empire institutions took place.63

The societal tensions made themselves visible through organized violence given the absence of a public space based on negotiation and fair competition politics, and freedom of expression and organization. Adana pogroms and anti-Christian riots in the provinces were examples.

This pattern of outbreaks of organized violence as a way of asserting group interests persisted in the republican era. During the Kemalist period, the Turkish state monopolized the violence under state authority but brokarage-style interactions between banditry and state have never vanished and state-sanctioned mob-violence remained as an essential tool for the following Turkish governments to suppress the dissendents.

If one to find a fundamental difference between the imperial and republic eras, it is the geopolitical positioning of the Turkish state. The high prevalence of the studies that examine the decline period (19th and 20th centuries) often serves to omitting centuries of a different geopolitical existence. Recalling this history (and relating it with the Turkish foreign policy under AKP rule) is fundamental to understand the current developments.

The difference—the more salient role of the international anchor that we have noted in the AKP period chapter—is explicative to the particular ontological characteristic of Turkish

63 “Two important qualities distinguish modern Turkey’s state and nation-building reforms from other projects of modernization/westernization […] First, from the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish state took over a deep seated state tradition and the memory of being an imperial center. The latter created a sense of self-confidence and importance (from having had a multinational empire), as well as a sense of insecurity and guilt (from losing it). Unlike the British and perhaps more like the French, Turks could not negotiate the disintegration of their multinational empire but lost it through weakness and defeat vis-à-vis the great powers of Europe.” (Somer, 2006, pp.92-93)

74 state: The imperative to continuously check and re-posture its selfness in relation to others

(internal and external threats, rival states, inter-state system, international system, and the developments and relations among and within these elements and systems) because of the extremely fragile spatiality of its existence; it is a giant confined to a dwarf’s hut which has never belonged to it although it had ruled over for centuries. In its every move, it comes into touch with another culpability of its past, or risks the collapse of one of its mainstays. It is an old great power degraded to a second-class Middle East power, expelled from the elites’ club only to serve it as a gendarme on the southern flank. While its physical existence is confined to a painfully fragile spatiality; mentally, it exists in an ahistoric temporality with no problem at all. Anything unfit to the current realities on the ground can continue to exist in that dimension: the state traditions, all the statecraft experience, the epitome of statehood…

Being neither a total “outsider to the global system of international relations” (Orsi,

2014) nor a full-fledged, welcomed member, Turkey has remained on the doorstep of the

West since 1918. Up until 1918, in its survival war, the Ottoman/Turkish state had instrumentalized policies (or acts and crimes to be more precise) of demographic engineering, including deportation, resettlement, ethnic cleansing as well as economic pressures such as

‘selective tax policy’, restrictions in employment, property rights (Şeker, 2013) and foremost importantly, genocide. Furthermore, these acts were not related to a pathological desire of or obsession for eugenics or race purification. Although, whatever the purpose they may serve, insisting on acts of the kind at the expense of their moral costs itself consists a pathological situation, the particular purpose of saving the state was a convenient enough excuse for the perpetrators to live with the moral consequences. That’s why today in Turkey we still can hear people boasting about the events of 1915. They were hidden, distorted and even ill- excused but never dispraised and relegated to the guilty conscience. Consequently, they were carried on throughout the republic era and became an ingrained part of the “statecraft”.

Today, demographic engineering tools like forced deportation, relocation, destruction of residential areas, civilian massacres, state-sanctioned mob-violence and lynches against the dissidents are well and alive in the Turkish regime, ready to be used as a handy toolbox in a security environment where legitimate and lawful means of politics often fail to address

Turkish state’s desires.

Turkey didn’t go through a domestically-driven regime transformation to break up with the institutional configuration which maintains and reproduces the aforementioned existence, neither did it face with an external coercion that would crush it, similar to that of Germany and Japan. Despite being deeply infiltrated, influenced and shaped by the NATO, it has never been colonized and subjected to that kind of a transformation.

If being the gendarme of Western security on the southern flank is an example of how the ontological characteristic of the Turkish state gained new levels of security-sensitivity through discovering and rediscovering its importance as a geopolitical asset for NATO, the refugee crisis is its today version. Turkey is a power broker in a strategic geopolitical position between the two worlds, thus a state which defines its selfness with more than anything its geopolitical identity; not the wellbeing of its nation, not the scientific, philosophical or artistic contributions to the civilization. They matter only to the extent they provide buttresses for its geopolitical posturing.

Bothersome parallels The Macedonian uprising of 1903 and its violent suppression by the Ottoman state have bothersome parallels with the security operations carried out by the Turkish state in the southeastern Kurdish towns in 2015. Lange-Akhund’s (1998, pp.131-132) account of the

Macedonian uprising and its aftermath might also be telling the situation in the southeastern

Kurdish towns of Turkey in the end of 2016.

Public opinion in the West was aware of the revolt's progress by reading the press which covered the events daily. On the French side, one could mention Le Temps, Le Marin; on the Austrian side, according to the consular reports, Neue Freie Presse apparently presented most often the events in Macedonia. Nevertheless, the content and quality of the news from Macedonia must be considered with prudence because such information was the object of manipulation as much by IMRO as by the Sublime Porte. Thus in 1903 the Ottoman government put in place a “strategy of information" destined to portray the Macedonian uprising as a marginal action of some Bulgarian terrorists in the eyes of Europe. Turkey refused to grant the necessary permits to journalists needed to journey across the three vilayets and continued to circulate news reports which were false or at least difficult to verify by western journalists. The United Nations Human Rights Office published a report64 detailing the massive destruction of the residential areas, mass-killings and numerous other serious human rights violations committed between July 2015 and December 2016 in southeast Turkey during the security operations which affected more than 30 towns and neighborhoods and displaced half a million Kurdish population.

The extent of the destruction is appalling: in the town of Nusaybin, in Mardin province,

1,786 buildings have been destroyed or damaged, and the Sur district of Diyarbakir, 70 percent of the buildings in the eastern part were systematically destroyed by shelling. The destruction continued even after the security operations ended, reaching a peak during the month of August 2016. Before-and-after satellite images from Nusaybin and Sur show entire neighborhoods razed to the ground. Since the Turkish government didn’t give access to the

UN officials to conduct the necessary investigation and collect evidence to check the allegations, the UN Human Rights Office had to contend with the victims’ testimonies and the satellite images which were particularly alarming since they indicated an enormous scale of destruction of the housing stock by heavy weaponry.

Another alarming sign is the recent demographic engineering allegations. Turkey accepted nearly 2,5 million Syrian refugees in a move which remained the one and only

64 Report on the human rights situation in South-East Turkey, July 2015 to December 2016, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Published in February 2017). Available at: http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/TR/OHCHR_South- East_TurkeyReport_10March2017.pdf

77 appraised policy of it at the international level. Tens of thousands of children were born to their parents in Turkey, who escaped the war and terror in Syria. There is no return on the horizon, and Turkish intentions seem suspicious:

Reflecting concerns of Kurdish host communities, however, it has also alleged that Ankara does demographic engineering by settling Sunni-Arab Syrians in majority Kurdish and Alevi provincial centres and rural areas and cited concerns of jihadist activity in camps. … Mistrusting the state/AKP, various minority communities believe the government is strategically settling refugees so as to weaken voter blocs in districts known to support the opposition on sectarian or ethnic grounds. They consider Syrians a threat to Turkey’s demographic balance and an instrument by which to reshape its national identity. … Clashes between PKK urban militia forces and state security have led to displacement of over 300,000 Kurds and to suspicion that rapid demographic transformation would follow. Memories of assimilation policies toward Kurds in the ’80s and ’90s have led to fears reconstruction would be part of efforts to, “change the demographic structure, and balance out the Kurdish population”.65

65 Turkey’s Refugee Crisis: The Politics of Permanence, International Crisis Group, Report No.241 / Europe & Central Asia, 30 November 2016. See: https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central- asia/western-europemediterranean/turkey/turkey-s-refugee-crisis-politics-permanence

Conclusion The international public opinion was initially cautious about the AKP government because of its Islamic roots and waited for an affirmation of its commitment to democracy.

This came by the end of 2004 when AKP had the honor to officially start the accession negotiations with EU. What followed was a euphoric atmosphere in Turkey and world similar to that of 1908. Many commentators appraised this as the beginning of the final stage of

Turkey’s democratization and integration to the liberal democratic world order which had remained somehow partial after the NATO membership and accompanying transition to multi-party system. Hopes were high that AKP, against all obstructions from the calcified military tutelage, would reform the country and make it an EU member. The foremost reason of this endorsement was that this time an Islamic party was pursuing democratization.

“Accordingly, Turkey’s potential full membership in the EU, for which formal negotiations with the EU will begin in October 2005, have been hailed, among other reasons, as a prospect that would reduce the possibility of a global clash of civilizations.” (Somer, 2014) AKP was to maintain this image and make use of it in its neo-Ottomanist foreign policy until it became clear that the country lapsed into authoritarianism with the recent decision of the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to reinstate the political monitoring process for the country.

We saw that the path-dependent institutional configuration had a decisive role in the transformation of Turkish political regime under the AKP rule. This institutional configuration has its roots in the Ottoman past and was inherited by the modern republic.

During the period between the late 19th century and the finalization of the “Eastern Question” in 1918, the Ottoman/Turkish state has fought a survival war66 in which it added some quite controversial tools to its statecraft arsenal. In the absence of internal and external catalyzers

66 War has ended in 1918 but the fight to “survive the state and secure the borders” continued until 1923 when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed.

79 that would drive a change in the institutional configuration and nature of the regime, both the imperial legacy and the “skills” that were acquired during state survival operation of the CUP between 1908-18 were inherited, maintained and implemented throughout the republic.

We saw how AKP’s ascendance to power with great democratic expectations and the following disillusionment and authoritarianization are conditioned by the international context. The rise of Islam and the re-emergence of a Muslim geopolitical unity first motivated the international actors to address them by devising a new Alliance of Civilizations and promising A New Beginning, then conditioned the neo-Ottomanist foreign policy of AKP, and eventually, with the gradual dilution and ending of the EU conditionality and the NATO embeddedness, unleashed the authoritarian inclinations in the domestic policy and revisionism in the foreign policy.

Although we couldn’t ascertain the extent of the shift, it is clear that there is a pragmatic revisionism which might possess other ideological, value based long-term aspirations also.

The “shift” debate is a relative one, the conclusion varies according to the position of the actor who asks the question and measures the shift, to the ability of the actor to relativize the shift by devising inclusive policies that would render its consequences favorable, and finally to the future contingencies that might arise.

The path-dependence concept proves to be instrumental for the analysis of Turkey’s recent mayhem. Our macro-historical analysis employing the path-dependence concept showed that authoritarianization of the Turkish regime and the upsurge of an expansionist foreign policy cannot be explained merely by the Islamism or authoritarian inclinations of the ruling party AKP but are resulting from structural, antecedent conditions, confirming

Capoccia and Kelemen (2007, p.342):

In fact, macrohistorical analyses often explain the divergence that occurs during critical junctures as the divergence that occurs during critical junctures as resulting

from structural, antecedent conditions rather than from actions and decisions that occur during the critical juncture itself. The decisions and actions of the CUP between the 1908-1918 period didn’t remain as just one of the first extremities of the age of extremes but became an ingrained characteristic of the Turkish state (Üngör, 2012, p.264); along with the disintegration fear and trauma, they were imprinted on the Turkish state’s ontological (in)security (Zarakol, 2010) perception and transferred as a tradition to the new republic. The founding period of the Republic of Turkey is generally regarded as a relatively calm period of so-called Kemalist revolutions; the country has gradually worked its way through Westernization, finally achieving the NATO membership. However, in the background Kemalist Republic was wrapping up what the CUP has achieved in the demographic engineering of an emerging nation state. Still, the Kemalist

Westernization and the Cold War atmosphere could make the authoritarian character of the republic fade away. But as Kaplan (2017) observes, “the narrow western orientation of

Turkish foreign policy that the West both admired and considered normal during the middle decades of the Cold War was actually an aberration.”67 What we witness now is the end of this aberration, in fact, not a deviance but a return to the origins. Kaplan concludes his essay pointing to the parallel between the late 19th century and the present:

Beginning in the late-19th century leading up to World War I, the “Eastern Question” – what to do about the weakening Ottoman Empire in the Balkans and the Middle East – dominated European geopolitics. The Eastern Question has now been replaced by the Eurasian Question: what to do about the weakening of states on the super-continent, as older imperial legacies move to the forefront. The question remains is whether the international system, including international law and values can avoid the extremities of the compared period. The answer will also determine whether or not the new expansionism of Turkey can overcome its troubled past with nation question.

67 Rephrased. See: http://stories.cnas.org/the-return-of-marco-polos-world-and-the-u-s-military- response

Abstract Since the failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016, Turkey has been the focus of considerable international attention. The subsequent purges, arrests and detentions aiming at the members of the military and the police, the judiciary, civil servants, academicians, journalists and politicians were considered as Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The constitutional referendum on 16 April 2017, which was held under state of emergency conditions and took place on an unlevel playing field, transformed Turkey's parliamentary system into a powerful executive presidency. During the same period, Turkey has also undergone a shift in its foreign policy. The “neo-Ottomanist” rhetoric was already discernible for quite some time, however, it increasingly gained an aggressive and anti-Western stance. The overall transformation of the Turkish politics under the AKP rule was a curious case since the party had been applauded for its democratization efforts until very recently, including the European Union (EU) membership process, the Kurdish peace process, and the abolishing of country’s calcified military tutelage. This study tries to analyze the curious case of “from reforms to authoritarianism” cycle of the Turkish regime through a macro-historical comparison of the equifinality in Turkish political elites’ actions. To do this, it takes the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) era (especially 1908- 1915) as the other unit of comparison. It also tries to discern the conditioning role of international context in the path-dependent regime change and state transformation in Turkey. Within the framework of its path-dependent explanation, it focuses on specific matters such as the Ottoman millet system and the particular institutional nexus of the empire, and the international context, mainly the Eastern Question, within which the transition from empire to nation-state took place.

Keywords: Turkey, democratization, Ottoman Empire, late Ottoman period, millet system, Armenian genocide, path-dependence, Turkish foreign policy, ontological (in)security, state survival, Turkish state, demographic engineering, institutions, regime change

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Appendices List of Abbreviations AKP Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) ARF Armenian Revolutionary Federation CUP Committee of Union and Progress (İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti) EU European Union NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization PYD Democratic Union Party (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) UN United Nations YPG Peoples’ Protection Units (Yekîneyên Parastina Gel)

Glossary Devşirme system A specific method of recruitment to the askeri class from among male Christian children through conquest or purchase from slave markets Janissary New soldier or troop (Yeniçeri) Alaylı Officer who has risen from the ranks Askeri Member of the arms-bearing, tax-exempt, ruling elite of the empire, consisting of the sultan’s servants Ayan Provincial notables Bab-ı Ali ‘Sublime Porte’ or ‘Porte’, both the main building housing the Ottoman government and its collective name Cizye Poll tax payable by zimmi (dhimmi) Ghazi ‘Conquering hero’, title for a successful soldier who expands the borders of the Muslim world Zimmi (Dhimmi) Contractual bond between the Muslim ruler and non- Muslim (but “people of the Book”) population which stipulates the conditions under which certain groups would be allowed to live and practice their religion in return for payment of a head tax (cizye) and certain other signs of subjugation