THE UNEASY DEMOCRATIZATION OF TURKEY’S LAIC-ETHNOCRACY A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in the Faculty of Humanities 2012 Bilge Azgın School of Social Sciences/ Politics LIST OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES 5 ABSTRACT 6 DECLARATION 7 COPYRIGHT STATEMENT 7 ABBREVIATIONS 8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 10 DEDICATION 11 CHAPTER I: 12 INTRODUCTION CHAPTER II: 22 THEORETICAL LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Democratic Transition and Regime Hybridity: A Critical Appraisal 24 2.1.A Ambiguities of the Literature on Democratic Transition 24 2.1.B Hybrid Regime Typologies Based on Dahl’s Polyarchy and their Limitations 28 2.2 Between Ethno-Nationalism and State Domination 35 2.2.A Common Strengths of Hybrid Regime Typologies based on the Ethno-Nationalist State- Building Variable 36 2.2.B The Five Dimensions of Yiftachel’s ‘Open Ethnocracy’ 39 2.3 Turkey as a Case of Laic-Ethnocracy 45 2.3.A The Theoretical Contribution of the Thesis: Democratic Secularism versus Kemalist Laicism47 2.3.A.1 Defining Three Criteria of Democratic Secularism 48 2.3.A.2 A Brief Assessment of the Kemalist Laicism vis-à-vis the Three Secularist Criteria (1923- 1950) 50 2.3.B Turkey’s Inconclusive Pattern of ‘Transitions’ from the Laic-Ethnocracy 51 2.4 Conclusion: Articulating the Thesis’s Hypotheses 57 CHAPTER III 65 FROM YOUNG TURKS TO THE KEMALIST REPUBLIC: MANUFACTURING THE LAIC-ETHNOCRACY 3.1 Amidst Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism and Turkism: Enter Young Turks (1839-1918) 67 3.1.A Tanzimat and Ottomanism 68 3.1.B What Kind of Unity? Prelude to Turkism 72 3.1.C Young Turks in Power: Constructing the Ethnocratic Paradigm via Demographic Engineering 76 2 3.2 Consolidation of Laic-Ethnocracy under One-Party Dictatorship (1919-1946) 81 3.2. A From the War of Independence to the Law on the Maintenance of Order 83 3.2.B Deepening the Laic-Ethnocratic Imaginary 88 3.3 Conclusion 96 CHAPTER IV 98 HISTORICAL TRAJECTORY OF TURKEY’S ‘CONTROLLED TRANSITIONS’ (1946-1997) 4.1 Initiation of Multi-Party Politics and the Democrat Party Experience (1945-1960) 101 4.1.A Guided Transformation of the Laic-Ethnocracy into Multi-Party Context (1945-1950) 101 4.1.B Reign of the Democrat Party and Its Demise by the Military Coup of 1960 105 4.1.C Conclusion 108 4.2 Post 1960 Coup Decade: Reconfiguration of Political Cleavages and Military Intervention of 1971 110 4.2.A The Military Tutelage Legacy of the 1961 Constitution 110 4.2.B Construction of New Antagonist Frontiers under the Umbrella of Left versus Right Cleavage 113 4.2.C The Military Memorandum of 12 March 1971: a pit stop for authoritarian progression 116 4.3 Military Coup of 1980 as the zenith of authoritarian progression (1973-1983) 119 4.3.A Towards 1980 Coup: Escalation of Violence, Political Polarization and Economic Crisis 119 4.3.B Political Engineering under the Reign of the National Security Council (1980-1983) 121 4.3.C Conclusion 124 4.4 Guarding the Laic-Ethnocracy against ‘Separatist Terror’ and ‘Islamist Reactionism’ (1983- 1997) 126 4.4.A Containing the PKK’s Violent Kurdish Insurgency within the Ethnocratic Paradigm 126 4.4.B Ousting the Islamist Welfare Party from the Government via the ‘post-modern coup’ of 1997 129 4.5 Conclusion 137 CHAPTER V 142 DOMESTIC DYNAMICS AND CONTOURS OF CONTESTED ‘POST- HELSINKI TRANSITION’ (1998-2008) 5.1 ‘28 February Process’ as the Domestic Origins of the Contested Post-Helsinki Transition (1997-2002) 144 5.1.A Repercussions of the 28 February Process on the Centre-Left Parties 145 5.1.B Repercussions of the 28 February Process on the Pro-Islamic Movement 147 5.1.B.1 Pro-EU Shift of the Islamic Camp: Virtue Party as a midway between Welfare and AKP 149 5.1.B.2 Widening Internal Split between the ‘Reformist’ and ‘Traditionalist’ Faction 151 5.1.B.3 Post-Islamist Turn: ‘Reformist’ Leadership reconsiders its stance on Secularism 153 5.2 AKP Establishes itself as the Party of the ‘Average Turk’ 157 5.2.A AKP Leadership’s Embrace of the EU-led Democratization Reform Process 160 5.2.B AKP Leadership’s Embrace of the IMF-led Economic Reform Process 163 3 5.2.C Conclusion 166 5.3 Post-Islamist Challenge to the 28 February-Laicism Continues Unabated 168 5.3.A Organic Crisis of Kemalist Laicism and the Closure of the Virtue Party 168 5.3.B Antagonism over the Headscarf Ban during AKP’s first term in Office 170 5.3.C Antagonism over the İmam Hatip Schools during AKP’s first term in Office 172 5.3.D Conclusion 173 5.4 AKP Gradually Overcomes the Laicist Hegemony of the ‘28 February Process’ 174 5.4.A The Crisis over the Presidential Election Unfolds: the ‘E-Coup’ and the Verdict of 367 174 5.4.B General Elections of 2007: Between New-Constitution Making and the ‘Judicial Coup’ 179 5.4.C Conclusion 185 CHAPTER VI 191 THE LIMITS OF AKP-LED REFORMS ON MINORITY RIGHTS: THE CASES OF THE KURDISH AND ALEVI-MUSLIM MINORITIES. 6.1 Narrow Opening of the Ethnocratic Paradigm during the EU pre-Accession Process (1999- 2004) 195 6.1.A DSP-MHP-ANAP Coalition Government’s Reluctant Embrace of the EU-led Demands on Kurdish Cultural Rights (1999-2002) 195 6.1.B AKP Government Accelerates the EU-Led Reform Process on Kurdish Cultural Rights (2002- 2004) 202 6.1.C Conclusion 207 6.2 AKP Government’s Pursuit of Cultural Rights and Persistence of the Kurdish Problem (2005-2010) 209 6.2.A AKP Government’s New Discourse on Nationhood and its Discontents 209 6.2.B AKP Government’s ‘Kurdish Opening’ Initiative under the Principles of ‘Single Nation, Flag, State, and Homeland’ 214 6.2.B Conclusion 222 6.3 AKP Government’s Reform Performance on the Alevi Belief-Rights 224 6.4 Conclusion 235 CHAPTER VII 240 CONCLUSION 7.1 Revisiting the Thesis’ Hypotheses 240 7.2 The Contribution of the Thesis 245 7.3 The Prospective Research Topics of the Thesis 250 BIBLIOGRAPHY 254 Word count: 82.882 4 List of Figures and Tables Figure 1Conceptual Framework of Embedded Democracy ...................................................33 Figure 2 Structure and Features of the Ethnocratic Regime..................................................40 Table 1 Matrix of Minority Groups in Turkey* 19 Table 2 Three Dimensions and Ten Criteria of Embedded Democracy ....................... 33 Table 3 Four Diminished Subtypes of Embedded Democracy ...................................... 34 Table 4 Five Different Trajectories Available for Ethnic Hegemonic State ................ 39 Table 5 Regime Structures (Six Components) of Open Ethnocracy.............................. 41 Table 6 Ten Public Policy Commonly Pursued by the Ethnic Constitutional Order... 42 Table 7 Three Criteria of Democratic-Pluralist Secularism ......................................... 49 Table 8 Chronology of Kemalist Reforms during the One-Party Dictatorship Era .... 90 Table 9 Results of the 21 July 1946 General Elections ............................................... 102 Table 10 Results of the 14 May 1950 General Election .............................................. 103 Table 11 Results of the 2May 1954 General Election ................................................. 105 Table 12 Results of the 27 October 1957 General Election ........................................ 105 Table 13 Results of the 15 October 1961 General Election ........................................ 110 Table 14 Results of the 10 October 1965 General Election ........................................ 111 Table 15 Results of the 14 October 1973 General Election ........................................ 119 Table 16 Results of the 6 November 1983 General Election ....................................... 125 Table 17 Results of the 24 January 1995 General Elections ...................................... 129 Table 18: 18 Measures of the 28 February Process 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Table 19 Results of the April 1999 General Elections ................................................. 146 Table 20 Steady Electoral Decline of the Traditional Centre Right (1991-2002) ..... 155 Table 21 Results of the November 2002 Early General Elections .............................. 155 Table 22 Results of the 22 July 2007 General Elections ............................................. 158 Table 23 Progressively Changing Agenda of the Islamic Political Movement .......... 159 Table 24 Structural Reform Measures of the Letter of Intent signed in 1999 with the IMF .................................................................................................................................. 164 Table 25 EU Accession Partnership Document (2001) ............................................... 197 Table 26 Specific Requirements of the APD on the Kurdish Cultural Rights (2001) 199 Table 27EU Harmonization Packages enacted by the Turkish Governments............ 202 Table 28 Specific Requirements of the EU-led APD on the Minority Rights (2008) . 218 Table 29 Turkey’s Balance Sheet in complying with the EU-led Cultural Rights ..... 220 5 Abstract Bilge Azgın, University of Manchester Degree: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Title: The Uneasy Democratization of Turkey’s Laic-Ethnocracy Date: May 2012 This study aims to scrutinize Turkey’s uneasy democratization process during the post-Helsinki period (1999-2010). The research design of the thesis takes the form of a single case study as it seeks to critically link Turkey’s democratization problems with the wider theoretical literature on secularism, post-Islamism and democratization. Rather than witnessing the clear-cut victory of liberal democracy over non-democracy as espoused by Fukuyamian eschatology, the advent of the Post-Cold