Atatürk’s Principles and

History of Turkish
Revolution II
Lecturer: Dr. Merve Doğan Kader
Course XI:Turkey: Crises,
Interruptions, and
Reequilibrations
The Development of Representative and Democratic Government
The Ottoman Empire
Turkey differs from most or the developing countries of today in that it
never experienced a colonial past. On the contrary, the Ottoman Empire which
at its zenith at the end of the sixteenth century comprised the entire
Middle East (excluding Iran), North Africa, Southeastern Europe (including
Hungary), and southern Russia-left a powerful legacy not only in the contemporary
politics of its principal heir, the Republic of Turkey, but also upon
those of other "successor states" to the empire. A study of the development
of democracy in Turkey cannot therefore be attempted without reference to
its Ottoman past.
 It is generally agreed that the Ottoman state conformed much more
closely to a "bureaucratic empire" than to a European-style feudal system.
The Ottoman society was divided into two major classes. The askeri, literally
the "military," included those to whom the sultan had delegated religious
or executive power, namely officers of the court and the army, sivil
servants, and ulema (religious functionaries). The reaya, on the other hand,
comprised all Muslim and non-Muslim subjects who paid taxes but who had
no part in the government. "It was a fundamental rule of the empire to
exclude its subjects from the privileges of the 'military. This accorded
well with the fundamental concepts of state and society in the Ottoman
Empire, which held that the social order was of divine origin and hence
immutable. It was the sultan's duty to maintain this order, assisted by the
members of the askeri class, by keeping everyone in his appropriate social
position. Thus the state was above and independent of the society. Political
power did not derive from the society, but was imposed upon it by the will
of God (in effect, by conquest) from outside. It was this primacy of politics
over society that was to affect the nature of social and political changes in
the Ottoman Empire for many centuries
 Two other significant social groups were the ulema (the class of religious
scholars), and the merchants and artisans. Although part of the ruling
class, the ulema differed from the "military" proper and the administrators
in that it consisted of freeborn Muslims. However, the ulema did not constitute
a hierarchy independent of government, since the most important
among its members held appointive posts and hence were completely dependent
on the state. As for merchants the Ottoman state, unlike its Western
European counterparts, did not pursue mercantilist policies and did not favor
the emergence of a powerful merchant class. Another factor that hindered
the growth of a politically influential merchant class was the "ethnic division
of labor." Non-Muslim minorities took the lead in mercantile activities,
especially in international trade. But this group, so important in the development
of early mercantile capitalism in Western Europe, was barred from
the opportunity of converting such economic power into a significant political
role because of the Islamic character of the state.
Thus, with no feudalism comparable to that of Western Europe, no
hereditary aristocracy, no independent church hierarchy, no strong and independent
merchant class, no powerful guilds, no self-governing cities, and
with a ruling institution (i.e., the administration and the army) staffed with
slaves, the Ottoman Empire represented a close approximation of an
Oriental despotism. In the West, non-governmental intermediary social
structures operated relatively independently of government and played a
cushioning role between the state and the individual. The church was the
foremost of these corporate structures such as the guilds, free cities, and the
like. These had no parallels in the Ottoman Empire.
 The Ottoman state, however, was not entirely devoid of the idea of
"consultation" in the conduct of governmental affairs. It was an established
custom for the Ottoman government to convene an assembly of leading
civilian, military, and religious officials to discuss important matters of policy
especially in times of stress. While it clearly had no representative character,
this body nevertheless gave support lo the notion that important policy
decisions should be based on deliberations and consultations in a broader
council. Such a consultative assembly was institutionalized in 1838 by
Mahmud II, in the form of the "Grand Council of Justice." Mahmud's successor,
Abdulmecid I, gave the council the responsibility of discussing and
drafting new laws on matters of civil rights and taxation. In practice it "successfully
operated as the principal Ottoman legislative organ. All the
important Tanzimat [Reform] decrees and regulations were prepared by it
and over ninety percent of its recommendations were promulgated without
change.
The next step was to be the linking of the elective principle adopted at the
local level with the practice of non-elective legislative councils at the center.
The first Ottoman legislature based on elections came into being with the
constitution of December 23, 1876. Two councils were opened on this date, but they were closed by
Sultan Abdülhamit in the 1877 Ottoman-Russian War.
The short life of the first Ottoman Parliament provided clear
manifestations of the deep conflict between the central bureaucratic elite
and the local (peripheral) forces. It is also a good example of unanticipated
and undesired consequences democratization poses for modernizers in
traditional or developing societies.
The Second Constitutionalist Period (1908-1918)
The electoral process was reinstated in 1908 after thirty years of absolutist
monarchical rule when military-popular uprisings in Macedonia compelled
Abdülhamid II to restore the constitution. This was a victory for the
reformist-constitutionalist wing of the official bureaucratic elite organized
in the underground Society for Union and Progress, which in time transformed
itself into a political party. Indeed the second constitutionalist period
witnessed, for the first time, the emergence of organized political parties
and party competition. The 1908 elections gave the Society for Union and
Progress a comfortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies. However, with the start of the First
World War, the rule of union and progress turned into dictatorship.
The National Liberation Period ( 1918-1923)
With the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the Ottoman government
collapsed in fact, if not in theory. While the Istanbul government
maintained a shaky existence during the Armistice years ( I918-1922) under
the control of the Allies' occupation armies, a new governmental structure
was developed in Anatolia by the nationalists resisting the occupation.
The era of national liberation is a most interesting period in Turkey's
constitutional history, and is full of constitutional innovations. Following
the arrest and deportation of many deputies with nationalist sympathies by
the Allied occupation forces and the consequent dissolution of the Chamber
of Deputies on March 18, 1920, Mustafa Kemal, the leader of the nationalist
forces in Anatolia, called for the election of a new assembly "with extraordinary
powers" to convene in Ankara. This body, called the "Grand National Assembly," was fundamentally
different from the Ottoman
Parliament in that it combined legislative and executive powers in itself. It
was a real constituent and revolutionary assembly, not bound by the
Ottoman constitution.
The Grand National Assembly enacted a constitution in 1921. This was
a short but very important document. For the first time it proclaimed the
principle of national sovereignty, calling itself the "only and true representative
of the nation." Legislative and executive powers were vested in the
Assembly. The ministers were to be chosen by the Assembly individually
from among its own members. The Assembly could provide instructions to
the ministers and, if deemed necessary, change them.
In the months following the victorious termination of the War of
Independence and the abolition of the sultanate in the fall of 1922, Mustafa
Kemal formed a political party based on populist principles, which was
named the People's Party (later the Republican People's Party, or RPP). In
the 1923 elections it won almost all of the Assembly seats. However, the
newly elected Assembly was also far from being an obedient instrument of
the leadership. Disagreements on constitutional and other questions soon
became manifest. In November 1924, twenty-nine deputies resigned from
the People's Party and formed the Progressive Republican Party. The new
opposition party was led by some prestigious generals closely associated
with Kemal during the War of Independence. In its initial manifesto the
party emphasized economic and particularly political liberalism, including a
commitment to "respect religious feelings and beliefs." The manifesto stated
its opposition to despotism, and stressed individual rights, judicial independence,
and administrative decentralization. It promised not to change the
constitution without a clear popular mandate. The Progressive Republican
Party was strongly supported by the Istanbul press, and started to set up local
organizations in big cities and in the eastern provinces. However, when it was determined that the
party's deputies also participated in the Sheikh Said rebellion, it was closed.
The following period can be characterized as the consolidation phase
the new republican regime. Between 1925 and 1945 the country was ruled
by a single-party regime. However, a multi-party life has been attempted.
The Kemalist regime was highly successful, on the other hand, in creating a set of new political
institutions, among which the RPP itself and the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TGNA) stand
out as the most important. This should be considered as a transition period. At the same time, the
same situation is observed in most of the countries that passed to the Republic regime at that time.
Transition to Multiparty Politics and the Democrat Party Period
The transition from authoritarianism to competitive politics in Turkey is
highly exceptional in that it took place without a rupture, i.e., a break with
the existing institutional arrangements. On the contrary, it is a rare example
of reforma, where the transition process was led and controlled by the power
holders of the previous authoritarian regime. This transition started in
1945 when the RPP regime allowed the formation of an opposition party, the
Democrat Party (DP), by some of the dissident members of its own parliamentary
group. Despite some ups and downs on the road, the process proceeded
relatively smoothly and ended in the electoral victory of the DP in
the free parliamentary elections of 1950.
 The DP came to power with a landslide electoral victory on May 14,
1950, also won the 1954 and 1957 national elections, and
remained in power for ten full years until it was ousted by the military coup
of May 27, 1960. Socially the DP, led by a group of politicians who played
fairly important roles in the single-party period, was a coalition of various
types of oppositions to the RPP. It brought together urban liberals and religious
conservatives, commercial middle classes and the urban poor, and
more modern (mobilized) sections of the rural population: The RPP, on the
other hand, retained the support of government officials, some large
landowners, and a substantial portion of the more backward peasantry still
under the influence of its local patrons. The heterogeneous character of the
DP coalition suggests that the dominant social cleavage of the era was cultural
rather than socioeconomic in nature. The common denominator of the
DP supporters was their opposition to state officials. In this sense, the rise of
the DP was a victory of the periphery over the center.
The ideological distance between the RPP and the DP was not great.
They differed significantly from each other, however, in their underlying
altitudes toward the proper role of the state, bureaucracy, private enterprise,
local initiative, and toward peasant participation in politics. While the RPP oriented
central elite had a more tutelary concept of development, the
provincial elites around the DP emphasized local initiative and the "immediate
satisfaction of local expectations.
Despite the non-ideological nature of the partisan conflict, relations
between the two major parties quickly deteriorated. Especially after the
1957 elections the DP responded to its declining support by resorting to
increasingly authoritarian measures against the opposition, which only made
the opposition more uncompromising and vociferous. The last straw in this
long chain of authoritarian measures was the establishment by the government
party in April 1960 of a parliamentary committee of inquiry to investigate
the "subversive" activities of the RPP and of a section of the press.
With this, many opposition members were convinced that a point of no
return had been reached and that the channels of democratic change had
been clogged. The ensuing public unrest, student demonstrations in Istanbul
and Ankara, and clashes between the students and the police Jed to the declaration
of martial law. This put the armed forces in the unwanted position of suppressing the opposition on
behalf of a government for whose policies
they had little sympathy. And the military intervened on May 27, 1960,
with the welcome and support of the opposition. The National Unity
Committee, formed by the revolutionary officers, dissolved the parliament,
banned the DP, arrested and tried its leaders, and set out to prepare a new
and more democratic constitution.
 One reason lay in the very nature of the DP, which was a coalition or diverse anti-RPP forces. This
convinced the DP leadership that the party "could retain its unity only by keeping its ranks
mobilized against the RPP.
This was realized partly by accusing the RPP of
subverting the government through its hold on the bureaucracy, and partly
by raising the specter of a return of the RPP to power.
Second factor was that the DP leaders, having been socialized into politics under the RPP rule,
had inherited many attitudes, norms, and orientations that were more in harmony
with a single party than with a competitive party system. These included a belief that a popular mandate entitled
the government party lo the unrestricted use of political power.
Coupled with the Ottoman-Turkish cultural
legacy, which hardly distinguished between political opposition and treasonable activity, this altitude left little
room for a legitimate opposition. Perhaps an even more potent factor that eventually led to the breakdown
of the democratic regime was the conflict between the DP and the public
bureaucracy. The bureaucracy, which was the main pillar of the single-party
regime, retained its RPP loyalties under multiparty politics, and resisted the
DP's efforts to consolidate its political power. In the eyes of the DP leaders,
this amounted to an unwarranted obstruction of the "national will."
The bureaucrats, on the other hand, saw it as their duty to protect the "public interest" against efforts to use
state funds for political patronage purposes.
They were also deeply troubled by the DP government's careless altitude toward the "rule of law," as well as by
its more permissive policies toward religious activities, which they considered a betrayal of the Kemalist legacy
of secularism. These negative attitudes were shared by civilian officials and
military officers alike.
Finally, all bureaucratic groups (again both civilian and military) not
only experienced a loss of social status and political influence under the DP
regime, but were also adversely affected in terms of their relative income.
The DP's economic policies consisted of rapid import-substitution-based
industrialization and the modernization of agriculture, largely through external
borrowing and inflationary financing. Although a relatively high rate of
economic growth was achieved in the 1950s, income distribution grew much
more inequitable. Particularly badly hit because of the inflationary policies
were the salaried groups. The 1960 coup found therefore an easy acceptance
among military officers and civilian bureaucrats for economic as well as
other reasons.
Turkey's Second Try at Democracy (1961-1980)
The 1960 coup was carried out by a group of middle-rank officers who, upon
assuming power, organized themselves into a revolutionary council named
the "National Unity Committee" (NUC), under the chairmanship of General
Cemal Gürsel, the former commander of the army. The NUC declared from
the beginning its intention of making a new democratic constitution and
returning ·power to a freely elected civilian government. In spite of the
efforts by some NUC members to prolong military rule, the committee kept
its promise and relinquished power in 1961 following the parliamentary
elections held under the new constitution and the Electoral Law.
The Constitution of 1961 was prepared by the NUC and a co-opted
Representative Assembly dominated by pro-RPP bureaucrats and intellectuals,
reflecting the basic political values and interests of these groups.
On the one hand, they created an effective system of checks and balances to
limit the power of elected assemblies. Such checks included the introduction
of judicial review of the constitutionality of laws; the strengthening of the
Council of State, which functions as the highest administrative court with
review powers over the acts of all executive agencies; effective independence
for the judiciary; the creation of a second legislative chamber (Senate
of the Republic); and the granting of substantial autonomy to certain public
agencies such as the universities and the Radio and Television Corporation.
On the other hand, the constitution expanded civil liberties and granted
extensive social rights. Thus it was hoped that the power of the elected
assemblies would be balanced by judicial and other agencies that represented
the values of the bureaucratic elites, while the newly expanded civil liberties
would ensure the development of a free and democratic society.
The 1961 elections, however, gave a majority to the heirs of the ousted
Democrats. The pro-DP vote was fragmented among the Justice
Party (34.8 percent), the National Party ( 14.0 percent), and the New Turkey
Party ( 1 3.7 percent), while the Republicans obtained only 36.7 percent of
the vote. Following a period of unstable coalition governments, the Justice
Party (JP) gradually established itself as the principal heir to the DP. In the
1965 elections, it gained about 53 percent of the popular vote and of the
National Assembly seats. The JP repeated its success in 1969, when it won
an absolute majority of the Assembly seats with a somewhat reduced popular
vote (46.5 percent). Thus Turkey appeared to have achieved, once again,
a popularly elected stable government.
Toward the end of the 1960s, however, the Turkish political system
began to experience new problems. Partly as a result of the more liberal
atmosphere provided by the 1961 Constitution, extreme left- and right-wing
groups appeared on the political scene. This was followed by increasing acts
of political violence, especially by extremist youth groups. The crisis was
aggravated by the activities of various conspiratorial groups within the military.
These radical officers, frustrated by the successive electoral victories of the conservative JP, aimed at
establishing a longer-term military regime
ostensibly to carry out radical social reforms. In fact the military memorandum
of March 12, 1971, which forced the JP government to resign, was a
last-minute move by the top military commanders to forestall a radical coup.
The so-called March 12 regime did not go as far as dissolving the
Parliament and assuming power directly. Instead, it strongly encouraged the
formation of an "above-party" or technocratic government under a veteran
RPP politician, Professor Nihat Erim. The new government was expected to
deal sternly with political violence with the help of martial law, to bring
about certain constitutional amendments designed to strengthen the executive,
and to carry out the social reforms (especially land reform) provided
for by the 1961 Constitution. The government accomplished its first
two objectives. Political violence was effectively stamped out. The constitution
was extensively revised in I971 and 1973, with a view to not only
strengthening the executive authority, but also to limiting certain civil liberties
that were seen as responsible for the emergence of political extremism
and violence. The interim regime failed, however, in its third objective of
carrying out social reforms, not only because of the conservative majority in
the Parliament, but also because of the purge of the radical officers from the
military in the months following the "March 12 memorandum."
The 1971 military intervention can be characterized as a "half coup," in
which the military chose to govern from behind the scenes instead of taking
over directly. If one reason for the intervention was the failure of Süleyman
Demirel's JP government to cope with political terrorism, a more deep-seated
cause was the distrust felt toward the JP by many military officers and
civilian bureaucrats. Thus, in a sense, the 1971 intervention still rectlected
the old cleavage between the centralist bureaucratic elite and the forces or
the periphery that commanded an electoral majority.
The composition of the 1973 National Assembly made coalition governments
inevitable. First a coalition was formed, under the premiership of
Bulent Ecevit, between the social-democratic RPP and the Islamic NSP. The
coalition collapsed in the fall of 1974 and was eventually replaced by a
"Nationalist Front" coalition under Süleyman Demirel, with the participation
of the JP, NSP, NAP, and the RRP (Republican Reliance Party, a small
moderate party led by Professor Turhan Feyzioglu, a former RPP member).
The 1977 elections did not significantly change this picture, although
they did strengthen the two leading parties vis-a-vis most of the minor ones.
The RPP, which increased its share of the popular vote by eight points, came
close to an absolute parliamentary majority. The JP also improved its share
of the vote and of the Assembly seats. The NSP lost about on equarter
of its votes and half of its parliamentary contingent. The Democratic
Party and the Republican Reliance Party were practically eliminated. The
right-wing NAP grew considerably, however, almost doubling its popular
vote while increasing its small contingent of Assembly seats fivefold.
How can we account for the failure of Turkey's second experiment with
democracy? The immediate reason behind the military intervention was the growing political violence and
terrorism that, between 1975 and 1980, left
more than 5,000 people killed and three times as many wounded (the equivalent
of Turkish losses in the War of Independence).

In addition, in the period of 1960-1980, Turkey made some changes in its foreign policy, apart from the internal
crises. Because the peaceful and fully independent foreign policy understanding in the Atatürk period was
abandoned during the democratic party period and the unipolar USA-centered approach was adopted. Especially
the events of the early 1960s revealed the errors of Turkey's 1950-1960 foreign policy. Hence relative autonomy
policy was followed in the period of 1960-1980.
The 1980 Coup and the 1982 Constitution:
From the moment it took over the government on September 12, 1980, the
National Security Council ( composed of the five highest-ranking generals in
the Turkish armed forces) made it clear that it intended to eventually return
power to democratically elected civilian authorities. It made it equally clear,
however, by words and deeds that it did not intend a return to the status quoante.
Rather, the council aimed at a major restructuring of Turkish democracy to prevent
a recurrence of the political polarization, violence, and crisis
that had afflicted the country in the late 1970s, and thus to make the military's
continued involvement in politics unnecessary. The new constitution,
Political Parties Law, and Electoral Law prepared by the council-appointed
Consultative Assembly- and made final by the council itself-reflect these
objectives and concerns of the military and indicate the extent lo which
Turkey's new attempt at democracy is intended to be different from its earlier
democratic experiments.
The constitution was submitted to a popular referendum on 7 November
1982. The extremely high rate of participation (91.27 percent) was, no
doubt, partly due to the provision that those who did not participate would
forfeit their right to vote in the next parliamentary elections. The constitution
was approved by 91.37 percent of those who voted. The counting was
honest, but the debate preceding it was extremely limited.
The election of General Kenan Evren as president was one of the measures
designed to ensure a smooth transition from the National Security Council
regime to a democratic one. Another such transitional measure was the
transformation of the National Security Council into a "Presidential
Council"-with only advisory powers-for a period of six years, starling
from the convening of the new Grand National Assembly. Also, during a six year
period, the president had the right to veto constitutional amendments,
in which case the Grand National Assembly (GNA) could override the veto
only by a three-fourths majority of its full membership. Finally, the constitution
provided restrictions on political activities of former political leaders.
The leaders, deputy leaders, secretaries-general, and the members of the
central executive committees of former political parties were not allowed to
establish or to become members in political parties, nor could they be nominated
for the GNA or for local government bodies for a period of ten years.
A less severe ban disqualified the parliamentarians of former political parties
from establishing political parties or becoming members of their central
executive bodies (but not from running for and being elected to the GNA)
for a period of five years. These bans were repealed by the constitutional referendum
o f September 6 , 1987.
 Return to Competitive Politics and the 1983 Elections
In this election three parties could contest the
GNA elections held on November 6, 1983. These were the Motherland Party
(MP), the Populist Party (PP), and the Nationalist Democratic Party (NDP).
The MP was led by Turgut Özal, an engineer and economist who occupied
high technocratic positions under Demirel, including the post of undersecretary
in charge of the State Planning Organization. Özal became the deputy
prime minister in charge of economic affairs in the Bülent Ulusu government
during the National Security Council rule. The PP was led by Necdet
Calp, a former governor and undersecretary in the prime minister's office.
The NDP leader, Turgut Sunalp, was a former general who served, after his
retirement, as the Turkish ambassador in Canada.
The November 1983 elections resulted in a clear victory for Mr. Özal
and his party. The MP won 45.2 percent of the total valid votes
cast and 52.9 percent of the 400 assembly seats. Although a majority of the
MP votes presumably came from former JP supporters, it appears that the
MP also received votes from the supporters of the former NSP, NAP, and
even the RPP.
The transition process proceeded smoothly following the elections. The
legal existence of the National Security Council came lo an end, the council
members resigned their military posts and became members of the new
Presidential Council. Mr. Özal was duly invited by President Evren to form
the new government, and he received a comfortable vote of confidence from the GNA. Thus, with
the 1983 elections, civilian government had been
restored and a new phase in Turkish politics had started.
Post -1983 Developments:
The period between 1983 and 1991 was one of great political stability as a
result of comfortable parliamentary majorities enjoyed by the MP. The local
elections of March 1984, in which all parties were allowed to compete, confirmed
the MP's predominant position with about 41 percent of the vote.
The 1987 parliamentary elections kept the MP in power with a reduced
electoral plurality (36.3 percent) but an increased parliamentary majority
(64.9 percent of the seats) because of the changes made in the electoral law
that favored the strongest party. The Social Democratic People Party and the True Path Party
emerged as the second
and third largest parties, respectively. No other parties gained representation
in parliament because of the I O percent national threshold
The eight-year period in which the MP was in power as a one-party government
not only provided political stability but also permitted fundamental
reforms in the direction of a market economy. Thus, an outward-looking,
export-led growth strategy replaced the import-substitution-based growth
strategy of earlier decades. Market-oriented reforms also included the liberalization
of the import regime, a realistic exchange rate policy, the introduction
of the value-added tax, the convertibility of Turkish currency, and
many others. The result was a dramatic increase in exports of goods and services
and the opening up of more and larger sectors of the Turkish economy
to international competition.
The same period also attested to gradual but important moves toward
the demilitarization and civilianization of the regime and to certain modest
but still significant steps toward democratization. The latter included the
abolition of the "crimes of thought" (mainly communist, racist, and religious
organization and propaganda), the repeal of the ban (introduced by the NSC
regime) on the use of the Kurdish language, and Turkey's full integration
with the human rights protection machinery of the Council of Europe
(namely, the recognition of the right of individual application to the
Commission of Human Rights and the acceptance of the binding jurisdiction
of the Court of Human Rights).
Despite these accomplishments, the MP's popularity began to ebb in the
late 1980s as a result of high rates of inflation and widespread rumors of
political corruption. This decline first manifested itself in the 1989 local
elections, when the MP vote dropped to 2 1 . 8 percent, and finally in the 199I
parliamentary elections, in which the MP ranked second after the TPP with
24 percent of the vote. Following the elections a coalition government
was formed between the TPP and the SDPP under the premiership
of Süleyman Demirel, the former Justice Party prime minister in the late
1970s and now leader of the TPP. In summer 1993, Ms. Tansu Çiller became
prime minister when Mr. Demirel was elected president of the republic upon
the death of Mr. Ozal. In 1990s and also because of the absence of authority in northern Iraq due to
the Gulf War was caused separatist terrorist acts to Turkey.
- In addition, ASALA carried out bombing and armed actions against Turkish and other civilian,
civilian and diplomatic targets in 16 different countries, including Turkey, between 1975 and 1995.
The ultra-nationalist Armenian terrorist organization was included in the US terrorist organization
list in 1980-1990. Asala's actions have started to increase since 1979. Activists carried out a total of
110 armed attacks, 39 with guns, 70 with bombs, and one in the form of occupation, in 38 cities of
21 countries. In these attacks, 42 Turkish diplomats and 4 foreign nationals lost their lives, while 15
Turkish and 66 foreign nationals were injured.
The record of the TPP-SDPP coalition government in its first three
years was mixed. Both parties had promised sweeping constitutional and
democratizing refonns in their election campaigns. Yet, the only important
piece of reform legislation in this period was the amendment of the criminal
procedure law to provide certain rights and guarantees for detainees.
Economically, Turkey entered a severe crisis in the early months of 1994,
combining high inflation, recession, increased foreign and domestic debts, a
soaring trade deficit, and a decline in its international creditworthiness. The
most important political consequence of the disenchantment of many voters
with the coalition government, as well as with the main opposition party,
MP, has been a dramatic rise in the votes of the religious (Islamic) Welfare
Party (WP). In the local elections of March 27, 1994, the WP's vote rose to
an unprecedented 19.1 percent. The implications of this rise for the future of
Turkish democracy are discussed later.
An Appraisal
On the basis of the above historical analysis, Turkey's overall degree of success
with democratic government can be described as "mixed" or "unstable."
Democracy has been the rule over the past four to five decades, but it
has been interrupted three times since 1960. Democratic rule is now in
place, however, and there appears to be no immediate threat to its existence.
A more positive evaluation is also suggested by the' fact that of the three
interruptions one was only partial, and the other two were of relatively short
duration. Furthermore, in both cases, the military rulers declared from the
beginning their intention to restore democracy. That they faithfully kept
their promises is even more significant. Thus the democratic process was
intcrrupted not by fully developed authoritarian regimes, but by interim military
governments that aimed to effect a "reequilibration of democracy." The
overall trend then has been not away from but toward democratic government.
Bibliography
1) Ergun Özbudun, «Turkey: Crises, Interruptions, and
Reequilibrations”
2) Stanford Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw, History Of The Ottoman Empire And
Modern Turkey Volume II
3) Eric Jan Zürcher, Moderleşen Türkiye’nin Tarihi.
4) Feroz Ahmad, The making of modern Turkey.