Insight Turkey / issues

Editor's Note | Fall 2011

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:33:00 GMT

It seems that the 2011 summer elections marks the end of the old maxim that conveniently formulates politics as “the art of the possible.” It is no secret that the transformative agenda by the consecutive AK Party governments since 2002 has been restricted by the “ancien regime,” which has drawn the limits of “what is necessary” or “what is possible” in affecting “fundamental changes” and reconfiguring the relations between the “old” and “new” power centers. However, the historic appreciation of the AK Party government expressed in votes by half the population suggests that as the old power elite is fading away, politics for the next AK Party government goes beyond its “fight” for emancipating politics from the constraints of Kemalist power centers.

Disappointment at the United Nations: The Failure of the Palmer Report

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:40:00 GMT

After the Israeli attack of May 31, 2010 on the Freedom Flotilla led by the Mavi Marmara, the UN Secretary General appointed a panel of inquiry to resolve the sharp legal dispute that had emerged between Turkey and Israel. The panel was chaired by Jeffrey Palmer, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and it was hoped that the report issued would clear the diplomatic air between the two countries. In fact, the publication of the report in May had exactly the opposite effect, enraging Turkey, straining diplomatic relations still further. Turkey seemed fully justified in its response, given the departures from appropriate interpretations of international law. This commentary critically examines the process from the formation of the Palmer panel through the release of its conclusions, looking at the legal and political implications.

Torpedoing the Law: How the Palmer Report Justified Israel’s Naval Blockade of Gaza

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:48:00 GMT

On May 31st, 2010, Israeli commandos killed nine passengers aboard a humanitarian flotilla destined for Gaza. Eight of the nine were Turkish citizens, while one was a dual U.S.-Turkish citizen. On August 2nd, 2010, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon appointed a Panel of Inquiry (POI) to “examine and identify the facts, circumstances and context of the incident,” and to “consider and recommend ways of avoiding similar incidents in the future.” In September 2011, the POI’s final report was unofficially released. In a finding that shocked the international community, the report concluded that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza was legal. Moreover, the report vilified the passengers aboard the humanitarian flotilla because they sought to publicize the illegality and inhumanity of Israel’s blockade. A careful analysis of the POI report shows that it is probably the most mendacious and debased document ever issued under the aegis of the United Nations.

Israel: Quo Vadis, Turkey?

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:00:00 GMT

The Mavi Marmara tragic affair is viewed in Israel as part of a Turkish political maneuvering which gained momentum following the Arab Spring. According to this view Turkey under Prime Minister Erdogan has identified a vacuum created by the US phased withdrawal from the region, a decline in Egypt’s traditional role and the growing European and American need for Turkey’s involvement. In these circumstances, Turkey can assert itself as a regional power with domestic, regional and international political and economic returns. Championing the Palestinian cause and criticizing Israel bears hardly any price tag. Israelis and, especially, those who decide whether to accept Turkey’s demand for ending the Mavi Marmara affair and restoring normal relations, question whether this is Turkey’s strategy. The Arab Spring may produce major changes in the region’s political map that would also affect Turkey and Israel. This is a time when a dialogue, rather than rupture and confrontation, would better serve their long term interests. Yet both governments are now entrenched in their positions. This calls for a non-governmental initiative to prevent further deterioration and search for a process to heal the relationship.

The Arab Spring Gathers Clouds: Why the Revolts for Change Have Stalled

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:05:00 GMT

The wave of popular protests engulfing the Arab Middle East has yielded markedly different results. While the revolts in Egypt and Tunisia prompted meaningful, and immediate, political change, the regimes of Syria, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen are able to put up a fight. The violent stalemates in the latter countries may eventually give way to political reform, but for now the fate of their popular uprisings is anything but certain. What explains this outcome divergence between the two sets of nations? What makes one autocratic Arab regime stronger than another? What roles do societies and militaries play in shaping the future of the Arab Spring? This article suggests that authoritarian regimes with established networks of social patronage and unwavering military loyalty are better able to withstand calls for change.

The Arab Spring and Turkey: The Camp David Order vs. the New Middle East

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:14:00 GMT

Over the past decade, Turkey has been experiencing a decisive transition that North Africa and the Middle East only recently have begun to feel. It will be misleading to interpret the changes in the Arab world as unique and isolated developments taking place in each country, on a case by case basis. “The Camp David Order,” that took shape after 1978, based on Western support for authoritarian Arab leaders, has dominated Middle Eastern affairs for the last three decades. The US invasion of Iraq intentionally or unintentionally shook up the status quo of the regional order. Turkey has been seen as a success story for those countries suffering from a lack of democratization, economic development and a more equitable distribution of income, while enduring a “Cold Peace” with Israel. Just as Turkey had a role in the transformation of the Arab world, the Arab world will also play a significant role in the formation of the “New Turkey.” Turkey will remain an actor helping to build this new democratic and more prosperous regional order, as long as it deploys its comparative, historical, and strategic advantages.

Turkey’s Foray into Africa: A New Humanitarian Power?

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:24:00 GMT

Prime Minister Recep Erdoğan visited Somalia in mid-August to raise awareness on the devastating famine that left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced nearly a million. But the visit had broader undertones for Turkey: as a rising power that straddles the east and west, Ankara was aiming to pronounce its unique foreign policy orientation, predicated upon its moral authority, not its military or economic clout. More importantly, Turkey was laying the foundation for its foray into Africa -a continent that, by and large, remains untouched and underdeveloped. As Ankara re-orientates its foreign and trade policies, it is establishing roots in Africa by making humanitarian assistance its initial point of contact. And while traditional powers (the U.S., EU, China and India) take a wait-and-see attitude towards Africa, particularly with respect to stabilization, Turkey appears to be investing in the stabilization phase and planting the seeds for a long-term engagement.

A Tradition in Delivering Injustice: Judiciary and Rights in Turkey

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:42:00 GMT

This piece is on a number of critical rulings issued recently by high courts in Turkey in brazen disregard of the discourse of human rights, to which a growing commitment appears paradoxically to be the case in democratic politics. The bureaucratic authority that characterizes the dissipating old regime in the country is often associated with the military. Yet the civilian bureaucracy, in particular the high judiciary, with justices long handpicked from among the legal elite with a disdain of democratic politics, has been just as crucial in sustaining the old order molded by anachronisms of the 1930s, when the regime that defines this order, Kemalism, emerged in concerted thinking with authoritarianisms prevalent in Europe at the time. The overhaul of the system of high courts from 2010 has clearly been momentous in seeking to bring the judicial establishment into line with democracy and human rights. Still, the settled reflexes seem on the whole to be resilient in dictating the outcome in crucial cases, rendering the transformation both sluggish and painful.

Turkey at the Crossroads: From “Change with Politics as Usual” to Politics with Change as Usual

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 11:49:00 GMT

The article analyzes the new roadmap for Turkey after the summer 2011 elections as not a “resumption” of unfinished business from the last nine years, but from the perspective of the ability of Turkey’s ruling party, the AK Party, as well as the opposition forces and actors to “transform” some anachronistic features of the dominant politics as well as deal with troubling new trends in society. The AK Party governments made progress in many areas by pushing forward a series of far-reaching reforms which have genuinely changed Turkish politics. However, Turkey under AK Party rule includes a society which has failed to shed its extreme hostility toward different ideas, identities and values. Moreover, current opposition parties and movements in Turkey continue to be weak in imagination, vision, capacity and leadership, which have led to rigidities and even deeper political divisions. More importantly, the new government will have to create new possibilities out of its past failures and turn paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities in politics and society, in the country and in the region, into positive achievements.

The Electoral Success of the AKP: Cause for Hope and Despair

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 12:00:00 GMT

The 2011 elections marked the emergence of the AKP as a political brand that is likely to win all the elections in the foreseeable future. The party’s overwhelming popularity is linked to its image as the most reliable and trustworthy political party today. The ambitious democratization promises of the AKP created hopes for a paradigm shift in Turkish politics in the aftermath of the elections. However the AKP’s overemphasis on its brand name and its consequent monopolization of the democratization process, excluding Turkey’s other parties, have raised concerns over the fulfillment of a more profoundly democratic participatory system in Turkey. Moreover, the AKP’s adoption of populist rhetoric and stereotypes, which is usually the hallmark of Turkey’s right-wing traditionalist parties, raises further concerns. Finally, the failure of the main opposition CHP to form a coherent platform to challenge the AKP’s monopoly over Turkey’s political scene has contributed to the growing skepticism for a new democratic political paradigm in Turkey.

Continuity and Rupture: The “New CHP” or ‘What Has Changed in the CHP?’1

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 12:21:00 GMT

This paper discusses the CHP within the paradigm of party individualization and the “political firm.” In what ways has the CHP made a break from its past? In what ways has it maintained historical continuity? Just how new is the “New CHP?” In this paper, the subject will be studied in terms of two dimensions: election campaigns and the discourse of the CHP on the one hand, and the organization and leadership on the other. This paper starts from the hypothesis that the CHP has transformed into a catch-all cartel party. To test this hypothesis the article first provides a short overview of what the CHP has been up to for the past year and a half. The developments which the party had lived through brought to the fore the claims of a “New CHP” and its “changing ideological axis.” Moreover, the article discusses the CHP’s dilemmas as a cartel party which attempts to appeal to every voter segment and its ideological status.

The 2011 Elections and the Kurdish Question1

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 12:35:00 GMT

This essay argues that the 2011 election results point to a number of important conclusions concerning the Kurdish question in Turkey. First, the Kurdish party will continue to be the main actor in “Kurdish question politics.” Second, the AK Party has been unable to halt the rise of the Kurdish party in a number of provinces with large Kurdish populations. Third, political parties, other than the Kurdish party and the AK Party, have been eliminated from “Kurdish question politics.” This essay will demonstrate that the support for the Kurdish party is gradually acquiring a territorial dimension. Thus, this essay argues that the notion of democratic autonomy proposed today for the whole of Turkey by the Kurdish party may over time give way to the political objective of “autonomy for Kurdistan” or even “federal Kurdistan.” It is also argued that the same trend may foster a political agenda of “Kurds to Kurdistan” to take hold in Turkish politics.

The Nationalist Action Party in the 2011 Elections: The Limits of Oscillating Between State and Society

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 12:53:00 GMT

The MHP won 13 percent of the vote in the June 2011 elections, which guaranteed it 52 seats in parliament. Ever since the 1960s, the MHP has operated with a vague party identity that amalgamated different, even contradictory, elements such as Islam, folk nationalism, secularism, militarism, Kemalism, statism, and even Ottomanism. However, the serious issues that are challenging Turkish politics today, such as civilian-military relations, the Ergenekon trial, Islam in the public sphere, the Kurdish question, the crisis of the presidential election, or the 2010 referendum, have made a nebulous discourse operationally impossible. This paper argues that the recent political polarization between the AK Party and the CHP put an end to the MHP’s strategy and discourse of traditional obscurantism, causing in these last elections this party’s unimpressive electoral performance.

A Quantitative Analysis of Turkey’s 2011 Elections

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:08:00 GMT

The changes in Turkey’s political landscape over the past decade have been quite dramatic. In this study, we present a quantitative analysis of the 2011 national elections based on clustering techniques and we compare our results with those of the previous elections in 1999, 2002, and 2009. Our results suggest, once again, that Turkish citizens turn out to vote consistently since the1950s. We also investigate significant changes in voting trends of different regions and provinces. We conclude with a future-based qualitative outlook to indicate what the results could be if certain electoral changes are made, such as the law for political parties, a different national threshold for parties to be represented and elected to Parliament, and an eventual new constitution.

Crime and Punishment in Istanbul, 1700-1800

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:29:00 GMT

Revisionist history is “in.” Indeed, there is no other history these days. This is the case for Ottoman history as well. This appears to be the trend for early modern history, which has received the bulk of the attention of the revisionists ever since we have re-oriented the “classical age” to the early modern age. The scholarship over the past two decades, brilliantly illustrated with the work of Daniel Goffman as well other scholars, have resituated the Ottoman Empire in its role in world history, as countries made the transition to the modern state. Fariba Zarinebaf puts crime and punishment at the center of this history of the global making of the modern state.

The Cyprus Issue: The Four Freedoms in a Member State under Siege

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:33:00 GMT

Nikos Skoutaris has written a timely book on the European Union’s (EU) handling of the legal issues, pertaining in particular to the freedom of movement, in the divided Cyprus after the ‘Republic of Cyprus’ (according to Turkey, ‘the Greek Cypriot Administration’) became a member of the EU in 2004.

Turkish Foreign Policy, Islam Nationalism and Globalization

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:36:00 GMT

Although it is widely accepted that there have been important elements of continuity as well as changes in Turkish foreign policy (henceforth TFP) since the late Ottoman era, attempts to look into the Ottoman origins of modern TFP are rare in literature. Hasan Kösebalaban is one of those rare writers, who tracethe roots of TFP back to the mid-19th century threats posed by Russian expansionism and ethnic disintegration. Throughout the book, the author keeps focused on assessing the effects of the discourses of the OttomanTurkish identity groups and domestic political changes on the evolution of TFP.

The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:40:00 GMT

In The Caucasus Under Soviet Rule, Alex Marshall examines the complexities of internal politics in the Caucasus with its pre and post-Soviet episodes. By relying on a wide range of Russian and Soviet sources, in addition to others, Marshall demonstrates the need for an alternative approachto the prevailing anti-Soviet discourse and shows his skillfulness in using a wide range of archival material. Vociferous Western or British scholarship on the Soviet Union, Marshall points out, has been colored by ideological convictions and geopolitical interests. This work should be seen in relation to a different and more nuanced interpretation of the history of the region in that it introduces an honest tinge of admiration for Marxism and the Soviet project. Although many would find this problematic, and there are occasional excesses, this work nevertheless fills an obvious gap in Western scholarship.

The Kurds and US Foreign Policy: International Relations in the Middle East since 1945

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:43:00 GMT

Through this thoughtful and carefully researched account of US relations with the Kurds, Marriana Charountaki seeks to place a superpower’s relations with a nonstate entity in context. She succeeds admirably. US relations with the Kurds might seem at first glance incompatible due to the lack of an independent Kurdish state, but Charountaki in her book suggests otherwise.

The Militant Kurds: A Dual Strategy for Freedom

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:47:00 GMT

This is not just another book criticizing Turkey for its well-known Kurdish problem. Rather it is an ably crafted analysis full of useful insights regarding the Kurds within the context of Turkish politics. Its main contribution is a very insightful analysis of the “politicizing [of ] the Kurdish question in Europe by encouraging the formation of Kurdish special interest groups and intensifying political lobbying efforts” (p. 184). “Germany is at the epicenter of this transnational web because the majority of politically engaged ethnic Kurds reside there” (p. 181). The Netherlands, Belgium, France, the United Kingdom, Austria, and Denmark, among others, also serve as homes for these “Euro-Kurds” (p. 173). “The PKK [Kurdistan Workers Party] has created a broadly supportive and legitimized network of legal experts, human rights activists, and environmental specialists, along with connections to scholars, media professionals, and technologically skilled members of the Kurdish diaspora” (p. 20). The phrase “dual strategy” in the book’s subtitle refers to “the transformation of the PKK from an organization that predominantly pursued a guerrilla strategy in Turkey [and still does] to one that established parallel political structures in Europe” (p. 4).

In the Shadow of Sectarianism: Law, Shi‘ism and the Making of Modern Lebanon

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:50:00 GMT

An observer of contemporary Lebanon may be struck by two interrelated aspects of Lebanese politics: 1) the continuing predominance of sectarian identity asan essential and deeply ingrained aspect of Lebanese society, to the extent that it is the defining feature of the Lebanese political system to this day, and 2) the rise to political prominence of the Shi‘i sect, and its political organizations, namely Hizbollah. The latter point is particularly interesting given that historically, the Shi‘i community was marginalized and neglected, a fact that has been reflected in the major historical accounts of Lebanon, which tend to focus on the role of other communities, such as the Maronites and Sunni while downplaying or even ignoring the significance of the Shi‘i.

Are Muslims Distinctive? A Look at the Evidence

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:08:00 GMT

Are Muslims Distinctive? is an exceptionally objective book that examines the highly subjective and controversial issue of Muslim ‘exceptionalism.’ Steven Fish employs numerical (mostly survey) data and statistical methods in analyzing whether and to what extent Muslim-majority societies are distinct from the rest of the world. His references to Indonesia, where he recently resided, enrich the book. Examining numerous socio-political issues, the book reveals thaton some issues Muslimmajority societies are not different from others (e.g., personal piety and the relations between religion and politics), on some others they are better (e.g., socioeconomic inequality and homicide), while on others they are in worse conditions (e.g., terrorism,gender inequality, and democracy).

Power, Islam, and Political Elite in Iran: A Study of the Iranian Political Elite from Khomeini to Ahmadinejad

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:11:00 GMT

The problem with this book is that it does not deliver what the title promises. In a study of any country’s political elite one expects biographic data and discussions of geographic origins, educational achievements, socio-cultural characteristics, and career patterns of a set of individuals identified as constituting a country’s political elite, followed by analyses of how certain members of society are recruited into the elite and socialized into its modus operandi. Very little of that can be found in this book – elite recruitment, for instance, is addressed in less than a page. Instead, we have a narrative of how domestic and foreign policy in Iran have evolved over three decades, analyzed through the prism of factional rivalries.

Hold on to Your Veil Fatima! And Other Snapshots of Life in Contemporary Egypt

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:14:00 GMT

“Hold on to Your Veil Fatima!” takes the reader on a journey into 21st century Egypt. The book provides an overview of the forces on the ground, which animate social and political life in the streets of Cairo today. While the issue of veiling is central to at least two chapters of the book, and is sometimes addressed with an Orientalist twist, the issues of rights, citizenship, political participation, social protests, gender and sexual identities, are tackled through a variety of methods including interviews, participant observation, as well as the author’s immersion into Egyptian society and exposure to street politics at the aftermath of the American-led invasion of Iraq and the ongoing Palestinian struggle for statehood.

Europe’s Promise, Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:17:00 GMT

The key argument behind Steven Hill’s comprehensive analysis of the European way is that Europe is fatally misunderstood by the American public. Hill wants to correct this and makes a comprehensive journey from the European economic and social model, through its global role and power to the European way of maintaining an intra-European consensus.

The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and Authenticity

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 17:20:00 GMT

Gregor Schoeler’s The Biography of Muhammad: Nature and authenticity was first published in German in 1996, which the author claims was an attempt “to demonstrate that we could reconstruct, on the basis of the sources available, reports which go back to persons in very close contact with Muhammad.” The author’s current book is an extension of the same thesis that has now been published as a part of Routledge Studies in Classical Islam.