Peter Pham

Professor X

Comparative Government & Politics

August 5, 2017

Turkey: A Decaying Democracy or Separation of the Military and Private?

Democracy continues to be recognized as a perennial pillar of Western society and a

creation of the Occidental world. Yet democracies certainly exist in other parts of the world

where it has adapted to the local culture, including the Middle East. Within the Middle East

itself, Turkey is one of the few democracies in the region. (CIA) However, not all democracies

are perfect, including Turkey. Yet, historical trends show that established democracies will try to

maintain their democracies as the country grows more industrialized and prosperous. (Drogus

and Orvis 2015) Despite rising concerns about Turkeys possibly eroding democracy after the

2016 constitutional referendum, Turkey seems to be an evolving democracy rather than an

eroding one where more power is being diverted back to the public and people are more capable

of granting their government legitimacy.

In order to better measure the strength of Turkeys democracy, it remains helpful to

dissect the most basic characteristics that define a democracy. The first is that a democracy is a

political system that frequently chooses and replaces governments via fair and free elections. The

second is that a democracy demands the active participation of its citizens in civic life. The third

is that there is a protection of human rights of all citizens, and the fourth is that there is a strong

rule of law where formal procedures and laws apply to all citizens equally. (Stanford 2004) To

better understand what a human right is, the UN provides a clear explanation of human rights in

its Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948). From there, one can look to the
international standard of democracy of the freedom of expression, association, opportunities to

engage in civic society, and the right to vote to further establish a clear criteria for a democracy.

Looking more closely at Turkey, the bridge between the oriental and occidental world

neatly fits the criteria established by both Stanford University and the UN. Its Constitution,

written in 1923, professes that The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular, and social state

governed by the rule of law. (Turkey 1923 Article 2) Using the first criteria from Stanford,

Turkey meets all four pillars in Article 10 and 67 where it grants all citizens the right to vote and

equal processing of the law with protections for human rights along with demanding that its

citizens participate in public life. On paper already, Turkey clearly fits the criteria of democracy.

Moving on to the UN criteria, Turkey again meets these criteria through Part II of its

constitutions where it addresses all of the UN-stated rights of the individual to express

himself/herself.

The next step is to see if this actually happens in practice. Turkeys democracy consists

of three different electoral cycles: proportional voting general election held every four years,

local elections held every five years, and a two-round presidential election every five years.

(Ciplak 2014) Voter turnout in the country has remained extremely high at around 85% with

governmental public trust also being high. (Middle East News Online 2001) In other words, the

Turkish government possesses strong legitimacy amongst its citizens and is overall transparent.

Looking at Turkeys unicameral legislature, the Grand National Assembly, there has been a

healthy distribution of power among the different MPs and parties, even if the Justice and

Development Party has been the largest party since 2007 and has gained majority twice in those

three previous election cycles. (Ciplak 2014)

 Overall, Turkey looks like a healthy democracy that should be free of any concerns. Yet

the real concern with Turkeys democracy does not lie in its electoral processes, but in the civil

liberties that the government grants and recognizes. (Freedom House 2013) There has been a

serious concern from the Western world that there has been a lack of, and even decline of, civil

liberties in Turkey, especially with the media that has been a target of government harassment

that has led to the self-censorship of journalists. (Freedom House 2017) The concern started

around when Erdogan became the president in 2014 and there was already some concerns about

the electoral process as this was the first time that the country held direct presidential elections.

(Freedom House 2017) From assertions about inappropriate campaign finances to voter fraud to

unfair media coverage, people, especially academics, were concerned about Erdogans rise. After

his election and his Justice and Development Partys (AKPs) failure to secure a 60% majority,

the party failed to form a coalition government and called a snap election within the same year as

the 2016 general election with the party making gains but still short of a 60% majority after the

second election. (Freedom House 2017) These electoral irregularities have sparked some

concerns that the AKP may be trying to gain the needed majority in order to better

institutionalize itself into the political system like in China and other authoritarian states.

From there, the charismatic Erdogan has been aggressive with opposition, especially with

the media and academics. These two groups of society have been harassed by the Erdogan

government to the point where they voluntarily censored their own works. For those that do not

resent their previous statements, the government has tried to prevent journalists from covering

certain stories, such as the investigation into the Turkish company Koza-Ipek group. The

harassment has continued to escalate to the dismissal of journalists, governmental shutdown of

news outlets over claims of anti-governmental plotting, and a restriction on Internet access to
sites like Twitter. (Freedom House 2017) All of these actions are very defining of authoritarian

regimes, especially personalist and single-party regimes, like the ones in Turkeys neighbors:

Russia, Iran, and China. (Drogus and Orvis 2015) While this is very concerning in any

democracy that is supposed to allow its people to freely express themselves, that has never

translated into unfettered freedom. In the 1960s, the US, a perennial beacon of democracy, has

repeatedly attempted to silence the forming of and opposition from communist groups and anti-

Vietnam War groups. (Zinn 1980) The US government has not always been very egalitarian in

how it approaches opposition groups and has conducted many secret CIA operations with the

claim of national security. (Zinn 1980) Yet, the US continues to be considered and recognized as

an extremely stable democracy in the world. (Fund for Peace 2017)

More recent concerns have arisen from the 2016 constitutional referendum that has

gained support of the majority of the population and will give more power to the president, thus

transforming Turkeys parliamentary system to a more presidential one. (Cupolo 2017) It is

worth noting that Turkeys history has been filled with military coups that have transpired with

the intention of maintaining Turkeys secular democracy when there is speculation of threats to

it. (Vox 2017) Certainly a military coup is not an ideal aspect of democracy nor is the approval

of a seemingly populist referendum. (Drogus and Orvis 2017) Democracy is meant to be

unpredictable; history has revealed that democracy will maintain democracy. It may be healthier

to look at the long term rather than transient whims; Turkeys democracy will survive and thrive.

Work Cited

CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The World Factbook - Turkey. Accessed

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tu.html.

Ciplak, Bilal. 2014. Democracy promotion and Turkey. Florida International University 32:
 1-246.

Cupolo, Diego. 2017. The Decline and Fall of Turkish Democracy. The Atlantic, April 13,

2017.

Drogus, Carol Ann, and Stephen Orvis. 2015. Introducing Comparative Politics: Concepts and

Cases in Context (3rd edition). Washington, DC: SAGE/CQ Press.

Freedom House. 2013. Freedom in the World 2013: Democratic Breakthroughs in the Balance.

Accessed https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2013.

Freedom House. 2017. Freedom in the World 2017: Turkey. Accessed

https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2016/turkey.

Fund for Peace, The. 2017 Fragile States Index. Accessed

http://fundforpeace.org/fsi/analytics/fsi-heat-map/.

Middle East News Online. 2001. From Now On, I Want the Words Military Coup Left Out of

Turkeys Political Dictionary. Middle East News Online Accessed

http://ezproxy.fhda.edu/login?url=https://ezproxy.fhda.edu:2187/docview/203027558?acc

ountid=38235.

Stanford. 2004. What is Democracy. Accessed

https://web.stanford.edu/~ldiamond/iraq/WhaIsDemocracy012004.htm.

Turkey. 1923. The Constitution of the Republic of Turkey. Accessed

http://www.hri.org/docs/turkey/.

United Nations. 1948. The Universal Declaration of of Human Rights. Accessed

http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx.

United Nations. 1966. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Accessed

http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/democracy/.
Vox. 2017. Why is the world worried about Turkey. Accessed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBZHdbfuFtw.

Zinn, Howard. 1980. A Peoples History of the United States. New York City: HarperCollins

Publishers LLC