CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VII (1, 2) Contemporary-Eurasia-3new | Page 58

CONTEMPORARY EURASIA
declared themselves as hardline Kemalists. 46 However, the coup did not
attract other offi cers, moreover, the public did not welcome the interven-
tion either. Erdogan’s supporters stormed the streets after Erdogan’s call
to take to the streets and even secularists saw the intervention as an attack
against democracy. If the accusations of Erdogan are correct and the coup
was plotted by followers of Gulen, then it can be concluded that Kemalist
offi cers and generals stayed loyal to the government. If accusations are
wrong and Fethullah Gulen did not stand behind the failed coup, it means
that either the Kemalist ideology has weakened in the military or there
was no unity among the Kemalists offi cers. It is evident that the majority
of the military did not see an intervention as a means to sort issues. With
the purges which have been taking place in Turkey since Erdogan came
to power many of his supporters were appointed to positions within the
military. While the aftermath of the 1980 coup was unprecedented with
the extent of purges organized by the military the aftermath of the 2016
coup may be similar in its extent. However, if after 1980 the military used
the occasion to declare martial law and eliminate everyone who present-
ed a danger for the order that the military preferred, this time the roles
were reversed. Erdogan and his government used the occasion to serve
their own interest. An emergency situation was declared and thousands
of offi cers were detained with the accusation of participating in the coup
plot. The purges have not stopped yet in Turkey. The failed coup attempt
was used by the government to crack down on Erdogan’s enemies be they
coup plotters, Gulenists or supporters of the Kurdish cause.
The unfolding of the coup and its failure proved the army in gener-
al stayed loyal to the civilian leadership, which means that the balance
of civil-military relations in Turkey had shifted towards civilians. The re-
forms carried out under the fl ag of Europeanization played an important
role in curbing the powers of the military. Although reforms were not ful-
ly implemented and some were carried out under the direct infl uence of
the military 47 nonetheless, the positions of the military were signifi cantly
weakened. The EU Commission’s 2008 progress report on Turkey states
that the military still has signifi cant political power in Turkey, however,
the following reports, that of 2008, 2009 and 2010 state that progress has
been made in civilian oversight of the military. The achievement men-
tioned is the abolishment of trials of civilians in military courts as well as
subjecting decisions of the Supreme Military Council to judicial review.
The arrangements made for high-ranking offi cers to be tried by civilian
46
47
Jonathan Stevenson, “Turkey: The Attempted Coup and Its Troubling Aftermath,” Strategic
Comments 22, no. 5 (2016): 2.
Bilgiç, “The military and Europeanization,” 803-824; Güney and Karatekelioğlu, “Turkey’s
EU candidacy and civil-military relations,” 439-462.
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