CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 22

DIMINISHING INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY OF TURKISH ARMED FORCES …
Republican People's Party (RPP) and the subsequent legislative and
institutional fixation of its guardianship and after recurrent military coups
and political interventions. 3
The transformation of the institutional identity of the TAF is directly
related to the weakening of its strong autonomy in the state system. Parallel
to the weakening of autonomy, the preservation of a uniform system of
values in the army and the identity built upon it becomes a serious challenge.
The ideological and value transformation in the country does not bypass the
army as it has already lost its former leverage, and thereby the highly
ideological political power will try to impose its values on the army as well.
Significant steps have been taken in Turkey to revise civil-military relations
and establish democratic control, but modern processes show that along with
the weakening role of the army, there is a process of establishing political
influence over the latter. This is also accompanied by its transformation.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was reelected as president in the snap elections
held on June 24, 2018. As the AKP was unable to secure a simple majority
in the Parliament necessary to form a single-party government 4 , the wide
powers assigned to the president within the framework of the transition to a
presidential system gained crucial significance for the political viability of
that force. 5 Consequently, this means that in the future, during Erdoğan's
presidency, to which too much power has been assigned, the ongoing
transformations of the country's social and political spheres will continue,
including those in the defense and security sector. The authoritarian
tendencies in Turkey and their own ideological-value system prioritizes that
the authorities require a new approach to the relationship between the army
and the civilian authorities, where the army is to be considered the
"protector of its own regime" for authoritarian regimes.
The legislative and institutional reforms launched by the 1999
Helsinki process that restrict the political role of the armed forces also
created favorable conditions for the AKP government as they gave an
opportunity to influence and revise the collective identity of the army. 6 The
3
Tuba Eldem, “Democratic Control and Military Effectiveness of the Turkish Armed
Forces”, in Reforming Civil-Military Relations in New Democracies: Democratic Control and
Military Effectiveness in Comparative Perspectives, eds. A. Croissant, D. Kuehn, (Springer
International Publishing AG, 2017), 173.
4
Erdoğan was reelected president by 52.59% of the vote. As the AKP was unable to secure a
simple majority, the electoral bloc (Cumhur Ittifakı) enabled the party to have a majority in
parliament, forming a coalition government. “24 Haziran 2018 Seçim Sonuçları: YSK kesin
sonuçları açıkladı”, https://indigodergisi.com/2018/07/24- Haziran-2018-secim-sonuclari-
ysk/ (accessed July 6, 2018)
5
Amanda Paul and Demir Murat Seyrek, “Constitutional changes in Turkey: A presidential
system or the president’s system?”, (Commentary, European Policy Center, 24 January 2017),
(Accessed May 1, 2017 ) http://aei.pitt.edu/83866/1/pub_7374_conschangesinturkey.pdf.
6
At the EU Helsinki Summit in 1999, Turkey was granted the status of candidate for EU
membership, assuming commitments to reform democracy, rule of law, and socio-economic
reforms. Within this framework, the reform of military-civilian relations in line with
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