CONTEMPORARY EURASIA VOLUME VIII (1) ContemporaryEurasia81 | Page 24

DIMINISHING INSTITUTIONAL AUTONOMY OF TURKISH ARMED FORCES …
The processes taking place in the socio-political, cultural and
informational fields of the country directly affect the army as an institution,
causing value-based transformations. Formerly, state institutions embodied
the Kemalist value system and ideology, including the Constitutional court,
the judicial system, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Kemalist-oriented
parties and the RPP, the secular press, but have now essentially been
changed, weakened or neutralized. Together with the army, they were the
main defenders of the country's Kemalist movement. In this sense, Turkish
researcher, A. Kuru, has correctly linked a gradual decline in the political
role of the army and the gradual diminishing of the institutional autonomy
with the weakening and neutralization of the allies' role and influence in the
political field and state system, noting that the autonomy and the political
power of the army stemmed from those institutions and actors being a
serious factor that united the overall vision of the country and existing
threats. Ideological allies in the judiciary, the political parties, and the media,
in addition to some segments of society, provided the Turkish military with
necessary political power and encouragement. 11 Along with the weakening
of the army's position during the AKP's rule, the influence of its allies in the
socio-political field has been significantly limited (or neutralized), which is
interconnected and interchangeable. The significant growth of the Islamist,
conservative elite, as well as its socio-political, socio-economic influence
and sudden dominance in the judicial, media field took place at the expense
of the old, ideologically close-to-the-army secular elite. Thus, the army was
deprived of its supportive segments within the state structure. 12 In this
regard, it should be stated that the army in Turkey was also “a system-
instituting” body that was in organic communication with other state
institutions, and the role of the army was positioned within that general
system. The weakening of these systemic ties, as well as those in the social
and public domains, contributed not only to the elimination of the army's
systemic function, but also to the weakening of political levers.
In its turn, the diminution (or elimination) of institutional autonomy
may lead to the transformation of identity and values. In other words, the
Turkish army is moving to a new way of post-modernist modernization
where the axis of primary transformation is the revision of the previous
collective value system. It can be stated that maintaining the institutional
identity of the army was directly related to its role (role-playing character)
and autonomy. Therefore, the neutralization or limitation of this functional
role of the army challenges the viability and the possibility of further
existence of a single or unitary value system. For many years, it was the
Supreme command's strategic priority to keep the army officers free from
various public ideologies and currents, forming and preserving the officers'
11
Ahmet Kuru, “The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey; Fears of Islamism,
Kurdism, and Communism”, Insight Turkey, Vol. 14, no. 2 ( 2012): 37-57.
12
Ibid.
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