Ali Aslan
Turkish Democracy , Quo Vadis ?
11
Democracy is a highly contested concept . According to its liberal articulation , it denotes protecting individual freedom and rights from all forms of higher authority . Its socialist account , on the other hand , asserts that democracy refers to maintaining equality , especially social and economic equality , among individuals . Conservativism , in contrast , puts emphasis on the role of general or collective will in its articulation of democracy . Thus , while liberal democracy and social democracy , albeit they differ significantly in their emphasis , dwells on the issue of how to rule , conservative democracy is rather interested in the issue of whom to rule .
Despite this alleged variance , all these ideologies concede that the power transfer from one actor to another should be through peaceful means , that is , by fair and open elections . Yes , liberals argue that individual freedom and rights should be respected by the elected governments . Yes , socialists expect from all elected governments to determine their policies in order to sustain social and economic equality of citizens . And yes , conservatives call on the elected governments to shape their policies in light of collective will , or values and expectations of the society .
Hence , one can clearly see that going to the elections is equally important to all ideologies . Yet , what does it mean to going to the elections ? Going to the elections marks the basic tenet of modern politics , that is , power does not belong to any particular actor . In other words , the fact of elections underlies that the locus of power is empty . In the past , the locus of power was constantly occupied by particular actors , such as kings or group of nobles or the church . They did not have to be elected to have the right to rule their countries . They claimed unquestionable and uncontestable right to rule . What modernity has brought about in politics is to evacuate the locus of power . Yes , it has consigned the people as the new possessor of the power . Yet , the people , which is so vast to get together and take decisions all at once , cannot rule itself direcly . This contradiction was overcome through finding a via media solution , which is going to the elections periodically to choose the people ’ s representatives . Here we face the modern idea of representative democracy .
The advance of Turkish democracy Turkey was founded as a parliamentary democracy in 1923 . Yet , it has never become a full-fledged democracy as measured againt the criteria of modern parliamentary democracy : the emptiness of the locus of power . During the single-party rule in years from 1923 to 1950 , despite the country had a parliament , there was no sign of fair and open elections . CHP claimed the power in the name of the people and not allowed to transfer it to anybody . After 1950 , the general elections were started to be held . Yet this time , the elected governments had to share the power with military and civil bureaucracy . In this joint venture , the bureaucracy weighed significantly heavier than the elected govenments . The bureaucracy kept the elected governments under close surveillance . If the governments attempted to violate the red lines of the regime , they were bought into line through various ways , including the military coups . This period of 1950-2002 , therefore , is called as the rule of bureaucratic tutelage .
As the year of 1950 marked the first step towards democracy , by introducing free and fair elections into our political system , the start of AK Party rule in 2002 signified the second important breaking point in the development of Turkish democracy . What exactly the AK Party rule has achieved is the rolling back of the socalled bureaucratic tutelage . The AK Party , alongside triggering many other positive changes in various sectors of society , has succeeded the democratization of the country by significantly reforming the civil-military relations . In this process , AK Party has faced many counter-strikes and attempts of interventions by the bureaucracy but repelled them with the suport of the people . The last of these interventions , the failed coup attempt of July 15 , should be noted in particular .
However , what has been achieved so far in the path of democracy is hardly enough . Turkey needs to take a third step in the coming years to further develop its democracy . This third step includes , first of all , reconstructing the state from the scratch . This encapsulates redesigning the military , the judiciary and the government system in order to have a robust political system that will not allow extra-political interventions . Secondly , all political actors wholeheartedly work on to sustain societal peace and unity in the country . Highlevels of polarization in politics is unavoidably detrimental to democracy . The attitude taken by politicians towards each other in public and the language used by the media and social media users should show sign of political responsibility and loyalty to democracy . Only after all these measures taken will Turkish democracy climb up to a higher level .
Ali Aslan