Murat Ülgül and Sertif Demir
Dr. Ülgül is an associate professor in the Department of International Relations at Karadeniz Technical University; Dr. Demir is an economist and military specialist at the University of the Turkish Aeronautical Association in Ankara.
Despite the increasing number of democracies in the post-Cold War period, the danger of military coups has not disappeared in many parts of the world.1 It keeps threatening domestic and international communities, especially in regions where democratic norms are not as easily adopted as institutions, such as elections. Coups are conducted by a military to depose and replace the ruling power through force or the threat of force for various reasons: the military’s parochial interests, the status of leadership, or policy differences between civilians and military officers. No country is immune, as long as soldiers have the capacity and will to overthrow a civilian government. Coups generally occur in the developing and under-developed world. However, in recent years, some analysts have even argued that a “military coup is no longer unimaginable in the U.S.” if, for example, President Donald Trump himself becomes a national-security threat by deciding to start a nuclear war.2
Coups not only threaten the survival of civilian regimes; they can also cause human-rights violations, obstructions of democratic evolution and even civil wars. As a result, governments adopt coup-proofing strategies that encompass a wide variety of military, political, economic and social tools. Since the formation of the Turkish republic, governments have existed under the continuous threat of military intervention. In the last 60 years, the country has lived through two military coups (1960 and 1982), direct (1971) and indirect (1997) military interventions, as well as failed coup attempts in 1962 and 1963. On July 15, 2016, Turkey faced another failed coup attempt with severe political and societal consequences.3
This article analyzes Turkish civil-military relations by comparing the government’s coup-proofing strategies before and after the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in November 2002. We focus on whether coup-proofing strategies have been implemented in Turkey and, if yes, which measures have been applied and with how much success. The findings show that before 2002, civilian politicians mostly tried to curb military control rather than implement coup-proofing strategies. Except for a few cases that were temporarily effective at best, no continuous coup-proofing was introduced in Turkey. The AKP under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership changed this situation with the help of outside actors, in particular the European Union. Yet, the failed coup attempt in 2016 demonstrated that stronger coup-proofing would be necessary. As this brought about the implementation of various additional measures, the article also compares the AKP’s strategies before and after the 2016 coup attempt. We find that if multiple and various coup-proofing strategies are not implemented at the same time, a militaristic country like Turkey will have a difficult time preventing politically ambitious military officers from interfering in civilian politics.
THEORETICAL OVERVIEW
How to prevent a military coup is one of the most controversial subjects in the international security literature. One of the most-discussed coup-proofing strategies is called counterbalancing, which focuses on a country’s security structure. Based on the balance of power mindset, a country’s civilian leaders establish security branches such as border guards, secret police, and bodyguard units and, by using “parallel chains of command,” provide an “armed counterweight” to the military.4 As Quinlivan shows, in several Middle East countries, such as Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, where authoritarian leaders have been concerned about military coups, the creation of an armed force parallel to the military has been a common policy. The main objective has been not to prevent external threats but to protect the regime “through special loyalties and social relationships.”5
In many countries, the counterbalancing strategy reduces the likelihood that a military coup will succeed. Yet scholars have shown that this strategy alone does not deter coup attempts.6 While dividing the military forces is important, it is not sufficient to avoid a coup. Indeed, if different security agencies conspired with each other and cooperated against the government, the regime’s survival would still be at risk. In this case, the government can adopt a diversionary tactic. Similar to the rally-round-the-flag effect, the government may exacerbate a security threat and divert the attention of the security forces from domestic to international developments. Belkin and Schofer show that “when leaders believe they can control the costs of engagement, and when other strategies for promoting interservice rivalries are unavailable or expected to be ineffective, leaders use international conflict to create and exacerbate rivalries among branches of their own forces.”7 Therefore, with diversionary tactics, the government officials not only transform the policy priorities of security agencies, they also create resource competition among them.
A government can also organize its system to diminish the possibility of coups. In a country where military influence is high, it is unlikely for soldiers not to speak aloud about political affairs. When this is the case, if the political structure is organized to allow soldiers to easily enter into politics or raise their voices on security issues — to provide political socialization — the possibility of undemocratic interventions may diminish. Israeli politics is a case in point. Surrounded by enemy forces since independence, Israeli political and societal culture is wide open to military influence. Nevertheless, Israel has never experienced a military coup or even interference, mainly because the military officers are allowed to play important political and societal roles in the country. According to Perlmutter, rather than being a problem for democratic government, the expansion of the military’s role at the institutional and societal levels is an important element that guarantees the subordination of the military to civilian institutions.8 The high-level presence of military leaders in the political decision-making process,9 as well as their ease in parachuting into politics after retirement, gives military elites no reason to disrupt the democratic process through a coup or intervention. There are, however, arguments that these characteristics of Israeli politics damage the quality of democracy in the country.10
In addition to coup-proofing strategies at the institutional level, the prevention of coups can be realized through normative elements. Ideological indoctrination can be used to guarantee the military elite’s loyalty to civilians. Ideological indoctrination can occur in both subjective and objective ways. If democratic culture does not develop, and civilians are more concerned about preserving their seats than challenging external security threats, national leaders could fill the armed forces with loyalists rather than relying on merit. Military cadets and officers are educated to share the leadership’s party ideology, and the socialization process within the army strengthens this group dynamic. High-ranking military officers are chosen in accordance with their ideological preferences, not through objective merit; and the civilian leadership can “shuffle, arrest, and even execute officers on a frequent basis to prevent potential challengers from developing a stable base of followers.” However, this kind of subjective indoctrination may “sacrifice organizational effectiveness” and diminish the country’s capability to meet external security threats.11
More objective and professional indoctrination occurs when military officers are removed from politics and focus on military matters. As Desch points out, “Norms of subordination to civilian control” are an important part of military culture; if “these norms are deeply embedded, civilian control will be much stronger.”12 If military officers learn the importance of democratic governance over party ideology and focus on professionalism, it is more likely that they will not interfere in politics even when they have differences with civilian politicians. In this way, an invisible wall could be built between political affairs and military professionalism, and both sides could respect each other’s autonomy. Therefore, an important component of objective control is civilian officials’ noninterference in military affairs. The separation of roles can maximize military professionalism and minimize the danger of politicization. This is not always easy, especially when politicians place a high political value on military operations and interfere even in tactical issues.13 Moreover, as Finer argues, sometimes military professionalism may lead officers to regard themselves as “the servants of the state rather than of the government in power.” If they see the civilians as a threat to national interests or democratic governance, it is possible that objective control and indoctrination may fail to prevent coups.14
Finally, third parties can also help countries prevent military coups. International organizations can offer political, economic and societal benefits so that military officers may think twice before attempting to overthrow the government. If membership in an international organization has value with the public, and undemocratic military intervention would risk membership status, the public may not support a coup attempt. This is critical for the military officers, especially in the post-coup process, when they need to justify intervention to the people. Moreover, if the country receives economic and military aid from a third party, the intervention may cause monetary loss to the country, as well as the loss of a military weapons system. If this happens, not only will the public resist military rule, it may become more vulnerable to external threats. Membership in the European Union provides many countries, especially Greece, Spain and Portugal, an opportunity to leave behind their histories of military coups and adopt democratic governance. Similarly, as Wobig shows, in Africa and Latin America, where military coups were frequent in the past, international organizations such as the Organization of American States or the African Union provide democracy clauses that have diminished the likelihood of coups in member countries by 20–30 percent.15 All in all, through institutional and normative elements as well as help from third parties, a country may significantly diminish coup occurrence. How well Turkey followed these strategies is the subject of the next section.
COUP-PROOFING
Militarism has always played a central role in Turkish culture. Even when the Turks emerged as a nomadic people in Central Asia, they glorified military values. It was common among the early Turks to place stones on a warrior’s grave, representing the number of his kills, or to believe that, killed by a warrior, one would be his slave in the afterlife.16 Following conversion to Islam, Turks institutionalized their military life, forming the armies of Islamic empires; Turkish generals even tried to control the caliphs in order to wield power.17 When the Ottoman Turks established their state and turned it into an empire through conquest, the military was still at the center of the political system. As Lybyer points out, the Ottomans “had been an army before they were anything else. Like the Turkish nations of the steppe lands, the Ottoman nation was born of war and organized for conquest. Fighting was originally the first business of the state and governing the second.”18 Military culture and militarism were so integrated within the political culture that it soon became a problem for the rulers rather than an asset.
Indeed, the military was so influential in the Ottoman political system that the first coup-proofing strategies emerged in this period. Historical records show that the Janissaries, the infantry soldiers who formed the core of the Ottoman military, played a critical role in choosing the sultan; and, in fights over the throne among his sons, the support of the Janissaries tipped the scales in favor of a candidate. Janissary intervention in Ottoman politics increased especially after the empire started losing its political and economic power. During the turbulent times of the empire, as Birand shows, five sultans and 43 grand viziers were deposed and/or killed by the Janissaries.19 Against this growing military intervention in politics, the Ottoman sultans took several measures, including bribery, purges and execution. The Janissaries were disbanded in 1826 after they started a rebellion against Mahmud II, and Ottoman soldiers were sent to European countries in a modernization effort — but also to learn professionalism. However, these efforts did not successfully transform civil-military relations. In the final years of the empire, Sultan Abdulhamit impounded the Ottoman navy for almost 30 years (1877–1908) in Istanbul’s Golden Horn to prevent any military uprising or coup attempt against him.20
Strategies before the AKP, 1923–2002
During the final stages of the Ottoman state, the military was the first and only institution that was modernized according to European standards. When the Republic of Turkey was founded in October 1923, military officers constituted the single class that had any capacity or knowledge of state- or nation-building processes. The founder of the republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was a former military officer, and his close associates were mainly from the Ottoman military. Nevertheless, Atatürk was strongly against military interference in politics, as he had witnessed firsthand the devastating results of officers’ engagement in political affairs in the final years of the Ottoman state. According to him, the military intervention could have been easily manipulated by foreign states, as Germany had done before the Great War,21 while the officers could pose a threat to the political power of civilian elites.
As a result, one of the first tasks Atatürk needed to undertake was to formulate coup-proofing strategies. Only two months after independence, on December 19, 1923, the National Assembly adopted Law No. 385, which required future deputies to resign from the military if they were officers. Article 40 of the new constitution, on the other hand, made the military establishment directly responsible to the presidency, while Article 148 of the Military Penal Code, adopted in May 1930, decreed that military personnel would be imprisoned for a month to five years if they joined political parties, participated in political meetings, assembled for political purposes or wrote political speeches.22 All these rules aimed to separate political and military affairs in the infant republic while placing the civilian hierarchy above military commanders.
Following an assassination attempt against Atatürk in 1926, the regime took the opportunity to neutralize some military officers in the opposition. During their trials, some influential military figures, such as Kazım Karabekir, Ali Fuat Cebesoy and Refet Bele, were accused of planning a coup. Although they were found not guilty, the connection between the military and political opposition was destroyed. The executions, deportations and prison sentences from the trial were also effective in silencing those who would have liked to challenge the civilian government. Nevertheless, the most important coup-proofing strategy in this period was the appointment of Fevzi Çakmak as chief of the general staff (CGS) in 1922. Çakmak was loyal to Atatürk and had no political ambitions. He held the office for 22 years, until 1944, and successfully prevented any military intervention in politics. As Ahmad notes, Çakmak did not even approve of his men reading newspapers in case they might become interested in politics.23
It is also possible to claim that political socialization was used as a coup-proofing strategy in this period. Law No. 385 allowed officers to enter politics after resigning from the military, the country’s only modernized institution. As there was no competing class in the early republic, several military officers took advantage of this law to enter politics. Under Atatürk’s leadership from 1923 to 1938, a third of the top leadership within the Assembly were former military officers,24 while key government posts were also dominated by Atatürk’s close associates in the Ottoman military. Indeed, the first government that did not involve any former military officers was established in 1948, 25 years after independence.25 Nevertheless, it is important to note that this political socialization of military officers did not take place under democratic governance but under the one-party regime. Democratic norms were not generally adopted by military officers at this critical juncture, and their interest in politics also diminished over time as the military turned into a life-long profession.
Finally, we also see that the civilian government used the military to deal with internal issues, making military intervention a moot point in the early period. Atatürk and his associates received their military education in a German-dominated system that emphasized a prominent role for the military in society.26 In the nation-building process, the civilian government commanded the military to spread Kemalist reforms among the peasant masses through mandatory military service and soldiering courses in high school. Through these two institutions, military officers assumed responsibility for educating the people and creating a modern, secular and Turkish national identity.27 As a corollary, the military was also used to suppress groups that aimed to create alternative identities to what the regime intended. Suppressing Islamist and Kurdish rebellions and groups became the main priority of the military during this period. With the lack of a serious external threat, these common objectives created a means to control the military and prevent coups in the early republic; yet, at the same time, they planted the seeds of future military interventions.
Upon Atatürk’s death in 1938, İsmet İnönü took the presidential seat. İnönü was known as the “second man” of the founding generation and an important military commander in the independence war. Therefore, although he was a civilian when he took office, İnönü was a respected military figure, which reduced the coup threat. Moreover, during his tenure, the military focused on external problems: World War II and then the Soviet threat. Yet, after the 1950 election, which brought about the first ruling-party shift in Turkish politics, the situation changed. The Democratic Party (DP), headed by Adnan Menderes, did not follow the full-scale coup-proofing strategies of the founding fathers. Menderes believed that controlling the high-ranking officer corps would be sufficient, so he initiated a purge, replacing the CGS and three of the four force commanders, as well as the generals whose loyalties he doubted.28 When the DP won the 1954 and 1957 elections, Menderes’s confidence in his ability to control the military with these basic methods increased, and he started claiming he could “command the army with non-commissioned officers.”29
This emphasis on high-ranking officers blinded Menderes to the concerns of low- and mid-level officers. When political polarization increased, and the DP used repressive policies against İnönü, it provoked a disturbance within the low ranks of the army. Menderes’s close relations with religious and Kurdish groups, whom the military regarded as security threats in the early republic, also aroused discontent among the soldiers. In addition, Menderes’s disdain for the military commanders, along with the low salaries of the soldiers, caused unrest in this period. The straw that broke the camel’s back was Menderes’s decision to use military forces to suppress demonstrations by the opposition and students in 1960.30 On May 27, a group of mid-level officers organized a coup that initiated six decades of military control over Turkish politics. Menderes’s main error was his refusal to follow the coup-proofing strategies the founding fathers had adhered to during the state-building process.
After the 1960 coup, what concerned the military government most was the possibility of a countercoup. The regime not only dismissed almost all generals and thousands of dissident officers who were considered supporters of the deposed government, they exiled some of their own allies, whom they regarded as rebellious.31 The military also involved itself more in politics so that civilian policies would not create another bottom-up disturbance in the military. Since the officers disdained civilian politics, they did not seek to permanently rule the country. Instead, in 1961, they established a control mechanism in the form of a National Security Council (NSC) to strengthen coordination between civilian politicians and the military. Although officers refused to enter party politics, the presidency was occupied by former generals from 1960 until 1989. Presidents were symbolic figures at that time, but they provided another control mechanism over civilian politics. Civilians were not able to create their own coup-proofing strategies; instead, they had to rely on the military to control its own. This problematic mindset paved the way for subsequent military coups and interventions in almost every decade after 1960.
Following the military intervention in 1971 and the 1980 coup, the same dynamic was observed in terms of coup-proofing strategies. The military purged some politically minded officers, who had adopted right- or left-wing ideologies, as it increased its control over the civilian decision-making process through institutional means without ever leaving the barracks. As a result, civilian politicians mainly focused on loosening the military’s institutional control over politics instead of attempting comprehensive coup-proofing. For example, Süleyman Demirel, who served as prime minister five times between 1965 and 1993, sometimes utilized forced retirement of high-ranking generals to control appointments; in 1969, he made CGS Cemal Tural retire due to his interference in politics.32 These steps were, however, largely ineffective. Demirel was overthrown by the military in 1971 and 1980.33
The first politician to curb military influence in Turkish politics after the founding generation was Turgut Özal, who served as prime minister between 1983 and 1989, and as president from 1989 to 1993. Özal successfully controlled the higher ranks of the military, naming his own candidate, Necip Torumtay, as CGS against the preferences of the military. Özal also replaced the military head of the National Intelligence Agency with a civilian to diminish institutional military influence in security issues. It is also possible to claim that Özal tried to use a diversionary tactic by following an aggressive regional foreign policy without waiting for military approval. When disagreements emerged over policies during the Gulf War, especially in matters related to Iraqi Kurds, Özal did not hesitate to confront the military when necessary.
Since 1960, no civilian leader has challenged military control as successfully as Özal. Indeed, some scholars even defined him as the greatest reformer since Atatürk.34 Yet, Özal’s coup-proofing strategies were still not comprehensive enough to change the political dynamics. He avoided becoming the target of a coup but, after he died in 1993, the military thrust itself back into the political scene even more powerfully than before. Throughout the 1990s, escalating clashes with the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) terror group and the challenge of an Islamic discourse in political and social life led the military to try to mobilize secular-minded segments of Turkish society.35 The political parties were not able to garner popular support; their coalition governments were unstable and short-lived. When the AKP finally established a single-party government in 2002, its main political opponent was the military.
AKP Strategies, 2002–2016
The AKP, founded in August 2002 by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his close associates from the Welfare Party (WP), quickly emerged as the rising power in Turkish politics. The public was discontent with coalition governments and their inability to solve economic and political problems. The WP, a conservative party based on Islamist values, grew its power in the 1990s, and its leader, Necmettin Erbakan, became prime minister in 1996. However, the party had always been a target of the military, which saw its role as protecting secularism in politics. Therefore, through a bloodless intervention, Erbakan was forced to step down in 1997. The fate of the WP and Erbakan taught important lessons to Erdoğan and the other founders of the AKP — not only that they should moderate their Islamist discourse with modern and progressive policies, but also that they had to confront military control delicately so as to avoid another intervention.
The AKP greatly benefited from Turkey’s European Union (EU) accession process, which brought democratic adjustments that helped to reshape the country’s military-dominated institutions and constitution. Although Turkey’s journey to European cooperation had started as early as 1959, for decades the military elite and bureaucracy did not think of it as a means to increase democratization in the country. This situation started changing in 1999, when the EU recognized Turkey as a candidate for full membership. The announcement triggered constitutional and institutional changes that diminished the effects of military control in Turkish politics. A month after the AKP came to power, the European Council announced that the EU would open negotiations with Turkey without delay if Turkey fulfilled the Copenhagen criteria mandating democratization and civilian control of the military.36 With public support for the long-dreamed-of objective to be a part of Europe, the AKP used the process to prevent a coup threat through gradual reforms that took almost a decade.
First, the NSC’s role, functions and structure were modified to decrease the military’s supremacy in politics. Constitutional amendments diminished the status of NSC decisions by emphasizing that they are advisory — before that, its decisions had to be given priority by the government — while increasing the numbers of civilians in the council. The office of general-secretariat, previously held by a military officer, was also assigned to a civilian with the changes made in 2003. While the transformation of the NSC was important, there were other institutions and regulations that protected the military’s internal-security role. One was the Protocol on Cooperation for Security and Public Order (EMASYA), which was abolished by the government in January 2010, reducing the military’s capacity to demand intelligence information from the police. The other was Article 35 of the Armed Forces Internal Service Law, which infamously had been used as a reason/excuse for military interventions, as it mandated the military to protect the “nature” of the regime. With the amendment of July 2013, the military was tasked with only defending the state against external threats; the responsibility to protect the nature of the regime was removed from the article.37 The government also targeted the military’s influence on society; the national-security courses in high school (the successor of the soldiering classes) were removed from the curriculum. In September 2011, Egemen Bağış, the minister of EU affairs, criticized the course, stating that there is no example in Europe of uniformed military officers teaching in high schools.38 Starting with the 2012–13 school year, the courses were replaced by electives such as democracy and human rights or art history.39
If one takes into consideration that Turkey’s EU accession process simply froze in 2006 over disagreement on Cyprus, Ankara used its democratization clauses mainly as a coup-proofing strategy rather than a genuine effort to become an EU member. As these regulations were often cited in EU reports as obstacles to Copenhagen criteria, the government could remove them without directly challenging the military. Nevertheless, the democratization clauses alone could not prevent the threat of a military coup or intervention in Turkish politics. When Abdullah Gül, one of the founders of the AKP, was nominated for the presidency in 2007, the army issued a memorandum reminding the government of the secularist character of the state. This intervention turned the 2007 elections into a vote of confidence for the AKP; and, when the party got 46 percent of the votes, Gül’s presidency became certain, while the military’s informal power in Turkish politics significantly decreased.
Another strike against the military’s informal power came the next year, when the contentious Ergenekon trials started and several active and retired military officers, including former CGS İlker Başbuğ, were imprisoned. At the public level, these trials increased mistrust of the military to an unprecedented level, from 10–12 percent in 2007 to 27 percent in 2010.40 More important, these trials created an opening for more civilian control over the higher echelons of the military, as the CGS Işık Koşaner and force commanders requested retirement in 2011 as a protest against the trials. This strengthened the hand of the government; Commander of Gendarmerie Necdet Özel, who did not differ much with the government, was appointed as the new CGS. Based on these developments, Erdoğan was confident enough to state in 2011 that significant progress had been made: the armed forces were under the control of the government.41
Indeed, the AKP has made the most expansive reforms in civil-military relations since the era of the founding fathers. Still, these efforts could not prevent the military coup attempt on July 15, 2016. Erdoğan mobilized the public against the coup leaders, and the bid failed the next morning. However, this experience showed the government that it needed more than external democratization clauses and changes in the higher echelon of the military. During the coup attempt, the EU and other democratic countries were slow to react, which showed the government that it could not rely on external forces to guarantee its security. When the coup plotters took CGS Hulusi Akar hostage for hours and tried to force him to support the coup (he declined), the AKP realized that a more expansive coup-proofing strategy was necessary.
Strategies after July 15, 2016
After the 2016 coup attempt, the AKP declared a state of emergency, allowing the government to take several radical measures to reshape civil-military relations. First, as in 1960 and 1980, the military faced dismissals and arrests, this time under civilian control. Around 20,000 officers, soldiers and military cadets were dismissed, while another 4,000 officers were arrested for their roles in the coup attempt. In addition, around 150 generals and admirals from the army, navy and air-force commands were either dismissed or imprisoned. As mentioned, dismissals and arrests occurred even after successful military coups, but the AKP’s actions represented the most extreme cleansing in Turkish history.42 According to some analysts, these dismissals also decreased the number of “Atlanticists” in the military — those who believe Turkey’s strategic interests lie in cooperation with the Western countries — while increasing the influence of “Eurasianists,” who want to develop better relations with non-Western powers, including Russia and China.43 The military’s pro-Western orientation had already caused problems between civilians and officers — most prominently in the military intervention against Erbakan — and the government seems to have adopted a parallel mindset, as Eurasianism has played an important role in the direction of Turkish foreign policy since the early 2010s.44
The government also announced several presidential decrees in July 2018 to institutionally strengthen civilian supremacy over the military. One of those decrees made the CGS answerable to the Ministry of Defense, while the president and the vice president could issue orders directly to force commanders without the consent or knowledge of the CGS. In addition, force commanders answer to the CGS regarding intelligence and operations, but are directly responsible to the minister of defense regarding logistics and personnel, while the Gendarmerie and Coast Guard are responsible to the Ministry of the Interior. The Supreme Military Council, which is critical in military appointments, was also restructured to increase the number of its civilian representatives, including the vice president and the justice, foreign and interior ministers. The minister of defense would now assign and retire force commanders without consulting the CGS, while also scrutinizing all personnel assignments and approving all military promotions. The presidential decrees also replaced all of the armed forces’ educational institutions with a National Defense University headed by a civilian rector. Finally, all military-industrial facilities, shipyards and hospitals were transferred to the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health.45
Some of these adjustments, such as putting the Gendarmerie and Coast Guard under civilian control, can be seen as counterbalancing efforts, as they aim to divide the “country’s military manpower into potentially competing organizations, thereby creating an artificial balance between, and structural obstacles for, the armed forces.”46 As Brown et al. note, establishing barriers to communication and coordination is also a coup-proofing tool, and subordinating force commanders to the minister of defense in logistics and personnel serves this purpose by creating a two-headed command-and-control structure that hinders the military’s communication and coordination.47 According to Feaver, “promoting some officers over others and creating a cadre of like-thinking military leaders” is another dimension of preventing coups; civilian control over promotion and recruitment allows the government to create a military fully loyal to the ruling regime.48 Finally, changing military education and organizing it under a civilian rector can help the political leaders develop an indoctrination curriculum as a coup-proofing strategy, according to Belkin and Schofer.49 Following the 2016 coup attempt, the decrees aimed to establish an alternative military education system to foster civilian supremacy and respect for democracy and the rule of law. With the Eurasianist ideology mentioned above, the new education system combined both objective and subjective ideological indoctrination.
We should also take into consideration that the Turkish government’s policies after the coup attempt made the military focus more on external threats than domestic issues. Especially after the People’s Protection Units gained ground in Syria with the support of the United States, Turkey became concerned that a PKK-linked organization could create a separate entity that could become a national-security threat in the future. As a result, the military was mainly directed to face this threat outside the country’s borders, while internal security was increasingly entrusted to the police. Indeed, since the AKP government faced the threat of military intervention in 2007, the number of police forces has gradually increased 36 percent — from 187,500 in 2007 to 255,974 in 2018. In contrast, several EU countries have an average of 318 police or gendarmes per 100,000 people, while Turkey has 540.50 In addition to the numbers, police organizations have been empowered through legal changes over the years. Shifting the protection of parliament and the palace buildings from the military to the police, enlarging the sphere of police responsibility to cover gendarmerie areas,51 and holding military personnel in custody and carrying out interrogations for terror-related crimes are some of the new police duties.52 Some of these missions, such as protecting the parliament building or arming the police with heavy weapons, are critical in the case of a coup attempt.
Finally, without exaggerating, an example of political socialization also took place in Turkish politics following the coup attempt. In July 2018, Erdoğan appointed Akar as his new defense minister. The appointment was critical in Turkish political history, as it was the first time a civilian government has picked an active-duty military commander as the defense minister,53 and Akar became the first CGS to resign from the military to be a cabinet member. Obviously, a military officer’s participation in civilian politics today is not as common as it was during the state-building process, nor is ending a military career to take a civilian post as common as it is in Israel. Yet, Akar’s resignation to assume a civilian post can offer a democratic example to those in the military who have an interest in politics.54 Akar’s civilian duty can also correct the traditional mistrust of the military toward civilian politicians, while providing better coordination between civilian and military spheres, and this can play a coup-proofing role. Again, it is a mistake to exaggerate political socialization in Turkey until it becomes a common practice, as in Israel, or military officers can find a democratic career in all parties, not just in the ruling party.
There are still significant question marks for the future. What would happen if a political party opposing the values of the AKP came to power? What if this party had a pro-Western political identity that clashed with the Eurasianist indoctrination of the military? What if the new party did not have a middle-man like Akar as a bridge between the military and civilian spheres? It is also possible that future governments might feel sympathy for Kurdish political interests or establish a coalition with the Kurdish parties to get their vote. How would the military, now focused on the Kurdish threat in Syria, act? Finally, how will the frozen relations with the EU affect the future of civil-military relations in Turkey? We see that democracy clauses were not sufficient to prevent a coup threat, but are they totally unnecessary? The important point here is that the extensive coup-proofing measures worked, but we cannot be certain about their efficacy for the future until we observe them under different conditions.
Following a single coup-proofing method may not be sufficient to prevent undesirable and non-democratic military interventions into politics. In countries with high militarism and a history of problematic civil-military relations, adopting multiple strategies may be critical. Each theoretical explanation has pros and cons, and to be effective, timing and conditions are as important as the strategy itself. Some strategies working today may not function well if conditions change. Until the perfect formula is found, governments do not have many options besides experimenting with alternative strategies. We may not have a golden variable that will decrease the threat of military coups, especially in countries with undemocratic pasts.
1As De Bruin shows, between 2010 and 2016, in 15 countries soldiers attempted to overthrow regimes and seize power through a military coup. Erica De Bruin, “Preventing Coups d’Etat: How Counterbalancing Works,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 62, no. 7 (2018): 1433.
2Eliot Weinberger, “Trump: The First Ten Days,” London Review of Books, January 30, 2017, https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/archive/2017/january.
3 For the political and societal consequences of failed coups, please see M. Hakan Yavuz and Rasim Koç, “The Turkish Coup Attempt: The Gülen Movement vs. the State,” Middle East Policy 23, no. 4 (Winter 2016): 136-148; Berk Esen and Sebnem Gumuscu, “Turkey: How the Coup Failed,” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 1 (January 2017): 59-73; Ateş Altınordu, “A Midsummer Night’s Coup: Performance and Power in Turkey’s July 15 Coup Attempt,” in The Dubious Case of a Failed Coup: Militarism, Masculinities, and 15 July in Turkey, ed. Feride Çiçekoğlu and Ömer Turan (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 7-39.
4 Jonathan M. Powell, “Regime Vulnerability and the Diversionary Threat of Force,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 1 (2014): 175.
5James T. Quinlivan, “Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequences in the Middle East,” International Security 24, no. 2 (Fall 1999): 141.
6De Bruin, “Preventing Coups d’Etat,” 1434.
7Aaron Belkin and Evan Schofer, “Coup Risk, Counterbalancing, and International Conflict,” Security Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 145.
8Amos Perlmutter, Military and Politics in Israel: Nation-Building and Role Expansion (London: Cass, 1969).
9 Yoram Peri, Generals in the Cabinet Room: How the Military Shapes Israeli Policy (Washington D.C.: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2006).
10 Eva Etzioni-Halevy, “Civil-Military Relations and Democracy: The Case of the Military-Political Elites’ Connection in Israel,” Armed Forces and Society 22, no. 3 (April 1996): 401-417.
11 Aaron Belkin and Evan Schofer, “Toward a Structural Understanding of Coup Risk,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 47, no. 5 (October 2003): 596.
12 Michael C. Desch, Civilian Control of the Military: The Changing Security Environment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 18.
13 Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 49.
14Samuel E. Finer, The Man on Horseback: The Role of the Military in Politics (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2002), 25.
15/sup> Jacob Wobig, “Defending Democracy with International Law: Preventing Coup Attempts with Democracy Clauses,” Democratization 22, no. 4 (2015): 632-33.
16 Mevlüt Bozdemir, Türk Ordusunun Tarihsel Kaynakları (Ankara: Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayınları, 1982), 3-4.
17 Amira K. Bennison, The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the Abbasid Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).
18 Albert Howe Lybyer, The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1913), 90.
19 Mehmet Ali Birand, Emret Komutanım (İstanbul: Milliyet Yayınları, 1986), 149.
20 Ümit Özdağ, Ordu-Siyaset İlişkisi (Atatürk-İnönü Dönemleri) (İstanbul: Gündoğan Yayınları, 1991), 35.
21“No government that antagonistic to Germany would stay in power as long as we are the one who control the military in Turkey,” the German ambassador in Istanbul stated in this period. Bozdemir, Türk Ordusunun Tarihsel Kaynakları, 74.
22 Murat Ülgül, “Militarization of Ethnic Conflict in Turkey, Israel and Pakistan” (PhD diss., University of Delaware, 2015), 53-54.
23 Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (New York: Routledge, 1993), 9.
24 Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965), 260.
25Dankwart A. Rustow, “The Army and the Founding of the Turkish Republic,” World Politics 11, no. 4 (July 1959): 550.
26 The German officer who played a critical role in shaping Ottoman military education was Colmar von der Goltz who emphasized military-society connection as he believed that modern wars took place between the nations rather than armies. Colmar Gotz, The Nation in Arms: A Treatise on Modern Military Systems and the Conduct of War, trans. Philip A. Ashworth (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 2017).
27Ayşe Gül Altınay, The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Murat Belge, Militarist Modernleşme: Almanya, Japonya ve Türkiye (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2012).
28 William Hale, “The Turkish Republic and Its Army, 1923-1960,” Turkish Studies 12, no. 2 (2011): 197.
29 Ümit Özdağ, Menderes Döneminde Ordu-Siyaset İlişkileri ve 27 Mayıs İhtilali (İstanbul: Boyut Yayınları, 2004), 52.
30 Ulgul, “Militarization of Ethnic Conflict,” 98-99.
31 İsmail Hakkı Pekin and Ahmet Yavuz, Asker ve Siyaset: Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Sivil-Asker İlişkileri (Ankara: Kaynak Yayınları, 2014), 79.
32 Güneri Cıvaoğlu, “Ben Komutan Görevden Aldım,” Milliyet, November 10, 2009, https://www.milliyet.com.tr/yazarlar/guneri-civaoglu/ben-komutan-gorevd….
33 Indeed, these experiences taught Demirel not to clash with the military, especially on important subjects like Kurdish and secularism issues. “I was beat by the soldiers two times. You cannot do anything against their will. But can do everything by persuading them,” he stated. Hasan Cemal, Türkiye’nin Asker Sorunu: Ey Asker Siyasete Karışma (İstanbul: Doğan Kitap, 2010), 133. This statement is proof that his priority was not to implement coup-proofing strategies but loosening military control on civilians.
34 Mustafa Erdoğan, “Türk Politikasında Bir Reformist: Özal,” in Kim Bu Özal?: Siyaset, İktisat, Zihniyet, ed. İhsan Sezai and İhsan Dağı (İstanbul: Boyut Kitapları, 2001), 30.
35 Acar Kutay, “Civil-Military Relations in Turkey: A Historical Survey,” CMI Working Paper no. 11 (December 2016): 13.
36 Council of the European Union, “Copenhagen European Council 12 and 13 December 2002: Presidency Conclusions,” January 29, 2003, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/media/20906/73842.pdf.
37 For more information how the EU reforms transformed the civil-military relations in Turkey see, Aylin Güney and Petek Karatekelioğlu, “Turkey’s EU Candidacy and Civil-Military Relations: Challenges and Prospects,” Armed Forces and Society 31, no. 3 (Spring 2005): 439-462; Tuba Ünlü Bilgiç, “The Military and Europeanization Reforms in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies 45, no. 5 (September 2009): 803-824; Ersel Aydınlı, “Civil-Military Relations Transformed,” Journal of Democracy 23, no. 1 (January 2012): 100-108.
38 NTV, “Milli Güvenlik Dersi İsraf mı?” October 18, 2011, https://www.ntv.com.tr/egitim/milli-guvenlik-dersi-israf-mi,Ker3gd0u4km….
39 Hande İlbeyi Canca, “Milli Güvenlik Dersi Yerine Seçmeli Ders,” Anadolu Ajansı, April, 20, 2012, https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/egitim/milli-guvenlik-dersi-yerine-secmeli-der….
40 Yaprak Gürsoy, “Turkish Public Attitudes toward the Military and Ergenekon: Consequences for the Consolidation of Democracy,” İstanbul Bilgi University European Institute Working Paper, no. 5 (2012): 11.
41Yaşar Taşkın Koç, “12 Eylül’den 12 Haziran’a Siyasi Partiler: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi,” SETA Analiz (May 2011): 16-17.
42 Sertif Demir and Oktay Bingöl, “From Military Tutelage to Civilian Control: An Analysis of the Evolution of Turkish Civil-Military Relations,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 47, no. 2 (2020): 187.
43 Leela Jacinto, “Turkey’s Post-Coup Purge and Erdoğan’s Private Army,” Foreign Policy, July 13, 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/07/13/turkeys-post-coup-purge-and-erdoga….
44 Selçık Colakoğlu, “The Rise of Eurasianism in Turkish Foreign Policy: Can Turkey Change Its Pro-Western Orientation?” Middle East Institute, April 16, 2019, https://www.mei.edu/publications/rise-eurasianism-turkish-foreign-polic….
45 Anadolu Ajansı, “7 Cumhurbaşkanlığı Kararnamesi Yayımlandı,” July 15, 2018, https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/gunun-basliklari/7-cumhurbaskanligi-kararnames….
46 Tobias Böhmelt and Ulrich Pilster, “The Impact of Institutional Coup-Proofing on Coup Attempts and Coup Outcomes,” International Interactions 41, no. 1 (2015): 159.
47 Cameron S. Brown, Christopher J. Fariss and R. Blake McMahon, “Recouping after Coup-Proofing: Compromised Military Effectiveness and Strategic Substitution,” International Interactions 42, no. 1 (2016): 3.
48 Peter D. Feaver, Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 288.
49 Belkin and Schofer, “Toward a Structural Understanding of Coup Risk,” 596.
50 Fatih Yetim, “Avrupa ve Türkiye’de Kişi Başına Düşen Polis Sayısı: Türkiye Açık Ara Önde,” Euronews, January 1, 2020, https://tr.euronews.com/2019/01/04/avrupa-da-314-kisiye-turkiye-de-185-….
51The duty of Guarding Battalion for Turkish Grand National Assembly as well as military’s guarding duty of national palaces were finalized and shifted to police per Turkish Grand National Assembly Presidency Administrative Organization Law accepted on 1 December 2011. For the law see, https://www.mevzuat.gov.tr/MevzuatMetin/1.5.6253.pdf.
52 Suat Çalışkan, “Asker Kişiler Hakkindaki Soruşturma Işlemlerinin Yerine Getirilmesine Ilişkin Esaslar,” Hukuki Haber, February 22, 2020, https://www.hukukihaber.net/asker-kisiler-hakkindaki-sorusturma-islemle….
53 Burak Ege Bekdil, “Erdogan Appoints Active Duty Military Commander as Turkey’s Defense Minister,” Defense News, July 9, 2018, https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2018/07/09/erdogan-appoints-a….
54 T24, “Hulusi Akar Bakanlık için İstifa Eden İlk Genelkurmay Başkanı Olacak,” July 10, 2018, https://t24.com.tr/haber/hulusi-akar-bakanlik-icin-istifa-eden-ilk-gene….
Military coups cause numerous security problems but most importantly threaten the survival of civilian regimes. As a result, governments adopt coup-proofing strategies which encompass a wide variety of military, political, economic, or social measures to prevent military coups. This article analyzes Turkish civil-military relations by comparing the Turkish government’s coup-proofing strategies before and after the Justice and Development Party (JDP) came to power in November 2002. With the help of several variables in the literature, we will focus on whether or not coup-proofing strategies have been implemented in Turkey; if yes, which measures have been applied; and with how much success. We find that without adopting several coup-proofing strategies at the same time, Turkish governments have had a difficult time in preventing ambitious soldiers from interfering in politics. The recent failed coup attempt and the subsequent change in the JDP’s coup-proofing policies are illustrative in this regard.
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