State Centered Tradition in Turkish Politics

Abstract

Since much has been written about the quality of democracy in Turkey recently, one can ask the question how one man and his political party managed to personalize the state with its structures and diminish the political influence of opponents within eighteen years – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) has been created just one year before the Turkey’s earthquake elections of 2002 which has started AKP’s era. The 2017 constitutional referendum in Turkey made president Erdoğan the country’s sole ruler with a presidential system having no check and balance mechanisms. This would not be possible without such charismatic and brilliant political leader like R.T. Erdoğan who managed to marginalize Kemalist establishment together with its elite and traditional supporters, i.e. military. This paper basically argues that this success would not be possible without exploitation of deeply rooted state-centered tradition in Turkish politics, started just with creation of Republic in 1923, continued through twentieth century by Kemalists and their political institutions, and then transformed by R.T. Erdoğan and his conception of “New Turkey”. The inhabited political institutions and particular state-centered political culture paved the way for transformation within power elite and establishment of presidential system. With a view to analyze this process the state-centered tradition in Turkey will be analyzed together with political proceedings in AKP’s era.