Context and Circumstance: The Turkish Military and Politics

Debates about military influence on civilian government tend to bepartisan and rarely pay sufficient attention to specific contexts. This paperanalyses, without condemnation or justification, why and how the militaryexercises such influence in Turkey and whether it is likely to continue to doso.It argues that the role of the military in Turkey grows out of a specificTurkish context and is more a symptom than a cause of the country's flaweddemocracy. It examines the Turkish officer ethos, particularly the role of theindigenous ideology of Kemalism, and the broad, though not universal, publicmandate for an interventionist role in politics.It contends that the military's influence is neither uniform nor total and thatit is more effective at blocking than initiating policy; thus creating a systemin which civilian authority is primary rather than supreme. It analyses themechanisms through which the military attempts to shape policy, and demonstrateshow its influence depends more on its informal authority than legislated rightsor responsibilities.The paper suggests that fears of threats to national security resulting from thereforms required for EU accession have made the military more, not less,reluctant to withdraw from the political arena. It concludes that, regardlessof the future of Turkey's candidacy, such a withdrawal will be a slow andgradual process, dependent more on changes in Turkish social and politicalculture and the perceived security environment than in the military itself.