The New Turkey and its Paradox

The first paragraph of the Washington Post’s most recent editorial on Turkey, after Erdogan’s election to the presidency ended with an important question: “ Already the country’s leader for a dozen years, Mr. Erdogan has declared that he wants to build a “new Turkey” and promised after the vote to respect the desires of the whole country, which is deeply divided. But his actions in the last year or so have called into question Mr. Erdogan’s approach to democracy and his view of the world beyond. Will the “new Turkey” be different from the old?

Supporters of the AKP who often use the term “new Turkey” believe that the 12 year rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has opened an unprecedented phase in Turkish history. They are partially right. Even those who resent Erdogan’s autocratic discourse need to recognize that the country has come a long way in the last decade in areas such as civil-military relations, health care, infrastructure, fiscal discipline, municipal services. The big question that continues to polarize Turkish politics, however, is whether the new Turkey is more democratic than the old one? Again, the supporters of AKP answer this question with a resounding “yes.” In their eyes, the AKP represents the will of the people and for the first time in Turkish modern history the military is unable to exert political influence behind the scene.

The critics of AKP, however, strongly differ. They believe Erdogan’s understanding of democracy is based on a populist notion of winning elections. To them, this is a majoritarian and electoral understanding that comes at the expense of pluralism and liberalism. Such electoral autocracy does not pay attention to freedom of speech, the rule of law and the separation of powers and thus condemns Turkey to second class category among democracies. For them, this is exactly why the new Turkey of Erdogan resembles the old one, where the military used to call the shots. In other words, the old type of authoritarianism has been replaced by a new one. Under Kemalism Turkey had the tyranny of the minority, now under Erdogan, the new system is characterized by the tyranny of the majority.
It is important to note that voices in western media – mainly the United States and the European Union – tend to agree with the critics of Erdogan. In the wake of Turkey’s recent presidential election, there was not a single editorial in Western media praising the new Turkey’s democratic standards. Instead the focus was on Erdogan’s autocratic tendencies, corruption scandals, bans imposed on freedom of expression and the absence of an independent media. There seems to be a general consensus in the West that Erdogan’s growing authoritarian style has eroded the positive image of the Turkish model that was praised only a few years ago. Under such circumstances, the question that most Westerners ask is simple: why is an increasingly authoritarian Erdogan still winning elections?
The answer to this question is equally simple: “It’s the economy stupid!” The AKP voters come from the largest segments of Turkish society: the urban-rural poor, as well as the lower middle classes aspiring to upper middle class status. These masses amount to probably 60 to 70 percent of Turkish society. In their eyes, bread and butter problems take precedence over freedom of expression, political freedoms, the independence of the media, crony capitalism or separation of powers. What really matters for most of these AKP voters are the economic services and living standards. The fact that they come from conservative and nationalist backgrounds and share Erdogan's patriarchal and patronizing outlook is the icing on the cake.As a result, it should not be surprising that Erdogan and the AKP will keep winning elections as long as the economy performs reasonably well and adequate socioeconomic services are provided to these large segments of society.

This is also why the real paradox of the new Turkey is to be found elsewhere than in the economy and elections. The real paradox of the new Turkey is the following: If Erdogan is indeed becoming increasingly authoritarian, why is he still the only hope of Turkey for solving the Kurdish problem? This paradox is even more puzzling since solving the Kurdish problem requires the opposite of what Erdogan is providing Turkey: democracy, freedom of speech, rule of law, separation of powers, liberalism, decentralization of decision making and less patriarchal governing structures. Can Erdogan provide all these attributes with his authoritarian style? If the answer is “no” why do the Kurds are hopeful about him? To answer this paradox we need to analyze the pragmatic and Machiavellian side of Erdogan.

Some argue that the peace process with the PKK is cosmetic, tactical and hollow. Such critics believe Erdogan calculates in a Machiavellian way that he needs the support of Kurds to change the system into a presidential one. But this is a highly risky strategy since winning the Kurdish votes also means losing a significant amount of support from Turkish nationalists – an important segment of the AKP base. Another way to analyze the paradox is to actually believe that Erdogan is genuine in his willingness to solve the Kurdish problem by adopting an Ottoman type of multiculturalism and decentralization: as the new sultan of the new Turkey he will delegate more power to regions, the way imperial Istanbul used to deal with Kurdistan. One should also not underestimate the fact Erdogan manages to identify with the victimhood narrative of the Kurds. He after all, nurtured for a long time a similar narrative of victimhood as a pious Muslim under secular-Kemalist hegemony. What we may be witnessing in the new post-Kemalist Turkey is a coalition of pious Muslims and nationalist Kurds taking their revenge from Kemalism.

At the end of the day, the best way to test whether a new Turkey is emerging is to remain skeptical of the rosy picture of democracy and prosperity depicted by AKP worshipers and focus on the concrete ramifications of post-Kemalism. The "newness" of Turkey will only be confirmed when all issues related to democracy — ranging from freedom of speech to the rule of law, transparency and independence of the media — will improve parallel to Kurdish rights and liberties. Erdogan may have his own political priorities and agenda in addressing the Kurdish problem. But as Turkey’s new President, Erdogan should know that his image in the world is poisoned by Turkey’s democratic deficit. Prioritizing the Kurdish question at the expense of all the other crucial shortcomings of Turkish democracy will not improve the situation. As the world is watching him, Erdogan would be better off paying attention to his critics in the West rather than listening to sycophants in the pro-government media at home.

He can start with the Washington Post’s editorial's conclusions: “Mr. Erdogan has taken steps that tattered the values of freedom of speech and association that underpin any democracy…Turkey has compiled one of the world’s worst records for jailing and intimidating journalists. When a major corruption scandal broke in December, tape recordings emerged on which Mr. Erdogan was heard advising his son to conceal large amounts of cash. Critics of Mr. Erdogan and the government wrote freely about the corruption allegations on Twitter; the tapes were posted on YouTube. Mr. Erdogan’s response was to shut down both. Is this the “new” country that Mr. Erdogan was talking about? …Mr. Erdogan ought to demonstrate that he respects basic principles of democracy. Otherwise, more power for the presidency will be used only to enhance one man’s stature, and that is not in Turkey’s best interests as a nation.”

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