Insight Turkey / issues

Editor's Note | Fall 2009

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:39:00 GMT

When analyzing Islam and democracy, pundits and scholars have tended to focus on Arab-majority countries, all of which are authoritarian. This special issue brings a new perspective into the debate by analyzing non-Arab Muslim democracies in addition to Muslim democrats in some Arab countries. Besides empirical analyses, this issue also includes theoretical discussions on diverse political interpretations of Islam and the role of Islamic discourses in a democratic polity.

The Emergence of the ‘Government’s Perspective on the Kurdish Issue

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:45:00 GMT

The AK Party’s chronic ‘political insecurity’ may have passed a threshold as the ruling party resurfaces as an actor taking advantage of its pro-European Union sentiments to begin a ‘grand negotiation’ with Turkey’s thus-far publicly shunned Kurdish leaders after decades of bloodshed. This new window of opportunity could not have emerged without the explosion of the Ergenekon incident, which has offered a persuasive critique of the closed, dark, intolerant and secret communities friendly with the military bureaucracy and state officials but insidiously devoted to destroying the government. In the post-Ergenekon era, the new democratic opening represents a significant departure from a military solution to the Kurdish issue which has blocked civilian imaginations by declaring the Kurdish identity demands as a security threat to the officially proscribed Turkish identity. The real issue at stake now for the AK Party government is a redefinition of the locus and space where the phenomenon of real political power takes place in Turkey.

The Kurdish Question: The Reasons and Fortunes of the ‘Opening’

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:52:00 GMT

This commentary reflects on the Turkish government’s recent ‘opening’ to address the Kurdish problem and the domestic, regional and international conditions that created a conducive environment for this initiative. It maintains that although the Turkish leadership has grasped the new dynamics of the regional and domestic developments and changed its conventional perception of the problem, the initiative is constrained by the fact that it is motivated by a concern to remove the violent aspect of the Kurdish question, i.e., terminating the Kurdish insurgency once and for all. It also suggests that despite the optimism generated by the opening to solve the Kurdish problem, the achievement of its ultimate objective is far more complex than seen at the first glance. The commentary places a special attention on the dilemmas encountered by the Democratic Society Party as it seeks to represent the demands of its predominantly Kurdish constituency.

Mapping the Pathways: Public Perception and Kurdish Question

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:59:00 GMT

The Kurdish initiative announced by the governing Justice and Development Party has increased the discussions on the proper ways and forms of dealing with the Kurdish question in Turkey. The announcement acted as an opening of Pandora’s box through which all different images of the problem began to be manifested simultaneously. Assuming that the public perception would have a direct impact on the trajectory of the implementation of the initiative, this essay examines different aspects of the public perception of the issue by relying on the findings of a joint survey conducted by SETA and Pollmark. It is contended that effective settlement of the Kurdish question requires encountering and resolving certain tensions in the public perceptions, which can be done by achieving a language in which the grammar of politics and the values that maintain social integration is more transitional and interdependent.

A Research Note on Islam, Democracy, and Secularism

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:05:00 GMT

This essay examines the validity of the argument that the alleged theological lack of state-religion separation in Islam is the reason for authoritarianism in many Muslim-majority countries. The essay criticizes this argument by showing that a) secularism, in the sense of state-religion separation, is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for democracy; b) Islam is not an inherently and exceptionally political religion, and c) 20 out of 46 Muslim-majority states are secular. The essay point out that rather than analyzing the so-called essence of Islam as pro-democratic or anti-democratic, it may be more effective to explore the socio-political and economic conditions that have led to democracy or authoritarianism in Muslim-majority countries.

Democracy in Muslim Contexts: What Africa can Bring to the Discussion?

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:20:00 GMT

While the question of the relationship between Islam and democracy continues to attract significant attention from scholars and policy-makers, African cases have been largely absent from these debates. This article argues that the experiences of sub-Saharan African Muslim societies may nevertheless have much to contribute to our understanding of democratic prospects in the Muslim world. Considering the experiences of three Francophone countries of Sahelian West Africa, it explores the ways in which the democratization experiments led by secular civil society activists in the early 1990s moved from the initial resistance of deeply religious Muslim majorities to an acceptance of democracy as the only legitimating bases of political systems. The article argues that this was possible due to the significant negotiation both within religious society and between religious groups and the secular elite on the actual content of democracy. These cases thus suggest a number of tentative but important lessons for our understanding of democratic possibilities in the Muslim world.

Islam and Democracy in Indonesia

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:27:00 GMT

Islam and democracy are said to be in a relationship fraught with problems as the former, allegedly, does not allow secular law to be put above divine law or accept the legitimacy of worldly authorities. This relationship is less problematic in Indonesia, a democratic Muslim-majority country, the argument goes, due to the syncretic forms of Islam practiced in the archipelago state that are less dogmatic, and hence more conducive to democratic principles. While this is a valuable point, various factors extraneous to ‘moderate Indonesian Islam,’ such as a fragmented Islamic authority in civil society, a weakly institutionalized party system as well as dynamics triggered by recent institutional reforms all play a role in the continuing insignificance of political Islam in the country.

Muslim Democratic Parties in Turkey, Egypt, and Morocco: An Economic Explanation

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:38:00 GMT

The recent emergence of Muslim democratic parties such as AKP in Turkey and PJD in Morocco draws attention to the perennial question on the moderation of Islamist parties yet again. Economic liberalization and the accompanying socioeconomic transformation underlie the democratic and liberal turn political Islam has taken in the Middle East. The precise nature of liberalization is critical to this moderation. Competitive liberalization, by enabling peripheral groups to benefit from liberalization, conduces to the renewed interest in democracy and a liberal system. Crony liberalization, by reinforcing the archaic rent-seeking relationship between the state and big business and continuing to marginalize the peripheral groups from politics and the economy, sustains the interest of peripheral groups in the reactionary discourse of Islamism. The strength of Muslim democratic parties is a reflection of competitiveness economic reforms introduce in the society and the economy.

Globalization and the Crisis of Authoritarian Modernization in Turkey

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:47:00 GMT

Conventional models developed through the conceptual lenses of modernization theory dating back to the 1960s, are no longer applicable to Turkish politics; they fall short of grasping the changes that Turkish ideologies experienced in recent decades. In the face of Turkey’s growing democratization and societal modernization, Turkish secularists have lost their status as agents of reform and gradually emerged as defenders of the status quo in the face of the rapid mobilization of Anatolian-based conservative society. However, no factor was more responsible for this transformation than the comprehensive external and internal structural changes that Turkey experienced in the post-Cold War era, leading to the emergence of a globalist conservative ideology in large parts of Anatolia. This paper examines the question of why those who are commonly associated in Western scholarly discourse with progress and modernity,have fallen behind the Muslim conservatives in pursuit of democratization and further integration of the country with the West. The paper argues that at the root of the present conflict lies the tension between two modernization routes: a bureaucratic top-down modernization that has allowed the allocation of privileges to the secularist/nationalist elites, and the grassroots socio-economic mobilization of conservative societal elements benefiting from international integration and globalization.

The Rise and Decline of the Turkish “Deep State”: The Ergenekon Case

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:57:00 GMT

This article tests Mancur Olson’s theory of distributional coalitions against the case of the Turkish “deep state.” Olson’s theory holds that rent-seeking (or special-interest) groups tend to be exclusive by nature and pursue only the interests of their own members. Since their members account to a very small minority, these groups present their interests as being the interests of larger communities. The article argues that the Turkish case confirms the fundamental assumptions of the theory of distributional coalitions. An analysis of the historical process of the newly-exposed Turkish deep state reveals that, when put in proper context, its clandestine activities manifest a pattern which involves systematic efforts of an exclusive circle of group members (1) to impact the workings of Turkish society, and more recently, (2) to reverse the country’s democratization process in an effort to sustain the network’s dominating influence.

Charting the Hamas Charter Changes

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:05:00 GMT

Hamas Charter has sparked a lot of controversy, both inside and outside the organization. This paper offers a critical analysis of the original Charter that was issued in 1988. The document attempted to offer an ideology to counter Zionism, but it advocated views that are essentially anti-Jewish, xenophobic and outside the mainstream of the scholarly tradition of Islam. The paper also highlights the contradiction between the search for a just peace and the language of triumphalism and demonization in the Charter. Tracing the political development of Hamas since 1992, the paper presents evidence that current political leaders of Hamas are moving the organization beyond the ideological rhetoric of the early years of the movement. While they have abandoned the outdated Charter, they have not developed a credible perspective on negotiating peace.

Peacemaking between America and the Muslim World: A New Beginning?*

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:19:00 GMT

The arrival of the Obama administration has created opportunities for positive and enduring change in U.S. relations with the Muslim world. Although early attempts to replace confrontation and ideological inflexibility with a more circumspect approach rooted in conciliatory gestures and “enlightened” political realism are encouraging, more substantial shifts in U.S.-Islamic relations will require commitment to a strategy of active peacemaking that moves beyond the standard repertoire of concepts and practices associated with the Cold War’s dominant international relations paradigm. Such a strategy would seek to grasp the potential inherent in President Obama’s stated commitment to founding relations upon “mutual interest and mutual respect,” breaking the present impasse in U.S.-Islamic relations through principles and prescriptions derived from academic studies of peacemaking as well as from a critical re-evaluation of past U.S. policies.

Turkey in the UN Security Council: Its Election and Performance

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:28:00 GMT

Turkey successfully gained provisional membership of the United Nations Security Council by receiving support from 151 states in the UN General Assembly. Turkey is serving in the SC for the period between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2010. This historic achievement was the end product of arduous efforts on the part of the Erdoğan government which has braced itself for membership of the Security Council since 2003. Membership no doubt brings Turkey plenty of benefits, like enhancing Turkey’s international political weight and prestige. However, it also poses challenges to the credibility of Turkey’s multi-dimensional and assertive foreign policy with its strong tinge of fairness. Turkey ought now to take principled stances on many key issues relevant to international peace and security even at the cost of disappointing its long list of friends.

Living in the Ottoman Ecumenical Community: Essays in Honour of Suraiya Faroqhi

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:00:00 GMT

This volume is composed of twenty- four essays by many prominent figures in Ottoman studies in Europe as well as North America, with topics spanning from the fourteenth to the twentieth century, and an approach that poses the Ottoman Empire as a state and society with porous rather than fixed boundaries. The ambitious scope and intriguing framework of this collected volume are of course a fitting reflection of Suraiya Faroqhi’s own varied and extensive body of work (and the volume ends with a helpful inventory of Professor Faroqhi’s many publications, which include eight books and over 150 articles). As the editors point out in the introduction to the volume, it was Professor Faroqhi who proposed an alternative narrative for Ottoman history to replace the Decline paradigm, offering phases of expansion, crisis, and contraction. This volume goes a step further, paying tribute to her by posing a vision of an “ecumenical” Ottoman Empire with multiple connections—economic, social, and political—to communities, regions, and activities outside the physical boundaries of the state.

A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:03:00 GMT

In light of the many texts that have been published recently which explore the vast history of the Ottoman Empire, a monograph has now appeared that focuses specifically upon making sense of roughly the last 150 years of the Empire’s existence. For the Ottomanist, this period is rich in available sources. Ottoman archival documents, newspapers, private papers of Ottoman statesmen and foreign diplomats/ expatriates, court records, etc., yield such a daunting volume of information that it can sometimes become overwhelming to try to decipher all of this material and to construct a coherent understanding of the events, the people, and the intellectual ideas that defined this “long 19th century.

The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:06:00 GMT

Feroz Ahmad once described contemporary Turks as suffering from the “Sèvres Complex,” by which he referred to Turkish paranoia about having Anatolia carved up into small bits under foreign rule such as was to be their fate in the abortive Sèvres Treaty of 1920. In this new study, Mustafa Aksakal demonstrates with authority that the general apprehension of dissolution and partition that drove Ottoman officials in 1914 derived from the disastrous Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, not 1920, and was based on a plethora of very real threats and secret negotiations leading up to the Ottoman signing of the alliance with Germany on August 2, 1914.

Liberal Thought in the Eastern Mediterranean: Late 19th Century until the 1960s

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:09:00 GMT

It is comparatively well-known now that the late Albert Hourani came rather to regret the title of his probably most famous work, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), specifically the use of the term ‘liberal’. The problem was partly over the meaning of the term, but it was also that by selecting this approach he tended to underestimate the contemporary ‘non-liberal’ trends. In such terms it has also been argued that his inclusion of, for example, Rashid Rida and the Muslim Brotherhood was possibly a bit on the optimistic side.

Neo-liberal Globalization and Institutional Reform: The Political Economy of Development Planning in Turkey

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:13:00 GMT

It is increasingly recognized that effective state interventionism is a key ingredient of successful integration into the global economy. Indeed, some of the most successful cases of economic growth during the past two decades such as China, India, and South Korea are not typical examples of free market liberalism. They are examples of controlled integration into the global economy and differ from many other less successful late industrializing or emerging market countries in terms of the degree and depth of state interventionism during key phases of their development experience. What appears to matter the most for successful development is the synergy of the state and the market.

The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:16:00 GMT

What happens if a liberal philosopher writes a book about religion and the public life? He will speak out and argue for a rigid secularism, placing religion and faith with- in the private sphere. That might be true in most of the cases but it is not the whole truth. Rather, an origin liberal–and this is Austin Dacey–would argue that secularism must be uphold but not in the widely perceived fashion of banning religious conscience to the private sphere. In terms of liberal thought, secularism does not and should not privatize conscience. Why this is the case and why secular liberals did not loose their moral compass but gave it away is the attempt Austin Dacey sets out to answer in The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life. Dacey is a writer and human rights advocate in New York City. His pieces appeared in renowned periodicals such as the USA Today or the New York Times. According to the latter his book The Secular Conscience “lifted quite a few eyebrows” and embraced by figures as diverse as Sam Harris and Richard John Neuhaus.The United Nations representative for the Center of Inquiry helped to organize the Secular Islam Summit and spoke before the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Global Political Islam

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:19:00 GMT

For the general reader interested in global political affairs Islamist organizations like the Palestinian Hamas, the Lebanese Hizbollah and the transnational a-Qa’ida, as well as individuals like for example Usama bin Laden, may appear as incomprehensible and beyond rational understanding. Numerous scholarly books on the subject have not always helped readers to fathom the phenomena of Islamism, or as it is called in the title of Peter Mandaville’s latest book, Global Political Islam. However, Mandaville, a Professor of Government and Politics at George Mason University, Washington DC, takes the effort to explain and analyze the complex topic of political Islam in a very coherent manner. Moreover, this book is, as it is stated in the introduction, directed to students and scholars in the humanities and social sciences, but in my opinion it is a most readable book also for readers interested in the subject of global Islamic movements in general. The reason for such a statement is that the book not only comprehensively analyzes global political Islam, but also provides a theoretical perspective of the relationship and interaction between Islamic traditions, Islamic movements and the practice of politics – a perspective that is of value to anyone interested in contemporary interpretations of Islam.

US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: From Crises to Change

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:22:00 GMT

Scholars of diplomatic history and politics have long debated the question of how U.S. foreign policy is formulated. In US foreign Policy in the Middle East: From Crises to Change, Yakub Halabi argues that after major crises that have threatened U.S. interests new ideas emerge that bring about changes in foreign policy. According to Halabi, “A major crisis stimulates change in thinking; power makes change possible; and ideas make change feasible” (p.133). Taking a post-positivist position, Halabi asserts that ideas shape reality more than self-interest or “other observable variables” (p.17) and sets about to prove his thesis using a historic overview of major crises in the Middle East from 1945 to the contemporary era. The study is based entirely on published material, mostly secondary sources.

In the Long Shadow of Europe: Greeks and Turks in the Era of Postnationalism

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:25:00 GMT

In the Long Shadow of Europe brings together 14 articles on Greece and Turkey with the purpose of finding answers to the following questions: how has Europe affected Greek-Turkish relations; can the rapprochement that started in 1999 lead to the resolution of conflict in bilateral issues; and can the European Union further incite cooperative relations in areas of high politics? The authors of the book argue that, since the formation of their nation-states, both Greece and Turkey and their relations with one another have been affected by Europe. The new post-national European context and the European Union have played at least the part of a catalyst in the current rapprochement. The contributors of the volume, however, “agree that the sustainability of the rapprochement has yet to be consolidated” (p.4). Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that the EU’s role would be positive in the future and that the newly formed connections between Greek and Turkish people would be enough to provide a safeguard against the possibility of a prospective crisis between the two neighbors.

Debating Immigration

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:28:00 GMT

Over 11 million illegal immigrants reside in the United States, and a projected 1,400 new immigrants cross the border illegally or overstay their visas each year, making immigration a topic of a raging debate in the US. Debating Immigration is a volume of 18 original essays, written by activists, experts and scholars, and organized around five themes of religion and philosophy, law and policy, economics and demographics, race and ethnicity, and cosmopolitanism. Debating Immigration contributes to this debate by searching for the answers to a range of questions: Who should be admitted as an immigrant? What rights and benefits should host countries grant immigrants? What, if anything, do immigrants owe their host countries? How can the division between public attitudes about immigration and the policies produced by elected officials be explained? Why has the US failed to develop a well-articulated public philosophy of immigration? What does the Bible say about immigration policy? What are the moral and social obligations among fellow citizens? Do these obligations trump responsibilities to the world’s poor? How can the tendency to frame the immigration debate in the dichotomous terms of legal versus illegal and citizen versus non-citizen be explained, when the most critical troubles are the consequences of immigration itself and not its legality or lack thereof? How is the European experience different from the US one?