Abstract
During the last two-thirds of a century, Turkey was ruled by a wide variety of governments: single-party governments, coalitions partnered by two or more parties and by ideologically compatible and incompatible parties, minority and military governments. While single-party governments all lasted at least two terms, the rest rarely lasted even one term. The timing of these governments and the order in which they followed each other were not by chance but according to a pattern induced by coups. Typically single-party governments were ended by coups. Ideologically incompatible and then compatible coalition governments followed, usually after a brief military administration. Then once again single-party governments returned. As economic growth typically exhibits an inverted-U type of pattern over the life of a government, and declines as the number of ruling parties and the ideological distance between them increase, the coups lowered the growth rate of the country and generated political business cycles that are distinct from those induced by elections. In the chapter these assertions are explained in detail and supported using theory, history, descriptive statistics, and regression analysis. It is also shown that improving democratic institutions of the country would enhance the stability and growth of the economy greatly.
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- 1.
In this chapter, coups are defined as in Powell and Thyne (2011): “illegal and overt attempts by the military or other elites within the state apparatus to unseat the sitting executive.” Note that this definition allows for the possibility of coups not being led by the military, and considers overthrowing governments through threats of military intervention but without use of force as coups as well. As O’Kane (1987), a coup is considered to be to be successful if it leads to the “installation in power of a government of the conspirators’ own choosing.” Thus we can say that of the nine Turkish coups, the ones on 27 May 1960, 12 March 1971, 12 September 1980, and 28 February 1997 were successful, but those on 22 February 1962, 21 March 1963, 9 March 1971, 27 April 2007, and 15 July 2016 were not.
- 2.
The left-statist group is labeled as such, even though its leading parties cannot be considered left, because they label themselves as such at least since late sixties and occasionally small leftist parties have emerged from them. Also left-leaning people vote for them. In many studies, the Turkish-nationalist and conservative parties are grouped together and analyzed as the Turkish right wing. However, since a distinct Turkish-nationalist party existed constantly since 1950, except for brief periods when it was banned by military juntas, it is more appropriate to treat it as a separate movement. Although the rest of the right wing occasionally fragmented into several parties, they always regrouped, as will be explained below.
- 3.
Of the coups listed in footnote 1, the ones labeled as successful, together with the one in 2007 can be considered classical coups. The rest constitute a second kind, which will be discussed later.
- 4.
The prime minister resigned from his party before taking office though, to appear as an independent.
- 5.
Acemoğlu and Robinson (2008) explain how elites try to offset any de jure power they have to give up, by increasing their de facto power (e.g., in the form of capturing political parties).
- 6.
It should be noted however that the leader of the CHP in 1980 was not the leader of the party in 1971 but its secretary general, and also that he supported the 1960 coup and his party cooperated with the juntas in 1960 and 1971 and nominated one of the 1971 junta leaders as their presidential candidate in 1980.
- 7.
All of the parties banned after the 1980 coup got legalized in 1994 but among them only the CHP regained prominence, and eventually reunited the fragmented left-statist segment. The Turkish-nationalist and right-conservative groups continued under the banners of their new parties.
- 8.
For surveys of the economic voting literature, see Lewis-Beck and Paldam (2000), Lewis-Beck and Stegmaier (2000, 2008, 2009, 2015), and Stegmaier and Lewis-Beck (2013). Akarca and Tansel (2006, 2007) and Akarca (2009, 2010, 2011a, b, 2015a, b) show that the behavior of Turkish voters is very similar to the patterns described in that literature.
- 9.
Londregan and Poole (1990) dub such dynamics of one coup leading to another coup as a “coup-trap.”
- 10.
For example, the 9 March 1971 coup plot, which was prevented by the March 12 1971 coup, was planned by some socialist intellectuals and leftist officers. The political parties which espoused to the views represented by the organizers of that coup received no more than 3% of the vote in various elections they contested democratically. As Can (2014) explains, the Gülen religious organization, which masterminded the 15 July 2016 takeover attempt, became an asymmetrical power center by infiltrating the armed forces and the judiciary, despite having “2-3% support at most.”
- 11.
For example, the failed coup attempt on 22 February 1962 was organized by officers which were about to be removed from their positions by another junta. The 21 May 1963 coup attempt on the other hand was a come-back effort by those removed after the unsuccessful 1962 attempt. The 12 March 1971 coup was implemented to some extent to counter the leftist junta which planned the 9 March 1971 coup. Similarly, the 15 July 2016 coup was timed by the Gülenists to preempt the dismissal of their members from the armed forces suspected to take place in about a month.
- 12.
Interestingly, running the same analysis for developed countries, Sharma (2017) finds no clear connection between stock market returns and the tenure of the political leader.
- 13.
Note that studies surveying this literature were listed in footnote 8.
- 14.
This index, used heavily by political scientists, is really the reciprocal of the well-known Herfindahl index of industrial concentration used by the economist, but applied to the vote shares of the parties rather than the market shares of the companies. Herfindahl index sums the squared shares and varies between zero and one. Its reciprocal on the other hand can vary between one and infinity and it is easier to interpret.
- 15.
Of course the cycle following each coup was not exactly the same because coups occurred at different terms of the single-party governments, sometimes coalitions began immediately after the coup without a direct military rule first, one time a single-party government got inserted inadvertently between the coup and the coalitions, and it took increasingly longer for the conservative block to reconsolidate after a coup.
- 16.
Because economic performance effects election results, one may think that an endogeneity bias would exist in the proposed regressions. However, vote share changes do not necessarily result in government changes, and not all government changes are due to elections. This can be seen from the fact that single-party governments lasted several terms and most of them came to an end not due to vote losses but due to coups. Also, many government changes occurred between elections.
- 17.
The reason for choosing the US growth rate fluctuations as a proxy for external conditions is not due to the USA being the most important trading partner of Turkey. It is not. However, American economy constitutes a large chunk of the world economy and has links to wide variety of countries including major trading partners of Turkey. Thus most shocks to the international economy effect other countries either directly or through shared trade partners with the USA. Indeed, for example trying instead British and Greek growth rates, and changes in the crude oil price proved to be unsatisfactory.
- 18.
For example, it would be desirable to couple the newly instituted presidential system with parliamentary single-member districts for which party candidates are chosen through primaries rather than by party leaders, and winning candidates determined through two-round elections just as is the case with the president. This will empower the legislature and help them check and balance the powers of the executive which are increased and concentrated. It will also render members of parliament more responsive to their constituents than to their parties and leaders. Reforms are needed to make the judiciary independent and impartial as well, so that it neither controls the government nor is controlled by the government and sees its main role as protecting the citizens against the state and not the other way around.
- 19.
The lesson to be drawn from this is not that term limits should be imposed but that a system needs to be established which will extend the motivation, creativity, and checks and balances of the first term to the latter terms.
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Acknowledgement
This work was sponsored by the Economic Research Forum (ERF) and has benefited from both its financial and intellectual support. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 24th Annual Conference of the ERF held in Cairo, Egypt, 8–10 July 2018 and International Summer School held at Şehir University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2–4 August 2018. I have benefited greatly from the comments I have received from the audiences at these meetings. Those provided by Hoda Youssef, the discussant at the ERF conference were especially valuable. I would also like to thank Nihan Aral for her valuable suggestion concerning using diagrams to present the main arguments and findings of the study, and for her help in preparing them.
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Akarca, A.T. (2019). Political Determinants of Government Structure and Economic Performance in Turkey Since 1950. In: Osińska, M. (eds) Economic Miracles in the European Economies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05606-3_3
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