Abstract
The comparative studies have shown that the skills, strategies, and choices of political leaders are critically important in explaining democratic transitions and consolidations as well as breakdowns.1 Turkey is one of the countries where political leaders have played a paramount influence in shaping the societal, political, and economic evolution of a country in its path to democracy. As the founding father of the Republic and the first political party—Republican People’s Party (CHP—Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi), Mustafa Kemal Atatürk initiated a cultural revolution, aimed at modernizing Turkey through a radical program of secularization and social change in the 1920s and the 1930s. His successor, İsmet İnönü, played the most important role in personally shaping the transition from an authoritarian one-party regime to multiparty politics and thus to electoral competition in the second half of the 1940s. The personalities of these two prominent leaders in Turkish political history, thus, have been the focus of many systematic analyses.2
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Examples are Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe Schmitter, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1986);
John Higley and Richard Gunther, Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
Juan Linz, The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Crisis, Breakdown, and Reequilibrium (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 1978).
For example, Lord Kinross, Atatürk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1965);
Andrew Mango, Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey (New York: Overlook, 2000);
Al Macfie, Atatürk (Longman: London, 1994);
Metin Heper, İsmet İnönü: The Making of a Turkish Statesman (Leiden: Brill Publications, 1998).
Metin Heper and Sabri Sayarı, eds., Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2002);
Barry Rubin and Metin Heper, eds. Political Parties in Turkey (London: Cass, 2002);
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Sabri Sayarı, “Introduction” in Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, eds. Metin Heper et al. (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 3.
Sabri Sayarı, “Aspects of Party Organization in Turkey,” The Middle East Journal 30 (1976): 187–199;
İlter Turan, “Political Parties and the Party System in Post-1983 Turkey,” in State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, eds. Metin Heper et al. (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1988), 65;
Ergun Özbudun, “Parties and the Party System,” in Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation, ed. Ergun Özbudun (Boulder, London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), 83;
Ergun Özbudun, “The Institutional Decline of Parties in Turkey,” in Political Parties and Democracy, eds. Larry Diamond Baltimore (London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 246.
Barry Rubin, “Introduction—Turkey’s Political Parties: A Remarkably Important Issue,” in Political Parties in Turkey, eds. Barry Rubin et al. (London: Cass, 2002), 3.
İlter Turan, “Old Soldiers Never Die: The Republican People’s Party of Turkey.” South European Society and Politics 11 (2006): 570–571.
Frank Tachau, “Bülent Ecevit: From Idealist to Pragmatist,” in Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, ed. Metin Heper et al. (Lexington Books, 2002), 114.
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Hikmet Bila, CHP 1919–1999 (İstanbul: Doğan Kitapçılık, 1999), 247; Bektaş, Demokratikleşme Sürecinde Liderler Oligarşisi, 83.
Alev Çınar and Ergun Özbudun, “Mesut Yılmaz: From Özal’s Shadow to Mediator,” in Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, eds. Metin Heper et al. (Lexington Books, 2002), 183.
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Nicole F. Watts, “Allies and Enemies: Pro-Kurdish Parties in Turkish Politics, 1990–1994,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999): 631–656;
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Even though both Atatürk and Inönü as the most important political leaders in the early Republican era acted in an authoritarian manner, they did so only to protect the national unity and territorial integrity of the country. The authoritarianism did not reflect an arbitrary fashion, promoting personal interests. See Metin Heper, “İsmet İönü: A Rationalistic Democrat,” in Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, eds. Metin Heper et al. (Lexington Books, 2002), 31 and Mango, Atatürk, 19.
Metin Toker, İsmet Paşayla 10 Yıl 1954–1964 (İstanbul: Akis Yayınları, 1969), 117.
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Kemal H. Karpat, “The Republican People’s Party 1923–1945,” in Political Parties and Democracy in Turkey, eds. Metin Heper et al. (London: Tauris, 1991), 42–64.
Kemal H. Karpat, “Society, Economics and Politics in Contemporary Turkey,” World Politics 17 (1964): 51–54;
Frederick W. Frey, The Turkish Political Elite (Cambridge: The M.I.T. Press), 1965.
Ayşe Güneş Ayata, “Class and Clientelism in the Republican People’s Party,” in Turkish State, Turkish Society, eds. Nükhet Sirman et al. (London: Routledge, 1990), 160.
Cem Eroğul, Demokrat Parti (Tarihi ve İdeolojisi) (Ankara: SBF Yayınları, 1970);
Kemal H. Karpat, Turkey’s Politics. The Transition to a Multi-Party System (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959), 419.
Sabri Sayarı, “Adnan Menderes: Between Democratic and Authoritarian Populism,” in Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, eds. Metin Heper et al. (Lanham MD: Lexington Books, 2002), 76.
W.B. Sherwood, “The Rise of the Justice Party in Turkey,” World Politics 20 (1967): 57.
Sencer Ayata, “Patronage, Party and State: the Politicization of Islam in Turkey,” Middle East Journal 50 (1996): 44.
According to Heper, the state elite perceived democracy as an end for Turkey rather than a means. See Metin Heper ed., The State and Public Bureaucracies: A Comparative Perspective (New York: Greenwood Press), 1987. For Ismet Inönü, the second leader of the CHP, it was necessary that the nation learnt how to govern themselves before he died. Therefore, when the CHP was first defeated against the DP in 1950 national elections, he stated that ‘My defeat is my greatest victory.’ See Heper, İsmet İnönü.
Ömer F. Gençkaya, “The Turkish Constitutional Court and Dissolution of Political Parties: Comparative Perspectives,” in Suna Kili’ye Armağan: Cumhuriyet’e Adanan Bir Yasam (Istanbul: Bogaziçi University Publications, 1998), 165–84.
Ali Çarkoğlu, et al. Siyasi Partilerde Reform, (İstanbul: TESEV Yayınları, 2000).
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See Burak E. Arıkan, “The Programme of the Nationalist Action Party: An Iron Hand in a Velvet Glove?” Middle Eastern Studies 34 (1998): 120–134;
Ümit Arklan, “Siyasal Liderlikte Karizma Olgusu: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Örneğinde Teorik ve Uygulamalı Bir Çalişma.” Selçuk Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü Dergisi 16 (2006): 45–65;
Metin Heper and Şule Toktaş, “Islam, Democracy, and Modernity in Contemporary Turkey: The Case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,” Muslim World 93 (2003): 159.
Harald Schüler, Türkiye’de Sosyal Demokrasi: Particilik, Hemşehrilik, Alevilik, trans. Yılmaz Tonbul (İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları, 1998), 41–48.
Feride Acar, “Turgut Özal: Pious Agent of Liberal Transformation.” In Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, eds Metin Heper et al. (Lexington Books, 2002), 163–180.
Ayşe Güneş Ayata, “The Republican People’s Party,” Turkish Studies 3 (2002): 117.
Yeşim Arat, “Süleyman Demirel: National Will and Beyond,” in Political Leaders and Democracy in Turkey, eds. Metin Heper et al. (Lexington Books, 2002), 87–106.
Sencer Ayata and Ayşe Güneş Ayata, “The Center-Left Parties in Turkey,” Turkish Studies 8 (2007): 227;
Pelin Ayan, “Authoritarian Party Structures in Turkey: A Comparison of the Republican People’s Party and the Justice and Development Party,” Turkish Studies 11 (2010): 197–215.
The party leadership elections in the 2008 national party convention showed in fact the repressive rule of the party leader; the delegates at the party convention were not elected but rather appointed by the party leadership. See Altan Öymen, “Gizli Oylamanın Temelindeki “Apaçık Oylama”’ Radikal, 29 April 2008, accessed April 21 2009, http://www.radikal.com.tr/haber.php?haberno=254294.
Tanıl Bora, “Nationalist Discourses in Turkey,” South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003): 445.
Metin Heper and Başak İnce, “Devlet Bahçeli and ‘Far Right’ Politics in Turkey, 1999–2002,” Middle Eastern Studies 42 (2006): 873.
The chapters in the edited volume by Ümit Cizre ed. Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge, 2008) are the most adequate examples for this trend.
See İhsan D. Dağı, “The Justice and Development Party: Identity, Politics, and Human Rights Discourse in the Search for Security and Legitimacy,” in The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti, ed. M. Hakan Yavuz (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2006), 90;
Ahmet İnsel, “AKP and Normalizing Democracy in Turkey,” South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003): 293–308;
Metin Heper, “The Justice and Development Party Government and the Military in Turkey,” Turkish Studies 6 (2005): 215–231.
Simten Coşar and Aylin Özman. “Centre-right Politics in Turkey After the November 2002 General Election: Neoliberalism with a Muslim Face,” Contemporary Politics 10 (2004): 68.
Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, “Attitudinal Orientation to Party Organizations in Turkey in the 2000s,” Turkish Studies 9 (2008): 308.
Ji-Hyang Jang, “Taming Political Islamists by Islamic Capital: The Passions and Interests in Turkish Islamic Society,” (PhD diss., University of Austin at Texas, 2005), 117.
Nicole F. Watts, “Activists in Office: Pro-Kurdish Contentions Politics in Turkey,” Ethnopolitics 5 (2006): 131.
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© 2011 Pelin Ayan Musil
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Musil, P.A. (2011). Intraparty Authoritarianism in Turkey. In: Authoritarian Party Structures and Democratic Political Setting in Turkey. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137015853_3
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