CIAO DATE: 02/2010
Volume: 11, Issue: 4
October - December 2009
Guest Editor's Note (PDF)
Ahmet T. Kuru
The Emergence of the 'Government's Perspective on the Kurdish Issue
Ümit Cizre
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' (PDF)
Cengiz Çandar
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
Cemalettin Haşimi
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
Ahmet T. Kuru
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 prodemocratic 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?
Leonardo A. Villalón
While the question of the relationship between Islam and democracy continues to attract significant attention from scholars and policymakers, 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
Michael Buehler
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
A. Kadir Yıldırım
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
Hasan Kösebalaban
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
Serdar Kaya
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 specialinterest) 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
Mohamed Nimer
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?
Nathan C. Funk
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 Elections and Performance
Berdal Aral
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.
Vera Costantini and Markus Koller (eds.), Living in the Ottoman Ecumenical Community: Essays in Honour of Suraiya Faroqhi
Christine Philliou
Leiden: EJ Brill, 2008, 504 pp., ISBN 978 90 04 16575 5.
Christine Philliou
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 169
M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire
Renée Worringer
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008, 241 pp., ISBN 13: 9780691134529.
Renée Worringer, p. 171
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p.171
Mustafa Aksakal, The Ottoman Road to War in 1914: The Ottoman Empire and the First World War
Virginia H. Aksan
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008, Cambridge Military Histories, xv+216 pp., ISBN 978-0-521-88060-2.
Virginia H. Aksan, p. 173
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 173
Christoph Schuhmann (eds.), Liberal Thought in the Eastern Mediterranean: Late 19th Century until the 1960s
Jørgen S. Nielsen
Leiden: Brill, 2008, 335 pp., ISBN 978 9004 16548 9.
Jørgen S. Nielsen, p. 175
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 175
Sadık Ünay, Neo-liberal Globalization and Institutional Reform: The Political Economy of Development Planning in Turkey
Ziya Öniş
New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2006, 221 pp., ISBN. 978-1600210709.
Ziya Öniş, p. 177
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 177
Austin Dacey, The Secular Conscience: Why Belief Belongs in Public Life
Jodok Troy
New York: Prometheus Books, 2008, 269 pp., ISBN 9781591026044.
Jodok Troy, p. 179
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 179
Peter Mandaville, Global Political Islam
Leif Stenberg
London and New York: Routledge, 2007, pp. 388, 978-0415326070.
Leif Stenberg, p. 181
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 181
Yakub Halabi, US Foreign Policy in the Middle East: From Crises to Change
Janice J. Terry
Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2009, 159 pp., ISBN 9780754675242.
Janice J. Terry, p. 182
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 182
Othon Anastasakis, Kalypso Nicolaidis and Kerem Öktem (eds.), In The Long Shadow of Europe: Greeks and Turks in the Era of Postnationalism
Yaprak Gürsoy
Leiden: Brill Press, 2009, 388 pp., Hardback ISBN 978 90 04 17112 1.
Yaprak Gürsoy, p. 185
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 185
Carol M. Swain (ed.), Debating Immigration
Deniz Sert
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 316 pp., ISBN 9780521875608 (hb), ISBN 9780521698665 (pb).
Deniz Sert, p. 187
Insight Turkey, Vol. 11, No.4, 2009, p. 187