Review: ‘The New Turkey and its Discontents’

In the heady days of 2012, when Egypt’s revolution had yet to turn sour, a member of the former royal family surprised me by saying that a Muslim Brotherhood government would be a good thing. “Look at Turkey,” he said, describing how the moderately Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) had grown the economy and improved living standards without destroying secular culture. This, he said, was the new model for the region.

His hopes for Egypt’s Islamists were misplaced. But the AKP seemed promising. It took office in 2002 and ushered in relative stability. The secularist military, with a history of interfering in politics, was pushed back to its barracks. And there were overtures towards the Kurds, at war with the Turkish state for decades.

That optimism has been shattered. The new year’s eve shooting at the Reina nightclub in Istanbul capped a year of attacks by Isis jihadis and Kurdish militants. An attempted coup last summer saw rogue elements of the military bomb parliament and briefly take control of some government offices.

Since then, thousands have been purged from state institutions. Crackdowns on press freedom and heavy-handed policing of protests have polarised the population. Tourism has slumped and the currency, the lira, has plummeted.

Amid the turmoil, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president, is consolidating power. Meanwhile, Europe and the US are alarmed by their fellow Nato member’s criticism of the west and growing ties to Russia.

Turbulent politics are not new to Turkey. As Simon Waldman and Emre Caliskan remind us in The New Turkey and its Discontents, the Turkish republic, founded on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has experienced coups, conspiracies, a long Kurdish counterinsurgency and a succession of leaders who have tried to mould the country in their image.

The rise of the AKP, which reflected the growing clout of a pious provincial bourgeoisie and the decline of the military’s power, marked the beginning of a promising phase for Turkish democracy. However, as Waldman and Caliskan show with their analysis of Turkey’s “disappointing reality”, that promise has not been realised. From a lack of press freedom and compromised judiciary to growing authoritarianism “the tragedy of Turkish politics today is that despite the removal of the military from the political scene, Turkey’s democracy remains deficient in many spheres”.

What went wrong? Many blame Turkey’s history of military interventions and conspiracies involving shadowy agencies and groups referred to as the “deep state”. The AKP has had to defend itself from attempts by the military to shut it down. Mr Erdogan and his supporters also point to last July’s attempted coup, which they say was masterminded by followers of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen.

Waldman and Caliskan say the concept of the “deep state” has been used by governments, including the AKP, to avoid taking responsibility for weak political institutions: “The very idea that elements within the state can act with impunity and engage in illegal activities such as extrajudicial killings is indicative of a lack of transparency and rule of law.” They point out that if Gulenists were a threat to the state ahead of July’s coup, the president and his party should be held accountable for allowing them to infiltrate institutions on their watch. Instead, thousands have been detained or removed from posts in what critics say is a crackdown on all opposition under the guise of getting rid of plotters.

Waldman and Caliskan see hope for Turkish democracy in the “vibrant civil society and intelligent, well educated population”, and point out that overwhelming opposition to July’s coup is a sign of social solidarity.

Since the book was published last month, however, the fragility of the political system has become more apparent. Mr Erdogan announced constitutional reform that will widen the power of the presidency, and parliament has extended the state of emergency in force since the coup. Turkey’s democracy is looking increasingly shaky.

The writer is an FT curation editor and former Middle East and Africa news editor

The New Turkey and Its Discontents, by Simon Waldman and Emre Caliskan, Hurst £14.99