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THE REPRODUCTION OF AUTHORITARIAN POLITICS IN THE AKP ERA
Open Democracy
Feb 6 2015
Umit Kurt and Oguz Dilek 6 February 2015
Turkey has passed the blurred threshold that demarcates democratic
politics from an authoritarian system. The Schmittian language that the
AKP leadership has assumed moves Turkey beyond the militant-Baathist
mode of authoritarian rule.
Authoritarianism is an illusionist practise insofaras it presents an
incomplete picture of reality while leaving the audience with the
perception that they are seeing all of it. It becomes possible to
conceal the tricky part of the show from the audience who is fully
convinced that the whole show is laid bare before their eyes. As a
result, they no longer push the boundaries.
Authoritarianism emerges out of that ambiguous domain which is located
firmly in between democratic pluralism and totalitarian monism.
Differing from totalitarian systems by a handsome margin, the distance
from democratic forms of politics, as opposed to conventional belief,
is rather more intricate.
An authoritarian political frame may perfectly satisfy the minimum and
common denominators of democracy. Totalitarian regimes, in comparison,
easily wither away for there is no legal framework to make a case
for the idea of representation.
Political sovereignty in most of the exemplars of authoritarian models
rests upon the backing of (some of) the citizens. 'Statist' ideologies
are almost completely absent from the scene, however. Authoritarian
orders are seldom to be found embroiled within a cycle of violence. It
is mostly the case that authoritarian leaders are 'benevolent tutors'
whose polity combines elements of both persuasion and coercion.
All the democratic institutions, on the other hand, such as political
parties, parliament or the judicial body convey a mere nominal value.
These, and other similar institutions, actually provide little clue
about the way political power is obtained or exercised within this
type of politics.
This is so because the principal mechanisms for distributing political
power are structured into informal social processes. The latent power
structures are what determine social discourse within all the known
breeds of authoritarian settings. Thanks to this esoteric character
of the system, authoritarian ways of ruling can successfully hide
themselves in plain sight, precisely inasmuch as that the idea of
democracy remains a potentiality, but not an actuality.
Caglay Keyder, in his monumental piece, State and Classes in Turkey,
asks a deadly question: 'Why didn't a liberal ideology arise in
Turkey?' To this his response is equally deadly: a social class
(a.k.a. a bourgeoisie) that has fundamental interests in establishing
solid boundaries between power and those who hold that power never
existed in Turkey.
The AKP's loud advocacy for civic conservatism, Ottoman cosmopolitanism
and/or Islamic economic puritanism seemed to raise the flag of
liberties--at least for a brief period of time. Now many concur that
such a marriage between the AKP and a democratic ideal that also
entails liberal principles has come to an end.
Especially among left-liberal intellectuals, the AKP invoked the
sense that the Party would radically transform the fundamentals of the
ancién regime without disowning Turkey's age-old political agenda:
catching up with the 'west.'
It was therefore promoted by those intellectuals as a progressive
political current that, first, would discontinue with their Islamically
oriented predecessors and, second, was intent on skirmishing with 'the
establishment' for the sake of expanding the domain of liberties. All
the ideological instruments and resources in the liberal arsenal were
weaponized at the birth of the party to prove that the AKP was the
spearhead of new democratic advances - but to no avail.
The AKP's posture of confomrity and appeasement towards the
nationalist/state-centred bloc has been quick to reveal itself,
again and again, in the following instances--the Å~^emdinli incident,
headscarf and constitutional debates, and the e-coup of 27 April
2007. In each and every one of these incidents, their ears were attuned
to any possibility of reconciling with what they were supposed to
stamp out in the first place: a tutelary regime.
One of the vanguards of the party recently swore off any connection
between the AKP and the Ergenekon Trials by referring to the latter
as an 'ambush' and 'plot.' This is only one example from an exhaustive
list of remarks all of which can be taken as evidence of the following
point. That it has never been an absolute must for the AKP to put an
end to what was oppressing them previously: that is, the classical
foundations of the republic based around a strict sense of secularism,
an exclusionary state and an official ideology of nationalism.
The AKP, until 2013, oppressed the defenders of this order, thus
becoming the oppressor of their oppressors. And, when it became
possible and convenient, joined in the ranks of those guardians--i.e.
dominant classes with powerful economic/political stakes to act in
defence of 'old' Turkey.
A liberal-leftist intelligentsia is said to be disillusioned with
the recent turn of events in Turkish politics, for it increasingly
resembles present-day Russia under Putin's leadership. Both of these
leaders frame their nation's self in contrast to Europe, devise
ways to legitimize repressive measures and, among many other things,
demonstrate their one-man rule as the sole way for securing national
sovereignty.
Even though there is little recourse to the crudest violence of
authoritarian systems in Turkey, they do unsparingly employ the
language required for legitimizing violence. One side of this rhetoric
breeds a large inventory of conspiracy theories. Any explanation that
sounds plausible is readily accepted, without actually testing its
accuracy, to such an extent that conspiracy theories completely take
over critical thinking in public debates.
Another side of this rhetoric is the typically authoritarian enemy
image: a continual fabrication of demonic others--both inside and
outside the country. It is a constant in any authoritarian order to
construct exclusive borderlines to first decide on who 'we' are and
then deny the political opposition a legitimate place in this imagined
domain of the national self, which never fully includes the existing
cultural/social diversities. Projected 'others' and accompanying
conspiracies are essential to authoritarian politics.
This orientation (re-)entered on the Turkish political stage suddenly
during the Gezi Park protests. It continued with the moral castigation
of extra-marital lifestyles and 'boys-girls mixed houses.' And,
it was updated by reframing Gulenists as Trojan horses serving a
massive global conspiracy by bringing together all sorts of diverse
forces such as the Papacy, the CIA, Jewish capital, and even the
Templars/Illuminati.
Another concept that marks the benchmark of authoritarian politics is
what Foucault called 'discipline'. Citizens are subject to perpetual
monitoring by the state's intelligence services.
Evolutionary biology suggests that individuals who perceive themselves
to be targets of a 'big brother', upon detecting it, will try to erase
all the differences that separate them from socially/politically
acceptable norms. Taking self-censure as a survival strategy, they
cast aside all faculties for critical thinking and social agency and
awareness. In the AKP era, the state's profiling and keeping track
of individuals on the basiss of whether they conform to the AKP's
rule seems now to have made a glorious return.
A third feature is the way ruling parties/governments act out some
sort of superintendent role to enable wealth transfer to those who
are favoured. This suggests that the tie, which bonds the government
with its domestic constituency, is one of a clientelist relationship.
Into this network providing selective access to economic means and/or
political clout, those who assume an opposing posture have limited
permission to enter. When the allocation of state contracts is under
the purview of non-market forces, state elites are able to forge an
extensive alignment matrix. Economic players who would otherwise be
rivals come to meet under the common umbrella of, and become attached
to, the regime as clients.
Elites can thereby achieve two ends at one time: limiting the
democratic opposition while enlarging that of your allies. In Turkey's
case, the legal basis of state contracts has seen more than 160 changes
within the last decade. This says that, policy-makers don't manage
resource distribution according to a preceding law, but according
to that of a self-serving mentality mirroring the ever-shifting
composition of political alignment at any given time.
Finally, authoritarian regimes in different magnitudes create a
leadership cult. By this means it becomes possible to squeeze the
notion of voter support--based on 'conditionality' and 'changeability',
away from the essence of democratic legitimacy. The profile of a
citizen who chooses among various political agendas according to
his/her best interest disappears, to be replaced by a new one who is
fiercely loyal to a leadership fetish.
This unquestioned culture of submission breeds the delusion of a
leader that possesses some sort of superhuman qualities; that he is
eschatologically chosen; or that he is all that stands in between
his people and those demonic forces both inside and outside the nation.
This conserves the power base of the leader amidst even periodical
economic or political disruptions. The image of the 'grand master',
specifically constructed for Erdogan, must be one of the most
convincing exemples to hand.
The present state of affairs within the Turkish political arena is
a conundrum that pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable within
a healthy operating democratic order.
It seems that the country has already passed that threshold that
demarcates democratic politics from an authoritarian system. The
Schmittian language that the AKP leadership has assumed, is hurling
Turkey from a militant-Baathist mode of authoritarian rule to a wholly
different one--one that takes on a rather civilian-Baathist character.
This has already changed everything in Turkey.
---- About the authors
Umit Kurt is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of history at Clark
University and a lecturer at Sabanci University. His research focuses
on Aintab Armenians and the confiscation and appropriation of Armenian
properties during 1915-1921.
Oguz Dilek has a Ph.D. from Keele University and is now an Associate
Professor of International Relations at Zirve University.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/umit-kurt-oguz-dilek/reproduction-of-authoritarian-politics-in-akp-era
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Open Democracy
Feb 6 2015
Umit Kurt and Oguz Dilek 6 February 2015
Turkey has passed the blurred threshold that demarcates democratic
politics from an authoritarian system. The Schmittian language that the
AKP leadership has assumed moves Turkey beyond the militant-Baathist
mode of authoritarian rule.
Authoritarianism is an illusionist practise insofaras it presents an
incomplete picture of reality while leaving the audience with the
perception that they are seeing all of it. It becomes possible to
conceal the tricky part of the show from the audience who is fully
convinced that the whole show is laid bare before their eyes. As a
result, they no longer push the boundaries.
Authoritarianism emerges out of that ambiguous domain which is located
firmly in between democratic pluralism and totalitarian monism.
Differing from totalitarian systems by a handsome margin, the distance
from democratic forms of politics, as opposed to conventional belief,
is rather more intricate.
An authoritarian political frame may perfectly satisfy the minimum and
common denominators of democracy. Totalitarian regimes, in comparison,
easily wither away for there is no legal framework to make a case
for the idea of representation.
Political sovereignty in most of the exemplars of authoritarian models
rests upon the backing of (some of) the citizens. 'Statist' ideologies
are almost completely absent from the scene, however. Authoritarian
orders are seldom to be found embroiled within a cycle of violence. It
is mostly the case that authoritarian leaders are 'benevolent tutors'
whose polity combines elements of both persuasion and coercion.
All the democratic institutions, on the other hand, such as political
parties, parliament or the judicial body convey a mere nominal value.
These, and other similar institutions, actually provide little clue
about the way political power is obtained or exercised within this
type of politics.
This is so because the principal mechanisms for distributing political
power are structured into informal social processes. The latent power
structures are what determine social discourse within all the known
breeds of authoritarian settings. Thanks to this esoteric character
of the system, authoritarian ways of ruling can successfully hide
themselves in plain sight, precisely inasmuch as that the idea of
democracy remains a potentiality, but not an actuality.
Caglay Keyder, in his monumental piece, State and Classes in Turkey,
asks a deadly question: 'Why didn't a liberal ideology arise in
Turkey?' To this his response is equally deadly: a social class
(a.k.a. a bourgeoisie) that has fundamental interests in establishing
solid boundaries between power and those who hold that power never
existed in Turkey.
The AKP's loud advocacy for civic conservatism, Ottoman cosmopolitanism
and/or Islamic economic puritanism seemed to raise the flag of
liberties--at least for a brief period of time. Now many concur that
such a marriage between the AKP and a democratic ideal that also
entails liberal principles has come to an end.
Especially among left-liberal intellectuals, the AKP invoked the
sense that the Party would radically transform the fundamentals of the
ancién regime without disowning Turkey's age-old political agenda:
catching up with the 'west.'
It was therefore promoted by those intellectuals as a progressive
political current that, first, would discontinue with their Islamically
oriented predecessors and, second, was intent on skirmishing with 'the
establishment' for the sake of expanding the domain of liberties. All
the ideological instruments and resources in the liberal arsenal were
weaponized at the birth of the party to prove that the AKP was the
spearhead of new democratic advances - but to no avail.
The AKP's posture of confomrity and appeasement towards the
nationalist/state-centred bloc has been quick to reveal itself,
again and again, in the following instances--the Å~^emdinli incident,
headscarf and constitutional debates, and the e-coup of 27 April
2007. In each and every one of these incidents, their ears were attuned
to any possibility of reconciling with what they were supposed to
stamp out in the first place: a tutelary regime.
One of the vanguards of the party recently swore off any connection
between the AKP and the Ergenekon Trials by referring to the latter
as an 'ambush' and 'plot.' This is only one example from an exhaustive
list of remarks all of which can be taken as evidence of the following
point. That it has never been an absolute must for the AKP to put an
end to what was oppressing them previously: that is, the classical
foundations of the republic based around a strict sense of secularism,
an exclusionary state and an official ideology of nationalism.
The AKP, until 2013, oppressed the defenders of this order, thus
becoming the oppressor of their oppressors. And, when it became
possible and convenient, joined in the ranks of those guardians--i.e.
dominant classes with powerful economic/political stakes to act in
defence of 'old' Turkey.
A liberal-leftist intelligentsia is said to be disillusioned with
the recent turn of events in Turkish politics, for it increasingly
resembles present-day Russia under Putin's leadership. Both of these
leaders frame their nation's self in contrast to Europe, devise
ways to legitimize repressive measures and, among many other things,
demonstrate their one-man rule as the sole way for securing national
sovereignty.
Even though there is little recourse to the crudest violence of
authoritarian systems in Turkey, they do unsparingly employ the
language required for legitimizing violence. One side of this rhetoric
breeds a large inventory of conspiracy theories. Any explanation that
sounds plausible is readily accepted, without actually testing its
accuracy, to such an extent that conspiracy theories completely take
over critical thinking in public debates.
Another side of this rhetoric is the typically authoritarian enemy
image: a continual fabrication of demonic others--both inside and
outside the country. It is a constant in any authoritarian order to
construct exclusive borderlines to first decide on who 'we' are and
then deny the political opposition a legitimate place in this imagined
domain of the national self, which never fully includes the existing
cultural/social diversities. Projected 'others' and accompanying
conspiracies are essential to authoritarian politics.
This orientation (re-)entered on the Turkish political stage suddenly
during the Gezi Park protests. It continued with the moral castigation
of extra-marital lifestyles and 'boys-girls mixed houses.' And,
it was updated by reframing Gulenists as Trojan horses serving a
massive global conspiracy by bringing together all sorts of diverse
forces such as the Papacy, the CIA, Jewish capital, and even the
Templars/Illuminati.
Another concept that marks the benchmark of authoritarian politics is
what Foucault called 'discipline'. Citizens are subject to perpetual
monitoring by the state's intelligence services.
Evolutionary biology suggests that individuals who perceive themselves
to be targets of a 'big brother', upon detecting it, will try to erase
all the differences that separate them from socially/politically
acceptable norms. Taking self-censure as a survival strategy, they
cast aside all faculties for critical thinking and social agency and
awareness. In the AKP era, the state's profiling and keeping track
of individuals on the basiss of whether they conform to the AKP's
rule seems now to have made a glorious return.
A third feature is the way ruling parties/governments act out some
sort of superintendent role to enable wealth transfer to those who
are favoured. This suggests that the tie, which bonds the government
with its domestic constituency, is one of a clientelist relationship.
Into this network providing selective access to economic means and/or
political clout, those who assume an opposing posture have limited
permission to enter. When the allocation of state contracts is under
the purview of non-market forces, state elites are able to forge an
extensive alignment matrix. Economic players who would otherwise be
rivals come to meet under the common umbrella of, and become attached
to, the regime as clients.
Elites can thereby achieve two ends at one time: limiting the
democratic opposition while enlarging that of your allies. In Turkey's
case, the legal basis of state contracts has seen more than 160 changes
within the last decade. This says that, policy-makers don't manage
resource distribution according to a preceding law, but according
to that of a self-serving mentality mirroring the ever-shifting
composition of political alignment at any given time.
Finally, authoritarian regimes in different magnitudes create a
leadership cult. By this means it becomes possible to squeeze the
notion of voter support--based on 'conditionality' and 'changeability',
away from the essence of democratic legitimacy. The profile of a
citizen who chooses among various political agendas according to
his/her best interest disappears, to be replaced by a new one who is
fiercely loyal to a leadership fetish.
This unquestioned culture of submission breeds the delusion of a
leader that possesses some sort of superhuman qualities; that he is
eschatologically chosen; or that he is all that stands in between
his people and those demonic forces both inside and outside the nation.
This conserves the power base of the leader amidst even periodical
economic or political disruptions. The image of the 'grand master',
specifically constructed for Erdogan, must be one of the most
convincing exemples to hand.
The present state of affairs within the Turkish political arena is
a conundrum that pushes the boundaries of what is acceptable within
a healthy operating democratic order.
It seems that the country has already passed that threshold that
demarcates democratic politics from an authoritarian system. The
Schmittian language that the AKP leadership has assumed, is hurling
Turkey from a militant-Baathist mode of authoritarian rule to a wholly
different one--one that takes on a rather civilian-Baathist character.
This has already changed everything in Turkey.
---- About the authors
Umit Kurt is a Ph.D. candidate in the department of history at Clark
University and a lecturer at Sabanci University. His research focuses
on Aintab Armenians and the confiscation and appropriation of Armenian
properties during 1915-1921.
Oguz Dilek has a Ph.D. from Keele University and is now an Associate
Professor of International Relations at Zirve University.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/umit-kurt-oguz-dilek/reproduction-of-authoritarian-politics-in-akp-era
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress