Never Again! But How? State and the Military in Turkey after July 15

Executive Summary

This paper, a part of the Post-Coup Opportunities on Conflict Resolution and Democracy Project conducted by the Istanbul Policy Center, presents a model for ‘damage control’ of the state and security after the July 15 military uprising through analyzing three domains: the state bureaucracy, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), and civil-military relations (CMR). This paper hopes to provide both scholarly and practical advice to policymakers to limit the damaging effects of the July 15 coup attempt and its aftershocks. The July 15 uprising has revealed significant differences between the reality of the state (a state in which the bureaucratic cadres are vulnerable enough to be infiltrated) and its rhetoric (strong state discourse continuously narrated by state elites). The July 15 failed coup showcased the prolonged, calculated attempts of a religiously motivated/pseudo-utopist covert cult supervised/inspired by the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gülen to infiltrate the entirety of the state bureaucracy, primarily through the security and intelligence bureaucracy and judiciary. Thus, faced with the challenge of rebuilding the post-July 15 state and its institutions, how can Turkey prevent the occurrence of another July 15 hijacking the state apparatus? To answer this question, this paper sets forth recommendations for principles that would constitute as risk-diminishing factors in the recalibration of the state apparatus. In the domain of CMR, this paper emphasizes Turkey’s overarching dilemma in the post-July 15 setting: whether to monopolize or democratize CMR for more effective civilian control. That is, on the one hand, the monopolization of CMR, implying transfer of power from the military elites to the elected executive presidency, enables strict civilian control of the military by the elected civilian president; on the other hand, democratization of CMR enables diffusion of power among the elected president, elected government, and parliamentary and civil society actors such as academia, think thanks, and media so as to create a more effective oversight and monitoring system over the military. Indeed, the post-July 15 setting, shaped by concurrent military reforms and mass purges, led to two paradigm shifts. The first shift took place in the nature of Turkish CMR, implying a transition from the Huntingtonian paradigm focusing on the management of the gap between the military and civilian worlds to the Janowitzian paradigm aiming to diminish the gap between the military and society so as to anchor the military to society as a whole. The second shift is in the Turkish military’s institutional identity, emphasizing a transition from a monolithic identity to a polylithic one composed of many but separated micro-identities. To elucidate the impact of these paradigm shifts, this paper analyzes the possible implications of such a hasty and large-scale civilianization process on the nature of Turkish CMR. It then explores the extent to which the military’s institutional identity has evolved from a monolithic whole into a polylithic formation involving many but separated micro-identities in terms of the military elites’ stance towards change and their worldviews. This transition from monolithic to polylithic is driven by the weakening of the agency of the Chief of General Staff and seems to be the prime risk factor within the military and, thus, is in need of delicate management. In total, this paper identifies the following risk factors faced in the post-July 15 setting within state institutions, the military, and Turkish CMR: 

• The absence of constructive scholarly debate about the pros and cons of narrowing CMR to the level of ‘president-military relations’ due to the ultra-securitized political context in Turkey; • Low levels of civilian intellectual capital on security issues and military transformation; • The military’s becoming the primary domain of the popular and political debates between conservatives and seculars in a polarized socio-political context; 

• The friction between the civilian elites and the military elites over the causes, scale, and tempo of military reforms after July 15 shaping the nature of CMR; 

• The friction between the pro-status quo camp and the reformists within the military; 

• The friction among those military elites with differentiating worldviews regarding the military’s new institutional identity, the role of Islam within the state and society, pro/anti-U.S. sentiment, pro/anti-NATO stance, and being a part of the Western security architecture or going for a ‘non-aligned’ position in the construction of this new identity. These six risk factors should be meticulously managed in the post-July 15 setting.