The failed military coup attempt in Türkiye (Turkey) on July 15, 2016, reopened the discussion of the infamous Political Science concept, “coup d'état” (French), "putsch" (German), "military coup", or simply “coup”. Most recently, the civil-military relations in Türkiye became a political controversy once again with the expulsion of 5 lieutenants from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) due to their undisciplined activity following the official graduation ceremony of the Military Academy on August 30, 2024. While it is very understandable for a democratically elected government to be very sensitive about military coups and interventions in a country like Türkiye that has a terrible record on that matter, the general public opinion tends to support the view that expulsion is a very harsh punishment because young lieutenants did not endorse military intervention or a specific political cause, but rather took an oath that was already in practice until recently in Military Academy.
Considering that Türkiye is a country that has experienced four successfully implemented coups and military intervention attempts (May 27, 1960 coup, March 12, 1971 military memorandum, September 12, 1980 coup, and February 28, 1997 military intervention) and countless unsuccessful coup attempts (Talat Aydemir case in 1962 and 1963, April 27, 2007 e-memorandum etc.), it would be useful to examine civil-military relations in Türkiye closely and address the different views on the concept of military coups. In this piece, I will discuss the concept of "military coup" and later analyze the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) within this context.
Military Coups: A thing of the past or an indispensable part of power politics?
First of all, it would be useful to look at how common military coups were during the Cold War, when the ideological rivalry between the United States (U.S.) and the Soviet Union (USSR) was at its peak and power politics based on geopolitical interests was the main determinant of the political game. It was not a coincidence that throughout the Cold War, military coups were a natural element of politics, especially in underdeveloped or developing countries. Following the end of the Cold War, the concept of military coup became less relevant and transformed into a characteristic of unstable regimes and/or failed-states.
According to data compiled by Statista.com, there were 20 failed and 6 successful coups in the world in the years between January 2011 and July 2016. The successful coups are the February 11, 2011 coup in Egypt, the March 22, 2012 coup in Mali, the April 12, 2012 coup in Guinea-Bissau, the July 3, 2013 coup in Egypt (Sisi coup), the May 22, 2014 coup in Thailand, and the September 21, 2014 coup in Yemen. A closer look at these coups reveals that successful coups have largely taken place in African countries and Thailand. In fact, the 20 failed coups were also largely in African countries. Thus, while the phenomenon of military coups is still partially influential in world politics, this influence is mostly experienced in underdeveloped or developing countries.
In this sense, the attempt to stage a military coup in a country like Türkiye, which has recently become a regional powerhouse and still keeps its position as a candidate for membership in the European Union (EU) is an extremely regrettable event and an incredibly bad reference in terms of the expression of the democratic level of this country. However, apart from this general view, there is also the undeniable and remarkable fact that military coups receive considerable popular support, especially in countries like Türkiye and Egypt, where the military has historically been very critical and progressive in politics for some groups/segments and has often played a protective role for religious minorities (Christians, Jews, etc.) and secularists. Egypt went through this process in July 2013, while Türkiye had a similar attempt in July 2016. The failure of the coup, as a result of the people's defence of democracy, has probably saved Türkiye from a major setback, but subsequent political developments showed that implementing democracy is not easy in this geography. Looking at the general picture, recently, 37 per cent of the military coups in the world to date have taken place in Africa, 32 per cent in Latin America, 13 per cent in the Middle East, and 16 per cent in Asia, while in Europe this rate has remained at 2.6 per cent (Meyersson, 2013: 11). Therefore, it can be said that military coups are more of a third-world phenomenon and sign of underdevelopment in terms of democratization and civil-military relations.
So, in the discipline of Political Science, where democracy has become almost a standard in most of the developed countries, what is the current view of military coups? The classical approach to democracy, which dominates the discipline, sees military coups as an irregularity - a foul, in sports parlance - that prevents the manifestation of popular will and free political competition and places the fight against coups among the most fundamental democratic values. Renowned Comparative Politics scholars such as Robert Dahl, Samuel Huntington, Juan Linz, and Alfred Stepan can be considered as pioneers of this approach. Although this view is nowadays predominant, especially in the Western world, there are other views in the literature.
These views emphasize the thesis that especially in cases where anti-democratic regimes are entrenched and democratic elections cannot be held, there is no other way out for the opposition, and that some coups can create more liberal and liberal regimes (such as dictablanda) as a result. The latest example is American Professor Daniel Pipes, who supported the Turkish military coup attempt on July 15, 2016. In his article “Why I Rooted for the Turkish Coup Attempt”, Pipes focused on two main theses: that Turkish elections are not democratic and that previous military coups have produced good results in Türkiye.
Erik Meyersson, in his 2013 article “Political Man on Horseback: Military Coups and Development", makes important observations on this issue. Stating that a quarter of the 232 military coups that took place in 94 different countries between 1950 and 2013 were against democratically elected governments, Meyersson concluded that Western governments have occasionally supported military coups, especially against far-left governments in Latin America (most notably the 1973 Augusto Pinochet coup against the democratically elected socialist Salvador Allende government in Chile) and Islamist governments in North Africa and the Middle East (e.g. the 1992 Algerian coup against the radical Islamist Islamic Salvation Front-FIS). Again, the military coups in Türkiye managed to receive partial support from the West as coups that stabilized politics in some respects and were carried out at a time when the security environment in the country had disappeared and the population had been pitted against each other to the extent of civil war. Meyersson also summarizes the views in the literature on the causes of military coups. -In his study, Meyersson examines 4 military coups (1973 Chile, 1980 Türkiye, 1982 Bangladesh, and 1992 Algeria) as a sample and measures the effects of military coups in the light of these examples and in line with the mathematical methodology he created.
As a result, he argues that the results of military coups are sometimes successful and sometimes unsuccessful. In cases such as Türkiye, Algeria, and Chile, military coups have been successful in terms of preventing or ending a widespread civil war and preventing the complete collapse of the state, while they have been very unsuccessful in terms of protecting human rights. In contrast, in the cases of Chile and Türkiye, military coups have also performed well in economic terms. In the 1980s, the Turkish economy was rapidly liberalized, the economy recovered from the crisis, and new jobs were created for the population. So, military coups have, interestingly, sometimes yielded good results. This does not mean, of course, that military coups are good and democratic. But in extreme situations such as the total collapse of the state and civil war, military coups can be more successful than a deadlocked democratic regime.
Another important recent study on this issue has been conducted by Müge Kınacıoğlu from Hacettepe University. In her article “Forcing Democracy: Is Military Intervention for Regime Change Permissible?”, published in the January 2012 issue of All Azimuth, Kınacıoğlu examined the legitimacy of military coups for regime change. In this respect, Kınacıoğlu analyzes concepts such as “use of force”, “democracy”, and “international law” and concludes that although in some cases military coups are carried out against regimes that are already anti-democratic, the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly have largely condemned such actions, and therefore, military coups have no counterpart, especially in international law.
The Turkish Case: Turkish Armed Forces (TSK)
One of the most important actors in modern Turkish political life is undoubtedly the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK in short). Throughout the history of the Republic of Türkiye, the Turkish Armed Forces have intervened in civilian politics four times in what can be described as successful coups or interventions (27 May 1960 coup, 12 March 1971 memorandum, 12 September 1980 coup, and 28 February 1997 intervention), twice in the early 1960s with Colonel Talat Aydemir's coup attempts, the e-memorandum crisis during the presidential election process in 2007, and lastly the 15 July 2016 coup attempt. Moreover, the TSK has always been a very important institution in shaping Turkish political life. The main reason for this is that Turkish modernization, starting from the Second Constitutional Monarchy (1908) period, originated from the military and the pioneering cadres who founded the Republic were largely of military origin.
In the 1990s and 2000s, however, many domestic and foreign politicians and academics described the military's active position in politics as the biggest obstacle to Türkiye's democratization especially during the EU accession process. At the same time, it is undeniable that, since the 1990s, the place of the military in politics has been reduced to a normal level in parallel with the general democratic development and civilianization of the country.
To understand the place of the Turkish Armed Forces in the history of the Republic, we must first examine the Ottoman Empire and especially the post-Tanzimat period of the Ottoman Empire. As is known, due to the great distance between the "center" (state) and the "periphery" (people) in the Ottoman Empire and the inability of the unorganized civil society to find channels to influence politics, the Turkish revolutionary tradition and the first modernization movements were largely shaped and put into practice by intellectuals of military-bureaucracy origin after the Tanzimat Period. As Professor Metin Heper argues in his important study, The State Tradition in Turkey, Türkiye, which has one of the few strong state traditions in the world, has not been fully successful so far in terms of the development of civil society and the construction of a liberal democracy in which the military's place in politics is in the background compared to civilians, also under the influence of the Kemalist Revolution with its Jacobin characteristics. However, an important reason for this inadequacy of the Republican era is the political legacy of the Ottoman Empire. The first important reason for this is the strong and centralized position of "Devlet-i Ali" during the Ottoman period, independent from peripheral actors.
In addition, as we see in the history of modernization in Western countries, unlike the situation where the bourgeoisie with economic power forced the state and gained political power by destroying the monarchical and feudal order as a result of the pressures it exerted, political power in the Ottoman Empire has always been the gateway to economic power as expressed by Özbudun. The absence of a strong merchant class and the lack of a historically progressive role of merchants who grew up in the shadow of the state, unlike the European bourgeoisie, are other important factors in the failure of civil society to develop in the Ottoman Empire. The fact that non-Muslims, who were engaged in trade and had great economic power in the Ottoman period, had almost no power in the political sphere and that these groups used their political power, which emerged, albeit limited, as a result of the interventions of European states, for issues that would benefit them rather than the democratization of the country in general, was a factor that made democratization impossible in the Ottoman Empire. Moreover, due to the fief/land tenure (tımar) system, a strong feudal land system could not develop in the Ottoman Empire. Although in the ATÜTist (Asia-type production style) leftist debates of the 1960s, this was perceived as a positive feature that prevented exploitation, Milkova and many other Marxists argued that this slowed down class development in Anatolia. Indeed, in the classical Ottoman system, the "tımarlı sipahi" (timariot) was not an overlord, but a class of mounted soldiers holding fiefs. The great gap between the ruling military (askeri) class (this was a special term referring not only to the soldiers but the whole administrative system) and the subjects or "reaya/tebâ", and the internalization of this distance by people for many centuries in line with the Turkish state tradition, is perhaps the most important reason for the failure to develop civil society in Anatolia and for the military to be seen as a savior in difficult times.
As a result of the opening of Western-type military schools in the country starting from the Tanzimat Period and the influence of military students on the intellectual currents in Europe, where cultural exchanges gradually increased, members of the army abandoned their previous passive position and started to organize and actively fight for the modernization of the outdated Ottoman regime. Evidence of this revolutionary and pioneering character of the army is provided by movements and associations such as the Young Turks (Jön Türkler) and the Committee of Union and Progress/CUP (İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti/İTC), the First and Second Constitutional Monarchy periods, and of course the 1908 Revolution and the March 31st Incident. Military figures such as Enver Pasha became very influential in politics during these years and the first attempts at modernization were made in this period.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, fearing that this revolutionary activist and pioneering characteristic of the army inherited from the Ottoman Empire would harm the Republic, used his great authority and charisma to keep the military out of politics after the proclamation of the Republic, even though he and his closest colleague İsmet İnönü both had military backgrounds. Mustafa Kemal was able to rectify this situation to some extent with his harsh stance towards the former Unionists and his efforts to keep the members of the military out of politics, but after the transition to a multi-party regime in 1950, the revolutionary activism inherent in the military tradition began to reappear in full force. The members of the Turkish Armed Forces, who had been even deprived of their right to vote during Mustafa Kemal's reign, began to react strongly against the Democrat Party government, which, with the help of the single-party constitution of 1924, established an authoritarian civilian regime in the country and put the Kemalist revolutions at risk for the sake of votes.
So, on May 27, 1960, the first military coup, known as the “Colonels' coup” (Albaylar Darbesi), took place. May 27th was a coup d'état that actively interfered in civilian politics, but its consequences are considered by many to be a progressive act, as it led to the enactment of the 1961 constitution, the most liberal constitution in Türkiye, and the replacement of the outdated 1924 constitution with a more democratic one. Moreover, a large part of the population, fed up with the oppression of the Democrat Party, celebrated May 27th as a Republican holiday and unfortunately supported the coup, as the awareness of democracy had not yet developed. However, regardless of the consequences, May 27th also restarted the Turkish Armed Forces' tradition of intervening in civilian politics. As a matter of fact, immediately after May 27, two pro-military dictatorship coup attempts by Colonel Talat Aydemir, the charismatic commander of the Turkish Military Academy, with the aim of establishing a fully independent Turkey, failed. With May 27, the TSK enacted a more democratic constitution with a sharpened separation of powers, while also imposing institutions such as the National Security Council (MGK) and the Republican Senate to monitor the unlimited power of the executive. However, these institutions, too, were set to be dominated by civilian politics and the military was planned to permanently withdraw from politics once it had created a safe environment in which democracy could function.
In the period from the Committee of Union and Progress to May 27, it can be argued that the Turkish Armed Forces maintained its pioneering position in modernization and had a progressive approach due to the inadequacy of civilian politics. However, even after the 1960s, when civilian politics flourished and the public's awareness of democracy began to develop, the military's continued active intervention in politics caused greater reactions both inside and outside the country. The unjust execution of three prominent figures from the Democrat Party, including Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, and the public's growing accustomed to self-governance increased the reaction to coups in Türkiye. Although Türkiye was becoming an ungovernable and unlivable country before September 12, the unthinkable practices after the coup further raised the consciousness against coups and caused the public to react strongly against coups. These steps were the main reason why the July 15, 2016 attempt failed.
According to Eric Nordlinger, armies can be analyzed in 4 basic categories in terms of their relationship with civilian politics:
- Professional armies are apolitical mercenaries who are distant from politics and only specialize in their profession.
- Moderator-type armies are neutral referees and deal only with internal and external security issues,
- Guardian-type armies are military structures that have adopted the principle of protecting some of the regime's basic qualities (unalterable articles of the constitution) apart from internal and external security issues and were especially prominent in the anti-communist struggle during the Cold War,
- Ruler-type armies, as the name suggests, are the armies that take the government into their own hands regulate civilian politics, and seize power through coups d'état with the support of the U.S. against the rising leftist movements, especially in Latin America during the Cold War.
When the position of the military in Türkiye is analyzed, it is understood that it has more than a moderator role to protect the country against external threats in the sense of Western-type democracies, and even more than the guardian role to protect the regime as seen in developing countries, and from time to time it has played decision-making and ruler roles, but it has not been in favor of a permanent military dictatorship as seen in the past in some countries in South America. After each of its interventions, the TSK has made it a principle to withdraw from the scene after having shaped the regime (1960-1961, 1980-1983), and it has indeed done so. Even the effects of September 12, the most violent and brutal coup, have gradually disappeared in recent years.
However, in doing so, the TSK has also taken various measures to protect the system. According to Professor Ergun Özbudun, for example, the National Security Council (MGK), which was established after May 27 and gradually increased in power after March 12 and September 12, is a good example of the patronage powers that the military used after the transition to democracy. The post-coup State Security Courts are also an attempt to protect the military's influence in politics. Again, the incredible political bans imposed after September 12, the adoption of the anti-democratic 1982 constitution, and the rejection of the referendum on Kenan Evren's presidency, which would have led to a military dictatorship, are clear evidence that the military retained its influence in politics and did not allow for a fully civilian democratic regime. Moreover, only three parties authorized by the military could participate in the 1983 general elections.
As famous journalist Mehmet Ali Birand has written, the TSK, especially after September 12, adopted a different understanding of politics that isolated the military from society and true Kemalism. Military education has always been doctrinaire, but post-September 12 military education has become more conservative and especially anti-revolutionary and anti-socialist. After September 12, the TSK also took a hand in the universities, establishing the Council of Higher Education (YÖK) and blocking free and diverse thought in universities. In the Özal era, created by September 12, the use of religion for political purposes and corruption became institutionalized and the foundations of the rule of law were destroyed. However, in the changing world conditions after the end of the Cold War, the Turkish Armed Forces, which no longer perceived communism as a threat, but reactionism as a threat, confronted the Islamic community during the February 28 process, which had been its biggest supporter after September 12 coup. The July 15, 2016 attempt, although allegedly organized by another Islamic group, the Fethullah Gülen community (FETÖ), emerged as a reaction to the practices of the Islamist-originated Justice and Development Party (AKP/AK Parti), which has been in power in Türkiye since 2002. Therefore, to prevent coups in Türkiye, it is imperative for the ruling and opposition parties to pursue policies in line with the constitution or to make the constitution conform to them. Another plus of this process is that the extent of civilianization will increase rapidly in the country in response to the coup attempt. However, using this process to wear down the military could create major security risks for Türkiye. Therefore, reforms in this area should be approached with extreme caution and prudent decisions should be made without acting in anger.
While the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF), during the Cold War period and during military interventions such as May 27 and September 12, have a ruler-type military structure, they are generally in line with the guardian model. That is because, unlike Latin American armies, even during the Cold War period, the TSK left the administration to civilians on its initiative after the restoration of state authority and remained in power for a short period (1960-1961, 1980-1983). Following the end of the Cold War, it can be argued that with the reforms carried out in recent years, the TSK has evolved from a watchdog to a moderator. However, Professor Ergun Özbudun and many others have argued that the TSK tried to maintain its weight in civilian politics in various ways even after the transition to civilian rule. According to Özbudun, armies do this in 5 ways:
- Protective powers: The armies play a watchdog role in protecting certain state attributes that are emphasized as immutable articles in the constitution.
- Reserved areas: The National Security Council and similar mechanisms allow the military to shape civilian politics.
- Manipulation of elections and election fraud.
- Inclusion of irreversible articles in the constitution (Provisional Article 15 in the 1982 constitution is an example of this).
- Amnesty for military crimes committed.
Through these five instruments, armies can maintain their influence in civilian politics. For Türkiye, it can be argued that in the past, especially patronage powers and reserved areas were used by the TSK. However, it can be said that there has been a normalization in recent years, except for the April 27th e-memorandum and the July 15 failed coup attempt.
In the final analysis, it is difficult to say that the democratic record of the Turkish Armed Forces is very successful. However, to be fair, given that the Republic of Türkiye, a NATO member, had a security-oriented political structure in the 1950-1990 period as a requirement of the Cold War conditions in the world, and that this structure was open to external manipulation in Türkiye, a medium-sized state, blaming only the Turkish Armed Forces for past military interventions would mean failing to see the bigger picture. Apart from this very influential external dimension, it is an undeniable fact that the polarizing and uncompromising structure of civilian politics within the country, which we see examples of today, has led Türkiye to military interventions. Moreover, historically and culturally, the leading role of the military in Turkish revolutionary tradition as well as Turkish state traditions is evident. These could be considered the backbone of a specific political culture, which facilitates military interventions and power politics instead of legal order and democratic methods. Therefore, even if we do not ignore universal values when analyzing Turkish political life, the role of the military in the political tradition and political culture must be handled differently from the stereotypical Western models of democracy.
In this sense, it is an inevitable necessity in Türkiye that democratization steps should be taken without eroding the institutions and polarizing the public. Why a constitution that is more progressive and liberal than the 1961 constitution, which was drafted after the May 27 coup d'état, has not yet been drafted by civilian politics in Türkiye is a question that is difficult to answer.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that military coups are bad and efforts should be made to prevent them, but democratic idealism can sometimes lead societies and countries to much worse situations. Accordingly, it can be argued that democracy can survive in any country if basic conditions are met, such as the average income level in a society reaching at least 15,000-20,000 U.S. dollars, the average education level of the population exceeding 10 years, the equality of men and women being adopted by the society in general, the absence of internal conflicts and terrorism, and elections taking place in a free and fair environment. However, experimenting with democracy without these conditions can also end in disaster, as in the cases of Syria and Iraq. Türkiye, on the other hand, seems to be a country that can sustain democracy for the time being, despite the radical statements made by its political elite from time to time and some anti-democratic policies implemented. However, a new constitution and more balanced regime are absolutely needed in Türkiye to become like a Western-type democracy.
Prof. Ozan ÖRMECİ
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