Opinions of Civil Society Organisations on Democracy and Interventions of the Military in Turkey

Abstract

In this paper we will focus on the perceptions of the relations between civil society and the armed forces in Turkey. This is a bundle of complex relationships and it has many direct and indirect effects on the development of civil society in Turkey. The Constitution of 1961 that followed the 1960 military intervention brought a very suitable political environment for the development of organisational life in Turkey. Particularly unions, as semi-public organisations, developed and became the pioneers of civil society. However, this period was characterised by ideological polarisation that divided these so-called ‘democratic mass organisations’ into opposite political camps. The 1980 military coup stopped this process, constrained the rights of organisations and closed many democratic mass organisations. Due to the strict controlling mechanisms of the post-coup period, democratic mass organisations, mainly unions and chambers, such as the Turkish Union of Chambers of Engineers & Architects and Confederation of Revolutionary Labour Unions, lost their power. The labour union was closed and many of its leaders were imprisoned after the coup. On the other hand, during the post-1980 era, the central cleavage of left-right politics and ideologies was transformed into more diffused and fragmented cleavages.

Citation

Aksit, B., Serdar, A. and Tabakoglu, B. (2005), "Opinions of Civil Society Organisations on Democracy and Interventions of the Military in Turkey", Caforio, G. and Kümmel, G. (Ed.) Military Missions and their Implications Reconsidered: The Aftermath of September 11th (Contributions to Conflict Management, Peace Economics and Development, Vol. 2), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 565-573. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1572-8323(05)02035-7