Turkey’s Military after the Failed 15 July Putsch: Farewell to Politics?

Abstract

The Panel deals with different aspects of the military’s role in Turkish politics which came once again under limelight after the 15 July Putsch in Turkey. Being the last example of long tradition of military interventions, the last putsch seemed to be unprecedented in many respects. The panel will try to bring two complementary perspectives to the putsch. While the first two papers will revisit the military interventions to draw comparisons between the 15 July putsch and those which preceded it, the following ones will highlight immediate social and political dynamics paving the way to the failed coup. The panel will begin with Hasret Dikici Bilgin’s paper which will elucidate the perceptions and attitudes of the Turkish political parties towards the military’s prerogatives granted after the three prior coups. Lars Haugom’s paper will focus on political dynamics which triggered “three waves of civilianization in Turkey” occurred since 2001 and discuss the way they deprived the military of its prerogatives. Yaprak Gürsoy’s and Toygar Sinan Baykan’s papers will shed light to various aspects of the political context in which the last coup attempt took place. Employing Samuel Finer’s “Disposition and Opportunity model”, Gürsoy will put an emphasis on the extent of military’s proneness to intervene as well as on a set of opportunities that the putschists presumed that they should not miss. In an attempt to understand the coup as a reflection of the populism-anti-populism divide in Turkish politics, Toygar Sinan Baykan will argue that the coup was staged by a shaky anti-populist coalition within the military and was in return failed by resilient popular reaction. Gencer Özcan’s paper will take another angle to illustrate socio political context of the putsch claiming that what was unprecedented in the course of events leading to the putsch was the dubious role the government played.