The 15 July Coup Attempt in Turkey: Its Socio-Political Context and Impact on the Military

Being one of the most influential institutions, the military’s role in Turkey’s politics has always been under close scrutiny. Innumerable studies have dealt with various aspects of the impact that Turkish Armed Forces have had on Turkey’s politics through variety of interventions. One of the shortcomings of studies dealing with the Turkish military’s role as a political actor stems from the assumption that the military is a strong and cohesive institution which acts independently of power relations within the polity and stands above society. The corollary of the assumption is that the military is the best institution to perform the role of the national arbitrator among politicians whose so called “conflicting interests undermine national unity and societal peace”. Coup d’états and other interventions that the Turkish military carried out since 1960, however, suggest a different narrative underscoring socio-political power relations, which prevail in the period before and after the intervention define contours of the military’s course of action even when they hold the absolute power. Previous interventions indicated the Turkish military rarely acted in harmony and its autonomy remained to be limited in the re-formulation of putative political and economic programmes, which had already been espoused or put in effect by influential socio political groups prior to coups. The last coup attempt stands as yet another case in which the military’s disintegration alongside political cleavages within the country became tangible. The paper will highlight the political context of the recent coup d’état attempt of July 2016, underscore major socio political dynamics that led to it and discuss the new dynamics it galvanized.