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Gonenc Uysal Understanding the Impact of Modernity on Civil-Military Relations This paper focuses on the formulation of the identity of the Turkish Armed Forces through the articulation of the guardianship role which was formulated to maintain the Republican state’s ideology based on modernity. Turkey had undergone several military coups; however, the military managed to retain its image as the guardian of the modern Republic. However, modernity is very much related to the notion of democracy, and civilian supremacy over the military is one of the significant principles of democracy. Thus, this paper seeks to answer the question of how the military managed to articulate democracy into its guardianship role even during the coups or through behind-the-scenes political influence by unpacking the state’s hegemonic project of modernity, one of the elements of which is democracy. This paper argues that the political role of the military is historically contingent regarding the understanding of modernity in accordance with the understanding of the state and its ideology. Turkish modernisation was shaped with articulation of collective but fragmentary political choices. It involved modern elements of Turkish traditional culture and traditional elements survived in the modern period. However, these traditional elements have been re-interpreted and re-contextualised. This type of construction of modernity gave an ability of constant redefinition for the modernising elite. The project of modernisation and its elements have been subject to diverse interpretations depending on the historical context. In its historical context, Turkish politics has certain ‘disruptions’. These disruptions can be defined as key political events which resulted in changes in the understanding of modernity and the role of the military. This paper considers the establishment of the Republic in 1923 and the coup of 1980 as historical disruptions regarding the identity of the military based on modernity. Furthermore, this paper also examines the post-modern coup of 28 February 1997 to give insights about current Turkish politics, while refraining from the future predictions. With the establishment of the Republic in 1923, the military had an important role as both the object and subject of the Republican modernisation. The military’s guardianship role was defined as protection and preservation of the Republic’s territories, the Republican regime and its principles and reforms, against internal and external threats. It also served as a national school for social-engineering embedded in Republican principles and reforms. Since the project of the modern Republic identified the state with the nation, and since the nation was identified with the military, the military was identified with the state. It should be noted that despite the guardianship role, civilian supremacy over the military was secured and the military was located above all political considerations during the early-Republican era. However, the Turkish Army staged a coup in May 1960 and issued a memorandum in March 1971 which resulted in the resignation of the civilian government. These two military interventions were very different, both in terms of their aims and their scope. Due to spatial and time constraints I will summarise them in few sentences. With the coup of 1960, the military managed to identify itself with the modern state positioned against tradition and to articulate the element of democracy into the state’s ideology. The military legitimised the coup by broadening the guardianship role to encompass the protection of democracy and by establishing the institutions in the legal structure to grant autonomy to the military such as the National Security Council and the autonomous Military Courts. However, the memorandum of 1971 saw the democratic liberties granted with the Constitution of 1961 as the reason for political violence and thus, began to articulate conservatism into the state’s discourse at the social, economic and political arenas. 1 Gonenc Uysal The memorandum of 1971 was unsuccessful in terms of bringing stability to the country, and the political violence between extreme left and right forces in the late 1970s almost brought Turkey to the edge of a civil war. Since the military was identified with the state, and since the state was identified with the nation, the military undertook the coup of 12 September 1980 to preserve the state’s authority and the national unity. With the junta of 1980, the military abandoned its underlying legacy of the Republican modernisation but re-defined its restoration project in the framework of conservatism. The junta supervised construction and reinforcement of the restoration project at the state level within the framework of the national security. This project demonstrated a shift away from the early-Republican project of modernisation in order to articulate Islam into the state’s ideology through the nodal point of morality based on Islam as a solution to political violence. It should be noted that until the 1980s, the state’s ideology equated modernisation with secularism and progress whereas religion was considered traditional and reactionary. After the 1980s, with the articulation of Islam into the state’s ideology, the role of religion was recontextualised and an enlightened interpretation of Islam was considered modern. Consequently the public visibility of Islam was legitimised in the political stage. Both the junta of 1980 and the following Anavatan Partisi (ANAP) governments promoted moderate political Islam to formulate a unified identity, to control and domesticate the Islamist movements, to pursue economic goals by integrating the Islamist bourgeoisie into the neoliberal agenda of the 1980s, to use Islamism as a bulwark against the perceived threat of leftism in accordance with the US’s green belt project and to formulate an enlightened understanding of Islam in accordance with the international post-modern critique. In the 1990s, the legitimisation of the public visibility of Islam resulted in rise of the Islamist movements and Refah Partisi as the representative of Islamism in the political arena. Most of these Islamists, especially Refah Partisi, thought that the political system would transform into an Islamic system once the Islamist ideology could hegemonise the state structure. The military perceived the RP’s and its allies’ aim to substitute the secular political, moral, and social order with an order based on Islam as a threat to the modern Republican state. Thus, it acted as a pressure group to oust the RP and the Islamist movements from the political stage and contribute to the formation of public opinion by supporting the secularist civil society. The process is widely known as the post-modern coup of 28 February, named after the meeting of the National Security Council on 28 February 1997. The post-modern coup of 28 February can be regarded as the military’s attempt to maintain the state’s hegemony based on secular modernity. The most significant element that was articulated by the military to reinforce its guardianship role was democracy. In the 1990s, the military understood secular modernity as the founding principle of democracy, and legitimised its position to guard secularism, and thus, democracy. The military’s discourse on modern secularism was legitimised by referring to the Constitution and the Constitutional institutions within the democratic framework. Since the military identified itself with the state, it also identified its discourse with the state’s discourse on secularism intertwined with democracy. However, it should be noted that the military’s equation of secularism with a particular life style remained problematic regarding human rights and democracy. Moreover, the legitimisation of the guardianship role with 2 Gonenc Uysal democratic principles such as the rule of law inevitably brought the question of the place of the National Security Council in the legal structure. The military managed to articulate the discourse on democracy into its guardianship role and maintain the Republican modernisation as a hegemonic project and legitimised its guardianship role as above-politics to exert political influence the civilian governments until the rise of Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP). With the consolidation of power of the AKP’s government beginning in 2007, civil-military relations and the understanding of modern democracy entered into a new era. In this context, the e-memorandum of 27 April 2007, the following Ergenekon and Balyoz trials that began respectively in 2008 and 2010, and the Constitutional Court’s overruling of these trials in June 2014 can demonstrate how the AKP understood the civilian supremacy as a temporary governmental act but not as a continuous cultural and institutional reform. Since the political stage under the current government is still an on-going process, this paper refrains from predicting the future. However, as a conclusion, this paper demonstrated that the political role of the military is historically contingent regarding the understanding of modernity in accordance with the understanding of the state and its ideology. The Turkish Armed Forces had often been associated with the modern understanding of secularism whereas its interventions in 1971 and 1980 paved the way to articulation of religion into the state’s ideology and subsequent rise of the Islamist movements. However, by doing so, the military was still able to articulate modernity into its guardianship role since it shifted the state’s ideology while redefining the understanding of the modern by giving traditional and religious references and re-contextualising the public visibility of Islam. 3 Gonenc Uysal Bibliography Primary sources The Proceedings of the Turkish Grand National Assembly TBMM Zabit Ceridesi, Devre 2 Ictima Senesi 1, c.3, 29 October 1339 [1923] TBMM Zabit Ceridesi, Devre 2 Ictima Senesi 1, c.7, 3 March 1340 [1924] TBMM Zabit Ceridesi, Devre 2 Ictima Senesi 3, c.19, 30 November 1341 [1925] TBMM Zabit Ceridesi, Devre 5 Ictima Senesi 2, c.16, 5 February 1937 The Press Releases of the National Security Council MGK (1997, 28 February) Milli Guvenlik Kurulu Toplantilarinin Basin Bildirileri: 28 Subat 1997. Ankara: MGK Basin Bildirileri Arsivi MGK (1998, 27 March) Milli Guvenlik Kurulu Toplantilarinin Basin Bildirileri: 27 Mart 1997. 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