Democracy in Turkey

The Impact of EU Political Conditionality

Ali Resul Usul

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN: 9780415566988
• eBook ISBN: 9781136940903
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This book examines the impact of European political conditionality on the process of democratization in Turkey over a twenty year period. Employing theoretical and conceptual approaches to the issue of EU conditionality, the author compares the case of Turkey to that of other European nations.

Arguing that Turkey became vulnerable to the European conditionality when it applied for membership in 1987, he shows how the political reforms demanded of Turkey were not fully carried out as the EU had not in essence accepted Turkey as an official candidate during this period. The EU has started to exert real 'active leverage' since Turkey was declared an official candidate in 1999, and the author explores how these conditions have exerted a positive influence on democratic consolidation in Turkey. However, its effectiveness in this regard has diminished to a significant extent due to a number of problems that have continued to remain central in EU-Turkey relations.

This comprehensive analysis of Turkey-EU political relations and democratization places the case of Turkey within an international context. As such, it will be of interest not only to those studying Turkish politics, government and democracy, but anyone working in the area of international relations and the EU.

1
International politics of democratic consolidation

Theoretical and conceptual perspectives

The worldwide resurgence of democracy after the Cold War has focused attention to a greater degree on the role of international/external/foreign factors and actors in regime changes. Thus, several new studies that analyse the international aspect of the process of democratization in new democracies have appeared in the last decade. Although fresh interest in the international dimension of regime change has arisen, literature on regime change has historically been domestic-oriented and has thus paid little attention to non-domestic factors (Pridham 1995a). Gourevitch has indicated this reality, stating that ‘students of comparative politics treat domestic structure too much as an independent variable, underplaying the extent to which it and the international system are parts of an interactive system’ (1978: 900). Scholte (1993: 11–18) has described this situation as ‘the underdevelopment’ of international studies of social and political change. As Grugel contended ‘the home of democratization studies has traditionally been comparative politics’ (2003: 258). Studies of democratization have mainly taken place within the parameters of domestic politics and ‘the result has been a marginalization of international variables as key explanatory factors, in favour of domestic variables’ (Cavatorta 2005: 548). This fact is very clear when looking at the famous volume Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, edited by O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead. One of the ‘firmest conclusions’ they reached was that ‘transitions from authoritarian rule and immediate prospects for political democracy were largely to be explained in terms of national forces and calculations; external actors tended to play an indirect and usually marginal role’ (O’Donnell et al. 1986: 5).

However, the process of globalization, the global resurgence of democracy within the post-Cold War period and in particular the impact of the EU on the European continent has compelled the discipline to take external, foreign or international factors into consideration more when dealing with regime changes ( Whitehead 2001b; Haynes 2003; Pridham 2005; Yilmaz 2009). As Pridham argues ‘historical evidence contests the traditional views in comparative work on regime change that international factors are at best of second-order importance and essentially subordinate to if not dependent on domestic change factors’ (2005: 4). Therefore, several researchers have now put forward the theory that international factors have been more significant in the process of democratization in various countries in the post-Cold War period.

Nevertheless, as one scholar argues (Schmitz 2004a: 409), although a consensus has emerged in the discipline regarding the central role of international factors on regime changes, little analytical and theoretical work has been carried out in this regard. As Schmitz puts it, the understanding of the role of the international impact on domestic changes ‘is a joint task for comparative and IR scholars’ (2004a: 419). Therefore, the discipline needs more analytical and theoretical studies to reveal the process of democratization in recent years.

Perspectives on democracy and democratic consolidation

As often cited, democracy is among the most ‘contested concepts’ (Gallie 1956). Today, endless disputes continue over the appropriate definition, meaning, indicators and measuring of democracy. To date, it seems that the body of scholarship in regard to democracy has not reached a universal consensus. This chapter is about the nature of democracy and democratization, particularly democratic consolidation as a component of democratization. Doubtless, it is a necessary task to discuss the basic parameters of democracy and review the significant literature on democratization while discussing the democratizing impact of an international actor.

Minimalist and substantive definitions of democracy

The discipline of Political Science has involved various discussions on democracy. As far as this study is concerned, current discussions of democracy are seen to divide into two main groups: ‘minimalist’ or ‘procedural’ definitions and substantive definitions. A number of scholars call minimal or procedural definitions ‘Schumpeterian Democracy’ referring to the famous American political scientist Joseph Schumpeter, who proposed an elite conception of democracy as a political method. He defined the democratic method as an ‘institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of a competitive struggle for the people’s vote’ (Schumpeter 1970: 269). This Schumpeterian elite-based understanding of democracy, rather than mass participation and popular rule, has been very influential upon the current understanding of ‘procedural democracy’ as pointed out by leading students of democratization. Even Lipset sustained a classical procedural definition of democracy as early as 1959 ‘as a political system which supplies regular constitutional opportunities for changing governing officials, and a social mechanism which permits the largest possible part of the population to influence major decisions by choosing among contenders for political office’ (1959: 71).

When carefully reading the body of scholarship within the tradition of procedural democracy, three notions come to the fore: competition, participation and a set of basic rights, or democratic rule and political liberties (Bollen and Paxton 2000: 59–60). In this regard, a number of scholars have emphasized just electoral contest and participation as an indispensable part of the definition of democracy (Schumpeter 1970: 272–3; Huntington 1991: 5 –13; Przeworski 1999; Vanhanen 2000). However, the general tendency in recent democratization studies is to define democracy in such a manner that political liberties are sine qua non for a democratic regime (Collier and Levitsky 1997: 433– 4). As Beetham correctly argues, without liberty there could be no democracy:

If people are to have any influence or control over public decision making and decision makers, they must be free to communicate and associate with one another, to receive accurate information and express divergent opinions, to enjoy freedom of movement, and to be free from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

(2004: 61)

Thus, the guarantee of civil and political rights, which have been recently discussed under the human rights issue as the first generation of human rights, is more than a mere component of democracy; it is ‘an essential foundation for all the other dimensions of democracy’ (Beetham 2004: 65; see also Beetham 2003).

As far as the minimal procedural definition of democracy is concerned, Robert Dahl’s criteria for democracy have often been referred to as the agreeable definition of democracy (Diamond et al. 1995: 6–7). In fact Dahl used ‘polyarchy’ rather than democracy to denote a representative liberal democracy; so that it would be possible to analyse and compare the existing ‘democracies’ without implying that such countries had achieved the ideal democracy.¹

However, even employment of polyarchy has not completed new searches for better definitions of democracy in the procedural sense. Collier and Levitsky (1997: 434) consider ‘expanded procedural minimum’ as an outcome of this endeavour. While some scholars expand procedural democracy through the embracing of effective civilian control over the armed forces (Kaldor and Vejvoda 1997: 63; Burnell and Calvert 1999: 3), others highlight how significant the rule of law, the accountability of the government and respect for minority groups are for democracy (O’Donnell 1994, 1998, 2004; Diamond 1996b).

The issue of the minimalist /substantive definitions of democracy is important in order to understand better the EU’s democratic conditionality. As some researchers argue, the EU’s understanding of democracy has moved from ‘mainly procedural conditions of formal democracy…to include also criteria of substantive democracy, such as the role of political parties as a vehicle for political participation, the pluralism of the media, the importance of local government and an involved civil society’ (Pridham 2005: 21).

The nature of hybrid regimes

The other thorny issue to be clarified is the delineation of the boundary between democratic regimes and non-democratic ones. It is relatively easier to recognize a full-fledged authoritarian regime or a viable democracy. However, this is not the case for many post-authoritarian regimes with ‘hybrid’ or ‘mixed’ characters. The main characteristic of these hybrid regimes is that they do not fulfil even the minimal definition of liberal democracy, but they might possess some significant characteristics of democracy, such as elections (Karl 1995; Diamond 2002). While, for example, the criterion of free and fair election is fulfilled regularly in a country, there might also be clear ‘nondemocratically generated tutelary powers’ and/or ‘reserved domains of authority and policy making’ (Valenzuela 1992: 63– 4), along with serious human rights violations, in the same country. Can these states still be called democratic? The answer would be no if the definition of democracy, even in the minimal sense, were to be employed. However, the label of ‘autocratic’ or ‘authoritarian’ would be too sweeping. Therefore, students of Comparative Politics (particularly the studies of regimes and democracy) have tried to create new conceptual equipment to understand and explain better the various regimes that fall into the grey area surrounded by the ‘tripartite distinction’ between real democracies that fulfil the minimal criteria at least, and authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.

One of the first attempts to increase the theoretical vigour of Comparative Politics in respect of democracy came from O’Donnell and Schmitter when they invented dictablanda and democradura. ‘Dictablanda’ is an authoritarian regime that liberalizes without democratizing. In other words, some basic human and civil rights are granted to the people without allowing them to participate in democratic contests. ‘Democradura’, on the other hand, entails some democratic practices including regular elections. However, the participation of certain groups in politics is restricted, and there exist limited civil liberties especially with regard to expression of opinions and building assemblies. Furthermore, the political competences of elected civilians are significantly conditioned by non-elected officials like the military (Schmitter 1995a: 16). Since O’Donnell and Schmitter’s conceptual innovation, scholars across the discipline have developed myriad ‘diminished subtypes’ of democracy, in the words of Collier and Levitsky (1997: 437– 42), to enrich the theoretical ground of regime analysis. Today, several scholars talk about ‘electoral democracy’ (Diamond 1996a; Schedler 1998a), ‘illiberal democracy’ (Zakaria 1997, 2003), ‘protodemocracy’ (Valenzuela 1992: 70), ‘limited democracy’, ‘semi-democracy’, ‘delegative democracy’ (O’Donnell 1994), ‘low-quality democracy’ (Diamond et al. 1995: 8), ‘low-intensity democracy’ (Gills et al. 1993), ‘façade democracy’ (Sadiki 2002), and simply ‘non-consolidated democracy’. Even more detailed conceptualizations exist in the studies of the Latin American democracies: ‘partially illiberal democracy’, ‘competitive semi-democracy’, ‘restrictive semi-democracy’ and ‘semi-competitive partially pluralist authoritarian’ democracy (Diamond 1996b; Levitsky and Way 2002).

As Huntington (1996: 8) argues, most of these new categories of partially democratic regimes reflect one of the very significant characteristics of third-wave democracies. Most of the recent democracies are not liberal in the sense that although they have electoral contests for political power they are suffering from illiberal practices and human and civil rights violations, lack of the rule of law and institutions of ‘horizontal accountability’ (O’Donnell 1998) that control the possible abuse of power, and lack of civilian control over the armed forces. Illiberal democracies can establish the basic institutional mechanisms for holding relatively free and fair elections, securing some freedoms such as freedoms of expression, association and religion. However, the extent of these freedoms is not adequate, and these kinds of regimes are particularly problematic regarding arbitrary detentions of citizens, torture and ill-treatment in custody, and discriminations on ethnic, religious and gender grounds (Landman 2005a: 23).

Therefore, the body of scholarship regarding democratization has shifted its concern towards the question of how democratic consolidation will be possible in semi-democratic states (Diamond 1999). As one researcher says, ‘of the nearly 100 countries considered “transitional” in recent years, only a relatively small number – probably fewer than 20 – are clearly en route to becoming successful, well-functioning democracies’ (Carothers 2002: 9). Therefore, the current problem concerning the recent or so-called third-wave democracies is how these democracies can become consolidated rather than remain in transition.

Democratic consolidation

Although political scientists have had more than 30 years of academic experience and innumerable controversies in which to elaborate on the characteristics of regime change, as Schneider and Schmitter accept, ‘neither the process of liberalization nor that of consolidation has been consistently conceptualized, much less operationalized, in the literature on democratization’ (2004: 60).

If democratization simply means ‘political changes moving in a democratic direction’ (Potter 1997: 3), it entails a ‘transition’ to a relatively more democratic regime from an undemocratic one, and a process of consolidation on the way to becoming a ‘consolidated democracy’. These two ‘phases’ of transformation have constituted the main research agenda of the democratization literature. When does ‘transition’ start and end? Is ‘consolidation’ just a continuation of ‘transition’ or does it have a different quality and logic? Is there a relation between these two processes? Does the process of ‘transition’ and ‘consolidation’ have a linear character? Is there any end point in the process of democratization? Students of democratization studies have been discussing these questions for over 30 years. More than two decades ago, O’Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead, in their seminal study Transitions from Authoritarian Rule, defined ‘transition’ as the interval between an authoritarian regime and consolidated democracy. For them, ‘transition’ starts simply with the ‘breakdown’ of an authoritarian regime and ends when a relatively stable configuration of political institutions in a democratic regime is installed.

What most scholars of democratization call ‘consolidation’ is called ‘the second transition’ by O’Donnell:

It is useful to conceptualize the process of democratization as actually implying two transitions. The first is the transition from the previous authoritarian regime to the installation of a democratic government. The second transition is from this government to the consolidation of democracy or, in other words, to the effective functioning of a democratic regime.

(1992: 18)

What the literature of consolidation has tried to do is to find out how, why or why not a ‘democratic government’, in O’Donnell’s sense, can undergo metamorphosis into a ‘democratic regime’.

However, although a growing body of literature has emerged that has spelled out the dynamics of consolidation, it seems that it is not so easy to remove the ‘conceptual fog’ around it. ‘Consolidology’, in Philippe Schmitter’s term (1995a), is anchored in an unclear, inconsistent and unbounded concept, and thus is not anchored at all, but drifting in murky waters (Schedler 1998a, 1998b). Similarly, Pridham (1995a: 167) also thinks that the concept of consoli...

Table of contents

• Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics
• Contents
• Abbreviations and acronyms
• Introduction
• 1 International politics of democratic consolidation
• 2 The nature and impact ofEU political conditionality
• 3 EU conditionality anddemocracy in Turkey
• 4 EU conditionality and democracy in Turkey
• 5 The impact of EU conditionality in Turkey
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index