Negotiating Political Power in Turkey

Breaking up the Party

Elise Massicard, Nicole Watts

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780367867119
• eBook ISBN: 9781135136871
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This edited collection looks at how political parties in Turkey actually work, inside and out. Departing from traditional macro-level analyses, the book offers a new sociological approach to the study of political parties, treating them as non-unitary entities composed of many different groups and individuals who both cooperate and compete with one another.

The central proposition of the book is that parties must be studied as clusters of relationships in specific locales rather than as unitary 'black boxes.' This ground-up approach provides new insights into the internal workings of political parties; why parties gain and lose elections and other political resources; and the ways in which power is negotiated and exercised in Turkey and beyond.

Chapters include studies of Islamic and Islamist parties from the 1970s to the present, ethnic Kurdish parties, center- and extreme right parties, and the far left, as well as independent candidates. The authors pay particular attention to relations – and the blurry boundaries-- between parties and civil society groups, religious associations, non-governmental organizations, ethnic and socio-economic groups, and state institutions, and to the variability of external and internal party politics in different geographies such as Adana, Mersin, and Diyarbakir.

1
Explaining Turkish party centralism

Traditions and trends in the exclusion of local party offices in Mersin and beyond

S. UlasŞ Bayraktar and Cemal Altan¹

The Turkish party system has long been criticized for its highly centralized structure and its lack of internal democracy (Bektas¸ 1993; Özbudun 2000; Tuncay 2000; Yanık 2002; Özdalga 2005; Turan 2006). It is well-known, for instance, that local party offices across the political spectrum are pressured by party headquarters, with senior party officials influencing the composition, decisions, and actions of local party offices. The close involvement of the center in local political affairs was well-illustrated in the wake of the local elections of March 2009, when Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğ an expelled eight long-time members of the Council of Ministers from the cabinet for failing to deliver key municipalities to his ruling party. This incident also consolidated the perception within parties that it is not local people but officials in Ankara who are responsible for managing local election races and party offices. From choosing candidates to preparing and implementing the campaign, these ministers had been intimately involved in local municipal races to such an extent that they were held personally responsible for the loss of these cities.² Clearly, in this case, “local” politics was not synonymous with local influence or autonomy from national affairs.

Although incidents like this are unsurprising to observers of Turkish politics, it is not immediately evident why the Turkish party system is so centralized, especially if we reject culturalist explanations that might attribute the tendency towards top-down party life to something inherent in Turkish culture or political history. Moreover, simply taking Turkish party centralism as a “given” discourages us from exploring the actual ways by which central party leaders marginalize or eliminate local offices, and how this might change over time. This chapter, then, has two objectives: first, to offer some general reflections on the key systemic reasons for Turkish party centralism; and second, to examine how the mechanisms for maintaining such party centralism have changed in the last decade, drawing primarily on empirical data based mainly on the cases of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, or AKP) and, to a lesser extent, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, or CHP) in Mersin, a medium-sized city on the Mediterranean coast. The 2009 electoral period in this city highlights particularly well the way central party hegemony may be strengthened. First, it illustrates the growing influence of alternative political channels mediating between national and local offices of AKP at the expense of the already-weak local party offices. Second, it testifies to the diminishing political resources that local offices have available for clientelist exchanges. In light of this, we argue that local bodies, already subordinate to the center, have been further excluded from political mediation due to dynamics that we will explore in detail here. We conclude that party centralism remains strong, although it is sustained by new power dynamics.

The chapter thus presents a twofold discussion. The first part examines three key causes for traditional party centralism in Turkey: the formal structure; the shortcomings of the party conventions system; and low levels of participation in Turkish political parties. The second part exposes the two main dynamics that have undermined the political power of local party offices, formerly the main mediators between their localities and the party center. These are, specifically, the direct implication of centrally influential figures in local affairs, and the decline in public resources available for clientelist exchanges. By highlighting these points, the chapter thus aims at contributing to the relational approach that Massicard and Watts frame in the introduction, albeit while keeping the formal characteristics of Turkish political parties always in mind. In particular, it emphasizes the informality of party relations as well as examining how party resources are raised, located, and mobilized, at least in the case of Mersin.

Part I: explaining the traditional marginalization of local party offices

Ideally, the raison d’être of political parties in a democratic system should be the facilitation of popular participation and representation in politics. However, as Garner and Kelly (1993) detail, the success of this mission depends on the existence of effective channels in close proximity to the citizenry. Since they promote the participation and representation of citizens in politics, local political party offices generally have an important role to play in this scheme. In Turkey, however, parties have instead suffered from what may be called a democratic or representative deficit, with local party offices operating under the direct, top-down authority of the party hierarchy (Kabasakal 1991; Tuncay 2000; Yanık 2002). It is important to note that the aspects of this subjection of local party offices that we will elaborate below refer to all parties and not only to AKP, on which we will develop most of the empirical dimension of our discussion.

Formal structure: “democratic centralism”

Ironically, one of the key reasons local political party offices are systematically marginalized by their central bodies is because of strict legislation intended to ensure internal democratic operations (see Perinçek 1985: 154). This legislation seems to have produced exactly the opposite of the expected outcome. Turkish political parties have been governed according to specific legislation since the adoption of the 1961 Constitution (prior to which they were subjected to the Civil Code).³ The existing legislation imposes a unique formal structure according to which political parties may found branches corresponding to the administrative organization of the Republic.⁴ The convention, presidency, and central decision-making body of political parties, as well as their administrative, executive, and disciplinary bodies are all located in the capital. This scheme is widely reproduced in the provinces (where one finds provincial conventions and presidencies as well as executive and disciplinary committees) and in sub-provinces (sub-provincial conventions, presidencies and executive committees). At the lowest tier of this party structure, communal (belde) branches have been established in municipalities by the sub-provincial offices.⁵ In addition to this vertical organization, political parties have established horizontal intra-party groups that bring together MPs and provincial and municipal council members. The various pillars of this pyramidal structure are combined through a system of conventions that was eventually revealed to be the de facto source of the undemocratic nature of Turkish political parties.

All governing bodies provided for by the legal framework are chosen by delegates elected by local conventions at the lower level; and the holders of executive office in party headquarters are selected via a four-tier internal electoral process. However, the absence of mandatory judicial supervision on the foundation and election of communal bodies reveals a huge legal lacuna that is sufficient to corrupt the entire representative process. Central office holders are supposed to be elected at a general convention by permanent/natural members [doğal üye]⁶ as well as the provincial delegates. Although many steps of this process require judicial supervision, the election of communal delegates is exempt from such control. In practice this implies strategies such as enrolling fictional members (who are sometimes found in cemeteries!), giving ad hoc membership to kinsmen and relatives and allowing for the mobilization of specific communities (religious, ethnic, and neighborhood groups, as well as employees). As we shall discuss below, party officers have various tools at their disposal for hindering the enrollment of certain new members while freely facilitating that of others. Recruitment of supporting members thus remains to a large extent an instrument of party officers, who may actually deprive their opponents of increasing support within the party by controlling membership.

In fact, as a senior member of the CHP has admitted, sub-provincial delegates are not elected but rather selected de facto by the provincial office.⁷ This makes it more likely that the latter will remain loyal when casting ballots in the election of delegates at sub-provincial congresses. Even for the stages of the convention process for which juridical inspection is mandatory, this system seems to be easily corrupted. The vice-president of the AKP’s provincial organization admits as much:

The night before the sub-provincial convention, near dawn, we start drawing up delegate lists. We make up a list of delegates as if they were democratically elected. The following morning, we call them to inform them of their “election.” We do the same thing for provincial conventions. Everything remains on paper without any actual electoral procedure having taken place.⁸

Such a quotation reveals to what extent local party officers feel capable of manipulating the election of delegates. Even if they do not manage to determine the whole list of delegates, especially in sub-provincial conventions that take place under juridical inspection, their power to determine delegates’ general profile should be acknowledged. Under these circumstances, it would thus appear that far from promoting greater popular representation, local offices have in fact been put under the strict tutelage of senior party bodies. When a party is founded, the founding members of the local office are in most instances appointed directly by the party center. When “loyal” members are thus put into office when structuring the local organization of the party, the influence of the center is secured from the beginning. This ability to manipulate internal elections means there is little room for opponents to enhance their influence within the party.

The de facto power of the party center over lower levels of the party organization has mainly been made possible due to the ban on party branches at the grassroots level, implemented after the 1960 coup d’état with the following justification: “In the light of the spirit of national unity and of the understanding of national solidarity, it aims to avoid political polarization in villages.”⁹ This ban particularly affected villages and neighborhoods where people in the local community know each other personally and are thus better equipped to avoid the manipulation of party lists. With the displacement of congresses from villages and neighborhoods to sub-provinces, the party leadership has acquired more opportunities for rigging delegate lists. What is really taking place is the selection of electors (i.e. delegates) by the elected party hierarchy, which thus benefits from powerful influence over lower levels and processes of the party leadership.

If ever such instruments of controlling party organization fall short of maintaining central supervision, the party center has another powerful mechanism available: party discipline, thanks to which party leaders are legally free to arbitrarily eliminate opponents and preclude internal dissent.

Who gets chosen: problems with internal representation

A second traditional reason for central party hegemony over local offices lies with the way party leadership and representatives are chosen. First, as noted above, this delegate- and convention-based system is wide open to manipulation on the part of a leadership seeking to retain influence within its party. In the event that the system of supervision malfunctions, Articles 19 and 20 of the Law on Political Parties (LPP) permit the party center to dismiss elected local officials without judicial control.

The composition of local CHP boards of directors for the year 2000 demonstrates the extent to which this “emergency” mechanism is applied. Turan (2006: 568) quotes Tarhan Erdem, according to whom, after the return of Deniz Baykal to the party presidency, 65 percent (52 out of 80) of all CHP provincial presidents were appointed by the center rather than elected in conventions. The allegedly exceptional nature of such a widespread use of direct appointment of local party officers is thrown into question by the turnover rate of AKP’s board of directors in Mersin. During the three years following its creation, it saw a total of four presidents and only one convention. The last president remained in office longer than his predecessors, perhaps on account of his desire to run as a candidate for the metropolitan mayor’s office. Others felt obliged to resign due to increasing pressure from both local members and central officers, pressure that would possibly have led to their formal dismissal had they not resigned first. It should also be noted that the sitting president remained in office after the convention, evidence of the advantage held by incumbent presidents at conventions. Direct influence over the election of delegates gives sitting boards of directors an advantage in convention floor elections.

In addition, the way candidates are selected tends to reinforce the dominance of central party offices. According to the LPP, political parties can select their candidates for local posts (mayors, municipal and departmental councilors) by two different methods: central consultation (merkez yoklaması) and local internal elections.

Central consultation involves the nomination of candidates by central offices. The latter are obviously free to consult the relevant local offices or communities before reaching a final decision. But even when they do so, the influence of local offices on the choice of local candidates does not appear to be decisive. Competition among future candidates thus mainly takes place in Ankara through the mobilization of all available resources to secure the support of central actors.

Three main strategies are employed in this intense struggle. The first and most important strategy is to draw on one’s personal acquaintances among centrally-located actors. This is particularly true in the case of municipal or provincial council positions. In the election of these posts, the party affiliation has been much more determining than candidates’ personal attributes since preference voting is not permitted. In other words, since electors vote for the parties rather than candidates in these elections of councils, contacts between candidates and central actors weigh heavily on the final decision. For example, when the name of a pet-shop owner (who was not an active AKP activist and had neither campaigned nor presented himself for election) was at the top of the AKP list for municipal councilors, no one was really surprised, since his close friendship with Minister Tüzmen was well-known in local society.

Not everyone can be so lucky as to enjoy the friendship of central decision-makers, however. In the absence of such privileged access, it is necessary to deploy one’s social capital more broadly. A candidate who cannot personally appeal to central actors must draw attention to his candidacy by mobilizing other networks. The explicit support of groups that have demonstrated a capacity for collective mobilization during elections is regarded by decision-makers as a significant argument in favor of a candidate. As one of the AKP deputies in Mersin put it, “a candidate who can win is often preferable to a candidate who can govern.”¹⁰ As a result, the display and perception of civil, religious, and ethnic networks play a major role in the selection of candidates since the support of such groups seen as easily mobilized votebanks increases the likelihood of electoral success.

Apart from ethnic and religious groups – whose involvement in politics is far from exceptional – our observations in Mersin reveal another form of collective support that draws on the mobilization of professional and/or civic organizations. Those seeking to be named as party candidates endeavor to mobilize organizations under their control to serve their political ambitions. Professional networks (e.g., sector-based chambers) are often mobilized on such occasions. Thanks to their quasi-public identity, these networks are linked to nationwide bodies that can also be mobilized on behalf of particular candidates.

Hacı Özkan’s 2009 campaign (within the AKP) for mayor of one of the districts is a good example of how civic organizations are put to the service of political ambition. As president of the Chamber of Restaurateurs, member of the executive committee of the Mersin Chamber of Merchants and Artisans, local representative of the Turkish Football Federa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface and acknowledgments
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: reconsidering parties, power, and social forces
• 1 Explaining Turkish party centralism: traditions and trends in the exclusion of local party offices in Mersin and beyond
• 2 Explaining the popular appeal and durability of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey
• 3 The uses of team rivalry: reconsidering party factionalism in Turkey
• 4 How Islamist parties emerge: the case of the National Order Party
• 5 The collective production of challenge: civil society, parties, and pro-Kurdish politics in Diyarbak1r
• 6 Party penetration of the state: the Nationalist Action Party in the late 1970s
• 7 How political dynamics work in professional organizations: the radical left and the Istanbul Bar Association
• 8 Being elected as an independent in a party environment
• References
• Index