What Does the Left-Right Cleavage Refer to in Turkey?

Turkey not only began to use the concepts of left and right in ways that diverged from their main global connotations; is also began to utilize these concepts relatively late.

Despite today’s perception of the Democratic Party of the 1950s as the pioneer of

right-wing politics in Turkey, in the final analysis, these terms began to be used commonly only after the 1960s (Çarkoğlu, 2010:255; Çınar, 2009:498; Demirel, 2009:213, 450).

Still, even before the terms gained widespread currency, the formative political forces behind their content began decades before with the founding ideology of Turkey.

Specifically, another set of cleavages—between center and periphery, secularism and religion, and authoritarian and majoritarian democracy—played a significant role in the formation of the center-left and the center-right camps in Turkey.

In a manner quite different from functional explanations, it was the disjuncture in values separating those who conducted the reforms from those subjected to these reforms (Mardin 1991) that created the main cleavage in Turkey. Considering the nature of the Turkish Revolution, Özbudun states that the “Turkish Revolution was not a social revolution and (…) did not produce clearly identifiable coalitions of class interest”

(1997:83). This fact has led the Turkish left and right to seek alternative approaches in identifying their ideology, basing it on social factors other than class. Pursuing a topdown modernizing mission in the absence of civil and industrial society, the telescopic nature of the CHP and the state in the very beginning led to the continuation of the center and periphery cleavage¹⁶ which in turn became the main determinant of the center-left and the center-right in Turkey. Furthermore, revolutionary strategies of the

16 This issue shall be evaluated in more detail in later chapters on democracy and the state. Also see Edward Shils. 1961. “Centre and Periphery,” In D. R. Gadgil (ed). Logic of Personal Knowledge: Essays in Honor of Michael Polanyi. New York: Glencoe. Shils’ concept of center and periphery has been adapted to the Turkish case by Şerif Mardin. See Mardin. 1973. “Center–Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?” Daedalus 102(1):169–90, where the author aims to explain the discrepancy of the modernizing state elites vis-à-vis civil society or the masses as the object of this modernization. For further details, see Ergun Özbudun. 2013. Party Politics and Social Cleavages in Turkey. Boulder: Lynne Rienner. Chapter 1; Metin Heper. 1980. "Center and Periphery in the Ottoman Empire: With Special Reference to the Nineteenth Century," International Political Science Review, 1:81-105; Ali Rıza Güngen and Şafak Erten. 2005. “Approaches of Şerif Mardin and Metin Heper on State and Civil Society in Turkey,” Journal of Historical Studies 3:1-14.

Kemalist regime along with the denial and elimination of the Ancient Regime with an assertive secularist mission bears slight resemblances to the left under the impact of the French Revolution¹⁷.

The far left and communism were perceived as threats by the existing major parties in the 1940s and 1950s, and none of the parties (neither the CHP nor the DP), explicitly defined itself as right-wing or left-wing. At a certain level, the distinction between the Republican People’s Party and the Democratic Party resembled the opposition between the Democratic Party and Republican Party of the American system, which would have theoretically made the DP a center-left party; however, in Turkey the DP has typically been perceived as a right_wing party (Ağtaş, 2007:194). The founding cadre of the DP was composed of previous CHP members that worked in CHP circles for years but who successfully gained the support, during the DP’s establishment, of peripheral opposition groups such as disgruntled conservatives, liberals, and leftist intellectuals. For instance, the DP cadre early on developed strong relations with two Socialist intellectuals, Sabiha Sertel and Zekeriya Sertel, as a means of opposing the CHP. Similarly, the predecessors of the DP, Adnan Menderes, Celal Bayar and Fuat Köprülü promised to write for Görüşler magazine, published by Sertel couple (Sertel 1987). Interestingly, the

Democratic Party of the late 1940s was accused of being the instrument of Communists as well as of receiving aid from Socialist Russia throughout its establishment (Demirel, 2009:416). The DP in turn accused the CHP of engaging with communists without

17 Here, the scope of similarity should not be overestimated. In a manner quite different from the French understanding of the left as eager to change the existing system through mobilizing viable public support for the purpose of breaking the status quo, the CHP, operating in the name of the center-left in Turkey, emerged as the heir of the Young Ottomans (Jön Turkler) and the Committee of Union and Progress, and framed its activities as “saving the state” in an elitist and intellectual structure (Gültekingil, 2009:13-14

openly demarcating the CHP as a leftist party (Demirel, 2009:418). During the founding years of the Democrat Party, Celal Bayar defined his party as somewhat to the left of the CHP in certain aspects and somewhat to the right of the CHP in others (Bayar, 1968:48;

Toker, 1991a:80). All of these details point to the indeterminate nature of right and left in Turkey in the late 1940s and 1950s.

The center-left, represented by the CHP, the founding party of the Republic, maintained an elitist, authoritarian, centralist, secular and statist image up until the 1970s. The six basic principles of the CHP were nationalism, populism, republicanism, revolution, secularism and statism; yet three in particular, secularism, statism and nationalism, were the main dynamics of the CHP. Its high degree of nationalism and eye towards developmentalism mixed with populism¹⁸, which envisaged a classless society rid of certain conflicts, hindered the CHP from articulating a sincere claim to social democracy (Parla 1991; Uçan Çubukçu 2009:520-532). Emphasizing the undemocratic, solidarity and corporatist character of the populist tendency of the CHP, Özbudun also points to an interventionist state mentality behind the vision of accomplishing these tasks without being situated within the Capitalist or Socialist block (2011(1):103-2).

Given the highly central place of Turkish nationalism, secularism and statism in the Republican project—which until quite recently was beyond criticism and open discussion—it is almost impossible for a party to frankly define itself as “anti-nationalist”, “anti-secular” or “anti-statist” in Turkey. It is thus unrealistic to expect either the DP or its center-right successors to introduce a radically controversial program

18 This populist approach remains a part of the Turkish center-left. Comparing the ideologies of the DSP in the 1990s and the SHP, Hasan Bülent Kahraman pointed to populism as the main impediment of the DSP from being a leftist party in a global sense (Kahraman, 1993:199).

regarding these principles embedded not only in a single party (the CHP) but in the very structure of the state. The center-right mentality, in other words, represents not a profound shift from the dominant state mentality but rather a variation on the principles instituted by the CHP. Indeed, very limited differences were observed in the early party manifestos of the CHP and the DP (Ahmad 1977:30,40; Özbudun, 2011(1):120).

Although these two parties did not clearly define themselves as “right” or “left” in those days, the 1960 turnover and the political processes in the aftermath of the coup profoundly transformed Turkish politics. Consonant with the rise of the left worldwide after the mid-1960s, the CHP began to define itself as a center-left party, particularly emphasizing this identity after Bülent Ecevit’s leadership. The former DP and its predecessor the AP, as the main rival of the CHP, in turn came to identify as center-right parties, with the DP inventing a tradition¹⁹, so to speak, to ground its center-right leanings in an ostensibly deeper history. Nevertheless, the AP (Adalet Partisi - the Justice Party), with only four of its eleven founding members coming from the DP (Levi in Heper Landau, 1991), tried to create an amalgamation of conservatism, liberalism, Islamism, and nationalism. In light of these political transformations, the 1965 elections were thus described as a conflict of party value systems and as a struggle between left and right politics (Abadan, 1966). In the run up to the 1965 elections, İsmet İnönü described the CHP as “structurally a statist party and with this specification, it also has a left-of-center perception” (Abadan, 1966:156). Particularly after the 12 March coup,

19 Hobsbawm takes “'invented tradition' to mean a set of practices, normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the past. In fact, where possible, they normally attempt to establish continuity with a suitable historic past” (1983:1). Hobsbawm’s thesis on the

“invention of tradition”—which we can detect in the ways in which center-right parties after the DP attempted to link themselves to its history—echoes the rightization of the DP in the Turkish context.

Demirel began to portray his party as right of center, as opposed to İnönü’s left of center description of the CHP (Çakır and Göktaş, 1991:17). In the 1970’s, the CHP also adopted a more social democratic rhetoric focused on social policies, the interests of disadvantaged groups; it also considerably abandoned the populism of the former CHP and its ambitions of cultural transformation. The center-right, meanwhile, began to collaborate with nationalists. And the AP developed, in opposition to the CHP, a more market-oriented political agenda and made frequent mention of the ‘national will’ as informing their politics. Here we should note that, in the post-1971 memorandum process, right of center aligned with nationalist elements and an embracing of the status quo and the state to a degree unlike the relatively liberal and democratic center-right of the 1960s. By the late 1970s both center-left and center-right were far from centrist or moderate, as their uncompromising polarization suggests.

The trend towards polarization was interrupted by a new coup in 1980. At that time, the Motherland Party emerged as the main representative of the center-right, and claimed to amalgamate four tendencies: liberalism, conservatism, nationalism and leftism. It goes without saying that the leftism was by far the most under-represented of these four predilections. The ANAP, in an attempt to join a number of divergent interests under one political umbrella, defined the new direction of center-right politics. The True Path Party also emerged in the 1980s, and arose as another option in the center right, but unlike the DP, the AP, or ANAP, the party was not able to win a majority in elections to form a single-party government. While the True Path Party claimed to be the heir of both the Democratic Party and the Justice Party, the Motherland Party identified itself as the continuation of the DP while rejecting the AP heritage entirely (Acar in Heper and

Landau, 1991; Ergüder in Heper and Landau, 1991). In the beginning of the 2000s, the AK Party has also constructed its conservative democratic identity based on the traditions of the DP and ANAP.

Across the 1990s, at the same time that center-right parties gradually lost their power, an Islamist trend began to influence politics in Turkey. There are various hypotheses such as the “economics and service” explanation, the protest-vote hypothesis and the thesis of ideological polarization in the country’s history of Islamism and secularism. According to some scholars, the failure of the old center-right parties paved the way for far-Islamist and far-nationalist right parties to act as coalition partners in the 1990s. Thus Sayarı and Esmer note that “since the center-right parties that had traditionally defended the religious sensitivities of the periphery became less interested in representing their claims, the void created by the populist politics was filled mainly by the RP/FP and the MHP” (2002:154).

Despite the changing nature of the center-right’s perception of secularism and its religious understandings, one may argue that its stance toward democracy and the state also accelerated the collapse of the center-right during the 1990s though this claim requires further unpacking. Tanju Tosun suggests that corruption and abuse of power led to the center-right’s decline during the 1990s (1999). Others have pointed to the rise of service-oriented and dialogue-based forms of political mobilization as having enabled the rise of far-right Islamic parties by distinguishing them from the idleness of the extant right parties (White 2002; Navaro-Yashin 2002). In analyzing the Turkish center-right, then, one must account for the fuse of Islamist and nationalist tendencies as crucial

strategies by which later representatives of the center-right attracted the votes of previous parties.

In studying the radical right, Goodwin notes that it is necessary to also include mainstream political parties—not just fringe elements—in such analyses in order to grasp the issue adequately (Goodwin, 2009:325). The same is true for studying center-right politics in Turkey; it is necessary to consider radical-center-right parties in order to understand the divergences across parties. Lipset defines the radical right as “anti-pluralist and politically moralistic and conspiratorial as well as ideologically anti-elitist and anti-statist, sociologically marginalized and dispossessed” (1971) which occasionally fits with the Turkish case. In the Turkish context, the radical right typically has two allies. The first is Islamist political parties that fit with Lipset’s categorization to a certain degree. The Turkish Islamic far right has pursued a moralistic and anti-elitist project with a nationalist tone. The second partner of the radical right is ultranationalist and statist. Flirting at times with both extremes, the center-right parties in Turkey insist on staying within the borders of the system and sharing authority if possible (Cizre 1993; Mert, 2007; Tosun, 1999). In other words, despite deploying Islamist and ultranationalist discourses to woo sympathetic voters, the center-right has almost never expressed an intention to destroy the secular structure of the state or to pursue a politics based heavily on Islam or Turkishness—with the possible exception of the AP’s Nationalist Front governments in 1970s. Hence, the Turkish center-right differs from the Islamist and nationalist far right ideologies on the basis of violence and on the center-right’s system-oriented structure targeting almost all ethnic groups and religious affiliations (Taşkın, 2003). As Cizre postulates, one of the most appropriate terms to

describe the Turkish center-right is pragmatism—calculating one’s acts towards specific aims tailored to a specific conjuncture (1997).

Intra-party issues such as leader domination and undemocratic organization are present in almost every party in Turkey and do not correspond to party dividing lines.

In a basic sense, the borders of the Turkish center-right are drawn by the relative soft position of its various representative parties on the three categories that guide this dissertation’s analysis. Populist in leaning, the Turkish center-right generally supports democracy and the people’s voice in a majoritarian tone. References to a national will play an important role in center-right discourse, which prioritizes the preferences of the ostensible majority over a pluralist embracement of the different motives in society.

Despite being undoubtedly more democratic in comparison to the CHP ideology and displaying strong links with the procedural tenets of democracy, the center-right has been unable to adequately defend and expand substantive democratic ideals.

The strict statist and secularist policies and discourse of the center-left ideology have also provided center-right parties with much political fodder in constructing an oppositional platform. The center-right saw the links between the CHP and the civil and military bureaucracy as a major threat and an obstacle in realizing the national will.

Thus, minimizing and making more efficient the state apparatus are usually high on the list of priorities in the programs of the center-righ though this was rarely actualized. In line with their pragmatic approaches to politics, the AP, after the 1971 coup, sought collaboration with the military, and ANAP, in the beginning of the 1980s, avoided challenging the dominance of the military regime in the interests of preserving its own

power. Furthermore, the longer center-right parties stay in power, the more they tend to not only shape the state but also to be shaped by—internalize the interests of—the state.

Another characteristic of center-right parties in their relation to the state is their tendency to foster technocrats in an effort to oppose the power of bureaucratic elites.

The center-right also favors minimizing state investments and promoting private enterprise in their programs and discourses. Their ability to realize such aims was quite limited until Özal’s tenure in the 1980s. However, economic development and the improvement of living standards has been one of the strongest platforms of the Turkish center-right, pitting material development against the cultural engineering projects of the Kemalist Revolution.

Advocating the free and open practice of religion as a means to oppose the militant secularism of the CHP was another pinpoint of center-right politics, distinguishing it from the Islamic right, as the center-right did so while still endorsing secularism—thus the increased use of religious terms, rituals and symbols in the political realm by agents of the center-right. In conclusion, the Turkish case offers an alternative reading of the left-right constellation with its particular conjuncture and political history. The disproportionate importance given to the center-periphery cleavage and the specific approach of the center-right to matters of democracy, state and secularism, which make up the focus of this study, altogether make the Turkish center-right a curious case in the global comparative literature.