The Rise and Fall of Military Tutelage in Turkey: Fears of Islamism, Kurdism, and Communism

What explains the rise and fall of military tutelage over Turkish democracy? This article argues that the military’s civilian allies, particularly in the judiciary, political parties, and the media, provided it with political power. The reason why these civilian supported the military tutelage over democracy was their ideological fears of ‘Islamic reactionism,’ ‘Kurdish separatism,’ and ‘communism.’

Yet since 2007, the military’s political influence has declined due to the weakening of its ideological allies and the rise of a counterelite, mainly the alliance of the pro-Islamic conservatives and the liberals. The article reviews the alternative state-centric, culturalist, and institutionalist explanations, while comparing the pre-2007 and post-2007 periods of civil-military relations.