Can the new expansionism of Turkey overcome its troubled past with nation question?

Mgr. Serap Gunes

Master's thesis

Abstract:

Since the failed coup attempt on 15 July 2016, Turkey has been the focus of considerable international attention. The subsequent purges, arrests and detentions aiming at the members of the military and the police, the judiciary, civil servants, academicians, journalists and politicians were considered as Turkey’s slide into authoritarianism under the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). The constitutional referendum on 16 April 2017, which was held under state of emergency conditions and took place on an unlevel playing field, transformed Turkey's parliamentary system into a powerful executive presidency. During the same period, Turkey has also undergone a shift in its foreign policy. The “neo-Ottomanist” rhetoric was already discernible for quite some time, however, it increasingly gained an aggressive and anti-Western stance. The overall transformation of the Turkish politics under the AKP rule was a curious case since the party had been applauded for its democratization efforts until very recently, including the European Union (EU) membership process, the Kurdish peace process, and the abolishing of country’s calcified military tutelage. This study tries to analyze the curious case of “from reforms to authoritarianism” cycle of the Turkish regime through a macro-historical comparison of the equifinality in Turkish political elites’ actions. To do this, it takes the CUP (Committee of Union and Progress) era (especially 1908-1915) as the other unit of comparison. It also tries to discern the conditioning role of international context in the path-dependent regime change and state transformation in Turkey. Within the framework of its path-dependent explanation, it focuses on specific matters such as the Ottoman millet system and the particular institutional nexus of the empire, and the international context, mainly the Eastern Question, within which the transition from empire to nation-state took place.

Keywords

Turkey, democratization, Ottoman Empire, late Ottoman period, millet system, Armenian genocide, path-dependence, Turkish foreign policy, ontological (in)security, state survival, Turkish state, demographic engineering, institutions, regime change

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 15. 5. 2017

Thesis defence

• Date of defence: 8. 6. 2017
• Supervisor: prof. PhDr. Vít Hloušek, Ph.D.
• Reader: Mgr. Jan Osička, Ph.D.

Masaryk University

Faculty of Social Studies

Master programme / field:
Political Science / European Politics (Eng.)