HALIL M. KARAVELI, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute.

Presented by  CIPS.
Free. In English. Registration is not required. Seating is limited and available on a first come, first served basis.

Since 1923, periods of authoritarian rule have dwarfed the brief periods of democratic hope and liberalization during the last near-century of republican experience in Turkey. The conventional explanation as to why democratic evolution in Turkey has been hampered – the recurrent interventions of the military that were supposedly made in the name of “protecting secularism” – is inaccurate. The binary view of a — largely imagined — conflict between “secularism” and “Islam” is a misleading perspective on the question of the persistence of authoritarianism. The Turkish republican regime has been nationalist-conservative all along and ideological continuity over the long durée has mattered more than ruptures. Those who have been the victims of state oppression have always been the same groups: the left and the minorities. What sets Turkey apart as a democratizing state is the way the country came into being: as an “accident” of history and founded on cultural amnesia. The road to democracy has been blocked by pervasive divisions that this historical experience has bequeathed, by a deficit of trust that pervades a country where cohesion is lacking and where everyone is the “other”, and by definition someone to be wary of. That was why Turkey’s first democratically elected leader became authoritarian. However, divisions also explain why authoritarian rule has in fact been brittle. Authoritarianism has needed to be constantly rescued and restored, as the recurrent coups have illustrated. State authoritarianism in Turkey has until today lacked a strong, cohesive, social, economic and cultural/ideological base. The current Turkish regime represents a departure in this sense from the historical pattern, and that while becoming a “Big Sweden” may be elusive, becoming a “Small China” is within Turkey’s reach.

Halil M. Karaveli is a Senior Fellow at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center, where he heads the Turkey Initiative, and is Editor of the biweekly Turkey Analyst. Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Mr. Karaveli holds a B.Sc. in Political Science from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. From 1991 to 2007, Mr. Karaveli served as an editorial writer at the Swedish daily Östgöta Correspondenten. Karaveli’s recent research has been focused on the historical legacy of Turkish state tradition, secularism, on Turkey’s Kurdish issue and on Turkish foreign policy in the Middle East. His articles have been published in the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, The National Interest, the Jerusalem Post and Europe’s World.