Civil-military relations in turkey during the European Union process: The period of the Justice and Development Party

Since Turkey?s candidacy process for full membership to the European Union has started, in an attempt to fulfill the political conditions of the Copenhagen criteria Turkish governments have implemented a series of constitutional amendments and harmonization packages to democratize its civil-military relations. In spite of these reforms and amendments, as it is stated in the EU?s Progress Reports on Turkey the Turkish military still retains its influence in politics through informal, in other words, non-institutional mechanisms such as the speeches, press statements and declarations given by the senior members of the military on domestic and foreign policy issues. This dissertation is seeking an answer to the question of why the Turkish Armed Forces are still playing a dominant role in politics through the non-institutional mechanisms during the rule of Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi-AKP) in spite of the reforms that were implemented to decrease the power of the military vis-à-vis the civilians. In an attempt to answer this question this study will look at the non-institutional mechanisms through which the military has been exerting its power in politics and the rise in the internal threats during the period of AKP governments. In this context, the power of the non-institutional mechanisms will be analyzed by looking at the culture approach as opposed to institutionalism approach. This approach will argue that while the institutions could be changed at certain period of times, it would have taken generations to change the culture of a society. However, in order to answer the research question of the dissertation, the study will actually look at the two main internal threats that exist in the country during AKP period, the rise of political Islam and the PKK terror caused by the Kurdish separatist movement. This development will be explained by Michael Desch?s structural theory where he argues that under the conditions of high internal and low external threats, there is a very high chance for the military to interfere into politics. Consequently, this dissertation argues that the Turkish military which largely lost its institutional powers as a result of EU reforms has continued to interfere into politics through non-institutional mechanisms because of the rise in internal threats during the period of AKP governments.