Social democracy and Turkish Left: A New Possibility?

Evren Tok

Karl Polanyi (1886-1964) is a well-known economic historian and anthropologist of Hungarian origin, the author of the “Great Transformation”, and also one of the key figures who have had significant influence on the evolution of European social democracy. Polanyi’s contribution to the European tradition of social democracy mostly stems from his nuanced understanding of “freedom in a complex society”. Karl Polanyi’s understanding refers to accepting the reality of society to remove injustice and unfreedom. The task according to Polanyi is to create more abundant freedom for all, without fear. This is the meaning of freedom in a complex society in his perspective; it provides certainty that the society needs (Great Transformation, p. 268). I believe that Polanyi’s perspective could provoke new debates and motivations for the Turkish left in order to be more self-reflexive especially in relation to the possibility of social democracy in Turkey. In other words, Polanyi’s vision and the meaning he attached to freedom in a complex society could guide the Turkish left in many ways. The failure of the left could be approached in respects, first by contextualizing the ascendance of social democracy in Europe, and Turkish left’s inability to utilize from it; and secondly by pointing out the highly fragmented nature of the left, which prevents them to reach the public as well as connecting with the global left.

The road to today’s impasse for the Turkish Left

The ascendance of Third Way social democratic parties in Europe, such as New Labor under the Blair government, Zapatero’s Socialist Party in Spain and Social Democrat Party under Schröder in Germany all pointed out that social democrats could achieve electoral success through strategies such as balancing out the market forces with societal priorities, privileging both recognition and redistribution, and also being extremely sensitive to issues such poverty, inequality and social justice. Since 1980, but more intensively during the course of 1990s, the emergence of new societal actors with new societal demands have been played out in Turkey, which in turn opened the floor for further democratization efforts and voiced claims for recognition and participation. In Turkey, however, the left has been quite passive and disoriented in terms of capitalizing on the domestic dynamics, which had very prominent counterparts abroad. It is also quite controversial that this societal reshuffling took place in a context in which the leftist oriented political parties especially the CHP, have been totally detached from societal reflexes. In this conjuncture, the AKP starting from the 2002 elections, emerged as a party offering a social democratic alternative as opposed to the CHP, which remained, and can even be said to have become more nationalist/state centric. This debate was caricatured as Turkey’s late, or in other words, “delayed” encounter with the global Third Way politics.

The recent discussions within leftist circles successfully denounced the deeply fragmented nature of the left in Turkey. In a way, these discussions were portraying the historical opportunity that has been ruined at the beginning of the new millennium. Today, one of the central debates is centered around the leftist stance and positioning towards the Ergenekon case. The number of labels circulating within the left oriented press is numerous running the spectrum from positivist vs. non-positivist leftists, Kemalist vs. non-Kemalist leftists, and liberal leftists vs. non-liberal leftists, etc. Perhaps, these discussions gained momentum especially after Sungur Savran’s proposal to bring Marxist analysis to the table.

On the one hand, these discussions were necessary in order for the left to be more self-reflexive and recognize the historicity of the way in which different fragments within the left have come into existence. The internal squaring ups within the left especially with respect to the debates on Ergenekon made it clear that the current leftist critique in Turkey equates “getting more civilian” to democratization. In a way the former is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one for the consolidation of democracy. Furthermore, the same sets of discussions were mute regarding the issue of Third Way social democracy and its importance in Turkey. The introverted and futile discussions within the Turkish left prevented them from finding institutional correspondence in the Western Left.

Turkish left and the meaning of freedom

The post 2002 period has shown that unlike European style social democratic parties, which have put emphasis on restructuring/redesigning welfare states, balancing out recognition and redistribution and aiming for freedom in a complex society, Turkish social democrats have not been successful in getting such debates even onto the agenda. Now, it is the task of the Turkish left to establish a road map to move out of the impasse. Turkey’s delayed encounter with Third Way social democracy could be better instituted if the Turkish left helps build a road map that would accelerate the pace of democracy, promote participatory democracy, and redraw the boundaries between the state and the civil society. Indeed, providing effective and democratic regulation of the market and more emphasis on issues such as social justice, inequality and poverty should be priority.

The Turkish left has more responsibility than ever to prescribe a social democratic alternative that recognizes the multiplicity of societal actors, state and non-state institutions, diverging interests and global ideas that reign over Turkish democracy. From Polanyi’s perspective, the apathy of the left toward the society and societal privileges is a big obstacle to reach freedom in a complex society. Hence, being extraverted and connecting with the public, societal concerns as well as the global left, and providing more certainty than ambiguity are essential for the Turkish left to look for the true significance of freedom in a complex society.

Evren Tok: Ph.D Candidate, Carleton University, School of Public Policy and Administration

The summer of 2008, most likely, will not  be remembered by its high running temperatures but will be remembered with two major lawsuits deeply dividing the Turks. In one lawsuit the prosecutors argue that the ruling party (AKP) has to be closed based on its non-secular policies&activities. In another lawsuit, the prosecutors are pressing charges against more than 100 citizens including two retired generals, several other retired military officials and many well known public figures for being a member of an organization called Ergenekon which is claimed to be planning a coup to dethrone AKP.

Thanks to all the dust raised by these lawsuits the public seems to be completely blind to how the economy is performing. The figure below, recently published by Ari Movement shows the increasing export and import numbers in billion dollars. It is clear how the gap between these two has been increasing since AKP won a major victory in the 2002 elections. Even though major economic parameters are not bright, the public seems to disregard these and still support AKP as they won the 2007 election by a landslide.

(*:2008 numbers are projected using the 1st quarter’s numbers. Except the 2008 projection, all the numbers are taken from Turkish Statistical Institute)

It would be unfair to say the increase in trade-deficit was a direct cause of AKP’s policies. The next figure (also published by Ari Movement) shows the increase in trade deficit and mineral fuel and oil import numbers.

(*:2008 numbers are projected using the 1st quarter’s numbers. Except the 2008 projection, all the numbers are taken from Turkish Statistical Institute)

The oil and natural gas imports make up most of the mineral fuel and oil imports. The figure shows us how the increasing crude oil prices had a high toll on growing Turkish economy. Unfortunately for Turkey, as the economy grows the need for energy grows and this directly fuels the deficit.

Even though we said AKP did not create this problem, it would be fair to say they have done almost nothing to solve the problem. For instance, today, over 14% of Germany’s electricity power comes from renewable energy. This number is less than 1% for Turkey.

AKP government has very recently passed several legislatures which aims to boost the transition to renewable energy. Turkish Embassy has a PDF document outlining Turkey’s new energy policies. It is to be seen if these policies are enough and if they will have their effects before it is too late.

It is so hard to even start talking about the Turkish-Armenian conflict; so, I am just going to talk about my personal take on it.

As a Turk living in the US, it saddens me to see people from other countries recognize my country and Armenia only through our conflict. They do not know much about each of the countries but they know that we have been in conflict since the early times of this century.However, what saddens me most is to actually see these two countries with such similar history and culture to be in conflict and closely observe my generation grow up not recognizing our commonalities. Today, I read an article from Dr. Stepan Grigoryan, the chairman of the board of the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation in Yerevan, who in his article pointed out that people are closer to each other than their governments. He claims that people of both countries want reconciliation and end of the conflict; however, political realities do not represent this view.

Armenia and Turkey are so similar to each other, our histories are so intertwined that it is amazing to see this conflict persist this long. We don’t need to put much effort into confirming this hypothesis, just search Wikipedia for Armenian Cuisine. Almost 90% of Turkish cuisine and Armenian cuisine overlaps. Or look at our habits, the games we play, etc. Thousands of things I cannot even count. Even the way we raise new generations is similar. The only difference is Turkish side finds Armenian side in fault and Armenian side claims Turks are to blame. In the mean time, generations are growing up, not knowing each other, not realizing the past is out there to hunt their future, and only learning how to perpetuate this fight where there are only losers!

I do realize this writing sounds like a pep talk and does not seem to contain any substantive facts. Yes, I do know there are complicated things involved, yes I do know it is hard to reconcile when both parties had lost so many people, and yes I do know there were dramatic events the survivors of which still cannot let go (from both sides). However, I do also know if people were to hold on to these complexities and never reconcile, today there would not be a Vietnam with strong relations with the US, there would not be an Austria, who faught againts Britain and France in the World War I, with close relations to them now, or there would not be a Latin America, which had to faught for its independence, trading with Portugal or Spain now.

My point is I think it is time for the people of Turkey and Armenia to get to know each other and to demand reconciliation from bottom up, not top down. We, as neighbors, do need to strengthen each other, not weaken!

One of the natural human instincts, when one meets a new person, is to place that person in a little box in their minds to be able to identify to where they belong in this complicated world. Although, this is a helpful shortcut in simplying life and being able to identify with whom you would get along well, it is very limited in its ability to capture something real about the other person. Once you identify the “right box” in your mind for someone it takes a lot of effort and counter argument to change their mental location, even though sometimes that is necessary.  One of these short cuts we use to mentally place people is their econo-political view. Thanks to Chris Blattman’s blog I learned about this new ideological test which positions you on a cartesian coordinate system with social and economic ideological extremes on the axes.

They also placed some of the world known leaders on this compass (below).

I am not going to write where I ended up on the compass (though it was close to reality); however, no matter how we use these categorizations we need to keep in mind that these are very rough drawing of people’s outer contours…

Presidential Candidate Obama continues to take a clear stance against Turkey and side with the Armenian allegations. In a letter to ANCA Chairman Ken Hachikian, Sen. Obama wrote “I share your view that the United States must recognize the events of 1915 to 1923, carried out by the Ottoman Empire, as genocide. . . We must recognize this tragic reality. The Bush Administration’s refusal to do so is inexcusable, and I will continue to speak out in an effort to move the Administration to change its position.”
http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=1513

In July 2006, Obama had also written to Secretary of State Rice and opposed the decision to recall Ambassador Evans from his post to Armenia after he used the term genocide. (http://www.anca.org/press_releases/press_releases.php?prid=1513

EVREN TOK - The Constitutional Court’s decision to annul the changes regarding the headscarf ban in the universities has fostered discussions focused not only on the issues regarding the endangered Turkish democracy, but also indirectly we discuss the dilemma and the paradox of the secular nation-state and its institutions - this time not only the Military, but also the Judiciary mechanism, aiming at revitalizing the contradictions of the Turkish modernity. As some scholars point out a judicial revolution, the historical articulation and embeddedness of the institutions as the agents of this revolution need to be explored to imagine and envision a possibility of ‘change’. Today, the root of the problem in Turkish democracy and modernity project is the inertia and resistance of the institutional structure to change and transform, despite the political will.Even more paradoxically, the relation between the politics and the public policies is no longer defined by the society; instead, state institutions define this relation with a strong secular tone. In a well functioning democracy, politics-public policy interaction is mediated by a variety of societal actors such as civil society organizations, NGOs, trade unions, etc who are sensitive to the concerns of the public. While it is correctly pointed out by many scholars in the Turkish media that ‘bringing the public back in’ type of solutions are the only viable ones and the Constitution as we knew is no longer able to respond to societal impulses, a re-evaluation and re-appraisal of the ways in which state institutions curtail the relation between the politics and the public is urgently needed.Turkey’s Embedded InstitutionsParadoxically, the institutions of modern Turkey have been continuing to harness democracy and political stability, not to mention the possible medium and long run impacts on the economic and financial realms. As scholars of historical institutionalism indicate, institutions are integrated and embedded into the social and political configurations of a country. This situation might have adverse effects as well. As in the case of Turkey, the institutions might misuse their relative autonomy and disembed themselves from the very social and political structure. As Thelen and Streeck indicate, ‘an institutional logic in each society leads each institution to coalesce into a complex social configuration’ because they are embedded in a culture in which its logic is symbolically grounded, materially constrained and politically defended.While institutional sphere retains a degree of autonomy from the society’s idiosyncratic customs, traditions, corporate structures, it is the complementarity and connectivity of the social, legal, cultural and economic institutions that secures systemic cohesion. Therefore, what is at stake today in Turkey is not only limited to lifting the headscarf ban in the universities, instead the current institutional deadlock is a manifestation of a broader social and political trauma. Moreover, this trauma is a symptom of the ongoing detachment and disembedding of certain state institutions from the social, political and cultural fabric, which would sooner or later result in the loss of legitimacy from the public’s point of view and leading to increasing social tensions and paralysis as experienced recently.Path Dependent or Path Altering Change?There is no doubt that ‘bringing the public back in’ is a precondition to reembed the institutions into the social configuration, however, this is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. ‘Bringing the public back in’ approach would acquire meaning and impact only if a transparent and neutral venue to amalgamate different voices, concerns and interests is established. As scholars of institutionalism would predict, without recognizing the concerns of both governmental and non-governmental actors, without providing an accountable ground and a means to communicate, without a dialogical interaction, it is almost impossible to go beyond a ‘path-dependent’ alternative. In the case of Turkey, path-dependent alternative unfortunately involves minor, adaptive change, reproducing and preserving the revanchist attitudes and interests of certain actors and institutions at the expense of democracy.Path-altering change, however, is still possible and vital for the sake of attaining systemic cohesion, which would include a transparent and sustainable interaction between institutions and politics. Embeddedness of institutions, thus, would mean that politics and institutions mutually constitute each other within a social configuration and none of them could be subsumed under the other. Hence, sustaining, recognizing and benefiting from the complementarity and connectivity of the social, legal, cultural and economic institutions is extremely vital along with efforts to ‘bring the public back in’ through elections. In other words, the social concerns and voices should bridge the relation between public policies and the politics, rather than the state institutions who have delinked themselves from the social fabric.

Evren Tok: Carleton University, School of Public Policy PhD. Candidate

Turkey and the World Bank signed a new loan agreement for the land management systems modernization on the 9th of June. This is a much needed development for Turkey’s outdated land management systems.

In the press release  the authorities talk about Turkish land management system being as one of the most effective in the region but I guess when we look at our neighbors we realize the bar is not that high… I hope with this new development, Turkey will adapt the GIS (Global Information Systems) geospatial technology as well. It is great to have all the land records in digital forms and be able to reach them easily; however, we should also start to think about the digital data display in multiple dimensions.
21st century requires us to think differently about data storage and display. Regardless, however, I am very happy to see that we are taking the initial steps of a better land management system which is hopefully also going to trigger better record keeping and more transparency of land ownership.

A simple economics rule says: “As long as there is demand, there will be supply!”

The State and the Turkish intellectuals cannot keep going around and trying to make political groups or individuals they don’t approve disappear. The reason why AKP exists is because almost 50% of Turkish voters want to see them in power. Therefore, we have to understand that closing this party or the next fifteen AKP derivatives is not going to make 50% of Turkish votes disappear!

In 1995, Refah Party got the majority of the votes and after building a coalition and becoming the government, in 1997 the party got closed by the state. However, parties out of its body (Fazilet and AKP) continued to be political players. In 2002 elections, AKP got 34.29% of the votes and in 2007 elections the party got 46.58% of the votes across the country. This means if any political actor wants to see AKP disappear, they have to win Turkish people’s hearts and minds. Just like many previous once popular parties one day AKP may be history if people don’t want to see them in power anymore, not before!

Make no mistake about it! I am absolutely not arguing for naiveté or simple mindedness. The threats to Turkish Laicism might be real; however, the way to solve the problem is not to ban one of the parties in this battle. The main problem in Turkey currently is the lack of checks and balances such as independent and scrutinizing media, and strong civil society. Since these control mechanisms are missing, some people trying to overuse and stretch the judiciary power out of fear.However, just like by banning you cannot make even dangerous markets disappear if there is natural demand and supply (i.e. illegal adoptions, drug trafficking, etc.), you cannot make Turkish people stop voting for parties which in their minds talk to them.

I think for Turkey, it is time to try to develop an extensive system of checks and balances, have an overall constitutional reform (not piecemeal opportunistic changes) and quit trying to control the political outcomes with judicial punishments.

This is in response to Washington Post Article on 03/07/2008:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030703528.html

The effort to label PKK as freedom fighters continues. In 2008, when US is still deciding whether it is ready for an African-American president, they are forgetting that Turkey had many Kurdish presidents, prime ministers and ministers. How can they still argue that Kurds in Turkey have no political rights?

Turkey lost over 40,000 people because of PKK. US casualties caused by Al-Qaida is less than ten percent of this figure. How can you justify the cause of PKK when you take such a hard stance against Al-Qaida?

In Washington D.C., there are many think-tanks and media organizations that are part of this concerted effort. We will never give up and continue to fight them in every opportunity. We will always be loyal to Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and the forefathers of our country.

Turkish nation will never sit at the table and negotiate with terrorists. If it means more war, so be it.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=95490The other leadingRepublican candidate Romney has also so far declined to back the Armenian cause

ÜMIT ENGINSOY– WASHINGTON - Turkish Daily News
U.S. Armenians have failed to win a pledge from Sen. John McCain, the Republican frontrunner in the race for the U.S. presidency, to recognize World War I-era killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire as “genocide,” after winning such promises from Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In a weekend letter to the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), the largest and most radical U.S. Armenian group, McCain qualified the Armenian deaths as a “tragedy,” falling well short of Armenian demands that the killings be branded as genocide.”It is fair to say that this tragedy, the brutal murder of as many as one and a half million Armenians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, has also been one of the most neglected,” McCain said in his letter, according to an ANCA statement.”The suffering endured by the Armenian people during that period represented the prologue to what has come to be known as humanity’s bloodiest century,” he said.McCain’ s remarks echoed President George W. Bush’s statements on each April 24 in recent years, the day of commemoration of Armenian deaths. Armenians have strongly criticized Bush for what they see as the weakness of his statements and for opposing congressional efforts for genocide recognition.In his long career in the Senate, McCain has also consistently refused to back Armenian genocide resolutions.

Other Republican Romney:
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, McCain’s main rival in “Super Tuesday” primaries and caucuses in more than 20 states today, so far has not responded to ANCA’s request to comment on last century’s Armenian killings.”To date, the Romney for president campaign has not issued any statement on issues of concern to the Armenian American community,” ANCA said. It said Romney’s campaign had only shared copies of proclamations he had made during his tenure as Massachusetts governor. “While the first three statements during his four years in office properly described the Armenian Genocide as genocide, his fourth and final statement refrained from using the accurate terminology,” ANCA said.Failing to win backing for its cause, ANCA so far has declined to endorse any Republican candidate. The Republican candidates’ positions were in sharp contrast with remarks made by Obama and Clinton.

Obama to benefit from Armenian vote:
Both presidential hopefuls have pledged to “recognize the Armenian genocide as president.” They also voiced backing for the passage of two genocide resolutions pending in Congress. Still, ANCA announced last week that it was supporting Obama in the race against Clinton. The Armenian Public Affairs Committee, or Armenpac, has announced its endorsement for Clinton, but its influence is much less than that of ANCA.In nation-wide polls, McCain was well ahead of Romney just on the eve of Super Tuesday, while Clinton and Obama were tied.The Republican Party is holding primaries and caucuses in 21 states today. A total of 22 states and American Samoa will simultaneously see Democratic primaries and caucuses.