Istanbul protest at government's cessation of peace process with PKK, July, 2015. Demotix/Erhan Demirtas. All rights reserved.In spite of being one of the only polities in the Middle East considered as a democracy-model for other Muslim nations by American administrations, Turkey has had an uneasy relationship with democracy throughout its history.
While its founding fathers desired western-style governance, Turkey’s first twenty-seven years passed under a single-party regime whose opposition parties were closed or banned when they contradicted the ruling Kemalist ideology. In response to the Soviet threat following the Second World War, the regime adopted multi-party elections in order to be accepted into the western bloc. Yet when the founding Republican People’s Party lost power to the Democrat Party in 1950, the military emerged as the ultimate power in Turkish politics.
Starting with the military coup in 1960, the military intervened in every decade – in 1971, 1980 and 1997 – whenever they believed the Kemalist ideology and state security were under threat. As a result, although there were civilian regimes and electoral politics in the political system, the Turkish people have rarely experienced genuine democracy almost throughout their entire history.
