The Presidentialization of Politics á la Turkish: The Cases of Motherland (ANAP) and Justice and Development (AKP) Party

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1 The Presidentialization of Politics á la Turkish: The Cases of Motherland (ANAP) and Justice and Development (AKP) Party Hasan Faruk Uslu PhD Candidate, Political Science and Public Administration Research Assistant, Middle East Technical University, Ankara/Turkey Paper presented at the 22 nd World Congress of Political Science Reordering Power, Shifting Boundaries, in the session entitled Leaders and Leadership: How the Presidentialization of Politics Affected the Balance of Powers within Parties, July 2012, Madrid/Spain. Work in Progress. Please do not cite without permission. As far as the relationship between the process of presidentialization and parties is considered, it is believed that the Motherland Party (ANAP) and Justice and Development Party (AKP) examples in the Turkish history provide us some vital clues. The demise of the traditional parties (which were the case both in 1983 elections due to the military coup and 2002 elections because of financial crisis) that led to newly emerging ANAP and AKP, respectively, as the only victorious parties in the elections, paves the way to the parties that do not have well-defined and fixed ideology. Rather, these parties are formed in order to servicing to the people and the politics has been narrowed down to providing services which feeds into the ongoing presidentialization, both at the regime and party level. 1. Introduction Considering the last few years of the Turkish government under the ruling period of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, many people (from politicians to international institutions) highlight the increasing authoritarianism visible in the country. At the same time, there is a widespread conviction that the quality of democracy has been on the decline (Keyman, Radikal İki, ). Generally, the increasing power of the prime minister within the executive; increasing power of the president within the party; the excessive strength of the executive within the political system, the dependence of Independent Regulatory Agencies on the office of the Prime Ministry, the increasing tendency to rule by decrees by the government and the personalization of politics are severely underlined (İnsel, Radikal, and Radikal İki, ). As far as Turkish case is considered, if it is necessary to explain some of the views on the democracy, some people, very clearly, argue that democracy in Turkey is a political leader democracy whom conceptualize political leadership as an independent variable (Heper and Sayarı, 2008: 8). Another group of scholars talk about the necessity of strong leaders in order to control their parties which are considered as coalitions of diverse groups/people (Yavuz, 2010: 17). The common denominator of both observations is the supremacy of policy over 1

2 the politics, thus servicing to the nation has become the most important asset in political competition. Additionally, this paper believes in that some peculiar issues in the Turkish case have to be paid due regard. Out of them, what is called the crisis of political system and/or parliamentary politics (Ataay 2002) necessitates a closer examination. It is believed that, with the return to democracy after the 1980 military coup, Turkey has for a long time experienced an instable democracy, except the period of the Motherland Party government (especially the period between 1983 and 1989 when the leader of the party, Turgut Özal became the President of Turkey). The lack of a liberal democracy in line with the international conventions; the rise of ethnic and religious movements; the lack of stability in the parliamentary system which could not be able to form a powerful and stable governments to deal with economic issues and the crisis of representation, especially based on a very high election threshold, which led to the crisis of legitimacy were the hot debated issues of those years. Concerning the crises, one of the most highlighted factors was the ungovernability of the Turkish political system. The demands for a stronger executive had been based on this ungovernable political system which claims that the executive powers are being shared by the bureaucratic and judicial agencies (Özbudun, 2000: 55). Ataay (2002: 200) has noted the widespread explanations for the political crises in the 1990s as conservative, liberal and left-liberal crisis analyses. To a certain extent, it is fair to argue that the common denominator of these explanations is the ungovernability and/or limited democracy of Turkey. This wisdom is explained by Akyol (as in the following way; [C]oalition governments can not have discipline, rapidness and cohesion which are necessary in crisis management...due to the image of Turkey unable to govern itself, the economic program is not advancing with required rapidness, the confidence can not be given to both domestic and foreign markets, the investments are not increasing...if Turkey do not pass to a political system in which a government with a vote around 40% emanates, these crises of ungovernable democracy will continue (quoted in Ataay, 2002: 201). The aim of this study is to shed lights to the Turkish case. Turkey has generally been classified under Parliamentary regime since 1876, with the exception of the 1921 Constitution which was a special one implied under the war of independence. There are also scholars who identify the Turkish regime more in line with the semi-presidential one since the 1982 Constitution which gave more powers to the president and especially since the 2007 Constitutional change which asserted that the next president would be elected by direct vote. The hitherto studies on the Turkish case have paid great amount of attention to the comparison of the Turkish case with the presidential one (especially the U.S. model) and the advantages/disadvantages of such a change (Kuzu 2011; Güney 2007); the import of the semipresidential regime to the Turkish case and its possible consequences (Kamalak 2007) and the factors leading some political figures such as Turgut Özal, Süleyman Demirel and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to underline the need for a presidential regime (Gönenç 2011). For many authors, the dominant political culture in Turkey, the party discipline, the institutional experiences within the parliamentary system for more than 100 years are important factors highlighted in order to remain within the merits of parliamentary system (Akçalı 2007; Üskül 2007). As far as Turkey is considered, some recent arguments should be noted, at this point, which seems to be directly related with the ambition of this study. The recent observation of the Republican Peoples Party s (CHP) ex- leader, Deniz Baykal, is very instructive: He (Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, author s note) demands the presidential system. In fact, he has turned the 2

3 prime ministry into the presidency. Has the president power to stop his deeds...there have been no institution left to stop the Prime Minister (Vatan, ). Baykal seems to argue that there have been no veto-powers (such as the President, Constitutional Court and so on) left in the country to balance the Prime Minister. It seems that Baykal has seen the issue from the contingent factors, such as the characteristics and ambitious of Erdoğan. However, there has to be further researches to deal with the issue whether the structural factors besides the contingent one, or the both, have important effects on this de facto presidentialization. Another important observation reflecting the economic wisdom underlined the fact that the personality of Erdoğan remained the sole signifier of the stability in terms of economic developments. A Turkish columnist argues that: The International Monetary Fund has ceased to be the anchor. The effect of business world has decreased tremendously...there is no any more the EU anchor...erdoğan is the sole anchor (Yıldırım, , Habertürk). There is a wide belief that the office and personality of Erdoğan has become the main guarantee of stability. The current study, however, is not about an application of a presidential or a semi-presidential regime to the Turkish case. On the contrary, this study will try to shed lights to the fact that whether one can argue for the increasing de facto presidentialization of the Turkish politics under the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan s ruling period. This does not mean that the presidentialization of politics or importance of leadership is a very new entry to the Turkish politics. It would also possible to argue for an increasing presidentialization which has also already some base in the Turkish context. There have been some voices (such as Mim Kemal Öke) claiming that in fact, the periods of Atatürk, İnönü, Menderes and Bayar had worked de facto presidential rather than the constitutionally parliamentary regime (Sabah 2005). What is now argued considering the AKP case (centralization of politics, the declining quality of democracy, ruling by decrees, excessive strength of the executive vis-a-vis the legislature and judiciary, the narrowing down of the politics into providing service and the system working de facto presidential), fair to argue, was also the case for the Motherland Party (ANAP) led by Turgut Özal. Today, many people argue that the PM Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is the de facto president (İnsel 2012, Tezkan 2012) of Turkey. A clear investigation of the history of modern Turkey shows that some of the political leaders was considered as more powerful that would be expected in a parliamentary system (Sabah 2005). In the next parts, this study will be in an attempt to deal with the ANAP and AKP cases in some depth through a theoretical mediation among presidentialization-inspired studies and institutionalization of party frameworks. The both parties won successive elections and were single-party governments in the last 30 years of the country. It is hoped that the certain similarities, though not identical, provide us vital clues in dealing with the increasing leadership power in the Turkish case. 2. The Conceptual framework Although the importance of leadership is not a new phenomenon, in recent years, many authors have paid great effort to the study of leaders and their increasing power within the executives, parties and electoral processes in modern democracies. The debate on the presidentialization and institutionalization of parties are such cases in study. One of the key characteristics of the contemporary debate is that there are attempts to rescue the discussions from the constitutional formalities and apparent reliance on short-run 3

4 idiosyncrasies of individual leaders and by this way tries to examine the developments experienced by modern democracies in order to frame these sufficiently similar phenomena under a generalized conception (Foley, 2008a). One of such an attempt came from Poguntke and Webb. In Budge s (2006) words, their clear distinction between the process and regime and in Persson s (2008: 433) words their attempt to let democratic systems vary on a scale running between partified and presidentialized government instead of treating them as separate is very welcome. Poguntke & Webb (2005) argue that internationalization of politics, the growth of state, increasing importance of media and the declining importance of traditional social cleavages shaping electoral preferences give way to a world-wide process which they called the presidentialization of politics. In their words, regardless of formal constitutional characteristics/regime types; regimes are becoming more presidential in their actual practices without changing their formal structures (Poguntke and Webb, 2005: 1). It is necessary to highlight that what Webb, Poguntke and Kolodny (2011: 2) propose by presidentialization does not simply mean that there is no difference between parliamentary and presidential regimes. By the term presidentialization, it should be understood that rather than referring to a shift in the formal-legal context from parliamentarism to presidentialism, the informal changes in the working mode of political systems are the main interest, whereby they increasingly come to operate according to a logic resembling that of presidentialism (Ibid, 2011: 4-5). Thus, in this formulation, the presidential regimes (especially the US case) are portrayed as ideal-types. In other words, Poguntke and Webb (2005: 5) and Webb et al. (2011: 5-6) asserted that the functional logic of presidentialism has been more applicable to parliamentary and semi-presidential systems. Poguntke and Webb (2005: 5) have noted this functional logic of the presidential system as following: 1) Leadership power resources: The logic of presidentalism provides the head of government with superior executive power resources. 2) Leadership autonomy: The head of executive is well protected against the pressures from his own party. 3) Personalization of the electoral process: This follows directly from the natural focus on the highest elective office and implies that all aspects of the electoral process are decisively moulded by personalities of the leading candidates. First of all; having provided the main lines of the arguments, it should be claimed that it is not clear what the term presidentialization reflects, supports and promotes in terms of the kind of the politics. In these arguments, whether the politics imply representation and /or agency, political symbolism, legitimacy, power relations or anti-politics is not clear (Foley 2008). Although the political symbolism has been increasingly emphasized due to the growth of media s effect (Garzia 2011), to a great extent, the analysis on the term of politics, in the literature, seems to be secondary. It has to be dealt with great caution. This intervention to the debate seems necessary having due regard to the Turkish case. The understanding of politics in both the ANAP and AKP cases (considering their discourse) has been narrowed down pursuing policies in order to solve problems. What is called institutionalization of parties by this study also seems helpful in dealing with the Turkish case. Within this framework, the parties are considered as organizations in its entirety responding political, economic and social changes in its environment. As far as adaptation of parties is the main interest in this framework, some of them are provided as 4

5 adapting to and others failing to do so to the changes in the system. Kumbaracıbaşı (2009) 1, heavily influenced by the concept of institutionalization used by Panebianco (1988), gives us two important terms in dealing with the institutionalization of a party at hand: the degree of its autonomy vis-a-vis its environment and the degree of its systemness. The concept of autonomy implies the degree of the independence of the party from its environment. The primary way to do so is to gain room for manuever vis-a-vis the main external veto actors. However, the internal levels of membership involvement and responsiveness to grassroot demands are important aspects of systemness (Kumbaracıbaşı, 2009: 3). Contrary to Panebianco, Kumbaracıbaşı argues that the degree of autonomy and the degree of systemness may well not go in parallel to each other. The following passage is worth to be quoting: [I]f the party works toward a higher sytemness and wants to maintain its internal unity, this would involve a strengthening intra-party participation, leading to more opportunities for the different factions to articulate their preferences, less leadership centralization, and better communication between the grassroots and leadership... It would also reduce the party s attractiveness to moderate voters, who have helped to give the party a certain amount of political autonomy. In other words, the party should face a strategic dilemma which necessitates a trade-off between the two dimensions: if the leadership increases systemness, it runs the risk of loosing autonomy and vice versa. Therefore, the leadership is believed to attempt to optimize the level of institutionalization rather than seeking to maximize institutionalization in both dimensions (Kumbaracıbaşı, 2009: 3). In short, according to the perspective which considers the parties as organizations, the aim of coordinating both the autonomy and systemness put party leaders at the centre of analysis. This strategic dilemma between systemness and autonomy (considering the arguments of ungoverning democracy in the Turkish case) faced by the parties certainly pave the way for party presidentialization which necessitates powerful party leaders to control the systemness dimension of their parties. The party presidentialization seems also necessary in order to enlarge the voter bases of the party beyond the traditional voters. If this party is the governing party, the increasing power resources of the leader expanded into the executive in a system where the checks and balances are not institutionalized. The next part will note some of the interesting developments experienced under the ANAP and AKP periods. 3. The Motherland Party (ANAP) and Turgut Özal The military regime that ruled Turkey between 1980 and 1983 outlawed all the existing parties and permitted new ones to be established just prior to the 1983 elections. Out of three parties competed in the election, the Motherland Party (ANAP) led by Turgut Özal won the elections with 45.2 percent of the vote and an absolute majority of Assembly seats (52.9 percent). This was to the surprise of many due to implicit support of the military regime to another party competed in the election. In the 1987 election, ANAP again won with a lower 1 Kumbaracıbaşı s study mainly deals with the first governing period ( ) of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) case through the lenses of institutionalization framework adopted from Panebianco s views by the author. 5

6 percentage of votes (36.3) but an increased majority of seats (64.9) as a result of changes it had introduced into the electoral system. According to Özbudun (2000: 94), the most striking feature of party politics in the 1980s was the predominance of the ANAP, which gave eight years of uninterrupted single-party government. This was not only due to its three consecutive election victories (two general election of 1983 and 1987and a local election in 1984) but also to the new ideas (such as a new concept of government 2 ) it brought to Turkish politics (Ayata, 1993: 33). It was argued by many that the ANAP had succeeded in bringing all the political tendencies (nationalism, liberalism, social democracy and conservatism) of the 1970s together. It was like a weird coalition (Zürcher, 2004: 412), a melting pot (Ergider, 1988: 572) and/or a supermarket (Ahmad 2008). In short, it seemed that the party was divided due to a lack of coherent ideology but stood together for interest. The leader, Özal, was undisputed leader and the party was known Turgut Özal s fun club (Ahmad, 2008: 227). The party was mainly composed of new politicians who knows how to make money by their education in the US and who are globalized young people. These people in Turkey were called as Özal s princes. Considering the style of Turgut Özal, as Ahmad argues (2008: 225), there had been nobody in the Turkish history that could use the advantages of being in government like Özal. It should be argued that his governance style is composed of two phenomena: a) based on Cabinet Decrees, b) the proliferation of extra-budgetary funds. Özal s preference for ruling by decrees (bypassing parliamentary procedures and constraints) was kind of a practice associated with Latin American style presidential systems (characterized by the absence of checks and balances providing enormous powers for the key individual in charge) (Öniş, 2004: 114). This style was convenient to undertake decisions rapidly and overcome powerful interest groups. Additionally, one of the most important developments of the period was the fund system created to strengthen the executive. This extra budgetary fund was ¼ of the budget in 1984 and was ½ in There were 134 funds noted by researchers and in 1986, the parliament authorized the Prime Minister (Ahmad, 2008: 225-6). An analysis without dealing with the aims of Turkey in the 1980s to liberalize herself and to integrate with the world would be incomplete. The ANAP and Turgut Özal, the carrier of such an ambition, were seen as the initiator of liberal reforms, voice of antibureaucratic attitudes, and supporter of growth-oriented (export-led) system. On the other hand, the party was also seen as caring actor in terms of injecting optimism not only to business sector but also to wider public through mass housing projects which should be called popular capitalism, similar to Thatcher style (Öniş, 2004: 119). According to Öniş (2004: 118), an effective leadership is required in order to successfully move to a neo-liberal model of development: 1) in order to get the support of transnational community and international financial order through a commitment to reform process, 2) in order to generate trust of both domestic and external capital, 3) to sustain the reform process by incorporating broad strata of population 3. 2 Ergüder notes that there was a very concerted effort to emphasize service delivery to the citizen; a wellconducted campaign to show the relations between taxes paid and services delivered. At the municipal level, the energetic ANAP mayors were very responsive to the demands and problems of citizens. Ergüder argues that its emphasis on economic rationality, service delivery and decreasing bureaucracy, urban problems coupled with a careful avoidance of ideological issues and partisan conflict appeared to have opened up a place for the party at the centre-right of Turkish politics (Ergüder, 1988: 571). 3 These observations seem in line with what Poguntke and Webb call as internationalization of politics and restructuring of state in the Turkish case. 6

7 Thus, it fair to argue that there are many reasons to argue for an increasing power and autonomy of leadership considering the ANAP case. First of all, a single-party government in a political system characterized by the absence of checks and balances provided the Prime Minister with enormous power resources, reflected in the increasing preference for ruling by decrees and using extra-budgetary funds. Secondly, due to the demise of traditional party system in the early 1980s which is considered to give way to the appearance of (new) party and leader(s) as an anchor when the old parties disappeared (Campus 2010), the ANAP was considered as representing the new which was competing with the old (Ahmad, 2008: 230). Considering the discourse of the party, the instability brought by the coalitions in the 1970s; portraying ex-political leaders responsible for the terrorism which was the official reason for military to intervene were characteristics of the old system. In other words, the ANAP had no antecedents, and definitely no roots that extended into the past struggles of Turkish politics (Kalaycıoğlu, 2002: 45). Thirdly, as some scholars of Turkish politics argues, the ANAP and Turgut Özal heavily relied on the new understanding of politics brought in their period. This new understanding of politics should be termed as servicing to the nation rather than engaging in ideological discussions on the regime. In other words, Özal has provided the wisdom in which the policies (followed in order to solve problems) had overcome the politics (attempts at seizing and sustaining power) (Heper, 2008: 253-4). He believed in that the main function of government is to generate appropriate policies rather than engaging in politics which implies endless discussions on the regime (Ibid). Fourthly, to use another jargon, the institutionalization dilemma the party faced in those years put the leader at the centre of observations. The search for optimizing institutionalization in both systemness and autonomy (Panebianco 1988 and Kumbaracıbaşı 2009: 3) was skilfully managed by Turgut Özal. Although the party managed to change its founding leader in 1989 (Turgut Özal became the President in 1989) and stood in power until 1991, it could not succeed in its adaptation to the changing circumstances or in routinizing the charisma of Özal (Kalaycıoğlu 2002: 58). 4. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan There is no doubt that the AKP has been the most important development in the 2000s in Turkish political history. Although founded short before the 2002 elections, it succeeded in the elections and has become the governing party since The AKP broke away the Virtue Party (FP) which was banned by the Constitutional Court. The party members tried hard to demonstrate that the party was not a direct descendant of any of the older parties (Özbudun, 2006: 546). However, analyses of the voter base of the party indicated that the AKP appeared to have successfully rebuilt the Özal ANAP coalition, bringing together centre-right voters, conservatives, liberals and moderate nationalists (Ibid: 546). Socially ad politically, it is fair to argue that this is a heterogeneous coalition. The similarity to ANAP coalition is striking. As would be expected, such an amount of votes (34.3 percent in 2002, 46.5 in 2007 and 49.3 in 2011 elections) could not base on homogenous voters. The leader of the party, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has been viewed as the most important factor in keeping together the disparate elements in the AKP. The AKP government, in the very early years of its rule, had certainly stressed that the previous governments were unskilled and the main problem of Turkey was governmental crisis. The incompetence of previous governments, at the very early days of the AKP, was seen as a contingent factor, which means their way of doing politics, rather than structural ones: 7

8 [T]he muddling through 4 (idare-i maslahat) is a way to govern the country. When you analyze our history, you see that, time to time, the muddling through has been considered the most effective way in governing...turkey has been fooled by muddling through for many decades and it did not step forward...this nation employed us due to say stop to muddling through 5. The AKP summarized the 57 th government period (the coalition government performed between ) as the period of crises such as the National Security Council crisis, the President crisis, the EU crisis, the Supreme Court crisis dealing with the case against one of the leader of the coalitions, Mesut Yılmaz, and the most important one, the economic crisis. The AKP evaluated these crises in terms of paving the way for a decline in the direct foreign investments to Turkey 6. The party s argument was that the message sent by the Turkish people in the 2002 elections was their demand stop to ungoverning democracy / the democracy unable to govern 7. However, considering the difficulties they are facing in terms of legislating in the parliament despite 364 MPs out of 550, Erdoğan argues that the system gives the opportunity to be a government but does not give the opportunity to govern 8. As a government, they believe in that they have to legislate quickly in the parliament. In addition to unskilled previous governments, the structural factors were also on the agenda of the party which were seen as an impediment to governing democracy with an increasing rate day by day. Especially, the hot issue of those days, the Public Administration Reform and the relations between the President and the government were seen from this perspective 9. Additionally, the European Integration bid has been instrumentalized by the party. Even, some authors argue that the AKP has been transforming the fundamental parameters of both the Turkish and Islamic politics by way of Europeanization and internationalization of domestic issues (Duran, 2010: 334). The EU accession process is considered as a national transition project which means that without the EU bid or EU anchor, the reforms would have not been conducted: [A]s an objection one can affirm that we should do these reforms without the EU membership. However, it is easy to say but hard to do. We have to be realistic. This must not be forgotten that the necessary transition which was originated from the structural and governmental systemic crisis is very hard to be carried out by the internal dynamics of Turkey 10. On the other hand, a strong government (with a comfortable majority and legislates rapidly) is considered necessary to conduct the EU affairs. As Burhan Kuzu (one of the AKP MPs, one of the most fervent supporters of a presidential system in Turkey) notes: [I]f the election threshold falls and ten (10) parties are represented in the Turkish Grand National Assembly, then a coalition government among four parties is indispensible. Through this government; it is impossible to do your homework and access to the EU (quoted in Güney, 2007: 352). One of the criticisms directed to the President s veto on the issue of the draft law considering the Higher Education Council of Turkey (YÖK), Erdoğan argues that; 4 The muddling through is known as getting along well with the actors who aim to intervene into and/or to share executive powers of the government in the Turkish case. 5 February 03, 2009 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 6 May 29, 2002 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 7 April 29, 2003 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 8 June 10, 2003 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 9 Erdoğan noted that in their government period the ratio of return from the Presidency was 29 % which was between 2 and 4 % in the previous governments. See May 06, 2003 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 10 June 05, 2002 Group meeting. 8

9 [T]urkey has a parliamentarian system...we all know and believe in that the principal is the plural democratic politics. However, the rationale necessitates that the system performs on the basis of majority within the pluralist principles. The opposite is the tyranny of the minority, which invites the authoritarian structures. Turkey is a democratic country which rejects the authoritarian structures. Therefore, nobody dare to argue that the majority given by the nation to AKP is negligible or unimportant 11. The party gives the message that if the political system does not give the right to govern, then the economic policy will certainly be affected: [I]inadequate democracy is not capable of constituting a healthy economy. The structural transformations in the economy are the results of the structural transformation in the politics. The economic democracy is the extension of the political democracy 12. The interventions to the political arena which was considered to give way to noninstitutionalization of politics, especially in terms of the lack of historical parties in Turkey, was seen as an impediment to democratization of Turkey: [T]he safeguard of the esteem of politics is vital for a country. The JDP has brought this. Those, who are always stating that institutions should not be eroded, are silent on the eroding of politics in these days. If you have worries about democracy, if you want to live democracy with its all institutions, we have to realize that political institutions are worth displaying sensitivity. Let me ask you: How politics can be institutionalized in a country in which there is no political party that can live years without interruption? How can democracy be institutionalized without the institutionalization of politics? When we look at countries in which the democracy is institutionalized properly, we face centuries-old political parties. These are parties sitting on permanent traditions...however, in a country in which the intervention to politics is normalized; it is hard to constitute traditions, customs. Turkey has paid for this for years 13. The argument set forth by the explanations of the political crisis of Turkey, the need for stability through strong governments, were also noted by the party. Erdoğan argues that since 1946, Turkey has always stepped backward with coalition governments. On the contrary, the one-party governments have advanced the country 14. The opposition of other parties and broader public on some issues were seen as deeds directed against the stability brought by the JDP: [T]he main problem in Turkey is the continuation of an understanding which appeals to narrowing down the political sphere and uses every occasion to provide clash of authority among the state organs. Especially, the struggles of the main opposition party, aimed at surrounding the politics inside and at weakening the Parliament inside, are clear....what do these spokesmen of the RPP want? Let me state, they want to bring the judiciary and legislative powers whose competences limits are provided by the constitution clearly face to face...while doing so, the declining capacity of the country to solve its problems, the loss of trust of the judiciary institutions, the incapability of the Parliament, suffers of democracy do not bother them 15. The AKP s reliance on the necessity of coordination seems to be in line with the arguments provided by the authors working within the parameters of the presidentialization debate. This need for an increasing coordination, through making many institutions dependent on the Office of Prime Ministry, on specific Ministry and on specific actors could be evaluated in terms of their function aimed at centralizing the political processes. Considering the 11 June 01, 2004 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 12 March 16, 2005 and April 05, 2005 AKP Parliamentary Group meetings. 13 July 15, 2008 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 14 April 13, 2005 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 15 June 10, 2008 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 9

10 transformation guided by the party on the Turkish state, the following passage is worth quoting: [W]e will not stay there because we bring a new understanding to the state. This is a reformist understanding. We bring the understanding of a coordinator state 16. The need and functions of the concept of coordination was also highlighted in the restructuring of the Council of Ministers by the party through a decree in In the last coalition government period ( ) before the AKP, the number of Ministries was 36. With the JDP s 58th government period, this number decreased to 24. The 2011 change provided the Council of Ministers including a Prime Minister, 3 (three) State Minister and Vice-Prime Minister, 8 (eight) State Minister and 15 (fifteen) performer/executant Ministers. The wisdom behind this decreasing number of Ministers was the necessity of coordination among the ministries which is now more possible when the ministries are few numerically and when the competences of them are not intersecting. One of the party s MPs, Cemil Çiçek, in a press release argued that in parliamentarian systems, the Prime Ministry is a coordinator office and the state services are performed through performer/executant Ministries 17. While the office of the Prime Ministry is considered as the office of coordination, Erdoğan s words should be identified as a clue in arguing that this coordination is viewed as increasing the importance of the Prime Minister: [I]n a government composed of 3 (three) parties, the new ministries formed in order to please every party...the existence of so many ministries, formed in order to provide political balance, have complicated the harmony and coordination among the institutions...what is important? Rather than Ministries, the services must be performed...i always declare. As a Ministry, this brother (the Prime Minister, the author s note) is enough to you. We will give all the services to you 18. Within this coordinator state understanding; the party appealed to such a need for coordination during the global financial crisis through gatherings the coordination of all the banks at one hand in the new cabinet. Additionally, the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), the Saving Deposit Insurance Fund (TMSF), and the Capital Markets Board (SPK) were collected at one hand 19. A further example is an attempt of the party in the EU negotiation process. The party has charged one of the MPs, Egemen Bağış as the chiefnegotiator and the General Secretariat for EU (which later became Ministry for EU Affairs) made dependent on Mr. Bağış in order to make the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to perform different distinct actions 20. Having provided the discourse of the party, it should be concluded that at the very early days, the factors of the ungoverning democracy were almost seen from the perspective of the specific governmental incompetence of parties. The accent in the following years, especially in the second ruling period of the party, was more on the structural factors, such as the necessary reforms, the relations among state organs, and the impediments to democracy in the country. The non-institutionalization argument, noted above, seems to be very instructive. To a certain extent, as Kumbaracıbaşı (2009) argued, the party, in the very early years, had to play a sensitive role as a new party seeking to establish itself in its wider environment. In other words, the party in order to seek greater autonomy vis-a-vis its environment were in a 16 January 12, 2010 Group meeting. 17 Hürriyet, March 29, 2011, ( ). 18 Hürriyet, June 08, 2011, ( ). 19 May 05, 2009 Group meeting. 20 January 13, 2009 Group meeting. 10

11 way not to highlight the structural factors institutional interventions to the functioning of democracy. However, as the autonomy of the party matures day by day, which is working against the sytemness of the party (Kumbaracıbaşı 2009), the leadership within the party becomes crucial in order to manage intra-party conflict. The international dimension of politics (relations with IMF as an indicator of stability in terms of macroeconomy and fiscal discipline), the EU affairs and the philantrophic neo-liberalism 21 (enlarging the party s voter base besides the Islamists) and reform processes in democratization were generally stressed at the very early years because these issues are both non-frustrating/non-debated ones for the veto players in the party s environment and are helpful in enlarging/diversifying its voter base which, at the general level, are functional for the party s quest for increasing its autonomy. The words of Erdoğan, which should be considered that the party at a certain date feels itself as autonomous as to control the exchange in its environment, considering the judicial process dealing with those who are in illegal activities against the constitution (read it, alleged the former military members and some intellectuals, columnists etc. accused of planning to destroy the JDP government) notes that; [I] just want to reply the questions of why now. Turkey has reached such a democratic maturity today. For this reason we are handling these issues Conclusion In this paper, it is argued that both the ANAP and AKP were the post-crisis single-party governments with strong/charismatic leaders. Both the ANAP and AKP were formed soon after important developments, 1980 military intervention and crisis period of respectively, in the Turkish history. These newly formed parties were considered as successful in bringing diverse attitudes together. One of the main arguments of this paper, considering the ungovernability of political system, the presidentialization in the Turkish case has to be viewed in close connections with the institutionalization (Panebianco 1988 and Kumbaracıbaşı 2009) of the parties at hand. Considering the institutionalization of these parties, the leaders seem to be at pivotal position. Both the ANAP, to a certain extent, under Özal rule, and the AKP led by Erdoğan (nowadays) had succeeded in optimizing its institutionalization in terms of autonomy and systemness in the early days. Considering their environments, their aims of integrating Turkey with the world market through liberalization, relying on the European Union (European Economic Community in the ANAP period) process in order to reform the domestic system were instrumental. In terms of party organizations, both parties were totally under their leaders control. However, with Özal being the President of Turkey in 1989, the successive leaders of ANAP could not deal with its weakest dimension, the organization. Considering the AKP, to use Panebianco and Kumbaracıbaşı s concepts, the AKP, since the year 2010, feels that it has consolidated its autonomy to such a degree to work against the important veto players. However, the centralization or increasing leadership within the party (call it party presidentialization) which was seen very crucial in the early days in order to increase the independence of the party within its environment, should be an important factor of clash within the party which now, fair to argue, considers itself as the most autonomous party in the Turkish history. The dilemma of the early days between autonomy and systemness were skilfully managed by the personality of the PM Erdoğan. The vital question of the following 21 The philanthropic neoliberalism implies presentation of the party as a caring political actor through providing free coal, free food and free primary school textbooks (Keyman, 2010: 316). 22 February 02, 2010 AKP Parliamentary Group meeting. 11

12 years in the Turkish history, it is believed by this paper, will be that Can this centralization or increasing leadership, which was considered as necessary in the days in which the party privileged autonomy instead of sytemness, continue to manage the internal dynamics at a time where the party had left nothing to oppose at the systemic level in terms of veto players. References Ahmad, F. (2008) Modern Türkiyenin Oluşumu, 7 th Edition, Kaynak Yayınları, İstanbul. Akçalı, P. (2007) Siyasal İstikrar ve Başkanlık Sistemi: Amerika Birleşik Devletleri Örneği in Kamalak, İ. (ed.), Başkanlık Sistemi ve Türkiye: Ülkeler, Deneyimler ve Karşılaştırmalı Analiz, Kalkedon: İstanbul, pp Ataay, F. (2002) Türkiye de Neo-Liberalizm ve Parlamenter Siyasetin Krizi, Praksis (5) 2002, pp Ayata, A. (1993) Ideology, Social Bases, and Organizational Structure of the post-1980 Political Parties in Atilla Eralp, Muharrem Tünay and Birol Yeşilada (eds.), The Political and Socioeconomic Transformation of Turkey, NewYork: Praeger, pp Budge, I. (2006) Review of The Presidentialization of Politics: A Comparative Study of Modern Democracies edited by Thomas Poguntke and Paul Webb, Perspectives on Politics, June 2006, Vol.4/No.2, pp Campus, D. (2010) Mediazation and Personalization of Politics in Italy and France: The Cases of Berlusconi and Sarkozy, The International Journal of Press/Politics 15: Duran, B. (2010) AKP ve Dönüşümün Aracı Olarak Politika in Hakan Yavuz (ed.), AK Parti: Toplumsal Değişimin Yeni Aktörleri, Kitap Yayınevi, İstanbul, 2010, pp Ergüder, Ü. (1988) The Motherland Party: , in Özbudun, E. et all (eds.) Political Parties and Democracy in Turkey, Turkish Political Science Association: Ankara, pp Foley, M. (2008) Review of The presidentialization of politics: A comparative study of modern democracies edited by Thomas Poguntke, Paul Webb, Public Administration, Volume 85, Issue 03. Garzia, D. (2011) The personalization of politics in Western democracies. Causes and consequences on leader-follower relationships, The Leadership Quarterly (2011), doi: /j.leaqua Gönenç, L. (2011) Türkiye de Hükümet Sistemi Tartışmalarına Kısa Bir Bakış ve Mevcut Hükümet Sisteminin Niteliği, TEPAV Nisan 2011, minin_niteligi.pdf ( ). 12

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