We were expecting major realignments in the political spectrum from the center right to the center left. The new transfers on all sides show the willingness of political parties to place themselves somewhere in the middle. Still, it is not clear what these lists and “flash transfers” mean for the center of Turkish politics.Ever since the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) came to power, some have been concerned about the center of Turkish politics moving too much to the right. Claiming to be “conservative democrats,” the AK Party challenged both right and left parties, but did very little to be called a truly conservative party. Many misinterpret the fact that the leadership of the AK Party and much of its constituency hold religion dear to their hearts and live more or less religious lives. If the AK Party has shown any strong tendency toward a policy of Islamic conservatism, it has been in the form of appointing like-minded officials rather than pursuing large-scale policies.
With its economic policies, the AK Party has been perhaps the most liberal government since the time of Turgut Özal. Its policies of privatization, foreign investment and the opening of Turkey’s markets to the world (what Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called “marketing Turkey”) can hardly be called conservative. As individual conservatives, they have embraced the liberal philosophy of globalization and free market economy. As Turkey’s “neo-Calvinists,” they have shown that religious conservatism can go hand in hand with economic development and prosperity.
Yet can we still say that the AK Party has moved the center of Turkish politics too much to the right? This seems to be the shared concern of the militant secularists in Turkey. For them, the “Islamist” AK Party is undermining the foundations of the Turkish Republic not simply because they are appointing like-minded conservative and religious figures to key government positions (many of which appointments did not go through anyway), but also because they are opening Turkey up to the world in a manner that will forever change the nature of Turkish society and politics. This means a major readjustment for all social and political actors, from big city dwellers to farmers. But it also means the evaporation of old privileges and self-appointed positions such as the “guardians of the republic.”
Do the new lists and new faces indicate a major shift in party politics within Turkey? Will the rightist candidates in the left and the leftist candidates in the right lead to a reasonable normalization of Turkish politics? There is little evidence this will happen quickly. The parties are much too concerned with their popular image, so they use popular names. Singers, movie stars, television personalities, athletes and film producers are on all the parties’ the lists. An eerie populism pervades all politics on the right and on the left. I don’t recall one good example of a pop culture figure making a major contribution to the decision making process in Turkish politics.
This is not the fault of popular individuals. The political system and party politics are such that these figures can hardly make any contribution after they join a political party and become a “politician.” If we really want to have input from popular names able to use their fame, expertise and networking in their fields, then we have to find other ways than simply putting them out as the new faces of various political parties.
If Turkish politics are to normalize, however, non-political actors must play a bigger role. Intellectuals, artists, institutions in civil society, think tanks and universities should be able to contribute without necessarily taking strong political positions and certainly without putting on a party pin.A true normalization will happen when we go beyond identity politics and begin to talk about real policy issues. The AK Party, which is likely to have a second term in office, would do well to combine its liberal economic policies and conservative identity with a strong social policy approach. Some of its new transfers from the left social democrat camp are promising, but we shall see if this translates into the emergence of a “third way” -- a place beyond the traditional right that is happy to be culturally conservative without a social policy component, and traditional left that looks to progress and economic growth at the expense of conservative cultural values.
