Four main factors underlie the current election campaign. The first is “power politics.” All political parties are vying for a greater share at the ballot box. Political leaders are engaged in heated debates, accusing one another of not representing the center. The center keeps shifting from ultranationalist to social democrat and conservative. Promises range from the reasonable to the far-fetched. All political actors are desperately trying to gain the people’s confidence.There is nothing unusual so far. A second factor makes this election campaign somewhat different from others. “Identity politics” are now at the heart of many election speeches, rallies and televised debates. More than any other in recent memory, this election reminds us of the old ideological divisions between the right and left, the secular and religious, Turkish and Kurdish and the center and periphery. The main opposition party, the Republican People’s Party (CHP), is leading the way in the push for an election campaign driven by identity politics. The CHP is running on the secularism ticket, hoping that through discrediting the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) it will create enough fear about the foundation of the republic being undermined.
A similar argument is emerging between the AK Party and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s recent polemic railing against MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli revolves around the patriotic credentials of both parties. The MHP accuses the government of selling out the country to foreigners and succumbing to the dictates of the US and the EU. Foreign policy is once again the centerpiece of the current debate about who best represents and protects Turkey’s interests. But the foreign policy debate is also about identities.
The third important factor that defines Turkish politics beyond the current election process is the emergence of what we might call the “new agents of modernization.” Unlike the early years of the Turkish Republic, where modernization as the core value of the day was at the behest of the state, the army and their close associates, today we see the rise of new agents of modernization. Traditional religious communities, business associations from central Anatolia, new and small cultural centers, publishing houses, Web sites and local TV stations are all emerging as the new actors of an extremely dynamic process of modernization.
Most of these actors hail from what we would normally describe as the traditional periphery of Turkish society. They’re not the privileged elite of the 1940s and ‘50s. They’re not the children or heirs of upper-class families. They’re not elite city dwellers. They come from humbler roots with all the hallmarks and qualities of being on the periphery. Geographically they come from such cities as Yozgat, Malatya, Kayseri, Samsun, Sivas, Konya and others. None of these cities can compare to İstanbul and Ankara, the two metropolitan centers of Turkey and the two uncontested centers of modernization. But now new competitors are on the rise with their traditional dress, accent, local networks, headscarves and strong family ties. And they appear on the scene with as much confidence as the old elite of major cities.
The rise of the AK Party and, most recently, of the MHP is a result of the rise of these new agents and actors of Turkish modernization. No doubt all the political parties are going after them. The CHP’s troubled history with the periphery and its confidence in the self-professed republican elite put it quite apart from these new players. The MHP has some affinity with them, but it falls short of catering to their demands for more transparency and openness. Overall the AK Party seems to capture their imagination far better than any other party so far.
This brings us to the fourth major element of the current political process, and this is the “new balance of center-periphery relations.” The emergence of the new agents of modernization have both multiplied and changed the primary claimants to the center ground of Turkish politics. What used to be the periphery is no longer the rural, uneducated and subdued masses of Turkey. Their children have access to all the possibilities of the modern world, from TV and the Internet to studying abroad. As a matter of fact, the so-called rising religiosity of Turkish society is a side-effect of this process: The traditional, religious and conservative members of Turkish society are becoming more visible in the Turkish public sphere.
This process has momentous implications for the future of Turkish society and politics. The July 22 election is only a small stage in this historical transformation.
