Can you understand why the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been so slow to dismantle Kemalist laws and infrastructures? They have been in power long enough to do so. Must one conclude that they are indeed ‘Islamic Kemalists' who have been brainwashed by so many years of ‘the strong state' that they do not see how to govern otherwise?”
My responses to the highly relevant questions raised above are the following: The AKP is a mass party that brings together various mindsets. It is true, however, that the founding and leading cadres of the party share a common political orientation. That orientation surely involves Islamic values and sensitivities. But can the AKP be labeled Kemalist? Not from most perspectives, but yes from a certain perspective.
From a cultural perspective, the AKP is certainly not at all Kemalist. Kemalists are positivists in the Comtian sense, who believe that religion -- and particularly Islam -- is an obstacle to modernization, and therefore should be confined to individual consciences. They consequently share an authoritarian conception of secularism that maintains that religion has to be monopolized and controlled by the state and that religious freedoms need to be restricted. The AKP, on the other hand, represents part of the victims of Kemalist secularism. It has gradually liberalized its conception of secularism, so that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his visit to the countries of the Arab Awakening in North Africa last September, said that secularism means the state standing equidistant to all religious convictions, including atheism. The AKP government has, however, so far achieved very little change in Kemalist secularism during its 10 years in power.
From the perspective of economic philosophy, the AKP is certainly not Kemalist. Kemalists in principle favor a command economy where the state dominates, although they have somewhat moved away from that position during recent years. The AKP, on the other hand, has decisively broken away from the statist positions of its predecessor Welfare Party (RP), and pursued the most liberal economic policies Turkey has ever experienced, adding to them some social welfare measures, especially in the fields of health and education. Such policies are without doubt the main factor that explains the growing electoral successes of the AKP.
Not even from the perspective of political philosophy can the AKP be labeled Kemalist. Kemalists have no trust in democracy. Pushed by circumstances they had to introduce in the 1950s a kind of semi – liberal democracy under military – bureaucratic tutelage.
There is no doubt, on the other hand, that the AKP is strongly committed to democracy in the sense of majority rule, as were all previous government parties that have represented the periphery against the state elites. It is also true that the AKP government has -- in the course of the accession process to the European Union -- adopted reforms towards improving the rights and freedoms of individuals as well as minorities (Kurds and non-Muslims). That is why a substantial part of both Turks and Kurds (partly due also to the hopeless condition of the opposition parties) still sees the AKP as the only hope for further democratization.
Finally, that despite a decade of AKP power Kemalist “laws and infrastructures” remain largely in place can indeed be explained by the fact that they “have been brainwashed by so many years of ‘the strong state' that they do not see how to govern otherwise.” Beginning with [the Committee of] Union and Progress (CUP) power in the final phase of the Ottoman Empire,Turkey has gone through an ever waxing statist -- authoritarian secularist -- nationalist indoctrination. Consequently such Unionist-Kemalist values have left a deep stamp in the minds of Turkey's elites of various hues, not only among what I call Muslim Democrats (that is the AKP), but also among Islamists, socialists, liberals and Turkish and Kurdish nationalists. Statism and authoritarian secularism are not features of the AKP's political ideology, but (mostly Islamic with a drop of liberal) nationalism certainly is.
There are, however, certainly other reasons why Kemalist “laws and infrastructures” remain largely in place. In this context, rather than the waning of the resilience of the old tutelage regime, the AKP government's conviction that it has reformed it enough to consolidate and perpetuate its hold on power, in other words sluggishness arising out of a long period in power, may be playing the major role. I do not, however, believe that society in Turkey at large will settle for this sluggishness. I tend to think that unless it responds to the strong popular demand for democratization, AKP power is doomed to wane. I do not in the slightest believe that the AKP veering towards authoritarianism has the slightest chance of retaining power.
