Ersel Aydinli

A Paradigmatic Shift for the Turkish Generals and an End to the Coup Era in Turkey

Turkey has been undergoing major democratic transformations in recent years, but one issue remains in question: the role of the military. Have these democratic changes also included an irreversible, structural change for the Turkish militarys political role? Are the Turks reconceptualizing their special bond with the armed forces and most importantly, is the military leadership ready to go along with this paradigm shift? This article first provides a typology of civil-military relations worldwide and identifies the main parameters of traditional Turkish civil-military relations as a system in which society maintains a direct, special bond with its military, keeping politics and politicians in a secondary position. It then suggests that this pattern is shifting into a more democratic one, in which society places its trust in politics, thus forcing the military into the secondary position. It then analyzes the discourse and policies of the last three Turkish Chiefs of Staff for evidence that the army is adapting into this paradigm shift. With the completion of this adaptation, Turkey may very well be leaving the coup era behind.

Ergenekon, New Pacts, and the Decline of the Turkish “Inner State”

This article looks at both the direct question of the Turkish militarys changing role in Turkish politics as specifically reflected in its reaction to the Ergenekon investigation, and more broadly at the recent face of pact-making in Turkey. It explores the nature of current pacts with respect to Turkish civil-military relations, and questions whether these pacts may actually be evidence of a deeper consolidation of Turkish democracy and the emergence of a new Turkish State.

The Conflict Resolution and Counterterrorism Dilemma: Turkey Faces its Kurdish Question

This article considers the relationship between two processes—conflict resolution and counterterrorism—which conceptually share many common points, yet in practice do not necessarily proceed together easily towards a common goal. Considering particular cases of ethnic conflict in which terrorist factions exist, the article argues that while neither conflict resolution nor counterterrorism alone can adequately address the problem, simultaneously conducting both must keep in mind the processes’ inherent differences and avoid excessive prioritizing of one over the other. By exploring recent Turkish governmental initiatives to address the Kurdish question, the article attempts to provide an outline for how to successfully cope with the two processes simultaneously.

civil-military relations transformed

Abstract: Recent years have seen a transformation in Turkish civil-military relations—away from the traditional picture of weak elected officials overseen by a strong military, to one of a strengthened civilian government and a military with decreased influence. This article explores the questions of how this transformation has occurred, whether it will last, and what it indicates about prospects for democratic consolidation in Turkey. It includes suggestions for ensuring the institutionalization of these changes, and discusses possible stumbling blocks to further advancement.

From Finances to Transnational Mobility: Searching for the Global Jihadists' Achilles Heel

ABSTRACT This article seeks to uncover a primary source of vulnerability in the global Jihadist terrorist network. It offers a critical examination of the traditional money lead for countering global Jihadist terrorism, and concludes that in this case, it is not the most effective method. Rather, the concept of transnational mobility, both as it relates to socialization into and professionalization within the Jihadist network, is identified as the lifeblood of the network, and thus an arguably more appropriate focus for countering strategies. Issues surrounding travel document security are analysed within an overarching dichotomous framework of offensive/defensive counter-terrorism strategies, emphasizing the need for active penetration by intelligence forces into the terrorist networks and relevant mobility-related realms.

Before Jihadists There Were Anarchists: A Failed Case of Transnational Violence

With the wave of violent jihadist activities in recent years, the worlds attention has shifted away from a traditional prioritizing of state forms of formal violence toward one focusing on an apparently “new” phenomenon of transnational violence. Yet transnational violence itself is not a new phenomenon; it in fact precedes international, state-centric violence. For reasons related to gaps or defects within the state system or to surges in the capacities of individuals and societies, transnational violence has periodically made attempts to regain its primary position. Prior to the violent jihadists, the last of these efforts was that of the late-nineteenth-century Anarchists. This article looks at the dynamics of the Anarchistss failure as part of a transnational violence continuum, using a framework based on their autonomy, representation, and influence. The results provide an historical example against which future studies about the current episode of transnational violence may be compared.

Winning a Low Intensity Conflict: Drawing Lessons from the Turkish Case

Terms such as ‘unconventional warfare’ and ‘small wars’, which were used extensively during the Cold War era, began to be replaced in the late 1980s with the term low intensity conflict (LIC), particularly by American scholars and practitioners. Since the literature around the characteristics of LIC is still growing, it has not yet reached the stage of a well-developed and accepted terminology. Discussions about LIC have often suffered because of a tendency to define the very concept by what it is not: conventional or nuclear war. Those attempts at definition are often criticized for being excessively broad and inclusive, and ultimately, therefore, considered as not useful for comprehensive generalizations and conceptualizations. This study of a very significant case of LIC, that of the approximately 20-year long struggle between the Turkish state and the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), is an attempt to contribute to the database about LICs in a manner that may suggest routes for further conceptualization and, eventually, a more comprehensive understanding of what is certain to be the dominant form of conflict for years to come. On the basis of the following discussion of LIC, this article considers the Turkish/PKK struggle a ‘typical’ LIC and therefore an important case for the general study of LICs. On the one side we have the second largest army in NATO, one with long-standing traditions, highly trained and disciplined in the art of conventional warfare, and on the other we have the PKK, a classic example of the irregular combatant. Not only had the PKK leadership and militants fully absorbed the theory and practice of organized violence, they also had extreme familiarity with the battle terrain, excellent training and indoctrination, and highly extensive and effective international state support both within and outside the region. This article identifies five challenges as having been crucial to the success and/or failure of the Turkish state’s dealings with the PKK in the 1974–2000 period:

Governments vs States: decoding dual governance in the developing world

Abstract This article begins by questioning the transferability of Western conceptualisations of the ‘state’ to the developing world, particularly to those areas in which security concerns are extreme. It proposes that the complicated relationship between security and political liberalisation produces a reform–security dilemma, which in turn may result in dual-governance structures consisting of an autonomous ‘state’ bureaucracy and a relatively newer, political ‘government’. The dynamics of such a duality are explored through a longitudinal comparison of two critical cases: Iran and Turkey. Both cases reveal evidence of the ‘state’ and ‘government’ as distinct bodies, emerging over time in response to conflicting pressures for security and liberalisation. While the Iranian case remains entrenched in a static duality with an advantaged ‘state’, the Turkish case provides optimism that, under certain conditions, an eventual subordination of the state to the political government can take place.

The reform-security dilemma in democratic transitions: the Turkish experience as model?

In considering the future of budding Middle Eastern democracies, past experience and scholarship show that a possible outcome for even the most “successful” ones is some form of imperfect democracy. Based within the literature on democratic transitions and hybrid regimes, this article explores possible factors leading to such outcomes. It focuses in particular on reform/security dilemmas, and the resulting evolution of dual state structures, in which an unelected and often authoritarian state establishment coexists with democratic institutions and practices, for example, in countries like Russia, Iran, or Pakistan. Much of the literature views such duality as an impasse, and thus considers these countries as trapped within this “hybridness” – discouraging news both for currently defined “hybrid regimes” and for countries like Egypt and Tunisia, which are now launching democratization processes. To better understand the nature and evolution of such regimes, this article looks at the case of Turkey, first tracing the rise and consolidation of the Turkish inner state, generally equated with the Turkish armed forces. It then looks at the apparent diminishing and integration of the inner state through pacts and coalitions among both civilian and military elements, and calls into question whether the pessimistic view of permanent illiberalness is inevitable.

Quantifying intelligence cooperation: The United States International Intelligence Behavior (USIIB) dataset

This report describes the creation of the United States International Intelligence Behavior dataset (USIIB). The USIIB represents the first collection of event data specifically intended for exploring in a quantifiable manner the international intelligence cooperation behaviors of the United States. A total of 293,615 events are recorded in the USIIB, covering the years 2000–09. The report first provides a detailed description of the steps involved in building such a dataset, including the development of search terms, the use of a machine coding program (TABARI – Text Analysis by Augmenting Replacement Instructions) to extract data from wire news releases, and the extension of an existing coding scheme (CAMEO) to include intelligence behaviors. Following a discussion of issues related to the reliability and validity of event datasets in general and the USIIB in particular, the report then includes suggestions and examples for how the data in the current USIIB dataset may be used in order to add to our understandings of patterns and anomalies in international intelligence cooperation behavior. As a specific example, it offers results from an empirical test exploring variation in intelligence cooperation behaviors among democracies and non-democracies, asking specifically whether the United States has been more likely in the early 21st century to cooperate on intelligence matters with democratic states, and finding this not to have been the case. Finally, it aims to provide a guide for others who would like to extend this dataset to explore intelligence cooperation activity of other countries or regions.