Factional and Unprofessional: Turkey's Military and the July 2016 Attempted Coup

The attempted coup of July 16, 2016 caught many observers of Turkey by surprise. It was either hoped or believed that the age of military intervention was over. After all, hadn't Turkey's military been politically pacified following EU-centered reforms and after waves of resignations and i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inDemocracy and security Vol. 16; no. 2; pp. 123 - 150
Main Authors Waldman, Simon, Caliskan, Emre
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Philadelphia Routledge 02.04.2020
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
15 July coup
Armed forces
Civil-military relations
Conspiracy
Coups d'etat
Democratization
Factionalism
Gulen movement
Military intervention
Military relations
Resignations
Turkey
Turkey
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Summary:The attempted coup of July 16, 2016 caught many observers of Turkey by surprise. It was either hoped or believed that the age of military intervention was over. After all, hadn't Turkey's military been politically pacified following EU-centered reforms and after waves of resignations and indictments of top officers resulting from allegations of deep-state conspiracies against the government? We argue the contrary; in Turkey, the armed forces remained a political actor and had failed to professionalize. In addition, the Turkish military were plagued by in-fighting and factionalism, most notably officers aligned to the Gulen movement. These two factors, factionalism and unprofessionalism, were the main reasons why Turkey experienced yet another attempted coup. Such a state of affairs highlights Turkey's seemingly perpetual crisis in its civil-military relations, a significant obstacle on the road to democratization and a lesson to other countries with histories of military interference in the political process.
ISSN:1741-9166
1555-5860
DOI:10.1080/17419166.2019.1593831