Post on 20-Jan-2023
TERM PAPER
STATES AND SOCIETIES IN MIDDLE EAST
MILITARY RULE IN POLITICS AND STATE-SOCIETY
RELATIONS IN MIDDLE EAST FROM THE 1980 ONWARDS
Abstract
The military role in state formation in Middle East appeared
during the 20th century, have big impacts on state-society
relations in Middle Eastern countries. In 1923, Turkey became
the first independent country in Middle East with “Independency
War” controlled by military elites. The state-building
processes of military orders continued in three waves which
took place in 1950s, 1960s and 1970s in countries such as
Egypt, Algeria, Syria and Iraq. After 1980, new military rules
in Middle Eastern societies appeared as military officials
conducted coup d`états either peacefully or coercively. During
1960s and 1970s; in the formative period, the military order
was analyzed positively due to their bureaucratic regimes
within the republican order such as in Egypt, Syria, Algeria,
Tunisia, Libya, and Yemen (Vatikiotis 1961, Halpern 1963, Abdel
Malek 1968, Haddad 1973, Khuri & Obermeyer 1974, Khuri 1982).
In contrast to the role of military in formative years of
Middle Eastern countries, post-1980 period was a time of
transformation of the military role in state-society relations
and the consolidation of their authoritarian regimes. Analysts
such as Lucien Pye, Manfred Halpern, and Edward Shils saw the
military as the ideal instrument to direct the
industrialization, institutionalization, and reform necessary
for a modern society, but the military is actually a key
variable for the stability of authoritarianism.1 Since the
2000s one might see that this consolidation has been crumbled
strongly by the Middle Eastern societies, which became popular
with the Arab Uprising. However, it is very crucial to
understand why the authoritarian military regimes in Middle
East started to collapse. Which reasons triggered the revolts
against the authoritarian governments? How the state-society
relations were formed within these military governments in
order to success regime stability lasting for many decades?
What are the general politics of these regimes since the 1980s?
What kind of power enabled the military regimes to run the
state, i.e. which means of production were they holding in
their hand? Another important question is what relations of
power the military officers were exercising among different
actors and which benefits these relations were providing? The
changes in global and regional dimensions are other questions
in order to explain the success of authoritarian regimes in
staying so many years in political affairs. The paper will
address the question of how the military system of power has
shifted (at least partly) to other actors including points of
view, mentioned above, with scientific knowledge and
contemporary empiric studies which will include Egypt and
Turkey as case studies for the topic.
Content
1. Historical Background of Military in Middle
East
2. New Social Contract
3. Civil-Military Relations
4. Political Challenges to Military
5. Case Study: EGYPT
6. Case Study: TURKEY
7. Conclusion
Historical Background of Military Rule
The military elites played a crucial role in building the
modern state and transforming the community into a modern
society. During the formative years the flow of change was
dominated strongly by military elites in countries such as
Turkey and Egypt. The military elites carried out the politics,
economy and ran the state institutions according to their
policies. The military rule during the formative years had both
an anti-imperialist and anti-landlord character.2 Especial,
during 1950s; in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Iran nationalistic
politics heightened as the military elites; who were influenced
by nationalist ideas from Europe, refused political dependency
and economic exploitation of their countries. Moreover, modern
secular states were established by taking the religion under
state control and dismantle their existing power structures.
Especially in Egypt, the state controlled economy by owning the
means of production such as food production, household
appliances and television, defense industry, informatics,
automotive industry, market and shopping mall management,
construction, banking and finance, service industry, gas and
oil station and water marketing companies State Formation and
Development.3 However, the policies of the military elites were
diverging from each other according to their ideological
background, the unique history of the country and their stance
during the Cold-War years in the bipolar world. For example, in
Egypt a period of socialist transformation was experienced
during the Nasser regime whereas Turkey`s Kemalist regime aimed
a corporatist model of society to create a national economy,
one denying the existence of conflicting class interests.
(Caglar Keyder, 1987) Afterwards, in Turkey a liberal domestic
economy was performed during the Menderes government.4 Though
there are differences in terms of their practices, the military
became a dominant actor in certain countries in Middle East who
suppressed or deconstructed the old patronage structures and
created its own power relations in a modern state-society
system. The domain of military rule was not only constrained by
security, politics and economy but it also regulated
effectively the education, culture and religion in the society.
New Social Contract: Neoliberalism in the Middle East
The neo-liberal policies opened up a new era in globalization.
This new era of globalization was mainly determined by the neo-
liberal policies, namely deregulation, privatization and
liberalization. In the MENA region; the period of etatism and
import substitution policies, bureaucratic expansion and
control over the national economy during 1960s and the early
1970s, was replaced by neo-liberal policies.5 The economic
crises in the early 1970s and the rising fuel prices generated
the failure of planned industrialization in Egypt.6 In 1974,
Anwar Sadat`s open door policy revealed the beginning of a wave
of economic liberalization in the region as the oil-lacking
countries like Jordon, Morocco, Syria and Turkey followed
economic liberalization policies. International organizations
like World Bank and IMF were eager to stimulate privatization
policies in the region. Thus, Structural Adjustment Programs
(SAPs) were created for the individual countries to make them
more market oriented. According to neo-liberal view, every
country could benefit from globalization and international
market by adopting market oriented structures. Moreover,
transitologists argued that liberalization of market forces
would result in political liberalization/ democracy by saying
that market forces would diminish the state`s authority as the
state`s economic power was shifted to the market forces.
Today, a significant number of analysts agree that the
transformation of Middle Eastern countries into the neo-liberal
globalization paradigm neither represents a democratization nor
is a preliminary to such a process. On the contrary, it has
actually configured and legitimated a restructuring of power
system that has left the authoritarian and patrimonial rule of
the Arab Regimes unchanged .7 In order to discover why
transition theory`s institutional and formal aspect of politics
fails to explain the situation in the Middle East, the
attention must be paid to the analysis of power relations in
each country.
The military was still in power during 1980s in Middle East,
where Saddam in Iraq, Mubarek in Egypt and Kenan Evren (the
head of 1980 coup d´etat) in Turkey could be given as examples.
The neo-liberal globalization period didn`t diminish the power
of authoritarian military rule inside the state entities, as it
is claimed by neo-liberals that “unstoppable forces unleashed
by globalization” such as civil society, market forces and
transnational actors would result in the “retreat of the
state”. The military rulers, who were at the top rankings of
bureaucracy, were formally driven out from economic sphere of
the state and the state was not anymore the redistributor of
wealth. The shift of capital from public sphere to private one
didn`t create an independent class, who would run the liberal
market. Rather, the privatization processes have represented
an opportunity for the ruling elites to reorganize and shift
patronage networks towards the private sector, without
undermining the power of the state as the ultimate source of
rent.8 Indeed, the private sector in Middle East is dependent
upon state connections for its own survival and thus be easily
manipulated by the regimes.
The neo-liberal globalization isn`t not a mere depoliticized
conception of reform, drawing a definite line between the realm
of economics and the realm of politics. Though neo-liberal
perspective considers that institutional reforms are technical
solutions to deal with globalization in Global South, there is
the agenda of creating secure free market environment.
International donors like World Bank and IMF promoted
Washington Consensus in 1980s and Post-Washington consensus in
1990s where they introduced prescriptive “good governance”
policy. From the neo-liberal point of view the institutional
reforms in authoritarian governments could be portrayed as a
step to democracy. These reforms included bolster trade and
investment integration within the region, reduction of tariff
and non-tariff barriers, and access to the service sector which
enabled the global capital to flourish freely. According to
Hanieh, they are not just economic policies but also represent
a particular political agenda that reveals the unassailable
link between aid and the fulfilment of neo-liberal reforms.9
Opening up the domestic economy to the foreign capital became a
source of bargaining power for the authoritarian regimes in
order to increase their resources. The political demands of
international donors like free and fair elections or give
democratic rights to citizens are just nominal, as the
institutions state apparatus have been gathered into the hands
of authoritarian military elites in the Middle East.
MILITARY-CIVIL RELATIONS DURING THE LAST THREE DECADES
In Middle Eastern countries like Turkey, Iraq, Syria or Egypt
the military placed itself as the dominant power structure
above the state apparatus which preserves still the continuity
today. Military formed a system of power in civil society by
interfering in political space, economic sphere and security
apparatus to absorb every possible confrontation to their
indestructible principles. Though the political regime was
democracy, the principles of military dominated every agenda of
political parties in Middle Eastern governments. The military
interfered in politics by staging coup d´états, arresting or
dismantling political parties which would threaten their system
of power within the state apparatus. As long as the government
shares the same norms and values with the military order, there
will be no inconsistency between the government and the
military.10 In other words, the military considers itself not in
service of the government, but in the service of its own norms
and values.11 The norms and values of the military apparatus in
Middle Eastern countries contain the protection of national
security against the internal and external threats. The
military places itself above the civil society and claim that
the civil society is incapable of preserving the interests of
the national state as the civil society is considered to
disregard the national interests and construct their own ones.
The military officers were taught that they possess the
superior qualifications, are more disciplined and nationalist
and that they are more “loyal” to the nation state, than the
civil society is. The secular military order claimed also to be
the protector of democratic regimes. However, this claim is
contradictory. On the one hand the military officers were
endorsing democracy as the political regime and rejected any
military intervention in political affairs, on the other hand
they were approving the military intervention as legitimate
whenever their norms and values became threatened by the
different sections of civil society.
The exclusionist power structure of military elites between
state-society relations resumed within the neo-liberal
globalization paradigm but it engaged in a transformation
period. The transformation period is determined by changing
patterns in political, economic and security sector in state-
society relations. First of all, after the engagement of Arab
regimes with neo-liberal globalization the political strategies
changed in Middle East including Turkey. The political sector`s
general direction developed towards a strong elitism in and
privatization of political decisions where civil society was
excluded from decision making processes. Decisions were
increasingly restricted to circles and technocrats, often
through private or semi-private institutions and without
democratic oversight, where such oversight exists.7
Furthermore, a depoliticization and demobilization process of
the middle and lower social strata occurred as the neo-liberal
reforms constricted the state-society relations from
eliminating poverty and distribution of wealth to providing
security for its citizens. Besides the depoliticization of
middle and lower classes, the nationalist ideology also
diminished its significance. A possible explanation for this
decline is that the neo-liberal globalization increased the
variety of elites in Middle Eastern governments who had primary
interest in building their own constituencies fearing that
other fractions of elites will undermine their privileged
status in state apparatus. Client-seeking elites didn`t propose
political solutions to common problems of civil society like
unemployment or socio-economic inequality. The elites were
afraid that politicization of social conflicts could result in
their loss of relations of power originating from the public
and the private sector interactions. The only partial exception
could be given the trend of Islamist movements which will be
discussed in Political Challenges part of the paper. The
emergence of diversified actors in political sphere shouldn`t
be understood as a liberalization process as the different
renewed participatory policies for different elites have been
combined with repressive policies towards political actors
which constitute an autonomous or have a grassroots base. (e.g.
like Islamists.)7
The privatization process in Middle Eastern countries led not
only the sale of property from the public to private sector but
it also outsourced the former public services, like education,
transport and health, that often involves the creation of
hybrid public-private partnerships with little democratic
accountability. Liberalization process in economy occurred
only in sectors and areas of major interest to the strongest
states, corporations and individuals. Hence, foreign investment
and exchange has been liberalized, but, for example, migration
and trade in textiles products have not.7 In fact, economic
liberalization measures became an opportunity for the elites to
restructure external relations, like negotiating external rents
or reorienting international trade, and redistributing internal
sources by coopting new social groups and excluding others.
This attitude of governments has resulted in a shift in
patronage networks and the formation of new crony capitalists,
rather than creation of competitive markets. Crony capitalism,
where success in business in dependent upon close relationships
between governments and business men, in Middle Eastern
countries like Turkey, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan the military
elite favored their social neighborhood in distributing of
legal permits, government grants and special tax breaks. The
exclusionist economic policies of the military oriented
governments resulted in reactions in civil society. Social
strata, which rose from the governments` exclusionist policies
emerged within the global neo-liberal structure as the ISI
policy in the Middle was depleted and export-led economy
enabled different sections in society(opposing to military in
state apparatus) to accumulate capital within the regional and
global economy. For example, the Gülen Movement originated from
the withdrawal of direct control in economy of the state and
export oriented policies in Turkey. Albeit, the diminishing
power of the state in economy didn`t lessen the system of power
of the state itself.
In the “stronger” states like Morocco, Egypt or Saudi Arabia
public policies became more securitized and the torture and
physical intimidation of police forces happened in a daily
routine. A “securitization” process in the civil-military
relations developed in accordance with the restructuring of the
states` system of power and altering patterns in global (in)
security. The “securitization” of everyday state appeared as a
coercive mechanism which not only enabled the state apparatus
to have control over civil society but also granted
legitimization to the use of force against it. Although not in
all cases, in Middle Eastern countries where the state still
constituted its dominant system of power like in Morocco,
Turkey, Syria or Egypt; any community which contravened with
the existing power structure, was excluded from the sphere of
politics. The exclusionist and neo-patrimonial state apparatus
started to change during the last decade with the change of
global, regional, national and local dynamics.
“Political Challenges to Military “System of Power”: Political
Islam
First of all, one might to think about what political Islam is.
Political Islam is referred by conceptual plurality like
radical Islam, militant Islam, extremist Islam, revolutionary
Islam and fundamentalist Islam. This diversity points both to
the many aspects believed to characterize political Islam, as
well as to the problem of finding an appropriate term. The
shortest (and most encompassing) definition of political Islam
is that it denotes “Islam used to a political end”.12 There is
an illegitimate extension of the Islamic tradition, outside of
the properly religious domain it has historically occupied.13
Though Political Islam has many aspects in the history as this
paper examines the period after 1980, the changes in political
dynamics in Middle East will be also constrained to this
period. First of all, the Iranian revolution in 1979, 9/11
attacks in 2001 and lastly the Arab Uprising since 2010 has
changed many regional dynamics in Middle East. Every event in
Middle East has constituted diversified results in the region,
but they built a common consequence in terms of increasing the
power of political Islam in the region. Not only regional, but
also global events in the world politics has also resulted in
the rise of Islam. 9/11 attacks were a determinant in the rise
of political Islam, as it put the secular states in a weaker
position whereas Islamist movements emerged as an alternative
to the unsuccessful authoritarian secular governments.
The important question, one might wonder here is that how
Islamist movements gained a popular support from the civil
society in secular states. The explanation can be separated
into two dimensions. The former dimension, which is the
political one, can be explained by the failure of Pan-Arabism
as regional wars and conflicts prevented such a union and every
state was acting individually with other states according to
the self-interests; sometimes against the interest of all Arab
nations in the region. (Gulf War, 1990) The latter dimension
can be explained in the socio-economic paradigm within the
statist and structural perspective. After the neo-liberal
restructuring of the world economy took place, individual
states restructured themselves by reproducing their authority
and creating their neo-patrimonial system of power. The
increasing gap between the rich and the poor in civil society
was not disturbing the “retreated” state. The withdrawing of
the state from welfare created a power vacuum which resulted in
filling this gap with Islamic charities. The care of the civil
society by Islamic charities with “social service” policy
increased the grassroots mobilization within the network of
political Islam. The social service of Islamic charities
created an informal network of system of power between the
Islamic entities and civil society without including the state
apparatus.14
However, the Islamic charities were avoiding take part in any
of the demonstrations in Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia until the
Arab Uprisings started. Fearing that the “securitized” state
would dismantle or destruct their system of power, Islamic
organizations didn`t participated actively in politics. An
example can be given for the post-modern coup in Turkey held on
28 February 1997 against the Welfare Party of Erbakan. When
the Arab Uprisings started, the political Islam soared
drastically where Justice and Development Party in Morocco, the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or the Islamic Action Front in
Jordan show up actively with a reformist political wing.
The economic resources of these Islamic movements are very
important to understand how they crashed the military system of
power in state apparatus which will be revealed in case studies
with empiric data.
CASE STUDY: EGYPT
The Lotus Revolution in Egypt on 25 January 2011 revealed the
major contradiction against the Egyptian President Hosni
Mubarak of the Egyptian society with the diverse movement of
demonstrations, marches, plaza occupations, riots, non-violent
civil resistance, acts of civil disobedience and labor strikes
which followed a popular uprising Millions of protesters from a
variety of socio-economic and religious backgrounds demanded.
The grievances of the legal and political issues including
police brutality, state of emergency laws,15 lack of free
elections and freedom of speech, corruption,16 and economic
issues including high unemployment, food price inflation 17 and
low wages. On 10 February, Hosni Mubarak resigned from the
presidency. Indeed, the key dramatis personae in the crucial
events of January-February were the military and the Ministry
of the Interior, organized Islamists and especially the Muslim
Brotherhood, and young political activists networked through
social media. 18 On 24 June 2012 Muslim Brotherhood candidate
Mohamed Morsi is declared winner of Egypt's first free
presidential election since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak by
Egypt’s electoral commission and is the first Islamist elected
to be head of an Arab state. However, Morsi`s reluctance upon
alienating the army and the liberals, accompanied by asserting
authority over the rule of law and judiciary, and the failure
to capitalize popular goodwill resulted in the loss of support
in the society. 19 On 3 July 2013, Morsi was ousted from the
Egyptian coup d’état following the Egyptian protests against
his authoritarian rule.
The main legitimacy of Freedom and Justice Party (established
by Muslim Brotherhood) that it represents the real Egyptians
and not the city dwellers and the liberal upper class, but the
millions who live in slums, small towns and villages,
struggling to make a living and adhering to a basically
conservative Muslim lifestyle vanished as the government came
to nothing with the socio-economic and political demands of
civil society and insisted on to consolidate its system of
power and eradicate the “fulul” of the Mubarak-regime.
In international affairs, Morsi obtained support at first. The
British foreign minister David Cameron was the first person who
visited him and Morsi made his first visit to Saudi Arabia with
the desire of developing relations. Moreover, he supported the
intervention to Syria on behalf of the opposition groups
against Bashar Al Assad. He also sent a friendly diplomatic
letter to Shimon Peres in the case of Palestine issue
contrasting to the Mubarak`s hostility to Israel. By easing the
tensions with Israel and improving relations with Gulf
Countries, Morsi gained US support for him.
In Egypt, the defeat of Mubarak didn`t come from the private
sector. The “Whales of the Nile”, who were supposed to
represent the independent business class, were unable to swim
away from becoming vulnerable objects of the desire of the
military, security services, officers of both, and the
Islamists. (Springborg, p.248) Business men were discredited
from civil society, as being the cronies of the Mubarak
government. For example, the Egyptian Businessmen`s Association
and AmCham were led by cronies tied to the regime, such as
Shafiq Gabr, the perennial AmCham president closely linked to
the military. (Springborg, p.257) The private universities
emerged from the 1990s were funded by businessmen, but
investors ensured that individuals trusted by the deep state
were placed in prominent positions.20 On the contrary, the crony
business men participated in the physical resistance in the
protests in the so-called battle of the camels in 2 February,
in which thugs on camels and horses, allegedly hired by Murtada
Mansur, a Giza businessmen, sought unsuccessfully to turn the
tide in Tahrir Square. (Springborg, p.246) One might imply that
Morsi also didn`t want to change the crony business in Egypt,
as he wanted to create its own system of power against the
military order in state apparatus. Equally, the political
intention to approach the Gulf Countries could be also
considered as a willingness to establish a rentier state of the
GCC variety as the financial support of Muslim Brotherhood and
other Islamist political actors are strongly connected to the
GCC countries. However, the population/hydrocarbon wealth ratio
is too low for establishing a classic rentier state like those
of GCC countries.21
The revolution in Egypt didn`t also emerged from the opposition
political parties as they were inactive and suppressed under
the masonic-oligarchic regime of Mubarak. The NGOs weren`t
constituting an initiating role in Egyptian revolution neither,
because the NGOs which encouraged reformist transformation into
a democratic civil society with a narrowed and managerial point
of view denying the dynamic view of civil society, which
include civil disobedience and grassroots mobilization.
22 The revolution of 25 January 2011 in Egypt, which occurred
with the grassroots mobilization of the civil society, was
firstly represented by the Muslim Brotherhood in political
sphere. However, the Egyptian society wasn`t satisfied with
Morsi as the society continued to demand the actualization of
the socio-economic civil rights and a liberalization in
politics and media.
CASE STUDY: TURKEY
In Turkey the active and permanent political Islam started with
AKP (Justice and Development Party) which won Turkey's 15th
general election, which was held on November 3, 2002 following
the collapse of the DSP-MHP-ANAP coalition led by Bülent
Ecevit. The AKP-government revealed itself as a promising
political party by asserting to eliminate the corruptions by
coalition-led governments and removing the economic stagnation
appeared dramatic with the devaluation crisis of Turkish Lira
between the year 2001 and 2002.
AKP portrays itself as a pro-Western and pro-American party in
the Turkish political spectrum that advocates a liberal market
economy including Turkish membership in the European Union.23
Some authors suggested also that AKP is a conservative democrat
party, who defends change, reform and transformation in favor
of democracy, human rights and rule of law against Kemalist
state elites. 24 In a speech in 2005, Erdogan rejected the
labels such as Islamic Party or Muslim-democrats and implied
that the party was just a conservative democrat one.25 The
removal of six zero from Turkish Lira, the constitutional
referendums held in 2007 and 2010(which enabled also to judge
the military juntas of 1980 coup d’état), the opening of
European Court of Human Rights for individual citizens, the
Peace-opening Process with Kurdish people and the permission
for the Women students to enter the universities with headscarf
were constituting the reformist side of AKP government.
Nonetheless, the intervention of the state into the private
spaces of civil society, like the possibility to abolish the
abortion and the prohibition of alcohol selling after 10 p.m. ,
the overuse of police force and arrogant attitude of Erdogan in
Gezi Park demonstrations in 2013 and lastly the corruption
scandal in 17 December 2013 and the tapes of Erdogan and his
son about his illegal property reveal that AKP government is
neither reformist nor an anti-corruption government.
In order to understand how AKP was able to transform the system
of power of the former military ruled state apparatus after it
won the elections in 2002, one might look at the changes since
the 1980 coup d’état in terms of the attitude of the military
elites to the Islamic entities and the political-economic
changes in Turkey. First of all, during the Cold-War era,
Turkey`s civil society engaged in division; on the one hand the
leftist groups and the right-wing group on the other during
1970s. After military coup d’état materialized in 1980, the
military regime permitted a tacit tolerance towards the Islamic
entities in order to use the religion as a tool to dissolve the
leftist intention in civil society. Moreover, the rising of the
Kurdish issue necessitated a wane in nationalistic ideas in
order to stabilize civil society. Özal, the head of ANAP which
run the government between 1983 and 1989 and later became the
president, had an Islamic inclined politics for example. The
state apparatus eased the restrictions towards the Qur`an
schools, building of new mosques and Islamic research centers.
The tacit tolerance towards Özal and his party was limited by
military regimes in accordance with the empowerment and
assertiveness of Özal in national and regional politics. For
example, Özal`s determination to participate in Gulf War
besides the US and hence assert an expansionist and active
policy in Middle East was strongly opposed by the military.
(Gürbey, p.258) During the instable coalition years, Erbakan
with Welfare Party won the elections in a coalition government
in 1996. However, the military forced him to resignation from
the prime minister position in 28 February 1997 which is today
considered as a post-modern coup d’état. The authoritarian
military system of power granted certain degree of freedom in
political sphere to Islamic parties and it retook the freedom
when they turned into a threatening power. Nonetheless, this
authoritarian order shifted to the side of Islamic entities,
when the government AKP successfully separated military from
politics with the Ergenekon trial and consolidated itself in
state institutions by restructuring them with the support of
Gulen Cemaat. The economic changes in Turkey were similar to
the Egypt and other countries within the neo-liberal paradigm
as privatization, deregulation and liberalization were the main
policies of governments; especially with Özal and Erdogan
governments. However, the Green Capital is generating the main
factor in the empowerment of the political Islam in Turkey. The
green capital is used to refer to the Islamic companies which
intensified after the 28 February process. Some examples can be
given Ülker, Bim, Ihlas and Kombassan. Not only the companies,
but also a banking system has been constituted for the Islamic
companies to accumulate more capital like Bank Avrasya, Al-
Baraka or Kuveyt-Türk. The Islamic Banking system doesn`t
working on an interest based system as the interest is
abolished in Islamic beliefs and thus it attracts the “mümin”
to choose an Islamic Bank. Today`s president Gül worked as a
specialist at the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah, Saudi
Arabia between 1983 and 1991. From 1980 onwards, the trade
volume between Turkey and Gulf countries heightened. The AKP
government, unlike his preceding ones, achieved to create an
Islamic capital which was powerful enough to fight with the
military ruled capital in Turkey. Twenty years ago, Turks
discussed the influence of the "deep state," the shadowy
network of generals, intelligence officials, and—among
conspiracy theorists—organized crime bosses. Today, in private
conversations in teahouses and in the National Assembly, many
Turkish officials discuss green money and AKP financial opacity
as the new threat. Under apparent Saudi influence, such changes
will likely further erode Turkish secularism. 26
CONCLUSION
This paper aimed to answer the question of how the secular
military orders` system of power in Middle East shifted towards
the political Islam and was challenged by political Islam by
giving a historical background and explaining the neo-liberal
globalization dimension behind the shift of power in state-
society relations in Middle East. This paper helps to
understand the Arab Spring by trying to characterize the old
structures within state-society relations in Middle East and to
explain the changes after the adaptation of neo-liberal
policies. The case studies reveal both the commonalities and
differences during the process of shift of the power from
military order to the excluded Islamic part of civil society.
However, it is also important to mention that the structural
changes appeared not only within the systemic failure of state-
society relations but also due to the international financial
crisis, revolution in the communication and international
events which affected the time and space dimensions of the
changes in Middle East.
As Anderson points out, no class in history immediately
comprehends the logic of its own historical situation, in
epochs of transition: a long period of disorientation and
confusion may be necessary for it to learn the necessary rules
of its own sovereignty. (Anderson 1980, p.55)
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