European Journal of Turkish Studies, 3

European Journal of Turkish StudiesSocial Sciences on Contemporary Turkey

Thematic Issue3 | 2005Being a MP in contemporary TurkeyGilles Dorronsoro and Élise Massicard (dir.)

Electronic versionURL: https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/412DOI: 10.4000/ejts.412ISSN: 1773-0546

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Being a Member of Parliament in contemporary TurkeyGilles Dorronsoro and Élise Massicard

Parliament Membership during the Single-Party System in Turkey (1925-1945)Cemil Koçak

The autonomy of the political field. The resources of the Deputies of Diyarbakır (Turkey):1920-2002Gilles Dorronsoro

Taking up the gauntlet: fictionists in the Turkish parliamentÇimen Günay

Inter-party mobility in the Turkish Grand National Assembly: curse orblessing?İlter Turan, Şeref İba and Ayşe Zarakol

Being an Opposition MP in the 22nd Turkish ParliamentCanan Aslan-Akman

Constituency service in Turkey: a survey on MPsYasushi Hazama

Differences in role orientation among Turkish MPsÉlise Massicard

European Journal of Turkish Studies, 3 | 2005

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Being a Member of Parliament incontemporary TurkeyGilles Dorronsoro and Élise Massicard

Introduction

The MP’s position in the Turkish political system: central, butdominated

1 Since the end of the Ottoman Empire, MPs stand as the most important political figuresin Turkey. Unlike the United States, there are neither governors nor a President electedby universal suffrage. Party leaders usually are MPs, including the Prime Minister andthe Ministers, even if the later are not necessarily MPs according to the constitution.Therefore, the Turkish political elite is primarily composed of MPs and former ones.First of all, let us consider the influence of the Parliament and then the one of the MPsin the institutional system1.

The Parliament within the institutional framework

2 Today, the TBMM (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi [Turkish Grand National Assembly])2 canbe described as a dominated actor within the institutional framework. Since thebeginning of the Republic, the institutional system has gone through many changes.The many institutional breaks, in general coups d’état, have weakened the position ofthe Parliament in the mind of the population and of the politicians themselves. Besides,the general trend has tended towards a ‘rationalised parliamentarianism’, whichspread over Europe after WW2. Indeed, organisations controlling – directly orindirectly – the Parliament have increased in the last decades.

3 Since the multiparty system (1946), the Parliament is an institution with a limitedautonomy. After the first competitive elections, the Parliament became the centre ofthe political life during several decades, in spite of the coups d’état in 1960 and 1971. The1961 constitution set up institutions to counterbalance the weight of the National


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Assembly, notably the MGK (Milli Güvenlik Kurumu) and even more so the Senate, part ofthe Senators being installed to oversee that the civilian politicians abided by theconstitution. The system remained bicameral until the 1971 coup d’état.

4 The 1982 constitution introduced a kind of ‘rationalised parliamentarianism’ in asecuritarian regime with the MGK functioning as a parallel government (İnsel 2004;Dorronsoro 2005). For instance, until very recently, the military budget remained defacto outside the control of the Parliament even if the TBMM’s Defence Committeediscussed the military budget with the Ministry of Defence. Questions related to the‘national security’ (defined in a very extensive way) were largely decided by the MGK.Moreover, the relation between the executive and the legislative branch shows a strongand increasing influence of the President, who has the right to veto any passed law andto appeal to the Constitutional Court (Tachau 1980; Heper 1996). This evolutiondepends of course on the balance of powers. For example, Demirel had less influencethan Özal, and the weight of Sezer is linked to the support of the military apparatus. The MPs

5 A weakened Parliament does not necessarily mean that MPs are not individuallyrecognized. It is known that in some circumstances, members of the Parliament benefitfrom the antiparliamentarianism of the electorate. Polls indicate an importantdifference between popularity ratings of the Parliament and of the MPs themselves inthe United States. However, according to the reports of the European Commission(European Commission 2002: 29), there appears to be a bad image both of the TurkishParliament (47% tending to trust), of the MPs, and even more so of the parties (16%tending to trust). It is true that the trust rate in the Italian, Spanish, Danish, and theBritish Parliaments are even lower, but in a 2001 TESEV survey, to be a MP is ranked asthe most dishonest job by a large percentage of the population (Pérouse 2005: 226).

6 The MPs themselves are aware that their political career could be short. Firstly, it isinteresting to note the cyclical trend in the ratio of re-election during the last decades.The number of re-elected MPs is very low after brutal changes in the political offer(1950, 1960, 1980, 2002), but grows afterwards up to more or less 50% (Massicard 2003:33, table 8). Secondly, the duration of their mandate is precarious, since it depends notonly on political reversals but also on the electoral rhythm. In this respect, we shouldpoint out that early elections are usual in Turkey: since the beginning of the multipartysystem in 1946, ten out of fifteen legislative elections were early ones. Despite the factthat the article 77 of the 1982 constitution brings the term of legislature from fouryears – as it was since the Ottoman Empire – to five years, all elections have been earlyones since then. Thirdly, the volatility of the electorate is amplified since the 1990’s byimportant swings in the election results, showing the rejection of the parties in power.In the aftermath of the 1982 constitution and the ban on the old political parties, partyidentification sharply diminished and the coalition governments in the 1990’s havebeen generally unpopular. On the whole, when the turnover is high, as it is the casesince the 1990’s, very few MPs are assured of being re-elected, and the threat of aremoval by the electorate, by the party, or that their party doesn’t reach the 10%threshold, is very present.

7 Nevertheless, MPs are an important component in the relation between the electorateand the central power. They are able to pass on demands from the population to thecentre, even if the impossibility to assume several (local and national) mandates at the


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same time limits in practice their influence. They also mediate between differentinterest groups and the centre. However, powerful lobbies such as industrialists orunions can deal directly with the government. Besides, MPs do not control muchresources compared to other political actors. Indeed, the Istanbul mayors, as early asthe 1960’s, starting with Faruk Ilgaz and Haşim İşçan, got considerable resources formtheir position in local and national politics. Since metropolitan municipalities wereestablished in 1984, their mayors detain considerable resources. Decentralisationprojects might accentuate this trend and largesse out of their city resources that everymayor can distribute, while most MPs fail to control significant resources. Sources and state of the question

8 Primary qualitative sources about MPs and parliamentarianism are relativelynumerous, in contrast to the weakness of statistical and quantitative data. Besidesminutes of debates in plenary sessions (which have hardly been exploited), primarysources are made up of publications from TBMM, official bulletins as well as the seriesof Turkey in Statistics. There are also lots of autobiographies or memoirs (Kirişçioğlu1968; Ağaoğlu 1969; Burçak 1976; Perin 1990; Kocaoğlu 2003). Finally, we find manybiographies of famous politicians – mostly party leaders – written by journalists, butwhich generally do not concentrate on the Parliament.

9 On the statistical level, biographical data are unsatisfactory. About the OttomanEmpire, the work of Devereux (1963) gives a distribution by religion, ethnic group andoccupation of the MPs of the 1877 Parliament (elected by a very limited college), butthere is no more precise information. About the second constitutional period, from1908 to 19183, some works also analyse the distribution of MPs by religious and ethnicgroups (Tunaya 1998; Turhan 1991: 98). Afterwards, we have various statistical works,the major empirical study being Frey’s (1965), which was used in numerous studies,though never actualized in a systematic way. It gives a set of biographical informationabout MPs, essentially about their professional background.

10 Otherwise, it is noticeable that many political scientists have lost interest in thefunctioning of the Parliament and the office of MP. For instance, Sarıbay’s work ofpolitical sociology (1994) doesn’t address the political elite or activities of politicianswhich reflects both the objectively weak position of the institution and new trends inTurkish political science. However, we can still rely on the works of Gençkaya, Hazama,Kalaycıoğlu, Özbudun and Turan (see bibliography). Turan (1985) and Kalaycıoğlu(1988, 1995, 1999) addressed the behaviour of the MPs in the TBMM, the time spent on‘case work’ as well as the committee activities of the MPs in the 1980s and the 1990s.Furthermore, there are some local studies, sometimes of great quality, describing thenotables – some of them being MPs – in a more anthropological way (Unbehaun 1994).

11 Since this thematic issue focuses on relations between the MPs’ social background andtheir way to fulfil their parliamentary roles (see infra), we would like to address whathas been a significant part of the literature about MPs: the relation between thepolitical field and the society. This issue has mostly been addressed in the 1960’s and1970’s by studies producing and analysing statistics about the social characteristics – mostly the professional background – of MPs. The two dominant paradigms in thosestudies, Marxism and developmentalism, share the same methodologicalpresuppositions and, most of the time, their results are compatible.


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12 The study of Ünsal (1982) on the profile of the 1977 MPs falls within the scope of acritical Marxist sociology. Through the analysis of the social background of the MPs,the author notes a difference between the social composition of the TBMM and thesociety at large, notably the under-representation of the working class within theTBMM. The underlying idea is the denunciation of the confiscation of political powerby the elite (Kızır 2002).

13 Other authors have tried to show the gradual diversification of the political elite sincethe beginning of the Republic, in a developmentalist – thus fundamentally diachronic –way: ‘Stages of political development, if not actual distributions of power, may bemarked by regularities in the differential participation in formal politics of distinctivesocial groups’ (Frey 1965: 180). They are based on the hypothesis of a relation betweenmacro-social changes and the sociological profile of the MPs. By using statistical dataon the social status of MPs (essentially their occupation, education, sex), researchersexplain political developments like the institutionalisation of the political field, theprofessionalisation of the political elite, or the increasing pluralism among the socialgroups represented in the parliament (Tachau 1980). Those results can be summed upin two statements: the diversification of the elite, and the opposition between thestatist elite and those coming from other social groups.

14 Starting from the relation between social profiles and party membership, severalauthors (Tachau 1980; Heper et al. 1996) notice an opposition between a group ofbureaucrats and a political elite coming from the middle-class. Both social groups,through ‘their’ parties, fight for state resources. The (implicit) scheme is often that thebureaucracy might represent long-term interests of the country and has a stabilizinginfluence on the political system. Then, ‘general interest’ is considered to be objectivemore than constructed, and bureaucrats as its best advocates, because they arepreserved from ‘populist pressure’.

15 The second statement is the diversification of the elite. Ünsal starts from thehypothesis of an opposition between a provincial and a national elite. According toTachau (1980: 220), the Demokrat Parti (DP) represents the interests of provincialmiddle-classes in the 1950’s, and ‘localism’ –which he defines after Frey as birth in therepresented district– is increasing. Later, the rise of new social groups (engineers, etc.)and the diversification of the political elite have been stressed upon. After the 1980coup d’état, a significant proportion of religious figures –imams or graduated fromimam-hatip schools– are to be found in the different parties run by Erbakan. Startingfrom that statement, some works, drawing on the theory of social coalitions (Tarrow1977), assume that a political party comes to power when it manages to build an ‘inter-class coalition’, to pose as the representative of one or several social groups.

16 We might call into question this paradigm through two main critics. First, dataprocessing seems questionable. On the one hand, the construction of long statisticalseries while the political system has been disrupted several times, is methodologicallyproblematic, but sometimes not even commented. In some cases, data concerning non-competitive and competitive periods are used as if they were homogenous, althoughcontinuity can hardly be established between the one-party system and the multi-partyperiod. Moreover, the coherence of categories used to establish biographies is notcalled into question. For instance, the status of a profession can change in a significantway in the course of several decades, and the stable presence of a certain amount ofMPs coming from one professional sector can hide changing social dynamics. On the


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other hand, data are insufficient, and some pieces of information are not reliable: forexample, the plurality of professional experiences is rarely mentioned, most of the timebecause of the sources used – the TBMM albums only mention one profession. In thesame way, simplified socio-professional data are favoured to the detriment of thoselinked to practical experiences and social skills. Finally, the selection of relevantelements in biographies is very simplified, because it does not describe personaltrajectories but static social positions. Therefore, the evolution of the MP during hismandate is not taken into account, whereas fame and personal enrichment for examplecan alter his social position during his mandate.

17 These statistical constructions are a consequence of the general hypothesis concerningthe political and social fields. Developmentalist and Marxist paradigms tend topostulate simple relations between social groups and political representatives. Thepolitical system appears as a (relatively) transparent mechanism dealing with thedemands of social groups. Even when addressing issues like professionalisation orinstitutionalisation, the autonomy of the political field and its capacity to transformsocial resources are put in brackets. It appears that the opposition between thebureaucratic elite and the one coming from the middle-class can be deceptive. Theelection of bureaucrats can be the result of their bigger capacity to mobilise stateresources and to build a clientele in this way, which qualifies the idea that bureaucratsare immune to ‘populist’ drifts. In another way, local elites (provincial notables) areconstituted in relation to the state (Meeker 2002). Besides, this duality does not workanymore in the 1970’s, since there is an extreme politicisation within the institutionsthemselves. As a consequence, the hypothesis of a diversification of the elite led by thepolitical development in Turkey has to be questioned. All those elements challenge theidea of a transparency between society and politics. Resources and roles

18 Choosing MPs as the object of study opens different options. We have decided to focuson the articulation between two paradigms, the mobilization of resources and roleperspective. First, we address the issue of the mobilization of resources in the politicalfield. The resources are defined here as what is efficiently mobilized in the politicalfield to win election, a position of power inside a party, etc. Hence, we do not considerthe social profile of the MPs per se, but the actualisation of resources in the politicalfield. For example, it is not directly the professional background that is pertinent assuch but the way the practice of a profession gives some means to enter politics. So, wehave to describe the concrete mobilization of resources, for example in an electoralcompetition. In this perspective, the analysis of the trajectory of politicians highlightsthe readjustment of personal resources which permits to enter the political field (Bestet al. 2000). We make the hypothesis that for the elections, the value of these resourcesis to be considered on a local level, since the level of electoral competition is theprovince. Hence, it is difficult to use data built exclusively on a national level.

19 Second, the concern for the effective conditions of the practice of a political mandateleads to an analysis in terms of ‘social roles’ and to stress the learning of behavioursaccording to norms considered as legitimate (Briquet 1994: 17-18; Müller et al. 1997). Inhis everyday practice, a MP is constantly compelled to signify his conformity to a set ofnorms that define his role. Entering the role implicates having the practical knowledge


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of what is convenient to do when one has to fit into successive interactions. Theseascriptions of roles are multiple and heterogeneous since roles are defined by formaland informal ascriptions from different actors, juridical norms, etc. Elected people areinteracting in different social spaces, which are not necessarily structured byspecifically political principles. The ascriptions of roles are contextual: they depend onthe characteristics of the publics to which one is confronted. As such, they are notnecessarily homogeneous at the national level. Behaviours expected from a MP are aproduct of a particular, sometimes localized, configuration, and might appear weird inother parts of the country. ‘The concept of ‘role-set’ is to be distinguished from theconcept of ‘multiple roles’, which are associated not with a single social status but withthe various statuses in which individual operates’ (Saafeld 1997: 39-40).

20 Our endeavour is to link the question of resources with that of roles. In the sameperspective, Turan (1985) linked the practise of transfers from one party to anotherwith the resources of the MPs. In a first step, we see how the political field ischaracterised by mechanisms of selection and transformation of resources. Theanalysis of the trajectories of MPs, through their initial resources (before theirelection), the accumulation of specific resources during the mandate, and then theirpossible retaining afterwards, is intended to test the hypothesis of the ‘autonomisation’of the political field. In a second step, we deal with the complex role-set of MPs, whichcan be analysed through three loci: within the party, within the Parliament, within theconstituency. From this, we will question the relation between the resources of MPsand the way they interpret and fulfil their roles. Because of the many institutionalbreakdowns, the temporal scope of the core analysis begins after 1980, even if abroader historical perspective is taken in account in some papers. Let us first presentthe resources perspective, then the role perspective, keeping in mind that thisdistinction is only analytical, and does not imply any determinist causal relation.

I. The resources and their transformation

21 Since we take into account the transformation of resources as a dynamic and temporalphenomenon, we address first the resources of the MPs before the election and theirlocal value, then the trajectories of MPs during and after their mandate. On this basis,we shall then question the professionalisation of MPs.

Non-political resources

22 Non-political resources mobilized in the political field can be listed in a non-exhaustiveway as economic capital, proximity to state institutions, professional skills, activism,social capital, local roots, religious charisma, and family membership. In that sense,available data are often insufficient to give a clear view of these resources, and theirreduction to the very profession would be deceptive. These resources work in differentways according to periods and places; some can be illegitimate for some time. Forinstance, if we exclude the first Parliament, it was very exceptional for a man whosemain profession involved religious matters, to become an MP (Koçak in this issue). Thereligious charismatic resource has been de facto forbidden for a candidate before 1946and after the different coup d’état, but favoured in the 1980’s and 1990’s by the centre-right parties like ANAP, DYP, and Islamist parties such as RF and FP (Dorronsoro in this


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issue). In a diachronic perspective, we can also ask why certain kinds of capital aremore easily transferable in the political field according to socio-economical situations.For instance, the presence of engineers is probably linked, more than to a questionablerise of the middle-class, to a change in the organisation of this profession and to theemergence of a technicist discourse in politics (Göle 1990).

23 During the single-party period, professional profiles like high rank army members andbureaucrats who had reached the higher echelons in state administration could berewarded after their retirement by being made MPs. These civil servants formed themost crowded group in Parliament. According to Frey’s study (1965: 114-122), the rateof this group in the Parliaments of the single-party period ranged from 23% to 57%. Thenumber of parliamentarians who were self-employed, as well as tradesmen andindustrialists from the ‘private enterprise’, were much lower (Koçak in this issue).Another resource which was valorised was regime loyalty for the country’sforthcoming artists, writers, poets and journalists. They were often made MPs, butwere also supposed to be foremost spokesmen of the regime (Günay in this issue).

24 How are the professional resources used in the political field? According to the resultsof Frey (1965), completed by latter studies, three professional groups are over-represented within the Turkish Parliament: bureaucrats and lawyers in the earlyRepublic, and engineers since the 1970’s. As we have seen, the number of civil servantsis important during the one-party period before decreasing regularly, whereas liberalprofessions experience a parallel rise, notably just before the multi-party system (Frey1965; Tachau 1980: 207). Within this group, lawyers are the most numerous, except in1957.

25 Frey explains the importance of the lawyers by the capacity to resume one’s initial joband a ‘natural’ link between the occupations of lawyer and of MP (Frey 1965: 111-112).We can challenge these explanations by questioning instead social dispositions andprofessional habitus gained through accomplishing a profession, and their latter use inthe political field. So, we can analyse how specific resources linked to the profession oflawyer are reinvested in the political field. In Turkey, the presence of lawyers can beinterpreted in different ways according to the period. Until the 1960’s, the lawyer isseen as a notable. Hence, his election as a MP is linked to his local status. After the1970’s, we can emphasis the role of the professional chambers as a locus ofpoliticisation (Bora 2000; Dorronsoro in this issue).

26 In some cases, the initial profession is the gate to enter politics, but at the same timerenders the day-to-day MP’s occupation difficult, since the two professional habitus aredeeply contradictory. Günay in her essay underlines that some writers co-opted to theone-party Parliament as prestigious intellectuals or, in later periods, as ordinarycompetitors in the election process have often disturbed the power holders either asMPs in their parliamentary activities, or as writers in their literary work, andsometimes as both. The value of resources

27 The value of the resources is to be defined in relation to the local political field. Thecharacterization of the local political field is complex; thus, when Tachau underlinesthe differentiated profile of the MPs according to the level of development of theirconstituency (1980), the choice of this unique criterion is problematic. Here comes the


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question of the varying political value of resources in different contexts. For instance,inherited charismatic religious capital is largely confined to some regional (mainly, butnot only, South-Eastern) and social (rural or little cities) contexts, while otherresources seem really national. In a mostly Kurdish-populated province like Diyarbakır,militants without any notoriety or social capital can be elected to a major city on thelist of a Kurdist party in municipal elections (Dorronsoro in this volume). Belonging toa mezhep (Alevi or Sunnite) can constitute a major resource as well in contexts ofdifferentiation or tension like in the late 1970’s (Cumhuriyet 1977). Thus, resources havea specific value depending on the local political field.

28 According to Tachau (1980), MPs are increasingly oriented towards ‘localism’, becausethey are more and more born in the constituency where they are elected. However, thisfact is difficult to interpret, because it postulates a natural relation between place ofbirth and the ability to mobilize local resources. Instead, it seems relevant to reflectupon the local use of national resources and vice-versa. In other words, the ‘local’ canbe constituted as a resource in different ways: first, the ‘local’ can be constructed as alegitimising category in political discourses and media; second, party apparatus canestablish hemşehri associations, or links can be formed between both (Schüler 1998;Kurtoğlu 2004; ejts 2005). In that way, a pitchforked candidate can take benefit from astrong local presence, if he enjoys the support of a local party apparatus.

29 During the single-party period, the ‘local’ was sometimes valorised as a politicalresource, sometimes not. Some parliamentarians had never ever been to the regionthey were elected from, and, possibly, were never ever to visit this region as MPs,either. It was not uncommon for those who were to become MPs to hear about thiseither through the dailies or through radio news. It would be very hard to state thatthese parliamentarians really did represent ‘their’ regions. From time to time some ofthem were re-elected from entirely different regions. By contrast, there were alsoparliamentarians who were born in and had grown up in the region from which theywere elected. These had a certain kind of relationship to the region, for they were the‘wealthy’ of the region. Especially in areas of the country where a feudal agriculturalstructure prevailed, wealthy landowners were constantly in Parliament as MPs. Inparticular, the notables, who had positive and close relations with party headquarters,easily entered and were able to remain in Parliament. Therefore, local ties weresometimes valorised by the Kemalist regime (Koçak in this issue), depending howeveron the political situation in the region. For example, during the military administrationof the South-East, most of the Diyarbakır MPs were civil servants with no local ties; butall MPs elected in 1946 –at the beginning of the multiparty period– were local notables(Dorronsoro in this issue). The accumulation of specific resources during the mandate

30 The MP mandate is only a moment in a personal trajectory. How do MPs take advantageof the resources accumulated during mandate afterwards? In a dynamic perspective,the mandate – especially the first of a MP – is a period when the MP social status ischanging. From an anecdotic point of view, former MPs’ visiting cards almost alwaysmention their former position, which indicates a willingness to put to the fore thesocial capital associated with it. Investing in politics represents a risk; resources canincrease or, in some cases, decrease. For instance, a notable – with an important initial


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social capital – whose passage in politics is marked by scandals can lose part of hisrespectability. As they expose publicly their political preferences during their mandate,professionals can alienate some of their former clients (Massicard in this issue).

31 Resources accumulated during the mandate may vary depending on how the roles havebeen fulfilled. In general, we can assume an accumulation of social capital, because therole of the MP puts in contact individuals and institutions. The MP benefits from amodest wage and numerous advantages in nature (even if the accommodations wererecently withdrawn). But, more important, economical capital can be acquiredirregularly, for example through public contracts [ihale], a possibility which may not beaccessible for all MPs, but only MPs from the party in power or with good connectionsto decision-making bodies. Indirectly, the relations created with bureaucrats andpoliticians as an MP can be useful and possibly help to increase one’s economic capitalduring or after the mandate.

32 For the 1920-1946 period, Koçak suggests that some parliamentarians would quitParliament in order to become ambassador or governor. Those who worked in thepublic service in deep loyalty to the regime could return to their former duties, if theywished. Being a deputy was just another way of being in the public service. The MPs,who additionally became Ministers, formed an even narrower group, as the turnoverwas quite low. For the multiparty period, Dorronsoro underlines that a significant partof Diyarbakır MPs tend to settle in Istanbul or Ankara after their mandate, a fact whichcan be interpreted as a part of the formation of a national elite and theprofessionalisation of politics. Professionalisation and autonomy of the political field

33 The existence of a specialized political field leads to consider the professionalisation ofpolitical agents through a set of questions. The professionalisation of politicians andthe rationalization of this occupation should be distinguished. Whereasprofessionalisation is generally linked to the central rule of parties, notably in Germany(Saafeld 1997), rationalisation as an expertise – the mobilisation of specific techniquesrequiring important resources showing through notably during election campaigns,political marketing, etc. –may not be necessarily linked to parties. In some cases,candidates benefiting from enough resources can display the same level ofrationalization than candidates supported by a party, relying for example on lobbies.

34 In this respect, the contributions of this issue point in two directions. First, politicalparties are more and more necessary to enter politics in Turkey; however, this does notimply a strong tendency to the professionalisation of the MPs. The independent MPs,that is to say the ones who do not belong to a party, are rare and show a contrario theimportance of the parties4. In the case of Diyarbakır, political resources are decisive inthe political competition (Dorronsoro in this issue). At the same time, a large part ofthe MPs have no long political experience. The point here is the functioning of thepolitical parties in Turkey and the very centralized way in which the candidate aredesignated. In most cases, the leader and his close cronies choose the MPs, often on thebase of personal loyalty.

35 Second, the level of autonomy of the political field is varying, as well as its ability toinfluence other social fields (for the relations between the political and the literaryfield, see Günay in this issue). Periods of crisis and periods of routine should be


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distinguished, since they affect the autonomy of the political field. Crisis of the politicalsystem (declining objectivisation of social roles, institutional breakdowns, etc.) permita ‘dedifferentiation’ of the fields. In other words, in spite of the tendency toward aprofessionalisation of political elites, the inverse mechanism can be observed duringperiods of crisis, with the opening of the field to outsiders. The 2002 legislativeelections, with the multiplication of parties, an important turnover of MPs, and thestrong presence of MPs without political experience (Massicard in this issue), can be anexample. Thus, we might find an important opening of the field in those contexts: theinvestment of resources in the political field is then facilitated, the entrance ticket islow, even for the creation of parties, and non-political attributes are valorised.Logically, we find a correlation between periods of crisis and a growing presence ofnon-political capitals (Dorronsoro in this issue).

II. Roles and resources

36 Who defines the role of MP? First, there is a juridical definition of the role of MP. Legalnorms define institutional roles (regulations of parties about the designation ofcandidates, poll systems, degree of ‘rationalization’ of the parliamentarian system, etc).

37 Second, the parties have very strong role prescriptions concerning MPs. These roleprescriptions are even more important since the MPs highly depend on their party forre-election (see infra).

38 Third, the ascription of roles also comes from the representations concerning the MPs.What are they in contemporary Turkey? First, there are representations of politics bythose who practice it, elected representatives themselves, through their discourses interms of moral obligation or their believing in legitimacy given by election. But thereare also representations among the electorate about efficiency, the place given toservice [hizmet], about what is licit and what is illicit. The construction by journalists ofthe occupation of MP is of great importance in the formation of the ascription of roles,even if representatives themselves are far from being passive. Turkish MPs arerelatively absent in the media, except party leaders and when some incidents likescuffles occur in Parliament. Parliamentary debates are broadcast on TRT, but theyrarely appear in newspapers. Violence – verbal, but also physical – occurs from time totime, leading to scandals: it is perceived as such a transgression of the properbehaviour of a MP that it is then broadcast in the news bulletin (Günay and Aslan-Akman in this issue). Through those performances, representations of elected membersdo constrain their behaviour.

39 The main tasks recognized to MPs are first, legislative activities which are constitutedas follow: work in parliamentary committees; parliamentary debates (when and how doMPs intervene in the proceedings?), and speeches from the desk (written and oralquestions to the government) (Bakırcı 2000). Besides the legislative activities, anothertask recognised to MPs consists of transmitting individual requests – in general, but notexclusively, from their electorate – and answering them. This role is both legitimate (aMP has to be at the service of the people and accessible to its requests) and illegitimate(as far as these practices are often disparaged as being particularistic, flouting thepublic good and the general interest) (Güneş-Ayata 1994: 62). Despite of this ambiguity,it is quasi institutionalised, since parliamentary sessions start at 15 pm, and morningsare devoted to visits. One may observe queues of unequal size, but sometimes really


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impressive, in front of MPs’ office. This role of resort is all the more marked since MPsare often seen as being very powerful, although themselves are quite aware of thelimits of their power.

40 MPs learn on the job (Kocaoğlu 2003); thus, the learning process varies from oneindividual to another: it depends on the conditions of access to deputation, accordingto whether they have been active in a party and assumed responsibilities in it, whetherthey have involved in the associative or trade-union work, or whether their goodfortune is due to supports outside the political field. Thus, the apprenticeship of theroles also depends on the social properties of the candidates, because they predisposethem more or less to assume the prescribed rules. Meetings – sometimes informal – ofelected representatives and what happens behind the scene permit the circulation ofpractical know-how, warnings and advices. Information and knowledge necessary tofulfil obligations linked to the roles are thus transmitted.

41 The process of learning to be a MP is comparable to the apprenticeship of know-howand of knowledge constituting roles, which catch MPs with variable intensity anddifferent kinds of obligations according whether they subscribe to it with conviction,reason or duty. Therefore, ascriptions of roles are constraints for MPs, their personalhistory having prepared them more or less to accept. There seem to be no strongstandardization of role learning in Turkey, neither through the main ways oftransmission of political roles (party and elected offices) nor through theprofessionalisation of legislative activity (Massicard in this issue). The conditions inwhich MPs learn the political occupation show that the socialisation can only be limitedand that habitus are only marginally modified.

42 The political occupation leads to interact in several social worlds (Lagroye 1994). Beinga representative implicates being able to play different roles, which may also appear tobe contradictory (Briquet 1994; Müller et al. 1997). Empirical evidence suggests that theproblem of disturbances in role-sets is a very real one for modern Members ofParliament.’ (Saalfeld 1997: 40). These contradictory role ascriptions are perceived assuch by the MPs, even if interiorized differently (Massicard in this issue). Whatever theMP’s dominant characteristic (a grassroots candidate or a candidate supported by aparty), the role he is said to incarnate or the one he is favouring, he has to take intoaccount the plurality of his roles. One may observe them through the succession ofbehaviours and ways of being in everyday practices of MPs, obliging them to resort todifferent legitimacy registers. Thus, MPs use different know-how, practices and beliefs,which they cannot forget without taking the risk to offend one of the publics they arein relation with. In some cases, behaviours of MPs within the Parliament can interferewith the voters’ requests and their responsibilities in their party. Sometimes,parliamentary sessions start late or are cancelled because of the absence of quorum, orbecause MPs, busy with some other tasks, are not available.

43 How do individuals take prescribed roles up? The ways to fulfil these roles dependnotably on the resources of MPs, leading them for example to attend or to escape publicmeetings, to engage more or less in legislative work, etc. (Massicard in this issue). Forexample, MPs without political experience, put on the list by a party mainly because oftheir extra-political skills which can be useful for parliamentary activities, will mostlyengage more in legislative work than, say, MPs elected with strong personal socialsupport, and who depend less on their party’s backing (Massicard in this issue).


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Therefore, new social profiles among MPs can lead to changes in the ways to practicethis occupation (Norton 1997). The centrality of the party

44 To understand the MPs occupation in the Parliament, the relations between MPs andtheir parties are central. All the essays in this issue (Aslan-Akman, Günay, Koçak,Massicard) underline the central role of the parties in the day-to-day activities of theMP in the TBMM. It is not supposed here that every party is organised in the same way,the importance of elected members is obviously different for instance in ANAP andMHP and may evolve in every party.

45 The centrality of the parties derives both from institutional regulations and politicalrationality. Firstly, the 1982 constitution and the Rules of Procedure adopted in 1996aimed to increase the efficiency of the Parliament, thereby limiting the autonomy ofthe individual MPs, reinforce the place of the party group (Gençkaya 1999). Secondly,the great majority of representatives are in a state of dependence vis-à-vis the partiesfor their re-election. Because of the electoral system, the major step for the MP is hisnomination by the party on an eligible position in the list more than the electoralcampaign itself. The fact that the parties determine a candidate’s election more thanhis personal resources affects the MPs’ behaviour within the Parliament, for example inrelation to party discipline.

46 In this respect, the centrality of the parties has increased since the 1980s. Turkishelectoral history contains multiple experiences regarding how candidates move fromthe status of ‘candidate to the candidature’ – which requires only fulfilling some formsand paying some amount of money – to that of ‘candidate to MP’, designated by a party.In particular, a procedure in which the electorate was able to express his preference forone candidate was in force during the 1961, 1973, 1977 and 1991 legislative elections5,and was then abolished. After 1961, the electoral law compelled the parties to organizeprimaries to designate the candidates, and only exceptionally allowed nomination bythe direction of the parties –in case of lack of local candidates or deficiency of the localorganisation. Nevertheless, since 1986, this obligation has been abolished. Now, everyparty can designate candidates either directly or by internal elections. However,internal elections are nowadays an exception, which paves the way to party oligarchy.Despite of sporadic protestations, directions of parties remain almost omnipotent inthis domain, which may explain the fact that lots of candidates are pitchforked andthat directors of local branches of parties are often bypassed concerning thenomination of candidates. Even if mechanisms of negotiation between parties andcandidates to the candidature during pre-electoral periods should be analysed morethoroughly, the eventual re-election of MPs is submitted to the approbation of theircandidature by the direction of the party, which is not automatic.

47 Many clues indicate that parties constrain MPs’ behaviour, at least concerning thediscipline of vote. We shall now see in details the weight of party in the organization ofthe MPs’ work and then their level of autonomy. Is the legislative activity of a MPcorrelated to his place in the party? The first point here is that the party group decidesupon the attribution of the different parliamentary positions, i.e. member or chair of acommittee etc., which in turn highly constraints the MPs’ role-orientation (Massicardin this issue).


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48 The second point is that the political configuration can define the MP as an oppositionMP with a specific role. Aslan-Akman focuses on CHP MPs with a strong position in theparty in the precise context of the 22nd Assembly characterized by a high level ofpolarization between the two parties. In her essay, she shows that the behaviour of MPsof the main opposition party is both strongly constraint by rules of procedure anddefined by the party, may be leading to the ‘existence of an opposition MP role’.

49 A way for MPs to escape party pressure is to change party, a common practice oftransfers since the beginnings of multiparty politics. Historically, there have been highlevels of inter-party mobility in the Turkish Parliament. The elected representativesare able to move quite easily from a party to another, for instance if they think thatthey are not positioned at an eligible level on the list, or that their party won’t gothrough the 10% threshold (Massicard 2003). At least before 1980, party changingappears to improve career prospects (Turan 1985). In his first account of the specificprofile of the party changers, Turan (1985) showed that, in the case of individualtransfers, party changers tended to come more from small and least developedconstituencies.

50 As political contexts influence party changing decisions by individual deputies andfactions, Turan’s paper in this issue examines the developments of inter-party mobilitysince the 1980s (Turan et al.). Feeling that party changing not only encouraged politicalinstability and was unethical, and fearing that it might undermine the two-partysystem they were trying to build, the military makers of the 1982 constitutionintroduced measures to prevent it. These failed to stop the mobility of deputies whofound many ways to circumvent restrictions to move between parties. However, aninteresting difference with the period before 1980 is that individual party changers andnon-changers do not appear any more to have different attributes. It would beinteresting to investigate further if changers and non-changers show differences interms of resources. Is party-changing correlated to some special way to behave as a MP,for example constituency-service orientated? MPs and their constituencies

51 Another important dimension of the MP’s occupation is his relation to his constituency.It is the service and allocational aspects of responsiveness that compose the mostfrequent demands of constituents to parliamentarians in Turkey. In terms of dailyactivities, parliamentarians spend for constituency service the largest part of their timeat their own disposal (Hazama in this issue). What do we know about the interactionsabout MPs and their constituents? Localised studies like those of Güneş-Ayata (1990),and Unbehaun (1994), without focusing on the local role of MPs, set on MPs in a contextof interaction among bureaucrats, local politicians and notables. By doing so, they givesometimes sketchy, but interesting indications concerning the role of MPs in theirconstituency. However, almost all these case studies deal with rural Turkey or smalltowns. But in a widely urbanised society, it is risky to generalise clientelist relations,which are by definition encompassing and undifferentiated. Modalities of exchange areprobably different in urban contexts. Attempts to grasp them there in a more preciseway (Erder 1996, Schüler 1998, Kurtoğlu 2004) have not really dealt with MPs and theirrole in the relation between electors and parties.


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52 It is then important to clarify the different dimensions of the relation between MPs andtheir constituents. The term constituency service includes different kinds of activities:mainly personal services to the citizens, activities encouraging infrastructural servicesor job-creating investments in the constituency or more generally collective goods,which are often related to collective actors like local lobbies. Personal services is whatlegislative studies usually call ‘case work’ and what is often called in Turkish hizmet:Kalaycıoğlu (1995) asserts that constituents approach MPs for three main reasons: tofind jobs, to get promotion or transfers at a certain job, and to seek health care. Onealso expects MPs to help to go through the bureaucracy.

53 Why are MPs doing hizmet? In a proportional representational system, Turkey’sprovince-size constituencies generate a significant size of personal votes for acandidate, though nominated in the party list. On the base of a questionnaire on theXIXth Assembly – an Assembly elected with preference system and, for some parties,primaries – Hazama explores how and to what extent parliamentarians are respondingto demands from constituents and why they do so. Second, for the purpose of re-election, parliamentarians consider their individual activities to be almost as importantas the party popularity. Those activities are publicized through the local media,including the press, the most important of which, however, being the constituents thatthey meet in person.

54 Do the characteristics of the constituency orientate the role of the MP towardconstituency service? According to Hazama, the demand for and supply of constituencyservice depend on different politico-economic structures of the constituency (Hazamain this issue). The smaller the constituency size, the larger will be the demand for andthe supply of constituency service. This is because in small constituenciesparliamentarians are more recognizable by their constituents and the weight ofpersonal votes is larger than in large constituencies. Thus, even under proportionalrepresentation, relatively small constituencies in Turkey make constituency serviceimportant for parliamentarians seeking re-election. In addition, since the Turkishparliamentarian’s turnover rate is very high, even re-elected parliamentarians have totake constituency service seriously. The statistical test showed no significant differencein the practices of constituency service between newly elected and re-electedparliamentarians. Massicard suggests that MPs from big cities are faced with less directrepresentative duties. But the downside is that these MPs have a much harder timethan their colleagues from smaller constituencies to get their names and pictures intothe newspapers on a regular basis or to answer the demands in a way that can bringsizeable social support. In a constituency like Istanbul, it is very difficult to construct alocal base (Massicard in this issue).

55 Which kind of MPs tries to increase their local resources, or to take the role of localrepresentatives? Massicard suggests that MPs elected without strong local supporthardly entertain any kind of localism, probably because social support is an insecureresource, and enhancing it may appear more time and energy-consuming than, say,demonstrating loyalty to the party. It seems that social support is a resource which isinvested by MPs as a secondary choice or as a complement to other resources.However, having a social strategy for a MP is not necessarily outside the party, sincesome parties tend to encourage their MPs to do constituency service.


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Conclusions

56 There is a theoretical profit in displacing the analysis from the MPs’ biographies to theresources they mobilize. The downside is that new data have to be produced, since theexiting ones are not tailored to this approach. In order to understand the resourcesmobilized both in political campaigns and during the MP mandate, more attentionshould be drawn to the activities in the constituencies. This in turn implies working atthe constituency level, which is where electoral competition takes place and therelative value of resources can best be understood. Working on resources alsoconstitutes an empirical way to address the autonomy of the political field which, inthe Turkish case, varies heavily as shown by the strong and punctual increase of non-political resources mobilized by MPs in times of crisis.

57 There is a relation between the resources mobilized by the MPs and the way they fulfiltheir roles. This issue indicates that the parties are central not only in theadministrative functioning of the Parliament and for the MPs’ career, but also in thevery definition of individual MPs’ role-orientation. The centrality of the relation to theparty in role-orientation, however, does not necessarily imply increasingprofessionalisation. As a matter of fact, non-partisan and non-political resources – especially professional ones – can strongly impact the role-orientation, but also bedecisive in the very selection of MPs by parties. As a consequence, strongcontradictions between previously acquired non-political professional habitus andvalues, and the MP role-set, are likely to appear, resulting on role-conflict. Finally,constituency service appears to be less central in defining role-orientation than theparty, even if it is spectacular and often time-absorbing for the MPs.

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Loewenberg, Gerhard; Kim, Chong Lim (1978) ‘Comparing the representativeness of Parliaments’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 3(1), pp. 27-49.

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Meeker, Michael (2002) A Nation of Empire. The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity, Berkeley / LosAngeles / London, University of California Press.

Oksel, Muhteşem (1999) Milletvekili Seçilme Yeterliliği - Election Capacity of Deputy, Yüksek Lisanstezi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Ankara Üniv., Yrd. Doç. Dr. Muharrem Özen, 287 p.

Onar, Erdal (1977) Meclis Araştırması, Ankara, AÜHF.

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Oran, Nebahat (1997) Antalya Milletvekili Rasih (Kaplan) Bey’in 1. ve 2. Dönem Türkiye Büyük MilletMeclisi’ndeki Siyasi Faaliyetleri - The Political Activites of Rasih (Kaplan) Bey, the Parliamentarian ofAntalya in the 1. and 2. Term TBMM, Yüksek Lisans tezi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Atatürk Üniv.,Yrd. Doç. Dr. Selami Kılıç, 115 p.

Özbudun, Ergun (1962) Parlamenter Rejimde Parlamentonun Hükümeti Murakabe Vasıtaları, Ankara,AÜHF.

Özbudun, Ergun (1978) ‘Parliament in the Turkish political system’, Journal of South Asian andMiddle Eastern Studies 2, pp. 44-73.

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Pérouse, Jean-François (2005) La Turquie en marche, Paris, La Martinière.

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Sarıbay, Ali Yaşar (1994) Siyasal Sosyoloji, Istanbul, Der.

Sarıdoğan, Neşe (2003) ‘Meclisin Bağımsız Vekilleri’, Nokta, 28 Mart-10 Nisan, pp. 22-23.

Satılmış, Ayşe Pınar (2002) Birinci ve İkinci Dönem Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi’nde KayseriMilletvekilleri (Biyografi ve Faaliyetleri) - Kayseri Deputies in the First and Second Term Turkish GrandNational Assembly (Biography and Activities), Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, ErciyesÜniv., Doç. Dr. Ramazan Tosun, 207 p.


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Sayarı, Sabri (1977b) Parlamenter Demokrasilerde Koalisyon Hükümetleri, İstanbul, BoğaziçiÜniversitesi Yayınları, pp. 167-249.

Schüler, Harald (1998) Die türkischen Parteien und ihre Mitglieder, Hamburg, Deutsches Orient-Institut.

Sümer, Gülizar Çakır (1999) Türkiye'de Kadın Milletvekilleri: 1935-1991, Yüksek Lisans tezi, SosyalBilimler Enstitüsü, İnönü Üniv., Metin Kırımhan, 131 p.

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Taştan, Murat (1993) Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi'nde Kadın Milletvekilleri, Yüksek Lisans tezi,Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, Marmara Üniv., Yrd. Doç. Dr. Jale Sarmaşık, 163 p.

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TBMM Albümü, 23 Nisan 1920 – 20 Ekim 1991, TBMM Genel Sekreterliği Yayınları no 1, Ankara, 1994.

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Tuncer, Erol (1996) 24 Aralık 1995 Milletvekili Genel Seçimi/Sayısal ve Siyasal Değerlendirme, Ankara,TESAV.

Tuncer, Erol (1999) 18 Nisan 1999 Milletvekili Seçimleri / Sayısal ve Siyasal Değerlendirme, Ankara,TESAV.

Tuncer, Erol (2002) Osmanlı'dan Günümüze Seçimler, 1877-1999, Ankara, TESAV.

Tuncer, Erol; Danacı, Necati (2003) Çok Partili Dönemde Seçimler ve Seçim Sistemleri, Ankara, TESAV.

Tuncer, Erol; Kasapbaş, Coşkun (2003) Seçim 2002 – 3 Kasım 2002 Milletvekili Genel Seçimleri / Sayısalve Siyasal Değerlendirme, Ankara, TESAV.

Turan, İlter (1979) ‘Parlamenter Demokraside Denetim İşlevi ve Türkiye’ Ankara ÜniversitesiSiyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi 33, pp. 1-35.

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Turan, İlter (1994) ‘The Turkish Legislature: From Symbolic to Substantive Representation,’ inCopeland, Gary W.; Patterson, Samuel C. (eds.), Parliaments in the Modern World, ChangingInstitutions, Ann Arbor, the University of Michigan Press, pp. 105-28.

Turhan, Mehmet (1991) Siyasal Elitler, Ankara, Gündoğan.

Türk, Hikmet Sami (1997) Seçim Hukukunun Temel Sorunları ve Çözüm Önerileri, Ankara, TESAV.

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Türk Parlamento Tarihi Araştırma Grubu (1996) Türk Parlamento Tarihi, TBMM- II. Dönem, 1923-1927,II. Cilt, Ankara.

Türk Parlamenterler Birliği (2000) Türkiye’de Siyasal Yapılanma ve Temel Siyasi Sorunlar Sempozyum,Ankara, TESAV.

Türker, Yıldırım (1998) Türkiye Sizinle Gurur Duyuyor, Türk Siyaset Kültüründen Portreler, Istanbul,Metis.

Unbehaun, Horst (1994) Klientelismus in der Türkei, der Kreis Datça (1923-1992), Hamburg, DeutschesOrient-Institut.

Ünsal, Artun (1982) ‘Origines professionnelles des élites politiques turques : les élus de 1977’, in Seha L. Meray'a Armağan, Ankara, SBF, pp. 643-678.

Yalçın, Emruhan (1995) Birinci Dönem Erzurum Mebusu Mustafa Durak (Sakarya)'ın Hayatı veTBMM'deki Faaliyetleri, Doktora Tezi, Atatürk İlkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü, Ankara Üniv.,Doç. Dr. Dündar Aydın, 509 p.

Yalçın-Heckmann, Lâle (1990) ‘Kurdish Tribal Organisation and Local Political Processes’, inSirman, Nükhet; Finkel, Andrew (eds.), Turkish State, Turkish Society, London, Routledge, pp.289-312.

Yaşar, Yusuf (1997) Milletvekili Sorumsuzluğu ve Dokunulmazlığı, Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Sosyal BilimlerEnstitüsü, Marmara Üniv., Pr. Dr. Emin Artuk, 188 p.

Yılmaz, Gülten (2000) Konya Mebusu Musa Kazım (Onar)’ın 1. Dönem Türkiye Büyük Millet MeclisindekiFaaliyetleri - The Activities of Konya Minister Musa Kazım in the 1. Türkish Grand National Assembly,Yüksek Lisans Tezi, Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü, Atatürk Üniv., Yrd. Doç. Dr. Betül Aslan, 158 p.

Yücekok, Ahmet N. (1983) Türkiye'de Parlamentonun Evrimi, Ankara, SBF.

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Periodicals

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Ağaoğlu, Samet (1969) Babamın Arkadaşları, Istanbul, Baha.

Burçak, Rıfkı Salim (1976) Yassıada ve Öncesi, Ankara, Çam.

Kirişçioğlu, Nusret (1968) Kayseri Cezaevinde bir Yıldönümü, Istanbul, Baha.

Kocaoğlu, Emre (2003) Sözüm Meclisten İçeri: Acemi Milletvekilinin Ankara Anıları, Istanbul, İyiadam.

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NOTES1. We express our gratitude to the different colleagues who have been kind enough to commenton our paper, in particular Prof. Dr. Kalaycıoğlu and Daniel Gaxie.2. Parliament: a nation’s legislative body, made up of elected and sometimes non-electedrepresentatives. Others scholars would rather use the term National Assembly.3. Elections of 1908, 1912, 1914, and 1919.4. To be elected as independent, a candidate has to get 20% of the votes of the constituency inwhich he runs. Deputies elected as independents had disappeared from the Assembly after 1980,but they reappeared in 1999 with three deputies. In 2002, nine independents were elected out of260 independent candidates in whole Turkey (Sarıdoğan 2003).5. In the 1991 legislative elections, it was possible for the voters to register a voice for a specificcandidate, who by getting an endorsement from a minimum of 15% of the voters could be movedup to the top of the list (Kalaycıoğlu 1995: 46).

INDEX

Mots-clés: parlement, professionalisation, élites politiquesKeywords: parliament, professionalization, MPs, political elite

AUTHORS

GILLES DORRONSORO

Université Paris 1 Panthéon [email protected]

ÉLISE MASSICARD

CNRSCentre d'études administratives, politiques et sociales, [email protected]


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mailto:[email protected]


Parliament Membership during theSingle-Party System in Turkey(1925-1945)Cemil Koçak

1 The single-party regime in Turkey was established de facto in 1925, and remainedthroughout the second World War, ending at the end of 1945. It is obvious that, duringthis period, the role of a member of parliament (MP) was very different in comparisonwith the following terms. The role of an MP in Turkey during the single-party systemwas both easy yet extremely difficult. This situation can only be explained by analyzingthe ‘chiefhood’ [şeflik] system. The 1924 Constitution called for the creation of arepresentative political system, according to which society would be able to express itspolitical views and preferences. This was a consequence of a free, egalitarian electoralsystem based on general ballot. The government was to be taken from Parliament andwould only act under its control. The Parliament had the right to select and controlboth the government and the Prime Minister. The Parliament also had the role ofnominating the President. As an organ equipped with legislative power, it was alsoauthorised to control the executive and, if necessary, act as an organ of scrutiny.However, in reality, the country’s political system worked in precisely the inversemanner, based on another mechanism visible neither in the Constitution nor in theelection law.

I. The elections

The legal cadre

2 As the Turkish Republic is drawn from the Ottoman State, it serves no purpose toattempt an analysis of the legal norms and practices of Republican Turkey without aknowledge of the Ottoman Constitution and laws. Immediately after the enactment ofthe 1876 Constitution, an election for the House of Representatives was held1.According to a temporary arrangement, elections were to be conducted in compliance


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with a two-phased, simple majority system. 80 Moslem and 50 non-Moslemrepresentatives were to be elected. The number of representatives to be elected fromeach province was determined. The age of electoral eligibility was set as 25, despite aclear, contradicting statement in the Constitution to this effect. In order to be arepresentative, some conditions were added, such as the knowledge of the Turkishlanguage, being from the constituency from which you were to be elected, beingtrustworthy and owning at least some property. The Ottoman State was divided intotwo parts for the elections. Accordingly, Istanbul formed an electoral region of 20sections. Five Moslem and five non-Moslem representatives were to be elected fromIstanbul. The primary electors [müntehibi evvel] were to elect two secondary electors[müntehibi sani] from each section and thus, 40 secondary electors would elect therepresentatives. Elections were also to be held in rural centres, though in these areas, aseparate election for secondary electors was not to be held; those elected to localParliaments were accepted as secondary electors, who were to elect therepresentatives. Women had no right to vote or stand for election. During the period ofthe First Constitutional Monarchy, two elections were to be held, in 1877 and again in1878.

3 Upon the call of Atatürk, the lower house of the last Ottoman parliament [heyetimebusan], which had previously assembled in Istanbul, convened on 23 April 1920 inAnkara. The sole justification for this was necessity, as Istanbul was under foreignoccupation. Furthermore, the Parliament had decided to use the example of the FrenchRevolution as a model. The MPs assembled in Ankara were the same as those inIstanbul. However, this assembly differed from that of the Ottoman parliament. Somemembers of the Ottoman parliament never came to Ankara. One group of MPs cameimmediately, while another group took some time to arrive. After some time, theParliament in Ankara announced that those who did not come to Ankara would nolonger be considered MPs. Since the number of MPs who did arrive in Ankara wassmall, by-elections were held. Elections could in theory be held in those regions notunder occupation. However, in many regions, elections either took a long time to beheld, or did not take place at all. For those regions where elections did not take place,MPs were selected and appointed from those either from Ankara or the regionconcerned. This meant that ‘elections’ were not so much ‘elections’ in the ordinarysense, but rather an assignment system aimed at legitimising the formation of aParliament as a representative of the people. Although the precise number of MPs inthis parliament is still a matter of debate among historians, it can be deduced thatthere was approximately 350 MPs within this three-year period.

4 The elections prior to the establishment of the Republic were held in 1923 andconducted in conformity with the electoral law of 1877, a product of the Ottomanperiod. Accordingly, in 1923 one MP was to be elected for every 20,000 men. Every maleover 18 now had the right to vote; the condition of having to pay an electoral tax hadessentially been lifted. In order to be elected, one had to be a male member of thepeople of the Turkish State and over 30 years of age. However, parliamentary electionswere still held in two rounds as was the case during the Ottoman period, and a second‘voter’ was to be elected for every 200 people (Demirel 1994: 511-531).

5 What was the ruling party’s position concerning the elections? For the first time, theCumhuriyet Halk Partisi [Republican People’s Party - CHP] was to decipher a politicalprogram during its 1931 congress, i.e. eight years after its establishment. Until then,


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despite the fact that opposition parties had twice been set up against the CHP, thisparty had never announced a political program. According to this first program, single-round elections were accepted as a principle. However, it was decided that until thevoters gained sufficient political, social and cultural knowledge enabling them to makean informed decision, it would be more appropriate and conform with the idea ofdemocracy to select the secondary voters, whom they knew closely and trusted. Untilthe citizens were given the necessary education and reached the high standardsdesired, the ruling party would continue to use the two-round election systemstemming from the Ottoman period. An important aspect of the program was its aim togive women the vote, as well as the possibility to become MPs (CHP Programı 1931: art.4).


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6 The 1935 election was the first to be held after women were given the right to vote andbe elected as MPs. This process had also given women the chance to join the rulingparty as members and to be elected as ‘second round voters’. For the first time, 18women were elected as MPs – they were 14 in the next elections, in 1939. Besides, thelegal age for voting was raised from 18 to 22. There was yet another aspect in theseelections. For the first time in Republican history – including the period of the nationalresistance movement [milli mücadele] – members of minority groups were put forwardas candidates, in order for the communities of the non-Muslim minority to berepresented too, as had been the tradition of the Ottoman parliament. The party inpower selected these candidates. Thus, Greek-Orthodox, Jewish and ArmenianGregorian candidates were given the opportunity to be elected as MPs. The system ofcalculating one MP per 40,000 citizens was put into force. One ‘second round voter’ wasto be elected for 400 ‘primary’ voters. A few weeks later, at the CHP Congress of 1935, anew party program was accepted. It included a provision to change the electoral law,itself a product of the Ottoman period, which, save for a few exceptions, was still beingimplemented. However, the idea that two-round elections were more in compliancewith democracy prevailed (CHP Programı 1935: art. 4/c).

7 At the end of 1942, the electoral law of the Ottoman period was finally changed.According to new law, one MP per 40,000 persons was to be elected. In order to vote,one had to be a Turkish citizen over the age of 22. For the right to be elected, one hadto be over 30 years of age. Again, the elections were held in two rounds. According tothe changes made to the CHP statutes in 1943, the need to preserve two-round electionswas emphasized. The 1943 elections were the first elections held in accordance with thefirst election law enacted after the establishment of the Republic. Representatives fromnon-Moslem communities were again elected – a total of four members. The CHP’s choice of candidates

8 How were the candidates chosen? They were designated by the People’s Partyheadquarters. Parliamentary elections were not alone in being conducted in thismanner. The People’s Party selected the candidates in regional elections too, and eventhe heads of the villages [muhtar] were elected in this way. There could only beexceptions to this rule, in which case the elections would be renewed. Often, candidateswere ignorant of the fact that they were indeed candidates – some learnt of theircandidacy through newspapers!


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9 According to the People’s Party’s statutes of 1923, the entity entitled to determine andannounce the party’s parliamentary candidates was the party’s top level executivecommittee, after communicating with the regional administrative committees. Thiscommittee was composed of the Parliamentary Group executive board members, thegovernment members, the general executive board members and parliamentarians ofthe party. However, the party leader had a key role in this process. In accordance withthe 1924 Constitution, the President was the Head of State with limited authority.However, the President was simultaneously the head of the party. As such, he used hisauthority not as President, but as head of the party. The People’s Party statutes gavethe head of the party the authority to make key decisions, including concerning every


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MP to sit in Parliament. In this respect, an important political development was thecongress of the People’s Party in 1927, which now has the adjective ‘Republican’attached to it. At this congress, party statutes had been dramatically changed. Theparty’s general executive board was now composed of the party’s ‘DeputyUnchangeable Leader’ [Değişmez Genel Başkan Vekili] – ‘unchangeable’ had during thistime been added the title ‘Leader’, and the Secretary General. The head of the party hadnow also legally become the undisputable Leader of the Party. All members of the partywere obliged to comply with all decisions this board would take. It was again this boardwhich would administer parliamentary elections, and was authorised to determine theparty’s parliamentary candidates. The party leader selected the candidates; thus theparty leader had the definitive authority to decide who the MPs would be (Halk FırkasıNizamnamesi 1927: art. 21-23).

10 For those party members objecting to the decisions of the party headquarters,disciplinary measures were put into place, including expulsion from the party.Nevertheless, there were instances where political competition could cause difficulty,especially in the provincial regions. Various local disagreements, in particular, couldcause conflict within the regional organisations of the ruling party, resulting innegative effects on the relations between headquarters and local organisations.However, the party headquarters never hesitated in displaying its power. If there wereever a case of ‘weakness’, these rebellious groups would be expelled from the part inaccordance with the harsh disciplinary rules.

11 Once a person was a candidate on the CHP candidate list, he would definitely be electedas an MP, even with a single vote. In 1923, the second-round candidates for voting,selected by the People’s Party, were presented to the first round voters for election.The first-round voters had no alternative to this list of candidates. Secondarycandidates had no choice but to vote for those candidates put forward by the People’sParty. It must be noted that they themselves were also members of the People’s Party.Party members had to vote for those people whose candidacy was declared by theparty. Refusal to vote for the candidates of the party was an offence which resulted inexpulsion from the party (Halk Fırkası Nizamnamesi 1923: art. 20, 26-27, 101-103). In


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practice, this system worked flawlessly. As the lists of candidates were being drawn up,in most electoral regions the number of candidates presented did not exceed thenumber of MPs to be elected from that region. It was therefore guaranteed that all ofthese people would be elected (Demirel 1994: 584-597, Demirel 1995: 23-27, Uyar 1999:21-31, Tunçay 1999).

12 It was therefore important that a candidate be on this list. Therefore, there was neitherany need for propaganda nor political competition. The candidate’s only duty was togain the confidence of the party leader. This meant absolute loyalty to the leader, tothe regime, to the party and to government. In this sense, a MPs chance of re-electionwas quite high if he was successful in performing the duty expected of him. If he wasseen to be adopting political behaviour, making him unworthy of the leader’s trust, arare scenario, it became impossible for him to be re-elected. There were provisions inthe party statutes to the effect that parliamentary candidates could be discussed at theparty’s authorised committees, but consultation of this type was never regarded asnecessary.


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13 There was a turnover of over 60% of parliamentarians as a result of the 1923 elections.This turnover rate dropped significantly to under 40% at the next elections (Frey 1965:164). As for following elections, only less than one third of the Parliament was‘renewed’. In the 1935 elections, the ‘renewal’ rate was close to one fifth. Under normalconditions, if parliament had had the chance to witness a complete turnover, thenumber of parliamentarians for all six terms would have been close to 2,500. However,there were barely over 1,000 parliamentarians in these six years (Öz 1992; Uyar 1998;Tunçay 1999; Demirel 2003: 584-598; Koçak 2003).

14 In the statutes of the CHP accepted in 1931, there was no arrangement differing fromthe previous one. The mechanism through which the party announced its candidates inparliamentary elections had not been altered. The candidates, selected directly fromheadquarters, were guaranteed to succeed in the elections. However, in order todemonstrate the closeness of the regime to the people, special measures were taken toenable, in particular labourers from mining regions and peasants from rural areas, tosit in Parliament as MPs. Naturally, these candidates were still being chosen byheadquarters and were only symbolically being added to the list of candidates. For the1931 elections, the party demanded that the Commander of the 2nd Army (of whichheadquarters was in İzmir), General Fahrettin Altay, find a candidate who was apeasant. This peasant candidate, whom Mustafa Kemal personally demanded be found,was expected to own some land. Furthermore, after this candidate was elected, he wasnot permitted to change his previous lifestyle and was to continue to live as a peasant.Except for being an MP, he was to spend his life in his village on his land. He was tohave a nationalistic worldview and was to be totally isolated from any type ofinternationalist thought. He was to be faithful to the principles of the ruling party, toparticipate in parliamentary meetings in his peasant’s attire, but was to dress as wasnecessary only for official ceremonies. It sufficed that he could read and write a little,though he wasn’t to be too old. He was expected to be intelligent, extrovert and to havecommon sense. There was to be no debate concerning his past, and he was to be lovedand respected by his peers. If the candidate had been a member of the CHP before, thisworked to his advantage, but was not incredibly significant. It sufficed that he had nodisagreements with the party in the past. If these conditions were fulfilled, he wasexpected to become a party member. Indeed, a peasant candidate fulfilling these


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conditions was found in a very short time and the selected candidate served as MP fortwo terms – a total of eight years (Uyar 1999: 25-26; Tunçay 1999)!

15 The process for determining the parliamentary candidates was not changed in theparty statutes of 1935 – nor was there any change in the statutes concerning the Party’sParliamentary Group (CHP Tüzüğü 1935: art. 24-28, 81-111). However, in comparisonwith previous elections, the 1939 elections had a distinctive feature. Prior to theannouncement of the party’s candidates for MP, consultations were made with thesecond-round voters, also selected from the party list, and a meeting was organised forthis purpose. Although it cannot be established whether this consultation had anyinfluence on the list of candidates, nevertheless, this was the first time that anexchange of opinion was occurring at all.

Competition?

16 In these circumstances, was there any electoral competition? We will deal first with theopposition parties and then with independent candidates. Prior to the 1923 elections,Mustafa Kemal had announced that he would form a new political party based on the‘First Group’ which had been formed within the First Parliament. The candidates of thisgroup, whose leadership Mustafa Kemal took up after a brief political declaration,eliminated the candidates of the Second Group – their rivals – and entered the newparliament. Only one member of the Second Group had succeeded in being re-elected;thus, there was no further opposition in Parliament against the Kemalist rule. In fact,many of the Second Group MPs had not become candidates in these elections; 16 ofthem had attempted to become independent MPs from Istanbul, though with nosuccess. The Halk Fırkası [People’s Party] was formed after the elections and except forone, all MPs were members of this party.

17 As a consequence of the differences of opinion within the single party, one group ofopponents formed a new political party, the ‘Progressive Republican Party’[Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası] in 1925. However, the first opposition party was closed


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down very quickly and never had the opportunity to stand in any elections. The secondone, the liberal and liberalistic Free Republican Party [Serbest Cumhuriyet Partisi],established in 1930 as an opposition party upon the request of the government, was notable either to find the opportunity to participate in any parliamentary election due toits short life span (Yetkin 1982). However, it had the chance to take part in municipalelections. In these elections, the opposition party achieved fairly important success andthus was able to demonstrate to everyone the power of the political opposition in thecountry, including the government (Emrence 2000). It became clear, therefore, that thesuccess enjoyed by the ruling party in the elections of the past two terms, with nopresent opposition, was not real.

18 The liberal political competition in the country had come to a total end from 1925, andthe participation rate in the elections in 1927 was only 23 %, the election with thelowest participation rate among almost all of the elections of this country until thepresent. As party leader, Atatürk had personally selected the MP candidates. He hadthus made it clear that he preferred the MPs to be persons of his own choice, andfurthermore that he expected everyone’s compliance in this matter. Although a fewpeople did stand as ‘independent’ candidates, outside of this official list of candidates,these people did not succeed in being elected (Uyar 1999: 25; Tunçay 1999).

19 Yet, in various elections held after 1923, independent candidates succeeded in beingelected as MPs. However, these cases have always been exceptional (Demirel 1994:571-606). In parliamentary elections it was possible, in theory, to select an independentcandidate not included in the CHP list, even as an opponent to the CHP. However, suchan act would be considered ‘politically courageous’ at the most. Though very rare,there have been some such examples during the first elections held in the Republic.However, such tactics never yielded any real results. Sometimes these initiatives wouldresult in the candidates’ withdrawal of their candidacy – but there was no need for this.


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In any case, it was almost impossible for them to receive a single vote when they had tocompete with the CHP member second-round voters.

20 In the 1931 elections however, independent candidates featured on the CHP list. Thefact that only some of these candidates were elected shows that the second roundvoters were more ‘partisan’ than headquarters, as they refused to vote for theindependent candidates, although these were nominated by the party. In theseelections, among the independent candidates, we can note the names of people whoconstituted the opposition. For example candidates included Refet Bele and GeneralKâzım Karabekir, one of the leaders of the war of independence and head of theTerakkiperver Cumhuriyet Partisi dissolved in 1925, and Arif Oruç, supporting the SerbestCumhuriyet Partisi in 1930. However, they would not be elected. After these elections,General Ali Fuat Cebesoy, another leader of the war of independence and SecretaryGeneral of the Progressive Republican Party, was made an MP by Mustafa Kemalpersonally in 1933.

21 In 1935, 13 independent candidates had succeeded in entering Parliament, as in theprevious elections. This time, Refet Bele was among these members. However, althoughHüseyin Avni Ulaş, the leader of the Second Group (which had opposed Mustafa Kemalin the first Parliament), competed as an independent candidate, he did not succeed atthe elections. This therefore demonstrated that real opponents still did not have thechance to win (Uyar 1998).

22 The 1939 elections are the first elections following Atatürk’s death and İnönü’s electionas President, and are therefore politically significant in some ways. Approximately ayear prior to Atatürk’s death, in 1937, the differences of opinion between PresidentAtatürk and Prime Minister İnönü in matters relating to politics, economy and foreignpolicy had deepened, and had resulted in the Prime Minister’s departure from office.Celal Bayar, who had been Minister of Economy of the İnönü government, had replacedİnönü. During this period, many attempts were made to prevent İsmet İnönü’s returnto political life after Atatürk’s imminent death, but could not prevent İnönü’s electionas President towards the end of 1938. İnönü implemented a ‘dual’ strategy during theseelections. As Leader of the Party, he finally possessed the authority to select the MPcandidates. Firstly, he prevented those MPs not sharing his beliefs being re-elected toParliament. By the same token, all of his former peers who, due to politicaldisagreements with Atatürk had been forced to withdraw from parliamentary andpolitical life, returned to Parliament. As a consequence, Kazım Karabekir and RaufOrbay were re-elected to Parliament (Koçak 2003 vol. I: 139-224, vol. II: 13-140).

23 In 1943, as in the previous elections, independent candidates featured on the partycandidates’ list, though through the party list system these elections differ from theprevious ones (Uyar 1998; Koçak 2003). In addition, as the party left some vacancies onthe list of candidates, sixteen independent candidates were able to sit in Parliamentthis time, which was also the case for previous elections. Furthermore, at the 1943elections, the CHP nominated more candidates than the number of MPs to be electedfrom a certain constituency, and thus provided a means for these candidates tocompete for.


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II. Life in the Parliament

The first Assembly

24 In Turkish parliamentarian and political history, the 1920 parliament is referred to asthe ‘First Assembly’. It had distinguished characteristics, both in terms of thecomposition of its members, as well as its working conditions and the free debates ithosted – so much so that the assertion that this assembly has been the most democraticand participatory assembly until 1950 is, to a large extent, true. A ‘spirit’ that was neverto be felt during the single-party period was strongly prevalent in this Parliament,which represented a large part of society. Every reform proposal was put forward tothe Parliament. Although the members were not directly the ‘people’ themselves, buthad only come from among the ‘people’, they nevertheless had a strong‘representational’ ability. On the other hand, the freedom of expression of ideas andthe discussions within parliament were a high level never to be noted again infollowing years. During this term, elections were held only once, and at the end ofthree years – a short period of time – MPs announced that they had fulfilled their duty,and dissolved the assembly on 23 April 1922, in order for new elections to be held. Thisdecision should be accepted as an indicator of political maturity, as according to theConstitution, if the members had wished, they could have continued as MPs withoutbeing constrained by any time limitations (Demirel 1994; Koçak 1998; Tunçay 1999).

25 It may be useful to recall some important characteristics of the first parliament: firstly,unlike the Ottoman parliament, political parties or members of political parties neversat in this parliament. Members were affiliated not to parties, but to political groups.No legal statutes had been designed for these political groups, and group discipline wasgenerally lax. Often, members would shift from one group to another – in fact, thistendency was quite frequent. Generally the balance of powers would be re-establishedaccording to the issue being debated. On the one hand was the ‘First Group’ with itsJacobin tendencies, generally supporting Mustafa Kemal and his close friends; on theother hand was the ‘Second Group’ movement which made its mark upon the politicalconflicts in this parliament against the First Group – liberal and liberalistic, but at thesame time, extremely conservative. Secondly, further in contrast with the Ottomanparliaments, there was no Christian member in Parliament. Therefore, exclusivelyMuslim – but not exclusively Turkish – members sat in parliament. This was the firstinstance where representatives of non-Muslim communities were excluded fromparliament.

26 Yet another characteristic of this parliament was the fact that, contrary to the classicalparliamentarian concept of separation of powers, which constituted one of theprinciples of the Ottoman constitutional system, this parliament adopted a systemcloser to that of the French Revolution, calling for just the inverse of the separation ofpowers principle. This parliament regarded the ‘superiority of parliament’ principle asa symbol that sovereignty belonged to the nation. Everything was to start with andwithin parliament and was to terminate with and within parliament. No other power orsovereignty would be accepted. The parliament was a direct representative of thepeople and pursued the people’s rule. In a way, this resembled the Bolshevik slogan ‘Allpower to the Soviets’ in Russia during the October 1917 Revolution. The ‘superiority ofparliament’ principle stipulated that the legislative, executive and judiciary belonged


36

to Parliament. In other words, Parliament was authorised not only to make laws, butalso supervise and control the government, which was in fact its own product andwhich it could oust any time, in order to form extraordinary courts and appoint its ownmembers as judges of these courts. The government served as an executive agent of theparliament. The Constitution adopted in 1924 was the first adopted after theestablishment of the Republic, and reflected a balance of the separation of powerssystem and a ‘union of powers’. Although there was now a move away from the‘government of the Parliament’ system, the Parliament’s sovereignty still remained.The Parliament continued to hold the legislature and the executive and also kept itspower over the government.

27 However, it would be wrong to conclude, purely based on this analysis, that the secondparliament was much different from the first. On the contrary, although the MPs of thesecond parliament were all members of the same party, this did not exclude heateddiscussions and conflicts, as there existed deep differences of opinion within thePeople’s Party. Although being members of the same party, these MPs pursued verydifferent political goals. This naturally provoked political struggle within the party and,as a consequence within the parliament. During this period, it was possible to continuethis struggle freely and within the framework of democratic rules.

The vanishing freedom of speech

28 According to the 1924 Constitution, MPs were free to express their ideas in Parliament,and also in their votes. What they spoke within Parliament could be repeated outside itand these members would not be held responsible. They continued to enjoy politicalimmunity. They could be judged for certain crimes, though they could be judged at aspecial court only with the vote of two thirds of all MPs (Gözübüyük, Kili 1982: 111-136).

29 Some dispositions of the People’s Party 1923 statutes concerned the party’sParliamentary Group and therefore party discipline. The head of the party was also to


37

be the head of its Parliamentary Group. The group was to elect an executive board fromamong its own members, and every topic could be discussed in the group. All membershad to abide by the decisions of the group. During parliamentary sessions, groupmembers were obliged to vote in accordance with the party’s decisions. Those memberswho violated these rules could be penalised in various ways, the most drastic beingexpulsion from the party. However, in matters where no group decision was taken,members were free to vote according to their own views. Furthermore, during thegroup meetings, group members had the right to freely express their opinions (HalkFırkası Nizamnamesi 1923: art. 83-100).

30 In principle, unrestricted communication was possible both in Parliament and at theCHP Parliamentary Group. However, after 1925, this freedom remained on paper. TheMPs within the CHP Parliamentary Group accepted the path the party executive wantedthem to take, sometimes with politely formulated criticism or wishes. These samemembers would legalise these decisions in Parliament. This politely formulatedcriticism would never be voiced in Parliament. At times, politely formulatedsuggestions were made, though these were not important issues. Parliamentaryspeeches were only of a complimentary kind. Sometimes there would be very rare casesof criticism within the Parliamentary Group, or fewer ones in Parliament itself, thatcould be described as ‘daring’. In such cases, the relevant members would findthemselves thrown out of Parliament at the next elections. This always set, or washoped to set, an example for the others.

31 This evolution also appears in the CHP statuses. The CHP Congress of 1927 laid downnew rules for members of the Party’s Parliamentary Group. A decision of the partygroup was made necessary in order to ask the government a question in Parliament.Party members could not express any opinion against the Party (Halk FırkasıNizamnamesi 1927: art. 92-123).


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Experiments in parliamentary opposition

32 Some very important political developments took place between 1923 and 1927 interms of opposition. Initially, only one party existed (the People’s Party) in Parliament,formed after the 1923 elections. However, as a consequence of the differences ofopinion, one group of opponents broke off and created the Progressive RepublicanParty. Yet, this opposition was short-lived. The Kurdish revolt of 1925 brought an endto this party, as well as to all opposing organisations, media, and the freedom ofexpression of all divergent ideas. The special courts established at this time played arole in the suppression of opposition of any kind.

33 The most important development of this period in terms of parliamentary control wasthe formation of the CHP Independent Group. In accordance with the statutes passed atthe CHP congress of 1939, new arrangements were made regarding this issue, accordingto which the CHP congress selected 21 members from among the CHP parliamentarians.These members formed the above-mentioned Independent Group. The members of thisGroup attended the Parliamentary Group meetings of the CHP – their ‘actual’ party –but were neither able to express their opinion nor participate in the voting. Theparliamentarians who were members of the Independent Group had the right to freelyvoice their opinions, join discussions and vote for a decision only within their ownParliamentary Group. The same applied to parliamentary meetings where memberswere able to express their views freely and vote in accordance with their groupdecision. They could not become members of the government. The CHP Leaderpersonally appointed the head of the Independent Group. According to the statutes, itwas the duty of the Independent Group to remain outside the control of the CHPParliamentary Group, and control government activities. Another duty of theIndependent Group was to contribute to the success of the government. However, the


39

necessary political and legal framework for this had not been set up. The members ofthe Independent Group had no influence on the decisions taken at the CHPParliamentary group meetings, because they neither had the right to express theirviews nor possessed the right to vote. Yet it was at these meetings that the decisions tobe taken at Parliament were being finalised and, in any case, according to the CHPstatutes, no MP who was a CHP member could express any opinion against this decisionor vote against this decision. In this case, disciplinary judgements would be enforcedand the relevant member or members could even be dismissed from the party. Thus, nomatter how persuasive, the views, suggestions or proposals of the members of theIndependent Group brought forward at Parliament could have no effect on the finaldecisions.

34 The Independent Group continued within the CHP from 1939 to 1946 until the changeof regime took place. However, this experiment did not yield significant results. On thecontrary, the Independent Group, rather than be independent, was more in support ofthe CHP than many of the CHP member parliamentarians themselves! Even if theIndependent Group did on occasion criticise the activities of the government in anextremely polite way, it never voted against the government, or even cast a vote ofabstention – it supported the government unconditionally. However in the CHP’s closedParliamentary Group meetings, as far as we know, many parliamentarians gained theopportunity to criticise the government in a much harsher manner (Uyar 1998; Koçak2003 vol. II: 72-82).

III. Social profile of MPs

The cursus honorum

35 Who were the MPs in this period? The MPs constituted not only the political elite of theperiod, but also the social and administrative elite. From time to time, someparliamentarians would quit parliament in order to become an Ambassador orGovernor. This demonstrated that those who worked in the public service with deeployalty to the regime could return to their former duties, if they wished – for being aparliamentarian was, in a way, similar to being in the public service. During the 1927congress of the people’s Party, measures were taken to prevent corruption by MPsthrough their usage of their titles – they were banned from taking up high-profilepositions in public institutions (Halk Fırkası Nizamnamesi 1927: art. 92-123).

36 These parliamentarians who had additionally become member of government formedan even narrower group, as there was rarely a turnover here (Frey 1965: 269-300). Infact, we see that some members of government never changed. They constituted thehighest echelon of the regime and the political elite. It must be noted that there was acertain hierarchy amongst the parliamentarians themselves. Taking part in theimportant organs and in important positions of the ruling party or of Parliament wasan indicator of one’s status. Naturally, holding an office in government or being incloser connection with the government was also prestigious. But the real power lay inhaving direct access to the Prime Minister or to the President. These were the personswho formed the very top layer of the elite. Only a small minority possessed theopportunity to enjoy this level and become a member of this group, which comprisedthe actual power.


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Table: Occupations of Newly Elected Deputies by Assembly (Percentages)

I(1920) 2(1923) 3(1927) 4(1931) 5(1935) 6(1939) 7(1943)

Government 23 23 23 7 15 12 14

Military 15 19 23 8 18 12 9

Education 5 9 11 8 15 14 15

(Official) 43 52 57 23 47 38 38

Law 13 16 9 17 9 13 24

Medicine 4 6 7 5 14 13 12

Dentist, Phar. & Vet. Med 1 - 2 2 5 3 2

Engineering - 2 2 4 1 2 4

(Professional) 25 20 28 29 30 42

Trade 12 6 9 20 10 15 5

Agriculture 6 5 7 21 8 7 8

Banking 1 1 2 - 3 3 3

(Economic) 19 12 17 41 21 25 16

Religion 17 27 2 - - - -

Journalism 2 5 5 7 1 6 3

Other 2 - - - - 1 1

Unknown 15 18 - 2 1 - -

Source: Frey (1965: 210)

The local dimension

37 To what degree did parliamentarians represent their region? The answer to thisquestion is two-fold: the first response is that some parliamentarians had neither beento the region they were elected from, nor visited this region as MPs. It was notuncommon for those who became MPs to hear about this either through thenewspapers or through radio news just as the rest of society. It would be very hard tostate that these parliamentarians really did represent ‘their’ regions. From time to timesome were re-elected from entirely different regions (Frey 1965: 100-103). By contrast,there were also parliamentarians who were born in and had grown up in the regionfrom which they were elected. These had a certain kind of relationship to it, for they


41

were classed as the ‘wealthy’ of the region. That is to say, if we answer the questionfrom a political standpoint, we can state that generally the economically and sociallypowerful people in the region would become parliamentarians. There was no possibilityfor a representative from a rural area to represent the People. Especially in areas of thecountry where a feudal agricultural structure prevailed, wealthy landowners wereconsistently sitting in Parliament as MPs. In particular, the leaders of the Kurdish clansin the Eastern and South-eastern areas, who had positive and close relations withheadquarters, easily entered and were able to remain in Parliament (Dorronsoro 2005).

38 Other than this group, one had to be from the army or from civilian bureaucracy tobecome an MP. Bureaucrats who had reached the higher echelons in stateadministration were generally rewarded after their retirement by being appointedMPs. High rank, retired army members entered Parliament in the same manner. Thesetwo formed the most crowded group in Parliament. According to Frey’s study, theproportion of group in the Parliaments of the single-party period, ranged from 23% to57%. The number and proportion of parliamentarians who were self-employed, as wellas tradesmen and industrialists from the ‘private enterprise’ were much lower.According to Frey, throughout this period this rate ranged between 12% and 42% forthe self-employed, and between 12% and 41% for those from the ‘private enterprise’(Frey 1965: 181). Concerning the self-employed, it is interesting to note that their ratewas lower at the beginning of the period, but reached its peak toward the end of theterm. Excluding the First Parliament, it was exceptional for a man whose mainprofession involved religion to become an MP. Another practice was the rewarding ofthe country’s forthcoming artists, writers, and poets by appointing them MPs.However, this applied only to those who were at the service of the regime (Günay 2005).Journalists also had access to Parliament as MPs, but again, this depended on whetheror not they had represented the CHP and had supported the CHP in the media. Thuscontrol over the press was being further increased. Journalists were supposed to beforemost spokesmen of the regime. The MP and social groups

39 Society’s contact with the MPs was either very weak or non-existent. There were nomeans to directly address them, and it would be an exaggeration to state that the MPscared about being in close touch with the public. Obedience to the authority was theforemost expectation the regime had of society. All of the agents of the state and of thegovernment and all parliamentarians were visible symbols of this authority.

40 It was impossible for the public to attend the parliamentarians’ activities, asparliamentary sessions were open to the public in theory only. In reality, the press wasnot allowed to attend and publicise parliamentary sessions. The only kind ofparliamentary news that could feature in the media was the information compiled bythe state’s official news agency, and this was exclusive. Therefore the propaganda ofthe regime was evident here, too.

41 As for those persons who had become parliamentarians as representatives of non-Moslem minorities, they were well known for their loyalty to the leader and theregime. Indeed, one could hardly say that they really represented the communities ofwhich they were members. On the contrary, in fact, their mission was to inform theircommunities of what the regime expected from minorities. They were forced to act in a


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manner more ‘Turkish’ than the Turkish parliamentarians themselves. However, theywere more than willing to do this, and indeed did, as this was what their status asparliamentarians depended on.

42 The female parliamentarians enjoyed the status of being exemplary to other women insociety. They were well educated, and had succeeded in reaching important positions inpublic life. They were also considered to have the duty of being a good mother and agood wife. All Turkish women had to eventually achieve a level of excellence – this waswhat was expected of them.

Conclusion

43 It must be stated that this period witnessed many changes. The system was alwaysforced to refer back to a certain democratic tradition of the previous period. However,in practice, similar to almost all contemporary single-party regimes, there was no greatneed for Parliament in Turkey. Nevertheless, the sole legal basis for the legitimacy ofthe regime remained the Parliament. All political decisions emerged from Parliament,which, on paper, created the image of a representative organ – this was theprerequisite of political legitimacy.

44 In the following term, highlighted by the transition to a political system allowing onceagain competition between parties (as a result of the change of regime in Turkey afterWorld War II), this was all to become history. Although it cannot be claimed that the1946 elections held in Turkey were flawless, the parliamentary elections of 1950 wereable to cause a change of power. The regime can be considered as having proved that ithad veritably changed. The subsequent parliaments and their members framed a verydifferent type of structure. However, it would be hard to claim that the political cultureof the single party period had completely become history. In this sense, long years wereto pass before Parliament and political traditions could finally free themselves of thecharacteristics of the previous period and regime of which they were products.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ahmad, Feroz (1998) The Making of Modern Turkey, London / New York, Routledge, 4th ed.

Erdem, Tarhan (ed.) (1982) Anayasalar ve Seçim Kanunları (1876-1982), İstanbul, Milliyet Yayınları.

Arsel, İlhan (1965) Türk Anayasa Hukukunun Umumi Esasları I, Ankara.

Başgil, Ali Fuat (1960) Türkiye’de Siyasal Rejim ve Anayasa Prensipleri I, İstanbul.

Berkes, Niyazi (1964) The Development of Secularism in Turkey, Montreal.

Demirel, Ahmet (1994) Birinci Mecliste Muhalefet: İkinci Grup, İletişim Yayınları, İstanbul.

Demirel, Ahmet (1995) ‘1923 Seçimleri’, Toplumsal Tarih 144, Aralık, pp. 23-31.


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Demirel, Ahmet (2003) ‘Tek-Parti Meclisleri Üzerine Bazı Sayısal Veriler’, Toplumsal Tarih 118,Ekim, pp. 84-87.

Dorronsoro, Gilles (2005) 'The autonomy of the political field. The case of Diyarbakır MPs(1920-2002)', European Journal of Turkish Studies, Thematic Issue N°3, Being a MP in contemporaryTurkey, URL : http://ejts.revues.org/477

Emrence, Cem (2000) ‘CHP’nin Baskı ve Propaganda Yöntemleri’, Tarih ve Toplum XXXIV (200), pp.47-51.

Eroğul, Cem (1974) Anayasayı Değiştirme Sorunu (Bir Mukayeseli Hukuk İncelemesi), Ankara, AnkaraÜniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi.

Esen, Bülent Nuri (1968) Türk Anayasa Hukuku, Ankara.

Frey, Frederick W. (1965) The Turkish political elite, Cambridge, The M.I.T. Press.

Gözübüyük, Şeref; Kili, Suna (eds.) (1982) Türk Anayasa Metinleri (1839-1980), Ankara, AnkaraÜniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Yayını, 2nd ed.

Günay, Çimen (2005) ‘Taking up the Gauntlet: Fictionists in the Turkish Parliament’, EuropeanJournal of Turkish Studies, Thematic Issue N°3, Being a MP in Turkey, URL: http://ejts.revues.org/473

Koçak, Cemil (1998) Birinci Meclis, İstanbul, Sabancı Üniversitesi Yayını.

Koçak, Cemil (2003) Türkiye’de Millî Şef Dönemi (1938-1945), (vol. I and II), İstanbul, İletişimYayınları.

Kubalı, Hüseyin Nail (1962) Türk Esas Teşkilat Hukuku Dersleri I, İstanbul.

Lewis, Bernard (1968) The Emergence of Modern Turkey, London/Oxford/New York, OxfordUniversity Press, 2nd ed.

Öz, Esat (1992) Tek-Parti Yönetimi ve Siyasal Katılım, Ankara, Gündoğan Yayınları.

Server, Feridun (1962) Anayasalar ve Siyasal Belgeler, İstanbul.

Shaw, Stanford (1976) History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press.

Soysal, Mümtaz (1969) Anayasaya Giriş, Ankara, Ankara Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler FakültesiYayını, 2nd ed.

Tanilli, Server (ed) (1980) Türk Anayasaları ve İlgili Mevzuat, İstanbul, İstanbul Üniversitesi HukukFakültesi Yayınları.

Tanör, Bülent (1998) Osmanlı-Türk Anayasal Gelişmeleri (1789-1980), İstanbul, Yapı Kredi Yayınları.

Tunaya, Tarık Zafer (2001) Türkiye’de Siyasal Gelişmeler (1876-1938), Birinci Kitap: Kanun-ı Esasi veMeşrutiyet Dönemleri (1876-1918), İstanbul, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları.

Tunaya, Tarık Zafer (1954) Türkiye Tarihinde Seçimler, İstanbul.

Tunaya, Tarık Zafer (1956) ‘Osmanlı İmparatorluğundan Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi HükümetiRejimine Geçiş’, İstanbul Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi Muammer Reşit Seviğ Armağanı, İstanbul.

Tunçay, Mete (1999) Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’nde Tek-Parti Yönetiminin Kurulması (1923-1931), İstanbul,Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları.

Uyar, Hakkı (1998) Tek-Parti Dönemi ve Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, İstanbul, Boyut Kitapları.

Uyar, Hakkı (1999) ‘Tek-Parti Döneminde Seçimler’, Toplumsal Tarih XI(64), Nisan, pp. 21-31.


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Uyar, Hakkı (2002) ‘Tek-Parti İktidarının Toplumsal Kökenleri’, Toplumsal Tarih 106, Ekim, pp.54-57

Yeşil, Ahmet (2002) Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası, İstanbul, Cedit Neşriyat.

Yetkin, Çetin (1982) Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası Olayı, İstanbul, Karacan Yayınları.

Zürcher, Erik Jan (1995) Modernleşen Türkiye’nin Tarihi, İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları.

Zürcher, Erik Jan (1997) Turkey, A Modern History, I. B. Tauris, London/New York, 3rd ed.

NOTES1. In fact, the Constitution stipulated that a special bill be enacted for this purpose. However,since the same Constitution stipulated that the House of Representatives be formed before a billcould be enacted, a temporary arrangement was accepted and declared together with theConstitution.

ABSTRACTSThe official legitimization of the single-party regime in Turkey lay with Parliament, which, as arepresentative of the people, controlled the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. However,the parliamentary period after 1925 was highlighted by a lack of freedom of speech, with scopefor political discussion limited. This paper aims to establish the role of MPs during this period. Atthe head of the single-party system, the President was free to choose every party member forParliament. This meant competition was very restricted, be it in the form of short-livedopposition parties or independent candidates. During the selection process, some social classes,for example high-ranking officer and bureaucrats were privileged. These two groups were themost common in Parliament. On the other hand, local ties were sometimes respected by theregime: rural notables with close relations with party headquarters were easily elected, andremained in Parliament. A MPs’ chance of re-election was significant if he performed his dutywith loyalty to the party. The author underlines a stabilization of political personnel throughoutthis period.

INDEX

Mots-clés: CHP, constitution ottomanne, élections, parti unique, parlementKeywords: ottoman constitution, single-party system, elections, parliament, CHP


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AUTHOR

CEMIL KOÇAK

Sabancı University, [email protected]


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The autonomy of the political field.The resources of the Deputies ofDiyarbakır (Turkey): 1920-2002Gilles Dorronsoro

1 The increasing complexity of societies is reflected in the autonomy of social fields1. Theclosure of the field is defined notably through the existence of separate institutions: itsability to create norms and its own stakes2. However, though the make-up of fields hasbeen described in numerous instances, the autonomy of a field – above all itsfluctuations – is difficult to pinpoint from an empirical standpoint. In order to do this,here we consider the example of a political field and we centre our analysis on one ofthe dimensions of this autonomy: the question of resources mobilised by the actors. Inthe case of the political field – of interest to us here – the term resources applies towhat an individual may mobilise, for instance in order to be elected: militancy,religious charisma, social capital, etc.3 One of the dimensions of the autonomy of a fieldstems from the mobilisation of resources outside of the field in question, throughcomplex and costly procedures, forming a veritable process of transformation. In thesame way, the capacity of actors (individuals, institutions) to produce their ownresources (activism, ideological discourse, etc.) is an indicator of autonomy. Theprocess of transforming resources therefore allows an appreciation of the varyingautonomy arising from the level of transformation of resources and from the ability ofpolitical actors to create their own resources. In comparison, an approach taken frombiographical traits (age, qualification, gender, profession, etc.) enabling a description ofhow the position of an actor leads to an expression of certain consistencies between thefield or the multiple standpoints, but which leaves largely unexplored the question ofwhat circulates (and what is transformed) from one field to another.

2 In order to test these hypotheses, we examine the resources mobilised for the electionof deputies in the republican period (1920-2002) for the administrative department [il]of Diyarbakır in South-Eastern Turkey4. Why favour an analysis on a departmental scalein this study? Firstly, this framework represents a consistent electoral constituencysince the beginning of the Republic and therefore defines the principal field for


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electoral competition. Therefore, the value of resources can be appreciated much moreeasily in the context of a competition. The construction of resources at the nationallevel a priori suggests a consistency of mobilised resources throughout all theadministrative departments, a theory which this paper resolutely rejects.

3 Secondly, research into resources does not allow for the direct use of existing sourcesbecause these only give a general indication of social position. Thus, the resources,which a posteriori give the greatest indication of the longevity of a deputy are notincluded in the official categories, often because they concern aspects considered to beprivate or illicit. Furthermore, the data collected nation-wide in year books – thebiographies of the TBMM, Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi [Large National Assembly ofTurkey] for instance – are incomplete, if not sometimes incorrect, from where thenecessity arises to fill in the gaps using other sources, including interviews or localhistory – a task most easily achieved in the context of an administrative department,especially over an extended period.

4 We now present in more detail the administrative department we have selected. In itspolitical behaviour (vote, partisan structure), the administrative department ofDiyarbakır5 is not representative of such an average, but on the other hand is unique inmany other aspects. Diyarbakır belongs to a group of regional departments whosepopulation is largely Kurdish, and who have a specific political orientation. A study ofthe administrative department of Diyarbakır will enable us to look beyond certainstereotypes, sometimes orientalist, concerning the workings of local politics. Inparticular, tribal and brotherhood associations are explicitly or implicitly the basis ofmany political analyses, including local actors, who advocate a strong link betweenthese solidarities and political behaviour. If, in effect, about 20 deputies out of the 163elected between 1920 and 2002 belonged to a family of şeyh6, we will see that, mainlyafter 1980, their involvement in politics evokes more complex mechanisms than thesimple mobilisation of their followers. Moreover, apart from the administrativedepartment of Hakkari for example, no deputy has built up his electoral supportessentially from a clan or tribal type group.

5 The administrative department in fact is characterised by a growing politicisation –notably in the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when exactly the opposite was happening inthe rest of Turkey. After 1980, the electoral results reflect the subtle differences asregards the national standard with the marginalisation of numerous national partiesand the decisive grip of Kurdish parties7. The electoral volatility in Diyarbakır was lessstrong than in the rest of the country since the end of the 1980s, because the Kurdishmovement was dominant with more than 45% of votes in 1995 and 1999, and 56% in2002. As opposed to the rest of Turkey the elections of 2002 did not constitute a splits,la penetration of the AKP remained limited, and the extremely popular Genç Parti[Young Party], whose national level of penetration used to be a good indicator ofpolitical crisis, had a negligible result (Dorronsoro et al. 2003).

6 Furthermore, the administrative department was not politically homogenous. Thereasons for sub-departmental specificities are complex, and in part a consequence ofthe uprising in the 1920s and 1930s (Bruinessen 1999; Bozarslan 1997). Later on, theformation of radical Kurdish groups in the 1960s often occurred in the districts [ilçe]which were home to high school or institutions for higher education. Moreover, even ifthe dominant population of Kurds means that ethnic origin is not a deciding stake, thenon-Kurdish population often have a specific political behaviour. The Turkish-speaking


48

population present in the west of the administrative department (ilçe of Çermik),settling there from the 1960s as a result of dam construction, do not vote for Kurdistparties8, as is also the case for a significant number of members of the military, as wellas civil servants with regional origins other than the south-east. The scenario istherefore very different to that in Urfa or Erzurum – administrative departmentspolarised by a religious or ethnic split. In the administrative department of Diyarbakır,the difference between speakers of zazaki and of kurmanji (two Kurdish dialects) do notconstitute a framework for political mobilisation in recent times. A very large portionof the population being Chafeite Sunni, the religious split no longer plays a role.

7 In choosing to consider the entire Republican period, we do not assume that there issimilarity between elections from the single-party to the multiparty periods. On theother hand, the different institutional divides are of a key importance and provide thereason as to why the comparison between these four periods [1920-1946], [1950-1957],[1961-1977] and [1983-2002] is central to our examination into the autonomy of thepolitical field. Only five deputies were elected in two different periods, demonstrating arenewal of practically the entire political personnel and likewise, the mobilisedresources are noticeably different from one period to another. Whilst the name of aparty such as the CHP can remain constant from one period to another, the politicalagenda and the organisational framework changes sufficiently for us to consider thatthe party is different. On the contrary, we suppose there is continuity in the Islamic(RF/FP) and Kurdish (DEP/HADEP/DEHAP) movements. We point out here that we donot consider the 1971 coup to be divisive. As opposed to the 1960 and 1980 coups, the1971 coup did not result in as much of a visible split, possibly due to the fact that,allowing for exceptions, political parties were not prohibited.

8 In order to analyse the resources employed in the political field during the election ofdeputies, we will undertake a four-stage process. Firstly, the different resources will beexplained analytically, and we will see how their mobilisation makes re-election moreor less likely. Secondly, by using social transformations taken from outside the politicalfield (mechanisation of agriculture, urbanisation etc.), we will take into account themobilisation, varying over time, of certain resources by those elected. These causallinks have a genuine though incomplete explanatory value, which is why it is necessaryto then turn towards explanations from within the political field. On one hand, thepolitical parties play a central role in the transformation of non-political resources andin producing partisan resources. On the other hand, institutional splits – coups, theintroduction of a multiparty system or the evolution of electoral laws – have a majorimpact on the resources enabling the election of deputies.

I. The mobilised resources

9 The resources are valuable at two decisive moments in the political career of the futuredeputy: at the time the candidate is chosen by the party and during the mobilisation ofvoters (the same resource being effective principally towards the voters or the party, apoint which we shall return to). We must however distinguish non-partisan resourcesfrom partisan resources. For Diyarbakır, four non-partisan resources were employed inpolitics: the influence arising through land ownership, religious charisma attributed tobelonging to a şeyh family, the social capital linked with certain professions and thenotoriety of an ‘aristocratic-like’ family [eşraf]. The support of a political party –


49

through activism, a special relationship with the leader, etc. – makes up the finalresource which can be mobilised, mainly for the purposes of nomination of candidates.We do not claim to give a complete picture of all the resources – for instance, we couldadd oratorical ability or financial capital. Instead we present only a selection of themost significant resources for this particular area (see the annexe on methodology).More generally, the resources can be combined and evolve over time, especially forpoliticians who have long careers (Lacam 1998). After first giving an analyticalpresentation of these resources, we will then investigate their combination and theirtransformation.

Five resources

10 The practice of a rare and socially valued profession gives rise to the constitution of asocial capital, which in turn can constitute a political resource. In our department,lawyers and doctors account for 35% of those elected following the introduction of amultiparty system in 1950 – out of 114 deputies 23 were lawyers (22%) and 17 doctors(13%) –, nevertheless only 20% (17 lawyers and 12 doctors) possess a social capitallinked to their reputation (see the annexe on methodology). Between 1950 and 1977, 24out of 61 deputies (39 %) were doctors or lawyers, a proportion, which clearly declinedthereafter. Because they place individuals in a compromising situation, certainsituations favour the self-referral to an expert – a form of delegation affectingsometimes very private matters. How does this particular social capital become apolitical resource? A central theme, present simultaneously for those in the professionsas well as the profession of deputy, at least as far as defined by most citizens, is that ofservice [hizmet] – which facilitates the change to political representation. Furthermore,lawyers, through their professions, are drawn into representing prominent citizens,and significant groups, particularly against the State. The last point to be underlined isthe prestige given to education in a society largely illiterate until the 1960s9.

Table 1: resources mobilised by the deputies for their election in the administrative department ofDiyarbakır (1920-2002

No. ofdeputies

Re-electedleavers

Re-electedleavers(%)

Re-electedconcurrently

Re-electedconcurrently(%)

Familynotoriety

Familynotoriety(%)

CharismaCharisma

(%)Property

Property(%)

Partisanresource

Partisanresource(%)

1920 8 0.00 0.00 4 0.5 0 0 2 0.25 0.00

1923 5 2 0.40 2 0.40 5 1 0 0 4 0.80 0.00

1927 4 1 0.25 1 0.25 1 0.25 0 0 1 0.25 0.00

1931 4 3 0.75 3 0.75 2 0.5 0 0 1 0.25 0.00

1935 8 4 0.50 4 0.50 4 0.5 0 0 3 0.38 0.00

1939 7 4 0.57 4 0.57 4 0.571 0 0 2 0.29 0.00


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1943 6 3 0.50 4 0.67 5 0.833 0 0 4 0.67 0.00

1946 7 2 0.29 3 0.43 7 1 0 0 5 0.71 0.00

1950 7 0 0.00 0 0.00 5 0.714 1 0.14 4 0.57 1 0.14

1954 8 2 0.25 3 0.38 4 0.5 1 0.13 5 0.63 6 0.75

1957 8 4 0.50 6 0.75 2 0.25 0 0 1 0.13 6 0.75

1961 9 0 0.00 1 0.11 5 0.556 1 0.11 5 0.56 2 0.22

1965 8 2 0.25 3 0.38 5 0.625 1 0.13 4 0.50 4 0.50

1969 7 2 0.29 2 0.29 4 0.571 2 0.29 5 0.71 4 0.57

1973 7 2 0.29 3 0.43 3 0.429 2 0.29 5 0.71 5 0.71

1977 7 3 0.43 3 0.43 3 0.429 2 0.29 3 0.43 5 0.71

1983 7 0 0.00 0 0.00 2 0.286 0 0 1 0.14 0 0.00

1987 8 0 0.00 1 0.13 2 0.25 1 0.13 2 0.25 5 0.63

1991 8 2 0.25 4 0.50 0 0 1 0.13 1 0.13 8 1.00

1995 10 2 0.20 4 0.40 1 0.1 4 0.4 2 0.20 6 0.60

1999 11 6 0.55 7 0.64 0 0 5 0.45 1 0.09 10 0.91

2002 10 1 0.10 2 0.20 1 0.1 1 0.1 1 0.10 10 1.00

11 In certain conditions property holdings can provide the basis for political influence.Under the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish administrative regions experienced a complexregime with districts [sancak] of differing status, which left an important autonomy tothe exercise of local power (Bruinessen 1991; Akçay 1988: 10). After 1826 and thedisappearance of the timar system, individual proprietorship of land becamewidespread and – although a law of 1858 in principal prohibited the ownership ofvillages – the landed gentry, the nomadic tribal leaders and the şeyh appropriated alarge part of the land. The republican regime, far from providing a break with thissystem, would legalise land occupation (1926) and rejected all redistribution. Moreover,if the concentration of land led the military to banish 55 ağa [large landowners] fromthe Kurdish regions following the 1960 coup, and to call for agrarian reform, theselandowners were ultimately permitted to return after 1961 and retain all their property(Mac Dowall 1996: 400).

12 The administrative department of Diyarbakır represents the largest concentrationlarge-scale property holdings in the Kurdish regions: 52 proprietors possess more than500 hectares. In the 1960s, out of 663 villages in the Diyarbakır administrativedepartment, 476 were dominated by small-holdings, 27 belonged to families and 31 tothe sülâle [large families] (Akçay 1988: 13)10. The exploitation of land capital establishes


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economic circular flows, which are also the interplay of complex exchanges – notablybridging loans. The transformation of land capital into social influence is largely theproduct of a mobilisation process, which brings about a differentiation of the social roleof the ağa from simple property ownership. As regards land ownership structuressimilar at the outset, practices can vary considerably, particularly in line with thepresence or absenteeism of the proprietor. The tenant farmers and more widely, thepeople dependant on property holdings constitute an easily mobilised support forelections as can be seen from the numerous descriptions of the role of the ağa(Bozarslan 1966).

13 The social capital linked to a family possessing the title of eşraf supports itself throughspecific practices of sociability, which we find in the sometimes romanticiseddescriptions in historical literature and autobiographical accounts11. Historically theeşraf are the upper middle class in the city of Diyarbakır, senior civil servants of theOttoman Empire, generally large absentee landowners, possessing strong culturalcapital (the best high schools in Istanbul, and foreign universities), diversifying of theirown economic capital from the 1930s in the secondary and tertiary sectors of theeconomy (industry, banking, etc.). In certain cases, family history, for instance anopposition to the Kemalist regime, which can be seen through exile or a confiscation ofland, represents trustworthiness – further capital for a populace who are for the mostpart distrustful of Ankara.

14 If no şeyh in the precise meaning of the term has been elected a deputy some deputiesbelong to a family which benefits from a hereditary charisma. The deputies connectedby this hereditary charisma have an influential ability as regards those voters who aremürid [disciples] of the şeyh. For example, the Ensarioğlu family, descendants of theşeyh Said12, settled in Dicle, initially within the Zaza tribes. Ensarioğlu Kal Masa – whowas the father of Abdülatif Ensarioğlu and the grandfather of Salim Ensarioğlu (bothdeputies) – had a reputation of holiness. This enabled his descendants to maintain aninfluence in the village of Yeşilsirt (Kal Musa), at Pekmezciler in the south of the Dicledistrict, as well as in the Kocaköy Merkez district, where şeyh Abdulrezzak (the son ofEnsarioğlu Kal Masa) had lived for two years. The figures aptly show a specific electoralmobilisation. Thus, in a context nevertheless marked by the decline of the DYP (7.2%for the administrative department), the villages and the smaller market towns (ascompared to the urban centres) of the Dicle district in 2002 give more than 33.3% oftheir votes to Abdülatif Ensarioğlu, a candidate of this party (DIE 2002: 8).

15 The partisan resources are defined here in relation to the party, which we can pinpointin the biographies by the length of membership to the party, the proximity to theleader, the presence of a deputy in the immediate family, the participation inassociations close to politics – for example the MTTB (Milli Türk Talebe Birliği) anti-communist and very much right-wing, or the DDKD (Devrimci Demokratik Kültür Derneği)a melting pot of Kurdish nationalism, etc. Two typical cases are distinguished here.Some deputies have a strong educational capital, a place of residence outside theadministrative department and support close to the directorate of the party, whichfixes their local candidature, for instance Hikmet Çetin13. More rarely, others, build upa local activist base which enables them to impose their candidature on the partydirectorate, amongst the few examples the deputy of the TİP14.


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The combination of resources

16 A given individual can of course draw upon some resources simultaneously. Whatexactly are the statistical links between them? If we consider the essentially hereditaryresources (charisma, property, family notoriety), the most frequent link is between themobilisation of property resources and family notoriety. Both resources overlap inpart, which is logical since initially the biggest property holdings belonged to thebourgeoisie class, who were very integrated within the machinery of the State. Out ofthe 62 deputies mobilising property resources, 50 (80%) also mobilised family notorietyand out of the 69 possessing family notoriety 50 (74%) also owned property resources.In other respects, the mobilisation of a charismatic resource is linked to themobilisation of property holdings (68%), but there is less connection with familynotoriety (approximately a third).

Table 2 : combination of hereditary resources

family notoriety property charisma combination of 3 resources

family notoriety - 74% 11% 11%

property 80% - 24% 12%

charisma 36% 68% - 36%

Note: the first line of the table reads as follows: out of the deputies enjoying familynotoriety, 21% do not have another resource, 74% also have a property resource, 11%combine family notoriety and charismatic resources. 11% combine the three resources.

17 The deputies mobilising a professional reputation (lawyers and doctors) combinedifferent resources over different time periods. Between 1950 and 1969, out of 21deputies mobilising their professional reputation, 15 also have a hereditary resource.After 1969, only 2 out of the 8 deputies mobilising a professional reputation alsomobilise a hereditary resource. We therefore have the emergence of a new generation,which does not combine as many resources. Out of 33 deputies mobilising partisanresources, between 1950 and 1977, 14 did not possess a hereditary resource. After 1980,out of 39 deputies with partisan resources, 25 did not have a hereditary resource. Asbefore, we observe a lesser association with other resources.

18 More generally, we note a decrease in the average number of non-partisan resourcesper deputy in the long run (see table 1). Furthermore, the partisan resources becomeprogressively dominant and are not associated with others, whilst the principallyhereditary resources accumulate almost systematically, giving rise to circular flows forthe transformation of resources. We may consider there to be a movement of politicalautonomy over several decades, as the non-partisan resources carry less influence.Similarly, between 1983 and 2002, out of 40 elected representatives, 18 had beennominated by the party central management and were without a local presence. If wemake the comparison between the different periods, we observe that there is anincreasing influence from the centre on the selection of candidates. As a consequence,we may speak of a nationalisation of local politics.


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The transformation of resources

19 It would be incorrect to consider resources as stock – the biographical career pathsbeing on the contrary other hand able to be interpreted as a transformation ofresources. Put differently, the initial resources, mobilised at the time of the firstelection evolve, which evokes a strictly strategic dimension in the behaviour of thedeputies. A long career enables a diversification of resources, a cultivation of partisanand even economic resources in certain cases.

20 We have not noted the change of activity, which can be attributed to being a deputy,but in certain cases a personal enrichment is very likely, particularly in the 1980s and1990s. On the other hand, being a deputy is the opportunity to start a new career inIstanbul or in Ankara, out of the networks constituted at the time of election. Aproportion of the deputies seem to move into new areas of employment, mainly inAnkara or in Istanbul, for instance by opening a law firm or in working in the towncouncil, a vakıf etc. The re-elected and their resources

21 Having described the mobilisation of certain resources, it is necessary to enquire intotheir effectiveness. We receive an indication from the fact that very few of thecandidates do not mobilise any of the described resources (see the methodologicalannexe). The mobilised resources are more significant in certain social contexts, whichis confirmed by the results (infra §39). Furthermore, some resources facilitate not onlythe entry, but also the continuance of political life. If we take the period of 1961-1977,we note for instance that a deputy having a charismatic resource can expect 2.6mandates as compared with 1.3 mandates in the absence of resources (see table 3).Furthermore, we note that these figures fluctuates over time, thus a deputy withproperty resources achieves an average of 2.2 mandates during the single party period,1.4 between 1950 and 1957, then 1.8 between 1961 and 1977.

22 Table 3: re-elections and resources of deputies

1920-46 1950-57 1961-77 1980-2002

charisma -2 (only onecase)

2.6 2

property 2.2 1.4 1.8 1.6

family notoriety 2.2 1.3 1.5 1.2

political resources - 1.4 1.5 1.5

professional reputation - 1.3 1.4 1.6

average number of mandates for the deputies of theadministrative department15

1.8 1.4 1.4 1.3


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II. The evolution of non-partisan resources

23 Socio-economic progression, notably urbanisation and the mechanisation ofagriculture, have an important impact on the value of non-partisan resources.

Professional reputation

24 Doctors and lawyers were rare in the administrative department of Diyarbakır beforethe 1970s, and were therefore in a prominent position. Their subsequent multiplicationmade this automatic position of notability disappear, above all in a city like Diyarbakırwith a million inhabitants at the end of the century. The deputies-doctors practicallydisappeared after 1980 with only a single case where there are significant effects ofpatronage. On the other hand, the deputies-lawyers remain strongly present.Professional reputation, from then on marginal, does not provide any greaterexplanation, though the specific socialisation of this medium does. In effect, legalpractice was a place for politicisation from the 1960s. For example, a very largeproportion of CHP candidates and cadres were lawyers in this period. In the 1970s CHPand the 1990s Kurdist parties, lawyers represented an important proportion ofmanagers. Those entitled to practice law in Diyarbakır have a strong tradition ofinvesting in left-wing and Kurdist parties, as do many professional associations whichplay a role in social mobilisation (Bora 2000; Dorronsoro 2005). According to variousinterviews which we carried out between 2002 and 2005 with Kurdist activist studentsat the beginning of the 1990s, the choice of the profession of lawyer would have beenpartly motivated by this political engagement.

Graph 1: percentage of deputies mobilising the resource ‘professional reputation’ (1950-2002)

The disappearance of ‘property’ and ‘family notoriety’ resources

25 Progressive urbanisation considerably changes the political game by lessening therelative weight of the country people in the elections. Additionally, the socio-economictransformations brought about by the mechanisation of agriculture results in agrowing cost of transforming a property holding into political influence. The


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agricultural mechanisation occurs is on an increasing scale from 1950, when numbersof tractors are imported following the Marshall plan. In 1948, in Turkey, we count 1,750tractors, their number exceeding 10,000 in 1951 and 40,000 in 1954, which has the effectof accelerating the concentration of land. This evolution is particularly strong in thesouth-east, where the small farmers saw themselves compelled into renting tractors inreturn for a portion of the harvest, and indeed even into sell their land and becomeagricultural labourers. At the beginning of the 1960s, unemployment was very strong inthe winter months: 80% in January as compared with 10% in July, and these seasonalvariations increasingly affected a population of proletariat agricultural workers (MacDowall 1996: 399; Bozarslan 1966). In Diyarbakır, the tenant farmers were turned intolabourers looking after the livestock and taking part in seasonal work. These workerscoexisted alongside the capitalist farmers in the same villages.

26 The mechanisation and the concentration of the land in the 1960s therefore made thetraditional circular flows disappear (Anderson 1978). That said, certain ağa maintainedemployment for the tenant farmers accepting the additional economic cost, in order toavoid direct confrontation with them or to preserve political influence. In a study,Akçay shows how, in the village of Sinan (between Bismil and Batman), the landowneradopted a strictly capitalist approach which alienated him from the local populace (andprohibited him from all politically significant roles) (Akçay 1998). Conversely, at Silvan,a large landowner introduced paternalist vote-catching which represented aconsiderable financial investment.

27 Although eşraf and ağa often go hand in hand, we note a different evolution for each ofthem. If some eşraf no longer had large property holdings, their disappearance allowedfor the intervention of mechanisms other than the loss of rural supporters. In actualfact, we observe the abandonment of the eşraf from the 1960s and these have almostcompletely disappeared today. The diversification of capital is a general phenomenonwhich is found from the instant when capital invested in land has a less substantialreturn and as the opportunity to invest in industry and services increases. In the south-east, savings do not finance local investment, but benefit the most developed regions ofthe west (Diken 2000), moreover there had not been a State policy of significantredistribution in favour of the region. Thus, the bourgeoisie profit from governmentalnon-interest bearing loans in order to invest in industry or services, outside of theirregion of origin. The displacement of the economical interests of these families leads tothe displacement of their places of residence into the big cities such as Ankara andIstanbul, and this accelerated after 1980 when security deteriorated.


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Graph 2 : percentage of deputies mobilising the resources ‘property’ and ‘family notoriety’(1920-2002)

Religious charisma

28 The weakening of the Sufi networks is particularly clear in urban areas, where howeverthere is a proliferation of practices orientated towards healing. The active şeyh in theadministrative department have less and less of the mürid and, in the towns, the zikr[mystic reunions] concerning, above all the newcomers to the village. Furthermore, themedrese ([Islamic schools] illegal after their closure in the 1920s) as opposed to theimam-hatip schools no longer have any pupils. Against this backdrop, hereditary andfamily religious charisma is a declining source of mobilisation as is in fact shown, forexample, when certain villages which traditionally voted a deputy from a şeyh family,vote for Kurdish candidates from the mid-1990s. Let us take the example of anindependent application to stand of Abdülmelik Fırat16, in 2002 at Diyarbakır. He waselected in the 1950s from a list of DP candidates at Hınıs without having to campaign. In2002, he put himself forward employing the sole means of his charisma, since his partyis an organisation lacking in financial means. He suffers a serious setback, confirmingthe difficulty to mobilise on the basis of his only charismatic resources. Despite thepresence of şeyh, at the administrative department’s level, the votes for the DYP arelower than the national average. These residual supporters cannot win an election atthe departmental level.

29 On the contrary, the Nurcu movements, moreover ideologically variably orientated,were very much developed. That of the Fettulahcı brought together several thousandpeople in the administrative department, above all in the central district (Merkez). TheYeni Asya followers, mainly established in the town of Diyarbakır, similarly unitedseveral thousand people. Lastly, the Med Zehra movement emerges in the 1980s. Asopposed to the two former movements, it is linked to the medrese – the traditional placefor the dissemination of Kurdish culture – and ideologically close to the Kurdishparties17.

30 The şeyh themselves seldom have an open political position, whilst the religioussocieties [cemaat] have coherent political position-taking at a national level and theirinstructions are reputed to have real influence on results. In general, Med Zehrasupports the Kurdish parties, Yeni Asya the DYP and the Fettulahcı the RF/FP/AKP. The


57

mobilisation occurs mainly during their meetings (with a large audience), where theleader of the cemaat announces his vote. The negotiations between cemaat and politicalparties takes places largely at a national level18. The graph bears testament to theabsence of a relationship between the transformation of religious practices mentionedabove and the growing presence of this resource amongst the deputies in the 1980s and1990s. Graph 3 : percentage of deputies mobilising a charismatic resource

The limits of the socio-economic explanations

31 These socio-economic changes account for certain evolutions such as the presence ofresources associated with professional notoriety and family reputation or withproperty resources. However in some cases, there exists a significant temporaldiscrepancy: property resources are heavily represented in the 1960s and 1970s, whilethey are already in decline. Nevertheless, this presence can be justified by theestablishment of a partisan capital for those who have been elected. Landowners do notreturn to the political field until after 1980 possibly because of insufficient resources orbecause the parties have changed.

32 However, why does the decline in brotherhood practices not result in a decrease in thepresence of this resource, virtually non-existent before 1980 and much morerepresented thereon? More generally, why does this decline occur intermittently inrelation to the socio-economic evolutions? This leads us now to consider the internalprocesses in the political spectrum.

III. The party and the transformation of resources

33 We will firstly discuss whether candidates are able to join and leave parties easily.Secondly, we will consider the links between the parties and their resources.

Are parties necessary to candidates?

34 To demonstrate the central role of parties, we will successively tackle the questions ofindependent elected representatives and of the change in parties. Votes for


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independent candidates are difficult to decipher for each candidate, as only globalfigures are generally available for analysis. There have only been two independentelected representatives: one in 1969 and another in 1977. These two deputiesconcurrently hold all hereditary resources, allowing them to mobilise enough voters.However, more than a chosen strategy, their independence is the result of the failure innegotiations with a party. Once elected, they rejoin a party19.

35 Concerning the changes of parties, we are excluding from our analysis forced changesresulting from dissolution or prohibition of a party - for example, when a deputy passesfrom the DP to the YTP, or from the YTP to the CHP. In all other cases, we have onlybeen able to locate six changes of parties, small in comparison with the number ofdeputies and national tendencies (Turan in this special issue). Moreover it seems thatdeputies do not change party during the course of their mandate. Segregation is almosttotal between the ‘left’ and the ‘right’ (including Islamic parties). The change of partiestakes place in an ideological compatible setting, for example between the ANAP and theRP/FP. The global image is that of an ideological, structured world, where parties holda key role. Parties and resources

36 Parties are not neutral operators, they change their resources to suit their preferences.Several considerations intervene here, varying according to the party concerned: thechoice of candidates, relations with the leader, involvement in militant networks,ideological similarities, reputation of the candidate, financial contribution for thecampaign etc. A party is not a machine with a view to maximise the number of voters,but an organisation with several aims and practicalities. For example in 1969, İnönü,leader of the CHP party, puts forward a list of candidates all foreign to theadministrative department, in an ideological perspective of exchange, even if thisresults in a total (and probably expected) failure in the elections. We will now analyse,for each time period, the distribution of resources between the parties.

37 In the period of one party (1920-1946), the appointment is made by Ankara, withoutconsideration of electoral competition, but not necessarily without consideration of thecapacity of the deputies to be the interface of government action. Two types of idealcan be distinguished from this period: on the one hand the eşraf and, on the other hand,those without local ties, chosen for their integration into the State. The variety ofresources during this period can be explained by evolutions in government policy. Inthe first two terms of office, the centre chooses prominent citizens very well set up.These citizens vanish after the revolt of şeyh Said, when the government choosesrepresentatives to support the policy of the administration. Therefore, in 1927 and in1931, all deputies are senior civil servants who are not based in Diyarbakır.Progressively, these senior citizens return in force, this tendency is accelerated by thereturn to a multiparty system. In 1946, the seven deputies are eşraf or close to them. Weare in a triangular system consisting of property resources, the upper echelons of theadministration and the CHP (Arslan 1992: 56 sq.).

38 In the period of a multiparty system, certain parties favour political resources (DP,AKP, Kurdist parties, TİP in 1965). In particular, we witness the transformation of theDP, the dominant party between 1950 and 1957. This party begins by recruiting theeşraf, originating from families in exile in the 1930s, who were generally opposed to the


59

republican government. Progressively, the DP puts forward those candidates withpartisan resources (activism, exteriority in relation to the province), while the numberof landowners decreases (see table 1).

39 Between 1961 and 1977, the political field being more complex, we will consider onlythe more important parties (AP, YTP, CHP) and three resources: property resources,professional reputation and political resources. Property resources are split betweenthe AP and the YTP. Professional reputation is vital to the CHP and the YTP. The YTPhas both of these resources, while the AP and the CHP seems to clearly oppose it. Thisseems to be consistent with the electoral results of the parties, the CHP doing the bestin the cities, the AP in villages and market towns, the YTP being in a median position20.Partisan resources become more common during the course of time because of re-elections and the appearance of parties with a strong activist structure like the TİP(communist) or the MSP (Islamic). Table 4: resources by term of office and by party (1961-77)

1961Number ofdeputies

Propertyresources

Politicalresources

Professionalreputation

AP 1 0 1 0

CHP 3 2 0 1

YTP 3 3 1 3


Propertyresources

Politicalresources


AP 2 1 0 1

CHP 2 1 1 2

YTP 2 2 2 3

1968-69Number ofdeputies

Propertyresources

Politicalresources


AP 5 3 2 1

CHP 2 0 0 2

YTP 2 1 2 2


Propertyresources

Politicalresources


AP 2 2 1 0

CHP 3 1 3 2


60


Propertyresources

Politicalresources


AP 2 2 2 0

CHP 3 0 2 1

Table 5: resources by party and by legislature (1961-77)

APNo.deputies

PropertyProperty(%)

Pol.resources

Pol.resources(%)

Prof.reputation

Prof.reputation(%)

1961 1 0 0% 1 100% 0 0%

1965 2 1 50% 0 0% 1 50%

1969 5 3 60% 2 40% 1 20%

1973 2 2 100% 1 50% 0 0%

1977 2 2 100% 2 100% 0 0%

CHPNo.deputies

PropertyProperty(%)

Pol.resources

Pol.resources(%)

Prof.reputation

Prof.reputation(%)

1961 3 2 67% 0 0% 1 33%

1965 2 1 50% 1 50% 2 100%

1969 2 0 0% 0 0% 2 100%

1973 3 1 33% 3 100% 2 67%

1977 3 0 0% 2 67% 1 33%

YTPNo.deputies

PropertyProperty(%)

Pol.resources

Pol.resources(%)

Prof.reputation

Prof.reputation(%)

1961 3 3 100% 1 33% 3 100%

1965 2 2 100% 2 100% 3 0%

1969 2 1 50% 2 100% 2 0%

Note: the percentages turn on very reduced figures, variations of which are thereforeonly slightly significant.


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40 Post 1980, the main resources are partisan, charisma and property. The partiesconcerned here are the ANAP, the CHP, the RP/FP, the SHP and the AKP. Propertyresources, much in decline, are present essentially within the ANAP and the DYP.Political resources are very present in the RP/FP, the SHP and in the AKP, whichnominates activists unknown to the public. Political resources in other parties arelinked with re-elections.

41 Charismatic resources are more interesting. The candidates split themselves betweenthe ANAP, the DYP and the RP/FP. In the 1980s and 1990s, we note a veritablecompetition between the parties of the centre-right and the Islamic parties forresources linked to religion (for example the qualities of belonging to a charismaticfamily, being müftü, or an imam-hatip schooling background). However, the principallyrural bases of these means that their selection is not very favourable for the party inthe medium term given the context of very rapid urbanisation. In other words, thechanging in the partisan offer at a national level explains the growing presence of thisresource, more than would an analysis based on the continuance of religioussupporters. This is confirmed in the case of the ANAP and the DYP, by the fact thatthese parties do not achieve results above their national average in the administrativedepartment and, more importantly, there is no striking stability of the electorate. Table 6 : resources by terms of office and by party (1987-2002)

1987 Number of Deputies Property resources Political resources Charismatic resources

ANAP 3 1 3 0

DYP 1 1 1 1

SHP 4 0 1 0

1991 Property resources Political resources Charismatic resources

ANAP 0 0 0

DYP 1 1 1 1

SHP 7 0 7 0


ANAP 3 0 1 1

DYP 2 0 2 1

RP/FP 5 0 3 2


ANAP 2 0 2 2

DYP 4 0 3 1


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RP/FP 4 0 4 2


AKP 8 0 8 1

CHP 2 1 2 0

Table 7: resources by party and by legislature (1987-2002)

ANAPNo.Deputies

Propertyresources

Propertyresources %

PoliticalPolitical%

CharismaticCharismatic%

1987 3 1 33% 3 100% 0 0%

1991 0 0 0 0

1995 3 0 0% 1 33% 1 33%

1999 2 0 0% 2 100% 2 100%

2002 0 0 ! 0 0 !

DYPNo.Deputies

Land Land % PoliticalPolitical%


1987 1 1 100% 1 100% 1 100%

1991 1 1 100% 1 100% 1 100%

1995 2 0 0% 2 100% 1 50%

1999 4 0 0% 3 75% 1 25%

2002 0 0 0 0

SHPNo.Deputies



1987 4 0 0% 1 25% 0 0%

1991 7 0 0% 7 100% 0 0%

RP/FP

No.Deputies



1995 5 0 0% 3 60% 2 40%

1999 4 0 0% 4 100% 2 50%


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AKPNo.Deputies



2002 8 0 0% 8 100% 1 13%

IV. Institutional regulations and resources

42 The institutional regulations are not neutral; they have structural effects, oftencomplex and unexpected. In this way, the threshold of 10%21 does not discourage votersto vote for parties whom they know, however, will not be represented in Parliament. Ifwe attempt to extend the institutional rules to include certain informal practices, theimpact on resources can be seen.

43 The attitude of institution is one specificity of this administrative department, thoughthis engenders a discussion of the whole of South-Eastern Turkey. The administrationat Diyarbakır has always been political, perhaps more than elsewhere. For a number ofyears, the administrative department has been subject to ‘states of exception’ (a stateof emergency or military rule) until the 1940s and also from 1980 until 2002. Duringthese periods, judicial regulations were suspended, the organising of meetingsprohibited etc. After 1980, the conditions of political activity differ from the rest of thecountry, notably due to political violence. The assassination of certain candidates at theelections, and the pressure exerted on voters by the government took place principallybetween 1983 and 1999. The police force and the deputy prefects [kaymakam] are put tothe voters – principally in the rural areas – to forbid them to vote for Kurdistcandidates, but without giving instructions to vote for one party in particular. Theremoval of the social security card [yeşil kart], the end of agricultural subsidies, theabsence of works on infrastructure, and electrification were the key threats made bythe official representatives. In the district of Çinar for example, the deputy prefectconfiscated many hundreds of social security cards after the elections of 1995 in thearea of Eski Mahalle, as inhabitants there voted almost unanimously for the HADEP22. Illegitimate resources

44 Two resources are particularly prone to illegitimacy: political resources linked to aKurdish militant agreement or those linked to religious charisma. Political partiesbelonging to the Kurdist and Islamic fronts were wound up even if the group reformedunder another name. In the case of the Islamic movement, the prohibition of Faziletparty provoked a split in the Islamic front and finally the marginalisation of its mostradical wing.

45 Following the coups of 1960, 1971 and 1980, many deputies were isolated from politicallife. Before 1960, six deputies were imprisoned and the deputy of the TİP elected in1965 was subject to constant pressure. The deputies of the SHP were imprisoned afterthe elections of 1991 accused of separatism for having spoken Kurdish during thepledging of oaths. Moreover, three applications to stand for election were rejected after1980 by a decision of the High-Electoral Commission [Yüksek Seçim Kurulu]. The ANAPapplication of a former judge was refused in 1983, accused also of Kurdish separatism.


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The application of a civil servant, accused of being a reactionary [irtica], wasinvalidated in 1983. Finally, a Kurdist activist was prohibited from the 2002 election forhaving participated in the HADEP before its closure.

46 Moreover, the disappearance of religious charisma after the coups of 1960 and 1980shows the illegitimacy of these resources for certain State institutions, which applypressure directly or indirectly on the parties. This also explains the absence of allcandidates belonging to a charismatic family before the introduction of a multipartysystem. We see again the effects of the revolts of 1920 and 1930, where the şeyh played acentral role, notably in the revolt of şeyh Said in 1925. The institutional splits

47 The effect of splits in the partisan system – the introduction of a multiparty system andcoups – is observable notably in the renewal of personal policy (elected representativesand candidates) and the resources at their disposal. The capacity of the institutions toregularly reformat the political system is unrivalled in other competing systems. In thisway, in the history of republican Turkey, 1950 saw the introduction of the multipartysystem, 1960 saw the prohibition of the DP and 1980 the prohibition of all parties. 1971did not lead to a significant modification of the partisan offer, but the effects wereimportant in the long-term, notably with the prohibition of the TİP allowing theformation of Kurdist nationalist movements.

Graphic 4 : sitting re-elected representatives and cumulative re-elective representatives(1920-2002)

48 A clear relationship between re-election rates and the stabilisation of the partisansystem can be established. In general, the rate of renewal is around 50% past the effectof reorganisation. The rate of re-election casts doubt on this approach, but the curveremains sensitively identical. The elections of 1983 fall outside the norm because theoffer is extremely controlled by the military, meaning it is difficult to analyse from thepoint of view of resources.

49 The other important point concerns the variety of resources. A significant negativecorrelation between the eşraf resource and the rate of re-election can be seen (-1, -0.49,


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- 0.93 according to the periods) and also between the number of ağa and the rate of re-election (-0.81, -0.85, -0.95). In more simpler terms, at the point of a split, as the rate ofre-election drastically falls, we can note a significant increase in certain non-partisanresources. On the contrary however, hereditary resources decrease in line with re-elections. Furthermore, there exists a positive correlation between political capital andre-election (0.87, 0.93, 0.68) which is not solely explained by the fact that the re-electedrepresentatives by definition possess political capital at the second election. Even if thecoup of 1971 was not considered a split, we note a slow decrease in the number of re-elected representatives after the coup of 1971 (Graphic 4) and a high percentage ofproperty-holdings resources (Graphic 6), corresponding to the general view. Table 8 : relationship between resources and re-election

Correlationcoefficients betweenthose re-elected andresources (Pearson)

Familynotoriety

Charisma PropertyPoliticalresources


Meannumber ofresources

Total period 0,00 -0.03 -0.10 0.70 -0.09 -0.08

1920-1946 0.03 -0.1 -0.42

1950-1957 -1.00 -0.92 -0.81 0.87 -0.87 -0.97

1961-1977 -0.49 0.60 -0.85 0.93 -0.57 -0.32

1983-2002 -0.93 0.79 -0.95 0.68 0.50 0.15

Correlation coefficientbetween eşraf andpolitical resource from1950 to 1977

-0.76

Note: the correlations of Table 8 are calculated from the series stated in Table 1.

50 How can we justify these correlations? A split seems to disorganise parties and devaluetheir political resources, which in doing so, enables at least the selection of onecandidate from a party. New parties do not have candidates from within the partymachinery at their disposal, and are therefore more open to local recruitmentstrategies with candidates benefiting from resources mobilising the voters directly. Inperiods of stability, parties tend to create partisan resources. The transformation ofnon-partisan resources becomes more difficult. The political field becomes moreautonomous from the point of view of resources when the political system isinstitutionally stable. Re-elections therefore increase, personal policy becomesprofessionalized and certain parties put activists forward as candidates. Furthermore,hereditary resources tend to decrease.


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Graphic 5: percentage of elected representatives elected several times and mobilising a politicalresource.

Graphic 6: Cumulative elected representatives and property resources

Resources and balloting methods

51 The balloting method is the second institutional aspect modifying the resources of thedeputies. The rules have frequently changed since 1950 (Massicard 2002), but there isdifficulty in measuring their effect. The distribution of the remains at a national levelhas perhaps favoured a penetration of central State machinery in the nomination ofcandidates, but the changing system in the 1980s has not led to an opposing movementof re-localisation. Furthermore, the changing relations between deputies and voterscannot be discussed in simple terms using the material at our disposal, (see Yasushi inthis number). Moreover, in 1987 and 1991, the administrative department was split intotwo constituencies with two lists of candidates. It has been difficult for us to isolate theparticular influence of this change because of its short length (two terms of office) in aperiod of radical restructuring of politics after the great split of 1980.


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52 More precisely, the threshold of 10% in place since 1987 has an extremely strong effectin this administrative department. The block renders it necessary to make a radicaldistinction between the capacity of candidates to mobilise the voters and the election.In effect, since the emergence of a Kurdish party, fifty per cent of voters are essentiallyeliminated without the voters appearing to be aware of the matter of a useful vote. Theconsequences of the block were particularly remarkable in the elections of 2002. TheAKP wins 8 seats out of 10 with 16% of the vote and 2 deputies go to the CHP (with 5.6%of the vote). In total, the only parties represented make up 21.6% of the vote. Aprogressive decrease in the number of voters represented in Parliament can thereforebe established. Furthermore, this fact does not bode well with a political vision, whichprincipally would be an exchange of services at an individual level where the deputyhas a privileged status (Massicard in this volume). Table 9: useful votes (1983-2002)

Population inbillions

Voters and % of thepopulation

Valid votes and rate ofparticipation

Useful votes (parties and %of the vote)

1983 860 239 802 (27.9%) 198 232 (82.7%)ANAP HP MDP

32.7+42+25.3=100

1987 986 342 646 (34.8%) 311 979 (91%)ANAP, DYP, SHP

22.9+13.3+25.5= 61.7

1991 1 113 406 477 (36.5%) 315 964 (77.7%)DYP, SHP,

20+49.9= 69.9

1995 1219 449 962 (36.9%) 342 820 (76.2%)ANAP, DYP, RP

13.8+10.6 + 18.8= 43.2

1999 1327 546 772 (41.2%) 434 201 (79.4%)ANAP, DYP, FP, DSP

11.1+11.3+14.6+5= 42

2002 1 407 615 103 (43.7%) 437 595 (71.1%)AKP CHP

16+5.9 = 21.9 %

53 Without the block, would the deputies who would have been elected have had the sameresources? To provide an answer to this question, we will consider the elections of 1999and 2002 using the profiles of the candidates. In Table 10, we have indicated in bracketsthe figures without taking into account the block of 10% (with a voting methodnecessitating a majority in a voting round for example). We put forward the hypothesisthat the result of the Kurdist parties would not be lower had there been a conception ofa useful vote.

Table 10: variety of resources according to the block of 10%23

YearNumber ofDeputies

Familynotoriety

Charisma PropertyPoliticalresources

Professionalnotoriety


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1995 10 1 (0) 4 (0) 2 (0) 6 (10) 1 (0)

1999 11 0 (0) 5 (0) 1 (0) 10 (10) 1 (0)

2002 10 0 (0) 1 (0) 1 (0) 10 (10) 2 (0)

Note: the figures in brackets indicate the resources without the block.

54 Without the block, the deputies elected would be deprived of all resources apart fromthose relating to the party. Moreover, in the elections of 2002, the resources of thedeputies would have been largely the same, because of the domination of the AKP,which essentially recruits candidates outside the administrative department on thebasis of a former relationship with the Islamist movement.

Conclusion

55 Several conclusions can be drawn from these analyses. Firstly, resources have a localvalue. In this sense, ethnicity is here redundant though a key resource in theadministrative department of Mardin or Erzurum. From this, how can we articulate thequestion of resources at a national level? A comparative strategy between severaladministrative departments can be considered in order to analyse typical profiles ofthe administrative department according to the resources mobilised for the elections.

56 Secondly, the evolution of resources can be explained by mechanisms partly outsidethe political field (mechanization, urbanisation), and in part inside (institutionalregulations, partisan capital). Splits have the effect of decreasing the boundaries of thefield and the value of non-partisan resources in the period immediately after the splits.Periods of political tension are those where the autonomy of the political spectrum isthe strongest when considering political resources (end of the 1950s and 1970s), whilethose periods after the splits exist where the political field is the least autonomous.

57 Thirdly, partisan resources are progressively to the detriment of others. In thisadministrative department at least, the mobilisation of voters is a matter of partisanState machinery and no longer of local notoriety. The growing importance of re-elections in cases of stabilisation of the partisan system indicates a logic ofspecialisation leading to the autonomisation of the political field.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Akçay, A. (1985) ‘Traditional Large Land Ownership and its Transformation in Two SoutheastAnatolian Villages’, M.Sc. Thesis, Dept. of Sociology, METU, Ankara.

Akçay, A. (1988) From Landlordism to Capitalism in Turkish Agriculture, DPP Working Paper n°12, TheOpen University.


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Anderson (1978) ‘There are no khans anymore’, Middle East Journal, vol. 32, pp. 167-184.

Arslan, Rıfkı (1992) Diyarbakır’da Toprak’ta Mülkiyet Rejimleri ve Toplumsal Değişme, Ankara,Sun Matbaasş.

Avcıoğlu, D. (1968) Türkiye'nin Düzeni: Dün, Bugün, Yarın, [The Order of Turkey: Yesterday, Today,Tomorrow], Bilgi Yayinevi, Ankara.

Beşikçi, Ismail (1969) Doğu Anadolu'nun Diizeni: Sosyo-Ekonomik ve Etnik Temeller [The Order ofEastern Anatolia: Socio-Economic and Ethnic Basis], Istanbul, E. Yayğnlarğ.

Beşikçi, Ismail (1992) Doğu Anadolu’nun Sosyo-ekonomik ve Etnik Temeller, Istanbul, Yurt Yayğnlarğ.

Bora, Tanıl (2000) ‘Professional Chambers and Non-Voluntary Organizations in Turkey: TheIntersection of Public, Civil and National’, in Yerasimos, Stefanos; Seufert, Günter; Vorhoff, Karin(eds.), Civil Society in the Grip of Nationalism, Istanbul, IFEA-Orient Institut, pp.99-142.

Boratav, K. (1981) Tarimsal Yapısı ve Kapitalizm, [Agricultural Structures and the Capitalism],Birikim Yayınları, Istanbul.

Bourdieu, Pierre (1992) Réponses, Paris, Seuil.

Bozarslan, Hamit (1997) La question kurde, Paris, Presses de la FNSP.

Bozarslan, M. Emin (1966, réed. 2002) Doğu’nun Sorunları, Istanbul, Avesta.

Diken, Şeyhmus (2000) Güneydoğu’da Sivil Hayat, Istanbul, Metis Yayınları.

Dorronsoro, Gilles (2005) La Turquie conteste. Régime sécuritaire et mobilisations sociales, Paris, Ed. duCNRS.

Dorronsoro, Gilles; Massicard, Elise; Pérouse, Jean-François (2002) ‘Les élections en Turquie : versun changement de régime ?’, Critique internationale, n°18, janvier, pp. 8-15.

Karpat, K. (1960) ‘Social Effects of Farm Mechanization in Turkish Villages’, Social Research, vol.XXVII, pp. 83-103.

Kirişçi, Kemal ; Winrow, Gareth M. (1997) Kürt Sorunu. Kökeni ve Gelişimi, Istanbul, Tarih Vakfı YurtYayınları.

MacDowall, David (1996) A Modern History of The Kurds, London, Tauris.

Massicard, Elise (2002) ‘Les élections du 2 novembre 2002 : une recomposition de la vie politiqueturque ?’, Dossiers de l’IFEA, série la Turquie aujourd’hui.

Özoğlu, Hakan (2004) Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State, State University of New York Press.

Sewell, William (1992) ‘A Theory of Structure: Duality, Agency, and Transformation’, AJS, vol. 98,N°1 (July 1992), pp. 1-29.

Schatkowski-Schilcher, Linda (1985) Families in politics: Damascene factions and estates of the 18th and19th centuries, Berliner Islamstudien, F. Steiner.

State Institute of Statistics (1984) 1980 Census of Agriculture: Result of Household Survey, SIS,Publication No. 1028, Ankara.

Van Bruinessen, Martin (1991) Agha, Shaikh and State: on the Social and Political Organization ofKurdistan, London, Zed Press.


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APPENDIXES

Methodology : the constitution and encoding of thecorpus

Our corpus is made up of 163 elected deputies (one in the by-elections of 1968). Foreach deputy, we have looked to evaluate which resources had been mobilised for itselection by using the information available to us. We do not claim to have provided acomplete table of all resources, but merely an analysis of those most significant. Certainelected representatives form a social capital by participating in associations, notablysporting and hunting associations, two passions well represented locally. Because thisconcerns a small number of deputies, this is not significant as these deputies alwayshave access to other resources, therefore we have not created an ‘associative resource’.In some cases, after 1980, candidates can buy a place in office, but these cases are toofew to be considered separately. Moreover, we refer to non-partisan resources morethan to non-political resources. The possession of property is a non-partisan resource,though historically linked to the State. Finally, 14 deputies out of 114 (12%) in theperiod of a multiparty system, do not have resources corresponding to our categories.We are concerned with deputies who have been elected unexpectedly (in a position apriori not eligible for office) (1 or 2 cases), those who have ‘bought’ their application (2or 3 cases) or elected in 1983 (that is to say, invited to put themselves forward ascandidates by the military regime) (7 cases). Furthermore, the data before 1946 beingmore sporadic, we are able only to use them selectively. The profiles of the deputieswho did not originate from the administrative department are often not very precise,but we can however consider that they do not hold a local establishment (propertyresources and professional notoriety in particular).

The necessity for a code for statistical purposes has the effect here of labelling in abinary manner (yes/no) a given resource to an elected candidate, even though a slidingscale can be seen. The transition from continuous to discontinuous is therefore a littlearbitrary which varies according to the types of resources. Belonging a şeyh or eşraffamily is mainly a consensus view, so the trend of these two resources does not pose aproblem of encoding. On the other hand, the situation is more complex in the case ofthe ağa since property possession must be accompanied by specific instances ofpatronage. For the resource of professional reputation, simple exercising theprofession is not enough. After the change to the multiparty system, in 1950, out of 114deputies, we see 23 lawyers and 17 doctors. However, only 30 deputies have a socialcapital linked to their reputation (17 lawyers and 12 doctors). In 10 cases, the effect ofbeing a professional is negligible as these deputies do not come from the region, buthave been nominated by the centre. Similarly, the military doctors from the single-party period do not mobilise the same resources as doctors with local patronage, a factwhich has made us not take them into account. The most difficult question is that ofpartisan resources, from the moment that these must be appreciated at the time of thefirst election, the initial situation is often covered by subsequent evolutions in the caseof re-election. Because it is difficult to precisely define these transformations in arelatively significant sample, we have introduced a sole dynamic aspect by


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systematically attributing a partisan capital to re-elected deputies. The other resourcesare presumed to be stable or to vary randomly.

Abbreviations

AKP: Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Party for Justice and Development

ANAP: Anavatan Partisi, Mother Country Party

CHP: Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, People’s Republican Party, the Turkish member of theInternational socialist

DEHAP: Demokratik Halk Partisi, People’s Democratic Party

DYP: Doğru Yol Partisi, Party for the Just Direction

DSP: Demokratik Sol Partisi, Party for the Democratic Left

EMEP: Emeğin Partisi, Labour Party

GP: Genç Parti, Youth Party

MHP: Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, Nationalist Movement Party

ÖDP: Özgürlük ve Dayanışma Partisi, Liberty and Solidarity Party

SHP: Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti, Populist Social-democratic Party

SODEP: Sosyal Demokrasi Partisi, Party for Social Democracy

T İ P: Türkiye İşçi Partisi, Turkish Worker Party

YDP: Yeniden Doğuş Partisi, Renaissance Party

YTP: Yeni Türkiye Partisi, Party for a New Turkey

NOTES1. We seek to distinguish here a concept of field which explains the regular and sometimescompeting interactions between the actors (Bourdieu 1992), from the larger notion of sector –which in the Weberian tradition refers to all-encompassing activities (economic, religious,political, aesthetic, intellectual etc.), and whose definition rests upon conceptual categories. Inthis way, it is difficult to speak of a political field, and we prefer the concept of a political sector.On the other hand, the concept of field can apply to regular interactions involving defined stakes– for instance, an election.2. The information necessary for this research, in particular biographies, was collected during anumber of different visits in Diyarbakır, principally in May and July 2005. I thank all those whoagreed to answer our questions, especially the AKP and the DEHAP members, as well as MehmetiAktoprak for his informed advice. We would also like to thank Benoit Fliche, Olivier Grojean, EliseMassicard, Clémence Scalbert and Alexandre Toumarkine for reading a draft version of thispaper and Delphine Hery for producing all the graphs.3. If we follow Sewell (Sewell 1992) who comments on Giddens: the resources are all that canproduce or reproduce power (unequally shared). The rules produce the resources (the way inwhich they can be used in a given social context), and also the rules without resources disappear.


72

The dynamics of social systems stem in particular from the fact that the rules are numerous,contradictory, which the actors use in a creative manner.4. In the absence of any indication to the contrary, ‘Diyarbakır’ means the administrativedepartment region (il) and not the city. 5. The administrative department of Diyarbakır has, for much of the time, consisted of a singleconstituency whose boundaries have varied principally because of the creation of the Batmanadministrative department. The department is divided into districts [ilçe] - Merkez, Bismil,Çermik, Çinar, Çüngüs, Dicle, Eğil, Ergani, Hani, Hazro, Kocaköy, Kulp, Lice and Silvan. 6. A charismatic personality associated principally with a Sufi order who takes charge of themürid [disciples] in their mystic initiation.7. By ‘Kurdist’ we mean a party explicitly mobilising the Kurdish identity through politics.8. The DEHAP obtained only 22.2% of the vote in this district in 2002 as compared against anadministrative departmental average of 56.1%. The Turks from Bulgaria had settled in the ilçe ofÇüngüs in the 19th Century. Moreover, several thousand Türkmen had settled in Bismil, but weregradually ‘kurdified’ linguistically and culturally. Similarly, the non-Kurdish population presentin the city of Diyarbakır (Arabs, Turks) do not seem to vote in a very identifiable manner.9. The 1970 general census is indicating that 29,3% of the population of Diyarbakır is literate.10. Nevertheless, at a sub-departmental level, there are marked differences between thedistricts: large landowners towards Bismil and Silvan, small properties in the mountainousregions in the north, Dicle or Çüngüs.11. Descendants (in theory) of the Prophet through Hasan and Husayn, which gave rise to tax,legal and clothing privileges. (Schatkowski-Schilcher 1985: 124-125). Nevertheless, thoughequivalent to the title of ayan, this title has lost its religious dimension and refers to thebourgeoisie – socially rising since the 18th century (Karpart 1973).12. The leader of the 1925 Kurdish revolt (Bruinessen 1991).13. Hikmet Çetin, senior civil servant in economic planning and director of the CHP, then of theSHP. Elected for Istanbul then for Gaziantep, member of the Ecevit government in 1977.14. Tarik Ziya Ekinci, doctor and a former activist of the CHP, established a TİP cell at Diyarbakır.Moreover he was deputy party secretary. Elected deputy of TİP in 1965 after a preliminaryelection within the activists.15. Out of 163 deputies since 1920, 73 had only a single mandate, 20 had two, 8 had three and 4had four.16. Grandson of the şeyh Said, elected without having campaigned at Hınıs in the 1950s from alist of DP.17. İzzetin Yıldırım, the founder of the movement, born in 1946 at Ağrı, had established the MedZehra Vakfı in Istanbul which published the magazine Yeni Zemin. This Nurcu movement, as areaction against the Turkish nationalist tendencies within the Nurcu organisations, oversaw thetranslation of Risale (the fundamental work of Said Nursi) into Kurdish and established studenthostels at Diyarbakır, Van, Eskişehir, Konya, etc. which would be closed by the government after1997. İzzetin Yıldırım was killed by the end of 1999 by the Hizbullah (İlim) (interviews at DYB).18. A deputy can for example intervene in order to obtain a favourable price for a cemaat whichbuys land from the Treasury.19. Note that in 1977, out of the 11 independent elected representatives of Parliament, 8 areKurdish. The explanation for this lies in the conjunction of two phenomena: a rapid developmentof ideology – which is perhaps more true in the Kurdish regions than elsewhere in Turkey – andan ever strong capacity of mobilisation of resources linked with land. The politicization (to theleft or Islamic) works against the nomination of the prominent citizens by the parties, thoughtheir resources still allow them to be elected.


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20. In this way, in the elections of 1969, the CHP gains 43% of votes in the cities, compared with13% for the AP and 30% for the YTP, the TİP holds 50% of urban votes (figures calculated usingthe electoral statistics of the DİE).21. A party which does not obtain 10% at national level is not represented in Parliament.22. Those concerned put their demands [dilekçe] to the government and finally the cards werereinstated under the new government in 2002. The career of the deputy prefect continuedunaffected.23. We have indicated in brackets the results without taking the block into account with thesame results for all parties.

ABSTRACTSOne can hypothesise about the autonomy of the political field in a complex society. To give anempirical dimension to this hypothesis, the author researches the resources mobilised by thecandidates in parliamentary elections in the administrative department of Diyarbakır (Turkey)from 1920 to 2002. Four non-political resources can be mobilised (charisma, agrarian clienteleand social capital resulting from a profession or family.) Furthermore, political resources aredefined as the support of the party. After a statistical analysis, we find that the resourcesmobilised are changing in consideration of three factors. Firstly, the socio-economical changes(urbanisation, mechanisation of agriculture, etc.); secondly, the political party which plays acentral role in the creation and transformation of resources; lastly, the institutional framework(coup d’état, electoral rules, etc.).

INDEX

Mots-clés: partis politiques, élections, ressources mobiliséesKeywords: political parties, elections, resources

AUTHOR

GILLES DORRONSORO

Université Paris 1 Panthéon [email protected]


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Taking up the gauntlet: fictionists inthe Turkish parliamentÇimen Günay

1 There have been a considerable number of writers who seek public office andpoliticians who write novels and short stories; Mario Vargas Llosa have run forpresidency of Peru, André Malraux served as Minister of Culture of Général de Gaulleand plenty of politicians like Jimmy Carter, Winston Churchill etc. wrote novels at acertain point in their lives. Such an intersection of literature and politics is not alien toTurkey, a country where the involvement of (wo)men of letters in sociopoliticaltransformation processes is an intellectual custom and imaginative writing is aprivileged sign of intellectuality. This essay will chart, in the presence of the stronginterconnectedness between politics and literature in Turkey, the political and literarypositions of some prominent fiction writers who accessed the parliament. It will alludeat a spectrum of political atmospheres from the single-party state to the multi-partyrivalry in the parliament, and a spectrum of writers that ranges from enthusiasticservants of the Kemalist revolution to the contemporary ones, who now are moreintoxicated with a sense of their own importance.

2 Although political engagements have been intrinsic to the philosophy and works ofmost of the literary figures, seeking office in the parliament appears as a seldomchoice, especially when fiction writers are considered. Most of the fictionists haveengaged in political activity as members of civil organizations and pressure groups orsimply as intellectuals who evaluate the realpolitik and take political sides. In contrastto those who find literature and politics incompatible, try to avoid the amorality ofpolitics in their life, or reject any link to politics whatsoever in their ivory tower, therehave also been literary figures who, both in political terms and in their capacity aswriters, evaluated contribution to parliamentary politics as an intellectual duty, adistinguished form of political act, and a risk to be ventured.

3 A recent article published in the journal Hece provides a list of men of letters whoserved as MPs in the TBMM (Turkish Great National Assembly) for certain periods sincethe first parliamentary convention of 1920 (Özcan 2004: 581). The list comprises aheterogeneous group who, in critical and creative writing, touched upon several


75

components of the culture of Turkey and includes 92 names – poets, short-story anddrama writers, novelists, columnists and journalists etc. – some of whom gainedreputation as distinguished avatars in the politics of Turkey.

Pre-1950 Deputies Tenure Pre-1950 Deputies TenurePost-1950

DeputiesTenure

A.Adıvar1.Meclis,

1946-1950O.O.Nakiboğlu 1943-1950 H.E.Adıvar 1950-1954

A.Rasim 1927-1932 O.S.Orhon1946-1950

1965-1969S.Ağaoğlu 1950-1960

Aka Gündüz 1932-1946 Y.Z.Ortaç 1946-1950 Ç.Altan 1965-1969

M.Akalın 2.Meclis Samih Rıfat 1923-1931 K.Anadol

1973-1980

1987-1991

2002-

A.K. Akyüz 1939-1945 R.A.Sevengil 1943-1950 O.Attila 1965-1969

Ö.A.Aksoy 1935-1950 İ.H.Sevük 1943-1946 Y.Z.Bahadınlı 1965-1969

C.E.Arseven 1942-1950 A.H.Tanpınar 1942-1946 E.Bayazıt 1987-1991

B.Atalay 1923-1946 H.S.Tanrıöver 1945-1957 F.H.Cumalıoğlu 1965-1980

F.R.Atay 1923-1950 A.H.Tarhan 1928-1937 Z.Danışman 1950-1960

F.A.Aykaç 1929-1950 A.K.Tecer 1942-1946 A.Doğan 1995-

İ.H.Baltacıoğlu 1942-1950 E.H.Tepeyran1923-1927

1939-1941B.Ecevit

1957-1960

1961-1980

1991-2002

S.Batu 1939-1943 A.İ.Tokgöz 1931-1942 İ.C.Ege1961-1980

1983-1987

E.İ.Benice1939-1943

1946-1950M.A.Us 1927-1950 A.E.Erdem 1961-1980

Y.K.Beyatlı1923-1926

1934-1946Ö.B.Uşaklı 1943-1946 N.Evliyagil 1973-1977

H.N.Boztepe 1927-1946 R.E.Ünaydın 1922-1923 R.Garip 2002-

B.K.Çağlar 1942-1947 H.C.Yalçın 1939-1954 F.Gülay1957-1960

1961-1977

F.N.Çamlıbel 1946-1950 S.K.Yetkin 1943-1950 F.Gürtunca 1957-1960


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A.S.Delilbaşı 1939-1946 S.Yırcalı1946-1960

1975-1980F.Halıcı 1968-1977

K.N.Duru 1935-1943 A.C.Yöntem1934-1943

1950-1954K.Kaflı 1962-1965

M.A.Ersoy 1.Meclis M.E.Yurdakul 1923-1944 Y.Karakoyunlu 1995-2002

M.E.Erişirgil 1942-1950 H.A.Yücel 1935-1950 E.M.Karakurt1954-1960

1962-1965

S.Ertem 1939-1943 O.O.Nakiboğlu 1943-1950 C.Kayra 1973-1977

M.Ş.Esendal1930-1932

1941-1950O.S.Orhon

1946-1950

1965-1969V.M.Kocatürk 1950-1954

İ.A.Gövsa1927-1935

1939-1946Y.Z.Ortaç 1946-1950 Ö.Z.Livaneli 2002-

R.N.Güntekin 1939-1946 Samih Rıfat 1923-1931 M.A.Maraş 2002-

H.R.Gürpınar 1936-1943 R.A.Sevengil 1943-1950 N.Özdemir 1961-1973

İ.R.Işıtman 1927-1931 İ.H.Sevük 1943-1946 Ş.Özdenoğlu 1969-1973

V.Ç.İzbudak 1924-1943 A.H.Tanpınar 1942-1946 Ö.Öztürkmen 1965-1969

K.Kamu 1939-1948 H.S.Tanrıöver 1945-1957 H.N.Pepeyi 1954-1960

Y.Karaosmanoğlu 1923-1934 A.H.Tarhan 1928-1937 R.Şardağ 1983-1987

M.F.Köprülü 1935-1939 A.K.Tecer 1942-1946 N.Tiralı 1961-1965

B.S.Kunt 1939-1946 E.H.Tepeyran1923-1927

1939-1941H.Uysal 1965-1969

A.S.Levend 1940-1946 A.İ.Tokgöz 1931-1942 Ö.Yaşın 1970-1973

Y.S.Mardin 1949- M.A.Us 1927-1950 M.Ş.Yazman 1950-1954

Ö.B.Uşaklı 1943-1946

4 Various names in this list are important figures in Turkish literary and political history.Among them, this essay focuses on a limited number of fictionists partly because of itsconfined space and partly due to fiction’s specific role in the literary and politicalculture of Turkey. It has been fiction, what possessed an immense political powermediating between the reality and its representations, captivated an eminentpopularity among many other prose genres and became one of the driving forces of themodernization process in Turkey. Although poets and writers engaged with some otherkinds of prose writing (journalistic essays, cultural commentary, travel writings etc.)


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have also appeared as influential agents of political transformation, fiction writers havebeen the most significant and popular ones.

5 This essay is intended to cover the engagement of Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu,Memduh Şevket Esendal, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Halide Edip Adıvar, Çetin Altan andYılmaz Karakoyunlu with parliamentary politics and comment on their politicalexperiences under the chastening effects of membership in the parliament. I willsketch how they organized themselves in parliamentary politics i.e. how much of adiligent MP could they become, in which ways they wrote – in case they did – duringtheir terms of office, to what extent they could subscribe to their roles in theparliament and to the party solidarity etc. and comment on the continuity of certainlimiting aspects of the political culture of Turkey, that put all of these names in troublewithin different conditions.

6 It is important to note that this essay does not presuppose a prototypical writer/MPimage which connotes that being a fiction writer implies a certain type of MP positionor being a MP implicates a special way of writing. The choice of writers to be analyzedis intended to reflect the diversity of the writer/MP position; all of the abovementioned names are writers who gained reputation as a literary figure in the fields ofnovel, short story or drama before they are appointed as MPs and resemble each otheronly in their intellectual commitment to the transformation of their country andsociety. They have different social, and educational/occupational backgrounds andentertain diverse interests in politics and literature.

7 It should also be underlined that neither the selected names nor the writer/MPposition itself, does not suggest a specific attitude in terms of the individual positiontaken in the monopoly of power. Among these names, there are writers who as MPsfaithfully defended the status quo and others who fiercely opposed to it. Each writer hasa unique history in terms of entrance to the field of parliamentary politics and theabandonment of it. In the selected group of writer/MPs, there are intellectuals pickedup by party leaders for parliamentary politics as well as others who initiated earlierconnections with the political parties via their youth organizations. The reasons for theabandonment of parliamentary politics also differ; some of these names quitted thepolitical arena due to intra-party problems, whereas some others had to leave the MPposition as a result of the decline in the electoral support to their party.

8 A period of more than three decades is present between Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğluand Yılmaz Karakoyunlu’s terms of office in the parliament. There have beensignificant changes both in the field of politics and literature from 1920s to 1990s. Theattempt to cover the political and literary positions of such diverse figures scatteredthroughout a time span of almost 70 years hence is also, in a way, an effort to chroniclethe changes in the literary and political fields. To concretize their positions in thepolitical and literary circles during their appointments, I will situate Yakup KadriKaraosmanoğlu and Memduh Şevket Esendal in the Kemalist single-party period ofreformist endeavors (1923-1938), Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar in the single party yearsdominated by the supremacy of the ‘national chief’ (1938-1950), Halide Edip Adıvar inthe tensions of the premature multi-party period of 1950s, Çetin Altan in the spirit offreedom of 1960s which nurtured the rise of protest discourses and YılmazKarakoyunlu in the multivocal political atmosphere of the 1990s.


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I. The state intellectual: engineers of human souls

9 A turbulent change marks the 1920s Turkey, where the institutionalization ofsecularism manifested itself in radical reforms like the abolition of the Caliphate,religious courts, Sufi sects and Islamic educational institutions, modernizationattempts targeted several peculiarities from language to dress codes and the newleadership acknowledged the synthesis of Turkish culture and Western civilization asthe founding principle of the new state. The literary boom of patriotic heroism, whichwas outpoured during the war, immersed the social, political and cultural aspects ofthis profound transformation as moralizing themes, and imaginative writing became apowerful instrument to mobilize the masses for the adoption of the premises of therevolution. It is in such a vibrant atmosphere that the new political authorityrecognized the power of literary communication and transformed literature into anarresting means of indoctrination. Writers became prominent icons of the multi-leveled transformation process and settled in the political monopoly of power morevisibly than ever before.

10 In the joy of establishing a new state after the triumph of the War of Liberation, aconsequential support was accorded to the new political power. Those who implicitlyor explicitly took contrapositions either left the country or positioned themselves at apoint more closely conforming to mainstream norms in the following periods.Intellectuals in favour of the new regime experienced the privileges of their politicalsupport and became appointed to key positions as MPs and bureaucrats after thefoundation of the Republic in 1923. Several recognized men of letters, vanguards of thecultural revolution, were invited to the parliament upon the demand of Mustafa Kemal(Atatürk after 1934), the leader of the independence movement and the Halk Fırkası[People’s Party] – later Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP) [Republican People’s Party]. Thisesteemed award, which in spirit resembles the Ottoman Sultans’ tutelage over poetswho celebrate their supremacy in poems, orbited several acclaimed writers closer tothe centre of political power and established a tenacious link between literary andpolitical circles.

11 The glamour of the Kemalist revolution was alluring and most of the respected literaryand intellectual figures yielded themselves to it. The deputy position for them was asign of honor that distinguishes the torchbearers of the new regime. On the one hand,the MP position was a distinguishing emblem but on the other, it was a politicalinvestment that party authorities kept under a strict surveillance, to record challengesand disobedience. Opposition or expression of alternative and rival thoughts was atroublesome task since party interests were justified as state interests during theconsolidation of the new regime and loyalty to them defined the fundamental rule ofparliamentary politics. Various oppositional gatherings were denied the opportunity tobecome stable institutions in this interval. The ruling power dissolved two utmostexperimentations of parliamentary democracy initiated by accumulations around theTerakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası [Progressive Republican Party] in the early 1920s andthe Serbest Cumhuriyet Fırkası [Free Republican Party] in 1930, before growing roots.

12 In this framework, the task of ideologically remolding and educating people in the lineof the revolution settled in the literary agendas of writer/MPs as a principal exercise oftheir political career. Poets glorified the charismatic leadership and authority ofMustafa Kemal. Fictionists published a significant corpus of novels and short stories


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devoted to the consolidation of the new regime and dissemination of its values; thepatriotic hero/heroines of the wartime novels gained didactic overtones and turnedinto cultural reformers in the Republican novel. The socio-political atmosphere hadalready inspired a literary manifesto, a new social novel dedicated to the Kemalistsynthesis of Turkish culture and Western civilization; but for writers engaged withparliamentary politics, the idea of this new social novel was settled in a project ofspiritual engineering more conspicuously.

13 Mustafa Kemal motivated writers to reiterate the concerns of the reforms in theirwritings and sometimes explicitly assigned themes to them. Reşat Nuri Güntekin’s YeşilGece ([Green Night], 1928) for example, is acknowledged to be a product of MustafaKemal’s advice to the writer to work on the harmful consequences of religiousconservatism (Emil 1989: 24). Although Güntekin achieved a kind of balance criticizingpeople who make profit out of religion and some corrupt revolutionaries concurrently,the novel was mobilized as a powerful and plausible criticism of blind religiousengagements for its sharp and distasteful interpretation of the religious sects. It isinteresting to note that, in contrast to his contemporaries who in a privileged mannerbecame MPs one after another, Güntekin found such a chance in 1939, only after thedeath of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

14 Partisanship was evidently an expectation, but not all the writings were fulfilling suchexpectancy; although being a part of the executive and legislative power mechanism ina non-competitive political system made it difficult for writer/MPs to oppose, questionor criticize party/state interests, some writers confronted them on fictional grounds.Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu and Memduh Şevket Esendal are the two writer/MPs whoas politicians played distinguishable roles in the authoritarian atmosphere of thesingle-party years and who as writers, used the arena of fiction as a political challenge.

15 Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu (Cairo 1889 - Ankara 1974) was a dedicated writer whoquitted law school for a career in literature. He was among the intellectuals that leftİstanbul in the outsets of the War of Liberation, and joined the resistance in Anatolia.When the war was over, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk invited him to the TBMM as a MP ofMardin and his constituency was changed to Manisa in 1931 (Aktaş 1987: 42).Karaosmanoğlu was a dedicated Kemalist who found the long-term interests of thecountry in bureaucratic bodies. Despite his manifest support to Kemalism in its unitaryand progressive goals, he was also a critical voice of it, who exercised criticism mostlyon paper. Karaosmanoğlu was an intellectual who made his views expressly visible bywriting rather than clashing with fellow MPs in the parliament on everyday issues. Inhis political memoirs, he considers the clashes in the parliament as consequences ofpersonal interests and political greed, rather than simply oppositional thoughts andchronicles them with a tone of dislike (Karaosmanoğlu 2002: 38). He mentions the fieldof politics as a ‘tormenting and corrosive arena’ because of this fierce monopoly ofpower (Karaosmanoğlu 2002: 47).

16 His occupation with politics provided Karaosmanoğlu with a genuine motivation andinspiration in the literary domains. During his membership in the parliament,Karaosmanoğlu made important contributions to the development of a theoreticalvision of Kemalism by his articles in the journal Kadro [Cadre] and also published fourremarkable novels: Hüküm Gecesi ([Night of Decision], 1927), Sodom ve Gomore ([Sodome andGomorrah], 1928), Yaban ([ The Outlander], 1932), and Ankara (1934) – all of whichattentively deal with the socio-political struggles of the society. In his articles and


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novels, he made a passionate call for an uplifting nationalist consciousness and self-assuredly supported the nationalist project pioneered by the bureaucratic elites; but healso chronicled the deficiencies and susceptibilities of this project.

17 Karaosmanoğlu’s illustration of the huge gap between the intellectual elites and thepeasants in his famous novel Yaban, was a big challenge to the promotion of the idea ofa classless and homogeneous society of the Kemalist ideology. In Yaban, Karaosmanoğluskillfully portrayed the gap between the intellectuals and ordinary peasants anddethroned the illusions of progress, regarding the villages of Anatolia. His utopiannovel Ankara, which depicts the capital of the state in its early years and envisions itsfuture social and political life, also had critical overtones in its look at the growingfinancial interests of the ruling elite, those who no longer consider revolution ofprimary importance. As reminders that point out at the controversial future of theKemalist revolution, both novels attracted tremendous attention. Karaosmanoğlu alsotook this discussion to a more theoretical ground in the journal Kadro, and argued insimple terms that revolution cannot be considered successful in case it remains as theoeuvre of a single person or a group of elites. When divorced from fiction, these linestriggered the discipline committee of CHP, which was already alerted byKaraosmanoğlu’s alternative voice, and jeopardized his political life. Although he wasloyal enough to offer to terminate the journal by himself, when he was informed aboutthe unrest in the government, Karaosmanoğlu could not prevent being ‘exiled’ to aforeign embassy (Karaosmanoğlu 2002: 102). CHP authorities dismissed Karaosmanoğluwith an appointment to Albania, where he resentfully devoted himself to writing hismemoirs.

18 Memduh Şevket Esendal (Çorlu 1883 - Ankara 1952) was also an ardent supporter ofKemalism but just like Karaosmanoğlu, he was painfully aware of the gap between themodernized elites and the ordinary members of his society. As a self-educatedintellectual, who became one of the eminent names of Turkish short story, oftenacknowledged as ‘the Turkish Chekhov’, Esendal draws an image slightly different thanthat of Karaosmanoğlu. He was an intellectual dedicated to the enlightenment ofmasses, and a naive supporter of the idea that ‘elite can change the world and teachpeople what is good and bad’ but he was also an intellectual who, in his retrospectiveinterpretations of civic life, stressed the importance of public goals and the power ofmasses much more explicitly (Karaömerlioğlu 2002: 148).

19 Esendal became engaged with parliamentary politics during Mustafa Kemal’spresidency but his membership in the parliament spans to the İnönü period, in whichhe became much of a public political figure. Before becoming a MP, Esendal served inseveral foreign posts, which made him entertain an enriching experience of diplomacyand adjust to the political doublespeak relatively easier than several other writers.Early in 1920s, he served as the first ambassador of the government of TBMM in Baku.He was called back from duty in 1925 because of his former links to the Committee ofUnion and Progress. Esendal published a journal called Meslek [Profession] in İstanbulwith the former Unionists until their dissolution following the İzmir conspiracy, inwhich he made his literary debut as a short-story writer. While several Unionists weresent to courts and eliminated from their positions, Esendal was appointed to Tehranembassy. The government dismissed him from this post after a short time, for beingpro-Kurdish and critical of its Kurdish policy (Çetinsaya 2003: 124). Back in Ankara,Esendal became a deputy [elazığ] and served in the parliament between 1930-1932, until


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he was sent as a diplomat to Kabul with another appointment. Upon his return toTurkey, Esendal became a MP of Bilecik in 1938 and mounted in the hierarchy of theparty up to the secretary general position in 1941. The diplomatic skills he developedduring his international office made Esendal a successful appeaser in politics and pavedthe way to the secretary general position under İnönü’s leadership.

20 Fragments of Esendal’s political views are scattered in the letters written to hisdaughter and sons during his service in foreign countries and lonely years in Ankarabureaucracy; these letters, which have been recently issued in two separate volumestitled Kızıma Mektuplar [Letters to my daughter] and Oğullarıma Mektuplar [Letters to mysons] prove Esendal’s respect for the ideals of the Republic yet also chronicle hisfrustrations due the exploitation of political privileges for financial interests, anddepict the financial and familial struggles of the Esendal family. In his letters, Esendalappears as an intellectual dedicated to education, a man of action who is unselectivelyat service when needed, and a finicky and candid bureaucrat with a firm belief in İsmetİnönü.

21 Esendal published most of his literary works under pennames (M. S, M. S. E, MustafaYalınkat etc.) and gained mass recognition as a writer in a late period in his life. Hediffers from Karaosmanoğu as a man of letters who more expressly separates hisliterature from politics, writes in a more personal key and occupies himself with thedaily struggles of the ordinary man. Esendal’s skills for balancing the different faces ofreality introduces a bittersweet accent to his fiction; in Esendal’s novels and shortstories, political criticism strikes its targets in an indirect, good-humored andconstructive manner, which despite the unpretentiousness leaves a sharp taste. In allhis three novels Miras ([Inheritance], 1925), Ayaşlı ve Kiracıları ([Ayaşlı and His Tenants],1934), Vassaf Bey ([ Mr.Vassaf], 1938) and several short stories, Esendal reflects themonopoly of power between individuals, employing a friendly but challenging criticismagainst bureaucracy and its ills. In numerous short stories, he vividly and captivatinglyportrays the predatory activities of individuals with official sanction in the countrysideand questions the links of ordinary people to bureaucrats, intellectuals and localofficers, who often celebrate themselves as champions of the common good for theirown benefits.

22 Although they were identified closely with the Kemalist ideology, as loyal politicalfigures that adjust themselves to the will of the ruling authority for the sake of therevolution, both Karaosmanoğlu and Esendal were at the same time writers whoattempted to chronicle the ills of the revolution. When compared to the fiction ofKaraosmanoğlu, Esendal’s literary works were politically modest and less dangerous,but similarly challenging in the single-party atmosphere. As writers they entertainedsome tolerance for their literary challenges but both had to abandon their influentialpositions in CHP when they refused or failed to compromise at a certain point in theirpolitical career. Following his retirement after fulfilling several posts in foreigncountries, Karaosmanoğlu returned to Ankara and became a MP [manisa] of CHP in1961. He resigned in 1962, arguing that the party had dissociated itself from Kemalistprinciples, but remained in the TBMM as an independent deputy until 1965. Afterleaving the political arena, Karaosmanoğlu was selected to the administrative board ofAnatolia Press Agency, which he presided until the end of his life. Esendal on thecontrary, kept himself distant to multi-party politics. Resigning from the secretary


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general position in 1945, he served in the assembly until the heydays of Democrat Partyin 1950 and then abandoned the TBMM and concentrated more explicitly on literature.

23 As the experiences of Karaosmanoğlu and Esendal in parliamentary politics suggest,alternative views were encouraged in a mediocre manner during the presidency ofMustafa Kemal; what was tolerated was not too much, not too explicit, and not toocreative criticism. Under the sovereignty of the single-party and single-leadershipatmosphere, writer/MPs utilized the carnivalesque privilege assigned to them withinthese limits. The restraining accounts of the missionary atmosphere of the periodascribed a dutiful obedience to writer/MPs, which induced the self-neutralization ofoppositional and alternative views or their transference to ideas in conformity with thecurrent affairs, with an aim not to force the political vulnerability of the young state inthe primary years of the revolution. After the consolidation of the nation-state,different political agendas surfaced more explicitly and following the shift of theleadership title to İsmet İnönü, they gradually accumulated into a multi-party state.

II. Challenges to state power: diversification of theagenda

24 In the wake of the death of Mustafa Kemal in 1938, the one-party state powerconcentrated in the leadership of İsmet İnönü, the prime minister during his entirepresidency. Under the rule of İnönü, Turkey experienced the sociopolitical upheavals ofthe WWII. Although she maintained neutrality, despite German pressure throughoutthe war, Turkey found herself in a deep economical crisis, dominated by a steep rise inexpenditures and the emergence of a privileged class profiting from the war. Thegovernment introduced a tax on wealth, announcing its will to fight war profiteering in1942, which dispossessed mainly the properties of non-Muslim businessmen. It wasonly after the end of the Second World War, that fundamental political changes tookplace; a greater freedom of speech was gradually permitted in political circles and in1945, CHP authorities allowed the establishment of opposition parties. The firstcompetitive elections, which were held in 1946, restored the political power of CHP. Yetfour years after, in the elections of 1950, DP (Democrat Party), the oppositionmovement originated from CHP, obtained a massive electoral support and relegatedCHP to opposition. DP also won the elections of 1954 and 1957 by popular vote andremained in power until the parliamentary democracy was interrupted by a militaryintervention in 1960.

25 The parliament, under the supremacy of İnönü in the early 1940s, was still aninstitution that legitimized the decisions of the ruling cadres of CHP (Koçak 2001: 122).Criticism and opposition were intolerable behavioral patterns that risk politicalcensure for MPs, since disobedient and rival voices were eliminated by partyauthorities. İnönü, who proclaimed the title ‘the national chief’ in the December 1938congress of CHP, immediately eliminated some MPs who had accessed the parliamentwith substantial support of Mustafa Kemal, as he became the head of the politicalpower, but he did not discontinue the tradition of initiating close links with literarycircles. He followed the path of ‘the eternal chief’ and motivated writers in CHP’s line ofthinking for parliamentary politics.

26 As a circular issued by Ministry of Internal Affairs in 1937 that asks for the adaptationof heroes/heroines of folk stories to ‘the spirit of the regime’ indicates, fiction kept


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being appreciated as a collection of exemplary modes of thought and behavior, andretained its importance and prestige in the field of politics as a tool for masscommunication, in the outsets of İnönü’s presidency (Erdoğan 1998: 118). Politicalatmosphere was still authoritarian; nevertheless the new leader of political power didnot bother himself with the task of recommending themes to writers. It was circularsand party owned literary prizes what stimulated the writers of this period. CHPannounced an annual prize for novel and established national competitions in poetryand drama writing, in which some contemporary names of Turkish literature madetheir first literary appearances.

27 Among literary figures that were members of the parliament during the transitionalperiod to competitive politics, two renowned novelists come to the fore; Ahmet HamdiTanpınar and Halide Edip Adıvar, both of who occupy distinguished places in thehistory of Turkish literature. The parliamentary experiences of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınarillustrate the complexities caused by the principles of party solidarity in the life of anaesthete and a freethinker. Similarly, Halide Edip Adıvar’s engagement with politics,both during the turbulent years of the Turkish nation-state and in the premature yearsof the multi-party period, manifests the intellectual troubles due the monocraticattitudes of party authorities.

28 Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar (İstanbul 1901 - İstanbul 1962), the renowned poet, novelist,essayist, literary scholar and critic of Turkish literature, was an intellectual whobelieved in the progressive goals of the new regime, just like Yakup KadriKaraosmanoğlu and Memduh Şevket Esendal. Nevertheless, as a syncretistic thinker, hewas doubtful of the political power’s hostility at the Ottoman past. The idea of‘synthesis’ at the center of his critical thinking, distinguished Tanpınar from hisRepublican contemporaries as an intellectual dedicated to the project of civilizationand progress, with a specific concern for the reconciliation of the values of the past andpresent rather than a complete refusal of the past, like Kemalism did prefer.

29 Tanpınar was the son of a government official; he spent several years in Kerkuk, Mosuland some cities in Anatolia because of his father’s duties and could return to his townof birth only by late 1910s for graduate study. After completing his studies at theUniversity of İstanbul Faculty of Letters, he worked as a teacher but soon returned tothe university and became a professor in 1939. Tanpınar accessed the parliament in1942 as a deputy of Kahramanmaraş, with the friendly propaganda of Memduh ŞevketEsendal, who was in that period influential in the organization of party lists (Ağaoğlu1978: 50). Although he published, with a sense of duty, a few critical essays in thejournal Ülkü, some of which support the actions of the CHP with a sharp-tongueddiscourse, Tanpınar failed to provide his party with the image of a writer dedicated tothe party’s line of thinking (Okay 2004: 500). He served until 1946 and leftparliamentary politics in a desolate vein in the outsets of the multi-party period.Tanpınar became an inspector in the Ministry of Education after he abandoned theTBMM. He returned to his academic career at the university in 1949 and devotedhimself to his literary studies until the end of his life.

30 In one of his letters to his close friend Cevat Dursunoğlu, Tanpınar specifies his motivefor accessing the parliament as ‘to initiate stronger links with life and society as a MP’;in the informal atmosphere of a casual friendly conversation, he adds that he also aimsto ‘discard academic pressure and spare time to work on his literary projects’ in theparliament (Okay 2004: 499). Tanpınar’s seeing the deputy position as a solution to his


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financial problems also appears in between the lines of some other letters (Örgen 2004:539). Although he succeeded in ameliorating his financial position a little and sparingtime to write, Tanpınar hardly turned his eager interest for politics to a diligentmembership in the parliament. As a political novice, he soon recognized that ‘to initiatestronger links with life and society’ was nothing but a naïve hope.

31 After completing his first year in Ankara, Tanpınar was already in a less enthusiasticmode for politics. The way he explains his struggles in the parliament to a friend in aprivate conversation in 1943, expounds his aversion; Tanpınar illustrates thehierarchical atmosphere of the TBMM and emphasizes his helplessness in there,describing the parliament to one of his former students as a ‘dervish lounge’ where‘there is a leading sheik, around him there are sheiks of various ranks and around themthere are apostles of various ranks. The sheik and his accompanies wander in thecorridors with their head up and eyes monitoring around. The apostles are lined nextto the walls in terms of their ranks’. Newcomers like him, Tanpınar adds, ‘almost crawlalong the walls looking down and trying to communicate by means of gestures’(Ağaoğlu 1978: 50).

32 It is against the backdrop of this imposed pantomime that Tanpınar transformedhimself into a sole observer of the activities in the single-party parliament. He did notbecome politically at odds with the party authorities explicitly but the absence of hisname in the records indicates that Tanpınar kept himself distant to delivering speechesand getting engaged with commission activities during his tenure (Okay 2004: 500).When he realized that parliamentary politics has its own indigenous rules and little canbe done to change the monocratic attitudes of his party in a limited interval of time,Tanpınar chose to invest his energy solely to literary projects. In four years, hetranslated four books, wrote a short story and four poems, and serialized his first novelMahur Beste ([The Mahur Mode], 1944) in Ülkü (Okay 2004: 501). After he left the politicalarena in 1946, Tanpınar published novels that question, as a subtext, the prospects ofreformist attempts from above with an exquisite irony. In his novels Huzur ([Peace ofMind], 1949), Sahnenin Dışındakiler ([Those Outside the Scene], 1950) and Saatleri AyarlamaEnstitüsü ([Time Setting Institute], 1951) he transformed the Westernization of Turkey toan arresting theme and illustrated the ‘psychological effects of the Kemalist culturalrevolution’ (Göknar 2003: 647).

33 As a writer who participated in parliamentary politics in the last years of the single-party era, Tanpınar suffered from CHP’s attempts to keep full control of the politicaldynamics in the transition to a multi-party system with authoritarian attitudes. Whenthis transition took place in 1946, Turkish politics encountered a challenge both interms of parliamentary democracy and in terms of the political mobilization of masses.Unlike CHP, which had the image of an elite-dominated cadre party, DP was acclaimedto be a party mobilizing masses which made an opening for various sections of societyto access contemporary politics. The substantial decrease in the number of official andmilitary group of deputies from 38% in 1920 to 13% in 1954 clearly illustrates the shiftin the political mobilization (Frey 1965: 197). This transition in political elites changedthe prominent actors of politics; in DP’s governance, local notables and businessmenbecame more visible in parliamentary politics.

34 The dualistic political structure opened little room for the development of democraticvalues and principles although it initiated fractures in the politics of Turkey. DPappealed to masses with manners against the centralist and bureaucratic CHP rule.


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However, as former CHP deputies, who practiced parliamentary politics under anauthoritarian atmosphere, MPs of the DP had a lot in common with their contenders interms of the single-party political culture. After 1950, when it obtained the majority inthe parliament with a landslide victory, the residual single-party political cultureintervened to the policies and acts of the DP more visibly, introducing a very powerfulpolarization between the two parties which, with its increasing degree, influenced thecontemporary politics of Turkey in various contexts in the following years.

35 Writing did not become a liberated occupation overnight by the transition to a multi-party political system; ruling cadres of both camps kept a close concern in literatureand attempted to establish control over it. In the conditions of a bipolar politicaluniverse, the burden of writer/MPs intensified, as literature became a more evidentlocus in the monopoly of power, in the domains of which both camps fought fordomination and control. Some of the norms inherited from the non-competitive periodkept influencing the literary and political activities of writer/MPs in these years. Theliterary patronage system, which granted privileges to writers in line with the presentstate of affairs, gradually got divided into two opposite poles. One camp popularizedwriters who shed a critical eye on issues disturbing the other. Although thispolarization introduced a massive tension to literary circles, it also provided thenecessary support for some writers to defend themselves against the ruling power;Mahmut Makal, a graduate of Village Institutes, who was arrested in 1950 after thepublication of his candid observations of an isolated Anatolian village arranged in aform of novella titled Bizim Köy ([Our Village], 1950) was immediately released as DPstarted publicizing his work as a proof of the failure of elitist CHP policies in the outsetof the 1950 elections (Tonguç 1997: 410).

36 Tolerance to opposition kept being a problematic issue and constituted the mostimportant continuity in the period of competitive politics that affected the agenda ofwriter/MPs. In the premature years of the multi-party period, the writer/MPsexperienced the difficulties of this limiting political legacy in different contexts. HalideEdip Adıvar, who is one of the rare female novelists of the Republican period thatpublished sagas of the War of Independence and the following reformist endeavors,experienced such an intolerance in the parliament and just like Ahmet HamdiTanpınar, left parliamentary politics in despair at the end of her term of office.

37 Halide Edip Adıvar (İstanbul 1884 - İstanbul 1964) was one of the most controversialfigures elected as an independent deputy of İzmir from the lists of DP in 1950. She wasthe first Muslim girl to graduate from American College for Girls in 1901, who laterworked as a teacher at the Teacher Training College and Girls Secondary School, andwent to Syria to found schools and orphanages for girls. Following the occupation ofİstanbul, Adıvar fled to Ankara to join the resistance and served as a nurse, interpreter,press advisor and secretary to Mustafa Kemal during the war. In the aftermath of thewar, she became a political opponent of Mustafa Kemal and her links with theTerakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası [Progressive Republican Party], the oppositionalaccumulation that had developed within the Kemalist chamber, forced Adıvar to a leaveas the party was abolished in 1925. At that time, she was already chosen as a candidatefor membership in the parliament by women’s organizations that were advocatingwomen’s political suffrage (Adak 2003: 511). Adıvar then found herself in a self-imposedexile in the United Kingdom. After her return to Turkey in 1939, she became a professorat the Department of English Language and Literature at İstanbul University.


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38 As a victim of lack of tolerance to opposition who had to spend several years abroad inan involuntary exile, Adıvar was a deliberate choice for DP to symbolize the beginningof a new era in Turkish politics. She was a figure dedicated to the modernization of thecountry and the progress of women in the society; yet, she was at the same time anindividual influenced by the mysticism of the Islamic faith. With the intellectualsynthesis of Adıvar, DP found the chance to appeal both to the modernist and thetraditionalist minds. Recalling her involuntary exile, Democrat Party not only gave themessage that the new political power positioned itself against Kemalist type ofauthoritarianism and distaste for Islam, but it also asserted with Adıvar’s feministintellect in its display, that the party will stand for a progressive politics that subsumethe equality of women in its goals. Adıvar was a symbol for DP but DP was a symbol forAdıvar as well; for her, DP was an original and promising symbol of democracy andfreedom. In her first years as a MP, Adıvar was so enthusiastic about this first genuineexperience of democracy in Turkey that she proposed in the TBMM to celebrate 14May, the day DP relegated RPP to opposition, as the Democracy Day [Ayın Tarihi], 1950.

39 Since 1934, when they were granted suffrage for the national elections, there have beenseveral women in the parliament. In 1950, Adıvar was among the three of them, in atotal number of 491 deputies (Keskin-Kozat 1997). During her membership in theparliament, she exposed herself more as an academic figure and gave several talks thatfocus on issues mostly related to ‘educational reforms’ (Yücebaş 1964: 11). Although herinvolvement in nationalist politics during the War of Liberation provided her with aninspiration in literary domains, her DP adventure did not have a direct impulse onAdıvar’s literature. She pulled herself back from literary projects during herappointment; in the interval of her tenure, Adıvar published only a single novel titledDöner Ayna [Revolving Mirror], 1954.

40 As an intellectual known for her obstinate and oppositional personality, Adıvar quicklylost the sympathy of the party officials. In the polemical atmosphere of the first yearsof the DP rule, the informative speeches of Adıvar attracted scarce attention but as thetone of her remarks became critical of the government, she caught some angry eyes.Adıvar became marginalized within the party ironically on the grounds of her formerdisagreement with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; she resigned in 1954, blaming the party asan institution tending towards dictatorship and abandoned the political arena bypublishing a ‘Farewell to Politics’ (Koloğlu 1998: 182). Adıvar returned to her academiccareer and confined herself to writing and translating some of her previous works,written during her exile and first published in English, after leaving the TBMM.

41 Adıvar’s experience in the TBMM indicates that opposition was interpreted more as asign of crossing from one side to the other rather than a critical contribution, in theearly years of the multi-party experience. Until the polarized atmosphere of thistransitional period was replaced by a more pluralistic atmosphere in 1960s, the notionof democracy was often recalled as the distribution of power and policy makingprivileges via competitive elections rather than a wide scale development of certainvalues that appreciate individual political perspectives. Assuming itself as the genuinerepresentative of ‘the people’, DP increased its authoritarian measures after Adıvar’sresignation; it imposed ‘restrictions on the campaign activities of the opposition partiesand leaders’ in 1954, forbid ‘opposition parties from mounting a unified campaignagainst the majority party’ in 1957, and established ‘a parliamentary investigationcommission equipped with some judicial powers to investigate subversive activities of


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the opposition’ in 1960 (Turan 1998: 75). These measures initiated a decrease in thepopular support to the party and as DP attempted to compensate this loss by appealingto the religious sentiments of the public, the military assumed the role of a politicalactor and intervened.

III. Pluralism and polarization: new horizons

42 In 1960, antidemocratic measures of DP against the oppositional voices, increasingeconomic constraints, and the tense links between the government and the publicbureaucracy gave way to the first military interruption of parliamentary politics(Özbudun 1988: 201). DP was outlawed and the Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, theMinister of Foreign Affairs Fatih Rüştü Zorlu and the Minister of Financial AffairsHasan Polatkan were executed on 16-17 September 1961, for their ‘misuse of power andabrogation to the constitution’ (Zürcher 1993: 261). In the aftermath of the coup,Turkey found itself in the midst of a cycle of political reforms. With the introduction ofthe new constitution, political freedoms were enhanced, and socialists, Turkists, andIslamists accumulated into political parties. As political parties that access the TBMMbecame diversified in their interests and priorities, a much more fertile environmentwas established on the road to work out a fruitful parliamentary democracy. The newconstitution imposed changes to the election process; local authorities of the partieswere assigned powers in the selection of the candidates for membership in theparliament and the role of the central cadres was limited (Alkan 1999: 56). The electionsin 1961 gave the majority back to CHP and notified the AP (Adalet Partisi) [Justice Party]as the major heir to DP.

43 The equality of the ruling party to the image of the state was an easily constructedformula in 1960s as well, which with the legacy of a superior-holy state that depends onan individualistic leadership style in Turkish culture, kept political opposition in acontroversial position. Forced into a limited space, the borders of which were definedself-reflexively by the ruling power that makes immediate connections betweenoppositional thought and unpatriotic activity, legitimate political opposition remaineda troublesome task. Alternative views, which were assumed to subsume partitiveinterests, kept being considered as a threat to the intraparty dynamics. Still, in parallelto the increase in the multiplicity of voices, some oppositional views are mentioned inthe TBMM despite all the pressure and maltreatment. MPs defended their prerogativesmore effectively in this period.

44 Literature in 1960s entertained a relatively tolerant political atmosphere, and dealtexplicitly with class issues, injustice and poverty. Mainstream literary interestconcentrated on social themes that illustrated the widening gap between the segmentsof the society; writers shed a critical eye on the conflicts of the urban persona and thelittle bourgeois individual. The internal migration to big cities and the problem ofcultural compatibility became popular themes in literature. The rise of interest insocialism ushered in a politically engaged literature, more conscious of the classstruggles and of its distinctive critical voice.

45 Writers were among the foremost political actors of these turbulent years; theyappeared as prominent figures in anti-American riots that were intensified in 1960sand in the establishment of civil organizations and political parties. In the aftermath ofthe 1960 military intervention, several recognized writers associated around the rising


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leftist political accumulations and contributed to the establishment of political partieslike Türkiye İşçi Partisi [Worker’s Party of Turkey]. As a consequence of the changesmade in the Political Parties Law in 1965, which allowed the access of small parties tothe TBMM, TİP accessed the parliament and made a remarkable opposition despite thelimited number of seats it obtained in the elections. It ran on a platform of land reform,industrialization, abolishment of death penalty and social equality for workers andpeasants and opening politics in Turkey to new horizons (Landau 1974: 126).

46 Çetin Altan (b.1926 İstanbul) was one of the most important figures of the TBMM in theperiod 1965-1969, whose experience as a writer/MP draws a stark image of the lack oftolerance in Turkish politics despite the liberalizing features of the new constitution.He is an acknowledged essayist, journalist, drama writer and novelist of contemporaryTurkish literature, who graduated from the Faculty of Law of Ankara University butshifted to a career in journalism, starting as a reporter for the daily Ulus. Engaged withthe left wing of politics, Altan became a popular writer in parallel to the rise ofsocialism in Turkey in 1960s. He was elected as an independent deputy of İstanbul fromthe lists of TİP in 1965 and later joined the TİP group as a sharp-tongued, wittypolitician that spoke his mind.

47 In the forewords to his political memoirs, Altan states that the main reason for hisaccepting to be a MP was to obtain a legal protection against the charges he had beenfacing for his socialist orientation (Altan 1999: 13). He however did not content himselfwith the legal privileges of being a MP. During his appointment, Altan tried toencourage the freedom of thought and speech on the account of the socialist left bothas a MP and a writer. He was an active member of the TİP group, who in legislativeactivities and parliamentary speeches made the ideas of his party visible. He deliveredseveral speeches in the assembly, which challenged the economic program, foreignpolicy, and vulgar nationalism of the government, most of which initiated angryquarrels among the deputies. Yet, these challenges were recessed with demagogicalspeeches and his oppositional attempts were neutralized by the collective acts of theAP deputies.

48 Altan also published fierce articles that critically explore the current situation of thecountry during his tenure. Due to the increasing degree of criticism he employed in hiswritings and speeches, he soon became a target; the government attempted to cancelhis parliamentary privileges and in 1968, Altan encountered a physical attack of APdeputies in the assembly when the discussion of the budget of the Ministry of InternalAffairs turned into a fierce discussion on his referring to the dedicated communistNazım Hikmet as ‘the foremost poet’ (Altan 1999: 421). This attack left one of his eyeswith a permanent injury. Altan narrates the accounts of the unfriendly treatment heencountered in the TBMM with a delicate irony in his memoirs (Altan 1999: 411).

49 During Altan’s appointment, it was not only the MPs who were stuck in a tense politicalpolarization; the society likewise was extremely polarized in terms of politicalengagements. This atmosphere increased the political instability during 1970s.Following the defeat of the TİP in the 1969 election, which led into the victory of theAP, this polarization reached a new level of intensity as revolution with the help of amilitary intervention became a more popular choice for a certain group of the leftistopposition. Some groups switched to an armed struggle under the influence of LatinAmerican and Vietnamese experiences. They got involved in a fierce street clash with


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the ultra-nationalist youth squads, in which districts became partitioned into campsand lives of inhabitants and by-passers were also put in jeopardy.

50 The creative and vibrant intellectual thinking Altan and his contemporaries set inmotion was cut short when the military intervened to politics once again anddecimated the intelligentsia in 12 March 1971. After a military court dissolved the TİP,Altan was prosecuted along many names including the leaders and supporters of theparty. His fight in the parliament for freedom and right to speak out for oneself evolvedinto a philosophical search on literary grounds by the 1970s; Altan returned to hiswriting career as a novelist and published political allegories like Büyük Gözaltı ([ExtremeSurveillance], 1972), Bir Avuç Gökyüzü ([A Handful Sky], 1974), Viski ([Whisky], 1975) andKüçük Bahçe ([Little Garden], 1978) all of which illustrated the life-long adventure ofhuman struggle with power. Altan still runs a column in the daily Milliyet in which hesatirically deals with politics.

51 Political violence and street terror could only be terminated in the expense of twomilitary interventions that interrupted the political scene in March 12, 1971 andSeptember 12, 1980 both of which left bruises in the collective consciousness. Bothinterventions demobilized the working class, the university youth etc. and they alsoforced a depoliticisation to the society by outlawing political parties, publications andcivil organizations. While the March 12 regime forced only for an above-partiesgovernment, September 12 regime went as far as dissolving the parliament andoutlawing all the existing parties. A new constitution with limited political freedomswas accepted by a referendum in 1982 and the military rule ended in 1983, with thevictory of the ANAP (Motherland Party).

IV. Restoration and individualization: frictions ofcoexistence

52 Parliamentary politics in post-80s developed under the shadows of the forcible politicalpolarization that dominated the recent past. The actors of parliamentary politicschanged entirely after the last military coup. 90% of the members of the parliamentwere newcomers in the 1983 TBMM; when the law banning political activity of leadersand members of the pre-1980 parties expired, this percentage decreased to 65% in the1987 parliament (Kalaycıoğlu 1998: 163). Post-1980s mark a process of democratizationin Turkey as well as a loss of interest in and a retreat from oppositional politics in thesocietal level. Limiting the freedoms granted by the previous constitution, 1982constitution paved the way for this social depoliticisation. As the World Values Surveyshows, in the early 1990s the majority of the people were in an intensified hesitanceagainst ‘radical forms of political protest’ as a consequence of the violent memories ofthe successive coups (Toprak 1995: 90). Politics became more a professional occupationby post 1980s and gradually forming its separate castes, it changed into an expertiseless attractive for the intellectual elite. Many people, including some of the writers whohad been active in various left-wing movements in the past, became civic activists, andchose to contribute to a protest politics outside the parliament.

53 Private sector assumed a greater role in Turkish economy after 1980 and a pluralisticatmosphere was formed in several sectors. In this avenue of autonomisation from state,the media sector also entertained private capital. By 90s, several private TV channels


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were established which became effective instruments of political propaganda especiallyin the outsets of the elections; the broadening in media appeals made actors, singersand publicly more visible intellectuals popular figures of parliamentary politics.Writing turned into a more professional and self-supporting occupation asautonomisation from state was also entertained intensely in the publishing sector.Writers, who once used to write and just await the public verdict on their work,gradually transformed themselves into businessmen who have to adopt marketingstrategies to promote their work.

54 Literary expertise in this period had a troublesome recovery from the horrors of themilitary interventions; many writers had already moved away from a politicalliterature after the last coup. Post-80s in Turkey witnessed the rise of a post-modernistliterature that privileged fragmented discourse, discontinuity, fantasy, andmultiplicity. Texts that violate linear narrative logic and favour formal elements overplot became more visible and illustrating reality in fiction became a phenomenonpublicized as only a variety of story telling. This new perspective deprived literature ofits privileged messianism, decreased its potential for political challenge and relegatedwriters to artists playing with words.

55 Turkish politics encountered turmoil in 1990s, a period marked by financial corruptionscandals, the emergence of Tansu Çiller as the first female prime minister, rise ofpolitical Islam and the eruption of state-mafia connections. 1995 elections placed anIslamist party in power for the first time in Turkey’s seventy-two year history as arepublic. Necmettin Erbakan, the leader of the Refah Partisi [Welfare Party], became theprime minister after an unsuccessful trial of a coalition government of two right ofcentre parties Doğru Yol Partisi [True Path Party] and Anavatan Partisi [MotherlandParty] and the failure of other coalition possibilities. He ruled a coalition governmentuntil a ‘postmodern coup’ in February 28, 1997 imposed a government with seculartendencies. It is in the upheavals of these years that Yılmaz Karakoyunlu became a MP.His experiences in the parliament provide a contemporaneous view of the writer/MPposition in the political matrix shaped by the conditions of 1990s.

56 Karakoyunlu (b.1936 İstanbul) is a contemporary writer whose novels have been amongbestsellers in Turkey. He is a figure engaged with secular centre-right politics whosteeped in a political party atmosphere at a young age because of his father’sengagement with DP. Karakoyunlu graduated from Ankara University’s Department ofEconomy and worked for many years in governmental institutes and private companiesbefore becoming a deputy. He started publishing his literary works in early 1990s andwas awarded prestigious literary prizes but received a widespread recognition onlyafter his debut in parliamentary politics. When he accessed the TBMM, Karakoyunluadopted the MP role easily and became one of the eye-catching figures of his party.With a wide spectrum of personal interests, from literature to traditional Turkish ArtMusic, he achieved the immediate attention of the mass media and often appeared inthe front pages of national newspapers.

57 Karakoyunlu accessed the parliament in 1995 as a MP (İstanbul) of ANAP when thecorruption scandals of 1990s have led to a crisis of confidence that manifested itself in adecrease of popular vote to mainstream parties and the elections provided the IslamistRP with the greatest number the parliamentary seats for the first time in its history.The intervention of the armed forces via the MGK (National Security Council) inFebruary 28, 1997 however forced RP out of the government and Mesut Yılmaz, the


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leader of the ANAP, formed a new government. Becoming one of the close associates ofYılmaz, Karakoyunlu climbed up in the party hierarchy in this period; he became thedeputy chairman of the ANAP in 2000 and also served as the state minister in charge ofprivatization and broadcasting in 2001. Karakoyunlu was the favourite candidate ofMesut Yılmaz for presidency of the parliament and also for the presidency of Turkey in2000, but the majority vote accumulated on some other names (‘Meclis’te Sıcak Yarış’,Radikal, 14/11/2005).

58 Karakoyunlu is a figure acquainted with the so-called ‘party culture’ because of hisearly links to the youth organizations of the ANAP. He participated in a more multi-vocal and liberal version of parliamentary politics compared to the abovementionedwriters, who had limited space to express their ideas within the rules and temporalconditions of parliamentary politics. He was an active deputy in the TBMM, whoheaded and participated in numerous commissions, delivered speeches and proposedbills etc. The activities of Karakoyunlu in the parliament focused on the privatizationprocess and the revision of the laws concerning the RTÜK (Supreme Council of Radioand Television) and broadcasting. In the interim, Karakoyunlu also kept writing.

59 During his term of office, Karakoyunlu published two novels, Güz Sancısı ([AutumnStitch], 1998) and Çiçekli Mumlar Sokağı ([Flowered Candles Street], 2000), both of whichconcentrate on turbulent periods of Turkish history like the 6-7 September events andthe National Struggle. Nevertheless, he could win a mass readership only after SalkımHanımın Taneleri ([Mrs. Salkım’s Diamonds], 1990), Karakoyunlu’s first novel concentratedon the sufferings of the minorities in 1940s Turkey due to the introduction of wealthtax, was filmed in 1999 and broadcasted by the state television. Salkım Hanımın Tanelericaused a friction in the coalition government, putting ANAP and the MHP (NationalistAction Party) in conflict and gave rise to a motion questioning the ‘hidden agenda’ ofthe novel and the film. To resolve the tension, Karakoyunlu emphasized the disunity ofhis literary and political activities in several reportages, but his emphasizing the fictiveaccounts of his work in a tone overriding the content, made little contribution to thesettlement of the skirmish (‘Önce Milletvekiliyim’, Radikal, 15/01/00).

60 Although it was a carefully crafted illustration of the wealth tax tragedy, withoutexplicit political nuances, Salkım Hanımın Taneleri put Karakoyunlu in a struggle, whichunveiled the most important legacy of Turkish literary and political culture within afierce atmosphere. It is recognized once again, that literature disturbs and frightensthe political powers with its oppositional and thought-provoking capacity even when itis practiced in a relatively less threatening manner by a writer who himself is adomesticated agent of the political monopoly. Karakoyunlu overcame the accusationsof disloyalty to national values due to his prestigious position in his party but hisattempts to assure the diversification of his literary and political interests illuminatedvividly that even in the postmodern times, when the relation between truth and fictionis not what it used to be, the intersection of literature and politics in the role of a MPhas tiresome consequences.

61 In 2002, the elections left ANAP and Karakoyunlu out of the TBMM. After he leftparliamentary politics, Karakoyunlu focused more extensively on his career as anovelist and an essayist. He recently runs a column in a journal concentrated onpolitics and economy titled Gözlem [Observation] and keeps publishing novels. Similar tohis earlier works, history pervades his recent narrations as a backdrop and catchesdramatic climaxes at some arresting points of the history of Turkey. In 2004,


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Karakoyunlu published Yorgun Mayıs Kısrakları [Exhausted May Mares] a novel thatchronicles an eloquent period of Turkish political history from the single-party years tothe end of the DP rule, which was finalized by the execution of the Prime MinisterMenderes and his two ministers.

62 In 2005, Perize: Ezan Vakti Beethoven [Perize: Beethoven During Call for Prayer] followed,which dwells into the 1970s and depicts the fierce political polarization between theleft and right. Karakoyunlu announced his next novel as a piece of fiction settled on‘how post-1983 ANAP governments destroyed the institutions of Turkey in the name ofliberalization’ (‘12 Eylül’de Budanan Dallar Meyve Veremedi’, Radikal, 14/10/05). As thecourse of his novels indicates, Karakoyunlu gradually approaches to contemporarytimes, and now more extensively deals with the conflicts of the periods, which he wasalso an agent of. One cannot escape wondering how much of a sharp critic Karakoyunluwill become of the politics that made him who he is.

63 Turkey’s political landscape underwent a seismic shift in the elections that leftKarakoyunlu out of parliamentary politics in 2002; the elections brought out only twoparties to receive enough votes to pass the 10% threshold, and made Adalet ve KalkınmaPartisi (AKP) [Justice and Development Party], the party of former Islamists, rise tocapture the majority of the seats. For the first time in many decades, the TBMM becameonce again, a two-party establishment. Although the new government oftenacknowledges respecting freedom of expression, it is not unusual for the politicallypowerful to hound writers, journalists and cartoonists who dare to satirize theirpolicies. Turkey still struggles with the same lack of sense of humour and the allergy toopposition of the single-party ethos and this dangerous temper depicts plainly theimpasse of Turkish political culture in the long road from parliamentary politics toparliamentary democracy.

V. Taking up the gauntlet

64 The distance to political power has always been a controversial issue for intellectuals.Although it is true that one can fail to provide the image of an independent critic whiledistant to it as well, it is often their proximity to political power, which puts theintellectuals in the danger of becoming sycophants. The contemporary pattern of state-intellectual relations in Turkey took its elementary shape during the presidency ofMustafa Kemal Atatürk. The majority of the late Ottoman period intellectuals servedthe young Republic of Turkey in early 1920s, either making parliamentary politics theirfull-time career or performing duties as bureaucrats in a vast program of culturalincentives. In their capacity as writers, these intellectuals played influential roles in the‘political’ and the ‘sentimental’ education of masses, as figures dedicated to theenlightenment of the nation and the creation of the new individual. They provided thepolitical powers with cultural legitimacy, and obtained tutelage in return. Although thesingle-party atmosphere was of a repressive nature, not all writers occupied a perfectlypartisan political position. Practising doublespeak just like politicians, some of themmade the conflicts of their times the engine of their intellectual creativity andchallenged the ruling power taking the risk of falling victim to it.

65 The single-party state issued political criticism as a challenge that only a number ofprivileged names accepted. Those who took the gauntlet up, practiced their challengemodestly and within some particular limits. However, in the changing sociopolitical


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climate of the country, the relationship of writers to the political power got divorcedfrom this missionary character and assumed a more libertarian atmosphere. As diversepolitical ideologies found the chance to accumulate into political parties and anautonomisation from state took place in several sectors, writers adopted differentagendas and settled more explicitly in a complicated network of positions against thepolitical power. The elitist idea of moral superiority of writers, their duty to educatepeople and determine the future of the society also gradually left its place to thesovereignty of the idea of writing as an individualistic manner of artistic creativity.Politics turned into a profession that leaves the intellectual elite in the fringes.

66 [66] Writers enamoured of politics somehow kept taking place in the monopoly ofpower. The writer/MPs mentioned in this essay were already important figures of thepolitical cauldron of their periods as politically conscious intellectuals. Their gettinginvolved in parliamentary politics however occurred in different circumstances andhad diverse consequences. Those who could integrate their discursive skills withpolitics and subscribe to the rules of the parliament fairly enough like Yakup KadriKaraosmanoğlu, Memduh Şevket Esendal and Yılmaz Karakoyunlu achieved a moreremarkable success as MPs and contributed to the development of the policies of theirparties in key positions. Others who attempted to make challenging criticism withintheir parties like Halide Edip Adıvar, tried to make a radical and remarkable oppositionin the GNA like Çetin Altan or failed to subscribe to the rules of the game like AhmetHamdi Tanpınar, were marginalized as ‘scapegoats’. Apart from the ones who lost thechance of further access to the TBMM as a result of a decline in the electoral support totheir party, like Altan and Karakoyunlu, the most apparent reason for theabandonment of the deputy position is intra-party disputes. Karaosmanoğlu was seenas a threat by the ruling power and distanced from Ankara with an appointment in aforeign embassy, Esendal resigned due a deadlock in land reform, Tanpınar failed toprovide a writer/MP image that satisfies party interests and Adıvar resigned as a resultof similar authoritarian tendencies of her party.

67 This essay isolates only a few prominent fiction writers from numerous names thataccessed the parliament. Although the names mentioned here represent only a smallpart of a populated group of writers that served in the TBMM, their experiencesprovide interesting insights to the political culture of Turkey. The political dynamics asa consequence of which Karaosmanoğlu, Esendal, Tanpınar, and Adıvar lost theirinterest in parliamentary politics, Altan encountered an extraordinary alienation andKarakoyunlu felt the ultimate need to emphasize his first and foremost position as a MPto express a benevolent loyalty to state interests, have the rivalrous and hierarchicalaspects of the political culture of Turkey in their very core. The experiences of thesenames in parliamentary politics make it clear that despite the time gap between theirterms of office and the diversity in their socio-political backgrounds and interests, thearchetypal features of the political culture of Turkey provide a continuity that allocateseveral writers as a group of individuals that experienced struggles in parliamentarypolitics, albeit within different circumstances.

68 From those co-opted to the parliament as prestigious intellectuals to the ones thatbecame ordinary competitors in the election process, the fictionists mentioned heredisturbed the political power either as MPs in their parliamentary activities or aswriters in their literary work and sometimes as both. Initially collaborating with thepolitically powerful, a few of them subsequently became its sharpest critics. By writing,


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they attempted to create an insubordinate space within the administered space thatpeople are all subjected to. For the ones who chose to silently ride on the back of thepolitical winners of the day, the writer/MP position was of course less strenuous andwithout thorns. Those more hesitant in assuming a critical role and more modest intheir political aspirations can be said to subscribe to the political atmosphere easily atall times. Yet, it is the labour and legacy of those who challenged the political powersthat informs the political and cultural transformations in Turkey.

69 In periods when image building with the help of professional public relations expertswas not yet a common practice in the political domains, the political contribution ofwriters was essential for public appeal. Today, politics is a complicated industry initself and literature too is a commercial activity. Contemporary writers of Turkey arehesitant to contribute to parliamentary politics although they, for the most part, arecompelled to be political as intellectuals. After all the fractional fights and the militaryinterventions, many people feel a collective fatigue with politics and several writerschoose to shun contemporaneous issues, and distance themselves from themes likeinjustice, poverty, corruption etc. which may, at a certain point, bring them intoconfrontation with the state and governmental policies. Politics as a vocation raisesbitter feelings because of this traumatic past and also because of the discouragingslowness of its being transformed into an inherently social arena where multipleviewpoints are welcomed into discussion and dialogue is encouraged. Turkey has beenpracticing a multi-party parliamentary politics for a considerably long time now, butthe political matrix in the country is still disturbingly susceptible to criticism andalternative voices. This watchful state causes the role of the writer and the MP to keephaving a tense relation in the course of contemporary parliamentary politics.

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Frey, Frederick W. (1965) The Turkish Political Elite, Cambridge, MIT Press.

Göknar, Erdağ (2003) ‘Ottoman past and Turkish future: ambivalence in A.H. Tanpınar’s ThoseOutside the Scene’, The South Atlantic Quarterly 102, pp. 647–661.

Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (1998) ‘The Grand National Assembly of the Post-1983 Multi-Party Era’, Perspectives on Democracy in Turkey, Ankara, Turkish Political Science Association, pp. 147-191.

Karaosmanoğlu, Yakup Kadri (2002) Politikada 45 Yıl, İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları.

Karaömerlioğlu, Asım (2002) ‘The peasants in early Turkish literature’, East European Quarterly,pp. 127-153.

Keskin-Kozat, Burçak (1997) ‘Political participation patterns of Turkish women’, Middle EastReview of International Affairs, 4, URL: http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1997/issue4/jv1n4a5.html.

Koçak, Cemil (2001) ‘Tek Parti Yönetimi, Kemalizm ve Şeflik Sistemi: Ebedi Şef/Milli Şef’, ModernTürkiye’de Siyasi Düşünce: Kemalizm, İstanbul, İletişim Yayınları, pp.119-137.

Koloğlu, Orhan (1998) ‘Halide Edip, Devrimler ve Demokrasi’, Tarih ve Toplum, 177, pp. 181-187.

Landau, Jacob (1974) Radical Politics in Modern Turkey, Leiden, E. J. Brill.

Okay, Orhan M. (2004) ‘Politika Batağında Derbeder Bir Şair Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’, Hece90/91/92, pp. 497-505.

Örgen, Ertan (2004) ‘Siyasetin Durağında, Edebiyatın İçinde Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, AhmetHamdi Tanpınar, Samet Ağaoğlu’, Hecem, 90/91/92, pp. 536-544.

Özbudun, Ergun (1988) ‘Turkey: Crisis, Interruptions and Reequilibrations’, in Diamond, Lary;Linz, Juan; Lipset, Seymour Martin (eds.) Democracy in Developing Countries: Asia, Boulder-Colorado,Lynne Rienner Publishers, pp. 187-229.

Özcan, Mustafa (2004) ‘Edebiyat, Siyaset ve Edebiyatçı Milletvekilleri Üzerine’, Hece 90/91/92,pp. 578-585.

Tonguç, Engin (1997) Bir Eğitim Devrimcisi: İsmail Hakkı Tonguç, Ankara, Güldiken Yayınları.

Toprak, Binnaz (1995) ‘Islam and Secular State in Turkey’, in Balım, Çiğdem; Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin;Karataş, Cevat; Winrow, Gareth; Yasamee, Feroz (eds.) Turkey: Political, Social and EconomicalChallenges in the 1990s, Leiden, E.J. Brill, pp. 90-96.

Turan, İlter (1998) ‘Stages of Political Development in the Turkish Republic’, Perspectives onDemocracy in Turkey, Ankara, Turkish Political Science Association, pp. 59-112.

Yücebaş, Hilmi (1964) Bütün Cepheleriyle Halide Edip Adıvar, İstanbul, İnkılap ve Aka Kitabevleri.

Zürcher, Erik Jan (1993) Turkey: A Modern History, London and New York, I. B. Tauris.

ABSTRACTSTurkey has a long tradition of involvement of men of letters in political transformationprocesses. Several important figures of literature appear as key names in the history of Turkey


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http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1997/issue4/jv1n4a5.html

http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/1997/issue4/jv1n4a5.html

who contributed to daily politics, manipulated and challenged it, sometimes with the fiercestdiscourses. Focusing on some prominent fiction writers who accessed the parliament of Turkey,this article discusses the superposition of the role of a writer and a politician. It sheds a criticaleye at their subscription to parliamentary politics, and literary activities during their term ofoffice, and comments on the continuity of certain limiting aspects of the political culture ofTurkey that troubled them during their political career.

INDEX

Mots-clés: élites politiques, intellectuels, parlement, professionalisationKeywords: political elite, parliament, intellectuals

AUTHOR

ÇIMEN GÜNAY

Department of Turkish Studies, Leiden University – NetherlandsAssistant professor at Özyegin University, [email protected]


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Inter-party mobility in the TurkishGrand National Assembly: curseorblessing?İlter Turan, Şeref İba et Ayşe Zarakol

Introduction

1 An examination of the records of the TBMM (Turkish Grand National Assembly) revealsthat from 1983, the year marking the return to civilian politics after a militaryintervention that lasted three years, until the summer of 2005, no less than 812members of parliament have left the party on whose ticket they had been elected1. Thisfigure includes three different contingencies: an individual deputy may leave his partyto become an independent or to join another; a party may be closed down by theConstitutional Court for having violated the Political Parties Law whereupon some ofthe now ‘partyless’ deputies may join another or proceed to establish a new party2, andfinally two or more existing parliamentary parties may unite to form a new one. Theincidence of party changing, that is the number of times deputies may have changedparties during the same period, is much higher than the above figure deriving from thefact that an individual may change his party several times during one legislative term3.Inter-party mobility in the Turkish legislature is not unique to the post-1983 period. Ithas been a frequent occurrence ever since the transition to competitive politics in 1946(Turan 1985) although it appears to have become more commonplace in recent years.

Table 1: Number of deputies changing parties*

Term

N of Changers

Percentage**

1983-1987

184

46


98

1987-1991

35

8

1991-1995

177

39

1995-1999

260

47

1999-2002

118

21

2002***

38

7

*The data have been compiled from the records of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Division ofLaws and Resolutions.**The size of the parliament was increased from 400 to 450 in 1987 and to 550 before the 1995elections.***The numbers are as of August 2005. A few more deputies have since left both government and themain opposition parties.

2 Inter-party mobility in a legislature is not confined to Turkey. The realignment of partypreferences in the American South, for example, has been realized in part throughcongressmen and senators who have changed their parties. Usually in their case,however, the Democratic incumbents have simply preferred to run on the Republicanticket at the next election. They have not changed their party affiliation during thelegislative term for which they have been elected. Similarly, in Britain, the LiberalDemocratic Party was formed in 1988 by a union between the Liberal Party and theSocial Democratic Party, the latter already having some parliamentary representation4.Yet, these appear to be occasional developments that usually occur as part of an overallrealignment process in the party system. Their occurrence would not, for instance,allow us to characterize either the United States or Britain as systems with high inter-party mobility in their legislatures. The Turkish case is untypical both in magnitudeand the richness of reasons, contexts, styles and methods that are associated with it.Therefore, it merits closer examination.

Background to inter-party mobility: routine and non-routine

3 This article will examine inter-party mobility in the Turkish Grand National Assemblyfrom 1983 to the current period. During the period under study, in addition to whatmay be called routine party changing that was observed extensively during the1946-1980 interim (Turan 1985), three types of non-routine movement betweenparliamentary parties have occurred. First, the military junta that assumed politicalpower in 1980 proceeded in 1981 to abolish all existing political parties and try to buildan entirely new party system. After the 1983 elections, Turkey went through a processof normalization of political life that included the partial restoration of the pre-1980parties. This included considerable inter-party mobility as deputies elected on thetickets of the military approved parties moved to the re-established pre-1980 partiesthat had deeper roots in society. Second, on several occasions, the TurkishConstitutional Court closed down political parties for having violated the provisions of


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the constitution and the Political Parties Law which ban parties, among others, fromusing religion for political ends and inciting ethnic divisions. The deputies of thedefunct parties went on either to join others or to form new parties. Finally, in theprocess of the post-1983 reconstruction, some parties united with others.

4 Routine party changing, by contrast, occurs under conditions that may becharacterized as ‘politics as usual’. At any given moment, an individual deputy maywant to leave his parliamentary party and join another one for a variety of reasons(Turan 2003: 164) having to do with ideology, constituency service, conflicts in hiselectoral district or self interest such as reelection. Similarly, a group of deputies suchas members of a faction may choose to depart their party and move to establish a newone if they lose hope in their current party or if they sense that they can do better bystarting a new party (Turan 1985: 24).

5 Routine and non-routine inter-party mobility may take place within a parliamentsimultaneously. Our data does not allow us at this time to judge whether an act of inter-party mobility committed by a deputy is routine or non-routine. It may sometimes bedifficult to classify a particular event except in ex-post fashion, but behavior usuallyoccurs within a political context the parameters of which are known. With furtherrefining of our data, we hope that in the future we shall be able to differentiate theroutine and non-routine changers. In this article, both types of mobility will beexamined. The first section of the article will take up the specific context of nonroutine mobility. Next, it will proceed to examine the general context of routinemobility with emphasis on the characteristics of political parties and the party systemthat seem to favor party changing. It will conclude by looking at the characteristics ofthe party changers themselves.

I. Non-routine inter-party mobility

The post-1980 realignment and consolidation5

6 The MGK (National Security Council) comprising the Turkish chief of staff andcommanders of the four branches of the military – which in Turkey includes thenational gendarmerie –, took over the government of Turkey on September 12, 1980.The military takeover had been expected. The party system had experienced increasingpolarization since the late 1960s. After 1973, a series of coalition governments hadruled the country in an haphazard way under very high inflation rates, worseningeconomic conditions and intensifying public disorder that resulted in the loss of moreand more lives every day. Parties had failed to unite even in the face of most urgentnational problems. When the MGK took over, the TBMM (Grand National Assembly) hadgone past one hundred rounds in trying to elect a new president for the country.

7 After taking over, the military leadership observed that while many of the problemsthey had to deal with could be traced, if in part, to the totally selfish and less thanresponsible behavior of political parties, these very parties were now trying to resistthe military policies to restore law and order. After some hesitation, they decided toterminate this struggle to dominate the political space. They judged that the existingparties and the party system was divided, divisive, corrupt and beyond reform. In 1981,they decided that the existing political parties should be abolished and a new partysystem that would, according to their judgment, serve the needs and interests of the


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country, should be constructed. The ideal system, the commanders felt, was a two partysystem with a moderate party on the left and the right each. In preparing for thetransition to competitive politics, they tried to construct a system that would promotethe evolution of the party system they envisioned. The particular instruments theydevised included the introduction of a 10% national as well as district level thresholdsElection of Deputies Law, no. 2839, dated 10 June 1983, art. 33) to keep small partiesfrom achieving electoral success and a stringent geographical organizationalrequirements to insure that only parties organized throughout the country could takepart in the elections. While the constitution said (art. 68, elaborated in art. 8 of thePolitical Parties Law no. 2820, dated 22 April 1983) that citizens were free to formpolitical parties, the military leadership initiated a temporary clearing system for thenational officers of political parties to take office. In this way, parties could beprevented from being operational before the 1983 elections, giving a head start to thetwo parties for which the military leadership had handpicked leaders.

8 The military leadership appears to have entertained the hope that the two party systemthey were proposing would take hold and achieve success, thereby eliminating anypopular inclination to go back to the old parties and the reconstitution of the pre-1980system. Yet, the commanders displayed some flexibility for reasons that have neverbeen fully explained, and allowed a third party to participate in the elections. By thetime the elections came, public peace had been restored, the rate of inflation had begunto come down while the heavy handed manner with which the military was trying toshape the politics of the country had begun to generate frustrations and dissatisfaction.In the elections, ANAP (Motherland Party), the third party that had been reluctantlyallowed to become operational, scored astounding success, gaining enough seats to beable to form a government without having the rely on the support of other parties.

9 The results of the 1983 elections placed the military favored parties in an awkwardposition. The MDP (Nationalist Democratic Party), favored most by the military hadcome in a poor third, the HP (Populist Party) an unimpressive second. Their sense ofweakness was further exacerbated by the fact that political parties that wereestablished to continue the tradition of the pre-1980 parties scored major victories inthe local elections held in the Spring of 1984. The outcome was resounding defeat forthe two officially sanctioned parties. The local elections showed that these parties hadno backing among the voters and would be eliminated from the parliament after thenext national elections. Yet, some reciprocity of interests existed between the partiesthat appeared to enjoy popular support but had no representation in the parliamentand those that had deputies in the parliament but had little popular support. Linkingthe deputies to parties that had broader support among the electorate took differentforms on the left and the right.

10 On the left, the HP had a leadership struggle between the founder of the party, NecdetCalp, who wanted to preserve the autonomy of his party and Aydın Güven Gürkan whoadvocated that parties of the social democratic tradition should unite. At the partycongress on 27 June 1985, Professor Gürkan won the presidency of his party. He beganshortly to bring about a unification of his party with the Social Democratic Party andsucceeded in reaching an agreement. By early November, the SHP (Social DemocraticPopulist Party) had come into being with Aydın Güven Gürkan as its head. The deputies,by virtue of the fact that their party had decided to come together with another to


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form a new party, now became representatives of a party different than the one onwhose ticket they had been elected.

11 On the right, the MDP experienced greater difficulties. The government party, theANAP, rather than the MDP was seen as the party of the moderate right. The ANAPalready enjoyed a majority in the parliament and was not interested in negotiatingunification with another party that did not have much voter support. The DYP (TruePath Party), on the other hand, that had been established to represent the tradition ofthe pre-1980 AP (Justice Party) felt itself to be a victim of the military’s policies and didnot want to work with the MDP leadership that identified closely with the militaryjunta. Many deputies were in fact interested in going to either the ANAP or the DYP,but were deterred by a provision that the military leadership had interjected into thenew constitution in order to prevent party changing in the parliament. The militaryleadership had identified party changing in the parliament not only as contributing tothe political instability of the period that preceded their intervention, but also as amanifestation of political corruption. Article 84 of the constitution, therefore, called forthe expulsion of the party changers from the parliament. Furthermore, such personscould not be designated as candidate by the national organs of another party duringthe elections immediately following the term during which they had changed theirparty. One formula that parties developed to circumvent the constitutional provisionwas for the party to dissolve itself. If the MDP deputies were left without a party, theywere free to join another. On May 4, 1986, MDP held its national congress and voted todissolve itself. Within days, the newly independent deputies began to join either theDYP or the ANAP. Another formula used later was called the hülle or ‘pretend marriage’party. The pretend marriage party was a party that a deputy or a group of deputies whowanted to change their party would establish. It would then hold a convention anddecide to merge with a political party to which the deputies wanted to move in the firstinstance6. The constitutional provision banning party changing (and forcing bothparties and individual deputies to find ways to circumvent the laws) was finallychanged in 1995 as part of a package of constitutional amendments on which broadconsensus was obtained in the legislature (law no. 4121, dated 23 July 1995, art. 9). Theprivilege of deputies to change parties without suffering legal consequences wasrestored.

12 As can be seen from the preceding discussion, inter-party mobility contributed to thenormalization of parliamentary politics after the restoration of civilian rule in 1983 bystrengthening the linkages between the voters and parliamentary parties. In doing this,such mobility also contributed to the reconstruction of some continuity in Turkishparty life. In fact, this latter function was performed once again later in the case of theSHP, the successor the CHP (Republican People’s Part), the founding party of theRepublic. In 1992, the decision to close the pre-1980 parties permanently was repealed.Many of the pre-1980 parties were reestablished. They enjoyed a name recognition andsome voter attachment deriving from their history. Furthermore, they were entitled toreceive back the money and buildings they possessed at the time of their closing.Almost all pre-1980 parties were reopened, then proceeding to unite with the newparty that had assumed the legacy of the old. The SHP followed a different path andunited with the CHP under the banner of the latter, consolidating the fragmented partysystem while restoring party continuity (Turan forthcoming).


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Closing down of parties by the Constitutional Court

13 Both the Turkish constitution and the Political Parties Law contain provisions that banparties, among others, from conducting activities against the fundamental values ofthe republic such as laicism and extending support to terrorism. In terms of its effecton the parliament, none of the party closures have been more significant than that ofthe RP (Welfare) and later FP (Virtue parties) for having acted against the laicismprinciple of the republic. The RP was established after 1983 to continue the tradition ofreligious conservatism which had been represented by the MSP (National SalvationParty) of the pre-1980 period. Its religious approach had always constituted a cause ofconcern among the staunchly laicist republican establishment. The constitution of1982, based on the pre-1980 experience, contained strengthened provisions andinstitutional arrangements against those parties that appeared to undermine thefundamental values of the republic as a result of their activities. The RP was taken tocourt by the Chief Public Prosecutor of the Republic in May 1997, arguing that theactivities of the party, taken together, violated the principle of laicist republic deeplyembedded in the constitution. In January 1998, in a majority decision, the court agreedwith the Chief Public Prosecutor and decided that the party should be closedpermanently7. Part of the same decision was that those deputies whose actions haveconstituted the grounds on which the party was closed, would lose their seats in theparliament. When a party is closed, its deputies become independents. They can joinanother party or form a new party.

14 The RP lost many of its leaders as a result of the court decision but those remainingquickly established the FP to continue the tradition of the MSP/RP. Their insistence onthe continuation of tradition produced the expected outcome. The FP was taken tocourt by the same prosecutor and was closed once again in June 2001. This time,however, the decision produced a somewhat different outcome for the party. A groupof deputies blamed the party leadership and its philosophy for the unfortunate fatethat seemed to be constantly befalling them. Therefore, two parliamentary partiesbecame established. Those who wanted to continue with the old tradition proceeded toestablish the SP (Felicity Party) whereas those who wanted to part with tradition optedfor the new AKP (Justice and Development Party). The new party insisted that it was aconservative party, respectful of republican principles and dedicated to continuingbuilding a modern country.

15 The court decisions have stimulated mobility among parliamentary parties. Thefounding of the AKP clearly became a possibility mainly by the occasion of partyclosure. If the FP had not been closed by the Constitutional Court, the founders of theAKP would have had greater difficulty in finding an appropriate opportunity to start anew party although their presence as a faction was already known. The establishmentof a new party by some of the deputies of the defunct FP, provided an opportunity forthe latter to have immediate parliamentary presence and all the benefits that it brings,without having had to organize outside the parliament first, and then, to achieveelectoral success, trying to convince all that you were a credible organization worthsupporting.


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II. Routine inter-party mobility in the parliament

16 Non-routine inter-party mobility is a phenomenon that is the product of an unusualcontext. It is not often that all political parties in a country are closed down and thereemerges a process through which old politics may assert itself and eventually blend inwith the new mainly through mobility in parliament. Again, it is not frequent nor is itdesirable that a political party that is represented in the legislature is closed through acourt decision. Yet, these have been important in the recent history of Turkey and assuch, have deserved examination. But, as has been indicated already, inter-partymobility in the parliament in Turkey is also highly routinized activity. The persistenceof such activity is unique and warrants close examination. It is to this routinizedphenomenon that we now turn.

17 Party changing occurs in an environment in which political parties, factions withinpolitical parties and individual deputies may have different priorities. Each may haveits own goals, purposes, interests and agendas. There are trends in the politicalenvironment that affect the behavior of all. It seems reasonable to begin by examiningthe characteristics of the political environment that influences the behavior of allactors before turning to the examination of the actors. Recent trends affecting the Turkish party system

18 Referring to the characteristics of the party system in the 1970s, Özbudun identifiesvolatility, fragmentation and polarization as problematical tendencies (2000: 74). Thesehave persisted into contemporary times despite the efforts of the 1980 militaryinterveners to design a constitutional and legal system that was specifically intended toavert them.

19 Many observers have traced the growing fragmentation of the party system to theintroduction of a proportional representation as an electoral principle in the 1961constitution. Sayarı (2002: 27) for example, argues that ‘the plurality formula that wasused between 1950 and 1960 discouraged the fissiparous tendencies within parties.’While the roots of fragmentation may lie in socio-economic change, it appears to be thecase that a PR (proportional representation) system offered more of an incentive for‘dissenting parliamentarians within large parties’ to leave their parties and form theirown. Beginning with the late 1960s, the major parties continued to give birth to anumber of small parties, some of which survived while others were buried in theTurkish political graveyard. Table 2: Number of parties contesting elections and represented in the TBMM*

Year number of parties in election number of parties in parliament Index of fractionalization**

1961 4 4 0.71

1965 6 6 0.63

1969 8 8 0.70


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1973 8 7 0.77

1977 8 6 0.68

1983 3 3 0.66

1987 7 3 0.75

1991 6 5 0.79

1995 12 5 0.83

1999 20 5 0.85

2002 18 2 0.82

*The number of parties taking part in elections and in parliament have been compiled frominformation contained in Tuncer (2003).** Douglas Rae’s fractionalization of the vote index comes from Özbudun (2000: 77), except for 1999and 2002 that have been calculated by Ilter Turan.

20 Fragmentation of the party system has also been in part a product of militaryinterventions that hoped to create a full or partial tabula rasa in the party system. TheDemocratic Party, the government party during 1950-1960 was closed down by theNational Unity Committee in 1960. During the return to competitive politics, severalparties were established to claim its legacy. But more comprehensive fragmentationcame after the 1980 intervention which had proceeded, as has already been explained,to abolish all political parties. ‘As civilian politics were restored, parties other thanthose the military allowed came into being, many of them representing the pre-1980parties. On occasion, more than one party claimed the same pre-existing heritage’(Turan 2003: 156). Both some of the new parties and those claiming connections withthe pre-military intervention times have managed to survive long after the terminationof the military intervention. This has sometimes been true even in the case of the re-establishment of the pre-1980 parties, the presence of which would presumably removethe need for the continuation of the surrogates.

21 A well intentioned measure (when) to extend funding to political parties from thepublic treasury in order to free them from dependence on well endowed actors thatpursue their self interests, has unintentionally rendered the life of small parties easyand more attractive, enticing their formation in the parliament while reducing thecosts of surviving as a small party. Although the criteria that are used in extendingfinancial support to political parties have varied over time, parties with a minimumnumber of deputies in the parliament have always been assured of an allocation. Infact, in June 2005, when inter-party mobility in the parliament appeared to be pickingup with some deputies being attracted away from the government party, the latterpassed legislation raising the number of deputies that would be needed for a party toreceive public funding from three to 20. The act was vetoed by the President who saidthat the measure was unfairly undermining political competition.

22 There is general consensus among the observers of the Turkish political scene thatpatronage or clientelistic politics characterizes the party system. (Güneş-Ayata 1992,


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1994). Patronage, in the form it has taken in Turkey, has simply come to mean thedistribution of public resources to party activists and supporters. ‘Patronage is betterdistributed in small networks. In fact, the larger parties have had more difficulty inmeeting the demands of their constituents and have experienced centrifugal pressures,since catering to the demands of some creates jealousy in others’ (Turan 2000: 156). Inlarge organizations where getting sufficient and reliable information is often moredifficult, it is always possible to think that your neighbors are getting more and becomedissatisfied. It is never possible to deliver to all demands of a large body of clientssatisfactorily. Under such circumstances, however, clients can increase their value bythreatening to leave when their expectations are not met. The rewards of being ingovernment so as to partake in the public resources often prove sufficient to lureindividual deputies as well as factions from other parties to join government parties.

23 The fragmentation of the party system has raised the need for coalition governments.In coalition governments, small parties get to enjoy more power than their share of thevote and seats in the parliament would suggest. ‘The possibility of becoming a coalitionpartner serves as a disincentive for small parties to unite’ (Turan 2000). Yet mostcoalition governments in Turkey, before and after 1983, have not functioned andperformed well. There are built in problematical tendencies that are dysfunctional forthe successful operation of coalition governments. To begin with, in a fragmentedsystem in which many of the parties are breakaways from older parties and thereforeideological relatives to them, voters can easily shift from supporting one party toanother. This potential for electoral volatility renders coalition partners insecure,creating pressures on them to maximize gains during what is likely to be a short tenurewhile also trying to maximize the distance between themselves and the ideologicallyrelative parties, in order to establish a distinct identity in the minds of the voters sothat their support may be retained. These pressures do not lend themselves to a longterm ‘cooperate and everybody wins’ mind set and ends up producing unstablecoalitions that fail to address the problems of the electorate at large. Similarly, theopposition is often unreasonably anxious to criticize governments and bring themdown, and fails to display that appearance of responsible opposition that would becomethe government when the time comes. Çarkoğlu et al. (2000: 32) have noted that thefailure of parties in the Turkish parliament to deliver to their supporters leads thevoters to engage in a never-ending search for alternatives. New parties aiming toattract these floating votes are established both within and outside the parliament. Inthis context, the 10% threshold initially intended to discourage fragmentation, hasevolved into a barrier that stands in the way of new entries into the system andtherefore its renovation.

24 In conclusion, the fragmentation in the party system is both a cause and an outcome ofelectoral volatility that have come to pervade the Turkish political system in recentyears or even decades. Fragmentation, in addition to rendering parties ineffective anddiscredited in the eyes of the electorate, has also led to the emergence of many parties,whose attributes the voters find difficult to discern. The attachment people had towarda specific political parties has been eroding, major shifts of votes between parties havebecome typical. Since the elections of 1991, for example, the parties that have prevailedin one parliamentary term have been the losers at the next. Parties that no oneimagined would achieve electoral success have done so for one term only to go back


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into political oblivion. Such circumstances constitute parts of a political environmentthat does not discourage inter-party mobility in the parliament. Characteristics of Turkish political parties and the individual deputy

25 Several characteristics of the Turkish political parties strike even the casual observer.Turkish political parties are organizationally weak, they have poor links with thebroader electorate and they are leader dominated. Organizational weakness and poorlinks with society are, in fact, related phenomenon with historical origins. The politicalorganization that established the Republic and ruled it as a single party between 1923and 1946 was the CHP. Representing the leadership of the modernizing elite, the RPPhad achieved nationwide control by making alliance with the local notables. It was nota party that was capable of mobilizing the masses for social and economic change.Rather it wanted the citizens to be passive recipients of modernization programs. Itrelied on the bureaucrats and local notables to elicit compliance and to mobilize votesduring the elections. The party organization was not expected to produce new ideas orprograms. Rather, such matters were the responsibility of the party leader who had akey role in giving direction to the party and its activities. The position of the leader wasfortified by the powers he possessed in designating candidates for electoral positions,by a strict understanding of discipline in which criticizing the leader in itself was oftendeemed to be a violation of party discipline, the power to dismiss the heads and theexecutive committee members of local branches, to replace them if necessary and evento close the branch.

26 The transition to political competition was initiated by some of the CHP leaders thathad a different vision as to where the party should be heading. Their understanding ofpolitics had been shaped under the single party system and they emulated the CHP asthe model party after which they should build their own party (Turan 1969). The resulthas been narrowly based organizations in which the leader prevails. One evidence thatnone of the parties managed to evolve into a mass organization is that membershiprosters of Turkish parties are poorly and irregularly kept8. Another is the fact that,although the option of holding primary elections is open, candidate designation fornational elections has been taken over by the national organs of political partieswithout producing significant resistance on the part of local organizations. Similarly,one of the reasons why fragmentation of parties has proven easy is that it concerns nota large group of members but a much smaller number of activists and members ofcliques who can move to a new party with relative ease.

27 To restate, Turkish political parties are leader-dominated organizations. Leadershipchange is not usual or patterned. Attempts to change the leader even after majorelectoral defeats are exceptions and usually result in defeat of the challengers. Ingeneral, leaders rule with an authoritarian style within which challenges or modestcriticisms are construed as acts of disloyalty9.

28 The particular party structure described here leads to particular forms of behavior onthe part of the deputies that are closely linked with inter-party mobility. Deputies tryto get into the narrow circle around the leader in order to be noticed, to offer theirservices, to secure services for constituents if the party is in power, to acquire visibilityby being given jobs such as talking on behalf of the party on the floor of the parliamentor during a national party convention, to be considered for a ministerial position


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should the party involved in forming the government and above all to be designated asa winnable candidate10 in the next election.

29 What is expected from the deputy is submissive behavior. Problems arise between theleadership and the deputies under a set of different circumstances. A deputy may feelthat he is not accorded proper rewards for his loyalty to the leader. He may not be thebeneficiary of sufficient patronage, for example. His demands for services to hisconstituency may be ignored if his party is in government. Or he may feel that he hasbeen passed over for a position, be it in party or ministerial post, and decide that he hasno future in the party. Finally, he may get the feeling that his chances of beingnominated are not high. These contingencies are but examples of situations underwhich deputies will consider leaving their party for one where they think theirinterests would be better served.

30 Other contingencies also exist. It is sometimes the case that serious differences mayemerge on ideology or policy positions between the party and a deputy or a group ofthem. The departure of those disagreeing with the party is then a natural outcome.Equally likely, however, is a situation in which the deputy already has ideological orpolicy differences with the leadership that have become public and he already risksexpulsion. To avoid expulsion (sometimes disciplinary proceedings against him mayhave already started), departure is a preferable option.

31 Finally, there are non-political considerations that may defy classification. Forexample, a deputy of the DSP (Democratic Left Party) of Bülent Ecevit was asked to bythe leader to leave the party when bribing allegations about him reached the public11.Sometimes, it is said that individual deputies have been offered material or otherrewards for leaving their party. While such speculation was heard of frequently duringthe time of coalition governments that could come down with a few votes, they havedwindled under the one party government of AKP after 2002. But such speculation wasrecently revived when the government party received a deputy from the oppositionCHP who was ostensibly under investigation for tax irregularities (Zaman, 4 May, 2004).One deputy in 1999 left his party two days after the election for it appeared that he hadhoped but failed to get on the ticket of the party which he eventually joined. Onedeputy achieved fame for having changed his party affiliation six times during oneterm. He seemed to have no sense of what he was doing. His name had been picked as acandidate from among many who had sent in applications to Bülent Ecevit. The lack oflocal organization meant that the candidates had not gone through a local screening oran evaluation process. The organizational interests of parties

32 Political parties have organizational interests. They want to be represented in theparliament. They want to become the government party or at least partners in coalitiongovernments. If they are in government they want to stay there. If they are not ingovernment, they may desire to bring the government down. They want to expandtheir bases of support among the voters. They are open to expanding their numbers inthe parliament. Such goals may sometimes be served through measures that involveinter-party mobility within the parliament. Here are some examples.

33 As has been mentioned, the Turkish electoral system has a 10 % national thresholdprovision. The additional district level thresholds were ruled unconstitutional by the


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Turkish Constitutional Court in 1995. The electoral system favors the higher vote getterat the expense of the lower. The Political Parties Law, on the other hand, does not allowfor political parties to form electoral alliances. These constraints have led parties tolook for ways of getting around them to place their representatives in the parliament.One way that has been found is for a party that has some support but is not expected toachieve the threshold, is to negotiate with a more promising ideological relative (evenif distant) for a number of eligible positions in return for instructing their voters tosupport the latter during the elections. If an agreement is reached, then the personswho the small party wants to offer as candidates resign from their party and becomemembers of the party with whom the agreement has been made. It is expected that thevotes such a formula brings will not only generate some seats for the small party whichotherwise would not have had anyone elected under its own name, but it will also bringin additional seats for the bigger party. After the elections, the members of the smallparty will return to their home base, but having achieved parliamentaryrepresentation. This formula was first tried in the 1991 elections by the SHP thatcooperated with HEP (People’s Labor Party), representing Kurdish ethnic nationalism.It is not clear that the pact enhanced the electoral position of the SHP. Some of the HEPdeputies created incidents during the oath taking ceremony. Within a month, 16 of the22 HEP deputies had resigned from the SHP. Eventually the party was closed by theConstitutional Court and some of its members were convicted, losing theirparliamentary seat12.

34 During the same election, the RP had made an arrangement with the ultra-nationalistMÇP (Nationalist Work Party), the successor to the pre-1980 MHP (Nationalist ActionParty). Within a month of the opening of the legislature, the 18 deputies withnationalist credentials resigned from the RP and returned ‘home’. During the electionsof 1995, the same strategy was tried between ANAP and the BBP (Great Unity Party)that had broken off from the MÇP, giving the latter seven seats in the parliament.These electoral partnerships have not been tried after 1995, reducing interpartymovement in the legislature. It may be that as the ties between parties and their votersloosened up, the ability of partners to command the votes of their ‘supporters’ cameever under question. Furthermore, the ANAP alliance with the BBP was met with suchdisapproval by the rank and file in the former that it became difficult to judge whetherthe partnership brought more benefits or losses to the major partner.

35 Turkish political parties always keep an open door to deputies from other parties andwelcome them among their ranks most of the time. Some judge that this is a reminderto those who may be entertaining leaving their party that they are not indispensablesince replacements can always be found. Sometimes, parties may initiate an open ordiscreet search to get new members. Parties that do not have any deputies in theparliament always welcome having one or more of their own in the house. Parties thatare represented by a few deputies are interested in reaching the magic number 20,which the Standing Orders define as the number needed for a parliamentary party toqualify as a ‘party group’. This designation bestows immense benefits on aparliamentary party since party group is accepted as the basic parliamentary actor inmost of the routine activities of the parliament. Shortly before the completion of thiswriting, for example, ANAP having failed to achieve the national threshold during the2002 elections, had managed to get together more than 20 deputies by transfers fromother parties so as to constitute a party group.


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36 The desire to have more deputies in a party has, on occasion, led to resorting tounethical practices. These may be anything from a promise for reelection, appointmentto a ministerial post to substantial material rewards such as cheap credits from a publicbank and even worse. Impressionistically, along with the general decline of inter-partymobility, it appears that the incidence of such movements have decreased not onlybecause public scrutiny may have intensified but also because the currentparliamentary arithmetic of only two major parties, with the government partypossessing a substantial majority has rendered a party’s enticing others to join it anunnecessary exercise. It may be remembered that the so called deputy markets openedat the time of the formation of coalition governments. Factions as actors in inter-party mobility

37 A faction refers to a group within a party that has some characteristic thatdifferentiates it from the rest and has a certain ability to act together. Membership in apolitical faction is not clearly defined. Some are identified as leaders, others asbelonging to it or even as fellow travelers. While factions are often just a group within aparty, there may be instances where they may constitute subjects of inter-partymobility. First, a faction may decide to leave a party if it feels that the electoral changesof its members have been considerably reduced. Second, a faction may in fact developinto a proto-party and depart the party in which it is organized to found it own party.Third, a faction may leave a party to go to another, if it judges that it will be expelledfrom its home party if it does not move. These conditions may all exist in the sameparty at the same time. The transition to competitive politics in 1945-1946 was an earlyexample of factions as a source of inter-party mobility. A more recent example may befound in the establishment of YDP (New Democracy Party) of İsmail Cem who served asForeign Minister in Ecevit governments in 2002. Three high ranking officials of the DSP,all of them bearing ministerial rank, planned to take over the party from Bülent Ecevitwhose health appeared to be failing. They were exposed before they implemented theirplans. They and some of their supporters left the party. Had they not done so, theywould have been expelled. Earlier, in 1996, a group of deputies had again rebelledagainst the decision of Bülent Ecevit not to support a motion of censure against PrimeMinister Erbakan who had given a dinner at the prime minister’s residence to whichleaders of religious orders wearing religious garbs had been invited. The same group ofdeputies had also asked Turkish Federation of Labor at an earlier time to persuadeBülent Ecevit to be more open to the unification of the center left parties. They left theDSP and joined the CHP.

III. Are those who stay and those who move different?

38 In an earlier study, an attempt was made to see if there were differences on thepolitical characteristics of those who were involved in inter-party mobility and thosewho stayed with their parties. It was found at that time, that the level of localism,meaning whether the deputy was representing the province in which he was born orsome other province, had little relationship with his party changing. It was alsoobserved that there was a higher incidence of party changing among those thatrepresented economically less developed regions. Finally it was observed that those


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who changed parties were more likely to have had longer parliamentary tenure (Turan1985).

39 For the 1983-2002 period, data was available on localism of deputies, their tenure (thenumber of times they have been elected to the parliament after 1983), their level ofeducation, whether they have held ministerial positions and the socio-economicdevelopment level of the districts they represent. It is interesting that although thesearch for relations included only those deputies that changed their parties (i.e.excluding those who were left without a party because the court closed their partydown), none of these variables exhibit any statistically meaningful relationships. Suchlack of relationships may point to the homogenization of the deputies. Most areeducated, most are local, there are virtually no differences between those who becomeministers and those who do not, and all deputies have an equal proclivity to changetheir parties rather than only those from the less developed provinces.

40 We have to conclude, with reluctance, that other information which does not appear inthe rosters of the Turkish Grand National Assembly but which may be collectedthrough interviews may be needed to discern the politically relevant attributes and tounderstand better the logic of those who move to other parties. Such informationmight include whether the deputy has an independent electoral base or whether he hasbeen carried into office mainly by his party and the nature of relationship of the deputywith the local party organization (e.g. does he belong to a local faction, are there majorrivals in his district etc.). Besides, what kinds of resources are available to him to getthe attention of the party leadership? What options are open to him and what losses hewould incur should he fail to get reelected? Has the deputy been identified with anexisting faction within the party for a long time? What other networks within andoutside the party is he connected with, including civil society organizations? Has hebeen a member of another party earlier? How was he recruited to politics and politicaloffice? And a host of other questions.

Conclusion

41 The high level of inter-party mobility in the TBMM was a phenomenon that thefounders of the 1983 constitution viewed as being highly problematical and tried toprevent. The particular measures they devised failed to stem the movement of deputiesbetween parties in the parliament. Such mobility, far from producing undesirableoutcomes such a governmental and broader instability, has contributed to a peacefultransition of Turkish politics from military to civilian rule. Further, mobility betweenparties is an instrument of making adjustments to changes in the politicalenvironment, a source of flexibility that may reduce tensions in the system. Is inter-party mobility then a blessing?

42 Such positive contributions to political stability on a variety of occasions should notlead us to overlook the problematical aspects of inter-party mobility in the parliament.Certainly, there exist a set of multi-dimensional questions to be addressed. On thepolitical front, it may be fair to ask if it is ethical to leave the party framework fromwhich a deputy or a group of them have been elected? Expressed differently, is inter-party mobility more a curse than a blessing?


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43 This is a question of political philosophy that voters, party leaders, deputies should alladdress. There is no single simple or pre-ordained answer that can be offered easily. Inthe more appropriate domain of personal ethics, the question as to whether personalbenefits are a legitimate basis for inter-party mobility, the answers is a qualified no. Itis qualified only in the sense that it is not easy to make judgments without knowing thecontext of behavior, the nature of the benefit received, etc.

44 Finally, should something be done about inter-party mobility? Apart from prosecutionunder the existing criminal code, whatever should be done, should be done in thedomain of politics, not law. If citizens do not like what politicians that they haveelected have done, it is within their power to change them at the next elections. Ouranalysis shows that inter-party mobility cannot be branded as good or bad without theconsideration of the specific conditions under which it occurs and the outcomes itproduces.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Bektaş, Arsev (1993) Demokratikleşme Sürecinde Liderler Oligarşisi, Istanbul, Bağlam.

Çarkoğlu, Ali; Erdem, Tarhan; Kabasakal, Mehmet (eds.) (2000) Siyasi Partilerde Reform, İstanbul,TÜSES.

Erdem, Tarhan (1994) CHP üye Kayıtlarının Merkezde Toplanma Projesi, 1978, Istanbul.

Güneş-Ayata, Ayşe (1992) CHP: Örgüt ve İdeoloji, Ankara, Gündoğan, 1992.

Güneş-Ayata, Ayşe (1994) ‘Roots and Trends of Clientelism in Turkey’, in Güneş-Ayata, Ayşe;Roniger, Luis (eds.), Democracy, Clientelism and Civil Society, Boulder, Lynne Rienner.

Heper, Metin; Evin, Ahmet (eds.) (1988) State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980’s,Berlin, De Gruyter.

Heper, Metin; Evin, Ahmet (eds.) (1994) Politics in the Third Turkish Republic, Boulder, WestviewPress.

İnönü, Erdal (1999) Anılar ve Düşünceler I, İstanbul, Yorum.

Özbudun, Ergun (2000) Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation, Boulder,Lynne Rienner.

Sayarı, Sabri (2002) ‘The Changing Party System’, in Sayarı, Sabri; Yılmaz, Esmer (eds.) Politics,Parties and Elections in Turkey, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, pp. 9-23.

Tunçay, Suavi (n.d.) Parti İçi Demokrasi ve Türkiye, Ankara, Gündoğan.

Tuncer, Erol (2003) Osmanlı’dan Günümüze Seçimler: 1877-2002, Ankara, TESAV.

Turan, İlter (1969) Cumhuriyet Tarihimiz, Istanbul, Çağlayan.

Turan, İlter (1985) ‘ “Changing horses in midstream”, party changers in the Turkish GrandNational Assembly’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 10, pp. 21-34.


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Turan, İlter (2000) ‘Volatility in politics, stability in parliament: an impossible dream? TheTurkish Grand National Assembly during the last two decades’, Journal of Legislative Studies 9(2),pp. 151-176

Turan, İlter (forthcoming) ‘Old soldiers never die: the Republican People’s Party of Turkey duringthe last decades’, Southern European Politics.

NOTES

1. This statistic has been compiled by Associate Professor Dr. Şeref İba, who is the AssistantDirector of the Division of Laws and Resolutions of the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Hecompiled the list of the members of parliament who changed their parties and provided a note onthe constitutional provision restricting party changing and its being amended in 1995. AyşeZarakol, an ABD student in the Department of Political Science of the University of Wisconsin,coded the social background characteristics of deputies, their changing of parties and executedthe data processing. Finally, I would like to thank my former graduate assistant Oya Memişoğlufor newspaper search on party changers.2. In case a party is closed by the Constitutional Court, the national officers and theparliamentary officers of the party as well as members whose actions have led to the closing ofthe party lose their seats while the rank and file become independents, making it possible forthem to join other parties or to form new parties. The law bans, however, new parties that can bedepicted as the continuation of parties that have been closed down. 3. The record breaker was a deputy elected from the DSP during the 20th legislative term(1995-1999). After staying with his original party for a year or so, Kubilay Uygun moved to DYP,but four days later returned to his original party. He resigned three weeks later to go once againto DYP. After about a year there he moved to the MHP, only to leave it less than three weeks laterto join the recently established Democratic Turkey Party (DTP). Five months later, shortly beforethe elections, he became an independent. Kubilay Uygun’s parliamentary journey has beencompiled from the records of the Divison of Laws and Resolutions of the Turkish Grand NationalAssembly. 4. http://www.dadalos.org; http://www.en.wikipedia.org5. For a comprehensive examination of the period concerning party realignments and theconsolidation of competitive politics, see Heper et al. (1988, 1994).6. The expression hülle or ‘pretend marriage’ was named after the ancient Islamic practicedevised to discourage people from arbitrarily divorcing their wives. If a man had divorced hiswife three times, he could not remarry her until she had been married to someone else. To insurethat a marriage to someone else would not be consummated, an elderly, impotent man would befound and paid a modest sum to marry temporarily the divorcee so that she could remarry theformer husband again.7. http://anayasa.gov.tr/KARARLAR/SPK/K1998-01htm8. Tarhan Erdem (1994) has an excellent book describing the difficulties the project of renewingmembership rosters, an effort which was strongly resisted by the provincial organizations.9. There is considerable writing on oligarchic leadership and intra-party democracy. Asexamples, see Bektaş (1993) and Tunçay (n.d.).10. Winnable candidate refers to the rank of the candidate on the party ticket. Turkey has multi-member electoral districts and a proportional representation system. This means that only acertain part of the ticket will win, depending on the percentage of the vote a party gets.Naturally, the higher the rank of the candidate on the ticket, the more likely that he/she will winthe election.


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http://www.dadalos.org/

http://www.dadalos.org/

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/

http://anayasa.gov.tr/KARARLAR/SPK/K1998-01htm

http://anayasa.gov.tr/KARARLAR/SPK/K1998-01htm

11. Birlik Ajans News Agency, March 4, 2005. 12. Erdal Inönü, the president of the party at the time, in his memoirs (1999: 256) offers adifferent explanation. He says that this alliance was not intended to increase their votes. Rather,it was the extension of a helping hand to HEP that faced an unreasonable threshold.

RÉSUMÉSHistorically, there have been high levels of inter-party mobility in the Turkish parliament. Themilitary makers of the 1982 constitution felt that party changing not only promoted politicalinstability and was unethical, but they also feared that it might undermine the two party systemthey were trying to build. They introduced measures to prevent it. These failed to stop themobility of deputies who found many ways to circumvent restrictions to move between parties.The restrictions have since been repealed. Such mobility has contributed to a peaceful transitionfrom military to civilian rule. New parties have been formed, others have merged through partychanging, while parties closed down by the constitutional court have found an opportunity to getreorganized as a parliamentary party. Inter-party mobility done for political and personalbenefit, on the other hand, raises questions of political and personal ethics. Party changers andnon-changers do not appear to have different attributes. Political contexts influence partychanging decisions by individual deputies and factions.

INDEX

Keywords : professionalization, parliament, political elite, political partiesMots-clés : professionalisation, parlement, partis politiques, élites politiques

AUTEURS

İLTER TURAN

Professor at Bilgi University, Istanbul [email protected]

ŞEREF İBA

Assistant Director of the Division of Laws and Resolutions of the Turkish Grand NationalAssembly

AYŞE ZARAKOL

Assistant Professor of Politics at Washington & Lee University, Lexington [email protected]


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Being an Opposition MP in the 22nd

Turkish ParliamentCanan Aslan-Akman

Introduction: the 22nd Assembly and the polarizationof the political game

1 This essay aims at examining the role of the minority party (Republican People’s party -CHP) MPs in the current legislative period and their perceptions of their role both inthe party group and as individual MPs in parliament. Studies of the Turkish Parliamenthave so far predominantly dealt with its functions, institutional attributes and,occasionally, with analyses of the profiles and backgrounds of the MPs1. The role of theopposition MPs within Parliament has not been the subject of special analysis largelydue to the centrality of the majority party in the TBMM (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi[Turkish Grand National Assembly]). Other case studies of Parliaments in WesternEurope have dealt with legislative opposition in the context of the government-parliament relationship, parliamentary control over the executive, and the diverseroles of individual deputies2. Besides a clarification of the roles of opposition deputies,this essay aims at analyzing their relationships with their party, their positions vis-à-visthe majority party group, and their views on the legislative process in the TBMM.

2 Since this essay deals only with the 22nd Assembly, it is necessary to explain thepolitical context and in particular the ideological polarization of the Parliament afterthe election of November 3rd, 2002. Following the economic crises of November 2000and February 2001, the early elections saw the majority of the voters cast their voteswith frustration regarding the economic situation. The Justice and Development Party(AKP) ran in the elections as a ‘new party’, though not completely brand-new in termsof its cadres and worldview. In this atmosphere, the election results were not an uttersurprise to voters and observers alike as the AKP was on the rise according to the pre-election polls, but the surprise may have been the failure of the parties of theincumbent government (MHP, DSP and ANAP) to enter the Parliament. The electionsproduced an unusual parliamentary situation in Turkey’s fragmented party arena, with


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only two parties sharing the seats in Parliament due to the national threshold of 10%.As the AKP polled 35% of the votes, winning 362 out of 550 seats in the TBMM, itemerged as the largest party, with a sufficient majority to form a one-partygovernment. Another surprise of the elections was the resurrection of the CHP (underthe leadership of Deniz Baykal), a party which could not enter the previous Parliamentdue to its poor showing, just below the 10% threshold. This time the CHP won 188 seatsand became the only opposition party. It gained support due to its relentless defense ofsecularism as a guarantee against the AKP (Tosun 2002, Çarkoğlu 2002). As a result, theemergent Parliament came to be significant not only in terms of parliamentaryarithmetic but also in the more substantive sense of representing an ideologicalpolarization between the government and the main opposition party. Hence, threefeatures make the current Parliament a ‘critical’ one. Firstly, it is the first time sincethe 1980s (with the ANAP) that the elections produced a majority party with thecapacity to govern on its own and to pass legislation without being restrained byparliamentary opposition pressure. Secondly, this Parliament has from the beginningfaced the challenge of deepening the political and economic reform process initiated bythe previous coalition. Thirdly, the 22nd TBMM has the highest turnover rate since1987, as the great majority (89%) of the MPs elected had no seat in the previousParliament. Table 1: Distribution of party votes and number of seats in the TBMM following the elections of2002*

Party Vote share Number of seats Seat share

AKP 34.28% 363 66 %

CHP 19.39% 178 32.4%

* Nine independent candidates entered the TBMM by gathering a total of 1% of the votes.

3 From the beginning, the 22nd Parliament has had quite busy an agenda with manyreform bills on democratization and economic management waiting in the pipeline.During the first and second legislative years, the Parliament’s record of legislation wasquantitatively impressive, but this point needs some qualification. In fact, the trend hasbeen towards the subordination of the legislative to the executive due to ideologicalpolarization and party discipline in the Assembly. The TBMM’s confinement to aposition of ‘law-making factory’ as envisaged by the 1982 Constitution (Tanör 1990: 157)has been strikingly evident in the 22nd Assembly.

4 As underlined by observers close to parliamentary spheres, the current legislativeperiod is characterized as a ‘pressed legislative process’, since many bills are turnedinto laws in a speedy fashion3. During the first legislative year (November 2002-July2003) a total of 199 laws were enacted by the TBMM; 49% of this legislation wasprepared by the first AKP government; and 51% of these were submitted to the TBMMas renewed versions of the bills drafted during the previous Parliament4. Moreover,42% of the legislation passed were ‘laws of approval’, each consisting of three articlesapproving international treaties. In fact, 23 % of the legislation enacted between 15th

July and 1st August 2003 were the so-called ‘harmonization laws’ 5 designed to adaptnational legislation to previous constitutional amendments. In the first three months of


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the AKP government (29th November-28th February) out of the 44 laws passed, only 10were original legislation prepared and submitted by the government (the others wereapproval laws and bills left from the previous Parliament). In the second legislativeyear (October 2003-July 2004), a total of 261 bills were enacted and 138 of these areapproval laws, most of which had again been initiated by the preceding Parliament6. Inthe third legislative year (October 2004-October 2005) the number of laws enacted was166, 43 of which were laws approving international treaties.

5 The data on which this analysis rests comes from multiple sources: in addition toinsights and information gathered from in-depth interviews with selected CHP MPs,relevant general assembly proceedings (i.e. those exemplifying the opposition’sapproach to government on controversial issues including that of the session on thegovernment program), newspaper coverage of the parliamentary dynamics on relevantissues (those highlighting the opposition’s approach, the MPs’ activism andgovernment-opposition relations), party publications on the Parliament’s activities andsecondary sources on the Parliament were used. In-depth interviews with ten selectedCHP MPs and with the chief advisor to the CHP group in the TBMM were conductedbetween January and April 20057. As the sample was quite small to gather in-depth dataabout the legislative dynamics, personal contacts and contacts through the partyorganizations were used to reach those deputies who would be in a position to providethe necessary informations. Some of the deputies were chosen on the basis of thefamiliarity of the author with the figures from the national press. All the MPsinterviewed were chosen from among various parliamentary committees (Constitution,National Education, Environment, Planning and Budget, Justice, Interior Affairs andNational Defense Committee), so as to tap information about committee dynamics aswell. The group included two ex-mayors from a South Eastern city and a Western town.One MP held a high administrative post in the party as Deputy Secretary General; fivewere members of the Party Assembly, which is an elected organ. One of them wasrecently excluded from the Party Assembly due to its support to the intra-partyopposition during the recent CHP convention of January 2005. One MP also was amember of the Group Disciplinary Committee. Hence, these MPs were also able tocomment on their relationship to their party and on the party policies in general oncertain issues. Only one of the MPs in the sample had previous parliamentaryexperience as an opposition MP in the 18th Parliament (1983-1987). The group includeddeputies having professional backgrounds in academia, law, art, and education. Most(eight) of the MPs studied were long-time CHP politicians, who traced theirinvolvement in the party to the pre-1980 period.

6 Overall, the MPs interviewed are leading active members of the main opposition inParliament with high levels of party affiliation, and they were thus able to supplydetailed information on parliamentary dynamics, on their roles and their self-perceptions. According to their assignment into specialization committees, they arealso elite MPs, ‘elites within an elite’ (Frey 1965: 224). However, this research is notbased on a strong claim to representativeness of the sample; priority in the selectionwas given to the capability of the opposition representatives to provide as muchinformation as possible about the deputy body of the CHP and the opposition MPactivities. MPs were asked questions concerning the CHP’s opposition strategy,parliamentary activities (in plenary and committee sessions), their roles, and theconstraints they have to deal with, their observations about the MPs, their relationshipwith the majority group, and insights on the dynamics of the party group. The essay


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has traced the developments in the plenary sessions and committees until May 2005;hence, the qualitative data covered relates to the period up to that date. Butquantitative data is updated as of December 2005. Finally, for purposes of producing afocused work in the law-making process, the analysis excluded the activities of theopposition in the information gathering and control processes.

7 The first part deals with the norms and discourses about the place of opposition MPs inParliament, then with their role in the legislative process, and finally it proceeds tolook at their relationship to the CHP party group.

I. Discourses and norms: the place of an oppositionMP in Parliament

8 This part focuses on the norms and attitudes in Parliament concerning the place androle of opposition MPs in order to comprehend better the perceptions held by MPsregarding their roles, functions and relations to the majority (AKP) group MPs.

Hostility and lack of trust as a tradition among majority-minorityMPs

9 The major aspects to be underlined here relate to the problems of inter-party trustwithin Parliament and of unruly behavior which disrupts the harmony of the plenarysessions. As students of Turkish politics have noted, historically, elected elites held aperception of politics in zero-sum terms, which did not facilitate peaceful co-existencein the Turkish Parliament. Since the 1950s, the confrontational nature of thegovernment-opposition relations prevented the development of a culture ofcompromise in Parliament (Kalaycıoğlu 1990, Tanör 1990). However, we should focushere on the determinants and consequences of this situation in order to gain betterinsights into the perceptions of their roles by that CHP MPs hold vis-à-vis the majorityparty.

10 Scholars looking at the problems of improper legislative conduct in the TurkishParliament have often associated low inter-party trust levels with the patterns of floorbehavior in the TBMM. While improper behavior is also an indication of the failure tolearn and internalize proper legislative conduct in Parliament (Kalaycıoğlu 1990: 194),cultural orientations of the deputies in the TBMM pertaining opposition-governmentrelations also need to be underlined. The range of ‘unruly behavior’ extends from laudprotests to physical fight (verbal insults, threat of assault, shouting, clapping on thedesks by a group of MPs in protest against an orator during the general assembly), ortaking the floor without permission and exceeding one’s speech time, all violations ofthe relevant provisions of the Rules of Procedure ([İçtüzük], RP) of the assemblygoverning the floor debates. Such behavior implies disrespect for the rights of otherdeputies, and by definition, it takes place ‘among the members of different politicalparties’ (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 51). Looking at the unruly behavior of the deputies in theTBMM, Turan (2003: 159-163) noted that lack of trust among parties was an importantfactor behind unruly behavior8. In addition, one should underline lack of toleration as amotivating factor behind it in the context of the Turkish political culture, whichidentifies opposition with subversion and separatism (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 54). In the


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post-1960 period, this was a crucial impediment for inter-party cooperation andcompromise on policy issues in Parliament, although by that time the TBMM hadachieved considerable institutionalization (Yücekok 1983: 178). In addition, the partysystem on the right and the left started to fragment visibly after 1987. Competitivedynamics and re-election motives have gained further predominance in the 1980s(Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 56). It has been argued that these factors also fostered unrulybehavior among MPs, since concerns for re-nomination by the party leader placedthem under more intense competition. They also wanted to further their politicalcareers by showing sensitivity to constituency feelings (Kalaycıoğlu 1990: 193, 1988: 55).

11 Weakness of socialization conducive to consensual orientations among the MPs, due toa high turnover, is also an explanation. It has been contended that high turnover ratessince 1983 hampered the development of professionalism and binding norms ondeputies (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 55-57). Turnover rates have been quite high in Turkey(starting in 1950) especially after the 1980 military coup (Turan 2000: 26), reaching 89%in the 2002 elections9. However, this has not always been so in the pre-1980 period.Tanör (1990: 147) for example noted that the Turkish Parliament displayed stablemembership as about half of the incumbent MPs re-entered the TBMM between 1961and 1977. In the post-1980 era, a new generation of mostly inexperienced politicianstook the stage. The TBMM reshuffling during the early 1980s fostered the developmentof a more moderate and conciliatory attitude among political elites. Kalaycıoğlu notesthat the first assembly formed after the transition witnessed a ‘cool period’ with nounruly instances between November 1983 and June 1985. During this assembly(1983-1987), the majority of MPs in the TBMM held relatively tolerant attitudes towardthe opposition. This was largely due to the moderating impact of the military tutelage.

12 Overall, however, a steady increase in the instances of unruly behavior of the MPswithin the Parliament between 1946 and1980 has been noted (Kalaycıoğlu 1990: 192). Inthe post-1983 assemblies, such behavior continued sporadically, as a more moderateand conciliatory style was adopted by the major party leaders (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 53).Yet, the notion of opposition did not cease to bear implications of conflict, divisivetendencies, unscrupulous behavior, and hostility. The exclusion of anti-systemic actors(especially Kurdish nationalists) from Parliament in the 1990s via formal and informalmeans underlies this syndrome. Unruly behavior rarely led to grave consequences; acase in point was the death of an opposition MP from the DYP who, while opposing aconstitutional amendment submitted by the coalition government in January 2001, hada heart attack during the push and shove in the debates.

13 In the 22nd TBMM, unruly behavior broke out occasionally in the form of harassingMPs during their speeches, insulting each other, shouting and clapping, interruptingspeeches and leaving the plenary or committee meetings in protest10. However, exactdata on the number of cases is hard to come by and is not currently available11. Debateson controversial bills are more likely to produce such behavior. On one instance,protests broke out during the debate on the constitutional amendment which includedchanges in the law on forestry, and the disputes between some opposition andgovernment deputies during the voting forced the speaker of the assembly to introducean interlude to the voting12. In another example, in the third legislative year, during asession on a bill dealing with the appointments procedures for the administrativeboard of a major national science and research institution, one CHP deputy accused thegovernment of favoring ‘a moderate Islamist’ model for Turkey; in response, the AKP


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deputies accused the CHP of ‘abusing Atatürk and Islam’. Amidst mutual accusations inthe plenary session some CHP deputies insulted and physically attacked the AKPdeputies; then the session was suspended13. In general, plenary debates on some billscreated more frequent but mild disruptions, such as interruptions with verbalharassment and objections from the MPs to the speakers. This was the case when anopposition MP delivered a speech on a controversial bill (known as the ‘bag bill’ [torbakanun]) amending several laws at once14.

14 The committee meetings in the present period are sometimes the scene of unrulybehavior of the MPs, with protests, even disputes among the members of thegovernment and opposition. Disagreements may overflow into verbal insults ordisturbances during the discussions of contentious draft laws, such as the constitutivepieces of the so-called public administration reform, and the bills amending thecriminal code which were dealt with in the TBMM mostly in the 2nd Legislative Year.Hence, some committees such as the Interior Affairs and Planning and Budget are moreprone to such disputes, because it deals with bills on taxation, budget administrativeissues over which the government and opposition disagree. For example, an instance ofunruly behavior took place in a meeting of the Interior Affairs Committee during thediscussion of a specific piece of the draft of the new Public Administration law inJanuary 2004. Representatives from the national press were made to enter thecommittee meeting by the initiative of the Deputy Chair of the CHP group without theinformation and the consent of the government members. This was arguably in protestof the committee chair’s ‘conduct’ against the Rules of Procedure, as justifiedsubsequently in a press conference by the Deputy Chair of the CHP group in question15.In fact, the meetings in the Planning and the Budget Committee over the PublicAdministration Fundamental Law (comprising several laws) have sometimes been verytense, since opposition members challenged several parts of the draft laws underconsideration due to many hesitations and oppositions of the CHP on the so-calledpublic administration reform16. Discourse and Self-Perception of the Opposition

15 Obviously, the self-perception of the opposition MPs is the criterion by which theyjudge the government’s attitude toward them. In the Turkish context, this issue isrelated to the parties themselves. After the elections, in the general assembly sessionon the government program the CHP leader Baykal considered the 2002 elections aturning point with a first two-party Parliament since the 1950s in Turkey17. His variousdeclarations and official statements suggested a discourse based on the theme ofmoderation and consensus with the AKP. This is not an exceptional stand, but not verycommon either in Turkey, especially between parties belonging to different ideologicalpositions, and it usually has a strongly rhetorical character. The AKP leader, TayyipErdoğan, had been hampered from running as a candidate since he had been convictedof violating the provisions of the criminal law regulating freedom of speech. The CHPdeclared that it would support moves to rehabilitate Erdoğan’s political rights.18 In theimmediate aftermath of the elections, Baykal declared that his party would display‘constructive criticism’ instead of an opposition approach relying on ‘sabotaging thegovernment’19. He repeatedly said that his party would support all the steps to be takenby the government in the Parliament towards Turkey’s future EU membership. As aresult, as its leader explained, the CHP would act ‘in accordance with the principle of


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consensus, with goodwill and oriented toward problem-solving’20. At the same time, theCHP leader warned the government against any initiatives displaying an understandingof ‘we have the majority, and power hence we can do anything’21. This warning can beregarded as a strategically motivated victimization discourse as the AKP came topossess a solid majority in a Parliament in which only 50% of the voters wasrepresented due to the electoral system. Baykal also urged the AKP to refrain fromtension creating policies especially on the foundations of the Republic and not torepeat the mistakes of the defunct Refah Partisi [Welfare Party]22.

16 The first occasion in which the CHP would prove its conciliatory stance andconstructive opposition arose shortly during the constitutional amendments inDecember 2002 aimed to open the way for Erdoğan’s election as deputy. The CHPparliamentary group extended full support to an amendment in Article 76 of theConstitution which regulated eligibility in elections, on the grounds that the changewould strengthen the process of democratization23. This move also reflected a strategicconcern for the opposition in the sense that if the leader of the governing party hadstayed outside the Parliament and government (but informally active), the AKP couldhave very easily made use of this disadvantage to gain public sympathy, and to justifyits failures by blaming it to this major deprivation24. Moreover, as underlined in theinterviews, the CHP group was aware that without the support of their party, thepolitical situation would remain as a stalemate25.

17 For its part, the AKP declarations after the elections suggested that this consensualapproach would be reciprocated, as the need for cooperation was underlined on theurgent reform laws to be passed during the process of the integration with the EU26.However in time, especially during and after the March 2004 municipal elections thedose of mutual accusations and criticisms increased. Later the CHP rhetoric focused onthe protection of secularism. The CHP sometimes reminded the government that theywere the oldest party of the nation, one of the foundations of the Republic. On oneoccasion, ‘derogatory’ remarks from the AKP leadership about the CHP’s historicalmission in the political modernization of the country prompted reactions from the CHPgroup speakers in the TBMM who warned the AKP against an attempt to ‘settleaccounts with the CHP’27.

18 The opposition MPs interviewed for this study have generally supported this‘constructive’ discourse of the party since the convening of the 22nd Assembly despite,in their opinion, the fact that the activities of the opposition were not providedsufficient attention in the national media. As a deputy put it: ‘The CHP has beenemphasizing Republicanism perhaps too much due to its concerns over the AKP’sintentions. But due to the conjuncture and the conditions in which Turkey has founditself now, there is now an image of AKP defending freedoms and the EU, instead of theCHP. The CHP is beyond the vision of the media. Media bosses are under governmentmanipulation. But during one-party government the media has always supported thegovernment’28.

19 In fact, these MPs were of the opinion that the CHP had lived up to its pre-electionpromises by displaying restraint and moderation in its relations with the governmentand by supporting the democratization reforms. In the eyes of the opposition MPsinterviewed for this study, the CHP’s opposition strategy was sometimes regarded asquite docile and inadequate with the public opinion. Yet this moderation andconsensus-approach was considered the preferred route, based on the delicateness of


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the political and economic situation in Turkey29. A deputy expressed this point in thefollowing way: ‘Our opposition is not destructive opposition. We are trying to makeconstructive opposition… In our system the role of the opposition is alwaysconstrained; but our major task is scrutiny… What else can be one in the Parliament?Hence I find the opposition currently in the Parliament sufficient’30.

20 While some MPs find the breadth and the dose of their opposition activism sufficient inthe Parliament31, others seem to be more skeptical of their individual activities in theTBMM. A deputy referred to the problems of distorted portrayal of the CHP oppositionin the Parliament and also to the insufficient nature of the individual deputy’s activismin the following way: ‘Had the CHP been able to overcome its internal problems, itsopposition could have reflected better in the public opinion. CHP is the party whichcould best protect the secular Republic. But I personally think that there aredeficiencies in our opposition activities as MPs. We can do a lot more while we are inthe TBMM. Personally, I have put my signature on many law proposals, and I am alsoactive outside of the Parliament and the floor. But we lack the opportunities andresources to put together serious projects. As MPs, we are not working with expertstaff; for example we lack qualified advisors. We do not even have sufficient time toread draft bills on the agenda of the committees. The working conditions of the MPs arenot satisfactory enough to be productive. There are also financial problems’32.

21 At the same time, some opposition MPs acknowledged the pressure coming from theirconstituencies to present harsh opposition to the government even by physical acts ofhostility and reaction in the Assembly; as a deputy put it: ‘Should an effectiveopposition get involved in quarrels under the roof of the Parliament? Effectiveopposition under the roof of the institution representing national will should not be a‘you versus me’ conflict [sen ben kavgası]. Turkey has not gained anything with this stylein the pre-1980 era. In the local organizations of the sub-provinces, citizens stilldemand physical (violent) opposition. But, we should extend support to all projectspromoting public good’33.

22 None of the MPs who were part of this study considers violent acts as part of theiropposition strategy, because they are incompatible, in their opinion, with theirconstructive opposition. For example, another MP claimed that, ‘making opposition isnot the same as making opposition in the field’, hence unruly behavior and sensationalactivities are not regarded as appropriate course of action in the Parliament. Ingeneral, their criticism of the AKP deputies stems from their perception of thegovernment’s legislative strategy as ‘one-sided’ and reflecting a fait accompli excludingthe opposition group34. Which socialization between majority and opposition MPs?

23 Interviews suggest that informal contacts between the governing AKP MPs and those ofthe CHP take place both under the roof of the TBMM and outside; but with negligibleeffect on the legislation process35. In the Public Relations Building in the Parliament theoffices of the opposition and government MPs are side by side; there is no segregationof the government and opposition blocks since lots are randomly allocated at thebeginning of the legislative year. Hence sometimes deputies gain the chance to knowbetter the fellow MPs from the same constituency after they enter the TBMM36. All theMPs interviewed for this study declared that they had occasional contacts with the


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government MPs sometimes in the TBMM sometimes outside and in more informalsettings. Some MPs have friends from the AKP group with whom they meet andsocialize in family settings too. MPs also see each other in the opposition andgovernment corridors [kulisler] of the main building during the plenary sessions; theythen exchange views on issues of national significance. It should be noted that suchsocialization usually takes place among MPs if they are on the same wavelength;otherwise they remain as superficial contacts. Several CHP MPs interviewed noted thatsometimes they share their concerns with the majority MPs on policies, laws andissues, and the latter might sometimes agree on their concerns. However, some MPsheld a more negative picture, the government MPs’ attitude being not conducive todialogue. While they sometimes socialize with each other in the Parliament, realdialogue is hard to come by, as explained by a deputy in the following way: ‘They (AKPMPs) do not ask our opinion whatsoever on important issues. There is no such thing ascooperation, no compromise… The government’s MPs have the attitude of ‘we do notneed you’ toward us’37.

24 Some CHP MPs seem to acknowledge the predicament of the majority deputies whocannot individually do much about their concerns since they are subject to partycontrol, in a way bowing to the ‘wishes of the lords’, just like the minority MPs. Hence asympathetic attitude on the individual ineffectiveness of the MPs even from thegovernment party can also be discerned between the lines38. But, it is not possible togeneralize about the frequency, the nature and the impact of such contacts andsocialization on the MPs’ perceptions of inter-party relations in the absence ofaggregate data.

II. The Opposition MPs in the Legislative Process

25 In the 22nd period, the opposition MPs have largely been hampered from participatingeffectively in the legislative process due to their numerical minority position and thelimited role envisioned in the Rules of Procedure. The deputies underline that thisexclusion from providing input into the law making process takes place through formaland informal mechanisms. As it is well-known, the 1982 constitution ‘rationalized’Turkish parliamentary by weakening parliamentarianism (Özbudun 1989: 52) and bystrengthening executive (the cabinet and the president) (Tanör 1990: 155).Consequently, the legislature has been subordinated to the executive formed by themajority party/parties which controlled its agenda and functioning. The committeestage and the plenary meetings have been dominated by the government party as theRP was left largely untouched at the time of the drafting of the new constitution (İba2004).

26 Apart from this numerical minority position the CHP MPs have also been subject to actsof the government to circumvent the opposition in the legislative process. Being awareof their limitations, the opposition deputies find that such exclusion was a naturalpattern in one-party dominated Parliaments. That in a bi-party legislature thegovernment is usually ‘spoiled’ of its position is a view shared by some MPs39. Behindthis view rests a belief held by some CHP MPs that that the situation would be quitedifferent in a fragmented Parliament especially with coalition governments40. This viewis put forward both by the first-time deputies and by the only inexperienced deputy inthe interviews. This experienced MP (ex-deputy) suggested that ‘fragmented


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Parliaments are better in terms of opposition capacity, because then you have thechance to persuade other parties to correct some wrongs of the government. Buttoday’s government is passing whichever law it wants to pass without any constraint’41.

27 The following section looks more closely at the CHP parliamentary groups’ profile andactivism in the plenary sessions and the committees, and extra-parliamentary settings(like constitutional review). Since the primary objective is to provide a picture of theopposition MPs activities, the emphasis will be on the CHP group; the AKP’s strategy ofmarginalization of the opposition will also be discussed, as this is an interactiveprocess. The Agenda

28 In the TBMM, it is in fact the government party which decides the agenda of thelegislature as it enjoys both the legal and the political means to do so. Theoverwhelming majority of the bills enacted are initiated by the government or, to alesser extent, by individual MPs of the majority. In the current period none of the billsexclusively drafted by the CHP MPs have been accepted by the Parliament. Obviously,one cannot establish a link between the number of bills enacted and those submitted bythe CHP MPs, because among the bills passed there are those formulated and proposedby CHP MPs, and which were later transferred into government-sponsored bills42.Moreover, there are some areas to be regulated by bills of the government because onlythe government has full information access to some aspects of administration. On someissues, legislative proposals are supported both by the majority and the opposition MPs.The legislative proposals of the CHP MPs cover a wide range in terms of the issues theyaddress. The scope of such proposals ranged from amendments to the PR to theestablishment of a Committee on Screening Equality between Women and Men in thefirst legislative year. During this period a group of MPs also submitted a proposal forthe establishment of an Ethics Committee in the TBMM, put forward changes to the lawdealing with fight against corruption (known as ‘the political ethics law’ [Siyasal AhlakYasası]). This obviously was a very strategic issue involving a challenge to the AKP as itscadres have been subject to corruption allegations.

29 According to the RP of the TBMM, it is the privilege of the government group to submitbills. Bills proposed by individual deputies either from the government or theopposition are subject to the approval of the party group administration. Under thecircumstances, a minority party bill has slim chances of making its way to the generalassembly. In the second legislative year, the CHP MPs prepared and submitted 66 bills,and 71 in the third legislative year. Similar to the fate of the proposals of the firstlegislative year, none of these could pass the committee stage due to reasons alreadymentioned (Table 2). Table 2. Legislative proposals of the CHP during the 22nd Period in the TBMM

1st Legislative Year (Nov 2002-Oct 2003) 119

2nd Legislative Year (Oct 2003-Oct 2004) 66


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3rd Legislative Year

(Oct 2004-Oct 2005)71

Total 185

Sources: CHP (2003b); CHP (2004); CHP (2005b).

The Plenary Sessions

30 In the 22nd Assembly, a common way of marginalizing parliamentary opposition hasbeen the insertion of new provisions into bills through motions submitted duringplenary sessions. Although this practice is not new – it also occurred during the ANAP-dominated Parliaments of 1983-1991 –, the government now uses it more frequently. Inthis context, opposition MPs claim that many bills were passed in this way excludingthe opposition even in the deliberation process, since by that time the regularcommittee stage has been over. For example, during the general assembly debates onmetropolitan municipalities’ bill, the government deputies submitted 19 motions forchange, all of which were adopted. It is obvious that the MPs did not have the chance toconsider the content of such last minute motions43. Related to this problem, aprominent CHP MP has called such laws as ‘half-baked laws’44 referring to the onset of apeculiar tradition of legislation pursued by the government in the 22nd Assemblythrough which draft legislation undergoes significant changes (usually in the form ofadditions) when it is submitted to the approval of the Assembly after the committeestage. This means that majority MPs revise the bill through motions of change. Someopposition deputies have considered this strategy as indicative of the lack of aprincipled approach to legislative process since ‘the government does not reclaim itsown bill’45. It should be noted that the CHP MPs also submitted motions during plenarymeetings, but as the number of motions to be put by the opposition is limited by the PR,these motions had no effect.

31 As part of this strategy, attention was also drawn to the fact that certain changesinsisted on by the government are also included into bills dealing with totally unrelatedissues. The notorious law on the sale of the forests is a case in point46. The bill inquestion was inserted into a constitutional amendment bill lowering the age of electionto the Parliament to 2547. It was heavily criticized by the CHP on grounds of substance48;but at the same time the procedure itself was opposed by the CHP group. Previousgovernments on controversial issues have also used this strategy49. Another strategywas to prepare so-called ‘bag bills’ [torba kanun] with a large number of provisions eachrelated to and amending parts of laws completely different from each other in terms ofthe issues they addressed50. The CHP also extensively used its rights of deliberation inplenary sessions on such bills; a case in point has been a recent legislation constitutingof 36 articles amending certain (46) laws and decrees having the force of law. Theselaws ranged from the precautions to be taken against a prospective earthquake inIstanbul to the changes in the titles of civil servants51. In addition to such ‘bag bills’, thereaction of the CHP group also focused on the so-called reform laws as referred by thegovernment on various issues (such as the health care system). This approach wascriticized as a strategy of misnaming the bills to manipulate the public opinion, since


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many CHP deputies thought the government was ‘deforming’ rather than reformingmany institutions in the country52.

32 Finally, the AKP government in this period enacted the rule that the fundamental lawswould be subject to a global vote (with no vote on individual articles). In this way,important and long bills would be passed easily without the obstruction of theopposition. Only two deputies – one from the government party group and one fromthe opposition – may speak on the floor before the voting on those bills, in this wayvery long bills such as the Labor Law and Fundamental Law on Public Administrationcan pass the plenary in a short time53.

33 Against this strategy of the majority group, some obstruction strategies are possible toprevent or to hinder the deliberation according to the Procedural Law (İba 2004: 67).For example, individual MPs or groups can present motions for change during theplenary deliberation or can request roll call in the session54. However, if attendance istaken on request from 20 MPs, the plenary sessions may be closed due to the absence ofthe quorum. This strategy has been used in the past to obstruct plenary sessions oncontroversial issues. Another obstruction strategy is the prolongation of speechesduring the meetings on motions for parliamentary inquiry and the use of speechoutside of the agenda. All deputies who are present in the plenary session have theright to demand to the speaker to take the floor. Moreover, one cannot talk about anyspecific division of labor in this strategy, although deputy Chairs of the CHP group tendto take the floor and speak on almost all such contentious issues55. The latter revolvesaround many topics including the MPs views on local and national problems, on thesignificance of specific events and anniversaries and criticism of the governmentpolicies (CHP 2004: 341). In the 22nd Assembly, the CHP MPs have used these strategiesduring the plenary session debates; e.g. taking the floor on every single article of a law,submitting motions for change and demanding roll call. For example, the bill on theHigher Education Council consisting of 11 articles, normally to be passed in two hours,could only be passed in 20 hours on the 13th May 200456. The bill was opposed by theCHP due to its objection to the new system facilitating the graduates of imam andpreacher school [imam-hatip] graduates’ entry into universities. Another strikingexample is the bill on the new Labor Law; the opposition party extensively usedobstruction strategy, opposing many articles of the bill; thus, it was able to protract thelegislative process for four months.

34 Obviously a more direct way of reacting to the government bills is non-cooperationthrough withdrawal (boycotting the session) as a group from the plenary on a specificvoting session. A case in point is the withdrawal of the CHP group from theConstitutional amendment on the sale of the forestry that came in a constitutionalamendment decreasing the age of elections57. Another instance of boycott took placeduring the vote on the municipalities law in protest of the government’s changeeffected in the Procedural Law of the TBMM to facilitate the enactment of fundamentallaws58. Such boycotts were met with severe reaction from the AKP. On one instance thePrime Minister accused the CHP leader of ‘provoking the street’ and suggested that theCHP group could not adapt itself to the work pace of the TBMM59.

35 The CHP MPs interviewed for this study complained from irregularities by thegovernment MPs which, in their opinion, was not compatible with ‘transparency,accountability, civility and fairness’. Some of these acts allegedly amounted to theprevention of the right of the opposition in the parliament to exercise its control


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criticism function. E.g. in the plenary sessions during the first legislative year, attemptswere made at seizing ballots during some votes, and at sending false notes to thespeaker of the TBMM60. Other examples include the seizure and the opening of some ofthe ballot envelopes by the government MPs during a constitutional amendment on thesale of forestry. This led to small-scale unruly behavior in the assembly and the speakerdelayed the session. An instance of casting fake (multiple) ballot attempts on behalf ofsome government party MPs who later turned out to be absent in the assembly was alsonoted61. Another striking incident – considered by the opposition as a manipulation ofthe legislative process – is that many of the plenary voting sessions were not presidedover by the speaker of the Parliament. In this case, the speaker’s vote would also countwhich goes against the conventions of the TBMM (CHP 2003b: 35). Other instances ofmanipulation of the legislative process by the government’s exclusion of the oppositioninvolved the enactment of amnesty laws which normally needed a qualified majority62,and the violation of the 48 hours waiting period for bills prior to the committee stageand their submission to the Assembly which is envisaged in the PR only forextraordinary conditions63. The permanent committees

36 The party-dominated committee sessions should theoretically foster compromise sinceinter-party negotiations could take place sometimes in the presence of experts in asmaller group64. The 16 committees of the TBMM meet regularly to examine, debateand revise, if necessary, the bills or draft laws with the participation of MPs from partygroups (Turan 2000: 69, İba 2004). Sometimes the meetings include the representativesof civil society organizations or experts65. CHP MPs view the committees as potentiallymore democratic platforms than the plenary since committee members can moreactively get involved in the legislative process in a smaller group; hence, potentiallythey can produce consensus66. On contentious issues, committee members might bedivided, in such cases opposition MPs could be assertive and resistant on all or parts ofthe bills under consideration. Thus, the committees are important as they have thepotential to evoke and address the concerns of the opposition and to demonstrate theindividual MPs’ expertise and oratory skills. Available scant evidence suggests that inthe CHP group the most frequent and ardent speakers among the committee membershave law or academic backgrounds; but this depends on the subject, too67.

37 The ad hoc committees are dominated by the government party68 due to the assignmentof the MPs to the committees on the basis of the relative strength of the parties. Partydiscipline also holds in the committee meetings. The opposition members are notentitled by law to invite experts to the committee meetings. Sometimes a sub-committee is formed on the suggestion of the committee chair for a more detailedexamination of the bills, which writes a report. The opposition MPs are also in minorityin the sub-committees (three-to-two members). Normally, in the TBMM thegovernment as the author of the draft bills expects them to pass the committee stagewith minor revisions. In the 22nd Assembly, the main opposition party MPs havecomplained that the majority MPs regard their party’s legislation as immutable: ‘theytake it as an order to pass it, as if it is a religious obligation to follow’69. Nevertheless,the committee stage remains a critical forum within the Parliament for the governmentand opposition MPs to socialize outside the limitations of the formalities of the plenary


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sessions, and this is where the MPs learn and practice the process of bargaining andnegotiation (Turan 2003: 169)70.

38 In the current legislative period as in previous assemblies, draft legislation oncontroversial issues – e.g. the limitation of parliamentary immunities – can be blockedby the government or, less frequently, at the committee stage. In this way, theenactment of such bills can be delayed as the submission of the bill to the approval ofthe general assembly is protracted or may never be realized if the committeewithdraws the bill. In the case of the Criminal Law reform debates, the opposition inthe Justice committee disagreed with the government on several changes to beintroduced in the draft law. The objection of the CHP members focused on somedeficiencies of the bill and the dangers it would pose to secularism in Turkey. Disputeswith the government members took place in the presence of the media representatives.The frustration of the opposition members made them to declare that they wouldwithdraw from the committee71. However, few changes suggested by the oppositionmade its way into the draft law. In the end, the Criminal Law reform turned to be aprotracted and controversial process over which very little consensus was producedbetween the opposition and the government72. Hence, some of the changes originallyproposed by the government did not materialize under intense opposition from theopposition MPs and committee members. The media also covered some of the debates,although CHP MPs who were active during the committee stage find the mediaattention insufficient. Criminal Law regulates issues over which the CHP feels it canmobilize its constituency, especially on secularism73. Another instance of a temporaryblockage strategy by the opposition MPs took place in July 2005 during meetings on thenew social security law in the Planning and Budget Committee. Then, 20 CHP deputiesentered the Committee and requested the right to speak on the draft law. One MPspoke 44 minutes and in the end the Committee meeting ended in a stalemate when allthe deputies took 10 hours to speak. The members did not have time to consider the billon that day74.

39 The opposition MPs who are committee members consider their roles in thecommittees as quite constrained. As committee members, they are not always providedthe draft laws to be worked on with a reasonable time to examine in advance. As an MPput it: ‘we go to the committee meeting and we sometimes face a new draft law aboutwhich we have not been informed at all. It is a big problem especially when the text ofthe bill is given to us the day before the committee meeting. As committee members,we have to examine the bills thoroughly… some legislation is thus turned into law byonly five to ten MPs’75.

40 Overall, the general impression of the committee meetings shared by all the oppositionMPs interviewed for this research is that the committee meetings are dominated by thepower of the numbers. Opposition MPs are actively engaged in the discussion of draftlaws in the committee meetings, and try to defend their views, insisting on necessaryrevisions. Yet, their power to direct the committee and realize their suggestionsremains limited both due to formal functioning of the committees and the attitude ofthe majority.


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Constitutional review as a counter-strategy?

41 During the legislative process the most visible realm in which the CHP group wasactively and enthusiastically engaged was challenging the constitutionality of the lawspassed by the AKP majority. As of April 2005, the number of applications by the CHPgroup reached a total of 50. In the third legislative year, 21 laws out of 166 passed bythe TBMM were taken to the Constitutional Court76. In this, the CHP strategy parallelsthe approach of President Sezer, who has so far used his veto quite liberally in the 22nd

Assembly77. The CHP’s strategy is in line with the President’s sensitivities for theunitary state principle and secularism. In fact, ‘the protection of secularism and thefundamentals of the Republic in the best possible way’ was the most important missionof the main opposition CHP in the self-perception of the CHP MPs78. Their challengesfocus on these principles as well as on the notions of public good and equality beforelaw.

42 All of the MPs interviewed in this research considered the applications toConstitutional Court as essential to counteract the ‘irresponsible’ approach of themajority79. Some MPs saw the process as an integral part of the opposition’s mainfunction of monitoring the government80. The interviews suggest that this strategy isperceived by the CHP MPs as a counterstrategy of dealing with their exclusion andmarginalization from the legislative process. A discussion of the justifications of theConstitutional Court decisions and the grounds for application by the CHP is outsidethe attention of our work. Suffice it to say that the CHP group’s success in this regard ismixed. As of April 2005 out of 50 applications, 13 laws were nullified (in part orpartially ruled for suspension for implementation by the Court), 7 were rejected anddecisions on 30 were pending. Still, the opposition MPs believe that even partial successon this front is significant, and the fact that the CHP group was always alert on theissues of secularism and unitary state constitutes an invisible brake on the majorityparty in the TBMM. As the deputy Secretary-General of the party put it: ‘they (the AKPgroup) are sometimes hesitant because of our opposition; on some issues they thinkthat they would have a hard time with us; hence do not dare to bring up someproposals’81.

III. The MP in the CHP group

43 The role and activities of opposition MPs in the Parliament is very much conditioned bytheir party. The election process itself has perpetuated the dominance and power of thecentral party organization and the leader over individual MPs. At a macro-level, strongparty discipline and party cohesion have eroded the effectiveness of the opposition inthe legislature vis-à-vis the executive 82 (Özbudun 1968, 2000). Strong party disciplineleads to higher polarization in the legislature. Hence, a look at the relationship of thedeputy to his party group and their perceptions of the group dynamics would provideus with insights into as to whether the MPs have sufficient scope for action asopposition actors on their own in this system.


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Party discipline and the CHP group

44 There have been many reasons for the individual MPs’ submissiveness to their partygroup, the most important of which is the strong party discipline – intensified byloyalty to the party – which runs through the parliamentary group for both thegovernment and the opposition. The CHP is notoriously known for the strong grip of itsleader Deniz Baykal over intra-party affairs and the party organization at all levels. Therecent intra-party developments have also evidenced that Baykal’s domination is sostrong that even would-be challengers to the incumbent leader and the executiveorgans, all almost handpicked by the leader, cannot find a proper atmosphere for intra-party competition (Güneş-Ayata 2002; Bila 1999)83.

45 As underlined by the MPs interviewed for this study, a typical instance of thesubmissiveness of the MP to the parliamentary group is a situation where MPs come inand out of the general assembly during the plenary session while hanging out in thecorridors, entering the meeting only for the vote. It is usually the case that most ofthese MPs are not informed about or have not much interest in the bill underconsideration. These deputies who do not regularly attend the plenary are notinformed of the laws that come before the group but stick to the group’s line.Interviews suggest that these MPs are not very familiar with the legislative process (e.g.some ex-mayors), devote more time and energy to constituency work, and do notexpect to be re-nominated in the coming elections, hence they do not feel anyobligation or pressure to the party group. Besides, some deputies prefer to be activeoutside the Parliament especially on civil society platforms84. The latter MPs (althoughonly a few) do not feel much obligation to cooperate with the group by physically beingpresent in plenary sessions.

46 The CHP group has a formal administrative structure, with deputy chairs [grupbaşkanvekilleri] selected by the group members and leading the group. They are thenatural spokesmen for the group (İba 2004: 88)85. Formally, groups can take a ‘groupdecision’ and impose it on all the deputies of the party except for specific votingsessions indicated in the Constitution and the RP86. In practice, the party group hassubstantial authority over individual MPs; the deputies have to take the consent of thegroup administration for their legislative activities such as the submission of legislativeproposals and motions for questions. They also have to get the permission of the groupadministration to make a speech in the plenary sessions. Those who violate these rulesand who do not vote with the party group are subjected to various sanctions andpunishments87. The group deputy chairs determine the agenda of the group meetings,and the group meets regularly every week. The meetings of the CHP group have aclosed session in the morning before the regular session, where individual MPs can takethe floor. Sometimes experts are also invited to inform the group on certain issues. Inthe afternoon sessions are broadcast on television and open to the press, but only theparty chair speaks88.

47 Today, periodic party group meetings work as a mechanism to promote submissivenessof the MPs to the party leader. Yet, historically this has not always been the case, asparty groups in the Parliament have also constituted forums for open debates andcriticisms (Turan 2003)89. Overall the group meetings function to deepen intra-groupunity and solidarity as well as to strengthen the leader’s authority over the electedrepresentatives of the party. In practice, party groups do not take many formal


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decisions because in most cases it is redundant with the party discipline in voting.However, party group can impose a common vote in the general assembly. This was thecase during the March 1st 2003 resolution on the cooperation with the US during theinvasion of Iraq. The CHP did not take a formal group decision but an informal processbinding all MPs took place prior to the voting of the motion in the assembly90.

48 The CHP MPs generally underline the undemocratic aspect of the oligarchic leadershipwhich subordinates ideology and program to the leader. However, the majority of theopposition MPs inquired for this study do not seem to consider the CHP groupdynamics within the Parliament as incompatible with democracy. The MPs areregarded as ‘member of a family’91., and, as implied in the interviews, have only somedegree of autonomy. They may sometimes hold views contrary to that of the group, butduring votes in the plenary they stick to the party line. According to some MPs, ‘theparty-MP relationship is like a marriage relationship between husband and wife’92 MPshave the option of withdrawing from a particular plenary session voting if theirposition is not in line with that of the group since ‘participating in the voting anddefecting from the party group line take a lot of courage (euphemism)’93. For the MPs,being a party member means that they came together on certain common grounds;hence the group unity is important to maintain94. In fact, in the eyes of most of theMPs, the group’s control over the individual deputies is a natural process. The specificworldview (Kemalism) and ideology (social–democracy) of the CHP group seem morehomogenous than the AKP one. The CHP group has also a more coherent structure; thedisagreements of the MPs with the group and even disciplinary sanctions do notseriously damage their sense of belonging95. However, some MPs find the group’sauthority excessive on the grounds that it forms an important pressure over the MPs.In particular, the obligation of getting the group’s permission for speaking andsubmitting proposals of law has been heavily criticized by some96. But the majority didnot voiced similar concerns and pointed out that some MPs do not participate incritical votes and yet receive no sanctions.

49 The strong sense of belonging to the party is an important bastion on which groupunity and party discipline rest. Yet the MPs draw attention to the lack of dynamism inthe group mechanism. Complaints center on the fact that group mechanism/traditionentrenches professional politicians in the party; that the majority of the MPs arepassive actors in the group meetings which weakens the enthusiasm and themotivation of the individual MP in a short period following his/her election97. Theredoes not seem to be a uniform view among the deputies on party group discipline interms of its (un)democratic features and most importantly on the role it plays in theparty’s opposition strategy. At this point, it can be contended that the opposition MPsseem somewhat confused about the meaning of party discipline as some of themconsider party discipline and group dynamics as one and the same, while somedifferentiate the two. The differences between CHP MPs

50 Understandably, some MPs are significantly more active than others in preparing andsubmitting legislative proposals. The fact that a total of 23 CHP deputies resigned fromtheir parties – most of them joining other parties, including AKP – as of December 2005is not directly associated with party discipline. Loyalty to the party and disciplineshould be distinguished; in general the higher the party loyalty, the stronger the party


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discipline will be in the Parliament (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 58). However, one cannotestablish a direct relationship between the two. High involvement in the legislativeactivities and abiding by party discipline do not necessarily and always mean highlevels of affiliation with the party. For example, a CHP MP who submitted 10 proposalsin the first legislative year (which is strikingly high compared to the others) then lefthis party to join the AKP98. The existence of such an example and other defectionsindicate problems with party loyalty rather than with discipline. Along these lines, datain the interviews suggests that those who left the party are more likely to be the oneswith little ideological affiliation with the party, with no hopes of getting nominated bythe party in the next elections. Their loyalty is so weak that they can be easily temptedby the prospects of gaining material and other advantages from the government partyif they join99.

51 Some MPs submit legislative proposals addressing specific problems of theirconstituency or about issues within their professional fields. Obviously, not all MPsconcentrate their efforts on the legislative activities, as some of them have otherformal duties such as committee membership and intra-party duties. For some MPs,constituency service and activities oriented to the public opinion seem to take priorityespecially if they have many clients to attend to. MPs who held mayoral positionsbefore entering the Parliament are good examples. One such MP mentioned that – although being an opposition MP largely impedes their capacity to meet the demands(most importantly finding jobs) –, they still receive many100. It has been argued by otherMPs without prior experience that ex-mayors MPs are adopting a passive profilebecause they cannot adapt to the legislative role which is quite different from theiractivities in the municipalities101. Indeed, both of the ex-mayors interviewed for thisstudy expressed their frustration with the MP role compared to the mayoral positionwhich was more active and also made them more visible and popular in the eyes oftheir constituency.

52 Speaking on the floor on their own or on behalf of the group is not something that allMPs embrace with equal enthusiasm. MPs usually prefer to talk on the laws of theirimmediate concern especially if the bill is coming from the committee they are partof102. Academics, diplomats and lawyers may also be more active on the floor in theplenary meetings. On critical foreign policy issues, the CHP group has specific MPs(with diplomatic background) competent on this realm who often take the floor onbehalf of their party group103.

53 A cursory glance on the list of the legislative proposals submitted by individual CHPMPs does not suggest a relation between professional backgrounds and legislativeactivities. For example, in the second legislative year, the four MPs with the highestnumber of bills submitted had education (teacher), law, industry/business, andacademic (economist) backgrounds. Female MPs also are active on proposals aboutgender equality, such as the bill put forward by a prominent CHP MP on theestablishment of a Screening Committee on the Equality between Women and Men(March 2003).

54 Finally, a distinction can be made between MPs in touch with their constituency andthe party organization, mostly those who have risen from grassroots, and those whohave no contacts with their constituency and the local organization who have risen inthe party due to their professional qualifications such as academics. The extra-parliamentary activities of the latter group are not oriented to the constituency. As


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explained, sometimes these MPs are more engaged in cooperating with the NGOs ratherthan socializing with the group or dealing with constituency relations and serving anyclients. However, this group is also criticized by the first group, and even sometimesblamed for the party’s perceived failure to get into contact with the masses104.

Conclusion

55 The 22nd Legislative Assembly gives the picture of majority-dominated Parliament withthe main opposition considerably restrained in providing effective contributions to thelegislative process. Lack of consensus tradition seems partly responsible for this. Yet,the main opposition embraced a ‘constructive opposition approach’ and there have notbeen frequent or major incidents of unruly behavior. Nevertheless, the opposition MPsfind themselves excluded through formal and informal means from the legislativeprocess. In a context of polarization over crucial issues, they tend to consider theirroles in a ‘preemptive’ pattern vis-à-vis the government. Opposition deputies have beenusing several strategies of obstruction to circumvent their exclusion by thegovernment party during the legislative process. Challenging the constitutionality ofthe laws is seen as a major pillar on which the opposition relies vis-à-vis the majority.Based on the in-depth interviews with a selected group of the CHP deputies, it can beclaimed that deputies feel discomfort from the institutional constrains (in the TBMM)which hamper their potential contributions to the legislative process and their capacityto deliver a more effective opposition. Individually, the deputy body is heterogeneousin terms of the intensity and the focus of their activities in the Parliament. Partydiscipline runs high in the CHP group; yet although it weakens the autonomy of theindividual MP, loyalty and party discipline are given priority over concerns with intra-party democracy in the Parliament. While this study has excluded the role ofopposition MPs in control and information gathering, it suggests that the autonomy ofthe opposition deputy and the channels for them to be visible in the legislative processas individual members of the opposition remain quite limited. Further research shouldlook at other aspects and reasons of this situation in the broader context of Turkishpolitics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bandeirera, C. L.; Freire, A. (2003) ‘Internalizing the lessons of stable democracy: the PortugueseParliament’, The Journal of Legislative Studies, 9(2), Summer, pp. 56-84.

Bila, Fikret (1999) CHP, 1919-1999, Istanbul, Doğan Kitap.

Bogdanor, V. (ed) (1985) Representatives of the People: Parliaments and Constituents in WesternDemocracies, Aldershot, Gower.


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Çarkoğlu, Ali (2002) ‘The rise of the new generation of pro-islamists in Turkey: the Justice andDevelopment Party phenomenon in the November 2002 elections in Turkey’, South EuropeanSociety and Politics, 7(3), pp. 123-156.

Foundethakis, P. (2003) ‘The Hellenic Parliament: the new rules of the game’, The Journal ofLegislative Studies, 9(2), Summer, pp. 85-106.

Frey, Frederick (1965) The Turkish Political Elite, Cambridge, MIT Press.

Güneş-Ayata, Ayşe (2002) ‘The Republican People’s Party’, Turkish Studies, 3(1), Spring, pp.102-121.

İba, Şeref (2004) 100 Soruda Parlamento (The Parliament in 100 Questions: An Introduction to the Law ofParliament), Ankara, Nobel.

Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (1990) ‘Cyclical Breakdown, Redesign and Nascent Institutionalization: theTurkish Grand National Assembly’ in Liebert, Ulrike; Cotta, Maurizio (eds.), Parliament andDemocratic Consolidation in Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey, London, Printer,pp. 184-222.

Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin (1988) ‘The 1983 Parliament in Turkey: Changes and Continuities’, in Heper,Metin; Evin, Ahmet (eds.), State, Military and Politics in Turkey, Berlin and New York, de GruyterPress, pp. 47-65.

Muller, Wolfgang C.; Saalfeld, Thomas (eds.) (1997) Members of Parliament in Western Europe,London, Frank Cass.

Norton, Philip (1990) ‘Parliaments: a Framework for Analysis’, in Norton, Philip (ed.), Parliamentsin Western Europe, London, Frank Cass.

Özbudun, Ergun (1968) Batı Demokrasilerinde ve Türkiye’de Parti Disiplini, Ankara, SBF.

Özbudun, Ergun (1978) ‘Parliament in the Turkish political system’, Journal of South Asian andMiddle Eastern Studies, 2(1).

Özbudun, Ergun (1989) Türk Anayasa Hukuku, Ankara, Yetkin (2nd ed).

Özbudun, Ergun (2000) Contemporary Turkish Politics: Challenges to Democratic Consolidation, Boulder,Lynne Reinner.

Pridham, Geoffrey (1990) ‘Political Parties, Parliaments and Democratic Consolidation inSouthern Europe: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives’ in Liebert, Ulrike; Cotta, Maurizio(eds), Parliament and Democratic Consolidation in Europe, London, Pinter, pp. 225-248.

Tachau, Frank (1980) ‘Turkey’, in Özbudun, Ergun; Landau, Jacob (eds.), Electoral Politics in theMiddle East, London, Croom Helm, pp. 205-242.

Tanör, Bülent (1990) ‘The Place of Parliament in Turkey’ in Finkel, Andrew; Sirman, Nükhet(eds.), Turkish State, Turkish Society, London, Routledge, pp. 139-158.

TESEV (1999) Social, Political and Economic Values in Turkey.

Tosun, Tanju (2002) ‘Seçmenin Umuda Yolculuğu’ Radikal, 23 June.

Turan, İlter (1985) ‘Changing horses in mid-stream: party changers in the Turkish Grand NationalAssembly’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 10, pp. 21-34.

Turan, İlter (2000) ‘The Effectiveness of Parliaments and the Turkish Grand National Assembly’ inTuran, İlter (ed.), The Effectiveness of the TBMM, Istanbul, TESEV, pp. 15-33.


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Turan, İlter (2003) ‘Volatility in politics, stability in Parliament: an impossible dream? TheTurkish Grand National Assembly during the last two decades’, The Journal of Legislative Studies9(2), pp. 151-176.

Yücekok, Ahmet (1983) Türkiye’de Parlemento’nun Evrimi, Ankara, SBF.

CHP (2003a) AKP Hükümetinin Yüz Günü.

CHP (2003b) TBMM CHP Grubu 22. Dönem 1. Yasama Yılı Çalışmalarının Sayısal Değerlendirilmesi.

CHP (2004) 22. Dönem 2. Yasama Yılı Çalışmaları.

CHP (2005a) Son İki Yılda CHPnin Katkıları: Bir Özet.

CHP (2005b) 22. Dönem 3. Yasama Yılı Çalışmaları.

Newspapers:

Radikal

Milliyet

Proceedings (Verbatim Reports) of the TBMM:

22nd Period, 1st Legislative Year, Session: 4 (26th November 2002)

22nd Period, 1st Legislative Year, Special Session (1st March 2003)

22nd Period, 1st Legislative Year, Session: 62 (4th May 2003)

22nd Period, 1st Legislative Year, Session: 74 (1st May 2003)

22nd Period, 1st Legislative Year, Session: 86 (28th May 2003)

22nd Period, 2nd Legislative Year, Session: 88 (13th May 2004)

22nd Period, 3rd Legislative Year, Session: 69 (10th March 2005)

NOTES1. The most prominent and classical study which stands as such even today is Frey’s (1965). Otherworks of significance include Özbudun (1978), Tachau (1980), Yücekok (1983), Turan (1985, 2003),Kalaycıoğlu (1988, 1990), Tanör (1990).2. For example, Muller and Saalfeld (1997), Bogdanor (1985), Foundethakis (2003), Bandeirera andFreire (2003).3. This description was used by the chief advisor to the CHP parliamentary group, LeventBayraktar, during my interview with him on 12 January 2005. I gratefully acknowledge his aid inproviding me with some of the data about the legislature and in sharing his observations withme. 4. In accordance with the Article 77 of the Procedural Law of the TBMM.5. Subsequently, these laws helped Turkey in meeting the Copenhagen political criteria requiredby the EU to start accession negotiations. 6. According to the most recent data available, the 22nd TBMM has passed a total of 620 laws untilthe end of the third legislative year (July 2005). In the third legislative year, 165 laws werepassed.7. Because the study did not intend to be a quantitative research, and also due to the practicaldifficulty of reaching a larger group representing a cross-section of the CHP parliamentary


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group, a small group of the MPs were selected among committee members and contacted to beinterviewed. The interviews took place in the offices of the MPs in the TBMM except for thedeputy secretary general of the CHP. He was interviewed in his office in the party headquarters.Interviews lasted between 40 minutes to one hour. The names of the MPs are kept anonymousthroughout the essay.8. It should be noted here that unruly behavior does not serve the amelioration of the publicstanding of the parliamentary institution. In the late 1990s, it was found that the support rate forthe TBMM among the public stood at 58% (TESEV 1999: 45).9. The percentage of MPs being not re-elected was 90.4% in 1961, and 93% in 1983.10. A recent example is the decision of the CHP group to desert the plenary session on reformlaws on 1 July 2005 in protest of the changes made in the Procedural Law to speed up thedeliberation of ‘fundamental laws’. The CHP group declared the strategy of the government a‘civilian coup’, Radikal, 2 July, 2005.11. As explained to me by the research unit in the TBMM, the range of unruly behavior is verywide and, since not all instances of disruptive acts has been recorded in the proceedings, it isalmost impossible to reach exact data on the subject. The researcher should survey all theproceedings volumes and also watch the recorded plenary sessions, which should be analtogether separate and very lengthy process of research.12. The session in question was on the 4 April 2003. 13. Milliyet, 30 June 2005.14. Proceedings of the TBMM, 22nd Period, third Legislative Year, Session: 69, date: 10 March2005. 15. Interview with the advisor to the CHP group, 12 January 2005. 16. The law in question was enacted by the TBMM but subsequently vetoed by the President.When some of the laws were again passed, the CHP took them to the Constitutional Court ongrounds of unconstitutionality. An account of these is beyond the attention of this limited essaybut these laws included the Law on Municipalities, on Private Provincial Administrations, the lawon Metropolitan Municipalities. The Law on Municipalities was annulled by the Court, othersdecisions are pending. 17. Proceedings of the TBMM, 22nd Period, first Legislative Year, Session: 4, date: 26.11.2002, pp.4-6. 18. Interview with a member of the Constitutional Committee, CHP deputy. 4 April 2005. 19. This point was underlined by all the deputies interviewed for this study. See also: Radikal, 6November 2002. 20. Proceedings of the TBMM, 22nd Period, first Legislative Year, Session: 4, date: 26.11.2002, pp.4-6.21. Ibid. p. 6. On this point Baykal particularly criticized the AKP’s intention of making a newconstitution relying on its numerical majority and its unwillingness to deal with the question ofthe limitation of parliamentary immunities. He expressed frustration with the AKP program onboth points 22. ‘Warning of the CHP to the AKP’, Radikal, 6 November 2003.23. CHP (2003a); Milliyet, 18 December 2002. 24. This point was emphasized in some of the interviews I made with the leading CHP deputies; itwas claimed that the AKP has no excuse for its policies. See also CHP (2005a:7).25. Interview with a CHP deputy, member of the Constitution Committee, 4 April 2005. 26. Radikal, 6 November 2002. 27. The Press Conference of the CHP Group’s Deputy Chair, 3 March 2004 (CHP 2004: 303-310).28. Interview with a CHP deputy, member of the National Education Committee, 16 March 2004.29. Interview with a CHP deputy, another member of the National Education Committee, 15 April2005. This point was emphasized many times during my interviews with the CHP deputies.


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30. Interview with a CHP deputy, the member of the National Education Committee, 15 April2005.31. This is a shared sentiment by all the deputies interviewed for the study, although individuallysome of them said that they ought to be more active as an MP on many platforms.32. Interview with a member of the Interior Affairs Committee, an ex-mayor, 25 March 2005.33. Interview with a member of the Constitutional Committee, 4 April 200534. Expressed in the interview with a member of the National Education Committee, 15 April2005.35. Expressed in various interviews.36. It is interesting to note that a long-time TBMM staff working in the research unit of theTBMM has once told me that without such a system of the allocation of the offices, the deputieswould probably get into conflict with each other over the rooms.37. Interview with a CHP MP, member of the Environment Committee, 14 April 2005 38. Expressed by a CHP MP, member of the National Education Committee, 16 March 2005. 39. Interview with another CHP member of the National Education Committee, 15 April 2005.40. From the same interview.41. Interview with a CHP MP, member of the Planning and Budget Committee, 15 April 2005.42. Unfortunately it is not possible to have a record of such bills because it would be extremelydifficult to categorize and sort them out.43. 22. Dönem İkinci Yasama Yılı Çalışmaları, CHP, p. 57.44. Interview with a CHP MP, the Deputy General Secretary of the CHP, 17 March 1205.45. Interview with a CHP member of the Planning and Budget Committee, 15 April 2005.46. The bill was referred to in the public opinion as the ‘2-B bill’ as it changed the section B of the2nd article of the law on forestry.47. ‘Hükümet Muradına Erdi’ Radikal, 30 July 200348. It was claimed that the governments’ approach was totally to gain income from the sale offorests, reflecting a mentality which disregards the forest farmers. They also asked thegovernment to make way for the creation of new forests with the income from the sales.Interview with the deputy Secretary General of the CHP, 17 March 2005.49. It was also expressed by the MP that this strategy and ‘the half-baked’ bill approach were notquite new as the Motherland Party governments also adopted a similar approach.50. For a recent example of the so-called bag law, see: Proceedings of the TBMM 22nd Period,third Legislative Period, Session: 69, 10 March 2005. 51. Erdem, Tarhan ‘The Bag Bill’ Radikal, 28th April 2005.52. Interview with another CHP MP, formerly a professor of medicine who criticized this reformmentality, especially in the case of the revisions to the hospital system, 14 March 2005.53. Mentioned in the interviews with the CHP’s Deputy Secretary General.54. Normally such call is not done for all sessions; opening a session is up to the discretion of theSpeaker based on his evaluation of the situation of the room. 55. Mentioned by the advisor to the CHP Group in the TBMM.56. Mentioned by a member of the Education Committee. The bill in question (Law n° 5171) wasamending Law n° 2547. It was vetoed by the President; then the government did not bring it tothe attention of the TBMM again. Proceedings of the TBMM; second Legislative Year, Session: 88,13 May 2004.57. In that session on 29 July 2003, the government passed the amendment with the votes of theDYP and ANAP with 368 votes, the CHP did not participate in the voting. Radikal, 30 July 2003. 58. The session was on the 2 July 2005: Milliyet, 2 July 2005 ‘Boycott of the Fundamental Laws’.59. Milliyet, 3 July 2005.


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60. During the 74th and 86th sessions on the 1 May 2003 and 28 May 2003 respectively. In thesecond, the bill was changing the law on natural disasters; the quorum was not realized, hencethe session was closed by the Speaker (CHP 2003b: 28-31).61. Proceedings of the TBMM, first Legislative Year; Session: 62, 4 April 2003.62. In the latest instance, the amnesty law for university students who were expelled from theirschools after 2000, was vetoed by the President in February 2005. It was then voted by the samemajority and passed in the TBMM. 63. The CHP group notes that on some occasions, this waiting period was disregarded, andcommittee reports were published as if they had also been distributed to the deputies. 64. The appointment of the committee members are done by the General Assembly whichapproves the party group’s appointment in the first session at the beginning of each legislativeterm to be renewed at the end of the two years; and the committees stay in job for until the endof the legislative term.65. The frequency of the meetings changes, depending on the nature of the legislation underconsideration.66. Underlined in the interviews; CHP MP from the Environment Committee and the sub-committee, and with the member of the Constitutional Committee, 4 April 2005.67. Interview with a member of the Justice Committee, 4 April 2005.68. The members are 16 from the government and to 8 from the CHP. The agenda and themeetings of the committees are determined by the committee chairs belonging to the AKP. 69. Interview with a member of the National Education Committee, 15 April 2005.70. Although an MP (member of the Environment Committee) stated that ‘even if we could not doanything we would discuss the issues, if you defend a position in a consistent way then you couldhave some influence on the legislative process’. However, most deputies conceded that theirinfluence over the government members remained in practice very weak.71. Interview with a CHP MP, a member of the Justice Committee, 4 April 2005. 72. Just before the law would enter into effect its date of effect was postponed to the 1st of June2005. 73. Interview with the same member of the Justice Committee. Among the most controversialcriminal law amendments were the proposed plan to make adultery a punishable act failed in theplenary meeting of September 2004 and to make ‘offending the public’s religious feelings andvalues publicly a punishable act’ (same interview).74. Milliyet, 2 July 2005.75. Interview with a member of the Committee of Interior Affairs, 25 March 2004.76. In the first Legislative Year, the CHP took thirteen laws and a decision by the TBMM (on RPchanges), and in the Second Year 23 laws, to the Constitutional Court. Among the laws challengedby the CHP are the law on municipalities, the law on associations and the press law (CHP 2004:83). Data on the third Legislative Year were provided by Mr. Bayraktar, advisor to the CHP group.77. During the Second Legislative Period (October 2003-July 2004), President Sezer returned 15laws, including the law abrogating certain municipalities, the fundamental law on publicadministration (kamu yönetimi temel kanunu) and its reconstruction and the law on municipalitiesto the Parliament for reconsideration. He had vetoed only nine laws during the DSP-MHP-ANAPgovernment in a period of two years. Yet, by the time the AKP government was in power for oneand a half year, the President had vetoed 19 laws passed by the TBMM. See ‘Continuous veto tothe AKP’, Milliyet, 16 May 2004.78. Underlined in all the interviews.79. The member of the Planning and Budget Committee drew attention to this ‘irresponsibility’by mentioning that some government MPs claim that they would re-introduce the bills vetoed bythe President even before the Presidential veto grounds were made official.


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80. Such as the MP member of the National Education Committee, interviewed on the 15 of April2005. 81. Interview, 17 March 2005.82. As Özbudun (1968) wrote decades ago, party discipline and party cohesion are analyticallydistinct. When the members of legislature vote as a block or in union this could be due tocohesion or discipline or a combination of both.83. See ‘Livaneli CHP ile Yolunu Ayırdı’, Milliyet, 25 February 2005 and ‘Baykal’dan Son Darbe’,Milliyet, 19 November 2005.84. As reminded to me by the Deputy General Secretary of the CHP in the interview, the CHPrecruited few such deputies known in the public for their intellectual and technocratic activities.But these have not embraced the typical parliamentary responsibilities (17 March 2005).85. The chair of the party is naturally also the chair of the group.86. According to the Constitution, the groups may not take group decisions on the followingsessions: nominations for the Speaker of the TBMM, legislative immunities and motions forparliamentary investigations.

87. The group administration may impose such sanctions for disobedience as warning,condemning and temporary or permanent expulsion in accordance to the PoliticalParties Law.88. It should be noted that the group meetings of the AKP do not have a closed section whereasthe closed group meetings of the CHP are a party tradition. The agenda of the group meetings isprepared by the group deputy chairs (interview with the CHP group advisor, TBMM, 12 January2005).89. Erdem, Tarhan ‘Başkanı Dinleme Toplantıları’, Radikal, 29 May 2003.90. Only one of them confessed the fact that, while no binding group decision was taken by thegroup, an informal group decision was, every single deputy giving his word.91. Interview with a member of the Environment Committee, 1 April 2005.92. Interview with another member of the National Education Committee, 14 March 2005. 93. Interview with the Deputy-General Secretary, 17 March 2005.94. Interview with the Deputy-General Secretary, 17 March 2005.95. Interview with a member of the Environment Committee, 14 April 2005.96. ‘CHP milletvekili grup yönetimine isyan etti’ Milliyet, 31 March 2005.97. Interview with a CHP MP, member of the Education Committee, 16 March 2005.98. In this particular example, the MP in question was a businessman who allegedly joined thegovernment after leaving his party for concerns over his tax debt (interview with the CHPadvisor to the group).99. In addition to various interviews, this explanation was also provided by the advisor to theCHP group.100. Interview with a member of the Education Committee, an ex-mayor of a sub-province in theMarmara region, 14 April 2005. 101. Observations from the Deputy Secretary General of the CHP in the interview (17 March2005), also mentioned in other interviews.102. Underlined by all during my interviews. An interesting response came from an MP who wasa mayor of a city in the East. He said that he sometimes participates to panels, conferences butthat he does not want to make frequent appearance on the TV with a concern ‘not to wear out hisface’, 25 March 2005.103. For example, Şükrü Elekdağ and Onur Öymen who are on the forefront especially on foreignpolicy issues.104. Ex-mayors especially expressed such criticism towards these MPs.


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ABSTRACTSThis article analyzes the role and strategy of the main opposition (CHP) party’s MPs, theirperceptions of their roles, their place in the legislative process and their relationship with theirparty in the 22nd Turkish Grand National Assembly. In multi-party Parliaments characterized bymoderate to high levels of partisan competition, understanding the role of the opposition MPscalls for locating and analyzing three major constraints: the informal norms between themajority and the opposition, the place of the opposition MPs in the legislative process, and partydiscipline. In this context, a major question to be answered is whether there is a space where MPscan act as individuals in Parliament.

INDEX

Mots-clés: consensus, gouvernement, opposition, processus législatifKeywords: bills, consensus, government, opposition, legislative process

AUTHOR

CANAN ASLAN-AKMAN

Assistant professor at Middle East Technical University, [email protected]


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Constituency service in Turkey: asurvey on MPsYasushi Hazama

1 Public support to the legislature, which is one of the two keys for an institutionalizedlegislature, largely depends on the effectiveness of representation. Representation hasbeen generally understood to encompass 1) policy responsiveness, 2) serviceresponsiveness, 3) allocation responsiveness, and 4) symbolic responsiveness.Traditionally, most of the literature on representation has been devoted to policyresponsiveness. It was not until the late 1970s that the service and allocation aspects ofrepresentation especially in single-member constituencies came to receive attention inthe literature (Cain et al. 1984, Jewell 1985, Cain et al. 1987, Norton et al. 1993).

2 The service and allocational aspects of representation should be also important forsome plural-member constituencies for at least two reasons. First, proportionalrepresentational systems, which require the electorates to vote for a party, do notencourage representatives to establish closer ties with their constituents thanmajoritarian electoral systems do. If a proportional-representation system assumesrelatively small constituencies, however, connections between representatives andconstituents will be closer. This is because voters can easily recognize the fewcandidates in the party list and also because representatives find it geographicallyeasier than in large-sized constituencies, to reach constituents. Second, for non-Western countries it has been argued that the service and allocational aspects ofresponsiveness constituted the most important functions of their legislatures (Mezey1979, Jewel 1985).

3 This paper1, based on a questionnaire, surveys some causes and consequences ofconstituency service in a proportional representational system. Turkey provides aninteresting case here since, first of all, its province-size (at largest) constituencies,which ranged from two-member to six-member (See Appendix I), bring the personal aswell as the partisan variable into electoral politics 2. Second, as in other non-Westerndemocracies, it is the service and allocational aspects of responsiveness that composethe most frequent demands of constituents to parliamentarians in Turkey (Kim et al.1984: 95, Kalaycıoğlu 1986: 322, Kalaycıoğlu 1995: 48-54, Keleş et al. 1993: 37).


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4 Third, on the other hand, however, there is conflicting evidence about what priorityTurkish parliamentarians give to constituency service. Authors (Kim et al. 1984) in thelatter half of the 1970s found out that Turkish parliamentarians, unlike other non-Western counterparts, spent less time for constituency service than for those activitiesdirectly or indirectly related to legislation. Out of 101 Turkish parliamentarians whowere asked about the first most frequent activity, 39 responded ‘explaining policies tovoters’ and 30 responded ‘proposing, debating, and amending bills’. Responses relatedto constituency service included only 22 for ‘interceding with civil servants onconstituents behalf’ and 7 for ‘obtaining government resources for my district’ (Kim etal. 1984: 73). However, Kalaycıoğlu in his 1984 and 1988 surveys, found out that,parliamentarians on average spent as much as half of their time listening to demandsfrom constituents (Kalaycıoğlu 1995: 48-54)3. The difference in time spent forconstituency service may have emerged partly because Kalaycıoğlu’s field surveys wereconducted shortly after the transition from the military to the civilian government inDecember 1983. Legislative activities were novel to most of the newly electedparliamentarians, since then the politicians were banned from politics until 1987. It isnecessary therefore to recast the issue in present light.

5 The rest of the paper consists of research design, results, and conclusions sections.After the data and the analytical methods are explained in the research design section,the results section investigates 1) the time allocated for constituency service among thetotal activities of the average parliamentarian, 2) motives for constituency service, 3)politico-economic variables determining the demand and supply of constituencyservice in each constituency. The conclusions section summarizes the major findingsand discusses their implications.

I. Research design

6 The questionnaire text was written in Turkish by the author and then shown in August1994 to leading members of the major political parties4 and to high-rankingbureaucrats for comment. After being revised, the text was finally checked by a high-ranking bureaucrat. The questionnaire was mainly composed of seven-point Likertscale indexes while including a few multiple-choice questions. If the respondent did notfind any of the given scales or alternatives appropriate, he/she could choose ‘other’and could write down his/her answer.

7 The questionnaire survey was conducted in Ankara between June and October 1995.This was the time when Turkey was experiencing the first coalition government – bringing together the center-right DYP (True Path Party) and the center-left SHP(Social Democratic Populist Party) – after the 1980 military intervention. Theparliamentarians were elected in October 1991 for the 19th legislative period of theunicameral Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM). While the Turkish legislativeperiod is defined as five years, early general elections were held in December 1995.During the questionnaire survey, however, neither the government nor Parliament haddecided to call early elections. Both the 1995 and 1999 general elections resulted in afragmented parliament. The period of coalition governments lasted until the pro-Islamic AKP (Justice and Development Party) won the November 2002 general electionto form a single-party government.


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8 The 1983 electoral law (Law No. 2839) provides the basic frame for the present electoralsystem in Turkey. Applied first in the 1983 transition election, the law reflected the1982 constitutional regime and brought about change from the abolished 1961 electorallaw. First, the law set two hurdles to eliminate minor parties. One was the requirementof gaining 10% of the total national votes to obtain seats in the parliament. The partycould not have the right to seats unless it cleared the national 10% minimumrequirement. The other was the same constituency minimum requirement as was usedfrom 1961 to 1965. Second, less importantly, the districting system was changed so thatrural provinces would be more over-represented relative to urban provinces. One seatwas allocated to each province without regard for population size, and then theremaining seats were allocated in proportion to the population, with at least one seatto each province. If the province was entitled to more than seven seats, then theprovinces were divided into plural constituencies that had no less than three seats.

9 Even after the transition to the civilian government, the incumbent’s meddling withthe electoral system for political expediencies continued. Prior to the 1987 generalelection, ‘contingency seats’ were introduced for the provinces that had plural four,five, or six-member constituencies. In these constituencies, one contingency seat wasto be allocated to the first party in the constituency. Incumbent ANAP thus tried to andactually did secure the majority in the face of declining popularity. Prior to the 1995general election, the incumbent as well as other mainstream parties apparently fearedthat the emerging pro-Islamic party might gain the parliamentary majority. As a resultof amendments on the electoral law and of their repeals, 1) the constituency minimumrequirement was lifted, 2) the contingency seats were abolished, and 3) the ceiling onconstituency size was raised to 18 from previous six so that the system became moreproportional in effect. This system remains valid to this day5.

10 The questionnaire was mailed in June 1995 to 430 parliamentarians, which equaled thetotal 450 members of parliament minus those who had passed away and minus thosewho had been expelled from Parliament including the DEP (Democracy Party)members6. The parliamentarians were asked to send the fulfilled questionnaire to theresearcher in the enclosed envelope. Follow-up work was done in October 1995 toremind by phone the parliamentarians and/or their secretaries of the questionnaire.Since the data was not collected by interview, it was not possible to verify the answersgiven in the questionnaire sheet. The data therefore cannot be interpreted as purelydescriptive. There were 85 respondents, i.e. a 19.8 % response ratio7, consisting of 42members in governing parties, 42 in opposition, and one member whose party wasunknown (Table 1). Table 1: Respondents by Party and Ministerial Experience

Party in Ministerial experience in the 19th

legislative periodSample Sample

%8

Population9 Population%

Government Subtotal 42 50.0 233 52.6

‘Yes’ 14 16.7 79 17.8

‘No’ 27 32.1 154 34.8


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No answer 1 1.2 －－

Opposition 42 50.0 210 47.4

Subtotal 84 100.0 443 100.0

No answer 1 －－－

Total 85 － 443 －

Sources: Compiled by the author from TBMM Albümü, 19. Dönem, 1. Baskı, 1992, Ankara, 1992 for theparty distribution of the parliamentary seats and from Sanal (1995: 219-223) for the ministerialexperience of parliamentarians.

11 Out of the 42 respondents from governing parties, 14 had experienced ministerial postsand 27 had not while the remaining one did not answer the relevant question. Despitethe small response ratio, the sample distribution of parliamentarians by party andministerial experience are considerably similar to the population distributions, exceptfor the Eastern region due to the expulsion of DEP parliamentarians. The sampleparliamentarians by region (Table 2) are also distributed in much the same manner asthe population parliamentarians, with a single exception in the Southeast region. Datawas then put into the non-parametric statistical analysis since nominal and ordinalscales used in the questionnaire did not allow the normal-distribution assumption onthe population.

Table 2: Respondents by Region

Region Sample Population10

N (%)11 N (%)

West 29 36.7 131 30.5

South 12 15.2 60 14.0

Central 21 26.6 107 24.9

North 8 10.1 45 10.5

East 9 11.4 87 20.2

Subtotal 79 100.0 430 100.0

No answer 6 －－－

Total 85 － 430 －

Source: Compiled by the author from TBMM Albümü, 19. Dönem, 1. Baskı, 1992, Ankara, 1992.


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II. Results

12 From the results of the questionnaire survey, this section reveals 1) various kinds ofconstituency service and its proportion to the total activities of parliamentarians, 2)parliamentarians’ motives for engaging in constituency service, and 3) political andeconomic variables that affect the demand for and the supply of constituency service.

Constituency service: what and how much?

Time allocations

13 Within the time at their own disposal, parliamentarians were busier with meetingconstituents than with legislative activities. Table 3 shows that the two largest sharesof their time were spent either in the General Assembly or in party group meetings.These activities, however, are almost obligations as parliamentarians or as partymembers. Then what came next was ‘visiting the constituency’, followed by ‘meetingconstituents for their personal problems’ if we exclude another such obligatory activityas ‘participating in parliamentary committee meetings’. As a result, parliamentariansallocated very limited time to preparing bills and questions12.

Table 3: Time Spent Annually for Each Activity13

Activities Index14 mean

Obligatory

Participating in the General Assembly 6.06

Participating in parliamentary group meetings 5.96

Participating in the parliamentary committee 5.32

Voluntary

Visiting the constituency 5.35

Meeting constituents for their personal problems 5.19

Preparing bills 3.13

Preparing written and oral questions 3.08

Source: the author’s questionnaire survey.

Demands and solutions

14 The frequency of demand from constituents was closely related to the possibility thatparliamentarians will find any form of solution to their problems (Table 4). Spearman’srhos between the demands brought and demands solved ranged from .311 to .590. It is


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either because parliamentarians tried to solve those problems that they were mostfrequently asked to or because constituents brought to parliamentarians thoseproblems which could be possibly solved by parliamentarians, or because of bothreasons. The results also show that parliamentarians were more capable in allocationresponsiveness than in service and policy responsiveness. Parliamentarians were thusmore responsive to such demands as job-creating investments in the constituency (ρ=.590) and infrastructural services of the constituency (ρ=.554) than to those demandsrelated to constituents' personal problems (ρ=.321), complaints of the local government(ρ=.425), complaints to the central government (ρ=.311), and legislative activities (ρ=.448).

Table 4: Frequency of Demands from Constituents15

Demands Index16Brought(A)

Index Solved(B)

Spearman’s rho for (A)and (B)17

Their personal problems 5.92 3.71 .321

Infrastructural services18 of theconstituency

4.79 4.06 .554

Complaints to the centralgovernment

4.51 3.25 .311

Job‑creating investment in theconstituency

4.14 3.10 .590

Complaints of the local government 3.56 3.12 .425

Legislative activity 2.43 3.49 .448

Source: The author’s questionnaire survey.

Motives: why?

15 What are some of the most important motives behind constituency service that take upmuch of parliamentarians' time of their own disposal? This study assumes thatparliamentarians are motivated for constituency service by their primary objective ofreelection. It will be possible to analyze the clearer relationship between constituencyservice and re-electoral motives by dividing the reelection process into the party-listnomination stage and the election stage. This section also sheds light on the role ofmedia that publicize parliamentarians’ constituency service activities.

Party list nomination

16 In all parties but the social democratic CHP (Republican People’s Party), it is the partyleader and/or the party central committee that decides on the ranking of candidates onthe party list. Kalaycıoğlu (1995: 46) argued that ‘the political party leaderships always


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try to balance the local popularity against the personal loyalty of the candidates to theparty leader’.

17 Table 5 shows, however, that the balance is tilted slightly in favor of popularity againstloyalty, according to parliamentarians’ perception. Parliamentarians regarded ‘supportfrom the party rank and file’ as the most important variable for being nominated in theparty list. ‘Support from the party executive’ came second in importance. The third andfourth most important variables (‘securing investment and public services to theconstituency’ and ‘meeting constituents to cope with their demands’) were both relatedto constituency service. Table 5: Variables Affecting MPs' Nomination in the Party List19

Variables Constituency servicerelevant

Index20

mean

Support from the party rank and file X 5.67

Support from the party executive 5.27

Securing investment and public services to theconstituency

X 4.78

Meeting constituents to cope with their demands X 4.71

One's legislative activities 4.34

Speaking to or writing an article for the press 3.87

Asking written and oral questions 3.21


Election

18 Among variables affecting election (Table 6) that follows the party list nomination,parliamentarians regarded support to the party from public opinion as the first mostimportant. Public support to the party, however, was beyond the control of individualparliamentarians. The second and the third most important variables were related toconstituency service, namely, ‘securing investment and public services to theconstituency’ and ‘meeting constituents to cope with their demands’. These variablesinvolved efforts mostly achievable by individual parliamentarians. Thus, amongvariables within the reach of individual parliamentarians, constituency service wasregarded as having the largest effect on the reelection of each parliamentarian.

Table 6: Variables Affecting MPs in Election21

Variables Constituency servicerelevant

Index22

mean


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Support to the party from public opinion 5.96

Securing investment and public services to theconstituency

X 5.16

Meeting constituents to cope with their demands X 5.15

Party members working for election 4.84

One's legislative activities 4.55

Speaking to or writing an article for the press 4.51

Asking written and oral questions 2.99


The media

19 In order to link constituency service to reelection, parliamentarians have to publicizetheir constituency service activities to their constituents. How do parliamentarians telltheir constituents that it was them who have helped to bring some of the investmentsand public services to the constituency? Will it be rewarding to spend a significant partof their time for meeting constituents to cope with their demands although thosepeople whom parliamentarians can meet in person constitute only a negligentproportion of the total constituents?

Table 7: The Media by which Constituents Learn Their MPs' Activities23

Types of media Index24 mean Circulation

Constituents who have met MPs 5.24 Local

Party organizations 4.83 Local

Local newspapers 4.52 Local

Television 4.22 National

National newspapers 3.58 National

Pamphlets 3.50 Local

Radio 2.98 National

Magazines 2.84 National



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20 This study contends that parliamentarians expect various forms of media to publicizetheir activities. The media can be broadly grouped into local and national ones in termsof their areas of dissemination and impact. The local media were perceived generally tobe more important than the national ones. In particular, constituents who had metparliamentarians were regarded as the most important among not only local but allforms of media. Parliamentarians may have expected constituents who have met themto let other constituents know their activities. In other words, the effort forparliamentarians to cope with constituents’ personal demands can pay off if suchcontacts will have spill-over effects on parliamentarians’ publicity.

Explaining variances in services: size, economic development, andincumbency

21 The preceding analysis showed that Turkish parliamentarians in general perceivedconstituency service to be critical for reelection and acted accordingly. The questionremains, however, whether this is a ubiquitous phenomenon in Turkey. In other words,it is possible to expect the political and economic structures of the constituency toaffect the amount, as well as the salience of constituency service. Some structuralcharacteristics of the constituency may more strongly predispose constituents todemand constituency service while other characteristics will make parliamentarianstake constituency service more seriously. This paper hypothesizes that at least threestructural variables (two being political and the other being economic) are particularlyimportant: 1) constituency size, 2) the level of economic development in theconstituency, and 3) the length of incumbency.

Constituency size

22 Constituency size may well influence the supply of constituency service. In Turkey’sproportional representation system, the number of seats in each constituency rangedfrom two to six for the 19th TBMM. In terms of reelection, the smaller the number ofseats in the constituency, the more important will be the personal appeals of thecandidates. Conversely, the larger the number of the seats the more important will bethe popularity of the parties of the candidates. It can be hypothesized therefore thatparliamentarians from small constituencies are more motivated for and more involvedin constituency service than are parliamentarians from large constituencies.

23 Constituency size may well reflect other features of constituency environments such associoeconomic development and cultural values. For instance, constituency size wasmoderately correlated with the constituency’s level of economic development,measured by the per capita income for 1993 of the province25 in which the constituencywas located (Spearman’s correlation coefficient = .301, p = .02). In the following, thepartial correlation analysis was therefore adopted to control the effect ofsocioeconomic development on constituency size and vice versa.

24 The ‘supply’ part of Table 8 seems to support the above hypothesis. Constituency size,when the per capita income effect was controlled for, was negatively correlated with allindicators of the supply (composed of motives and practice) of constituency service.The smaller the constituency size was, the more importance did parliamentariansattach to constituency service. Relatedly, the smaller the constituency size was, the


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greater part of their time did parliamentarians spend for meeting constituents, eitherin Ankara or in their constituencies, and visiting their constituencies. Table 8: Partial Correlation of Constituency Features with Service26

Constituency service Constituency features(controlled effect) –Constituency size (1991)27

Constituency features(controlled effect) –Percapita income (1993)28

Supply – Motives：Perceivedimportance for election29/Meetingconstituents to cope with theirdemands

-.253** .074

Supply – Motives：Perceivedimportance for election/Securinginvestment and public services to theconstituency

-.218* -.025

Supply – Practice：Time spent30/Meeting constituents for theirpersonal problems

-.255** -.123

Supply – Practice：Time spent/Visiting the constituency

-.226* -.234*

Demand – Visitors31 -.126 -.137

Demand – Letters & faxes32 .127 -.139

Demand – Telephone calls33 -.273** -.283**

Sources: For constituency service, the author’s questionnaire survey. For constituency size, seeAppendix 1. For per capita incomes, see Appendix 2.

25 Constituency size may also affect demands for constituency service. For smallconstituency makes it easier for constituents to recognize their representatives. The‘demand’ part of table 8 shows that constituency size was negatively correlated withthe number of telephone calls from constituents although not with the other twodemand-related variables that were more costly for constituents and whose cost variedacross constituencies at different levels of development and distance to the capital. Therecognition of parliamentarians seems to enhance the likelihood of a constituentmaking a phone call but not that of his or her writing a letter or paying a visit toAnkara, where MPs usually stay.

The level of economic development

26 The level of economic development may be closely related to demands for constituencyservice. It will be recalled that major demands for constituency service included jobs,infrastructure, and investment. If the constituency is economically less developed,these demands will be naturally higher there than in economically more developed


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constituencies. The ‘demand’ part of Table 8 shows that the per capita constituencyincome, after the constituency size effect has been controlled, was negativelycorrelated with the number of telephone calls, which was the cheapest and the easiestway to express constituents’ demands to their representatives34. Per capita income, onthe other hand, was not correlated with any supply variables of constituency serviceexcept for parliamentarians’ ‘time spent for visiting the constituency’35. Thus, a lowerlevel of economic development will make more people ask for constituency service butit will probably not directly increase the importance of personal votes.

Previous incumbency

27 In his article on constituency service in Britain, Norton (1990) argued that newparliamentarians, who were less secure than others in the following election, mightspend a larger part of their time for constituency service than others do. He foundbetween two successive elections a larger number of incremental votes cast for themore recently elected parliamentarians than for others. This led him to believe thatnew parliamentarians had provided more constituency service than older incumbentshad.

28 The Wilcoxon test applied to the data for the current study showed, however, that inTurkey newly elected parliamentarians did not necessarily provide more constituencyservice than reelected parliamentarians did. Between the newly electedparliamentarians and the reelected parliamentarians there were not any statisticallysignificant differences in the medians of constituency service indices (see Table 3), i. e.,‘visiting the constituency’ (p = .56) and ‘meeting constituents for their personalproblems’ (p = .52).

29 This result is largely due to the difference between the system of single-memberconstituency in Britain and that of plural-member constituency in Turkey. In a plural-member constituency any incumbent, though holding competitive advantages overnew candidates in the constituency, has to compete, first, with other incumbents fromhis own party for a higher rank in the party list. This competition will be more intensewhen his party has done well in the preceding election thus producing a larger numberof incumbents from his party in the constituency. Second, even if he has secured ahigher position in the party list, he must compete with other incumbents from otherparties. To be a single incumbent in the constituency from his party, though openingaccess to the highest rank in the party list, will narrow his chances in the struggle withincumbents from other parties. In brief, being an incumbent provides less security forreelection in a plural-member constituency than in a single-member constituency.

30 There is supporting evidence from the analysis of effects of constituency size in asimilar case. Reed (1994: 285) found that in Japan, where the electorate cast a single-non-transferable vote in the plural-member (ranging from three to five members)district, the incumbency effect was stronger in smaller constituencies than in largerones. In three-member districts 52% of the districts have reelected all their incumbentssince 1972 whereas in four-member and five-member districts the rate was 43% and34% respectively. The larger the constituency size, the more marginal became theincumbent edge.


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Table 9: Turnover Rates: Lower Houses of National Legislatures

Country36 Turnover rate37 (%) Period38

New Zealand 10.4 1946-1992

United States 1978-1979 14.9 1978-1992

Japan 15.0 1972-1990

Germany 26.039 1953-1987

France 30.040 1946-1993

Israel* 40.2 1951-199241

Turkey* 70.2 1991

Source: Calculated by the author from the data in Somiet et al. (1994).

31 In addition, in Turkey the legislative turnover rate is particularly high, being 70.2%(316/450) in 1991 (Table 9). This rate contrasts with 10.4% of the members of the NewZealand House of Representatives, 14.9% of the United States Members of Congress,15% of the Japanese Diet members, 26.0% of the CDU Bundestag members in Germany,30% of the French Assemblée Nationale members, and even 40.2% of the Israeli Knessetmembers who compete in the single nationwide constituency. This may be partlybecause the 1982 Constitution prohibited politicians at the time of the 1980 militaryintervention from political activity for five to ten years. Before this political ban waseventually abolished by constitutional amendment in 1987, many former politicianshad either chosen to retire or found their political base taken over by post-1980politicians recruited from the bureaucracy or business. Thus there remained very fewexperienced parliamentarians in post-1980 Turkey.

Conclusions

32 This paper explored some causes and consequences of constituency service in aproportional representational system. Turkey provides an interesting case here. First,its province-size constituencies generate a significant size of personal votes for acandidate, though nominated in the party list. Second, as in other non-Westerndemocracies, it is the service and allocational aspects of responsiveness that composethe most frequent demands of constituents to parliamentarians in Turkey. There exists,however, conflicting evidence regarding what priority Turkish parliamentarians give toconstituency service. It will be important to know how and to what extentparliamentarians are responding to demands from constituents as well as why they doso.

33 The analysis of the data collected through a questionnaire survey illuminated threefeatures of constituency service in Turkey. First, in terms of daily activities,parliamentarians spend for constituency service the largest part of their time at their


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own disposal. This finding falls in between Kim et al.’s survey (1984), conducted in thelatter half of the 1970s and Kalaycıoğlu’s surveys (1995), conducted in 1984 and 1988.The present Turkish parliament, after the 1980-83 interlude by military rule, hasprobably come to revert to that of the 1970s which consisted of many representativeswith legislative experience.

34 Second, for the purpose of reelection, parliamentarians consider their individualactivities to be almost as important as the party popularity. Those activities arepublicized through the local media, including the press, the most important of which,however, being the constituents that they meet in person.

35 Third, the demand for and supply of constituency service depend on different politico-economic structures of the constituency. The smaller the constituency size, the largerwill be the demand for and the supply of constituency service. This is because in smallconstituencies parliamentarians are more recognizable by their constituents and theweight of personal votes is larger than in large constituencies. The economically lessdeveloped constituencies tend to generate more demand than the more developedconstituencies but do not significantly motivate the parliamentarians to provideconstituency service.

36 Thus, even under proportional representation, relatively small constituencies inTurkey render constituency service important for parliamentarians seeking reelection.In addition, the Turkish parliamentarian’s turnover rate is much higher than turnoverrates for parliamentarians in other democratic countries. Even reelectedparliamentarians therefore will have to take constituency service seriously. Thestatistical test showed no significant difference in the practices of constituency servicebetween newly-elected and reelected parliamentarians.

BIBLIOGRAPHIE

Appendices

Appendix 1: Constituencies for the 1991 general election

Province N Province Name Constituency No. Constituency Seats

1 Adana 1 6

1 Adana 2 3

1 Adana 3 5

2 Adıyaman 1 4


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3 Afyon 1 6

4 Ağrı 1 4

5 Amasya 1 3

6 Ankara 1 6

6 Ankara 2 6

6 Ankara 3 6

6 Ankara 4 5

7 Antalya 1 6

7 Antalya 2 3

8 Artvin 1 2

9 Aydın 1 6

10 Balıkesir 1 4

10 Balıkesir 2 3

11 Bilecik 1 2

12 Bingöl 1 3

13 Bitlis 1 3

14 Bolu 1 5

15 Burdur 1 3

16 Bursa 1 6

16 Bursa 2 6

17 Çanakkale 1 4

18 Çankırı 1 3

19 Çorum 1 5

20 Denizli 1 6

21 Diyarbakır 1 5

21 Diyarbakır 2 3

22 Edirne 1 4

23 Elazığ 1 4


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24 Erzincan 1 3

25 Erzurum 1 4

25 Erzurum 2 3

26 Eskişehir 1 5

27 Gaziantep 1 6

27 Gaziantep 2 3

28 Giresun 1 4

29 Gümüşhane 1 2

30 Hakkari 1 2

31 Hatay 1 5

31 Hatay 2 3

32 Isparta 1 4

33 Içel 1 6

33 Içel 2 3

34 Istanbul 1 6

34 Istanbul 2 6

NOTES1. The author would like to express his deep appreciation to all the parliamentarians who sparedtheir precious time to respond to the questionnaire. In particular, Ercan Karakaş, ParliamentaryGroup Vice Chairman of the SHP (Social Democratic Populist Party) ; İstemihan Talay,Parliamentary Group Vice Chairman of the CHP (Republican People's Party); Şevket Kazan,Parliamentary Group Vice Chairman of the RP (Welfare Party); Rıza Müftüoğlu, ParliamentaryGroup Vice Chairman of the MHP (Nationalist Action Party), as well as Hasan Çağlayan, Directorof Press and Information of the DYP (True Path Party) Headquarters, Faruk Abdüllahoğlu fromthe RP Headquarters, and Avni Çarsancaklı from the ANAP (Motherland Party) Headquarters,kindly accepted interviews with the author while he was preparing for the questionnaire text.The author owes special thanks to the late Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cahit Emre of Ankara University, whohelped greatly with the questionnaire follow-ups, and İsmail Gündüz of the Ministry of Interior,who corrected the author’s Turkish in the questionnaire draft. The author also acknowledges thepriceless opportunity for documentation work at the Library of the Turkish Grand NationalAssembly, which has been provided by its General Director Ali Rıza Cihan and other members ofthe library including Sevgi Korkut, Şahin Akdağ, and Nafiz Ertürk.2. For constituency size, see infra [22]. Another possible source of personal votes is thepreferential voting system, which allows electorates to choose from the candidates on the same


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party list. The system was introduced just before the 1991 general election although it had beenwritten in the 1983 electoral law. A provisional article of the law prevented the system frombeing applied to the 1983 general election. The law for the 1987 general election also chose not toput the preferential voting system into effect. Even after the first implementation of the systemin the 1991 general election, however, it does not seem to have been institutionalized. In thefollowing general elections from 1995 to 2002, the preferential voting system was again not used. 3. His 1984 survey was originally reported in Kalaycıoğlu (1986).4. They include Ercan Karakaş, Parliamentary Group Vice Chairman of the SHP (SocialDemocratic Populist Party); İstemihan Talay, Parliamentary Group Vice Chairman of the CHP(Republican People's Party); Şevket Kazan, Parliamentary Group Vice Chairman of the RefahParty (Welfare Party); Rıza Müftüoğlu, Parliamentary Group Vice Chairman of the MHP(Nationalist Action Party), as well as Hasan Çağlayan, Director of Press and Information of theDYP (True Path Party) Headquarters, Faruk Abdüllahoğlu from the Refah Party (Welfare Party)Headquarters, and Avni Çarsancaklı from the ANAP (Motherland Party) Headquarters.5. For the vicissitude of Turkey’s electoral system, see Tuncer (2003) and Sabuncu and Şeker(1996).6. DEP members were arrested and lost their parliamentary seats after Parliament lifted theirimmunity in March 1994 because of the leader's statement sympathetic to the KurdistanWorkers' Party (PKK).7. This response ratio is not much low for this kind of mail questionnaire.8. Percentages to the subtotal of the government and opposition members.9. The calculation of the number of those with ministerial experience in the 19 th legislativeperiod required us to use the earliest data available, as of 1 March 1992, in the first edition of theTBMM album for the 19th legislative period.10. The population, 430 parliamentarians, are the residual of the total 450 members ofparliament minus those who had passed away and minus those who had been expelled fromParliament. I mailed the questionnaire to these 430 parliamentarians in June 1995.11. Percentages to the subtotal of the five regions.12. Kim et al. (1984)'s multiple questions included ‘proposing, debating, and amending bills’whereas the questionnaire separately treated, on the one hand, participating in parliamentary orparty meetings, and on the other, preparing bills and questions. By doing so I distinguished(almost) obligatory legislative activities from voluntary ones. 13. Question: ‘How much time do you spend in a year for the following duties? For each item,please mark the appropriate number on the scale.’14. From 1 (=Least) to 7 (=Most). There were no adjectives for 2 to 6.15. Question for A: ‘How much part do the following items form of the total demand of theconstituents who come to meet you? For each item, please mark the appropriate number on thescale’. Question for B: ‘How much part of the following items for which the constituents wantedto meet you comes to a solution? For each item, please mark the appropriate number on thescale.’16. From 1 (=Least) to 7 (=Most). There were no adjectives for 2 to 6. Entries are index means.17. Spearman's rank-sum correlation coefficients [rhos], all of which are statistically significantat the 0.01 level (the level of statistical significance, or the p value, shows the reliability of thecorrelation coefficient). Coefficients greater than .50 in value are in bold face.18. Such as roads, water, and electricity.19. Question: ‘For entering the first rows of the party electoral list, how important are thefollowing efforts? For each item, please mark the appropriate number on the scale.’20. From 1 (=Least) to 7 (=Most). There were no adjectives for 2 to 6.


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21. Question: ‘For being reelected in the general election, how important are the followingefforts, apart from entering the first rows of the party electoral list? For each item, please markthe appropriate number on the scale.’22. From 1 (=Least) to 7 (=Most). There were no adjectives for 2 to 6.23. Question: ‘From the following communication media items, to what extent do constituentslearn of your activities? For each item, please mark the appropriate number on the scale.’24. From 1 (=Least) to 7 (=Most). There were no adjectives for 2 to 6.25. A province [il] in the Turkish political system refers to the whole geographical area coveringnot only the central district [merkez ilçesi] but all the other districts [ilçeler] that fall within theprovincial boundary.26. Entries are Spearman's partial correlation coefficients. I have adopted the partial correlationanalysis since constituency size and per capita constituency incomes are moderately correlated(Spearman’s partial correlation coefficient = .301, p = .02). Question: ‘While the parliament is insession, with how many constituents per week do you meet in Ankara or in your constituency?’.Answers: a=less than 100, b=100-199, c=200-299, d=300-399, e=400-499, f=500-599, g= 600–699,h=700-799, i=800-899, j=900–999, k=1,000 or more. Question: ’While the parliament is in session,how many letters or fax messages arrive from constituents per day?’. Answers: a= 1-10, b= 11-20,c= 21-30, d= 31-40, e= 41-50, f= 51-75, g= 76-100, h= 101-150, i= 151-200, j= 200 or more. Question:‘While the parliament is in session, how many telephone calls do you receive from yourconstituents per day?’. Answers: a= 1-20, b= 21-40, c= 41-60, d= 61-80, e= 81-100, f= 101-150, g=151-200, h= 201-300, j= 300 or more. *p<.10.**p<.05.27. The effect of per capita income is controlled.28. The effect of constituency size is controlled. The year 1993 falls in the middle between thefirst year of the 19th legislative period, 1991 and the year in which the questionnaire survey wasconducted, 1995. Per capita constituency incomes were approximated by the per capita income ofthe province in which the constituency was located. At the time of the 1991 general election outof the total 74 provinces, 54 had single constituencies. It means that in nearly two-thirds of theprovinces, constituency incomes are equal to provincial incomes. The most populated IstanbulProvince, however, has nine constituencies.29. See Table 6.30. See Table 4.31. Per week, either in Ankara or in the constituency (median= ‘200-299’).32. Per day (median= ‘11-20’).33. Per day (median= ‘21-40’).34. The level of economic development was not correlated with either the number of letters andfaxes or the number of visitors at a statistically significant level. It can only be speculated thatthe low literary rates in less developed constituencies make it difficult for the constituents towrite letters or fax messages to their representatives while high transportation costs and badtraffic access may be hindering visits to Ankara from less developed constituencies. Thesepositive relationships between the level of economic development and the difficulties inscriptural communication or journey may have cancelled out the potentially negativerelationship between the level of economic development and the intensity of demands. 35. In other words, parliamentarians from economically less developed constituencies spendmore time visiting their constituencies than other parliamentarians. It is plausible that they arenot so much willing as forced to spend a lot of time to visit those constituencies with poor trafficaccess.36. Countries with an asterisk (*) have a unicameral legislature.37. Period average.38. Starting and ending with general election-years.


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39. Christian Democratic Union (CDU) Bundestag members. The same rate was 24.5 % for GermanSocial Democratic Party (SPD) Bundestag members. Both figures exclude Berlin representatives.40. Excluding parliamentarians who died in office or resigned.41. Excluding the very early general election of 1961.

RÉSUMÉSThis paper explores some causes and the consequences of constituency service in a proportionalrepresentational system. Turkey provides an interesting case here. First, its province-sizeconstituencies generate a significant size of personal votes for a candidate, though nominated inthe party list. Second, as in other non-western democracies, it is the service and allocationalaspects of responsiveness that compose the most frequent demands from constituents toparliamentarians in Turkey. There exists, however, conflicting evidence regarding what priorityTurkish parliamentarians give to constituency service. The analysis of the data collected througha questionnaire survey highlights several features of constituency service in Turkey. First, interms of daily activities, parliamentarians spend for constituency service the largest part of theirtime at their own disposal. Second, for reelection purposes, parliamentarians consider theirindividual activities to be almost as important as party popularity. Third, the demand for andsupply of constituency service depend on different politico-economic structures of theconstituency. The smaller the constituency size, the larger will be the demand for and the supplyof constituency service. The economically less developed constituencies tend to generate moredemand than the more developed constituencies but do not significantly motivate theparliamentarians to provide constituency service. In addition, the Turkish parliamentarian’sturnover rate is much higher than in other democratic countries. Therefore even reelectedparliamentarians have to take constituency service seriously. The statistical test shows nosignificant difference in the practices of constituency service between newly-elected andreelected parliamentarians.

INDEX

Mots-clés : parlement, députés, élites politiquesKeywords : political elite, constituency service, MPs, parliament

AUTEUR

YASUSHI HAZAMA

Researcher at IDE-JETRO, Japan [email protected]


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Differences in role orientationamong Turkish MPsÉlise Massicard

1 Studies on Turkish MPs have often focused on aggregate data. However, the differencesin behaviour and style of individual MPs are a dimension of Turkish political lifefamiliar even to the occasional observer. It seems important to try to grasp thesedifferences in terms of parliamentary roles1.

2 Because the study of parliamentary roles has mainly developed in Western legislaturesand more specifically in the US, parliamentary roles have often been defined referringto the US model. More recently, alternative role models have been developed forEuropean countries (Searing (1994) for Great Britain, Andeweg (1997) for theNetherlands). It seems interesting to ask the same questions for Turkey, taking intoaccount the specificities of its institutional system. However, there are few studiesdevoted to political roles in Turkey (Kalaycıoğlu 1995). It would, therefore, seem tooambitious to develop an alternative model of roles in the limited scope of this study.Rather, we shall address the determinants of role-orientations of Turkish MPs.

3 In order to understand their role orientation, it seems important to look at thelegislators’ background. Although it is clearly misleading to infer a direct causal linkbetween social background and legislative role, one may assume that MPs’ roleorientation is partly the consequence of their previous social trajectories and of theirinvolvement in spaces which are distinct from official politics. MPs act with practicalknowledge, technical know-how, ideological orientations and moral convictions thatthey have acquired during various experiences previous to their investiture. Therefore,drawing mainly on biographic indicators, it seems necessary to analyse the resources attheir disposal. Which forms of socialization and involvement have preceded themandate (family and local socialization, school and university training, career choice,spiritual activities, associative involvement, union and political activism, conditions ofentry in political career)? What kind of know-how can they invest and use in politicallife (Nay 2003: 543)?


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4 In his classical work (1978), Fenno studies what he calls ‘home styles’, i.e. howlegislators act when dealing with their constituents. The author travels withcongressmen from all over the US. This article, on the contrary, focuses only on theParliament, since I did not have the practical possibility to accompany deputies to theirconstituencies. Therefore, it deals with what can be called ‘parliamentary styles’.However, I adopt a broad vision of the Parliament (Abélès 2000; Nay 2003). This work isnot limited to the legislative Assembly’s official sessions, but includes all the practicesthat deputies undertake within the framework of their electoral mandate and of theparliamentary institution (plenary sessions, committees, working groups,parliamentary groups, lobbies, etc.) as well as their protracting parliamentary activitiesoutside the Assembly (missions, parliamentary delegations, informal exchanges withinterest groups or the bureaucracy) (Nay 2003: 538-539, n. 7). As a matter of fact,elective mandates are not limited to deliberative work. They imply being involved insocial work and maintaining links with different audiences both inside and outside theAssembly. Nor is the Assembly isolated from the broader social world. Therefore, I amcareful to not look only at the floor of the Chamber. This article aims at trying to linkparliamentary role orientation to multiple investments of legislators, in the formal andinformal spaces where the career of a representative is being shaped (Nay 2003: 539,545).

5 Answering this question does not imply studying all the kinds of elected people: itsuffices to observe some of them, the way they act in various situations of interaction(Lagroye 1994). Therefore, even if it draws from existing quantitative data, this study israther qualitative and inductive. It is inspired by Searing’s argument that it ispreferable to let the roles emerge from what MPs themselves say about theirexperiences (Searing 1994:13, 26-28). The main source is in-depth interviews with MPs.Due to the practical difficulty of reaching a larger group who would represent a cross-section of the deputies; I have interviewed a limited number of MPs, thirteen in total. Icould not have full control over the sample since the MPs often accepted to beinterviewed only if I was being personally introduced to them. Intermediaries -academics2 and party groups – had a tendency to introduce me to specific kinds of MPs.This has its importance in terms of role-orientation. Therefore, this research can notclaim to offer a representative sample. However, I paid special attention to this bias andtried to correct it by choosing MPs as diverse as possible. The sample includes MPsfrom different parties, who, in addition, belong to the opposition as well as to themajority. The majority of them is from the current (22nd) legislature, but three of themare former MPs (one in the 20th, two in the 21st legislature). Two of them had beenelected several times, and three have ministerial experience. Therefore, the groupincludes both long-term politicians and newcomers, with different levels of partyaffiliation. The MPs interviewed were chosen from among various parliamentarycommittees. The group includes different professional backgrounds (see the maincharacteristics of interviewed MPs in Appendix 1). The interviews were conducted inTurkish between October 2004 and April 2005. They generally took place in thedeputies’ offices in the TBMM, sometimes at their office outside the Parliament, inrestaurants and/or at their home. Interviews lasted one and a half hour to four hours.When possible, several interviews were conducted with the same person. The names ofthe MPs are kept anonymous throughout the essay3.


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6 Interviews, with open-ended questions, focus on their biographies, social backgrounds,political career, attitudes toward their party and position in the party, personalresources, relations to the constituency, parliamentary activities, and theirrepresentation of roles. When possible, informal and ‘off-the-record’ conversationswere conducted with MPs themselves, but also their secretaries and assistants.Whenever it was possible as well, I made observation of their behaviour. Other sourcesinclude information collected from documentary sources such as the TBMM’s website4,albums and newspapers. Besides, most MPs interviewed for this study held veryordered files about their activity as MPs, gather their speeches, law proposals, questionmotions, press-books, etc. These private archives are quite easily accessible to theresearcher and constitute a valuable source. Finally, two interviews were conductedwith parliamentary correspondents of national media.

7 The first part addresses the strong differentiation of roles among Turkish MPs. Thesecond part deals with the three main factors affecting the role orientation ofindividual MPs: first and foremost their relationship to the party, then their non-partisan, mostly professional, skills and finally the social support they enjoy.

I. A broad and under-standardized role-set?

Contradictory role-expectations

8 According to role theory, a role is the pattern of behaviour and cluster of attitudesexpected from persons occupying a given position in a social structure. Wahlke et al.define a legislative role as ‘a coherent set of ‘norms’ of behaviour, which are thought bythose involved in the interactions being viewed, to apply to all persons who occupy theposition of legislator. It is important to emphasize the normative aspect of the concept(…) The concept postulates that legislators are aware of the norms constituting the roleand consciously adapt their behaviour to them in some fashion’ (1962: 8).

9 However, roles are often highly complex and multi-dimensional. According to Merton,each position in a social structure is associated not with a single role, but with a specific‘role-set’5. Parliamentarians are an example in point, since they interact with a host ofindividuals and groups whose ‘patterned expectations’ of a deputy’s role behaviourmay vary (Merton 1957:368). As a matter of fact, the role expectations held byparliamentarian peers in the Assembly, by party activists, by constituents or byinterest-group representatives may differ from each other, as they may differ from theMP’s own definition of his role. Therefore, it appears more relevant to speak about‘role-set’ than about one single, coherent role. Patterned expectations toward Turkish MPs: institutions, parties, media, andaudiences

10 What are the main ‘patterned expectations’ of a deputy’s role in Turkey and where dothey come from? The overall structure of the political system constitutes the castingmould in which the roles of MPs are formed. According to the 1982 Constitution (article80), members of the TBMM represent, not their own constituencies or constituents, butthe Nation as a whole. This follows the Burkean conception of a national, rather than


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local, constituency – even though each deputy has actually been elected by the votersof one particular province (Frey 1965:13).

11 How media construct MPs is of great importance in the formation of role ascriptions,since media constitute the main channel of visibility. How does MPs’ exposure to mediashape their role-set? It is important to note that Turkish MPs are strongly exposed tothe media’s scrutiny. Accredited parliament correspondents [parlamento muhabiri]follow almost all legislative activities taking place in the Parliament: plenary sessions,committee meetings, and most of the political group meetings. But they also haveaccess to the backstage [kulis], the place just outside the main floor of the Chamber,where MPs go out of the plenary sessions to make a break or bargain, and where theyspeak more freely. The kulis is a very good place to grasp news for journalists6. It hassuch an importance that some parties regularly attempt to forbid them access to thekulis7. In the end, the Assembly is much more exposed to the media’s scrutiny thanother institutions (government, bureaucracy or military)8. Besides, parliamentarycoverage has quite an important place in political news-making. This scrutiny leads to atight control of MPs’ individual behaviour, resulting in strong criticism in case ofunruly behaviour9 (Aslan-Akman 2005).

12 Besides being defined by institutions and the media’s expectations, the MPs’ role-set isalso shaped by the expectations emanating from different audiences with whichdeputies are in contact. As far as constituents are concerned, it is the service andallocational aspects of responsiveness that compose the most frequent demands to MPs(Hazama 2005). Kalaycıoğlu argues that the major tasks of a deputy are: promoting theinterests of his constituents, protecting them against the challenges of publicbureaucracy and providing jobs to his electoral supporters (1995: 48-54). Constituentsmay ask MPs things which are not among their legal attributions, or even are opposedto them: ‘if you explain there are rules to get a visa and don’t provide them one, they’llsay ‘this guy was of no use’’10. As a matter of fact, the very core of being arepresentative is to interact with various social spheres, which implicates being able toplay different roles. Whatever the MP’s dominant characteristics are, he has to takeinto account the plurality of his roles (Lagroye 1994). Turkish MPs – like politicianselsewhere, and maybe more – face contradictory expectations.

13 The role expectations that Turkish MPs face are contradictory because differentaudiences express them. Yet, even the role expectations carried by the media arecontradictory. Parliament correspondents pay attention only to aspects of the MPs’activity that they consider noteworthy and ‘newsworthy’, i.e. in relation with perceivedcurrent policy issues. They maintain relations mainly with MPs who are best informed.These are mainly MPs who already enjoy power positions (being in the bureau of theAssembly, in the party boards, in the direction of party groups, or in committeeboards), or MPs who are very active in committee or legislative work. The head ofHürriyet Parliament office declares knowing 100 or 150 MPs because ‘they are thepeople who are continually in the job and are susceptible to produce news. That’s whywe know them better’11. Most parliament correspondents do not know the other MPs.This means that parliament correspondents put an overstated value on legislative workand MPs engaging in it. In order to appear in public media – which is consideredimportant for re-election by most MPs (Hazama 2005: § 19-20) – MPs have to engage inlegislative work and advertise about it12. Many MPs attempt to inform thecorrespondents about their legislative activities, for example through press releases.


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However, when the issue addressed is not on the national agenda, which is most oftenthe case, parliament correspondents ignore them13. They also do not cover other MPs’activities, like constituency service or public relation work. Parliament correspondentsexpect MPs to be in Ankara, involve in legislative work, and act in the name of theNation, not in the name of their constituency. This is in part because parliamentcorrespondents are working for national channels, newspapers, and press agencies;among them, no local media is represented. In a way, these correspondents – who enjoya good position in the profession, even among political journalists14 – are part of thenational elite.

14 But parliamentary correspondents produce only part of the media coverage on theMPs. Local media do also cover the deputies’ activities, but another kind: they coverthem mainly in their constituency or when they defend their constituency’s interests.They follow the MPs’ legislative activities in the parliament only marginally andindirectly, through the news they get from the Anadolu press agency15. Manybackbenchers who are not elected from big cities have more relations with local mediathan with parliament correspondents (like MPs E, G, M)16. Local media, on the otherhand, view MPs mainly as the representatives of their constituency and defenders of itsinterest. Thus, there is a quite clear division of labour between local and national mediaconcerning the coverage of MPs activities, local and national journalists having nodirect relation with each other. It would be interesting to study further the coverage ofMPs' activities by the local and national media. Suffice it here to say that local andnational media have different role expectations concerning MPs. Coping with contradictory role expectations

15 How do MPs perceive these contradictory expectations? How do they rationalize theirrole-set? As a matter of fact, all the MPs I have interviewed declared that theyperceived divergent role expectations17. In his memoirs, Kocaoğlu states thatexpectations from the voters and from his party (ANAP) diverged: ‘The voter (…) doesnot ask you what you have done for the European Union. But he wants a weaponpermit, he wants a job in the civil service, he wants the appointment or the promotionof somebody from his home region, he wants his nephew who failed the exam to pass inthe next class (…) And you, by force, you get busy with these strange affairs. Because ifyou don’t do that, you’re considered to be a “bad MP” ’ (Kocaoğlu 2003: 48). ‘In general,the party organisation gives excessive importance to personal advantages and spoildemands’ (Kocaoğlu 2003: 27). Later, this former MP also gives room to his conception(or what he wants to appear as his conception) of what a ‘good MP’ is, which is differentfrom the expectations both of the party and the voters: ‘I believe I have been a “good”MP according to my own standards. For instance, I haven’t become a careerist, I haven’tacquired property in any unlawful manner, I have realised some of my ideals, I havegiven priority not to personal, but to collective demands, I have been a good partymember’ (Kocaoğlu 2003: 20).

16 Like him, all MPs I interviewed stated a discrepancy between their own representationof their role and what they perceived was expected from them: ‘We quarrelled a lotbetween my inner voice was telling me and what was expected from me. There weresome laws about which I suffered much inconvenience (…). Yes, well, the party leaderknows what’s right, if it is what Turkey needs, then… (…). The ones who come fromvery professional political backgrounds did not feel any discomfort. People like me, in


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contrast, did’18. Besides this classical tension between the party line and individualconvictions, all interviewed MPs stressed the contradiction between the voters’expectations and their own role representations: ‘You will help everybody, everywhere.In reality, this is not something profitable. In my view, a parliamentarian should belimited to conducting his legislative duty. But in Turkey, being a parliamentarian… isperceived as paying attention to all the problems of the voters, and that’s what thevoters expect from you. If you don’t do that (…) the voters erase you, they say it’swrong’19. Many MPs find this to be an important role conflict:

In my view, the hire and promotion of civil servants should be administeredthrough a central exam (…) But you will invite [the voters] to eat, you will walkaround the Parliament with them (…) They enjoy it very much… feeling the state.The one who does that, well, does not make any real work, what he does iscontenting others’20 ‘The problem there [in the constituency] is that the citizens’understanding of politics is: the MP should come to my village, to my city. But it’snot possible (...) ‘You have gone to Ankara and you have forgotten us’, but the realduty (…) is here, legislation (…) you experience this tension21.

17 It would be wrong to assert that the only normative and legitimate role of an MP is thatof a legislator or defender of general interest, and that answering the – even personal –demands of citizens is not legitimate. Of course, almost all MPs argue that ‘the real dutyof an MP is legislation’22, and it is often the image that one wants to give to a Westernresearcher. However, some MPs – like MPs A, C, E, G, H, I, L in our sample – do notdenounce practices like receiving or answering personal demands from citizens, even ifthey consider them as the result of the state apparatus’ dysfunctions. Some of themview these practices as normal, or even as an important part of their role: ‘Look, thosearen’t bad things. Those are the troubles of the citizens, and… the citizen calls you asthe protector of his pains. You must be extremely interested and helpful with them.May be they aren’t right. But it is necessary to show some interest’23. Providing – evensometimes individual – service [hizmet] to the people is broadly considered to belegitimate (Güneş-Ayata 1994: 61). This activity is even institutionalizedd in the veryfunctioning of the Assembly. Political groups have printed forms called iş takip formu [follow-up form], aiming at rationalizing individual demands, and at dealing with them(see Appendix)24. Receiving visits is considered as being part of the MPs’ tasks.According to official sources, in the second legislative year of the 22nd legislature(2003-2004), 690,000 visitors have come to the Parliament at an average of 3,500 visits aday (Anadolu Ajansı 2004) – 30% less than the previous legislative year, mainly becausevisit hours have been restricted.

18 Yet, these different expectations are often perceived as contradictory or even notcompatible. Truly they are sometimes: ‘The MPs are confronted with a constant trafficof visitors, and they can’t spare enough time for legislative activities. The Assembly hastaken measures to limit the visits on certain days so that the legislative activities arenot affected’25. It’s not possible to answer to all the expectations: ‘If you want to meetthem, you don’t have time left for the Parliament. If you don’t, you offend the votersand the citizens’26. In addition to this time allocation problem, the rules of the gamethat yield successful results regarding legislative work differ from those that lead tohigh levels of popularity and public recognition.

19 How do individual MPs cope with role strain arising from role conflict? There are twopossibilities of coping with these diverging role expectations. The first possibility isrole-switching, meaning that MPs are switching from one role to another according to


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different contexts. One may observe the succession of distinct behaviours and ways ofbeing in their everyday practices. The second possibility is role-specialisation, i.e. akind of ‘division of labour’ between MPs specializing in different roles and showingdifferent role orientations. Role orientation refers to systematic differences in thelegislators’ conceptions of a particular component of the legislator’s role.

20 Our hypothesis is that, even if role-switching is present, we can observe a stronginternal differentiation in role orientation of Turkish MPs, i.e. in their ways of playingthe MP’s role-set. As a matter of fact, individual role conceptions of the MPs in oursample show strong differences: they prioritize the contradicting role expectations invarious ways, some have interiorised the hizmet role but others much less: ‘We don’thave enough strength to work at those things, our work here is legislation andparticipating in parliamentary activities (...) I felt very uncomfortable [with thecitizens’ demands], and I reacted against that (...) In that sense, I was a unlikeable MP,but... They still say, I was very respected because I never changed my mind, because Iwas straight and honest, because I pondered on Turkey and the world (…), because I didnot expect any rent from politics, because I did not pursue any private interests,because I was a man with principles. But I can’t say that I was appreciated, or that Idevoted myself to the service of the voters. Thus – I suffered much inconvenience’27.‘My characteristic is that I always speak to the citizen, I certainly esteem him (…) Evenif I can’t do anything for him, at least he will depart satisfied from here’28. Starting fromthese different prioritizations of tasks, I assume that there is considerable scope fordifferent answers to these contradictory expectations, at least for some MPs. Learning process of roles and socialization

21 An important factor in this broad interpretation scope is the pretty poor politicalsocialization – through which legislative norms and roles are internalised – amongTurkish MPs. What do the recruitment process and career paths of Turkish MPsindicate in terms of patterns of socialization?

Turnover and previous parliamentary experience

22 A first important point is the high turnover in the TBMM, which renews itself by morethan 50% in every election since 1980. The highest turnover took place in 1983 becauseof the coup (85%); but it was even higher in 2002 (almost 90%); in the meantime, itvaried between 50% and 60%, which is also quite high. However, more than the mereturnover rate, the previous parliamentary experience of Turkish MPs seems importantto understand the socialization process. It also appears to be quite low, especially in2002.

Table 1: MPs with previous parliamentary experience in proportion to the number of seats in thelower chamber of the TBMM (1920- 2002)

Assembly Date %

I 1920 23

II 1923 37


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III 1927 63

IV 1931 71

V 1935 66

VI 1939 68

VII 1943 67

VIII 1946 59

IX 1950 19

X 1954 49

XI 1957 47

XII 1961 16

XIII 1965 49

XIV 1969 47

XV 1973 43

XVI 1977 53

XVII 1983 9

XXI 1999 45

XXII 2002 19,4

Sources: Frey (1965: 164); Tachau, Good (1973: 555, table 1); Kalaycıoğlu (1988: 51, table 1);Tachau (1988: 108, table 3); TBMM Album. Figures for 1987, 1991 and 1995 could not becalculated.

23 To the extent that newcomers are inexperienced in legislative politics, theirsocialization into legislative roles and their adoption of the established norms oflegislative conduct are likely to be quite improbable during a single term or two(Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 49). ‘High turnover rates of seats in the TGNA, through theirundermining influence on the establishment of binding norms of legislative conduct(…), tend to inhibit the professionalisation of deputyship in the TGNA. (…) Byprofessionalisation is meant the development of the role of deputyship into a pattern ofactions and a constellation of expectations that are learned or adopted after a lengthyperiod of service in a legislature, preceded by a period of apprenticeship in a partyorganization or in the local political machinery, which help one to develop the above-mentioned expectations’ (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 58). Although Kalaycıoğlu’s paper dealswith the 1983 legislature, which is in many regards an exception because of the rupturein political personnel brought by the 1980 coup, his conclusion are probably true as


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well, with some nuance, for most of the post-1983 period, since newcomers in politicshave been numerous since then.

Other socialization processes: party organisations and local elective offices

24 However, as Kalaycıoğlu argues, a political career is not limited to parliamentaryexperience. There are other instances of socialization and learning of political roles,the main ones being local elective offices and apprenticeship in a party organization. InGermany for example, almost all MPs have a long career as party members, mayors,deputies of local councils, and so on (Saalfeld 1997). This common socialization andlearning process leads to some degree of standardization and coherence of MPs’ role.Saalfeld argues that the professionalisation of parliamentary roles and the greaterimportance of career politicians in post-war Germany have behavioural implications: asa result of their relatively similar career patterns, German parliamentarians have beenfound to share, at least to some extent, certain ‘professional’ norms. What are theprevious experience of Turkish MPs in local elective offices and party organizations?What do they tell us about MPs’ socialization and learning of political roles?

25 For Turkey, we unfortunately have no systematic data. Most studies on this issue havebeen conducted in the 1960s and 1970s, but not pursued until the present day.Moreover, it is noteworthy that the main source used to produce this indicator, thealbums of the TBMM, does not always contain complete data concerning party officesor former local elective offices. Therefore, it is probable that due to the nature of thesources, political experience of MPs in local elective offices and party organisations isunderestimated. Another problem is that the sources do not differentiate betweenprevious and present political experience, a very significant difference in terms ofpolitical careers. Questionnaires help, to some extent, to fill this gap, but are bydefinition conducted on one legislature and do not permit the construction of longstatistical series. However, all previous works are unanimous in showing poorexperience of Turkish MPs, both in local elective offices and in party experience. Let usbegin with experience in local elective office. Table 2: MPs with previous experience in local elective offices in proportion to the number of seatsin the lower chamber of the TBMM (1923- 1969)

Assembly Date Local elective Offices (in %)

II 1923 -

III 1927 9

IV 1931 6

V 1935 9

VI 1939 12

VII 1943 11

VIII 1946 12


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IX 1950 4

X 1954 10

XII 1961 4

XIII 1965 6

XIV 1969 9

Source: Tachau, Good (1973: 555, Table 1).

26 The more focused analysis conducted by Oya Çitçi, which is based also on theParlamenterler Ansiklopedisi (1983), demonstrates how incomplete the TBMM albums are,which is the main source for the above study.

Table 3: MPs with previous experience in local mandates in proportion to the number of seats in thelower chamber of the TBMM (1950-1987)

Assembly Date MayorMember ofmunicipalcouncil

Member ofsubprovincialcouncil

Citycouncil

Total% of MPs withexperience in localoffices

IX 1950 14 5 8 - 27 5.54

X 1954 35 8 17 2 62 11.59

XI 1957 45 12 16 1 74 12.19

XII 1961 11 3 1 - 15 3.33

XIII 1965 9 8 5 - 22 4.89

XIV 1969 17 7 4 - 28 6.22

XV 1973 16 6 12 - 34 7.56

XVI 1977 20 7 8 - 35 7.78

XVII 1983 16 10 6 - 32 7.11

XVIII 1987 33 9 12 - 54 11.55

Total 214 75 89 3 383 8.09

Source: Çitçi (1989: 225)

27 The poor local office experience of Turkish MPs becomes clearer when compared withother countries. In Germany, the average MPs’ political career begins with a political‘apprenticeship’ of between two and six years as a local councillor. 31% of the 194 MPsinterviewed by Herzog in 1988/1999 had held local electoral office as councillors priorto their election to the Bundestag, 38% had held such a mandate and continued to hold


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it after their election to the Bundestag, and only 31% had never been elected office atlocal level (Herzog 1990)29. The experience of Turkish MPs in elective offices seems tobe low compared also to other European countries, where ‘a very large proportion ofMPs (from 40% upwards) had an elective or governing position at local or regional levelbefore entering into the national representative body’ (Cotta, Best 2000: 505). Howwidespread is the experience of MPs in local party offices? It is recognized as a way oflearning political roles and facilitating parliamentary socialization by the MPs who, inour sample, had this experience, such as MP G. However, this experience also appearsto be quite rare:

Table 4: MPs with previous experience in local party offices in proportion to the number of seats inthe lower chamber of the TBMM (1950-1969)

Assembly Date Local Party Offices (in %)

II 1923 -

III 1927 -

IV 1931 1

V 1935 2

VI 1939 4

VII 1943 4

VIII 1946 7

IX 1950 8

X 1954 7

XII 1961 -

XIII 1965 8

XIV 1969 8

Source: Tachau, Good (1973: 555, Table 1).

28 This table clearly shows that until the 1960s political experience in local party officesamong Turkish MPs is very low, though increasing over time. Tachau and Goodconclude that ‘as a whole, the data […] suggest that neither local elective offices norlocal party offices have been very important as channels of recruitment to the nationalpolitical elite’ (1973:556). But party headquarters seem more important than local partyorganizations as a channel of recruitment to the Parliament, as Tachau and Goodconclude from more precise data concerning the 1960s30:


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Table 5: MPs with previous experience in local and national elective and party offices in proportionto the number of seats in the lower chamber of the TBMM (1961-1969)

Year Local Elective Office (in %) Local Party Office (in %) National Party Office (in %)

1961 4 - 4

1965 6 8 12

1969 9 8 17

Source: Tachau, Good (1973 : 559, Table 3).

29 Even if national party organizations seem to constitute a more important channel ofrecruitment to the Parliament than local offices, experience there does not seem to bevery high when compared with other countries. For example, not even 10% of allGerman MPs hold no party function at all, whereas 20% hold positions on the local, 38%on the district, and 20% on the national party leadership bodies; on balance, a little lessthan two-thirds of all German MPs hold positions as chairpersons or as members of theexecutive committees on the different organisational levels of their party (Patzelt 1997:58). Gençkaya (2000) has produced the most precise data on the experience of TurkishMPs in local and national party offices, on the basis of a questionnaire conducted on thedeputies of the 20th Parliament (1995-1999):

Table 6: Proportion of MPs interviewed having hold party offices

Office% of MPs interviewed havinghold this office

National congressdelegate

31.6

Provincial congress delegate 27.2

Member of the national party directingcommittee

24.6

Provincial party leader 22

Subprovincial congress delegate 21.1

Subprovincial party leader 17.5

Member of the provincial partyexecutive committee

14.9

Member of the party assembly 14

Member of the subprovincial partyexecutive committee

10.5

Party vice-chairman 8.8


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Office holder in a collateralorganisation

7

Secretary of the provincial partyexecutive committee

6.1

General secretary or vice generalsecretary

4.4

Secretary of the subprovincial partyexecutive committee

3.5

Member of the central disciplinecommittee

3.5

Provincial supervisor 2.6

Deputy chair of a party group 0.9

Source: Gençkaya (2000: 241, table 6).

30 In this table including both past and present experiences, one and the same MP canhave had several party offices (therefore it is difficult to draw comparable data to thatof Patzelt). On the whole, 23.6% of all MPs Gençkaya interviewed had no party functionat all; he states that they have on the whole poor experience in party organizations(Gençkaya 2000: 242). Besides, the most widespread party office is that of delegate,which is not very binding.

31 But this does not indicate precisely the duration of the relation between MPs andparties, during which parties can transmit know-how to their members and officeholders. In his survey, Gençkaya obtained the following results about previous partymembership of MPs: Table 7: Duration of party membership among interviewed MPs

Duration of membership in the party ANAP CHP DSP DYP FP DTP Total

0-2 years 20% 16.7% - 10.6% 100% 100% 43%

3-5 years 24% 8.3% 85.7% 35.7% - - 21%

6-10 years 4% 33.5% 14.3% 17.9% - - 9.7%

More than 11 years 52% 41.5% - 35.8% - - 26.3%

Source: Gençkaya (2000: 240, table 5)

32 The group of long-time party members appears to represent only slightly more thanone quarter of the MPs31. On the other hand, a strong majority of MPs were partymembers for less than 5 years, which is congruent with the data given by Kalaycıoğluon the 1983 Parliament, where about one half of the interviewed deputies had never


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been a member of a socio-political association or of a political party, and only about32% pointed out that they were affiliated with a political party since six years or more(Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 59). Although the 1983 Assembly is in many respects an exception,political experience of MPs seems not to have improved much since then. Indeed, partyboards do not designate only candidates well tried and experienced in partyorganizations; longstanding prior party activities are not a condition in candidateselection. Many people are asked by the party direction to become candidates withoutbeing party members whatsoever.

33 Therefore, it would be erroneous to assert that most Turkish MPs’ careers followtypical, predictable patterns. In each legislature, there is a relatively high large share of‘outsiders’ into the TBMM, who had not previously pursued a political career. ‘Inconclusion, it can be argued that the majority of the deputies of the [1983] TBMM werecatapulted into their legislative roles without any first-hand, prior experience withparty politics and without having a lengthy apprenticeship period’ (Kalaycıoğlu 1988:59). There seem to be no strong, institutionalized transmission or learning of MPs’ rolesduring their former experience, neither in party organizations nor in local electiveoffices. How is it inside the Parliament itself? Transmission inside the Parliament

34 A majority of MPs have obtained some professional skills in ‘politics-facilitatingoccupations’ (such as solicitors, civil servants, academics). Some of them had contactswith MPs in their former professional life (as was the case of MPs C, F, I in our sample).Besides, they have already acquired basic political skills during the initial steps of thepolitical career before election – during the campaign, at the latest. Then, theparliamentary organisation itself to some extent moulds the roles of MPs seeking re-election and advancement within the hierarchy of party positions. However, aparliamentary newcomer will find himself faced with a set of challenges andexpectations quite unfamiliar to him at first, in terms of political-know-how and roles.How does this learning take place inside the TBMM?

35 Most of the [1983] deputies were in the process of learning and practising the role ofbeing a legislator at the same time (Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 59). This is also the way all MPsinterviewed for this study felt: all of them reported that professional socialization ishappening by practising, that is by ‘training on the job’ (Kocaoğlu 2003). Neither theAssembly, nor the parties organize formation sessions for new MPs, as all interviewedMPs reported. Some party groups organize short briefings. Therefore, the learning ofthe job and legislative roles in the Assembly occurs in an informal anduninstitutionalized way. For example, some new MPs may ask to senior members MPswhat are the rules of the game or, more importantly, observe the way experiencedcolleagues exercise their work as representatives. Socialization occurs mostly throughmimetic practice and distinction.

36 Other people, such as the members of the Assembly staff, can play an important role inthe socialization of new MPs. Turkish MPs have acquired, in recent years, access tomore – although not extravagant – personnel resources to perform their job. Every MPhas one danışman [advisor] since the beginning of the 1990s, and one secretary.According to the President of the Assembly, the TBMM employed almost 5,000personnel in 2004 (Anadolu Haber Ajansı 2004)32. Many MPs recognize the importance


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of people knowing how everything works: ‘the people who should help you have toknow Ankara’s codes well, otherwise they can’t be useful’ (Kocaoğlu 2003: 44). The MPscan choose freely their assistant, he can also come from outside. MP L has chosen bothan assistant and a secretary with parliamentary experience: ‘they know the Assemblywell. I believe that you must work with people knowing this job professionally. That’sthe reason why I chose them’33. ‘My assistant made preparations in advance on theissues I was working on. For example I have to make a speech, which speeches had beenmade on this issue before, who had said what (…) he found that, and he found verystrategic things. (…) I had a good assistant, but everybody could not expect this workfrom his’34.

37 However, parliamentary assistants are not professionals. They have another job: mostof them are civil servants in other administrations35 and become parliamentaryassistants temporarily. ‘For me to be here is a bit like an escape from the [Education]ministry’36 says one of them. They were hired as assistants mainly because they hadbeen sympathizers of a party and have acquaintances there (assistant of MP D), orbecause they knew the MP before through professional or personal contacts (assistantsof MP A, B, G, F). MPs have chosen them because they thought they would be useful forlegislative work (E, F), for some technical aspect of it (assistant of MP M) or for therelations with the constituency (B). Some assistants do this job to finance their studiesin econometrics (like the assistant of MP M). The turnover of assistants seems to bequite high, even in a single legislature: assistants of MPs A, C, and M changed duringthe legislature, mainly because they found better opportunities elsewhere or becausetheir MP was unsatisfied with them.

38 As a consequence, many assistants37 have poor experience of parliamentary work: ‘InTurkey, there is no political advisorship [siyasi danışmanlık]. In reality, an assistantshould prepare the documents related to the laws and to the important activities of theMP (...) Here, it’s impossible. The people we call advisors [danışman] do any kind ofprivate service, regulate the relations with the voters, drive the MP here and there, doeverything in short. Well, the real function of parliamentary assistant does not exist’38.‘Here, the assistant’s role (…) is basically to take a bit of the MPs’ burden and to helpthem with public relations. Otherwise, “I’ll prepare a law proposal, find me the relevantdocuments, prepare a report and then I’ll look at that…” There’s nothing like that here’39. Many of the MPs I interviewed complaint about the assistants: ‘Honestly, thismechanism doesn’t work in a very effective way. The so-called advisors [danışman] aregenerally young people (…). In order to be an advisor, he must have more knowledgethan you. But in practice this is not the case, I call them helpers [yardımcı], it’s righter’40. Some, like MP C, also complaint about the research service of the Assembly as beinginefficient and useless. When he needed documentation or expertise on an issue, hepreferred calling specialists working outside of the Assembly he knew before41. Becausehe was dissatisfied with his assistant and could not find anybody convenient in Ankara,MP J hired an assistant he knew before from his constituency, Istanbul, and pays asurplus wage from his own pocket. Some assistants however, after being hired on atemporary base, manage to build specialized knowledge, be recommended and stay inthe Parliament serving other MPs, which is the case of the assistant of MP E, who hadfifteen years experience in the Assembly before.

39 It is also the case of some secretaries. Some of them are professional, like MP C’s: ‘Mysecretary really made my life easier. Because there’s a special ritual of the Assembly, a


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special jargon. And she knew them’42. However, others are not: ‘Actually, I didn’t wantto work here. I wanted to make an academic career. But this is in the long term. Myhusband wanted me to work before, that’s why I took the exam. This is a general examfor civil service. Afterwards, every institution opens its own exam’43. At the same time,she continues studying French language and literature at the master level. Even afterhaving passed the exam, some secretaries don’t have a permanent status, and arebrought from other administrations temporarily. In this case, they mostly enter the jobthrough personal relations and recommendations. When the legislature changes, theirstaying in the Assembly depends on the recommendation of the MP with whom theyhave been working, whereas for permanent secretaries, the electoral new deal changesonly with whom they will work. As access to assistants and secretaries withparliamentary experience and good reputation is a matter of recommendation(Kocaoğlu 2003: 44), MPs having previous connections in the parliament are privilegedfor finding them, which implies a kind of reproduction effect. For instance, MP L knewfrom his previous MP mandate an assistant and a secretary with parliamentaryexperience he chose during his second mandate.

40 These are only clues, which should be studied further in order to build more preciseknowledge. However, our hypothesis is that an important part of the parliamentarystaff44 is not specialised and does not contribute heavily to socialization intoparliamentary roles. The employment of specialised staff is an indirect indicatorcommonly used to measure the tendency of parliamentary politics to be pursued as aprofessional career. Other indirect measures include the average age at which MPs arefirst elected to Parliament, the average number of years they spend as MPs – the longerthey remain members, the less likely they are to have a significant pre- or post-parliamentary career outside politics. Another important indicator is the degree towhich politics becomes their predominant professional occupation (Saalfeld 1997: 38).Is MP a full-time job, like in Germany, where it leaves little time to spare for a non-parliamentary career? Or can it also be a ‘retirement job’ for accomplished trade-unionofficials or local dignitaries? It is hard to know how many MPs retain a non-politicalprofessional activity, but surely some activities cannot be practised during themandate45.

41 These sketchy clues tend to show that it is difficult to argue that the job of a deputy ishighly professionalised (for 1983, see Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 60). During the interviews, Isometimes had the impression that some MPs were not very well informed about whatwas going on in the Parliament, did not know very well the procedures nor theappropriate ways of behaviour (especially MP E). The professionalisation ofparliamentary roles is frequently believed to cause significant changes inparliamentarians’ behaviour.

42 Many MPs don’t consider themselves to be professionals: ‘If you want the truth, I stillhaven’t discovered the subtleties of parliamentarianism’46; ‘I used “politician” in thesense of an occupation, a profession, i.e. somebody who spends all his time, energy,investment, strength, and money in politics, and who therefore wants to stay in politicsat any prize, to be re-elected as an MP. I have never been like that’47. In thisperspective, the subtitle of Kocaoğlu’s book (2003), ‘Ankara souvenirs of aninexperienced MP’, is interesting. All these also show the pejorative connotation ofprofessional politics.


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43 Therefore, there seem to be no strong standardization of role learning, neither throughthe main ways of transmission of political roles (party and elected offices) nor throughthe professionalisation of legislative activity. Thus, the learning and socializationprocess varies from an individual to another. It strongly depends on each MP’s socialcharacteristics, trajectories, and conditions of access to the parliament, according towhether they have been active in a party, an associative or trade-union work, orwhether their election is due to support outside the political field. Hence, it is evenmore important to take in account extra-parliamentary experiences that predisposeMPs to assume the prescribed roles and shape the ways they do.

II. Main resources shaping role orientation

44 MPs differ strongly in the ways they allocate their time and energy to differentcomponents of parliamentary work. Some focus on committee work, others on theplenary, some devote much time to prepare thoroughly legislative activities, other dofirst and foremost casework. There are probably equally large variations in extra-parliamentary activities: national and sub-national party work, pressure groupcontacts, attending of constituency local life, and media coverage. A large amount ofthe variation in behaviour of individual MPs cannot be simply accounted for by party,and must be due to other factors, like individual resources and role orientations. Whatshapes MPs’ role orientation?

45 The only work addressing the question of role differences in Turkey is that ofKalaycıoğlu (1995). He identifies four ‘representational styles’, mainly according totypes of clientelism patterns and interests that MPs represent: the ‘landlords’, the‘gentlemen of the periphery’ (these two groups representing about three fourths of theMPs), the ‘lobbyists’ and the ‘diplomats’. The main factor he selects to explain thesedifferences is the type of constituency represented (‘rural constituencies’, ‘small cities’,‘Ankara & Izmir’, and ‘Istanbul’). In a way, he follows American political scientists, whohave concentrated primarily on the repertoire of representative roles (Wahlke et al.1962). However, this approach neglects other dimensions of MPs’ role-set. I would liketo take their role orientation as a whole. However, including many dimensions makes itdifficult to construct a typology of coherent roles without conducting furthersystematic research.

46 When looking at other factors, it seems important to turn to the individual level. Mybasic assumption is that MPs’ role orientation strongly depends on resources at theirdisposal. In this perspective, I shall try to present the main resources shaping MPs’ roleorientation, and the way they do. In my view, three main factors strongly influence theMPs’ role orientation: their position within the party, their extra-parliamentary(mainly professional) skills, and their relation with their constituency.

47 However, it would be misleading to assume an automatic, causal relationship betweeninitial resources and role orientation. Rather, some resources are given added-value,entertained, reinforced, transformed – for example non-parliamentary resources intopolitical ones – while others are neglected, depending on institutional contexts,perceived opportunities, and individual strategies (Lacam 1988). This process-wiseapproach implies that the diachronic dimensions and the changes in the course of thelegislature have to be taken into account.


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Relation to the party

48 The MPs’ role orientation strongly depends, first of all, on whether their party is ingovernment or in the opposition. In many ways, the role of individual MPs changesdramatically with shifts of governments or party changes, since institutionalconstraints on them are very different. Differences in role behaviour between majorityand opposition MPs have been demonstrated in various studies on other countries, andseem to be relevant for Turkey too (Aslan-Akman 2005). For example, plenary questionsare asked almost exclusively by opposition members, in Turkey like in many othercountries, as is obvious in our sample. The committee work of opposition members ismore demanding, since the government prepares most draft bills, therefore there is nomuch work left for majority MPs. On the contrary, attendance to the plenary sessionsis, on the whole, higher among majority MPs than among opposition MPs, since thevote of the former is necessary to pass the laws48. Therefore, party membership is thefirst factor shaping MPs’ role orientation. However, relation to the party also shapes toa large extent one’s parliamentary positions.

Positions within the parliamentary institutions

49 The main factor of distinction between role orientations within the Assembly is theinternal division of labour, especially between ‘leaders’ and ‘backbenchers’, i.e. thosewho hold some formal position of leadership and those who hold none. Here I refer tothe distinction introduced by Searing (1994) between ‘position roles’ and ‘preferenceroles’. Position roles are ‘closely tied to, and highly defined by, prominent positions inthe institutional structure’ and are practically forced upon the incumbents of positionsthat are very demanding. Having or not a position is important in terms of legislativeactivities: for example, backbenchers are more active in introducing questions than theparliamentary group leadership. But what interests me here is that the positions withinthe Assembly are the most crucial casting moulds of legislative roles, since fellow MPsattach quite specific role expectations to them. This is especially true for leadershippositions such as chairman or spokesperson of a committee or a parliamentary group.AN MP has to live up to those expectations attached to his position if he intends to bepromoted within the hierarchy of his parliamentary group (Patzelt 1997:57). On thecontrary, preference roles ‘are less defined, and allow more scope for individualpreferences to shape role interpretations’. Backbenchers have the opportunity to shapetheir role orientation to a larger extent than ministers or committee chairs, whose roleis quite determined.

50 This distinction is even inscribed spatially in the buildings of the parliament. Most MPshave their office [makam] in the Public Relations Building [halkla ilişkiler binası], whichwas opened for service in 198449. However, the main position role holders do not: someof them work mostly outside the Parliament – ministers in their ministries, members ofparty boards in the party building, etc. In the TBMM itself, a special space is reservedfor the position role holders: the offices of the members of the Bureau of the Assembly,of the parliamentary group boards, and committee directors are located in the ‘mainbuilding’ [anabina], which is also the place where the General Assembly Hall is located,where the plenary sessions, committee and parliamentary group meetings take place,and where the media have their offices. This building, which is older than the PublicRelations Building – it was opened for service in 1961 – is also much more difficult to


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access for visitors. It also seems that this building has another rhythm since, as I couldobserve it, there are very precise clocks everywhere, which is not the case in theAssembly’s other buildings. Its very name [anabina] reflects a strong hierarchy ofactivities. Thus, there is a kind of spatial specialization between legislative activitiesand reception of visitors.

51 Now, how many MPs hold position roles? The Bureau of the Assembly is composed offifteen members (one President, four Deputy Presidents, seven Secretary Members andthree Administrative Members), all elected from among the MPs. Each of theseventeenth specialised permanent committees established to scrutinize bills andcontrol government activities have officers – such as a chairman, vice-chairman,spokesperson, and secretary50, totalising about 70 positions51. However, in mid-term thecommittee members and positions are redistributed. Therefore, in one singlelegislature, more than 70 people can hold these positions. Unfortunately, no precisedata about the level of stability of these positions is available. The commission directorswe interviewed (MPs I, K) remained stable throughout the legislature. On the otherhand, MP E was only a committee member in the first half of the legislature, and waselected as the vice-chairman of another committee in the second half.

52 Finally, the political parties’ hierarchical structures also create positions: mostmembers of the party boards are MPs as well52. But the parliamentary groups alsoproduce specific positions: the chairman of parliamentary group [grup başkanı] is at thesame time the leader of the party, therefore it is not really a parliamentary position; hisassistants are the deputy chairs [grup başkanvekilleri]. Most parties have limited theirnumber to three, however other parties have more (for example, AKP has five); theparliamentary groups’ executive committee [grup yönetim kurulu], which comprisesnine to eleven members (however, the AKP has up to 15), the group supervisors [grupdenetçileri] which are two per party group; finally, the group discipline council [grupdisiplin kurulu], which is composed by three to seven people per parliamentary group(Bakırcı 2000: 298-307). This amounts to 17 to 23 positions per party group, the AKPhaving 27 at the end of 2005.

53 Therefore, the number of parliamentary positions can be put at an estimated 85 plusabout 20 per party group, that is from 125 to 185 positions, i.e. from 22% to 33% of thetotal amount of parliamentary seats, depending on the number of parties with aparliamentary group. We have to consider also the minister offices, which can, butmust not, be given to MPs. However, one single MP may hold several positions at thesame time, although there are some restrictions: ministers, members of the centralexecutive committee [merkez yönetim kurulu] of a party, and deputy chairs can not seatin permanent committees. It would be interesting to analyse further the people holdingone or several parliamentary positions, their particular profile, and their chance for re-election. Suffice it to say here that the proportion of MPs with positions seems lowerthan in many countries, for example Germany, where 15% of MPs are committeechairpersons – 12.7% in the TBMM –, 28% are members of a parliamentary group’sexecutive committee – about 12% in the 22nd Turkish Parliament, after ANAP hasbecome a parliamentary group –, and 6% are members of the presidium of theparliament – only 2.7% for the TBMM (Patzelt 1997: 57). The position of backbencherwithout any special parliamentary position seems to be found in the TurkishParliament more often than in Germany.


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54 These positions mould MPs’ role constraints. Whereas members of the groupleaderships are most active in the plenary, members of important committees are veryactive in committees: members of committee boards all told me that the plenarysessions were not their priority. For example, MP K, leader of an important committee,declared ‘I don’t participate too much in the plenary when I don’t have a special job todo there’53. However, not all of these positions are equally binding in terms of role-orientation. Their binding character differs in part with formal levels of politicalleadership, which for a committee office would vary both with the importance ascribedto the committee and with that accorded to the committee leadership position (Frey1965:242). The committee rankings given by Frey (1965: 241-242, 445-447) with theattribution method cannot be extended automatically for the post-1980 period.However, according to all my interlocutors, the paramount committee is the Plan andbudget committee, which has a central role in the legislative process since every lawhaving a financial aspect – i.e. nearly every law – goes through it before being discussedin the plenary. Therefore, being a mere member of the plan and budget committee maybe more binding in terms of role orientation than being the secretary or even the vice-chairperson of the examination of accounts committee. The binding character ofcommittee membership differs in part according to how time-demanding it is. Somecommittees gather very often, others do not. Again, the plan and budget committee isvery time-demanding, while the petition committee seems to have quite light anagenda. Therefore, both leadership positions and committees an MP is member of areimportant to understand his role constraints. As MP K, chairman of an importantcommittee, puts it: ‘For me, it is now a kind of senior period [abilik dönemi]. Everybodyask what I think. And when people behave like that, you too, like it or not, you get intothis position, it’s not possible any more to stand up, go to the pulpit and make a speechcausing to stand up’54.

55 How are these positions distributed? The main instances dividing positions are theparliamentary groups55. After entering the TBMM, MPs may express three wishes aboutcommittee membership. Then, the parliamentary groups distribute them according tohow many seats each they have in each committee (on the basis of the relative strengthof the parties in the General Assembly). If they wish, some MPs can get severalcommittee assignments: MP C was a member of three permanent committees at thesame time, and even took leadership positions in two of them. The groups need to havemembers on all committees, and not only on those that are attractive to most MPs.Therefore, they sometimes send MPs to committees where they do not wish to seat(which was the case of MPs B, E for the first mid-term). Formally, it is the groupassembly as a whole that decides on committee placements, but the group leadershiphas crucial functions in this respect, and makes use of that power to distribute rewardand punishment. Group leaderships probably assign to the most important and/orattractive committees the MPs they trust the most and they think will do good work. Inthis respect, the trajectories of both MPs in our sample who had previousparliamentary experience (K and L) show ascension in terms of the importance of thecommittee they were members. In contrast, MP B and some other MPs had taken anoppositional stance against his party. He answered to my question about the results:‘the most of us were expelled from the committees’56. In the second mid-term, he wasnot given any permanent committee membership – since some MPs may have none. Onthe other hand, after having worked during the first two legislative years in an expertgroup for the party headquarters, MP L was affected in the second mid-term to the Plan


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and Budget Committee. The redistribution of committee memberships at mid-term is akind of readjustment linked to the groups’ appreciation of MPs’ performance.

56 As for the committee leadership positions, the party group leaderships agree with eachother over their distribution per party (Bakırcı 2000: 304). Then, the committee boardsare elected by the committee members. However, especially for important committeesand for chair positions, the party leaderships have a decisive, though informal, role. MPK, who has a long experience in the TBMM, admitted that ‘in general, the committeechairpersons are determined by the party board and the party leader’. When I askedhim how himself became the committee chairman, he answered: ‘I didn’t want to, thePrime Minister wanted me to’57. For less important committees and minor positions likesecretaries, the groups’ pressure may be less important: MP E was elected vice-chairman in a not very important committee during the second term, even if he wasnot very close to his party leadership.

57 Therefore, the main institution distributing parliamentary positions are parliamentarygroups, themselves being very closely tied to parties. They also organize labour divisionwhile assigning responsibilities more restricted in time. The groups decide about whichMPs speak in the name of the party on the floor. The deputies also have to take theconsent of the group leadership for most of their legislative initiatives, such as thesubmission of law proposals, motions for questions, or the making of a speech in theplenary sessions, even in their own name58, and even to make a speech in the partymeetings59. Those who violate these rules can be subjected to various sanctions andpunishments.

58 Through these processes, groups have a strong control on legislative behaviour butalso, to some extent, are the gatekeepers to role orientation. ‘In general, the party givessome duties, they say: “prepare yourself for this law proposal” ’60. MP A, who was veryclose to the party leadership at times, made several speeches on the floor in the nameof the party on important subjects (budget), which were related to his area of expertise,although he was not a ‘group spokesperson’. MPs are far from being passive in thisprocess, they can try to get some duties, by showing their will to engage: ‘They gave me[these duties] also because I wanted to do some work’61. Parliamentary groups can alsoto a certain extent orientate given MPs on specific issues: for example, MP C was askedby his party group to cover a quite technical issue he was not familiar with. However,the party also entrusted him with this duty because he was preparing thoroughly hisspeeches and was politically reliable: ‘I also made some speeches to defend the partyagainst attacks’62.

59 Some MPs feel marginalized by these procedures, for two main reasons: first, becausethey are not given any responsibility by the group leadership: ‘because I was anopponent, they did not make me speak (…) It never happened that I went to aconference or I appeared on television as a spokesperson entrusted by the party’63. Inthe same way, MP E has never been given any plenary discourse in the name of his firstparty: ‘It happens that I participate often to the plenary sessions, but I was not givenany duty to do (...) the party does not really test you, and because it doesn’t ask you onwhich issues you have knowledge, what you could be able to do, in which activities youcould participate nor what kind of thoughts you could produce on which laws, thedeputy chairs choose their own guys (...). There is a core staff which they like and thisstaff speaks all the time’64. The second reason why some MPs feel marginalized isbecause the party can block their initiatives. ‘I had prepared a law proposal. The party


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leader and the deputy chairs came, saying “it’s impossible, how can you engage in suchan initiative without asking us?” (…) Unfortunately, they hindered me’ 65. Some MPswould just not take the risk of being blocked – may be because they know better theimplicit limits – and would take advice from the party leadership before submitting anyinitiative.

60 Which kind of MPs do party leaderships marginalize? They would not giveresponsibilities to their opponents, those MPs who often don’t vote according the partyline, and to those whom they are not very confident about. Parties would also not giveresponsibilities to MPs who are not very close to the party board and have no specialskill. By having no legislative responsibility, those MPs enjoy more scope to shape theirown role-orientation, but do not have much access to party resources. However,parliamentary groups do not have interest to marginalize or to hinder too much thedeputies they don’t control, because then there is the risk for party change – actually,MP E resigned from his party. Rather, they may try to neutralize or ride along with theMPs they are not confident about (Kalaycıoğlu 1995: 54).

61 By having no responsibility, backbenchers have difficulties to access the nationalmedia, which is believed to be important for their public image. Activities having nolegislative effect but which are broadcasted on Meclis TV or elsewhere – like submittinglaw proposals, asking oral questions, and delivering speeches on the floor in their ownname – are ways of demonstrating publicly their legislative activity, which are hardlyhindered by parties. Most of them try to publicize these activities even more bycommunicating them to national media. Some, like MP E, complaint that they are notgiven sufficient attention. Positions holders, like MP I, the chairman of an importantcommittee, have another relationship to media and to these legislative tools: ‘It isnecessary that our other colleagues (…) take the floor from time to time and send amessage to the voters telling them “I am here, too”. In order to give them occasions todo that, it is necessary that we don’t take the floor too often. Because I appear veryoften on TV programs, I am in the press every day anyway’66. ‘I have never made aspeech out of the agenda, because I don’t believe that to be very effective. Making aspeech out of the agenda is like telling the voters through the TV “look, I’m here”. Ididn’t need that, because I am a very busy and appreciated MP (…), my name is wellknown, anyway (…) I have enough publicity’67. Relation to the party

62 The parties control resources that are essential for a politician’s career, like thedistribution of power positions and responsibilities in the parliament and in publicinstitutions, and electoral nomination (Nay 2003: 547). In many cases, the position onthe party list contributes more to a candidate’s election than his popularity or link witha particular segment of the electorate (Hazama 2005: §17, 18). Except for very fewparties, and in few constituencies68, it is the party leadership that selects and ranks thecandidates on the ticket, even if local organisations can influence informally theranking in few cases. Proximity to the party leadership also means more facilities interms of access to resources, and, in some cases, more demands and more possibilitiesto build social support: ‘because I’m a founding member of the party and people think Ihave weight in the party, the citizens sometimes come to me saying “they told me thatif you are the intermediary it should work better” ’69. As a whole, MPs are highlydependent on their parties for re-selection as parliamentary candidates, re-election,


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access to resources, and career advancement. Therefore parties, serving as the majorgatekeepers in a political career, do have strong pressure tools on MPs.

63 Nevertheless, MPs do not approach party institutions in the same way, since they havedifferent positions in their parties and differing representations about what kind ofparty backing they need. The few MPs who do not expect to be re-nominated in thecoming elections do not feel strong group pressure. But many MPs feel highlydependent on their party’s backing. Most MPs who were asked by the party board tobecome candidates without strong local backing and without being party memberswhatsoever also feel strongly dependent on the party if they want to be re-elected.These would vote according to the party line, try to demonstrate their loyalty to theleader, to be over-zealous by showing intense activity in the service of party interests,and to get responsibilities; more generally, they would try to act according to whatthey think the party expects from them. Such are for example MPs who have beennominated due to their links with the national organisation. They feel they need thebacking of the party to secure a nomination on a party list in the next elections. It isthe case of MP D, who lived for more than 30 years abroad and returned to Turkey forthe 2002 elections. Even if he had important positions in the country where he hadsettled, he has no local backing at all and few acquaintances in Turkey: ‘I apply partydiscipline. I won’t express any other idea. Well, if there is a very important issue, Ispeak with the party leader in the group meeting, I tell him what I want to say, I discusswith them which opinion I should give, I ask their advice… In every issue I try to reflectthe party’s opinion’70. He describes his own position in the party as follows: ‘I gain moreand more importance’. Since October 2003, he is a member of the CHP party assembly.In the same manner, MP J – who was the last elected on the list in his constituency –has stuck to the party line and taken the responsibility of the leadership of asubcommittee. He also managed to be entrusted to speak in the plenary in the party’sname, and finally was nominated as a minister.

64 Extra-party resources –especially social support– which some MPs enjoy make themsomehow less dependent on their party’s backing, or give them better arguments to beput on the list. Even if they think they are less dependent on the party, most of theseMPs would try not to alienate the leader. Some, though remaining loyal, would pay‘minimal service’ to the party. Some MPs do not regularly attend the plenary sessions,come in and out of the plenary sessions while hanging out in the corridors, and enterthe meetings only at the moment of the voting, to vote according to their group’s line.Aslan-Akman suggests that these MPs are usually the ones who are not very familiarwith the legislative process, those MPs who devote more time and energy toconstituency work (Aslan-Akman 2005: 44).

65 MP E –the last elected on the list– seems to have tried, at the beginning of thelegislature, to get a higher place into the party and to build good relations with theleadership. The party leader was the witness of his wedding, which took place duringhis mandate. However, he voted against the party line when he disagreed on someissues related to his constituency, and was impeded by the party from doing someproposals and discourses. He joined the internal opposition during a party congress,and discipline proceedings were being taken against him when he finally resigned fromhis party. This MP, who had no special parliamentary or party responsibility but waselected mainly because of strong personal backing, followed opinions expressed by hisconstituents when they diverged from the party line, privileging social support over his


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party backing. Afterwards, he joined another party that he may have considered hadbetter chances to enter parliament in the next elections than his previous party. Professional resources

66 Non-political, especially professional, resources influence MPs’ role orientation.Political parties play an active role in the selection of political personnel. Party boardsknow that they need MPs with different types of competence. They need for examplesome MPs able to serve on parliamentary committees in the European legislative bodiesin which Turkey is represented (Kalaycıoğlu 1995: 54). Parties also nominate candidateswho are specialists of some issues, because they plan to take benefit from theirexpertise. The main non-political or professional skills that seem important in theshaping of MPs’ role orientation are: technical knowledge (especially juridical), oratoryskills, relational resources, and fame71.

67 Many of the MPs without political experience, and who are invited by the parties to runas candidates, are people having professional resources, which can be reinvested inparliamentary work. This is the case of MPs B, F72 and H in our sample: they came fromthe academy, law, and bureaucracy. This kind of MPs does not necessarily need stronggrassroots support. This is turn affects his role orientation. However, parties preferprofessional skills only if they are used in their interest and do not always permit muchindependence from party organisations. Some of these MPs (F, H) – probably those whowant to stay in politics– are loyal to their party, act mainly as technicians, accepting oreven legitimising party control and party discipline. Others (MP B) behave in a moreindependent way, since they have alternative career prospects.

68 As a matter of fact, people having important professional skills also have a previouscareer on which their entry into politics depends. MP F was retired when he becameMP; MP B had been asked to run in the 1995 elections, but he refused as he had othercareer prospects; in 1999, since his career prospects had vanished, he accepted. Onlytwo MPs in our sample (B and E) retained an extra-parliamentary occupation duringtheir mandate, with interests related to it. But even previous professional experiencesshape MPs’ worldview, values, and interests. For example, those who have been activein NGOs are more likely to be policy-oriented, as is obvious in MP C’s use of legislativetools: ‘There are speeches in the party’s name and speeches in one’s own name.Speeches in one’s own name have no effect. It’s only to say “I have spoken, too”.Speeches in the party’s name have effect. I gave speeches in the party’s name only’73. Ofcourse, this is also because MP C did not need grassroots support and was close to theparty board. Finally, professional experience shapes their future prospects. Theirprofessional career often permits them to project their future somewhere else than inpolitics, and makes them less dependent on parties: ‘I never said “I absolutely want tobe an MP again, at any prize”’74. All previous MPs interviewed for this study (A, B, andC) returned to their occupation after their mandate. Civil servants and professionalscan turn back to their job quite easily. Technical know-how

69 The first important skill that can be turned into a parliamentary resource is technicalknowledge. Each group has specific MPs competent on specific issues, who often takethe floor on behalf of their party group ‘[The party group] gave me the floor on issues I


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was familiar with (…) Because I was an expert on this issue, it was necessary that I madethe speech’75. ‘In general, I speak very rarely on the floor. But in some periods and oncertain issues requiring proficiency, I speak as an arbitrator’76. The committees areanother place where technical know-how can be easily valorised. Since work occurs insmall groups, knowing the issues here is much more important than on the floor wherevoting is often sufficient. MPs tend to get committee assignments corresponding to thepolicy area with which they are familiar, thanks to their previous education orexperience. Most frequently, MPs explained the reasons of their committeemembership by their skills in the policy area in question, and sometimes by a generalinterest.

70 MP H is a case in point. Before being elected, he had worked during more than twentyyears as an attorney, specializing in public and administrative law. He became amember of CHP only a few months before the elections. His juridical know-how can beespecially useful for control activities, since he is in the opposition. During theinterview, he stressed the continuity between his former profession and his activity asan MP: ‘I had an advantage from a professional point of view (...) You know themechanism from before, anyway’. He concentrates on things he can influence upon as ajurist, i.e. not on political issues, but on irregular proceedings (like corruption or spoils)and parliamentary immunity. He has rapidly focused on written questions, which hefinds more effective in terms of results than oral questions, law proposals or investigations. During the first three years of the legislature, he has asked almost 300written questions. He is the only MP to have answered to my question about timeallocation that he spends much time in his office, preparing the files and following upthe cases. His skills can also be employed in committee work. At the beginning of thelegislature, he had wished – and has obtained – a juridical committee. He attends everysingle committee meeting, and is very active there, too77.

71 Another skill that is often reinvested in parliamentary work is knowledge ofbureaucracy. Many former bureaucrats become MPs. MP F was a high civil servantspecialized in public finance. He also stresses how useful his previous professional skillsare for his MP activity: ‘I often came to the Assembly as a bureaucrat (…) with theministers, when laws were changed (...). It proved to be useful, the fact that I knew onwhat level the discussions take place and how made it easier for me as a new politician’.This knowledge was probably decisive in his assignment to the plan and budgetcommittee: ‘As a person knowing how the governmental machine works, I expressedthe wish to be assigned to the Plan and Budget Committee. (…) Of course, this workgives you some knowledge, and I thought that the place where this knowledge can beefficiently used is the Plan and Budget Committee. Because in the plenary, when youknow about something, you can’t speak. In the plenary, other MPs speak more often,but there is a technical dimension in my work. I consider myself, more than as apolitician, as a technician (…) In the plenary, when I am appointed as a member of thePlan and Budget Committee, I get the chance of transferring my knowledge from there’78. He is sometimes mandated to speak in the name of his party on the issues he isspecialized in, but does not engage much in discourses in his own name. He is also veryactive in written questions, since he has asked about 170 during the three legislativeyears.


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Oratory skills

72 Both the floor and the committees are places where the individual MPs’ oratory skillscan be demonstrated and reinvested. The ability to make impressive discourses makesan MP more likely to be chosen as a spokesperson: ‘Sometimes, the group deputy chairswant certain persons to speak on certain articles of law (…) because they believe theirspeech will be more influential, more striking’79. By reinvesting and enhancing thisskill, some MPs can achieve to be entrusted more duties: ‘I took the speeches in theAssembly very seriously (…). On important issues, they generally sent me in the party’sname (…) Because I was always well prepared when I took the floor, I was considered tobe a good speaker in the Assembly. Then, [the party group] entrusted me also withissues I was not familiar with’80. These skills also make their holders more confident totake the floor. Most of the MPs interviewed who considered they had these skills wereacademics, lawyers and militants (MPs B, C, G, I). Available evidence suggests that themost frequent and ardent speakers in the CHP group have law or academicbackgrounds (Aslan-Akman 2005: §35). This skills shape role-orientation, since theyprovide for those MPs more visibility, make public figures out of them, and give themaccess to media.

Fame

73 Some people have been nominated candidates mainly because of their fame, for theircontribution to the party’s public image, notably during the campaigns - this is the caseof some artists, writers, or singers (Günay 2005). But how does fame shape their role-orientation as MPs? Fame shapes public expectations towards MPs and can increase thedemands they are subjected to, since people would first go to them. The scope of theirfame therefore orientates the audiences with whom they are in contact with: ‘The factthat I am well known in my constituency, well, the circle of my relatives is very broad...Besides their demands, I got very numerous demands from other voters in myconstituency’81. ‘Because I was the general accountant of the party, the wholeorganisation called me. Every accountant of a subprovincial organisation, everyprovincial party leader knew me. Besides, people from my region have spread overIstanbul and Ankara, voters from Istanbul came to me, too, and they connected torelatives or people who knew me. All of them carried their problems to me’82. ‘Because Iwas in the university before, I have a great amount of students. Their children andgrandchildren have grown up now. And many people know me from the television,from other places. They are neither from [my place of birth] nor from [myconstituency] (…). Here, I speak everyday to 100 or 150 people in average’83. Therefore,the scope of fame can lead MPs to be more or less constituency-oriented.

74 However, fame can also provide MPs with more ability to get positive answers to thedemands: ‘Any bureaucrat whom I call in Turkey (...), well, 99% of them know my name.While he doesn’t know other MPs, he certainly knows me; in the private sector myname is well known, too (...). For this reason, as far as possible, they won’t reject mydemands. When an MP calls, most of the time they don’t want to appear, they are busysomewhere else... but when I call, they certainly answer, well, they don’t run away fromme’84.


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Social capital

75 Social relations can also be invested as a resource in parliamentary work. ‘I had somerelations from the bureaucracy, after becoming MP an important part of these relationscontinued’85. MP F chose as an assistant somebody he knew from his experience as abureaucrat, and who, as a member of the Prime Minister high supervision council, hasaccess to much informations. Relational resources can be prioritised for gettinginformation. They are, therefore, important for committee work; they can also be verymuch valorised in casework. MP I states that: ‘From time to time I could come to aresult about employment by calling people in the private sector. I have such a circle inthe private sector, acquaintances’86. Because of his former relations, he can get morepositive answers to demands, and thus, possibly, gets more of them, and gets quiteservice-oriented87.

76 There is a specialisation process inside the parliament, which is related to the skills ofMPs and the way they are valued. Some professional qualifications are not very muchvalued in parliamentary work (engineering, medicine, industry, commerce). Even ifthese competences are not applied in the parliamentary work, they can influence therole orientation of individual MPs. Some MPs active in the economic sector may forexample act for the defence of private interests, also because the demands addressed tothem would be more in that sense. MP M, who was the secretary general of thechamber of industry and commerce of his constituency during 7 years, has manycontacts and demands from economic collective actors in his constituency and workedas an economic advisor of his party.

77 In some cases, MPs cannot get their professional or extra-parliamentary skillsrecognised and valorised in parliamentary work. It is the case of many MPs who aregiven no responsibility in relation to their competences and who are assigned tocommittees where they have neither special skill nor special interest (MPs B, E), whichmakes it difficult for them to get anything valorised: ‘I can’t say that I have been veryuseful to the Petition Committee’88. MP B’s opposition to his party was considered moreimportant than his oratory skills, since the party did not entrust him with speaking inthe plenary. Therefore, it is only under certain conditions – the first one being loyaltyto the party – that skills can be transformed into parliamentary resources.

78 These skills can be transformed into parliamentary and/or political resources duringthe mandate. Some of them may help to build good relations with parties, and MPs canachieve to appear as providing skills important for the parties. An example would beMP F. He has managed to be assigned to the Planning and Budget Committee in thesecond mid-term, although he was not a professional politician and had become amember of CHP quite recently. Both his expertise and his relations in the stateapparatus have been valuable to committee work and appreciated by the party – evenmore so since he has stuck to the party line; they have been rewarded as such. Otherskills can be transformed in a way to enhance social backing. Here, MP H is a case inpoint. The media are interested in getting and broadcasting information he collectswhile following cases of irregular proceedings: ‘You share that with your constituency,with national media, and in the end the people make the difference between those whowork, those who provide service, and those who don’t work. That creates a confidencein the public opinion, and the information flow begins. Information flows to me from[my constituency] and from everywhere in Turkey: from the press, the NGOs, the mere


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citizens. This constitutes a very serious source for me. By using and cross-examiningthese informations, you become the contact person (…) My relations with the media aredense, and most of the time, positive’89. In this way, he reinforces his informationsources, and therefore his resources to pursue such proceedings. By working with themedia, he does not only build good relations with them, but also increases his fame andhis public image as a defender against arbitrariness, which is an important politicalresource. While he had not been given any special power position at the beginning ofthe legislature, he begins to be well known and recognized in the general public, whileworking for his party. Social support

79 The last main resource an MP can lean on is grassroots support. How and how far doessocial backing influence the MPs’ role-orientation? Social support can impact ondifferent parliamentary activities: it can influence legislative activities (discourses,motions of question, and law proposals), which can address specific problems of theconstituency or some social groups’ interests. Social support can also have an effect onMPs’ casework politics and constituency service90, since an MP may feel obliged toreward or act as the representative of the people who helped for his election, be theyconstituents or not. Lastly, social support can influence the relation to the party. If thesupport is attached to an individual and not to any particular party, it makes the MPsless dependent on the party on which ticket they have been elected. In general, theseMPs are hardly given power positions in parliament because they are less controllable,and they end up in preference roles – MP E is a case in point.

80 However, it seems that social backing has only an indirect influence on MPs’ roleorientation, depending on MPs’ other resources and positions. More than the socialbacking MPs enjoy or not, what seems important in terms of role orientation is, rather,if they choose to reinforce it. Though good relations with the party is a resource fewMPs are not dependent of – only those who think they can be elected without thesupport of a party –, MPs’ investment in social support seem much more differentiated. Changing valuations of social backing: institutional rules and parties

81 On the whole, the value of social backing as a resource has been undermined in the lastdecades. This is due to the changes introduced in institutional rules: first the 10%threshold, which makes the relation between social support and election a quitehaphazard one; second, the candidate selection procedures. The declining use ofprimaries has put in the background support from the local party organisation andfrom the constituency. It is possible that the increased importance given to localsupport before 1980 (before the introduction of the 10% threshold and when partyprimaries where much more common) influenced the way MPs behaved towards theirconstituency – in terms of debt, reward, and investment – and their role orientation.Since our sample includes only one MP (A) who was elected through both partyprimaries and the preference system91, it is difficult to isolate the effects of theseinstitutional rules on role orientation from other factors92.

82 Indeed, MP A enjoyed very strong local support both from the party organisation andfrom constituents. After the primaries, he was the leading candidate on the list; thepreference voting confirmed his place, since he gathered more than 19,000 votes (i.e.


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more than one third of the votes for the SHP). During the campaigns, he enjoyed muchsupport from relatives and supporters. During his mandate, he cared very much aboutmaintaining this social support. First, he kept a strong connection with the local partyorganization: ‘When I was an MP, the candidates I supported always won the elections’93. Second, he went often to his constituency and participated to private ceremoniesthere. Besides spending one or two months each summer there, ‘during the legislativeyear, I couldn’t go as often as I’d wished to, but as far as possible I went there twice orthree times a month (...). I spared some time to go to [my constituency], I went aroundin the villages, I made a program district by district, I made district meetings (...) I wentto one or two villages (...), I informed two weeks in advance about my coming (...), thosewho wanted could come there (…) we discussed and debated with them’94. He madediscourses, including on the floor, related to his own constituency. ‘I brought muchbetter services to [my constituency] (...), this was much recognized by the people, Ifollowed up the issues as an MP, the demands for roads, drinkable water supply,schools, dam constructions (...) I tried to bring many services, I had caught a very goodposition in [my constituency]’95. In fact, an impressive number of plaques offered by hisconstituents and local hemşehri organisations to thank him are hanged on his home'swalls96. What enabled him to bring services to his constituency was is positions in theparty board, and as a minister for some time. MP A didn’t candidate at the nextelections, because the system of primaries had been abandoned, and he had fallen inthe internal opposition of the party. May be he thought he would not get a good placeon the list and would not be elected. Therefore, he is a good example of an MP electedwith strong social support in conditions encouraging it, and caring about this resource,which heavily shaped his role-orientation. Now, the designation of candidates by theheadquarters often puts local support to the background. As MP C, interestinglyenough from the same constituency puts it: ‘The MPs are gauged and chosen by theheadquarters. You can have as good relations as you want with the local apparatus,there is no point in it! There is no point in investing in local politics nor in the localapparatus, nobody expect such a thing from you’97.

83 Not only election rules, but parties also value differently the MPs’ social backing. Someparties encourage their deputies – or some of them – to engage heavily in constituencywork in order to foster their relations with the masses, or to answer to personaldemands in order to get more votes (Kocaoğlu 2003: 27). In some cases, constituencywork is considered as party work, as MP M puts it: ‘What I consider most important is…committee work and work in my constituency. Party work… in any case workconstituency and committee work are all things that the party wants’98. MP J, also fromthe AKP, confirms that: his party organizes the relations between him and hisconstituents. The local organisation organizes visits to private houses, breakfasts, andmeeting with the citizens; it also transmits the citizens’ demands and problems tohim99.

84 However, others parties give much less importance to social backing. DSP seems to be acase in point, as a former MP puts it: ‘The DSP has such a special feature. It does nothold together the MPs and the organisation (…) They didn’t want organic relationsbetween the MPs and the organisation (...) Whatever his region, besides beinginterested in the problems of his constituency, the main duty, the main responsibilityof the MP is parliamentary activities (…) Because we had no delegate system, becausethere were no power relations with the local organisation, it was not necessary tocreate warm or close ties with the constituency or the organisation there, or to pay


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much attention to them (…). That relieved us. First, from the pressure of the localorganisation. And it protected us from the demands and wishes of the voters. Givingpriority to parliamentary work was a right understanding of Ecevit. That’s why it wasalso our priority’100. In another interview, he argues: ‘That’s why I didn’t construct veryclose or very warm relations with the local organisation… as they could not exert muchpressure on me’101. He elaborates on the consequences: ‘for example, I did not visit theneighbourhoods or the cities every time I went to my constituency. Anyway, the partydid not expect that from us (…) They perceived that as being dangerous, as an attemptto reinforce one’s local power’102. In that case, doing constituency service is opposed toanswering the party’s expectations.

85 As a consequence, he went not very often to his constituency: ‘During the first year, Iwas going once a month or once in two months. The second year, it became few and farbetween, in the third year I didn’t go much, I went only four or five times. This wascriticized a bit (…), the people want to see you’103. His legislative activities were notoriented towards getting more local backing. None of the law proposals he submitteddealt with constituency issues. His speeches dealt exclusively with universalistic topics:‘In the group meetings (…), most MPs argued “in my constituency they need drinkablewater, they need a road, there is a need for agricultural subventions”, things like that,but I was the only one making speeches about general political issues’104. As aconsequence, ‘I can’t say that I have got a hospital built here and a school there’105. Heused legislative tools accordingly: ‘Oral questions (…) are more greetings to the voter.Because TRT-3 broadcasts the whole plenary sessions, the more you appear on thepulpit, the better it is, what you say has no importance. I don’t have such trouble’106

Other factors may explain his role orientation, like the fact that he was nominatedmainly because of his close relation to the party leader or his ‘value-orientation’ in partdue to his professional background, and his social ascension which was also a kind ofdeparture from his constituency: ‘However much I may be from there, I am a strangerto the people from my constituency (…). Some colleagues (…) have organic links to theirconstituency because they live there. I am from there, but I live in Ankara since 40years. I have no direct organic link, even if I have relatives there’107. Suffice it to sayhere that the very relevance of investing in social support can differ according to theparty priorities. It would be interesting to further research on what different partiesexpect from their MPs in terms of relation to social support. The perceived need for social support: the presence of other resources

86 In these conditions, how does social support influence role-orientation? Local backingmakes it easier to be put on electoral lists by a party. Even if electoral lists are formedby the party headquarters, some MPs perceive a need for local backing to reinforceboth their chance for nomination by the party on a high place on the list and for re-election, or because they have other interests in the constituency. According to MP H,the CHP has conducted an opinion poll in his constituency before deciding about thecandidates’ ranking108.

87 Do all MPs who have been elected with strong social backing adopt a constituency-orientation and try to reinforce their support? It seems to depend on their otherresources at hand. Social support is a resource which they can valorise, and sometimesneed to, when they have no other. MP E is a case in point. In his constituency, both theAKP and the CHP had much less support than the national average. He was the last


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elected on his list; he actually got a seat because the threshold resulted in theoverrepresentation of the party he ran for, CHP. Therefore, his position is not secure.Even more so since, after having sought to get a better place in CHP, he has turned tothe party’s internal opposition and finally changed party. In his constituency, he enjoysquite a strong local backing, and says to have gathered individual, and not ideologicalor party vote – a view that is shared by most observers. However, his grassrootssupport is not enough to be elected as an independent. During his mandate, he tries toinvest in social support. MP E cannot afford to reject the demands of his constituents,even less so because he has no special skill that he could turn into a parliamentaryresource. When asked about his priority in parliament, he declares spending most ofhis time for ill people and constituents. He declares proudly being one of the MPsreceiving most visits, and accepting them: ‘my door is open’. Even when a plenarysession is about to begin, ‘my priority is the citizen’109. The great majority of motions ofwritten questions he proposed deals with his constituency. He goes quite often to hisconstituency, at least twice a month; there, he enjoys strong local go-betweens, andparticipates to private ceremonies.

88 Many MPs elected with social support try to maintain it; but they do not all givepriority to this dimension, depending on their other resources. MP H has strong ties tohis constituency; he was born and has been living there. As a lawyer there, and aperson very engaged in NGOs, he enjoys a high social standing. In Parliament, drawingon his skills, he is about to construct fame on his own on general issues; however, hehas no special position in his party, which he entered it just before the elections, andwas the last elected on the list. As an MP, he keeps maintaining social support: about40% of his legislative activities address constituency issues. He goes there every week,since his family leaves there. He is not very active in responding to individual demandsfrom constituents, but takes care of his links with local interest groups. In a slightlydifferent manner, MP L from the majority, who was elected with social support,balances between loyalty to the party and representing their constituency’s interest. Ashe puts it: ‘When I make speeches about my constituency and there are deficiencies, Ido opposition. I criticize and I expect a solution’110. However, he has never votedagainst the party line, which means that he would not endanger his relation to theparty to enhance his constituency backing.

89 For some MPs elected with social support, this has less importance. It is the case of MPK, who has been elected six times MP since 1977; at that time, he had been designatedby primaries, which was not the case any more after 1980. In 2002, he was the leadingcandidate in his constituency. He has been deputy chair of a party group in the 1980sand is the chair of an important committee in the current legislature. He argues thathis priority in the Parliament is committee work. It seems that his high positions makehim not very constituency-oriented. None of his legislative activities is linked with hisconstituency. Still, he goes quite often there and receives many visitors and demandsfrom there. Therefore, the very fact of having been elected with social support does notdirectly link to a strong constituency-orientation. Rather, the effects of social backingdepend on other resources at hand.

90 How about the MPs elected without strong social backing? It is interesting to note thatthose MPs (in our sample, MPs B, C, D, F, I, J) hardly adopt a strong constituency-orientation, but rather concentrate on reinforcing other resources. For example, MP Fwas elected without local backing. He was not born in Istanbul, and has lived there


189

during twelve years only; he left Istanbul twenty years before being elected as itsrepresentative. The reason for his being elected from Istanbul is probably mere intra-party electoral strategy. He receives few demands from his constituents. The greatmajority of his legislative activities (numerous motions of written questions, lawproposals) are not related to his constituency. Actually, the reason why the party hasnominated (at a good ranking) is not in order to be a representative of anyconstituency. His high position in the centre (both in the party leadership and as amember of the plan and budget committee) leads him not to feel the need to enhanceany social backing. MP F is not an exception in this respect. ‘I haven’t made manyquestion motions. These are greetings to the voters anyway. You ask to the minister ofpublic works why the fountain in your village has not been finished, and then you go toyour village and say that you’ve asked that. But I didn’t need those things, I don’t needthe voters’111. When going to his constituency, the party organized his agenda, and hehad contacts with the citizens through the party organization. It seems that socialsupport is a resource that is invested by MPs as a secondary choice or as a complementto other resources. Our hypothesis is that social support is an insecure resource, andenhancing it may appear more time and energy-consuming than, say, loyalty to theparty. Ability and forms of enhancing social support

91 Lastly, even if they wish to, all MPs do not always have the means to enhance socialsupport, especially as far as constituency service and casework are concerned. Theability and forms of reinforcing social support highly depend on the position of theMPs. It is easier to build social support through constituency service for majority MPs,or generally for those who have access to consistent resources. For MP K, who has beenboth in the opposition and in the majority during his long MP career: ‘when you are inthe majority, you can do many things, you have many possibilities, from the hizmetpoint of view’112. Even for majority MPs, it is not always easy: ‘I had no chance ofconstructing a hospital in my constituency (…), of appointing doctors, or of opening afactory there: only a great MP has some chance to doing such things’113.

92 Expectations toward deputies differ consequently according to the type ofconstituency. Hazama (2005) found that the smaller the constituency size, the largerwill be the demand for and the supply of constituency service. All MPs interviewed forthis study said that MPs representing rural constituencies were more easilyidentifiable, had more personal relations to their constituents and personal demandsfrom them. All of them also stated that MPs representing big cities got less socialdemands from their constituents, since they were more numerous and had much lessdirect relations with their constituents. But even if the number and nature of demandsis correlated to the type of constituency, it does not determine role-orientation, i.e.how MPs manage and deal with these demands. Some MPs from rural constituenciesare very reluctant toward visits and demands (MP B), whereas some MPs from big citiesgive them a good reception (MP I).

93 Still, the ability and forms of building social support do depend on the type ofconstituency. For an MP, answering to the requests from his constituents, appearing asa guest at meetings, special events, openings and so on at the local level, which provideexcellent opportunities to make visible public appearance, is easier and more efficientin a small constituency. We should recall that in the 2002 elections, the number of votes


190

necessary to get an MP seat in Istanbul was 143,124, and only 46,792 in Tunceli(Massicard 2003: 2). It is also easier to appear in local media in relatively smallconstituencies. On the contrary, MPs from big cities are faced with less directrepresentative duties. But the downside is that these MPs have a much harder timethan their colleagues from smaller constituencies to get their names and pictures intothe newspapers on a regular basis or to answer the demands in a way that can bringsizeable social support. In a constituency like Istanbul, it is very difficult to build a localbase. Therefore, it appears more efficient a strategy to build grassroots support in asmall constituency.

94 Does it mean that an MP elected without social support in a big city cannot built any? Itseems necessary to distinguish different types of social support. MP D is a case in point.He has made a political career mainly in Europe, where he had lived since more than 30years, so he has neither local backing, nor much links to his constituency, Istanbul,where he has never lived. Besides, he is in the opposition; therefore he receives fewindividual demands. However, it does not mean that he is not oriented toward socialsupport at all, but he tries to enhance one kind of it. He is well known as an activistabroad for a political cause. Since he is back in Turkey, he also acts as an intermediarybetween the NGOs in this field and his party. He gets demands, and is in contact to,mainly those NGOs, who often turn to him. He also brings this issue into the Parliamentthrough numerous discourses. The CHP confirms his role by entrusting him withdiscourses on this topic. Thus, he tends to adopt an issue-oriented role. Therefore, itseems that MPs having no strong local backing are more involved in cooperating withorganized or collective interests, rather than dealing with constituency relations andrendering personal services. MP C for example answers to the question about hisactivities when he goes to his constituency, Istanbul, that he attends congresses,political meetings, and meetings organized by NGOs or by labour unions114. In the samemanner, MP F gets few individual demands, since he is in the opposition, hisconstituency is Istanbul and he has no social backing there. But the fact that he ismember of the Plan and Budget Committee brings him many visits of organizedinterests, since some committee decides on the allocation of many resources.Answering to the question if he got visitors came because he was a member of thiscommittee, he said: ‘they represent the majority [of the visits I get] in fact. As amember of the Plan and Budget Committee, when a law is being discussed, the partiescertainly come to me, or sometimes some NGOs linked to them. (…) They bring theirown problems and want that their views be defended during the discussion of the bill’115. Other MPs who are members of important committees receive many visits related totheir legislative activities, that represent collective interests (MPs I, K, L); therefore,proximity to the party may open the way to a role of mediation of collective interests.Finally, MPs who were elected with social support from local NGOs – like professionalchambers – (MPs G, H, L, M) also maintain contacts with these local organized interestsduring their mandates. MP G, a long-time party member and local leader who made acareer in professional organizations and NGOs, receives few individual demands, anddoes not take much care of them. In his constituency, he has contacts first andforemost with party organisations, local authorities, and NGOs. In contrast, he does notprivilege participating in private ceremonies. In general, it appears handier to maintaintypes of social support with which one has been elected, than to build new ones.

95 In that sense, it seems important to make a difference between social support fromindividuals and attached to the person (as is the case for MP E). It seems that answering


191

to individual demands from constituents and acting as an intermediary with collectiveand organized interests (be they local or more policy-oriented) are very different interms of role-orientation, and are perceived as such by MPs: ‘I interrupted theopportunist visits. I made them understand that I could nothing for them and they sawthat I did not handle their cases. But there were also people coming to me for generalissues like democratisation or human rights. For example, when there wereprivatisations, but not for nominations in a position. In that case, I tried to help them’116. MPs elected without personal social backing seemt to be more likely to end upmediating with organized and collective interests than with individual demands, whichin a sense makes them more dependent on their parties.

Conclusion

96 Different factors influence role-orientation of MPs, and there are sometimescontradictions between them, possibly resulting in role conflict. I found in my sampleinteresting cases of role distance, i.e. of deputies having to play roles that contradicttheir self-perceptions. We also found cases of role inadequacy, of MPs who, because oftheir resources and values, would not act according to an important part of theexpectations toward them, like MP B with his constituents’ demands. At the end of thisexploratory study, I cannot put directly in relation with one another the differentfactors which would to build coherent profiles. To be able to develop a model of preciseroles, better and more systematic data than those currently available are needed.

97 In the meantime, I would assert, as this study shows, that role orientation is very muchconstrained by the resources of MPs. Now, how should a hierarchy of factors beframed? At which point do an MP’s personal preferences begin to shape centralelements of his role as a representative? Are institutional factors or individualresources more important for determining the role orientation? It seems that therelationship with the party does strongly influence positions, strategies and abilities ofMPs, therefore role-orientation.

98 Finally, there seem to be a role specialisation process, driven both by parties and byMPs themselves. Parties play a crucial role in the selection of political personnel, sincethey value different profiles, skills, and resources of MPs: they need connections withthe masses, public representatives to have a good image, specialists in negotiation; theydivide parliamentary labour accordingly. Our hypothesis is that through theseprocesses there is a partial and selective professionalisation of political personnel. Inorder to check it, it would be interesting to relate MPs’ longevity to the resources attheir disposal.

Appendix 1: MPs interviewed for this study

Legislature Party Profession

Duration ofpartymembershipbeforeelection

Responsibilitiesin party groupduringlegislature

Ministerialexperience

Constituency Committee


192

A 20 SHP (power) Engineer 16 years Party board Yes

East-CentralAnatolia

Was born andhad lived andworked inconstituencyfor a long time

1&2 Publicworks;EuropeanEconomicCommunity

B 21 DSP (power)

Doctor(continuespartlyduringmandate)

0 year No No

East-CentralAnatolia

Was born andhad in partgrown up inconstituency,but had hardlylived there

1. ForeignAffairs

2. Nopermanentcommitte

C 21ANAP(power)

Trade-unionist

8 years

Provincialvice-chairman

Member of theparty disciplinecommittee

No

Istanbul

Was not borninconstituency,but had livedthere during adecades beforeelection

1&2 Health,Family, Labourand SocialAffairs(spokesperson); HumanRights (vice-chairman);EuropeanUnionIntegration

D 22CHP(opposition)

Trade-Unionist

6 years

Had been amember of aparty abroadsince 31years before

Member of theparty assembly

No

Istanbul

Was not borninconstituencyand had neverlived orworked therebeforeelection

1&2 Nopermanentcommittee,but Europeanworkinggroups

E 22CHP,independant,other party

Farmer(continuesduringmandate)

6 years No No

South-EasternAnatolia

Was born, hasgrown up andworked inconstituency

1. Petition (notwished)

2. vice-chairman ofcommittee


193

F 22CHP(opposition)

Highbureaucrat

3 years – hewascontacted torun for the1999elections

Party executivecommittee until2003; thenmember of theparty assembly

No

Istanbul

Was not borninconstituency,but hadworked thereduring 12years beforeelection

1. Nopermanentcommittee

2. Plan andBudget

G 22CHP(opposition)

Lawyer

35

Has beenprovincialchairmanmany times,and memberof the partyexecutivecommitteebefore

No No

Mediterranean

Was born, hasin part grownup and alwaysworked inconstituency

1. Justice

2. Constitution

H 22CHP(opposition)

Lawyer 0 year No No

South-CentralAnatolia

Was born, hasgrown up andalways workedinconstituency

1&2Constitutioncommittee

I 22 AKP (power) Academic 1 year

Partyombudsman atthe beginning oflegislature

No

Istanbul

Was not bornthere, but haslived andworked therefor decadesbeforeelection

1&2Committeechairman

J 22 AKP (power) Lawyer 1 year

Member of theparty nationalexecutivecommittee

Yes

Istanbul

Was not bornthere, but haslived there forfourteen yearsbeforeelection

1. Justice

2. Constitution


194

K

22, 5 otherlegislaturesbefore;experiencein localgovernment

AKP (power)

Other partiesbefore, bothmajority andopposition

Lawyer

1 year (AKP)but otherpartiesbefore

15 yearsbetween firstpartymembershipand firstelection asMP

Has beenprovincialparty leader

Yes, in formerparty andlegislature

Responsibility inpolitical groupin formerlegislature

Yes, threetimes informerlegislatures

Black Sea

Was not bornthere (but inneighbouringprovince), buthas workedthere duringdecades

1&2CommitteeChairman

L

22, oneotherlegislaturebefore

AKP (power)

Elected MPof anotherparty before,in power forsome time

Doctor

1 year (AKP)

Other partymembershipbefore(about 10years)

About 4yearsbetween firstpartymembershipand firstelection

Has beenmember of agroupleadership inpreviouslegislature

No

North-EasternAnatolia

Was born inconstituency,has grown upin part there,but has movedout foruniversity andhas neverreturned there

1. & 2. Planand Budget

M 22 AKP (power) Businessman

1 year (AKP)

Other partymembershipbeforeduring 3years

Party provincialvice-chairman

Had been amember of theprovincial boardof another partybefore(1998-2001)

No

North-CentralAnatolia

Was born inconstituency,has grown upin part there,has lived andworked there.

1. Nopermanentcommittee butspecializedworking groupin partyheadquarters

2. Plan -Budget


195

Appendix 2: follow-up form of a political group forcitizens’ demands

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NOTES1. And not in terms of legislative behaviour, which would imply, for example, studying MPs’attendance, their interventions in plenary meetings, their use and the success of law proposals,the content of their political discourse, and their vote.2. I owe special thanks to Associate Prof. Dr. Ömer Faruk Gençkaya who helped greatly with thequestionnaire and to contact MPs. I would like to thank Amélie Blom-Khan for language revision,Gilles Dorronsoro for commenting previous versions of this paper, as well as Benoit Fliche bothfor his comments and data processing for table 1.3. One of them is a woman. However, in order not to make her recognizable, I speak about all ofthem as ‘he’.4. It is difficult to get precise and reliable sources on the legislative activities of MPs. Thoseavailable through the website of the TBMM (for every MP since the 21st legislature) are thosethat the party has authorized, therefore they had passed the first institutional step. However,many initiatives are blocked before.5. The concept of ‘role-set’ is to be distinguished from the concept of multiple roles. The latterare associated not with a single social status, but with the various statuses in which individualsoperate. Like everyone else, an MP usually holds multiple roles: politician, spouse, parent,conservative and so on.6. Interview with the head of Hürriyet Parliament office, Ankara, November 1st, 2004.7. Interview with the chairman of the Parlamento Muhabirleri Derneği, Ankara, November 3rd,2004.8. This fact might partly explain the lack of confidence of the general public in the Assembly.MPs are often held responsible for all odds, not because they are very powerful, but because theyare more exposed to public scrutiny.9. For example, in July 2005, two MPs were strongly criticized by all media for having used theirguns to shoot in the air during a wedding. This scandal resulted in initiatives to forbid MPs tocarry arms. See ‘Silah atan milletvekili basını suçladı’, Vatan, 27/07/2005.10. Interview, MP E, Ankara, 24/04/2005.11. Interview with the head of Hürriyet Parliament office, Ankara, November 1st, 2004.12. These strategies sometimes undermine legislative work. At its beginning in the mid-1990s,Meclis TV began broadcasting parliamentary activities. The MPs often try to seat in front of thecamera (Kocaoğlu 2003: 45). During the committees, which were also broadcast, MPs often tried


198

to speak as long as possible in front of the camera, even if what they said had no much relation tothe issue dealt with, which considerably slowed down committee work. Therefore, Meclis TVstopped broadcasting committee meetings live, but gives only some shortcuts. 13. Observation, Hürriyet Parliament office, Ankara, November 3rd, 2004.14. To become a parliament correspondent, it is necessary to have a press card since more thanfive years.15. Interview with the head of Hürriyet Parliament office, Ankara, November 1st, 2004.16. Many deputies publish booklets - at the end of every legislative year, or at the end of thelegislature - in which they report their legislative activities, and in which they reproducenewspaper cuttings. These booklets aim to produce the image of active MPs, involved inparliamentary work and in the defence of their constituency’s interests. Most of the newspapercuttings I could see in these booklets were taken from local newspapers.17. No question addressed specifically expectations, but all MPs mentioned the discrepancybetween different expectations.18. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.19. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 02/11/2004.20. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.21. Interview, MP H, Ankara, 21/04/2005.22. Interview, MP G, Ankara, 21/04/2005.23. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.24. Observation, direction of AKP group, Ankara, 22/04/2005.25. Interview, MP G, Ankara, 21/04/2005.26. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 18/04/2005.27. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.28. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.29. These results are similar to those found in earlier studies during the late 1960s.30. Another important finding of this study is that the proportion of MPs with former experiencein elective and party offices strongly varies according to the parties.31. This is congruent with Kalaycıoğlu’s finding that ‘only a relatively small proportion of aboutone-quarter or less of the deputies may be referred to as professional political actors’(Kalaycıoğlu 1988: 59).32. As far as I know, there are no detailed studies on parliamentary staff in Turkey.33. Interview, MP L, Ankara, 25/04/2005.34. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.35. The wage given to an assistant from the outside is low (about 1,200 YTL in 2005), whereas civilservants keep their wage in addition to a supplement; this can explain why civil servants areoften preferred as assistants (Kocaoğlu 2003: 44).36. Interview, assistant of MP D, Ankara, 02/11/2004.37. The Turkish word for parliamentary assistant is danışman, which in other contexts means‘advisor’.38. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.39. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.40. Interview, MP H, Ankara, 21/04/2005.41. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.42. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.43. Interview, secretary of MP M, Ankara, 22/04/2005.44. This is probably different for committee secretaries, who are older and have much moreexperience in the Parliament than most MPs’ secretaries. In the same way, there are party groupadvisors who have political experience and are able to help MPs in writing speeches. Interview,MP A, Ankara, 18/04/2005.


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45. Such as civil service. Since 2001, solicitors also have to interrupt practising to enter theAssembly.46. Interview, MP F, Ankara, 22/04/2005.47. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.48. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.49. Before 1984, MPs received visits outside the Parliament.50. In addition, the examination of accounts committee has a supervisor.51. There are also other kind of committees, like international friendship and controlcommittees, but they are more or less voluntary, and not very binding in terms of role.52. Party leaders, the Prime Minister and most ministers are MPs. In fact, Turkish politicalparties are mostly headed by parliamentarians, and usually the role of a party leader cannot beseparated from that of an MP, even if it is not true the other way round. In 2005, among the 81members of the CHP board, 52 were MPs, i.e. about 64%. However, those members of theleadership who were not MPs were exclusively members of the party assembly; all higherposition holders were MPs. This relation is even clearer at the AKP, where 82% of the members ofthe central directing committee are MPs, and all other party leaders are also MPs (figures for theparty direction elected in October 2003).53. Interview, MP K, Ankara, 21/04/2005.54. Interview, MP K, Ankara, 21/04/2005.55. MPs without a party group (independent MPs or MPs whose party has less than 20representatives) have no committee membership.56. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.57. Interview, MP K, Ankara, 21/04/2005.58. In every session, three MPs can make a speech out of the agenda; in the 22nd Assembly, twoof them are generally from the AKP, and one of them of CHP.59. In each weekly party meeting, only three speeches are accepted. The party leadership mayalso decide that nobody should speak. To get the authorization to give a speech in the groupmeeting, it is often necessary to give the text of the speech in advance to the group leadership.60. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.61. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.62. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.63. Interview, MP B, 03/11/2004 and 15/04/2005.64. Interview, MP E, Ankara, 24/04/2005.65. Interview, MP E, Ankara, 24/04/2005.66. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.67. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 27/04/05.68. In the 2002 legislative elections, only the DYP organized primaries in 28 provinces, and theCHP in 11 provinces, all the other candidates where designated by the party headquarters(Massicard 2003: 9).69. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.70. Interview, MP D, Ankara, 02/11/2004.71. We have to distinguish parliamentary skills from political skills. Whereas oratory skills maybe enacted in parliamentary but also other political activities (campaigning), juridical knowledgeis best employed in the legislative process and may not have many other uses in the politicalfield.72. MP F became a member of CHP in 1999, because he was asked by the party direction to run asa candidate for the legislative election, which was again the case in 2002.73. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.74. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.75. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.


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76. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.77. Interview, MP H, Ankara, 21/04/2005.78. Interview, MP F, Ankara, 22/04/2005.79. Interview, MP F, Ankara, 22/04/2005.80. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.81. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 02/11/2004.82. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 18/04/2005.83. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.84. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.85. Interview, MP F, Ankara, 22/04/2005.86. Interview, MP I, Ankara, 21/04/2005.87. Kalaycıoğlu argues that newcomer MPs have great difficulties in establishing relationshipswith the public bureaucracy and, hence, experience difficulty in providing benefits in exchangefor votes (1995: 50).88. Interview, MP E, Ankara, 24/04/2005.89. Interview, MP H, Ankara, 21/04/2005.90. More than half of the deputies Kalaycıoğlu surveyed in 1984 and 1988 reported that theyspent the majority of their time on case work. 91. In the 1991 legislative elections, it was possible for the voters to register a voice for a specificcandidate, who by getting an endorsement from a minimum of 15% of the voters could be movedup to the top of the list (Kalaycıoğlu 1995: 46). In that legislature, Hazama found thatparliamentarians spend for constituency service the largest part of the time at their own disposal(Hazama 2005: §13). 92. For MP C, the designation process was a mixture: first, candidates entering the election weredesignated by primaries; then, the party headquarters decided about their ranking on the list.93. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 02/11/2004.94. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 02/11/2004.95. Interview, MP A, Ankara, 02/11/2004.96. Observation, MP A’s home, 18/04/05.97. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.98. Interview, MP M, Ankara, 25/04/2005.99. Interview, MP J, Ankara, 25/04/05.100. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.101. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.102. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.103. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.104. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.105. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.106. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.107. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 15/04/2005.108. Interview, MP H, Ankara, 21/04/2005.109. Interview, MP E, Ankara, 24/04/2005.110. Interview, MP L, Ankara, 25/04/2005.111. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 27/04/2005.112. Interview, MP K, Ankara, 21/04/2005.113. Interview, MP B, Ankara, 03/11/2004.114. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 29/10/2004.115. Interview, MP F, Ankara, 22/04/2005.116. Interview, MP C, Istanbul, 27/04/2005.


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http://www.ejts.org/document471.html

ABSTRACTSLike in many countries, MPs in Turkey are confronted with contradictory role expectations.However, in a context characterized by high turnover, there seems to be no strongstandardization of role learning, neither through the main ways of transmission of political roles(party and elected offices) nor through the professionalisation of legislative activity. Thisstatement makes it even more important to take into account each individual’s extra-parliamentary experience to understand how the MP role-set is interpreted. The basicassumption is that the way individual MPs invest the role-set is shaped mainly by the resourcesat their disposal. The qualitative analysis of a limited number of selected cases, resting onobservation and in-depth interviews, tends to show that the main factor affecting Turkish MPs’role orientation is their relation with the party. Non-parliamentary (especially professional)skills and relations with the constituency also contribute to shape the MPs’ role orientation.

INDEX

Keywords: MP, role, legislative behaviour, constituency, socialization, parliament

AUTHOR

ÉLISE MASSICARD

CNRSCentre d'études administratives, politiques et sociales, [email protected]


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European Journal of Turkish Studies, 3

Documents

Transcript of European Journal of Turkish Studies, 3