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15.09.2011

FORECASTS ON TURKEY’S FUTURE

   

Arestakes Simavoryan

Head of the Center for Armenian Studies, “Noravank” Foundation

Great Russian writer and thinker Fyodor Dostoevsky going into the heart of the Eastern issue wrote in his diaries: “Once, not long ago, strange thing appeared in the foreign press; in ardent, almost fantastic way they were imagining what would happen with the whole world if Turkey is fully annihilated and put back to Asia” 1. But Turkey has not only remained on the political map but also consolidated its positions in the region. It happened that we have to study all the aspects of life of that country in terms of our national security.

Over the recent years futurologists from a number of authoritative US institutions have been occupied with the analysis of the scenarios and forecasts of the future of the foreign and domestic policy of Turkey. More or less well known are the scenarios which differ from each other in terms of prospective developments such as “Turkey 2020”, “Vision of Turkey 2023” and others. All this can be supplemented by the theory of a deep strategy connected with the foreign political sphere of Turkey which is often associated with “Ottomanism”2.

According to different estimations a stunning economic upturn is expected in Turkey and it will either turn into a country which plays a crucial role in the region or into a country which suffered deep crises and as a result was divided between different states. In fact, forecasts are divided into optimistic and pessimistic. Pessimistic observations prevail among Turkish approaches, not counting “Vision of Turkey-2023” on the threshold of the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Republic, meanwhile the representatives of the western analytical community always allot to Turkey all the possible positive achievements not only on the regional but also on the global levels3.

Turkey 2020: Scenario Developments

A group of specialists from the New-York University headed by Michel Openheimer drafted several scenarios (Turkey 2020)4 of Turkey’s future, according to which three variants of political developments are expected in Turkey in the coming 8 years:

  1. Non-liberal Islamist
  2. Non-liberal temporal
  3. Liberal democratic

In general multi-aspect scenarios are strict and unequivocal which attaches them “idealized” character,

According to the first scenario, by 2020 Turkey will have become non-liberal Islamist state. Islam will become a kind of excuse for the restrictions of the government, the basis of the identity of vast masses of the society and moral code in the everyday life. The institutions will remain nominally democratic, but oppositional political groups and parties will be suppressed and inefficient. Concluding Islamic alliance with “Saadet” party, established by Recai Kutan and Fetullah Gulen’s movement, the Justice and Development Party will try to bring into life its conception of Turkey’s future based on the religious doctrine. The role of Islam in domestic and foreign policy will be decisive.

As we can see, the analysts tend to believe that Islam will lose its moderateness thus seeding to radical manifestations in almost all the spheres of public life. As a result political parties of temporal orientation will decay. But 8 years are not enough to realign the temporal conciseness of the prevailing part of the society into Islamic one.

Judging by the dynamics of the votes received by the JDP at the last three parliamentary elections, it is not excluded that by 2020 it would have lost its leadership and the researchers also tend to believe in such a development in the second scenario.

This scenario is also based on the permanent process of migration from the villages to the cities and as a result religiousness become a sign of a growing lower middle class in the cities. Turkey’s ruling conservative party – JDP – effectively respond to that tendency thus lifting hijab ban in universities, giving access to the graduates of the theological schools to the bureaucracy and undertaking other measures directing to undermining the temporal fundamentals of the republic.

Turning to the issues of the long-term migration from the villages to the cities, the authors came to the conclusion that by 2020 more than 90% of the population in Turkey will become urban. In terms of figures, according to the official data for December 2010 the population of Turkey was about 74 million people, 76% of which (about 56 million people) lived in the cities, and the remaining 24% (17.5 million) lived in villages5.

Correspondingly, after some mathematic calculations it becomes clear that the rural population in 2020 will be only 7.5 million as a result of urbanization. But the researchers did not take into consideration the number of population in Turkey in 2020. And taking into consideration the population upsurge rate it will be 82 million people6. According to the same source in 2020 the “rural community” in Turkey will be about 12 million people (14.5% of total population). The comparison of the statistics in 2010 and 2020 comes to prove that though the specific weight of the rural population in Turkey in 2020 (as compared with 2010) will shrink by 9.5%, the urban population will not exceed 90% (according to the forecasts of the same scenario).

It should be mentioned that such developments are incompatible with the social and economic situation in the country. Where should those masses of people be accommodated, especially today, when in spite of economic upturn in Turkey, there are high rates of umemployment in the cities (10.8%)? Can an 8 million “rural community” feed the rest of the population? The programmes directed to the development of the agriculture are implemented on strategic level, first of all on the assumption of the food security and foreign trading of the country. The rate of unemployment in the villages in May 2011 was 7.1% and in order to shrink it state invite investors to this sphere to cease in the future the migration flow to the megalopolises as it happened in 1960-1980s in a consequence of mechanization of agriculture. As a result most of the population which was seeking for the better life in the cities being unable to adapt themselves to the urban mode of life migrated to Europe thus partially forming modern “Turkish Diaspora”.

If we remember what Turkey’s foreign policy was before coming to power of Erdogan-Gul-Davutoglu political elite we can see that it was restricted within some frames (in the status of the applicant who wants to enter the “European family”) and did not want to get rid of it as it had no new theory of alternative policy.

Correspondingly, according to the report in the sphere of foreign policy Turkey, being disappointed by the protracted process of entering EU and incapable NATO, will renounce on the negotiations on entering the EU and strengthen ties with the countries of the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia.

It is remarkable that even without EU membership Turkey today plays an active role in the Middle East. Over the recent years it has established efficient political and economic contacts with once hostile Russia and even Central Asian states. Renunciation on EU membership is not a part of JDP’s programme at all. In 2014 Turkey is going to become a full member of the “European family”. This is, according to the main negotiator with the EU, state minister Egemen Bagis, a national programme and they still have time to bring the country in accord with the European standards. In fact, the EU membership will be one of the topical issues on the foreign political agenda even in 2014.

Another point is whether Turkey will reconsider after that basic date in case of failure its relations with the EU and will finally orientate to the Middle East with which it will carry out big and ambitious regional project in future, which was offered by Davutoglu in the shape of the “strategic triangles”.

It is not a mere chance that this year Erdogan in his threatening letter to the EU mentioned: “Turkey is turning into a global and regional actor using its soft power. We carry out active policy from the Balkans to the Middle East and Caucasus. Many say that we don’t have real alternative to Europe. This is probably true; it is also true that Europe has no real alternative to Turkey” 7.

According to the second scenario Turkey will transform into a non-liberal temporal state. The decade previous to 2020 will re-orientate Turkish policy to the domination of the temporal powers. Such an abrupt change is explained in terms of the supposed developments mentioned below.

The Kurdish issue remains chronic and the whole decade it will be supplemented by terrorist acts by KLP. Kurdish demonstrations against the government, demand for usage of the Kurdish language, freedom of speech and conscience will be suppressed under the pretext of security protection, Traditional principles of the territorial integrity and modernization fueled by those disturbing threats and rise of the nationalism become more convincing in the vast circles of the Turkish public.

Acts of violence in Kirkuk after the withdrawal of the American troops from Iraq, accompanied by the growing violence of the KLP in the South-East of Turkey, inspire serious misgiving about the stability of Turkey. Economic and foreign policy of the JDP is getting complimentary and inefficient, regional security is worsening because of the revolutionary movements in the Arab countries.

The group of authors did not pass over possible development of the Armenian-Turkish relations either. Thus, the JDP again resumes negotiations with Armenia with the purpose of establishing diplomatic relations and opening the borders despite the assertions of Azerbaijan that those issues should be connected with the NKR issue. Meanwhile, such an initiative causes nationalist moods among vast masses and oppositional parties and is not taken as a positive step directed to increasing the rating of Turkey as it is considered to be the result of the pressure on behalf of the US and EU. Anyway, according to this scenario the problems with Cyprus and Armenia remain unsolved.

Against the background with situation with the human rights, restriction of the freedom and instability in the country other political powers will also put themselves on the map. The army which today has a restricted power will be playing a bigger role in politics which, in its turn, will result in strengthening of the ties with the temporal authorities before and after the retirement of Erdogan in 2015.

In this case, according to the report, the government will consist of the representatives of the Republican People’s Party (RPP) and National movement Party and “radical nationalism” will become national ideology.

The third scenario is the political pluralism. In 2020 Turkey will again take the road of liberal democracy. This scenario is founded on the growing political competition, conditioned by the fact that the political parties take as a basis the growth of discontent connected with the attempts of the JDP to monopolize power, its contradictory stance on the religious issues, inability to curb the growth of unemployment and its foreign policy which, according to the adherents of the temporal stance, is conditioned by the Islamist ideology of the JDP.

The business elite and all the possible actors of the civil society, taking advantage of a partial publicity, will demand liberal freedoms and greater transparency of the authorities. Real competition will make the JDP more pragmatic and will confirm its image as a party of economic reforms.

All-in coalitional government inevitably proposes a wide range of approaches which concentrate political debates round the issues which are not so polar from ideological point of view.

The settlement of the Cyprus conflict will attach new impulse to the negotiations on the EU membership thus stimulating further democratic reforms in Turkey. Pluralism and involvement of wide circles will be gradually institutionalized.

Conclusions

Thus, we can conclude that separate provisions of multi-aspect scenarios but not the entire scenarios may come true. Two first scenarios de-facto take Turkey from one extreme (Islamist) to the other one (nationalist).

In the foreign policy the key issue is still the dilemma: either to go “in water” (EU) or “in fire” (Middle East) with the ambitious neo-Ottoman initiative – a key of Turkey’s alternative foreign policy. It is difficult to say which of the directions Turkey’s government will prefer, i.e. either to consolidate and strengthen positions in the “Islam triangle” with the dream of Erdogan about the creation in the future Muslim NATO or to cling to the idea of entering the EU till 2023. Nevertheless, all three scenarios exclude the membership of Turkey in the EU till 2020.

But the authors of the scenarios have not taken into consideration unpredictable developments which may change the prospects of Turkey in the aspect of territorial division (creation of the Kurdish state, Armenian issue and etc.), state structure, possible wars and etc.

1 Достоевский Ф.М., Дневник писателя. Сентябрь 1876 год. Цит. По: Восточный вопрос, Ереван, Айагитак, с. 53.

2 Симаворян А., Идеологические течения в контексте внешней политики Турции. http://www.noravank.am/arm/articles/detail.php?ELEMENT_ID=4956.

3 Such a success of Turkey is forecasted by George Freedman see. Фридман Дж., Следующие сто лет: прогноз на XXI век, 2007.

4 For details see: İhsan DÖRTKARDEŞ, ABD'den Türkiye'nin gelecek 8 yılı için 3 ayrı senaryo, Milliyet gazetesi, 14 Ocak 2011 и Turkey 2020, http://www.scps.nyu.edu/export/sites/scps/pdf/global.../turkey-2020-scenarios.pdf.

5 http://www.tuik.gov.tr/PreTablo.do?tb_id=39&ust_id=11.

6 http://ww2.unhabitat.org/habrdd/conditions/westasia/turkey.htm.

7 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, The Robust Man of Europe։ Turkey has the vigor that the EU badly needs, http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/17/the-robust-man-of-europe.html.

«Globus National Security», issue 4, 2011

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