The Rising Islamic Business Elite and Democratization in Turkey

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The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey
Filiz Başkana
a Department of International Relations and the European Union, Izmir University of Economics,
İzmir, Turkey
Online publication date: 09 December 2010
To cite this Article Başkan, Filiz(2010) 'The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey', Journal of Balkan
and Near Eastern Studies, 12: 4, 399 — 416
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The rising Islamic business elite and democratization
in Turkey
FILIZ BAS¸KAN
Introduction
The role of business communities in the democratization of late developing
countries has been widely discussed by leading scholars of democratization.
Earlier studies on the political attitudes of entrepreneurs regarding the transition
to democracy focused on Latin American countries. Then various scholars tested
generic results of this research by comparing the political behaviour of Latin
American and Arab entrepreneurs.
1
More recently, Eva Bellin provided a
comprehensive framework to explain the role of business communities in late
developing countries by comparing countries in East Asia, Latin America and
the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
2
These studies have all tried to
explain why some business communities contribute to democratization while
others do not.
Turning to Turkey, there are a number of studies exploring the role of business
associations like TU
¨SI
˙AD (The Association of Turkish Industrialists and
Businessmen), MU
¨SI
˙AD (Association of Independent Industrialists and
Businessmen), TOBB (The Union of Turkish Chambers and Stock Exchanges)
and TI
˙SK (The Turkish Employers’ Confederation) in the democratization of
state–society relations in Turkey.
3
It is important to note that the Turkish business
elite is not a monolithic group, which is why, unlike in other countries in the
region, the examination of the business elite’s role in democratization
necessitates making a distinction between secular-modernist and religious-
conservative business groups. In particular, we can claim that there are
deep divisions, especially between the secular TU
¨SI
˙AD and the conservative
MU
¨SI
˙AD. Since other studies have already compared the relationship of these
business associations to democracy in Turkey, and the wider democratization of
the Turkish political system,
4
this paper will focus instead on the role of MU
¨SI
˙AD
in the transformation of Islamic political parties from a more radical to a more
ISSN 1944-8953 print/ISSN 1944-8961 online/10/040399-18 q2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/19448953.2010.531207
1
Scott Greenwood, ‘Bad for business?: entrepreneurs and democracy in the Arab world’,
Comparative Political Studies, 41(6), 2008, pp. 837–860.
2
Eva Bellin, ‘Contingent democrats: industrialists, labor, and democratization in late developing
countries’, World Politics, 52(2), 2000; Eva Bellin, Stalled Democracy: Capital, Labor, and the Paradox of
State-Sponsored Development, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2002, pp. 175– 205.
3
Ziya O
¨nis¸ and Umut Tu
¨rem, ‘Entrepreneurs, democracy, and citizenship in Turkey’, Comparative
Politics, 34(4), 2002, pp. 439 –456; Ziya O
¨nis¸ and Umut Tu
¨rem, ‘Business, globalization and democracy:
a comparative analysis of Turkish business associations’, Turkish Studies, 2(2), 2001, pp. 94 –120.
4
O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Entrepreneurs, democracy, and citizenship in Turkey’, op. cit.; O
¨nis¸ and
Tu
¨rem, ‘Business, globalization and democracy’, op. cit.
Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies,
Volume 12, Number 4, December 2010
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moderate line. Although some scholars have referred to MU
¨SI
˙AD’s role in
moderating the ruling Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma
Partisi—AKP),
5
they have not provided an analysis of the dynamics behind
MU
¨SI
˙AD’s contribution.
This paper has two main aims: first, to outline MU
¨SI
˙AD’s own transformation
towards a more moderate line; and second, to understand MU
¨SI
˙AD members’
role in the emergence of AKP out of its banned predecessor, the Islamist Welfare
Party, as a moderate, centre-right party. In doing this, a variety of sources are
examined: the literature on MU
¨SI
˙AD and AKP, MU
¨SI
˙AD research reports, AKP’s
party programme, news and interviews about both MU
¨SI
˙AD and AKP, and
extended interviews with those MU
¨SI
˙AD members elected as AKP deputies.
Bellin maintains that two variables, namely, ‘state dependence’ and ‘fear’,
shape the attitudes of business elites regarding democratization. She defines state
dependence as ‘the degree to which private sector profitability is subject to
the discretionary support of the state’.
6
She defines fear as the private
sector’s concerns about ‘protecting property rights and securing the long-term
profitability of its investments through the guarantee of order’.
7
For Bellin, in late
developing countries, industrialization takes place by means of state
sponsorship. In other words, each country’s business elite’s economic success
depends on collaboration with the state, especially if this state is authoritarian.
This state sponsorship undermines the business elite’s commitment to
democracy.
8
However, when the business elite’s state dependence begins to
decline, they begin to support democratization, as the cases of South Korea and
Brazil during the post-1980 period reveal.
9
Regarding the second variable, fear,
Bellin states that the mass empowerment associated with democratization in
countries where poverty is widespread constitutes a threat to the interests of
business elites. Thus, for business elites in late developing countries,
democratization is identified with ‘a deep sense of social threat’.
10
However, as
their fear of mass inclusion declines, these elites do become more sympathetic to
democratization, as in the cases of South Korea and Brazil.
11
On the basis of these
two variables, state dependence and fear, Bellin concludes that the business elites
of late developing countries are ‘contingent’ democrats: they support
democratization only when it serves their material interests.
12
In this paper, I will analyse the contribution of MU
¨SI
˙AD to AKP’s
transformation towards a more moderate line by utilizing the two explanatory
variables that Bellin developed to explain the role of the business elites of late
developing countries in different parts of the world. This will allow us to put the
attitudes of MU
¨SI
˙AD regarding AKP’s democratization into a theoretical context.
5
Ziya O
¨nis¸, ‘The political economy of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party’, in Hakan
M. Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti, University of Utah Press,
Salt Lake City, UT, 2006, pp. 207–234; S¸ebnem Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, ‘Economic liberalization, devout
bourgeoisie, and change in political Islam: comparing Turkey and Egypt’, EUI Robert Schuman Center
for Advanced Studies Working Papers 19, 2008.
6
Bellin, ‘Contingent democrats’, op. cit., p. 180.
7
Ibid., p. 181.
8
Bellin, Stalled Democracy, op. cit., pp. 3 – 4.
9
Bellin, ‘Contingent democrats’, op. cit., pp. 189–194.
10
Ibid., p. 181.
11
Ibid., pp. 189–194.
12
Ibid., p. 179.
400 F. Bas¸kan
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Regarding the relationship between political Islam and the Islamic economy in
Turkey, I argue that they grew together. Sometimes they contributed to each
other’s development; sometimes they contributed to each other’s transformation
and integration into the existing social, political and economic system. Before
going into the details of the nature of this relationship in recent years, the next
section will give an insight into the historical background and development of
Turkey’s Islamist political parties and Islamic economic actors.
The historical backdrop to Islamic politics and the Islamic economy in Turkey
Islamic ideology became noticeably more visible in Turkish political life after
1970. On 26 January 1970, the first religious party in republican history, the
National Order Party (Milli Nizam Partisi—MNP), was founded. However, it
was closed on 20 May 1971 by the Constitutional Court because it was found
guilty of trying to establish a theocratic order in Turkey. In 1972, a new religious
party, the National Salvation Party (Milli Selamet Partisi—MSP), was set up to fill
the place of the National Order Party. MNP was established partly to represent
the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises in Anatolian cities against
the government of the Justice Party, which had close ties with the large
industrialists of Turkey’s major cities.
13
MSP supported the interests of small
and medium size capital, so provincial small businessmen occupied an
important place among MSP’s constituents.
14
They were discontented with the
allocation of state resources to large businesses in the major cities and
demanded state protection and support for themselves
15
in order to receive
‘their due share of the expanding economic pie’.
16
After the military
intervention of 12 September 1980, MSP too was banned, although this time
together with all other political parties.
With the transition to civilian rule in 1983, a new Islamist party, the Welfare
Party (Refah Partisi—Refah), was founded to fill the gap created by MSP’s
closure.
17
Refah was in fact a continuation of both MNP and MSP. As can be seen
in Table 1, Refah failed in the 1987 general election: although it got 7.2 per cent of
the popular vote, like a number of other parties, it did not gain any seats in
Parliament because of the 10 per cent electoral threshold. In order to prevent a
repeat of this situation in the 1991 elections, Refah, the Nationalist Labor Party
and the Reformist Democracy Party formed a pre-election alliance. This led to a
significant electoral success, with the alliance getting 16.9 per cent of the total
vote and gaining 62 seats in Parliament.
13
Ali Yas¸ar Sarıbay, Tu
¨rkiye’de Modernles¸me, Din ve Parti Politikası: MSP O
¨rnek Olayı
[Modernization, Religion and Party Politics in Turkey: The Case of the National Salvation Party],
Alan Yayınları, I
˙stanbul, 1985, pp. 98–100; Haldun Gu
¨lalp, ‘Globalization and political Islam: the
social bases of Turkey’s Welfare Party’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 33(3), 2001, p. 435.
14
Yıldız Atasoy, ‘Cosmopolitan Islamists in Turkey: rethinking the local in a globalera’, Center for
Global Political Economy Working Papers 04-03, 2004, pp. 17–18.
15
Haldun Gu
¨lalp, ‘Political Islam in Turkey: the rise andfall of the Refah Party’, The Muslim World,
89(1), 1999, p. 29.
16
I
˙lkay Sunar and Binnaz Toprak, ‘Islam in politics: the case of Turkey’, Government and Opposition,
18(4), 1983, p. 438.
17
Binnaz Toprak, ‘The state, politics and religion in Turkey’, in Metin Heper and Ahmet Evin
(eds), State, Democracy and the Military: Turkey in the 1980s, De Gruyter, Berlin and New York, 1988,
p. 128.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 401
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During the 1980s, Refah, like its predecessors, voiced the interests of small and
medium-sized enterprises that wished to receive state support and protection.
18
It was in this context that MU
¨SI
˙AD appeared as an alternative business group to
TU
¨SI
˙AD. It was founded in Istanbul on 5 May 1990 by a group of young
businessmen to represent small and medium-sized enterprises with Islamic
values
19
as an alternative to the secular TU
¨SI
˙AD. TU
¨SI
˙AD had been established
in the early 1970s by the owners of a small group of large businesses. Paralleling
the Islamist Refah’s rise to power, MU
¨SI
˙AD became a prominent business
association during the second half of the 1990s.
There were several national and international factors behind the striking
development of Islamist groups in Turkey’s political and economic life during
the post-1980 period. The most important national factor was a transformation in
the Turkish state’s ideology.
20
Ziya O
¨nis¸ argues that, following the 1980 coup, the
military, although part of the republican elite, believed that Islam could be an
important contributor to social and political stability.
21
Accordingly, they
encouraged a new constitution based on a ‘Turkish–Islamic synthesis’, a
combination of nationalism and Islam, which they considered could act as a
restraint against the perceived causes of political chaos. Islam was thus utilized
by the military as an instrument for the consolidation and institutionalization
Table 1. Votes and seats for Islamic parties in Turkish elections
Date Votes (%) Number of seats
MSP 1973 11.8 48
MSP 1977 8.6 24
Refah 1987 7.1 –
Refah 1991 16.9 62
Refah 1995 21.3 158
FP 1999 15.4 111
SP 2002 2.5 –
AKP 2002 34.3 365
SP 2007 2.3 –
AKP 2007 46.5 341
Note: According to Turkey’s Election Law, no party failing to receive 10 per cent of the total
vote can obtain parliamentary representation.
18
Gu
¨lalp, ‘Globalization and political Islam’, op. cit., p. 438.
19
I should note that MU
¨SI
˙AD is not the only association that represents the interests of small and
medium-sized enterprises. For instance, in recent years, the Association of Industrialists and
Businessmen (SI
˙AD) was established in Anatolian cities. There are currently 75 SI
˙AD branches, with
around 3000 members all over Turkey. For the underlying differences between SI
˙AD, TU
¨SI
˙AD and
MU
¨SI
˙AD, see Fuat Keyman and Berrin Koyuncu, ‘Globalization, alternative modernities and the
political economy of Turkey’, Review of International Political Economy, 12(1), 2005, pp.107 –130. Another
association, ASKON (Association of Anatolian Businessmen), was established in 1998, and the
number of its member firms has reached around 1900. See Ays¸e Bug
˘ra and Osman Savas¸kan, ‘Yerel
Sanayi ve Bugunu
¨nTu
¨rkiyesi’nde I
˙s¸Du
¨nyası’, Toplum ve Bilim, No. 118, 2010.
20
Filiz Bas¸kan, ‘The political economy of Islamic finance in Turkey: the role of Fethullah Gu
¨len
and Asya Finans’, in Clement M. Henry and Rodney Wilson (eds), The Politics of Islamic Finance,
Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2004, p. 219.
21
Ziya O
¨nis¸, ‘The political economy of Islamic resurgence in Turkey: the rise of the Welfare Party
in perspective’, Third World Quarterly, 8(4), 1997, p. 750.
402 F. Bas¸kan
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of the post-1980 regime,
22
and Islamic elements were incorporated into official
ideology as a unifying force for the Turkish nation.
The rising pace of globalization can be considered as the most significant
international factor in Islam’s increasing importance in Turkey’s political and
economic life. Globalization has contributed to a change in the role of the state
from being an instigator of economic activity to being more of a facilitator in an
increasingly pluralist and market-oriented environment. In 1980, Turkey began,
with the help of the World Bank and IMF, to adopt a market-oriented economic
model instead of its existing import-substitution model. Within the framework
of this liberalization programme, the government adopted various measures,
both to liberalize the imports regime and also to encourage the growth of an
export-oriented private sector.
23
Globalization and the Turkish state’s liberalization programme provided
a suitable environment for the emergence and development of MU
¨SI
˙AD.
24
As O
¨mer Bolat, MU
¨SI
˙AD’s third president, puts it:
democratization and liberalization during Turgut O
¨zal’s Motherland Party rule
led to the growth of Anatolian enterprises. The transition from the statist,
inward-looking economic model to a free market, export-oriented economic
model that took place in the 1980s, created an opportunity for growth for
Anatolian business people who had a spirit of entrepreneurship. Consequently,
a new breed of entrepreneurs emerged, who did not utilize state incentives,
favored export-oriented growth, and tried to develop their firms by means of
their own capital.
25
The majority of MU
¨SI
˙AD member firms were established during the late
1980s, parallel to the adoption of neo-liberal policies by the Turkish authorities in
the aftermath of the 1980 military intervention.
26
Although MU
¨SI
˙AD also
includes large firms employing thousands of employees, it represents mainly
small firms employing less than 50 workers.
27
In 19 years, MU
¨SI
˙AD, in addition
to Istanbul, has opened branches in 28 Anatolian cities throughout Turkey, with
the number of its member firms reaching around 3440 by 2008. The branches in
Istanbul, Ankara, Konya, Bursa and Kayseri have the largest memberships,
followed by cities such as Antalya, Kocaeli, Adana, Sakarya and Gaziantep. One
of the important features of these cities is that they have all established growing
export markets in the post-1980 period.
28
The smaller enterprises of these
22
Ibid., p. 750.
23
Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, op. cit., p. 3.
24
For a detailed analysis of how the globalization process has affected the establishment and
expansion of MU
¨SI
˙AD, see Berrin Koyuncu Lorasdag
˘ı, ‘The relationship between Islam and
globalization in Turkey in the post-1990 period: the case of MU
¨SI
˙AD’, Bilig, 52(1), 2010, pp. 105–128.
25
O
¨mer Bolat, ‘Tu
¨rkiye’den du
¨nyaya uzanan 17 yıllık bas¸arı o
¨yku
¨su
¨; Model STK MU
¨SI
˙AD’, KOBI
˙
Efor Dergisi, September 2007, ,http://www.MU
¨SI
˙AD.org.tr/MU
¨SI
˙AD_dosya/kobi_efor.doc.
(accessed November 2008).
26
Atasoy, op. cit., p. 21; Murat C¸ okgezen, ‘New fragmentations and new cooperations in the
Turkish bourgeoisie’, Environment and Planning C: Government and Policy, 18(5), 2000, p. 537.
27
Ays¸e Bug
˘ra, ‘Labour, capital, and religion: harmony and conflict among the constituency of
political Islam in Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies, 38(2), 2002, p. 193.
28
Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, op. cit., pp. 5 –6; E. Fuat Keyman, ‘Modernity, secularism and Islam: the case of
Turkey’, Theory, Culture and Society, 24(2), 2007, p. 227.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 403
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Anatolian cities are known as ‘Anatolian tigers’, and have made a significant
contribution to the consolidation of MU
¨SI
˙AD’s social position.
29
At the time of MU
¨SI
˙AD’s establishment, an important problem for these
smaller enterprises of Anatolian cities was lack of information, since their owners
were not generally well educated. It was therefore very difficult for them to gain
information about recent developments in global markets and to participate in
international fairs. For small firms, the cost of gathering up-to-date information
was particularly high.
30
Accordingly, one of MU
¨SI
˙AD’s aims was to eliminate the
difficulties for these firms of gathering information regarding recent global
trends.
MU
¨SI
˙AD carries out various activities with the aim of providing ‘information
on technological innovations, marketing, global production and trade patterns’
for its members.
31
For example, it establishes special commissions and
professional committees, organizes conferences on certain political and economic
issues, and arranges international fairs in Turkey and foreign trips to fairs
abroad.
32
During business trips to foreign countries,
33
MU
¨SI
˙AD arranges both
talks among businessmen and also meetings with government authorities and
higher level officials of public and private sector institutions to help its members
establish better business connections with foreign companies.
Through participating in international fairs and business trips in foreign
countries, MU
¨SI
˙AD’s member firms have been able to use these new contacts
with foreign firms in the global market to overcome the restrictions of Turkey’s
domestic market.
34
This has in turn enabled MU
¨SI
˙AD’s members to integrate
into global markets. Bolat believes that MU
¨SI
˙AD has helped the businessmen of
Anatolian cities to open up to the global market and learn how to export their
products. He claims that, following MU
¨SI
˙AD’s foundation, small traders have
been turned into smaller enterprises, and smaller enterprises have been turned
into medium-sized enterprises. For Bolat, MU
¨SI
˙AD has enhanced the feeling of
belongingness for its members and has met their need to expand their business
activities, to widen their horizons and to establish business relations with other
MU
¨SI
˙AD members.
35
A current AKP deputy and MU
¨SI
˙AD member described
MU
¨SI
˙AD’s contribution to its members in providing opportunities to establish
business relations with foreign firms as follows:
After starting the business, we gained momentum, but after a while we had
difficulties in opening up our business to foreign countries. During MU
¨SI
˙AD’s
foreign trips, we recognized a considerable gap in our market. Having established
contacts, we started doing business with foreign countries.
36
29
Ays¸e Bug
˘ra, ‘Class, culture, and state: an analysis of interest representation by two Turkish
business associations’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 30(4), 1998, pp. 524–525.
30
C¸ okgezen, op. cit., p. 541.
31
Atasoy, op. cit., pp. 22–23.
32
MU
¨SI
˙AD members participate in international fairs in cities ranging from Moscow to
Damascus, from Tehran and Cairo to Bucharest, Milan, Frankfurt and Cologne.
33
So far, MU
¨SI
˙AD members have visited a range of countries in Central Asia, the Middle East,
Africa, South-East Asia, the EU, Russia, Ukraine and the USA.
34
C¸ okgezen, op. cit., p. 540.
35
KOBI
˙Efor Dergisi/Eylu
¨l, 2007.
36
Interview 2, November 2008.
404 F. Bas¸kan
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It is also important to point out that, with MU
¨SI
˙AD’s support, Islamic
entrepreneurs have expanded their businesses since the 1980s through their own
efforts, rather than through state sponsorship. That is, in Bellin’s terms, they have
not been dependent on state sponsorship or protection. MU
¨SI
˙AD’s founders
claim that, until the 1980s, the state had allocated certain privileges, such as
investment funds, to those large industrialists of Turkey’s major cities
represented by TU
¨SI
˙AD. MU
¨SI
˙AD therefore argues that those industrialists’
close links to the state, rather than their entrepreneurial abilities, was the main
factor behind the growth of their businesses, and that they now constitute an
obstacle to the economic growth of smaller enterprises represented by
MU
¨SI
˙AD.
37
The latter firms have long felt excluded from an economic life
dominated by large industrialists, who developed largely through
sponsorship by Turkey’s secular state,
38
as in other late developing countries.
39
However, during the post-1980 period, these small and medium-sized
enterprises have managed to expand by utilizing the opportunities presented
by globalization and the Turkish state’s economic liberalization programme.
The recent rise of political Islam in Turkey was first signalled by the 1994
municipal elections and 1995 general election. In the 1994 municipal elections,
Refah gained 28 municipalities, including the metropolitan municipalities of
Istanbul and Ankara. In the 1995 general election, it gained 21.3 per cent of the
total vote and 158 out of 550 parliamentary seats. After the 1995 general election,
following the collapse of a brief coalition government of the two centre-right
parties, the True Path Party (Dog
˘ru Yol Partisi—DYP) and the Motherland Party
(Anavatan Partisi—ANAP), Refah formed a coalition with DYP, becoming the
senior partner, with Necmettin Erbakan, leader of Refah, becoming prime
minister for the first two years of the coalition. For Ays¸e Bug
˘ra, the main reason
behind Refah’s electoral successes was its ability to mobilize different segments of
Turkey’s population, ranging from newly emerging Anatolian entrepreneurs,
through Islamic intellectuals and professionals, to the marginalized masses,
especially in the major cities.
40
MU
¨SI
˙AD, too, occupied a significant place among
Refah’s constituents, and MU
¨SI
˙AD members expected, accordingly, to gain access
to state resources through these new political connections.
41
When Refah was in
power, MU
¨SI
˙AD’s membership increased considerably
42
as the organization
increased its influence through the close relationship that it developed with
Refah.
43
One example of MU
¨SI
˙AD’s influence was the way it encouraged the
efforts of the government to create closer relations both with Islamic countries
and with East Asian countries with large Muslim populations, such as Malaysia
37
C¸ okgezen, op. cit., p. 538.
38
O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Entrepreneurs, democracy, and citizenship in Turkey’, op. cit., p. 44.
39
Bug
˘ra, ‘Class, culture, and state’, op. cit., p. 529.
40
Bug
˘ra, ‘Labour, capital, and religion’, op. cit., p. 189.
41
C¸ okgezen, op. cit., p. 539.
42
Ibid.
43
Ziya O
¨nis¸, ‘Political Islam at the crossroads: from hegemony to co-existence’, Contemporary
Politics, 7(4), 2001, p. 290.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 405
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and Indonesia.
44
MU
¨SI
˙AD members participated in Erbakan’s visit to East Asian
countries, and MU
¨SI
˙AD prepared a report in 1996 on this trip.
45
However, Refah’s hold on power did not last long. Due to the anti-secular
activities of the coalition government, accompanied by various speeches by Refah
deputies, the party was seen as acting against the secular and democratic
principles of the Turkish Republic.
46
At the National Security Council meeting
47
of
28 February 1997, the Turkish military, which perceives itself as the guardian of the
democratic and secular character of the Republic, voiced its discomfort at Refah’s
religious policies.
48
At this meeting, the military advised the government to take
measures, such as educational reforms to increase compulsory education from
five to eight years, in order to prevent the development of Islamic movements.
49
With this meeting, a process started, which ended with the resignation of
Refah from the government, the dismantling of the coalition and a ban imposed
on Refah on 16 January 1998, on the grounds that ‘the party acted against the
principles of the secular republic’.
50
In addition to the ban on the party, its leader,
five other deputies and a mayor were banned from active politics for five years
because they were found guilty of provocative speeches, and attitudes that were
in conflict with the secular and democratic principles of the Republic.
51
During the 28th February process, parallel to the suppression of political
Islam, Islamic business people were suppressed too. For instance, the Chief of
General Staff made publicly known a list of companies that were believed to have
close connections with Islamist parties, and who were therefore ‘going to be
excluded from public bids for many contracts’.
52
In his interview, one current
AKP deputy and MU
¨SI
˙AD member stated that ‘during the 28th February
process, there was psychological intimidation of conservative businessmen: even
the activities of kebap restaurants were recorded as Islamist by the military’.
53
The
44
Bug
˘ra, ‘Labour, capital, and religion’, op. cit., pp. 193– 194.
45
MU
¨SI
˙AD, Bas¸bakan N. Erbakan’ın Dog
˘u Asya Gezisi ve MU
¨SI
˙AD’ın Bosna Hersek Gezisi, Istanbul,
1996.
46
Aylin Gu
¨ney and Filiz Bas¸kan, ‘Party dissolutions and democratic consolidation: the Turkish
case’, South European Society and Politics, 13(3), 2008, pp. 263–281.
47
The NSC, during that period, was composed of the president, the prime minister, the chief of the
General Staff, the ministers of justice, national defence, interior, and foreign affairs, and the
commanders of the branches of the armed forces and the gendarmerie. This body sets national
security policy and coordinates all activities related to mobilization and defence.
48
For an elaboration of the period between the establishment of the coalition government of Refah
and TPP to the 27 February 1997 National Security Council meeting, see Metin Heper and Aylin
Gu
¨ney, ‘The military and the consolidation of democracy: the recent Turkish experience’, Armed Forces
and Society, 26(4), 2000, pp. 639–645.
49
Ibid., p. 645.
50
Hu
¨rriyet, 17 January 1998.
51
For instance, on 13 April 1994, Erbakan asked Refah’s representatives in Parliament to consider
whether the change in the social order which the party sought would be ‘peaceful or violent’ and
would be achieved ‘harmoniously or by bloodshed’. In another speech on 13 January 1991 in Sivas,
Erbakan called on Muslims to join Refah, saying that only his party could establish the supremacy of
the Koran through a holy war (jihad) and that Muslims should therefore make donations to Refah
rather than distributing alms to third parties. S¸ evki Yılmaz, a Refah deputy, in public speeches in 1994
said: ‘Our mission is not to talk but to implement the war plan as a soldier in the army, ... The
question Allah will ask you is this: “Why, in the time of the blasphemous regime, did you not work for
the construction of an Islamic State?”’
52
Bug
˘ra, ‘Class, culture, and state’, op. cit., p. 534.
53
Interview 2, November 2008.
406 F. Bas¸kan
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Chief Prosecutor at the High Court of Appeals demanded that MU
¨SI
˙AD be
banned due to its close relationship to Refah’s successor, the Virtue Party.
54
As a
result of this pressure, MU
¨SI
˙AD tried to distance itself from Islamist political
movements.
55
At the same time, it is worth noting that, for some important figures in
MU
¨SI
˙AD, the 28th February process had the side effect of encouraging Islamist
circles to engage in self-criticism in order to rethink their political preferences.
For example, Ali Bayramog
˘lu, the second president of MU
¨SI
˙AD and a current
AKP deputy, stated that, ‘although I was criticized in our [Islamist] circles,
I supported some aspects of that process. For me, we should not have affiliation
with dogmatic views.’
56
Like the Islamic business elite, the Islamist political elite engaged in self-
evaluation, and the members of Refah founded a new party, the Virtue Party
(Fazilet Partisi—FP) on 17 December 1997 with a much more moderate rhetoric.
57
Nevertheless, some scholars think that FP only adopted this more moderate
standpoint because of its fear of being dissolved by the Constitutional Court,
rather than because it really had a moderate stance.
The party’s identity was also disputed within FP itself, with a division
between its reformist and traditionalist factions. Small and medium-sized
enterprises in general, and MU
¨SI
˙AD in particular, played an important role in the
emergence of this cleavage. The owners of these enterprises had traditionally
been Refah voters who defended state interventionism, social justice and
redistribution. However, as already discussed, during the 1990s, these small
entrepreneurs began to utilize the increasing pace of globalization to become
more active in international markets.
Consequently, Refah’s statist, anti-Western and confrontational rhetoric
became incompatible with the interests of this rising Islamic business elite,
which preferred a market economy, a pro-Western attitude and peaceful relations
with the secular state establishment.
58
According to Bayramog
˘lu:
the economic model of Refah was not a complete model, and we explained the
deficiencies of this model to the leaders of the party. It was based on the idea of the
implementation of an interest-free economic model, but in practice, it was simply
the idea of statist policies for providing economic growth. However, we think that,
while the state should play an advisory role in economic life, economic activities
should be carried out by the private sector. In other words, the state should not be
involved in the manufacturing sector.
59
Similarly, another current AKP deputy and MU
¨SI
˙AD member maintains that:
In the 1990s, Refah supported an inward-looking economic model, but in a
globalizing world you cannot defend such a model. Nowhere can you find a
country that has a closed economic system. By means of the Internet, we are
54
Radikal, 20 March 2001.
55
O
¨nis¸, ‘The political economy’, op. cit., p. 221.
56
Interview, January 2009.
57
O
¨nis¸, ‘Political Islam at the crossroads’, op. cit., p. 287.
58
Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, op. cit., p. 11.
59
Interview, January 2009.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 407
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traveling throughout the world through our fingers. While you should keep one
foot fixed to the your home ground, you have to travel the world on the second
foot.
60
Thus, while MU
¨SI
˙AD members supported Refah, they were also aware that it
could not solve the problems of Turkish society, and that its economic policies
could not be applied successfully, especially in an age of globalization.
61
They
maintained that Refah remained behind global trends, and that it could not
keep up with the pace of change at both a global and national level. The Islamic
business elite, who favoured a liberal economic and democratic system, therefore
began to support, both financially and politically, those reformists who wished to
transform FP into a centre-right, moderate party, rather than remain a marginal
Islamist party.
62
Despite the reformists’ efforts, FP, like Refah, was banned on
22 June 2001 by the Constitutional Court after being found guilty of acting
against the principles of the secular republic. In contrast to the aftermath of
previous closures, however, FP’s dissolution led to the formation of two new
parties. One was the Felicity Party (Saadet Partisi—SP), founded on 20 July 2001
by FP’s traditionalist wing, under the leadership of Recai Kutan. The other was
AKP, set up by FP’s reformist wing on 14 August 2001.
MU
¨SI
˙AD supported the emergence of AKP as a moderate, centre-right party
from the ranks of the Islamist FP due to its ability to keep up with global trends,
on the one hand, and with the changing mentality of Turkish people on the other
hand. Bayramog
˘lu argues, for example, that:
in this globalizing world, political parties must adapt themselves to changing
social, political, and economic conditions caused by the globalization process. AKP
realized the necessity of a change in the mentality of Islamist politics, so proposed
a new economic model and notion of the social state, and democratic principles.
63
The organic relationship between MU
¨SI
˙AD and AKP can be clearly
demonstrated by the fact that some members of MU
¨SI
˙AD were elected as
deputies of the AKP, both in the 2002 and the 2007 general elections. For this
reason, it is useful to analyse, using Bellin’s framework, how AKP emerged,
through the support of MU
¨SI
˙AD, as a moderate, centre-right party.
Bellin’s first variable, state dependence, is useful for understanding
MU
¨SI
˙AD’s position regarding democratization and its role in the democratiza-
tion of Islamist political parties. According to Bellin, business elites support
democratization if they are not dependent on the state for achieving growth of
their companies. As outlined above, during the post-1980 period, Turkish Islamic
entrepreneurs have expanded their businesses by utilizing the opportunities
presented by globalization and the Turkish state’s economic liberalization
programme, rather than through state sponsorship. That is, in Bellin’s terms, they
have not been dependent on state sponsorship or protection, so they have
60
Interview 2, November 2008. Another current AKP deputy and MU
¨SI
˙AD member, too,
underlines the incompatibility of Refah’s economic model with the process of globalization. Interview,
April 2010.
61
Interview with Erol Yarar, the founding president of MU
¨SI
˙AD, August 2010.
62
Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, op. cit., pp. 13–14.
63
Interview, January 2009.
408 F. Bas¸kan
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supported democratization of Islamist political parties. In Turkey’s case, the
globalization process provides us with a useful variable for explaining the
Islamic business elite’s ability to expand their businesses without state support
that made their own internal democratization possible, which in turn facilitated
the democratization of Islamist political parties.
Regarding Bellin’s second variable, fear, we can argue that, due to the
repression that they had experienced during the 28th February process, the Islamic
business elite began to reconsider their political preferences, inclining towards the
centre-right of the political spectrum rather than the religious right. That is, during
the 28th February process, a fear of being suppressed by the secular state elite,
which would have reduced the profitability of their investments, forced them to try
to keep their distance from Islamist movements and to shift their political
preferences towards a more moderate political movement defending economic
liberalism and democracy. Bellin argues that business elites in late developing
countries incline towards democratization as their fear of the effects of mass
empowerment on their property rights and profitability declines. In Turkey’s case,
however, MU
¨SI
˙AD members have a different fear: that repression by the secular
state elite could reduce the long-term profitability of their investments. For this
reason, they have encouraged the democratization of Islamist parties to preserve
their advantageous place in Turkey’s changing economic system. That is, as with
other late developing countries, Turkey’s Islamic business elite have become
‘contingent democrats’ to protect their material interests.
The emergence of the Justice and Development Party as a centre-right party
Just 14 months after its establishment, partly brought about through MU
¨SI
˙AD’s
financial and political support, AKP competed in the 2002 general election and
achieved a dramatic victory, obtaining 34.3 per cent of the votes and 365 seats out
of 550 in Parliament. This enabled it to form the first single-party government in
15 years. However, AKP was immediately regarded with suspicion by both the
Turkish secular elite, and by some Western secular intellectuals and politicians,
because of its religious background as an offspring of the Islamist Refah and FP, as
outlined earlier.
64
In order to allay such suspicions, especially those of the secular segments of
Turkish society, the first remarks of the leader of the party, Recep Tayyip Erdog
˘an,
following the elections, were that the AKP was not a religiously oriented party.
Indeed, although the leaders of AKP originate from the earlier Islamist parties,
there are essential differences between AKP’s discourse and its predecessors’.
Moreover, AKP’s party programme does not have a specifically Islamic character,
being similar to those of other centre-right or even centre-left parties in Turkey.
65
Thus, in contrast to its predecessors, AKP’s rhetoric was ‘moderate’ from the
start, and as soon as it came to power after the 2002 general election, it became
64
Bayram Ali Soner, ‘The Justice and Development Party’s policies towards non-Muslim
minorities in Turkey’, Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 12(1), 2010, p. 23.
65
For an examination of the convergence, especially on economic issues, democratization and
decentralization in party programmes of the Motherland Party, the True Path Party, the Democratic
Left Party, the Republican People’s Party, the Nationalist Action Party, the Virtue Party and the
People’s Democracy Party, see Ziya O
¨nis¸, ‘Neoliberal globalization and the democracy paradox: the
Turkish general elections of 1999’, Journal of International Affairs, 54(1), 2000, pp. 295–299.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 409
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an ardent supporter of Turkey’s European Union (EU) membership bid. In this, it
risked alienating some of its voters, most of whom had supported previous
Islamist parties that had not been favourable to Turkey’s EU integration.
66
From
the outset, however, Erdog
˘an stated that his party would do its best to meet EU
membership criteria and get a date for starting membership negotiations at the
Copenhagen summit in December 2002.
67
Accordingly, under AKP rule, between
2002 and 2004, five ‘harmonization packages’ were passed through the
Parliament thanks to the government’s absolute majority. The government took
serious measures to end police torture, to eliminate legal restrictions on freedom
of expression, to permit freedom of association and assembly and freedom of the
media, and to allow TV broadcasting in local mother tongues other than Turkish
on both public and private channels.
AKP also rejects the perception that it is specifically an Islamist party.
Erdog
˘an has defined AKP as ‘a mass-based party on the foundation of
conservatism’, and the single power on the centre-right of the political
spectrum.
68
In this sense, AKP has tried to form a political identity for itself
based on the notion of ‘conservative democracy’.
69
To this aim, the party
published a book and organized an international symposium on conservative
democracy. All these efforts indicate how serious AKP is about distancing itself
from other Islamist parties. Metin Heper, for example, notes that, ‘since its
inception, AKP has displayed stronger pro-system features than its
predecessors’.
70
Other observers share this view of AKP as exemplifying the
transformation of an Islamist party into a centre-right one.
71
In the 2007 general election, AKP experienced a dramatic increase in its vote,
gathering 46.5 per cent of the total vote and 341 parliamentary seats out of 550.
Significantly, for the first time in 53 years in Turkey, a ruling party won an
election victory with an increased number of votes.
The organic relationship between MU
¨SI
˙AD and AKP
The close relationship between MU
¨SI
˙AD and AKP can also be seen in Table 2,
which shows the number of members in MU
¨SI
˙AD branches all over Turkey and
the electoral performance of the Islamist parties like Refah, FP and SP, and the
centre-right AKP. There is a clear relationship between the number of MU
¨SI
˙AD
66
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis, ‘AKP and the paradox of Islamic Europhilia’, Turkish Policy Quarterly,
3(1), 2004, p. 67.
67
Turkish Daily News, 8 November 2002.
68
Turkish Daily News, 12 January 2004.
69
Yalc¸ın Akdog
˘an, Muhafazakar Demokrasi, Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Ankara, 2003.
70
Metin Heper, ‘The victory of the Justice and Development Party’, Mediterranean Politics, 8(1),
2003, p. 131.
71
Simten Cos¸ar and Aylin O
¨zman, ‘Centre-right politics in Turkey after the November 2002
general election: neo-liberalism with a Muslim face’, Contemporary Politics, 10(1), 2004, pp. 57 –64;
O
¨nis¸ , ‘The political economy’, op. cit.; Ergun O
¨zbudun, ‘From political Islam to conservative
democracy: the case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey’, South European Society and
Politics, 11(3/4), 2006, pp. 543– 557; Ersin Kalaycıog
˘lu, ‘Politics of conservatism in Turkey’, Turkish
Studies, 8(2), 2007; Fuat Keyman and Ziya O
¨nis¸, ‘Globalization and social democracy in the European
periphery: paradoxes of the Turkish experience’, Globalizations, 4(2), 2007, pp. 211–228; Burhanettin
Duran, ‘The experience of Turkish Islamism between transformation and impoverishment’, Journal of
Balkan and Near Eastern Studies, 12(1), 2010, pp. 5–22.
410 F. Bas¸kan
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Table 2. Votes of Islamist parties and AKP in 29 cities with MU
¨SI
˙AD branches
MU
¨SI
˙AD members AKP 2007 AKP 2002 SP 2007 SP 2002 FP 1999 Refah 1995
Adana 99 36.9 26.82 1.6 1.66 10.27 16.69
Ankara 301 47.7 38.11 2.4 1.12 17.07 20.88
Antalya 121 34 21.16 1.3 1.02 6.25 13.3
Balıkesir 71 41.5 33.58 2.0 1.46 9.5 14.96
Bandırma 32 37.1 31.18 2.0 1.41 7.69 9.53
Bursa 218 50.8 41.3 3.9 2.93 15.37 18.76
Denizli 83 43 24.17 1.0 0.83 5.76 10.34
Diyarbakır 37 40.9 15.96 0.7 2.3 14.57 18.8
Elazıg
˘52 57.2 41.99 3.7 5.92 24.48 41.84
Erzurum 65 68.3 54.65 3.2 3.59 28.28 38.7
Eskis¸ehir 38 44.5 29.59 1.6 1.86 9.73 14.47
Gaziantep 84 59.3 40.04 1.4 2.17 15.85 23.75
Gebze 35 53.2 42.16 7.3 7.48 23.45 31.68
Hatay 24 40.8 29.88 1.1 1.43 12.19 18.47
I
˙nego
¨l 35 61.4 50.8 8.8 7.1 20.26 25.63
I
˙stanbul 1019 45.2 37.2 9.3 3.79 21.29 23.93
I
˙zmir 70 30.5 17.17 1.8 0.83 4.89 8.42
Kahramanmaras¸ 53 68 53.88 1.5 1.69 23.07 36.82
Kayseri 148 65.7 54.34 2.1 2.28 23.24 33.06
Kdz. Ereg
˘li 48 37 32.05 4.3 1.38 11.12 15.38
Kocaeli 114 49.3 42.85 8.3 6.17 22.74 31.68
Konya 262 65.3 24.94 4.4 4.78 30.17 41.74
Malatya 66 66.7 50.65 1.6 3.83 25.28 37.17
Mersin 44 27.2 18.07 0.8 0.99 5.21 10.68
Rize 65 53.7 44.19 3.4 4.23 20.77 23.87
Sakarya 94 53.1 43.84 6.2 3.42 24.36 28.24
Samsun 50 57.9 44.84 2.4 1.64 15 22.16
S¸anlıurfa 42 59.8 22.9 2.2 4.55 21.41 26.18
Trabzon 70 56.8 43.93 5.6 5.68 19.94 26.27
Total 3440
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 411
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members in its branches and the percentage of AKP votes, especially in the 2007
general election. It is interesting to note that support for AKP, as the
representative of the defunct FP’s reformist wing, increased dramatically to
34.3 and then 46.3 per cent of the votes in the 2002 and 2007 general elections,
respectively,
72
whereas SP, which retained traditional Islamist policies, got a
marginal vote of 2.5 and 2.3 per cent in the 2002 and 2007 general elections,
respectively.
As discussed already, MU
¨SI
˙AD played a key role in the emergence of AKP as
a ‘conservative democratic’, centre-right party, by providing financial and
human resources. Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, for example, reports how ‘MU
¨SI
˙AD played a critical
role at the organizational level as numerous members of the association joined
the AKP to complete the organization of the local offices of the party in Anatolian
cities’.
73
In his interview, an AKP deputy of S¸anlıurfa and founding president of
MU
¨SI
˙AD S¸ anlıurfa branch recalled: ‘Having admired Erdog
˘an, I decided to join
AKP without any doubt. I became the founding leader of AKP’s local branch in
S¸ anlıurfa and was chosen as AKP deputy in the 2002 and 2007 general
elections.’
74
Similarly, Mustafa Demir, one of the founders of MU
¨SI
˙AD’s Samsun
branch, reported that, ‘In 2001, the leaders of AKP asked me to found the local
branch of the party in Samsun. I decided to join AKP and founded its local branch
in Samsun.’
75
MU
¨SI
˙AD supported AKP ideologically too: for Bayramog
˘lu, MU
¨SI
˙AD’s
policy recommendations have supplied new ideas for the party.
76
The AKP party
programme has some similarities with the official rhetoric of MU
¨SI
˙AD that can
be traced back to its economic and political reports. For example, like MU
¨SI
˙AD,
AKP advocates a free-market economy, export-oriented economic growth and a
limited state role in economic life. In particular, MU
¨SI
˙AD has provided
important economic policy thinking for AKP. For example, the party has utilized
MU
¨SI
˙AD’s proposals listed in its yearly research reports for overcoming Turkey’s
economic problems. As Bayramog
˘lu comments:
MU
¨SI
˙AD has shared its views regarding economic issues with AKP’s leaders and,
unlike other political parties, they have paid attention to our suggestions. For
instance, in 1997, MU
¨SI
˙AD proposed revaluing the currency with 1 million
Turkish Lira equaling 1 YTL. At that time, many economists doubted the
feasibility of this proposal, but in 2003 AKP decided to change the currency as we
proposed.
77
According to one current AKP deputy and MU
¨SI
˙AD member, MU
¨SI
˙AD has
made an important contribution to the application of AKP’s economic policies by
organizing biennial international fairs that play an important role in opening
up Turkey’s market and expanding its export potential.
78
72
AKP’s overwhelming success can be attributed to its ability to win the votes of not only
conservative businessmen, but also other segments of society.
73
Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, op. cit., p. 12.
74
Interview 1, November 2008.
75
Interview, January 2009.
76
Gu
¨mu
¨s¸c¸u
¨, op. cit., p. 12.
77
Interview, January 2009.
78
Interview 2, November 2008.
412 F. Bas¸kan
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In return for MU
¨SI
˙AD’s support, AKP has paid special attention to small and
medium-sized enterprises by allocating them a specific section in its party
programme and acknowledging that they are making an important contribution
to the creation of production, employment and added value, having become the
new backbone of Turkey’s economic and social structure. Accordingly, the party
programme lists the following measures for protecting the interests of small and
medium-sized enterprises:
79
.Providing financing support based on projects, tax incentives and a plan to
reduce bureaucratic obstacles.
.Extending protection from unfair competition by large corporations to
tradesmen, artisans and small and medium-sized enterprises.
.Supporting export companies operating in a given sector so that companies
operating in similar fields can export the goods they produce more efficiently
and productively.
AKP has been influenced by MU
¨SI
˙AD in its democratization efforts too.
MU
¨SI
˙AD’s report on Constitutional Reform and Democratization of the State,
published in 2000, clearly influenced AKP in the sense that, similarly to
MU
¨SI
˙AD, it demanded the extension of fundamental rights and freedoms, a
strict implementation of the principle of separation of powers, and a new more
civil and democratic constitution. According to Bayramog
˘lu,
Our views mentioned in this report were widely shared, especially by AKP. It is
interesting to note that Burhan Kuzu and Mehmet Aydın were the members of the
MU
¨SI
˙AD committee that prepared the above-mentioned report. Now Burhan
Kuzu is Chairman of the Parliamentary Constitution Committee and Mehmet
Aydın is currently Minister of State in the AKP government. I mean, those people
we have worked together with are now in important positions within AKP and
they have a chance to put into practice their views that we share.
80
Regarding the role of the Islamic business elite in AKP’s democratization
efforts, we can conclude that they support further democratization of state–
society relations in Turkey. Although they claim that AKP has more to do for
democratization, they seem satisfied with the government’s current record. One
AKP deputy states that, ‘in terms of Turkey’s democratization, AKP’s six-year
rule can be considered as the most significant period in Republican history’.
81
In a similar manner, Bayramog
˘lu claims that AKP is the most active party in
implementing democratic reforms, and that it is repeatedly underlining the
importance of freedom of thought and belief.
Deficiencies of AKP and MU
¨SI
˙AD regarding democratization
Despite the significant progress in the democratization of state – society relations
under AKP rule, it can be claimed there are two significant problems facing the
AKP government regarding further democratization: workers’ rights and
79
AKP party programme.
80
Interview, January 2009.
81
Interview, January 2009.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 413
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women’s rights.
82
Although the AKP party programme states that it aims to solve
problems through mutual agreements within a triple structure consisting of the
worker, employer and the government, it has been more sensitive to the needs
and interests of employers rather than workers.
83
Regarding women’s rights,
AKP claims that all necessary measures should be taken to encourage women to
participate in public life and all discriminatory provisions against women should
be eliminated.
84
In fact, the AKP government has made legal amendments to
expand women’s rights. However, the leaders of AKP, it is claimed, have no
determination to deal with two critical issues concerning women: the quota
question and the headscarf issue.
85
Both the leaders and members of the party
believe that women’s participation in political life can only occur as a result of
evolutionary change of society rather than top-down imposition.
86
Regarding the
headscarf issue, on 9 February 2008, the AKP government together with the
support of the right-wing Nationalist Action Party (MHP) made two legislative
amendments to lift the headscarf ban in universities. Nevertheless, the
Constitutional Court cancelled these amendments on 5 June 2008, on the
grounds that they violated the Constitution’s secular principles. So we can argue
that while AKP tried to lift the headscarf ban to satisfy the demands of its
grassroots, it does not support a quota system which would satisfy women from
different segments of Turkish society.
Like AKP, MU
¨SI
˙AD faces similar constraints with respect to workers’ rights
and women’s rights. For some contributors to MU
¨SI
˙AD publications, the
conflictual relationship between labour and capital, characteristic of capitalist
societies, is not seen in Islamic societies. Rather, in these societies, bonds of
religiously based fraternity and friendship bind labour and capital together.
87
Therefore, for MU
¨SI
˙AD, when the employer behaves in a just and affectionate
manner towards his employees, and when the worker is respectful and
hardworking, there will be no need for a formal labour code or labour unions.
88
In other words, ‘mutual trust replaces the need for a formal labor code and labor
unions’.
89
Accordingly, MU
¨SI
˙AD reports do not touch on the extension of trade
unions’ rights. In relation to women’s rights, MU
¨SI
˙AD deals only with lifting the
headscarf ban in universities, stating in its report on Constitutional Reform and
Democratization of the State that this ban is not compatible with the rule of law.
In this context, it is essential to discuss MU
¨SI
˙AD’s conception of democracy.
It has been claimed that the 28th February process was a turning point in
shaping MU
¨SI
˙AD’s understanding of democracy.
90
Until that time, MU
¨SI
˙AD
82
E. Fuat Keyman and Berrin Koyuncu, ‘AKP, MU
¨SI
˙AD, Ekonomik Kalkınma ve Modernite’,
Du
¨s¸u
¨nen Siyaset, 19, 2004, p. 134.
83
Engin Yıldırım, ‘Labor pains or Achilles’ heel: the Justice and Development Party and labor in
Turkey’, in Hakan M. Yavuz (ed.), The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Parti,
University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, UT, 2006, p. 253.
84
AKP party programme.
85
Zana C¸ ıtak and O
¨zlem Tu
¨r, ‘Women between tradition and change: the Justice and Development
Party experience in Turkey’, Middleastern Studies, 44(3), 2008, p. 457.
86
Ibid., p. 458.
87
Yusuf Balcı, ‘I
˙slamda C¸ alıs¸ma I
˙lkeleri’, in H. S¸ encan (ed.), I
˙s¸ Hayatında I
˙slam I
˙nsanı,MU
¨SI
˙AD
Yayınları, I
˙stanbul, 1994, p. 116.
88
Bug
˘ra, ‘Class, culture, and state’, op. cit., p. 533.
89
Bug
˘ra, ‘Labour, capital, and religion’, op. cit., p. 195.
90
Koyuncu Lorasdag
˘ı, op. cit., p. 115.
414 F. Bas¸kan
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did not have a comprehensive understanding of democracy, since it just
focused on freedom of expression and extension of religious freedoms.
91
However, since the 28th February process, it has paid special attention to other
aspects of democratization like intra-party democracy, the autonomy of the
judiciary and extension of freedom of thought.
92
However, MU
¨SI
˙AD still does
not touch on social and cultural rights,
93
such as the Kurdish issue and minority
rights.
94
In this context, we need to mention that, although TU
¨SI
˙AD has an
instrumental view of democracy,
95
it published a report in 1997 titled
Perspectives on Democratization in Turkey, which emphasized the ‘extension of the
language and cultural rights of the Kurds’.
96
From this, we can conclude that in
order to be a ‘genuine democrat’ rather than ‘contingent democrat’, and to
contribute to AKP’s efforts to further democratize state – society relations in
Turkey, MU
¨SI
˙AD should provide a broader perspective on individual, social
and cultural rights.
Conclusion
Since the beginning of the 1990s, an Islamic business elite has begun to play an
important role in the social, political and economic life of Turkey. They first
founded MU
¨SI
˙AD to enhance solidarity among its members so as to overcome
the difficulties of a lack of knowledge and exclusion from the existing system.
Some members of this elite were affiliated with the Islamist Refah, but they
became aware that the party’s economic model was heavily statist and inward
looking, which conflicted with their belief in a free-market, export-oriented
economic model. Thus, towards the end of the 1990s, they realized that their
businesses could not maintain their expansion through this kind of Islamist
political stance in a secular and democratic Turkey. Therefore, in order to
preserve their place in the country’s economic life, and to become part of the
global market, MU
¨SI
˙AD’s members, primarily owners of small and medium-
sized enterprises, became more sympathetic to democratization. Therefore, they
encouraged the Islamist political parties to adopt a more moderate and
democratic position, thereby contributing to the democratization of some
segments of the Islamic community in Turkey.
To put this into a theoretical context, similarly to what Bellin proposed,
during the post-1980 period Turkish Islamic entrepreneurs, who have expanded
their businesses without relying on state sponsorship, supported democratiza-
tion of Islamist political parties. In MU
¨SI
˙AD’s case, the globalization process
provides us with a useful variable for explaining how the Islamic business elite’s
ability to expand their businesses without state support made their own internal
democratization possible, which in turn facilitated the democratization of
Islamist political parties.
91
Ibid.; O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Business, globalization and democracy’, op. cit., p. 102.
92
Koyuncu Lorasdag
˘ı, op. cit., p. 117; O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Business, globalization and democracy’,
op. cit., p. 102.
93
Koyuncu Lorasdag
˘ı, op. cit., p. 118.
94
Koyuncu Lorasdag
˘ı, op. cit., p. 121; O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Business, globalization and democracy’
op. cit., p. 101.
95
O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Entrepreneurs, democracy, and citizenship in Turkey’, op. cit., p. 447.
96
O
¨nis¸ and Tu
¨rem, ‘Business, globalization and democracy’, op. cit., p. 100.
The rising Islamic business elite and democratization in Turkey 415
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With the 28th February process, which aimed to minimize the influence of
political Islam and Islamic actors in the economic and political fields, the Islamic
business elite found themselves at a crossroads: they could either choose to
support close-minded Islamist political movements or to support open-minded
modernist groups. Most of them chose the second option, providing financial
and human resources for the establishment of AKP, which defines itself as a
centre-right, conservative democrat party, rather than an Islamist party.
Concerning Bellin’s second variable, fear, we can argue that during the 28th
February process, a fear of being suppressed by the secular state elite, which
would have reduced the profitability of their investments, forced the Islamic
business to try to keep their distance from Islamist movements, and to shift their
political preferences towards a more moderate political movement defending
economic liberalism and democracy. In other words, MU
¨SI
˙AD members have
encouraged the democratization of Islamist parties to preserve their advan-
tageous place in Turkey’s changing economic system. That is, as with other late
developing countries, Turkey’s Islamic business elite have become ‘contingent
democrats’ to protect their material interests.
In short, as Turkey’s expanding Islamic business elite began to integrate itself
into both the national economy and the global economic system, and as it
accumulated wealth, it reoriented its political preferences in a more moderate
direction that has contributed, through its influence on the ruling AKP, to the
democratization of Turkey’s political system and the liberalization of its
economy. However, the Islamic business elite in general, and MU
¨SI
˙AD in
particular, might make further important contributions to the consolidation of
democracy if they demanded individual rights and freedoms, not only for
themselves, but also for other segments of society.
Acknowledgements
This study received support from the Scientific Research Projects Committee of
Izmir University of Economics (grant number A0901002). An earlier version of it
was presented at the Tenth Mediterranean Research Meeting, European
University Institute, Florence and Montecatini Terme, Italy, 25 –28 March 2009.
I would like to thank Michele Dunne, Aylin Gu
¨ney, Amr Hamzawy and Bayram
Ali Soner for their comments and suggestions, and Selin Bengi Gu
¨mru
¨kc¸u
¨for
research assistance.
Filiz Bas¸kan is Associate Professor of Political Science in the Department of
International Relations and the European Union, Izmir University of Economics.
She was formerly a Jean Monnet Research Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre,
European University Institute, Florence (2000–2001). She has published in Middle
Eastern Studies,South European Society and Politics,Turkish Studies,Nationalism and
Ethnic Politics,International Journal of Turkish Studies and in several edited
volumes.
Address for correspondence: Izmir University of Economics, Department of
International Relations and the European Union, Sakarya Cad. No. 156, Balc¸ova,
35330 I
˙zmir, Turkey. E-mail: filiz.baskan@ieu.edu.tr
416 F. Bas¸kan
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