Governance and human development in Turkey & Tunisia

31 August 2018

Governance and

Human Development

in Turkey & Tunisia

Master Thesis Political Science

İlayda Güreşçi 11649747

Specialization International Relations

Supervisor: Dr Farid Boussaid

Table of Contents

COMPARATIVE POLITICAL ECONOMY DEVELOPMENT 13 CHAPTER 3

THE SUCCESS STORY: TURKEY 2000-2010 16

THE OTHER SUCCESS STORY:REVOLUTION & TRANSITION 20

CHAPTER 4

THE STORY OF FAILURE: TURKEY SINCE 2010 25

THE COMPARASION OF THE CORRELATIONS:GOVERNANCE &HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 28

CHAPTER 5

CONCLUSION 31

Governance and Human

Development in

Turkey & Tunisia

Chapter 1

Introduction

The 2008 global recession and following economic stagnation had a significant impact on socioeconomic inequalities while unemployment, government oppression and corruption have been cited as leading to the uprisings which started in Tunisia (Cammett, Diwan, Ishac, Richards & Alan, 2015; Kaboub, 2012). Even though the uprisings were able to put socio- economic justice at the heart of MENA politics, scholars rightly pointed out that the transitions were limited in scope (El-Katiri &Fattouh, 2017). The political processes that followed the mass protests and the collapse of previous governments have recalled “coup d’etat’s civil wars and political revolutions” with redefined elite pacts which prioritises economic stability and political continuity rather than sincere developments or social transformations (Leenders &Heydemann, 2012).

Although, its transitional justice process suffered from a major setback last year due to the adoption of the law on “reconciliation in the administrative field”, which offered a “blanket impunity” for civil servants accused of corruption (Human Rights Watch, 2017), Tunisia has been regarded to be on a much better track compared to Egypt and many other countries where protests and/or transitions took place (Landolt & Kubicek, 2014). Moreover, while its high literacy rates and developed middle class raised promises (Koubaa, 2012) and compliance by major political parties to the ongoing transition expected to boost domestic growth, according to Devarajan & Mottaghi the security tensions and terror attacks have frustrated the efforts to build a “new social contract” (2015).

Turkey’s experience became a reference point for “aspiring democracies” in the region, even more after the Arab Uprisings (Cammett et al., 2015) thanks to institutional reforms took place to enhance transparency, diversification and private sector development (OECD, 2016). Just as pioneering the import substitution industrialization, and taking the lead in implementing

Washington Consensus policies, especially in the mid-2000s the convergence process with the European Union (EU) translated into dynamic economic growth for Turkey and it was able to create “3 million new jobs” since turning to competitive liberalization (Cammett et al., 2015; Chauffour, 2012). On the other hand, the Turkish “example” (Chauffour, 2012) or “model” have been considered worthy of examination because it demonstrated that Islam and democracy was not mutually exclusive, even though, Turkey continued to have low levels in terms of good governance, political stability and civil liberties (Kubicek, 2013).

The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between governance and human development in two different political economy contexts both of which are located in the European neighbourhood and MENA region. Due to their proximity to Europe they had been significantly influenced by it either being ideologically or socioeconomically throughout history. For Turkey, this influence was not that direct like in Tunisia with French colonization, but rather the ideologies borrowed by the Young Turks after leading into a passive revolution within the Ottoman Empire when followed with Turkey declaring itself as an independent republic, these influences remained mostly through constructive relations. When in 1956 Tunisia declared its independence from the French, Habib Bourguiba who was inspired by rationalist and humanist thinkers just like Atatürk, the founder of Turkish Republic, acted as the mobilizer, leader, and later the political representative of the people. While both leaders and political actors of the time enacted progressive reforms and concerned with achieving economic independence, the countries followed import-substitution policies. Unfortunately, this state-led development policy did not go well as planned and as like many other policies such as centralization, secularization, and nationalism. In Turkey, especially centralization and nationalism created a hostile environment for the Kurdish population of almost 10 percent and for many other minorities who were living on the Ottoman territories when the first world war came to an end. Secularization, on the other hand, had a function of eliminating non-rights-based governance, and securing freedom of belief, however, as the bureaucratic centre became more and more disengaged from the periphery, religion became part of political processes again. Even though, multiparty politics started much earlier in Turkey, it was interrupted by coup attempts in the 60s, 70s and again in 1980. In Tunisia, parliamentary politics could not be exercised properly until 2011, due to the authoritarian leadership and deadlocks formed to prevent Islamists joining the politics of governance. Regardless of the “democratization” efforts in the early days of governments, since now, both cases demonstrated that rather than genuine representation and just distribution, rent-seeking, corruption and oppression dominated

political, economic and social spheres. After they started to follow economic liberalization policies with International Monetary Fund (IMF) packages, two countries have taken two different models. While Turkey was able to move to competitive liberalization (at least to an extent) and promoted the integration of once periphery groups (to an extent) by mostly through this decentralization of economic participation and diversion of opinion/power in democratic decision making processes (coalition governments), even though first with an economic crisis in the early 2000s there had been significant improvements in governance and human development. In Tunisia, where the liberalization was not competitive, 2000s could have been as bright as the earlier decade, with the same president, and his expanding cronies and shrinking political circles. After, briefly expanding on this account of background of the country’s’ political economy development, the research first questions the context of the so-called “Turkish model” or the “success story” of Turkey starting from 2000s and ending in around 2010. Discussion on the reforms in Turkey which had mostly achieved through the European Union (EU), World Bank (WB) and IMF directives, and negotiations will be followed by changes in Human Development Index (HDI) comparing Turkey and Tunisia, between 2002 and 2015.

Following the historically and politically grounded approaches of three economists Rodrik (2004), and Acemoglu& Robinson (2012) this research is concerned with diversion of power within government institutions, and aims to offer a similarly grounded approach while discovering the relationship between governance and human development. While Rodrik (2004), convincingly to many scholars was able to mark ten-more policy advices to the original-ten Washington Consensus development paradigms, Acemoglu & Robinson (2012) made a break-through in economics by this grounded approach, and demonstrated that inclusiveness of the political and economic institutions expected to increase economic growth and lead to a higher standard of living.

From political economy development to the literature on human development, visiting different opinions related with political Islam and revolution as a form of political change and for formulating the background of the cases, the research aims to contribute to the political science scholarship. While the main focus will on the MENA region, due to the fact that the initiation of wide range of reforms and their outcomes will be explored throughout the research, especially since it is done so in the comparative context, it could also offer an opportunity for driving opinions of governance policies in general. The next chapter will address the main question of research, whether or not Tunisia would be following a similar path of Human

development, and this will be analysed not only by comparing the political development and reforms within countries but also with the statistical regression analysis of the relationship between governance indicators and HDI. Before concluding in the following section, this time by focusing on the period after 2010 in Turkey, the changes in governance and HDI will be critically discussed and what are the lessons could be drawn from its experience for Tunisia and wider MENA region will be addressed.

Literature Review

The main determinants of the protests in the Arab world has been found to relate with “bread” “justice” “political opportunities” and more specifically “state terror” (Costello, Jenkins & Aly, 2015). Scholars pointed out that the 2008 global recession and following economic stagnation had a significant impact on socioeconomic inequalities while unemployment, government oppression and corruption cited as leading the uprisings in Tunisia (Cammett et al., 2015; Kaboub, 2012). While the fact that its private sector was “dominated by holding companies with close relations to political power and financial institutions”, including the son-in-law of Ben Ali has been known (Coupe, 2010) the “crony capitalism” of the regime also proved through firm level data by the World Bank recently as well (Rijkers, Freund, & Nucifora, 2017). “Cronyism” has been characterized with the rollback of the state and economic liberalization, meant the opportunities in the society were mediated by leaders and their narrowing circles of allies, vanishing meritocracy in political and economic context (Cammett et al., 2015).

Burkhart (1988) argued: “One can easily envision the democracy-income distribution relationship to be reciprocal” which could be argued to be true for good governance-equality relationship as well. Among the very few studies engage with the debate on governance-equality relationship are related with government effectiveness and corruption (Mauro, 1995; Davoodi & Tanzi, 2001), discussed the expenditure side of government budget. The findings of Gupta, Davoodi and Alonso-Terme (2002) demonstrated that while corruption increases inequality it is also harmful to growth, and lastly, Klitgaard (1987) found out that institutions which are biased could lead to greater disparity of incomes, mainly due to the corrupt bureaucrats. The literature connecting governance indicators to certain socioeconomic outcomes are mostly around the levels of growth (Gani, 2011; Emara & Chiu, 2016). According to the study Gani conducted, while political stability and government effectiveness indicators are shown to be positively correlated with growth, there is a negative correlation between growth and two other indicators (regulatory quality and rule of law) which have deemed

statistically insignificant. On the other hand, Noha Emara and I-Ming Chiu have formulated a “composite governance index” which is a measure used to summarize all governance indicators, and according to their results, nine countries in the MENA region have shown a positive correlation between governance and economic growth.

Since scholars have arrived at the point that they look back to the history and recall that stable democracies are not produced simply by enacting progressive constitutions and holding free and fair elections (Boukhars, 2017) the debates in comparative politics moved increasingly into governance and policy issues especially with regards to human development and equality. Bunce and Wolchik (2010), for instance, centers their question on the vulnerability of competitive authoritarian regimes, while Esen and Gümüscü (2017) elaborates on Turkey’s experience within the last years as turning into this paradigm of governance as well. Moreover, Bunce and Wolchik (2010) return to a much older debate around whether being revolutions, regime transitions, or electoral breaktrhroughs more precisely; political change. This research, while belonging to the same genre in literature and aims to contribute it by discussion two different ways in which change takes place, one, after the 2011 Uprisings in a transitional setting and coalition governments, and the other, after a severe economic crisis, elections and reform under the Europeanization process of Turkey from 2000 to 2010.

On the other hand, when there is no guarantee of democratic equilibrium and stable rules to counterbalance majority’s legislative dominance, scholars warned, how political transitions could also lead to the “tyranny of majority (Boukhars, 2017).” According to Bollen and Jackman (1985b, p451-2), coalition governments in democracies could decrease the probability that platforms advocating for income redistribution as a policy.

In Turkey, even though, it had a record of leading into deeper debt and legitimacy crisis, the appeal to economic populism was undeniable from the beginning (Patton, 2006). Aydın (2013) argued that after having consolidated the political and economic hegemony, the AKP started full front attack on opposition and established the control of police, the judiciary, bureaucracy and media in Turkey while also managing to subdue the army and the workers’ movements. While, scholars started to discuss what Öniş (2012) called social neoliberalism the use of AKP’s redistribution policies as a source of electoral support they pointed out that this meant that some social policy was required to win the election or to avoid social unrest (Dorlach, 2015). Today, the political economy literature on the AKP’s competitive authoritarian rule” is being associated with the larger trend of “crony capitalism” as well (Esen & Gumuscu, 2017),

especially since the Gezi Parkı Protests in 2013, a widespread anti-government demonstration against harsh police response to environmental resistance, Turkey had even lower levels in good governance and political stability (Kubicek, 2013).

One of the recent studies comparing the AKP and Al-Nahda, suggested that, both experiences of countries with Islamist parties reveal their strategy of “conquering the state from within as oppose to democratizing it. (Somer, 2017).” Yıldırım (2016) on the other hand, by following Mardin’s social cleavage (center-periphery) framework, compares the economic liberalization processes of Morocco and Egypt to Turkey and reaches the conclusion that due to the relative integration of peripheral groups to the economy the AKP have emerged as a Muslim Democrat Party (MDP). Islamist revival in the region has been discussed by many theories as a reaction to relative deprivation, social inequality and political oppression, while questions also raised for the potential of religious symbolism (Knudsen, 2003). While political-centric studies of Islamism, have been dominated by the inclusion-moderation hypothesis which lays a causal relationship between the level of repression exercised by the state and a social movement’s adoption of increasingly radical views and behaviour (Hafez, 2003; Schwedler, 2006). Recent studies which incorporated the Gramsican concepts analysed the long-term war waged on cultural front and the functional cultural strategies of Islamist groups, towards the state and society; war of position, and many of these studies employed combinations of different school of thoughts rather than limiting themselves to only one discipline (L tourneau, 2016). One of the examples of this school of thought had been embraced by Tugal (2016), who pointed out how the lines between the state and society, the elite and the people are continuously drawn and redrawn.

The historical assessment of the most robust “pre-Arab Spring” examples of Middle Eastern governments demonstrated that the implementation of single mechanisms either to pursue peace or justice was not due to parties’ ignorance but their use of these mechanism to consolidate more power (Fraihat & Hess, 2016, p62). The last part of the research will focus on the period of governance in Turkey after 2010 until today, and point out that what starts as very successful developments in the political economy, could be very easily turned over is the parties governing continue to manipulate the reform mechanism as Fraihat and Hess argues. For Tunisia, according to the latest study, both the relationship between parties and societies and the inter-party relations in Tunisia suffer from numerous flaws, endangering the democratic consolidation process (Yardımcı-Geyikçi & Tür, 2018). Therefore, not only answering the

question, to what extent Tunisia follows a similar path to Turkey in terms of political and economic reform but also discussing how does governance relates to human development in both cases and driving lessons from each of them is essential.

Theoretical Framework

The political interactions between three domains (1) state, policies, structures; (2) economic agents’ operation and how the economy behaves over time; and (3) social actors whether being groups or individuals, constitute the theoretical framework of political economy (Cammett et al., 2015). Accordingly, as political elites implement policies in accordance with their ideologies and interests, states’ fiscal, monetary and trade policies affect the rate and form of growth; states, shape even create social actors who then engage back with the state to promote and protect their interests, which in turn result in unintended consequences for states; a demand for improved social services increases, as the global context determines the outcomes of policy choices (ibid). These hypotheses are essential in understanding pasts, presents, and the futures of countries under analysis, since they offer a basis for explaining conflicting interactions, struggle over resources, state capacity and autonomy as well as rules and regulations, organizations, and economic forces (ibid).

Cammet et al. have comprehensively explored in the book Political Economy of Middle East and there is now almost a consensus around the capital markets liberalization played a significant part in the Asian financial crisis of 1996, the Turkish financial crisis of 2000, and the global financial crisis of 2008 (ibid). While these financial crises lead into political transformation and regime change in many countries, the development community turned its attention to the central role of institutions in development. While the basic concept of the “Washington Consensus” was that markets promote growth better than states, as countries experiences fiscal imbalances after the Import-substitution policies and various international shocks, stabilization accepted as a norm while price liberalization and privatization followed (ibid). However, Rodrik convincingly to many scholars, offered “a more historically and politically grounded approach” which adds ten more policy changes to the original ten of the consensus, such as corporate governance, social safety nets and anticorruption efforts (Rodrik, 2004). Acemoglu and Robinson (2012) on the other hand, pointed out that the more political and economic institutions become inclusive, and have diversion of power between them, the more it would be expected to increase economic growth and lead to a higher standard of living.

The Gini index is the most common used inequality index which allows to measure the degree of inequality in the distribution of incomes for a given population (Dodge, 2008). Atkinson’s 1970 work highlighted the Gini index’s shortcoming in measuring the relative sensitivity of income equality at different income levels. Rawls (1971, p266) brought out fairness in “offices and positions” which are responsible for the arrangement of social and economic inequalities. After giving the theoretical foundations to the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index with his 1970 work, measures related to Gini coefficient and Atkinson’s measurement of inequality brought health and education as well as disposable income and consumption based assumptions which enables the reveal socioeconomic dimensions of development and inequality. Human Development Index developed in order to emphasize that both people and their capabilities should be the ultimate criteria for assessing the development of a country, not economic growth alone and for determining the outcomes of socio-economic policies and governance methods, it offers the best set of data for interpretation. HDI is a summary of average achievement in key dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, being knowledgeable and have a decent standard of living.

“The traditions and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised” is defined as governance; including “(a) the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced; (b) the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies; and (c) the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them (Kaufman, Kraay & Mastruzzi, 2011) .” Furthermore, while “(a) the process by which governments are selected, monitored and replaced” have been extracted with measures of Voice and Accountability (VA): the extent to which a country’s citizens are able to participate 
in selecting their government, as well as freedom of expression, freedom of association, 
and free media; and Political Stability and Absence of Violence (PV): the likelihood that the governments will be destabilized by unconstitutional or violent means, including 
terrorism. 
 (b) the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies” consist of Government Effectiveness (GE): the quality of public services, the capacity of the civil service and its independence from political pressures, and the quality of policy formulation and, Regulatory Quality (RQ): the ability of the government to provide sound policies and
regulations that enable and promote private sector development and lastly, (c) the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them” is measured with the Rule of Law (RL): the extent to which

agents have confidence in and abide by the rules of 
society, including the quality of contract enforcement and property rights, the police, 
and the courts, as well as the likelihood of crime and violence and Control of Corruption (CC): the extent to which public power is exercised for private gain, including both petty and grand forms of corruption, as well as “capture” of the state by elites and private interests (World Bank). 


Kaufman et al. (2011) point out that the World Governance Indicators (WGI) reflects the views of thousands of stakeholders worldwide, from repondents to hosusehold and firm surveys, and experts from nongovernmental organizations, public sector agencies etc. As for the six dimensions of governance, they recognize that the dimensions should not be thought of as being somehow independent of one another, but rather, they note that the indicators are strongly positively correlated among themselves across countries. (Kaufmann, 2010) Last but not least, as Devarajan and Johnson (2008) state, WGI could be helpful for indentifying the nature of “the governance problem in a country.”

Research Design

In both cases the reference to the “demands of social justice” along with constitutional, regulatory and institutional reforms made to improve the trust in government as well as the trust within societies encourages an open space for considering the correlations within and between governance and human development. For the purposes of the research, the developments within the political economies of two Majorly-Muslim populated countries who have been also tied to the Western countries by neighbourhood and trade relations will be analysed, along with the characteristics of the political transitions, transformation of the respective political parties and their engagement with the promotion of rights, freedoms and equalities. The multidimensional approach of study is designed in order to comprehend the political economy contexts of the cases and to bring a macro level analysis which might be useful for driving conclusions on political interactions and for structures operate globally. The acknowledgment of global power structures while leading to a limitation to the study both in the sense that neither the way in which these structures effect political settlements over the time period, nor the foreign trade agreements and national security policies of respective countries will be considered as part of this research, which might limit the generalized conclusion for the overall population of the MENA region. However, in both cases under discussion, there is strong link to international financial instituions and/or the European Union. Both in terms of their trade relations, the EU has been the most important trade partner for Turkey and Tunisia, in terms of their proximity,

as being in the “European neighborhood”, last but not least through the dialogue built for future prosperity, by supporting their reform and development processes. Therefore, the outcomes of the research should be considered in light of this short note.

Özbudun (1996, p134) suggest that the most important legacy of the shared Ottoman history is the social structures and state-society structures as well as cleavages on which post- independence politics were built. “The resemblance among post-Ottoman countries is striking despite the temporal difference in achieving independence across cases.” Moreover, the Turkish experience in political and economic modernization under Atatürk’s leadership throughout the 1920s and 1930s was closely followed by Arab experiences such as Bourguiba and Nasser two decades later (Issawi, 1996). Yıldırım’s (2016) social theory and typology of Islamist parties follows with the proto-cleavage on the secularism-religion dimension which overlaps with the distribution of political and economic power as well as resources in the society.This typology is useful in understanding several aspects around the political economy of Islamist parties’ moderation.

The discussion contines, in the second chapter with looking at the decolonization and/or independence process as well as the import-substitution policies and the following relative deprivation within societies. Therefore, firstly the purpose is understanding the initial points which have lead into social cleavages. Secondly, by turning back to 1950-1980s, the multiparty politics in Turkey, Democrat Party and National Outlook Movement and, in Tunisia two dictatorships in a row as well as development of Al-Nahda in the first place will be discussed. On the other hand, it is the part in which crony and competitive liberalization is grounded. Following section is also an important since the militarism of the states; the coups, hence “passive revolutions” will be under the lenses which mainly assess the progress of human rights and equalities. For being able to comprehend the true nature of “transition” as well as economic and social policies in relation to the civil society and political authority is essential. Therefore, the last section of the first chapter will consider the periods which have created both a demand and supply of social justice will be subjected to questions around the making of 2011 Uprisings, as well as the period which the AKP have come to elected as a single party in Turkey in 2002. Before moving on to the results of these processes, policies and interactions, the period since 2011 ill be discussed briefly. The analysis will be based on the quantitative and qualitative data gathered from the official documents of countries as well as International Financial Institutions (IFIs), especially from the World Bank, the European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN)

besides the articles gathered from journals, and books. For regression analysis, the human development index is regressed with the governance indicators, in the first specification HDI is regressed with all government indicators, and for the rest of the specifications, HDI is regressed with government indicators one by one. Regressions will be done by OLS method and the framework will be borrowed from Gani’s (2011) study on the relationship between economic growth and governance indicators.

Chapter 2

Comparative Political Economy Development

Over centuries, the landscape of societies located or directly connected to the Mediterranean coast shared similar traits. From their urban settlements to the Islamic centers which later became nation-state capitals had built near anchorages, agricultural plains and transport routes either on the northern (Willis, 2012) or western “centers”. Two countries with this significant geostrategic positions; Turkey and Tunisia have experienced different degrees of political stability and social justice within the same pattern of development understanding and approach to promote it. As pointed out earlier, the first historical connection and a common ground for understanding the relative deprivation within and throughout societies was the Ottoman empire which had a strong centre supported by social engineering, and religious institutions specifically on the borderline between the centre and periphery (Mardin, 1973, p172). Furthermore, the defensive modernization efforts in the region started with the 1839 Ottoman Tanzimat, given the ability of the reformers to tax the foreign-protected bourgeoisie, the cost of financing modernization through high-interest foreign loans led to debt and Western control over public finances, ended up undermining the economic autonomy (Hinnebusch, 2011).

After Turkey gained independence, “Atatürk was determined to promote Turkey’s industrialization” and to liberate its economy from dependence on the West (Cammett et al., p237). The experience of the national struggle followed with the first party; Republican People’s Party (RPP) established in 1923 and the Kemalist ideology was symbolised with six arrows of republicanism, nationalism, statism, populism, laicism, and reformism. During the second world war, it was noted that the RPP’s treatment of the peasantry was relatively more exploitative than the times of the Ottoman state (Keyder, 1979), and although “altogether Kemalist had a fine understanding of regulation, they missed the revolutionary-mobilization

aspect”, and the party was unable to establish contact with rural masses (Mardin, 1973). The First Five-Year Plan initiated in 1934 became the “blueprint” for ISI strategy, which was dependent mostly on the textile industry, emphasized local industry (Cammett et al., p238).

Tunisia’s tribal structure that predicated on vertical patriarchal relations and a socio-political order resembling religious, mercantile and aristocratic orientation became rather centralized after the French domination in 1881 accompanying British and Italian interests, and the mission to secure its permanence with minimal cost through promoting French culture, language education, linking Tunisian economy to French markets, last but not least, with the necessary institutional changes (Willis, 2012). While Turkey have benefited from an exceptional conjecture in which its export earnings increased within four years from 1950, the gap between the rural, bureaucratic: Kemalist (centre) and urban, religious masses (periphery) widened (Keyder, 1979; Mardin, 1973). Colonial rule in Tunisia, also provided a complex political legacy (Willis, 2012), as the Young Tunisians who modelled the Young Turks advocated the revitalization of the Islamic institutions, they were the first to discuss political reform without openly calling for independence or questioning the French cultural hegemony (ibid). Following that, the Destour movement started in 1920 in Tunisia was composed of ulema leaders and Young Tunisians were effective in the opening up the discussions around independence as well as the reinstatement of 1861 constitution, however, it was not until 1950s independence was finally achieved.

Tunisia joined Turkey in 1962, in the ISI path, with a Ten-Year Plan, as well as with its own co-operatives system (Simmons, 1979). However, this strategy by alienating much of the regime’s capitalist and small landowning constituency, lasted only until the Tunisian state adopted a strategy of stimulating the private sector and promoting exports to the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1969 (Cammett et al., 2015). Bourguiba, educated in law and political science at the Sorbonne took his inspirations from Rousseau and Hugo, just like Atatürk concerned with the themes around rationality and human dignity (Boulby, 1988). The Destour was centered on the capital Tunis and they were part of the old indigenous elite, Neo-Destour on the other hand, breaking from the old Neo-Destour worked to expand the party base to the urban and working classes through co-option of trade unions (Willis, 2012). Bourguiba’s party, Neo-Destour until 1964 and the Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD) afterwards observed as a modern administrative dictatorship (Vandewalle, 1988).

(DP) “perhaps reluctantly, found itself in a position to lead a social movement from below (Keyder, 1979).” In Turkey, accordingly, the “semi-parliamentary” regime did not lead to a fascist outcome, at least not directly (ibid). In the following years DP had tacitly allowed the existence of officially banned religious organizations and by accepting their support, it received a strong reaction from the RPP and the military (White, 2008). After getting elected in 1954 and 1957, the military which saw itself as the keeper of Atatürk’s legacy in order to stop the “Islamisation of the country” in 1960 plotted a coup (White, 2008). As for Tunisia, while the early years of Bourguiba have staged a process of secularisation, after 1960s, legitimation based on religion started to be resorted by the regime (Dell’Aguzzo & Sigill, 2017).

While in Turkey “Islam played only a minor role” first during 1970s, when “overly Islam-identified party” National Order Party (NOP) was founded by small independent businessmen, merchants and craftsmen who felt in danger against pro- West big business during intense industrialisation, shortly after a second coup in 1971 was shut down due to violating the constitutional separation of politics and religion (White, 2008). The Islamic Tendency Movement (MTI) which was also developed in 1970s and again became illegal, was a loose coalition which later had a greater significance in national and local politics, as Tunisia came to end with its socialist policies (Pickard, 2014). “The only recognized organization of consensus” which could mediate was the national trade union movement, UGTT, and after the move back to laissez-faire policies, the union began to reassert its traditional distance to the government (Ware, 1985, p32). While in Turkey, after the 1960 coup, the RPP became the biggest political party claiming 42 percent of the national vote in the 1970s while the politics have been dominated by sometimes violent disputes between “leftist” and “rightist” nationalist forces (White, 2008).

The 1980s saw the Turkish military yet again conducting a military coup, the economic liberalization reforms suggested by policy makers earlier that year put into effect (Tugal, 2016). The process which started under the military government continued with the full liberalization of capital accounts and when came to the 1990s, Turkish economy had become export-oriented, liberalized and open (Aydın, 2013). While the oil prices continued to fall and European protectionism was on the rise, drought and many other factors lead Tunisia into borrowing abroad (Cammett et al., 2015). The RPP had become a social democratic party drawing support from workers and urban intellectuals, and won the elections in 1973 yet lacking a majority formed a coalition with the NSP. In the 1977 elections balance of power in the GNA was again held by the smaller parties. A sharp rise in world oil prices and a fall in remittances decreased

political stability, and after a series of ineffective coalition governments were unable to deal with rapidly rising inflation, unemployment, the trade deficit and political violence (White, 2008). When Ben Ali first came to power, he abolished the state security court and the presidency for life, reformed the laws governing pretrial detention, however, after a while it has been observed that the country had fallen into an even deeper authoritarianism. On the other hand, Ben Ali opened a dialogue with socialist and Islamist opposition forces, however, there was not a single opposition candidate in the newly elected assembly of 1989. Accordingly, then MTI, later al-Nahda’s clashes with the state had played a significant role in Bouguiba’s downfall, and Ben Ali’s refusal to grant it with legal recognition, lead into to the continuation of these clashes on a different level (Gasiorowski, 1992). While, in Turkey, the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based in Anatolia brought pressures toward more grassroots representation in the political landscape, mainly channeled by the Islamist parties (Ulusoy, 2014). On the contrary, both in Tunisia, rather than the SMEs, big businesses have benefited, leading the scholars into arguing that Islamic business within these countries were not able to integrate to the markets (Gumuscu, 2010).

Chapter 3

The Success Stoy: Turkey 2000-2010

World Bank Report (2014) calls Turkey’s rapid growth and development as being one of the “success stories of the global economy. As Kemal Dervis (1998), World Bank former vice-president and the Economy Minister then, noted neither a strong fiscal policy nor the pace and quality of structural reforms was sufficient enough to prevent a rapidly growing current account deficit in the second half of 2000. The main factor that lead into such a severe crisis and inflation was the weakness of the banking sector and where large current account deficits was financed by short-term capital inflows, and there was no confidence for reform (Dervis, 1998). The 2001 banking crisis pushed Turkey into accepting IMF and WB imposed radical structural reforms that brought the persistently high inflation under control, disciplined budgetary processes, promoted rule-based policy making while introducing transparency and existence of autonomous agencies in decision-making and regulatory authorities (Acemoglu &Ucer, 2015). The macroeconomic reform program consisted of strong fiscal consolidation, strengthening of

banking supervision, reforming the social security system and securing the independence of Central Bank which is responsible for inflation targeting in a flexible exchange rate regime (World Bank, 2014). While these set of reforms have been effective in increasing economic growth and earnings growth, unemployment in fact increased which in turn addressed by reform in the following years with the competitiveness issues (IEG World Bank, 2009).

According to Dervis’s notes (1998, p79), the first strategic decision in the management of the crisis was: “deep structural reforms-aimed at changing the basic nature of socioeconomic system-were essential to a real and durable recovery.” Before 2002 August, Dervis left Turkey and his office, if not the crisis was already subsided, there had been many plans and negotiations undergoing with the international financial institutions regarding the exchange rate regime, debt sustainability, fiscal and wage policy that even after he was long-gone the change he initiated had eventually lead into higher levels of human development in Turkey.

Acemoglu and Ucer (2015) suggests that the effects of EU accession process on Turkish institutions were multidimensional, such as initiating the political pressure for reform and providing the template for legislation in civil and political rights, civil-military relations and judicial reform. In 2001 when under a coalition government was adopted, EU conditionality was a significant factor in this respect (Yegen, 2017). The Felicity Party (FP) founded in 2001 and succeeded the Virtue Party (VP) after its closed down in that same year, this time FP took its case to the EU and defend itself against the military and this way it was able to secure its existence (Ulusoy, 2014). While Gul and Erdogan had founded the AKP in 2001 as a conservative party, the main discourse of the party were around securing social justice and declared itself a party of the center. When in 2002 elections, the coalition government era had come to an end, with 34 percent of the votes, the AKP became the single party. Onis and Keyman noted in 2003, “having endured for years the terrible and chronic damage that such problematic governments could do to effective governance and accountability, the voters were ready to cry ‘Enough!’ and to opt instead for a ruling structure that offered the prospect of being more responsive to society and its needs (p96).”

When the AKP came to power, the dominant narrative was around the fact that sustainable economic recovery could only happen with honesty and accountability in government. While the CHP was both lost its chance to appeal to the SMEs, and reluctant with the Dervis’s acceptance of the IMF-mandate, the AKP pointed out that “social and distributive injustice” is an immediate concern, even if the IMF disapproved (Onis & Keyman, 2003, p99). On the other

hand, while in its early years in the parliament, the AKP followed cautious, pragmatic policies and avoided any radical changes, it had fully embraced the membership to the EU as a goal (De Buren). In order to bring the country’s legal system in tune with the EU criteria, government passed the ‘harmonization packages’ (Sarfati, 2017), political liberalization and democratization had been significantly enhanced. In particular, the reforms included, improved trade union rights, laws protecting children, banning the trials of civilians in military courts, lifting bans against Kurdish protests, introduction of broad civilian supervision over defence expenditure (Acemoglu &Ucer, 2015). Moreover, these reforms brought safeguards for prisoner rights, made the closure of political parties more difficult, removed military members from the Higher Education Board (Sarfati, 2017). A series of nine amendments had enacted while one article was abolished; all references to the death penalty in the constitution was removed, state security court was abolished, international agreements and domestic law concerning fundamental rights and liberties established and broadcasting in minority languages and dialects became legalized with the legalization of opening private schools to teach languages and dialects (Toktas & Aras, 2009). To summarize, in 2001, a new Civic code, in 2003 new Labor Law, and in 2004 a new Penal Code were adopted in accordance with the EU’s rule of law principle (Müftüler-Baç, 2005). While from 2001 to 2008, 14 Amendments were made to the Constitution along with 9 Harmonization packages, between 2005 and 2008 the Turkish parliament adopted 148 laws for adjusting EU’s political conditionality (Müftüler-Baç, 2005).

In the meantime, with the institutional improvements in public finance management while per-capita income almost tripled between 2002 and 2008, as a consequence of economic growth and improved quality of public services, social outcomes have also improved to an important degree (World Bank, 2014). While access to education and health services linked to the Health Transformation Program have found impressive, with rising social contributions the formal employment accelerated (World Bank, 2014). Although, from 1998 to 2007, Turkey had serious employment challenges after the World Bank initiated policies in the macroeconomic area helped in increasing the demand for employment, stabilizing the ratio after a long-term decline (IEG World Bank, 2009). After extreme level of inequality of income and access to public services, poverty rates declined and the middle class expanded in Turkey (Acemoglu & Ucer, 2015). After referring to the poll conducted in 2008 by Gurkaynak & Sayek-Boke (2013); “approximately 85% of the respondent that had voted for AK Party said they did so ‘because of the economy’ ” Acemoglu and Ucer (2015) emphasizes that the key reform in terms of

monetary policy was securing a greater independence for the Central Bank as early as 2001, while on the fiscal front, the Public Finance and Debt Management (PFDM) Law of 2002 and the Public Management and Control Law (PFMCL) of 2003 were essential, last but not least the Public Procurement Law in order to guarantee effectiveness, transparency and competitiveness.

After vetoed twice by then President Sezer in 2007, constitutional changes, this time irrelevant to democratization and EU process (Kalaycioglu 2011; Yegen, 2017) approved by popular referendum which allowed for direct presidential election. In 2008, during the legal changes to allow university students to wear headscarves at school which was an example of illiberal democratic rule lead into serious opposition, especially from the Turkish Armed Forces, which in turn lead into reaction within the EU like then European Commissioner for enlargement stating that military should stay out of politics and respect democracy (Müftüler-Baç, 2005). The last (of this period) and from the major amendments followed within two years, again through a referendum, while in one sphere (military’s restriction) an achievement had made for democracy, in another sphere (judiciary) signalled a threat for the rule of law and separation of powers (Altınordu 2016).

The second half of the 90s in Turkey the government was unable and reluctant to corruption. Especially after 2000 the practices regulating public sector employment caused CC indicator to decrease. The governments in Turkey since the second half of the 90s ensured with the adjustment reforms not just for improving the quality of the government but also the accountability and legitimacy of it though either furthering checks and balances or independence of institutions. Starting from 1996 regulatory quality in Turkey showed an upward movement, however from 1998 until 2003 this indicator decreased below its 1996 levels. One of the possible reason is that although after 2001 crisis IMF stabilization program as well as the reforms advised by the World Bank were implemented to a degree, and the independence of regulatory and supervisory authorities has been established to an extent. such as the institutions like the Central Bank had been made much independent, which have further increased the RQ in Turkey and led to an increase in its economic growth as well.

On the other hand, after years of political instability in Turkey of the 90s after the AKP came to power in 2002 as a single party government. However, the significant influence of the decrease of security risks, armed conflicts and the large extent of Political Terror towards the end of 90s were the determinants of the low PS index. In 2002 election one of the most

important commitment of JDP was to fight against corruption. It was one of the most successful practices of JDP through the first half of their government. The VA index of Turkey had risen to higher levels and maintained its index around this level until 2010-2011. While the EU candidacy process helped Turkey in improving civil and political freedoms, and after a referendum in 2010, the reforms had undertaken concerning civil-military relations, as the graph shows Turkey did not follow a steady level during 2006-2010 but as of 2009 it has started to decrease severely. After ten-year period of legislative and institutional reforms the Rule of Law have come a long way. However, the sharp and then steady degree of Rule of Law, left itself to a decreasing one as of 2005. After 2007 while it continued to increase to an extent, after 2010 it went into a decline.

Last but not least, the Governance Effectiveness in Turkey had increased between 1998 to 2002 and after staying around that level it continued to increase until 2013 which could be related with mainly to the public sector reforms and the improvement in providing social services especially within healthcare. However, the period between 2004 and 2013 is considered to be a period in which the AKP has increased its government spending and investment. After this period because of the slowdown in investments and deterioration of the education system and bureaucracy GE indicator decreased continuously.

According to the Human Development Index, it can be seen that while there have been significant improvements for Turkey, the pace of the progress being made has been slowed down since 2011, around the half of the progress being made within a year.

The Other Success Story: Revolution and Transition

Despite, in the early 2000s the recovery in oil prices drew some extent of growth in the Arab World, this growth continued to be exclusive, especially among the regions (Hassine, 2014). While unemployment and unfair treatment within the public sector dominated the conjecture in Tunisia, the failing of the justice system and limited opportunities for participation in civil and political life lead into social uprisings even before 2011 (Hassine, 2014; Mabrouk, 2011). The protests broke out in the Gafsa in 2008, and followed by a border region Ben Guerdane in 2010 (Mabrouk, 2011). As their voices were continued to being silenced, the dramatic revolution in 2011 which triggered millions on the street. From Sidi Bouzid to the surrounding towns Ali Ben Aoun, Menzel Bouzaine until it researched to the popular suburbs and to the centre of

Tunis (Koehler& Warkotsch, 2014). In the elections, al-Nahda with its leader returning from exile, secured 41 percent of the seats, followed by the CPR with 13.4 and Pétition Populaire Pour la Liberté, la Justice et le Développement with 12 percent. The three parties formed a governing coalition of 63.6 percent known as the troika, agreed tos hare power supporting the election of CPR leader and human rights activist Moncef Marzouki as interim president, while Hamadi Jebali from al-Nahda hold the prime minister position (Koehler& Warkotsch, 2014).

“The writing of the new Constitution represented the culmination of the transitional period (Koehler& Warkotsch, 2014, p22).” In the April 2013 draft, constituted with Art. 67, “the state

shall provide [citizens] with sources of a dignified life” and “the the state “shall take the necessary measures to ensure the availability of work” (Art. 32) articles, basic human rights and socio-economic rights were aimed to addressed. Moreover, while article 35 guaranteed the right to education, and article 37 covered the right to health and social coverage (Fedtke, 2013). Some of the significant articles from the 2014 Constitution of Tunisia are related with overcoming the main structural problems country had been facing, such as article 12 “the state shall seek to achieve social justice, sustainable development and balance between regions based on development indicators and the principle of positive discrimination, article 11 proposing “All those who assume the roles of President of the Republic, Head of Government, member of the Council of Ministers, or member of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, or member of any of the independent constitutional bodies or any senior public position, must declare their assets according to the provisions of the law” and article 10 related with payment, collection and use of taxes, follows as“Paying taxes and contributing towards public expenditure are obligations, through a fair and equitable system. The state shall put in place the necessary mechanisms for the collection of taxes, and to combat tax evasion and fraud. The state shall ensure the proper use of public funds and take the necessary measures to spend it according to the priorities of the national economy, and prevents corruption and all that can threaten national resources and sovereignty. And last but not least, with article 15 the issue of impartiality, equality and continuity of and in conformity with the rules of transparency, integrity, efficiency and accountability. On the other hand, concerning the issue of rule of law, while article 108 guranteed every individual to be entitled to a fair trial, have rights of litigation, defence and public court sessions, article 109 deals with non-interference to the functioning of the judicial system and article 110 forbids the establishment of special procedures and limits the competency of military courts to the military crimes. Finally, under title 6, with article 15, 5 different Constitutional Bodies have given mandates legal personalities for working

independently in support of democracy. While with article 130 the Good Governance and Anti-Corruption Commision is established, also to be consulted on draft laws related to the economic, social and environmental issues, as well as development plans, the Commission for Sustainable Development and Rigths of Future Generations established.

While domestic political tensions and increased security events subdued growth in Tunisia, the governments were facing serious economic reforms (IMF, 2013). The national economic program stressed preserving macroeconomic stability and supporting growth and social cohesion (IMF, 2013). Meanwhile the IMF is supporting Tunisia along with other Transitioning Countries under Deauville Partnership, and the first two-year stand by agreement was approved in June (IMF, 2013). According to IMF Letter of Intent published on April 2014, Monetary policy of Tunisia will be focusing on containing inflation and the exchange change policy will continue to respect market values. In line with this, the central bank law began in May 2014 which strentghen the independence of the Central Bank of Tunisia, its governance procedures, internal audit and control functions. Furthermore, since the banking sector remains fragile, one of the priorities taken as reducing the vulnerabilities of public banks through granting them greater autonomy from the state, for instance in issues regarding the hiring of staff and appointment of Board members (Ayari & Hamouda, 2014, April 10). On the fiscal front, the Council of Minister in Tunisia adopted a new tax code in September 2014 in which the corporate income tax (CIT) to achieve gradual convergence in the off-shore and on-shore sectors over the few years have been revised. The IMF staff notes that this law will help improve the equity, efficiency and transparency of the tax system (ibid). On the other hand, since the public enterprises, primarily in transportation, trade and energy caused a heavy burden on the governments budget, the monitoring and governance of them have been planned to strengthened. In terms of structural reforms relating to the improvement of business environment and promoting a competitive private sector for inclusive growth, a new investment code, a new competition law and many other regulations have been made (ibid). The investment code aims to promote private investment through a more transparent and effective regulatory framework and incentives, prepared with technical assistance from the World Bank (ibid).

In order to strengthen the social protection system, the government’s 2014 budget consists of measures from (i) a social housing program for needy families; (ii) an increase in the income tax deduction for the poorest households; and (iii) a tiered electricity rate system adapted to energy use, and which introduces a second social (“lifeline”) electricity tariff (Ayari &

Hamouda, 2014, April 10, p16). Moreover, in consideration of the planned increase in fuel prices, a “household targeting strategy started as of July 2014, and consisted of the following measures: (i) expansion to 250,000 beneficiary families (from 220,000 at present) of the existing cash transfer program for needy families; (ii) broadening of the population groups eligible for one-off and temporary aid to mitigate the impact of the fuel price increases; targeting will use the databases of the STEG and social security or any new social identification numbers; and (iii) a 10-dinar (about 10 percent increase) in the social allowances for school children and university students at the start of the academic year while the reform of pension system remained a medium-term priority

The success story of Tunisia comparing other transition countries tells us the importance of democratic consensus building. While on the other hand, it should remind once again the importance and accessibility of revising rules, laws and reforms. This upward trend was interrupted since the uprisings and Tunisia is a country which used the opportunity to challenge the regime to create more inclusive society and more democratic constitution. This can be proven with the steady increase in the Rule of Law indicator after 2013. According to World Bank data, from 1996 until 2002 Tunisia had been showed a very good performance on decreasing corruption within the country, which is very surprising when the amount of corruption had proven to cause a revolution in 2011. Even though, the following Tunisian governments had indicated their claim to fight with corruption and promised more transparency in the administration this had become to turn around after 2012-2013. Thereafter it is obvious that Tunisia made progress in this regard according to increase in Control of Corruption indicator. At the same time due to the lack of a democratic system and free and fair elections until 2011, Tunisia had lagged behind with a slow downward trend in Voice and Accountability. The systematic abuse of the human rights, and a lack of transparency within policymaking brought about very low levels of Voice and Accountability before the significant break with the social protests. Tunisia had witnessed a significant increase in its VA index, both in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

Tunisia had been successful in utilizing the opportunity to build a relatively inclusive government. This rising indicator is rooted not just within the changes of constitution, but also within the distribution of socio-economic power throughout history and to the reforms relating with gender equality as well as education policy. However, as Tunisia established a body for overseeing execution of fair election during the Constitutional reform, the improvement of the

accountability of elections could have been observed. While the attempts had also been made to provide security in the country by implementing new laws and regulations this was at the extent of the previous indicator related with freedoms and civil rights. While the state organizations and coalition accustomedness helped Tunisia to have a better index through the inspected years, since 2014 as could be seen from the various protests on Tunisian streets as well as from the terror attacks the Political Stability and Absence of Violence index continued to decrease in 2016 dramatically. The graph demonstrates that in 1996 Tunisia was the better in government effectiveness then Turkey. Some of the variables determining Government effectiveness according to the World Bank are quality of primary education, infrastructure, institutional effectiveness and bureaucratic quality. After the constitutional and institutional reforms within government it could be observed that the government effectiveness of Tunisia continued to decrease. Tunisia had stayed at the same level for very long time until 2010 and since then due to the political instability and unfavorable situation of the country to make changes, the Regulatory Quality has been showing a downward trend. The Reconciliation Law which was confirmed by the Tunisian government, as it is both related with competition policy, and financial freedom while also concerning Rule of Law did not decrease the Control of Corruption indicators have significantly since then. For Tunisia on the other hand, since 2011 the Regulatory Quality was steady yet it had started to decrease significantly since 2014.

For Tunisia as well, the progress made within a year in the level of Human Development decreased almost to the progress been made before 2011. This could be expectable, because of the fact that the period under analysis is much shorter, especially compared to the time Turkey had for reform. On the other hand, this could also be very much, related to the fact that while in Turkey there has been one single party government for the whole period of analysis which in fact, could be, overall much sounds much more undemocratic yet, deliver faster results. Tunisia, in this sense still has time, and maybe should take this time rather than, rushing back into authoritarianism like Turkey, after 2010. The last chapter will be consisted of two part, first, from the latest and current literature on the political developments in Turkey, issues concerning the governance and the changing related to the degrees of its measures will be discussed. Second, before moving to the conclusion, the results of the regression analysis of governance, human development relation will be touched briefly.

Chapter 4

The Story of Failure: Turkey since 2010

After the AKP gained confidence and control, through different mechanisms such as changes in the tender rules and various advantages for domestic bidders, the procurement law altered dramatically (Acemoglu). According to Esen and Gumuscu (2017), after 2010 constitutional referendum, although, the restrictions to the military was important for democratization, at the same time, it gave an upper hand to the AKP for redesigning the higher courts to its liking, reformed Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors (Hakimler ve Savcılar Yüksel Kurulu, HSYK). Moreover, around 2013-2014 the AKP made a more sustained and systematic effort to establish its control over the judiciary which they later presented as a plot by its former ally, the Islamic Gulen movement (ibid). Acemoglu pointed out that “setbacks” could been seen, with the view of two reform proposals during 2009, the apex of the global crisis, by being declined by the AK party leadership. Accordinly, one of the areas of reform was regarding the establishment of an independent tax authority (ibid). While tax audits have become largely politized and have been used for partisan purposes (Esen& Gumuscu, 2017), the Central Bank under extreme political pressures, started to lose its credibility (Acemoglu & Ucer, 2015).

As the government also targeted organised civil society and silenced critical voices, the police’s use extreme and disproportionate force against protestors reached its peak during the 2013 Gezi protest during which several died and 9000 were injured (Esen & Gumuscu, 2016). According to Human Rights Watch, pointed out that “the AKP has shown increasing intolerance of political opposition, public protest, and critical media” in a report published in 2014. Moreover, the corruption involving high-level AKP elite including Recep Erdoğan’s son Bilal Erdoğan and three cabinet ministers were revealed after a series of police investigations in December 2013. While the regime refused an investigation, they claimed it was a judicial coup designed by the Gülen movement, and started a comphrehensive crack-down against it (Yilmaz & Bashirov, 2018). However, only after 13 years of single-party rule, the AKP had lost its majority in the parliament in the June 2015 election and forced for to lead coalition talks with other parties, which after lingering for a year turned into another election that AKP is back to being the single party (Esen & Gumuscu, 2016).

.

Lastly, after the failed coup attempt in July 2016, the government’s fight with Gülen movement reached a massive scale as the AKP used this justifying to silence any oppositional voice (Yilmaz & Bashirov, 2018). The constitutional reform was first brought into the agenda by the AKP after the victory in 2011 general elections and resurfaced after Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the country’s first directly-elected president. The ruling AKP made the executive presidency central to its campaign during June 2015 general elections, however it was unable to reach the necessary majority in the parliament to bring forward the idea of a constitution change before the public. After 2016, as the nationalist party declared its support to this transformation to presidential system, a new constitution was drafted and brought before the public in a constitutional referendum. As times had changed, at this point so had the relationship between the EU and Turkey, where once a hopeful transformative process had now become a tense back and forth of ultimatums and concessions. It was therefore, expected, that the new constitution would be in at least some extent of discrepancy from the norms and standards set out in the accession roadmap.

No amendments to the draft was made on the most seriously critiques aspects of the proposed system, which was deemed deficient in clearly defining a structure of power balance and checks and balances. Under the accepted new constitution, whose first materialization will occur following the 24 June 2018 elections, the president who can now act as the leader of a political party enjoys significant power, especially to appoint and fire ministers, and members to the Supreme Electoral Board. The President of the Republic may issue a Presidential decree in matters concerning the executive power. Further flags were raised by international as well as local thinktanks, regarding the regulation of terrorism, minorities, and political opposition in particular given the authoritarian turn the country took, shifting away drastically from the direction it followed during the Golden Age of its relationship with the EU. The implementation of the constitutional reform is yet to be seen following the upcoming elections.

In terms of the changes in its governance indicators, firstly, the Voice and Accountability indicator, after 2011 especially since 2015, had continued to decrease drastically, a year in which there had been many terrorist attacks and a general election in which the AKP had continued its electoral majority. The freedom of press has been suffering extremely in Turkey, including the co-president of the People’s Democratic Party, the pro-Kurdish party’s leader who had run for the Presidential elections which took place on 24th of June. Especially, after

the Gezi demonstrations in 2013 which were at its core similar to the Arab uprisings, the government had become even more oppressive, estranged and discriminator in Turkey. Last but not least, the recent failed coup attempt in 2016 has given the government opportunity to manipulate state of emergency laws to repress opponent views. Therefore, taking into account that Turkey is still governed by the state of emergency since the 2016 coup attempt it can be said that the downward democratization trend will continue to lower VA indicator in Turkey.

On the other hand, while after 2013 because of the slowdown in investments and deterioration of the education system and bureaucracy GE indicator decreased continuously, the period after 2013 also corresponded to a time in which there were strong oppositions against the AKP which in turn, caused it to become even more repressive, instead of enabling reconciliation between the different groups in the society. Also after this period conflict between Gulenist movement and the AKP was concluded with the dismissal of Gulenist supporters from state related organizations and even private sector through oppression and threatening. One of the consequences was the willingness of AKP to place their supporters instead of Gulenists for the strategic positions. This caused corruption to increase again and CC indicator to decrease where AKP begins 16 years ago. In addition to this, alteration of foreign policies with strategic concerns of AKP has created problems which led to external conflicts and international tensions in particular within the context of Syria Civil War. Also, it can be inferred that the lowest level of Political Stability and Absence of Violence in Turkey was realized after the failed coup attempt in 2016.

Finally, since 2010, especially the confidence to the police force and the judiciary continued to fall apart. Because of some reforms were inadequate implemented under the terms of the AKP, and it was unable provide a system which relies on the democratic enforcement of laws and protection of human rights and freedoms. But it has been rather, favoring partisanship and enforcing undemocratic rules, and therefore, the power of politicians over the judiciary, has been the main reason because Rule of Law is decreasing over the last 5 years in Turkey. Although, the Regulatory Quality level has been maintained after 2014, AKP government has been criticized due to politisation of and interventions to the independent institutions. Erdogan’s willingness to have more power in monetary policies and its subsequent results in the economy has verified the decrease in Regulatory Quality and its significant consequences after 2014. In 1996 Turkey and Tunisia were equal in terms of their Regulatory Quality, however, as Turkey prioritized to set up independent institutions such as Banking Regulation and Supervision