Turkey: How the Coup Failed

Since its transition to a multiparty system in 1950, Turkey has witnessed six attempted military interventions in politics. Of these, four (1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) were successful and two (1962 and 1963) failed. The latest coup attempt made world news late on the evening of Jul 15, 2016, when fi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of democracy 2017, Vol.28 (1), p.59-73
Main Authors: Esen, Berk, Gumuscu, Sebnem
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Armed forces
Competition
Coups d'etat
Members of Parliament
Political power
Politics
Social networks
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Since its transition to a multiparty system in 1950, Turkey has witnessed six attempted military interventions in politics. Of these, four (1960, 1971, 1980, and 1997) were successful and two (1962 and 1963) failed. The latest coup attempt made world news late on the evening of Jul 15, 2016, when fighting broke out in Istanbul and Ankara and it seemed for a time as if the government of Pres Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's leader since 2002, might be falling. Yet as that dramatic midsummer evening and night wore on, something unprecedented happened: For the first time in modern Turkish history, a civilian government was able to call on its own mass following to stop a putsch in its tracks. Although military interventions are far from unknown in the 93-year history of the Republic of Turkey, the July 15 putsch took most analysts by surprise due to the AKP's earlier success at limiting the once-vast political influence of the Turkish military.
ISSN:1045-5736
1086-3214
1086-3214
DOI:10.1353/jod.2017.0006