Reasons Enabling Military Coups: A Study of Turkey

Abstract

The Republic of Turkey was founded on the territorial remnants of the Ottoman Empire and established its administrative mechanisms in this direction. However, the Republic of Turkey entered the establishment process with military uniforms, and this military uniform image continued until the institutionalizations in the state system of people's administration were completed or matured. Although there was a civilianization in the dress code of the state administration in the 1920s, there was not much change in the mentality and expectations of the leaders. However, the historical process has transformed the people's perspectives on the state and state administration in favor of civilianization. The polarizations in the world that started with the result of World War II; The vulnerable, fragile and poor nature of the Turkish economy in the face of these polarizations have been a few of the factors that triggered this transformation. The Republic of Turkey began to give signals of getting rid of the one-party administration in this period. However, in the process of political history, Turkey has experienced events that have interrupted the Republican system from time to time. Military tutelage has eliminated these dynamics in order to prevent fundamental dynamics such as republic, democracy and justice from being damaged. The Republic of Turkey has directly pacified the administrations that have received the approval of the people until today, faced with the coups of May 27, 1960, March 12, 1971, September 12, 1980 and February 28, 1997, and the people, who are the main element of the Republic, suffered the painful consequences. All military interventions carried out are necessarily based on various reasons. In military coups, the perpetrators emphasized the consequences that would legitimize the coup rather than what the reasons were, and each coup, like the domino effect, referenced the next coup. Military tutelage wanted to make the tendency to establish hegemony through civilian rule through manipulation of focusing on results rather than causes. Because it is a fundamental fact that in the absence of reasons for the soldier, there will be no results to be shown to the people. In this study, it is aimed to refer to the military coups of 1960, 1971, 1980 and 1997 in some periods, what are the reasons that inspired them in some periods and then to evaluate/ discuss these reasons.