(Ian Bremmer is a Reuters columnist but his opinions are his
own.)
By Ian Bremmer
June 6 (Reuters) – In the past week thousands of people have
mobilized across Turkey, protesting Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to consolidate power and impose his
agenda. Erdogan’s heavy-handed response led to widespread
condemnation, and even bigger protests.
The facile interpretation of what is happening in Turkey is
that it is the next stage of the Arab Spring, when the rage of a
region spreads even to its most stable, democratic outlier. But
that is not the case here. There are real differences between
what is happening in Turkey and what happened in the Arab
Spring, and they’re a testament to how successful Turkey has
been as a nation, and how successful it will continue to be.
Arab Spring protests in a country like Egypt were an outcry
against the political system as a whole. In Turkey, the anger is
directed at one man, whose ouster would not topple the political
system more broadly, and Erdogan still holds the key to
mitigating the conflict if he can take a more conciliatory
stance.
The Arab Spring was set into motion by poor, disenfranchised
citizens who could not find a job, and could not foresee a time
when they would. Self-immolation seemed a better bet than
anything else.
In Turkey, we are seeing a very different group of
protesters. The conflict was started by the residents of a
cosmopolitan city protesting the kind of issue that the
cosmopolitan care about most – whether a park should be
sacrificed for a shopping mall. Just look to the signature image
of the protest, a woman being sprayed with tear gas despite
looking like she is dressed to stroll a boulevard.
What these people are protesting is different as well. They
are upset not with a country on a road to nowhere, but a country
whose leader is attempting to hijack the bus. Erdogan has
systematically consolidated power, and has begun imposing his
conservative beliefs on the Turkish people. He has campaigned
against alcohol, compared the danger of cigarettes to the danger
of terrorism and called abortions “murder.” In a globalized,
urbanized space like Istanbul, this goes against the wishes of
an empowered middle class – it’s no wonder they were the first
to rise up.
Erdogan has also defanged Turkey’s army, making the military
less of a player in Turkish politics. That is one of the
clearest reasons that Turkey’s protests are not the Arab
Spring’s. Erdogan, unlike Mubarak, Assad and Qaddafi, cannot set
the military on the protesters. Nor would the will of the people
compel the military to push Erdogan out of power. The military
has been relegated to the sidelines.
So what will dictate whether these protests grow or recede?
They are very unlikely to go away as long as Erdogan remains so
publicly defiant. It is apparently not in Erdogan’s character to
admit fault. A few days ago he reasserted plans to erect a
mosque in Taksim Square, the site of the protests. He left for a
previously scheduled four-day trip to North Africa in the midst
of the crisis. He has dismissed the protesters as “looters” and
claimed that discontent should only be expressed in the ballot
box.
Erdogan’s stubbornness goes hand in hand with his autocratic
streak, which is a large part of what the protesters are taking
issue with in the first place. The protesters don’t want to
topple the government, nor are they trying to expel the Justice
and Development Party (AKP)- they want to express their
disapproval of Erdogan himself, and the direction in which he is
taking the country.
Many would say Erdogan is the government, and that as he
continues to consolidate power, protesting his actions and those
of the AKP are one and the same. However, the protests
themselves are increasingly proving that this isn’t the case. As
Erdogan has dug his heels in, we’ve seen Turkey’s other leaders
distance themselves, with the deputy prime minister Bulent Arinc
apologizing for the government’s response to the protesters.
President Abdullah Gul said he “received” the message. Protest,
he conceded, is an acceptable instrument in a robust democracy.
The good news is that Turkey’s recent economic success – much of
it abetted by Erdogan’s policies of the past decade – doesn’t
allow for Erdogan’s autocratic streak to do damage to Turkey’s
economic vibrancy or the architecture of its political system.
Erdogan lacks the ability to turn Turkey into a dictatorship
even if he wanted to; correspondingly, the protesters are not
out to topple the government. The country remains too democratic
and too rich to go the path of its neighbors that succumbed to
the Arab Spring. It is more similar to the United States than it
is to neighboring authoritarian regimes: The people who run for
office may have authoritarian proclivities – many American
politicians certainly do, too – but that doesn’t mean they can
suspend the rule of law.
So what’s next? Everyone’s waiting on Erdogan’s next move. After
three consecutive terms as prime minister (the AKP maximum),
Erdogan will seek the presidency in next year’s election. He
will accordingly aim to vest the presidency with expanded
powers. Both of these goals, however, will hinge on how Erdogan
handles the protests from here. If Erdogan walks back his
rhetoric and makes peace through personal contrition, it is
highly likely that the protests can be put behind him in order
to win the presidency in 2014. However, if he doubles down on
his aggressive posture and does not stray from that stubborn
strategy, it will lead to growing divisions within his ranks –
both in the AKP and in his wider constituency.
Much of Erdogan’s bull-headed approach to the protesters may
stem from a false perception of his popularity – after all, much
of Turkey is just as conservative as Erdogan wants it to be, and
he may believe that this recent episode will shore up support
within his base. But that’s not true of liberal businessmen who
have only stuck by Erdogan for the economic stability he has
brought in. Erdogan is failing to realize just how broad the
pushback could be if he continues to push forward with a
dismissive, authoritarian stance toward the protesters. If he
does so, it’s not inconceivable that he’d be out of office on
this side of six months. Bottom line: It’s fully within
Erdogan’s power to salvage the situation. All it would require
is acting in his own rational self-interest and walking back his
actions. His recent behavior has sprung some doubts as to
whether he is capable of doing so.
This episode will not derail Turkey’s structural economic
vitality or its democratic political system. It is far too
stable for that. But for a country where domestic political
stability has been virtually written off as a risk factor for
investors, recent developments are jarring. So, too, is the
potential for a savvy politician who has masterfully navigated
Turkish politics over the course of his career to effect his own
demise.
Regardless of the outcome, Turkey’s economic engine and its
democratic system will prevail. As we are now seeing, and
Erdogan has yet to learn, sometimes even a healthy democracy
spills beyond the ballot box.
(Ian Bremmer is the president of Eurasia Group, the leading
global political risk research and consulting firm. Bremmer
created Wall Street’s first global political risk index, and has
authored several books, including the national bestseller, The
End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and
Corporations?, which details the new global phenomenon of state
capitalism and its geopolitical implications. He has a PhD in
political science from Stanford University (1994), and was the
youngest-ever national fellow at the Hoover Institution.)
(Ian Bremmer)
