Abstract
Until the early 2010s, Turkey under AKP (the Justice and Development Party) was celebrated “as a model to others,” as George W. Bush put it in 2004. The western world viewed AKP rule as a badly needed combination of moderate Islam with formal democracy and liberalism. Boosted by strong economic growth at home and enjoying legitimacy in both the domestic and international arenas, AKP’s Turkey steadily increased its influence in the Middle East and the world.
The result was a glorious decade for AKP and its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Fast-forward to 2016, and even the die-hard AKP apparatchiks would have a hard time marketing Turkey as a democracy to be emulated in the region. Turkey is a sectarian party in many conflicts in the region; its relationships with its traditional allies—the European Union and the United States—are in tatters; and AKP rule at home is increasingly authoritarian. In The Fall of the Turkish Model: How the Arab Uprisings Brought Down Islamic Liberalism, a bold, provocative, and informative book, Cihan Tuğal examines the trajectory of Islamic liberalism in Turkey and the Middle East.
The Fall of the Turkish Model is an ambitious book that tackles many questions at once. First, Tuğal seeks to explain the origins and contradictions of Islamic liberalism in Turkey. Second, he addresses why a hegemonic liberal Islam emerged in Turkey and not in Egypt or Tunisia. Third, Tuğal examines why the Turkish-style Islamic liberalism did not spread to the rest of the Arab world. Fourth, at an analytical level, the book is fundamentally about the determinants of revolutionary paths—whether a country follows sustainable revolutionary, passive revolutionary, or counter-revolutionary trajectories. Finally, The Fall of the Turkish Model is concerned with waves of anti-commodification protests and revolutionary possibilities against the hegemony of the current neoliberal order. Tuğal develops hisarguments through sustained paired comparisons between Turkey, Egypt, and Tunisia. Iran and the Iranian revolution loom large in his analysis as the counterparts of the Turkish model. Furthermore, his historical study takes into account the complex regional dynamics involving the Gulf countries, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.
The central argument of the book rests on the notion of political society. Like Partha Chatterjee, Tuğal contrasts political society and the associational civil society (pp. 116–117). However, unlike Chatterjee’s transactional emphasis, the constitutive role of political society is in the foreground for Tuğal. Defined as “a field of actors and organizations that have comprehensive social visions” (p.23), the concept of political society enables Tuğal to bring a Gramscian lens to the study of revolutionary transformations. True to such a perspective, his focus is on the making of Machiavellian actors and the formation of power blocs through economic and political articulation (p.231). Accordingly, Tuğal offers a relatively clear argument that informs a substantial part of his historical analysis: “The project with the more developed organization in political society, and with more sustained interactions with civil society and the state, is more likely to determine a nation’s fate” (p.117).
The empirical chapters follow logically from this proposition. Tuğal first examines the crises of secular regimes and neoliberal economic programs in Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran (Chapter 1). Then, in a compelling narrative (Chapter 2), he dissects how liberal Islam combined doctrinaire flexibility with an individualist, consumption-oriented ethic in Turkey. Tuğal highlights the historical preconditions that enabled the AKP to“[hijack] Islamism to further consolidate liberal-conservatism” (p.94). The political society unified under the AKP stands in contrast to the fragmentation and lack of political professionalization in Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran.
The following chapter is an account of the consolidation of a consistent economic liberalism in Turkey and the formation of a hegemonic bloc—a historical process that again differed markedly from forced, inconsistent, and legalistic liberalization of Islam in Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran. Then Tuğal examines (Chapters 4 and 5) the wave of revolts against authoritarian liberalism in the Arab world and the failed passive revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia. The book concludes with the Gezi protests in Turkey in 2013, which sharply revealed the inherent contradictions of Islamic liberalism in Turkey and sealed the demise of the Turkish model.
The Fall of the Turkish Model begins with a discussion of the charm of Islamic liberalism for the disintegrating global hegemony. It ends with a dark note on “authoritarianism and sectarian warfare” in the Middle East. Tuğal argues that in an era shaped by the contradictions of liberalism, “the left has a real chance to lead” despite considerable obstacles (p.268). In between, his book offers a vivid account that is staunchly critical of the AKP regime in Turkey—a historical dissection that has little sympathy for the charms of economic liberalism.
This book will be of considerable value to students of Turkey, the Middle East, and the Arab world. The comparisons between Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, and Iran are illuminating. These comparisons, backed by an erudite and careful historical analysis, inform the theoretical contributions of the book to the political sociology of revolutions and revolutionary mobilizations. Finally, much has changed for the worse in Turkey since the publication of Tuğal’s book. After a failed coup in July 2016, Turkey under Erdoğan’s iron fist has been moving toward the consolidation of a regime that has no tolerance for dissent and opposition. The ongoing assault against freedom in Turkey and the rise of a political regime that has nothing to do with political liberalism confirm many of the insights and arguments in Tuğal’s book regarding the contradictions of Islamic liberalism in Turkey.