Government co-option of civil society: exploring the AKP’s role within Turkish women’s CSOs

Mainstream academic and policy literature emphasizes the nexus between an active and vibrant civil society sector and greater political accountability. As a result, support for civil society has become central to international policy efforts to strengthen democracy in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region. However, the empirical evidence presented in this article questions the validity of this assumption. Drawing on information gathered through 38 in-depth qualitative interviews with women’s organizations from across the seven administrative regions of Turkey, and key representatives from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), this article analyses the role of the AKP government in co-opting and influencing women’s organizations in Turkey. The results that emerge demonstrate that the government is actively involved in fashioning a civil society sector that advances their interests and consolidates their power. Independent women’s organizations report that they are becoming increasingly excluded from policy and legislative discussions, as seemingly civic organizations are supported and often created by the government to replace them. These organizations function to disseminate government ideas in society and to provide a cloak of democratic legitimacy to policy decisions. These findings and their implications have significant consequences for theory and policy on civil society and its role in supporting democracy.     

Anchoring the Peace: Civil Society Actors in Peace Accords and Durable Peace

Is peace more likely to prevail when the peace accord includes civil society actors such as religious groups, women's organizations, and human rights groups? This is the first statistical study that explores this issue. The article develops key claims in previous research regarding the role of civil society actors and durable peace, and proposes a set of hypotheses that focus on legitimacy in this process. The hypotheses are examined by employing unique data on the inclusion of civil society actors in all peace agreements in the post–Cold War period. The statistical analysis shows that inclusion of civil society actors in the peace settlement increases the durability of peace. The results further demonstrate that peace accords with involvement from civil society actors and political parties in combination are more likely to see peace prevail. The findings also suggest that inclusion of civil society has a particularly profound effect on the prospects for overall peace in nondemocratic societies.     

Democratization and the politicization of religious civil society in Turkey

In this article, we explain how the political opportunity structure characterized by official secularism and state regulation of religion has shaped the politicization of religiously oriented civil society in Turkey. The ban on religious political parties and strict state control over religious institutions create constraints for the expression of religious interests. However, due to changes in laws regulating the civil society sector and rule by a religiously sympathetic political party, religious groups use associations and foundations to express their interests. We observe that, in this strictly controlled opportunity structure, religiously oriented Muslims have framed their religious interests in the political realm parallel to those of the dominant political party, the Justice and Development Party (AKP). Through a study of non-governmental organizations we document the rhetoric religious groups use to frame their position on several key issues: religious freedom for the majority religious group, methods of resolving issues related to minority populations, and the Ottoman heritage of charitable service.     

Democratization in Bosnia: The limits of civil society building strategies

For many commentators, the construction of civil society in East European states is considered a precondition for the development of consolidated democratic institutions. Nowhere is this more the case than within Bosnia‐Herzegovina, where ethnic and nationalist identification indicate a deeply politically segmented society. To challenge this segmentation international institutions are providing financial and technical support to a growing civil society sector based on non‐governmental organizations. Research into the civil society support work of the Democratization Branch of the Organization for Security and Co‐operation in Europe indicates that the predominantly middle‐class constituency of these groups reflects the extensive external international regulation of the new state under the Dayton Peace Agreement. However, the extension of autonomy and self‐government may well create more fruitful conditions for the growth of civil society alternatives.     

The paradox of integration? European democracy and the debt crisis

Europe is facing both a political crisis of democracy and legitimacy and an economic crisis of debt and competitiveness. These crises seem to point in two distinct directions, growing social unrest over the Europeanized mechanisms of economic adjustment, and increasing efforts at strengthening those same institutions that regulate the adjustment process. Recent analyses have suggested that this failure of democracy will prove decisive; legitimacy for crisis management efforts requires a redemocratization of the European polity. Instead, drawing on an analysis of ordo- and neo-liberal traditions, the article explains how European integration was itself a response to the perceived threat of democratic demands at the domestic level. The body of the article then traces the crisis through three phases, arguing that efforts by state managers reflect a deliberate attempt to depoliticize policy-making processes. Yet the selective intervention—to restore accumulation whilst withdrawing social spending—has only fuelled the politicization of segments of European society. This threatens to test the limits of depoliticization as a governing strategy.     

NGOs: A ‘New Class’ in International Relations

Nongovernmental organizations have attempted to take control of civil society, displacing traditional governing institutions. This serves the interests of the terrorists, warlords, and mafia dons, who benefit from weak central government, and hinders the West's ability to mobilize allies to participate in the war on terror. NGO leaders who are hostile to the nation-state itself seek to transform a voluntary system of participation in international organizations by sovereign member-states via a “power shift” to an unholy alliance of multinational corporations and NGOs. Since they do not possess the traditional sources of legitimacy enjoyed by nation-states, they seek to impose their will by financial or forceful means—for example, “sanctions” or “humanitarian intervention.” A new class of NGOs has thus emerged that is essentially opposed to the diplomatic, legal, and military measures required for dealing with civilizational conflict.     

The rise of the welfare state in international society

In this article I seek to develop a case for viewing the welfare state as a primary institution in international society. This is with particular reference to Norden (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden), where in the course of the 1930s, and particularly in the post-1945 era, the welfare state was elevated to a core principle of legitimacy, largely defining the idea of nationhood for these countries. Furthermore, I will attempt to show how the adoption of this principle of legitimacy conditioned the Nordic countries’ interpretation of a number of other primary institutions in international society such as diplomacy, war and trade. A key contribution of this approach is that it aspires not only to examine the evolution of one institution in isolation, as has often been attempted in English School scholarship, but to actively explore how institutions interact with each other.     

Using military forces under international auspices and democratic accountability

This article reports on a research project that deals with howto ensure democratic accountability when military forces areused under the auspices of international institutions. The internationalcommunity has developed a range of ways in which military forcescan be used. States have also decided that in some cases militaryforces can be deployed to pacify intra-state as well as inter-stateconflicts. States have developed a mixed system to deal withthe issues of democratic accountability. Although military operationsare conducted under the auspices of international institutions,states maintain control over decisions to deploy their troops. Democraticcontrol and accountability have been maintained through national institutionsand procedures. International authorization, preferably by theUN Security Council, is important to establish internationaland domestic legitimacy, but it is not the essential mechanismfor ensuring democratic accountability.     

Introduction to the forum ‘The EU's Common Security and Defence Policy and the challenge of democratic legitimacy beyond the nation-state’

The democratic control and legitimacy of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) has received growing attention. However, thus far, studies have mostly focused on ‘blue prints’, i.e., the analysis of formal powers of formal institutions, especially the European Parliament. These studies leave two desiderata that the contributions to this forum aim at overcoming: Firstly, in-depth case studies are required on how formal institutions make actual use of their formal powers in CSDP. Secondly, an examination of the ‘sociocultural infrastructure’ in which formal institutions and decision-making processes are embedded is required. The contributions to this forum redress both deficits. First, the actual practices of parliamentary involvement in the case of the EU's first maritime mission ‘Atalanta’ are examined. Second, the most important dimensions of the ‘sociocultural infrastructure’ are empirically studied, namely public opinion, the public sphere and civil society.     

Accountability or “Good Decisions”? The Competing Goals of Civil Society Participation in International Governance

Civil society participation in international and European governance is often promoted as a remedy to its much-lamented democratic deficit. We argue in this paper that this claim needs refinement because civil society participation may serve two quite different purposes: it may either enhance the democratic accountability of intergovernmental organisations and regimes, or the epistemic quality of rules and decisions made within them. In comparing the European Union and World Trade Organization (WTO) in the field of biotechnology regulation we find that many participatory procedures officially are geared towards the epistemic quality of regulatory decisions. In practice, however, these procedures provide little space for epistemic deliberation. Nevertheless, they often lead to enhanced transparency and hence improve the accountability of governance. We also find evidence confirming findings from the literature that the different roles assigned to civil society organisations as “watchdogs” and “deliberators” are at times difficult to reconcile. Our conclusion is that we need to acknowledge potential trade-offs between the two democratising functions of civil society participation and should be careful not to exaggerate our demands on civil society organisations.     

Development and political legitimacy: the cases of Iraq and Afghanistan

Development's policies are based on a set of premises: state‐building, state of law, democratisation, accountability and privatisation. The idea is that the Western concept of democracy could be implemented through the development of a ‘civil society’ of the building from scratch of new institutions. Such a model works when there is political will from the local political authorities and the society to adopt such a model (as was the case in Poland and Hungary after the collapse of the Soviet Union). But in any case a policy of development should be based on political legitimacy. In Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, political legitimacy means abiding with nationalism, Islam and local political culture (often based on clan‐ism and networks). In Iraq, the US policy has deliberately ignored the issue of legitimacy. In Afghanistan, because the US intervention was not part of a great design, it relied more on local constraints and thus has been more effective, or at least, less disruptive. The issue is not opposing a Western model of democracy to a national authoritarian political culture, but to root democracy into the local political culture. If not the policy of strengthening civil society, through political and military pressure as well as NGO's, has a disruptive effect and may lead to a conservative, nationalist and religious backlash.     

A closer look at the information provision rationale: Civil society participation in states’ delegations at the UNFCCC

The previous literature contends inter alia that states may welcome the participation of civil society groups in global environmental governance due to their provision of information. The following research takes this argument as a starting point for a closer examination of its validity within the international climate change regime (UNFCCC) and, specifically, with regard to civil society involvement in states’ negotiation delegations. First, the author theoretically unfolds the information provision argument from a demand, i.e., state perspective along the bureaucratic quality of a country, the salience of a negotiation issue, and regime type. From this foundation, secondly, new data on the composition of states’ negotiation delegations in the UNFCCC is analyzed. The results seem to indicate that the information provision mechanism is unlikely to apply in the context under study. The paper, thus, concludes by providing alternative explanations.     

Lessons from the Asian financial crisis for the eurozone: a comparative analysis of the perilous politics of austerity in Asia and Europe

This paper comparatively examines diverse responses from three major actors in the global political economy (the state, civil society, international financial institutions) to the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the current eurozone crisis. First, it analyses conditional lending policies of international financial institutions (IFIs) such as the International Monetary Fund toward countries in fiscal distress. It then critically examines how the lending policies engendered social tensions and conflicts as austerity measures such as cuts to social welfare programmes hit hard on the populace. Examining how the state and civil society in Asia reacted to and, as a result of contentious state–civil society interactions, altered the policies of IFIs, the paper draws lessons from the Asian financial crisis for the European Union and puts forwards alternative policy suggestions.     

Self-legitimation in the face of politicization: Why international organizations centralized public communication

International organizations (I0) have centralized their public communication to a large extent over recent decades by undertaking a broader codification of communication tasks as well as a departmentalization of these tasks within units of IO bureaucracies. The paper provides the first systematic analysis of this important development in institutional design using a novel data set on the organization of public communication in 48 IOs between 1950 and 2015. It identifies self-legitimation as a key driver of centralization in the face of increased levels of politicization, that is, public awareness and activism directed at IOs. Empirically, the study suggests that the centralization of public communication significantly increases as transnational civil society organizes and gains access to IO decision-making. Further, politicization in terms of contentious activism and public scandals substantially accounts for varying levels of centralization across IOs.     

Civil society,democratization and development (I): Clearing the analytical ground

This is the first section of a two‐part article investigating the relationship between civil society and the recent wave of democratization in developing countries. It highlights the ambiguity of the term ‘civil society’ and proposes a definition which may prove serviceable in discovering the political role played by civil society in facilitating or impeding democratization. In addition to the conventional distinction between civil society and the state, the article makes further distinctions between ‘civil society’, ‘political society’ and ‘society’. It specifies several commonly held expectations about the potential political influence exerted by civil society on the character of political regimes and the behaviour of the state, and generates certain historically rooted hypotheses about these relationships. These concepts and hypotheses are intended as an analytical framework to be applied to specific country case‐studies in the second part of the article to follow in a later issue of this Journal.     

The international law commission of the United Nations: Legal vacuum or microcosm of world politics?

Classical realists and Utopian idealists have long disagreed over the nature of international law. While classical realists from E.H. Carr to Hans Morgenthau contend that law is the product of power realities in international relations, Utopian idealists reject such power explanations, focusing instead on the institutions that create international law. This study addresses that theoretic struggle by empirically examining the intervention of world politics in the debate process of the International Law Commission. A data base is created from the debate record of Law Commission members from 1983 to 1989. Content analysis is performed to test explicit hypotheses that examine the Utopian assumption of an apolitical Law Commission found in the Commission's Statute. The findings indicate that the Law Commission functions in a manner that is greatly constrained by global politics and power realities. The focus on institutions, prevalent in the literature, is misleading and fails to capture the essence of the debate process in the Commission. The strength of the findings underscores the necessity for students of international law to employ a more empirical, systematic methodology in their research.     

Treating International Institutions as Social Environments

Socialization theory is a neglected source of explanations for cooperation in international relations. Neorealism treats socialization (or selection, more properly) as a process by which autistic non-balancers are weeded out of the anarchical international system. Contractual institutionalists ignore or downplay the possibilities of socialization in international institutions in part because of the difficulties in observing changes in interests and preferences. For constructivists socialization is a central concept. But to date it has been undertheorized, or more precisely, the microprocesses of socialization have been generally left unexamined. This article focuses on two basic microprocesses in socialization theory—persuasion and social influence—and develops propositions about the social conditions under which one might expect to observe cooperation in institutions. Socialization theories pose questions for both the structural-functional foundations of contractual institutionalist hypotheses about institutional design and cooperation, and notions of optimal group size for collective action.     

Who Liberalizes? Explaining Preferential Trade Liberalization

Despite the growth in research on preferential trade arrangements (PTAs), few studies have systematically explored why some PTAs have been more successful than others at liberalizing trade among members. In this paper I test four hypotheses concerning intra-PTA liberalization: a regional system structure hypothesis, an international institutions hypothesis, a domestic institutions hypothesis, and an economic hypothesis. Although all four types of variables are statistically significant, only international institutions have substantively large effects on intra-PTA liberalization. This suggests that policymakers have considerable latitude to promote integration, as the impact of “choice” variables such as international institutions far outweighs that of “given” factors such as regional system structure or the nature of member economies.     

War and Democratization: Legality,Legitimacy and Effectiveness

Promotion of democracy in post-war and post-conflict societies became a hot topic during the 1990s. External actors linked their peace-building efforts to the promotion of democracy. Four modes of promotion of democracy by external actors can be distinguished: first, enforcing democratization by enduring post-war occupation (mode 1); second, restoring an elected government by military intervention (mode 2); third, intervening in on-going massacres and civil war with military forces (‘humanitarian intervention’) and thereby curbing the national sovereignty of those countries (mode 3); and fourth, forcing democracy on rogue states by ‘democratic intervention’, in other words, democracy through war (mode 4). In this special issue we consider the legality, legitimacy, and effectiveness of the four modes where the international community of states not only felt impelled to engage in military humanitarian or peace-building missions but also in long-term state- and democracy-building. All cases analysed here suggest that embedding democratization in post-war and post-conflict societies entails a comprehensive agenda of political, social, and economic methods of peace-building. If external actors withdraw before the roots of democracy are deep enough and before democratic institutions are strong enough to stand alone, then the entire endeavour may fail.     

Civil society,democratization and development (II): Two country cases

Part II of this article applies the definition of ‘civil society’ and explores the hypotheses about its political role in the process of democratisation developed in Part I, in the context of two country case studies, South Korea and Zambia. These are chosen because of the contrasts in their developmental performance and in their level of socio‐economic development. In both countries, the forces of civil society played a major role in the transition to a democratic regime, but the prospects for sustainability vary. In the South Korean case, certain elements of civil society have grown along with the industrialization process and constitute a powerful force both to prevent an authoritarian reversion and to deepen the democratic process, in spite of the continuing strength of state elites left over from the ancien regime. The prospects for democratic sustainability are also improved by the maintenance of a growth momentum. In Zambia, however, the social and economic situations are still dire, the democratic elements of civil society are weak and divided and the state itself is in a ruinous condition. This leads one to be more pessimistic about the longer‐term prospects of democratic politics there. The article concludes by raising the issue of how democratic systems, once established, may be shaped to enhance both their political survival and their developmental capacity, with particular emphasis on the relationship between the state, political society and civil society.