Non-material sources of Turkish Armed Forces' political power : a "military in society" approach

Abstract

This thesis is an attempt to understand the non-material sources of Turkish Armed Forces’ political power. For that purpose, the thesis looks at theories of power and relevant civil-military relations literature and illustrates that the current civil-military relations literature employs an institution-based formal decisionmaking approach to military’s political power, where non-material sources of armed forces political power is mostly overlooked. Moreover, current literature presumes the existence of a conflictual relationship between the military and the society where interests of the society and the military clash. Therefore, there is a theoretical gap which makes it problematic to study armies like Turkish Armed Forces, which enjoy a long-term and considerable support from their societies. In order to provide for an answer to such a gap, the thesis develops a “military in society” approach and establishes that the political power of the Turkish Armed Forces emanates from its distinctive relationship with its society which has historical, cultural, social and discursive dimensions.