Since the Republic of Turkey became a multiparty constitutional democracy in 1946, its governmental institutions have been used as tools of patronage in a highly polarized political system. The arduous process of rewriting the Turkish Constitution offers a prime opportunity for parties to co-opt Turkish political institutions to advance their agendas. Sometimes, these agendas coincide. The constitution of 1982, for instance, was in many ways drafted around various protections for the military. But in the years since its adoption, civilian political parties have rallied around the common goal of redacting those protections to keep Turkey's democratic system from descending into martial law.
So far, Turkey's Constitution has undergone 17 major amendments. During its time in power, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has assumed the task of pushing more amendments through to augment its own power. Throughout the 2000s, Turkey's efforts to join the European Union became the biggest enabler of the AKP's constitutional reform initiatives because the issue brought all the country's fractious parties together. Amendments such as the one overturning a ban on certain languages in the media (a veiled 1982 attempt to keep Kurdish interests in check) satisfied secularist opposition parties. Others, such as the amendment allowing military personnel to stand trial in civilian courts for crimes committed off-duty, undermined the dominance of military-based institutions, thereby removing an obstacle in the AKP's path to greater power.
In 2010, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed a series of landmark amendments focused on judicial changes and, to a lesser extent, lifting protections for military officers deemed to be involved in coups. Because accession to the Continental bloc remained a goal (albeit a distant one) across the political spectrum, the proposed amendments continued to draw on EU suggestions. But in truth, the EU accession process functioned as a convenient excuse for the AKP to assert civilian authority over the military to ensure that it would not interfere in the ruling party's efforts to consolidate power. And in the aftermath of the attempted Turkish coup, most of Ankara's main political parties have banded together in an unusual display of unity.
Notwithstanding the considerable costs of the coup, the spirit of compromise that it has inspired among three of Turkey's principal political parties could serve the government well in its efforts to amend the constitution. Even so, the ruling party will hit some snags along the way. Turkey's patronage politics make its institutions inherently weak and susceptible to political exploitation and monopolization. Though the constitutional reforms that the president and his party have advanced are designed to fortify Turkey's institutions, they, too, could get co-opted by competing political agendas.
