The Fall of the Turkish Model: How the Arab Uprisings Brought Down Islamic Liberalism

by Cihan Tuğal

Just a few short years ago, the “Turkish Model” was being hailed across the world. The New York Times gushed that prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) had “effectively integrated Islam, democracy, and vibrant economics,” making Turkey, according to the International Crisis Group, “the envy of the Arab world.” And yet, a more recent CNN headline wondered if Erdogan had become a "dictator.”

In this incisive analysis, Cihan Tugal argues that the problem with this model of Islamic liberalism is much broader and deeper than Erdogan’s increasing authoritarianism. The problems are inherent in the very model of Islamic liberalism that formed the basis of the AKP's ascendancy and rule since 2002—an intended marriage of neoliberalism and democracy. And this model can also only be understood as a response to regional politics—especially as a response to the “Iranian Model”—a marriage of corporatism and Islamic revolution.

The Turkish model was a failure in its home country, and the dynamics of the Arab world made it a tough commodity to export. Tugal’s masterful explication of the demise of Islamic liberalism brings in Egypt and Tunisia, once seen as the most likely followers of the Turkish model, and provides a path-breaking examination of their regimes and Islamist movements, as well as paradigm-shifting accounts of Turkey and Iran.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Politics, Middle East, Nonfiction, Islam, History

306 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 2, 2016

Reviews

[Frank Elbers · Rating 4 out of 5]

For years, political scientists, commentators and other opinion makers in the Middle East – and policy makers in the West – were enchanted by Turkish democracy under the rule of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). The Turkish model, “Islamic liberalism”, was a marriage of formal democracy, free market capitalism and a toned down conservative Islam. Its success was based on incorporating the challenge of political Islam instead of repressing it, as for example in Algeria, Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia, or letting it take control of the state, as has been the case with Iran since the 1979 revolution. After the Arab Uprisings in 2011, this Turkish model even became the inspiration for reformers in Egypt and Tunisia. But the suppression of the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul in June 2013 (and coup d’état in Egypt against the popularly elected Muslim Brotherhood government headed by Mohamed Morsi in the same month) and subsequent authoritarian turn of Erdoğan meant the death nail of the Turkish model.

Cihan Tuğal, professor of sociology at the University of California at Berkeley, offers an alternative reading of Turkey’s version of Islamic liberalism as a model for other Islamic countries to emulate. His main claim is that the model of Islamic liberalism, formal democracy and market capitalism was unsustainable from the beginning and was touted by commentators and policy makers in the West as a weapon against the Iranian model of revolutionary Islam. He tries to show throughout The Fall of the Turkish Model that this “neoliberal-liberal” model is the cause of the current crisis in Turkey rather than “Erdoğan the villain” or an incompatible Turkish culture. “The model was in reality what allowed Erdoğan’s authoritarianism to pass as democratic during the last ten years.”

Central to Tuğal’s monography is the concept of “political society”, a concept he borrows from Antonio Gramsci. As opposed to civil society actors that pursue sectional interests or specific issues, political society consists of actors and organisations that have comprehensive social visions and seek to regulate the totality of social life. In well-developed and stable democracies political society is generally dominated by political parties. In transitional contexts or more dynamic situations, however, political society is defined by a mix of sociopolitical organisations that are more diffuse. It is political society that remakes the boundaries between the “power bloc” and the peoples, argues Tuğal.

And here the author introduces a second concept from Gramsci, that of a “restoration-revolution”, which Tuğal calls “passive revolution”. According to Tuğal, the interaction of political society with state and civil society structures “determines whether a country takes a sustainable revolutionary, ‘passive revolutionary’, or counter-revolutionary path”. The political and economic structures in a revolution are overthrown through bottom-up mobilisation, whereas in a passive revolution rudimentary bottom-up mobilisation is absorbed into the existing political and economic fabric. Although in a passive revolution political and economic structures remain the same under this “absorption”, it does lead to a “thorough remaking of certain policies and dispositions”. This is exactly what happened in Turkey, argues the author. In Turkey a passive revolution restored the post-1980 neoliberal-conservative regime through absorbing “Islamic revolutionary cadres, discourse and policies”. Neoliberal actors merged with their former enemies and Islamists modified their radical policies and discourses.

Having laid out his analytic framework (Introduction: The Charm of the Turkish Model), Tuğal uses a comparison between Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Tunisia to demonstrate why Islamic liberalism was successful in Turkey and not in other countries in the Middle East (chapter 1. Regime Crises: No (Secular) Way Out; chapter 2. The Liberalization of Islam; chapter 3: Paths of Economic Liberalization). In the second part of his book (chapter 4. The Revolt against Authoritarian Liberalism; chapter 5. The Attempt at Passive Revolution; and chapter 6. Gezi: The End of the Turkish Model or the Beginning of the Left?), Tuğal explores why both Arab dictatorships and Turkish democratic-authoritarianism fell into crisis after 2011 and situates the limits of the 2011-13 revolts within the history of Arab and Turkish radicalism and discusses whether the rise of new middle classes provides a more popular base of radicalism and reform in the Middle East.

This ambitious approach places The Fall of the Turkish Model in the tradition of Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World and Theda Skocpol’s States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia and China. Yet unlike the great works of Moore and Skocpol, Tuğal’s monography is too descriptive and superficial at times. The author fails to clearly define concepts like political society, political bloc and passive revolution and applies them very loosely in his analysis. Experts of Antonio Gramsci’s theories will undoubtedly also have second thoughts about the application of Gramsci’s theory in Tuğal’s analytic framework. Tuğal does not present any new empirical data but rather sticks with his loose analytical framework. As a consequence, the reader gets a sense that The Fall of the Turkish Model is an—excellent—journalistic account of how governments in the Middle East have in different ways tried to absorb the challenges of political Islam and neo-liberalisation since the 1980s and the popular uprisings of 2011-2013.

The “fall of the Turkish model” in the book’s title could have multiple and overlapping meanings. Has the model failed because it could not be exported to the rest of the Middle East? Was that due to its inherent flaws or because social and political conditions were very different in Egypt, Iran and Tunisia, as Tuğal convincingly demonstrates? However tarnished it may currently be, we should not assume that the AKP’s political model has “fallen”, in the sense of being incapable of retaining power or mass support, as demonstrated by the massive support for Erdoğan’s ruling party and parliament in the aftermath of the coup d’état in July 2016, the widespread backing of Turkey’s military interventions in Syria in 2017, and Erdoğan’s re-election in 2018. Yet how “liberal” Turkey’s “Islamic liberalism” will continue be, remains to be seen.

[Melek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book that's on the "not for the casual reader" side.

It is hard to say what The Fall of the Turkish Model actually is about. While its main subject is the Arap Spring (as far as I can tell, I might be wrong), it goes as back as the Ottoman Empire and talks about the effects of it on many countries in the Middle East, also mentioning their histories and how the Turkish Model affected them. At 300 pages, this is the most-detailed book I've ever read on this subject, that's for sure.

My only complaint is, the chapters were too long. The book is 304 pages long and there are 6 chapters, eight if you include the introduction and the conclusion. That makes about 40-50 pages per chapter and considering that I prefer to read nonfiction books one chapter at a time, I couldn't get through the thing at times. I've started reading it multiple times, before my start date on Goodreads, only to drop it shortly after. I'm still rounding 3.5/5 up to a 4/5 for the wide range of info and the writing style, but this fact is hard to let go. 4/5

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks at the "Turkish model" of Islamic government integrated into global capitalism. The model did well for its first decade, but has since run in to problems. The author compares Turkey with Iran, Egypt, and Tunisia, purportedly to show how the Turkish government (and the AKP) differ from these other countries. The author does a good job of covering the history of the four countries, and explaining why their governments and Islamic movements differ. He talks about how the Arab Spring (and particularly the war in Syria) led to the Turkish government's increasing authoritarianism, but he never develops this idea. Instead, he argues that it is all a result of global capitalism, which I didn't find very convincing. In addition, the author cites a bunch of writers without describing their arguments, which I thought made the book much less convincing. He ends by arguing that the left could make a comeback in Turkey (and the region) because of the failures of other models, but never discusses the current situation of the Left (except to claim that the middle class protesters are taking over the Left). He doesn't explain how these middle class liberals will find a modus vivandi with traditional working class Leftists. He also makes the case for the uniqueness of the Middle East, but the trends he is discussing are seen in other parts of the world as well. I think there is a very good book that could have been written looking at the possibility of Islamic democracy combined with bourgeousie economics, and its strengths and weaknesses, but this book doesn't really answer my questions effectively.

[Horhe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an unrelenting slog, but I learned more than I ever cared to learn about Turkish Islamic liberalism and the other regional models that tried to copy it in Iran, Egypt and Tunisia. The book's style of comparison makes it a bit hard to digest, since the author does not really slice his area of interest very well. He chooses a topic, describes the Turkish take and then the Iranian, Egyptian and Tunisian counter-example. I kept having the impression that he was retreading similar ground, especially when the very heavy leftist theory inserts came. I guess it is hard to approach such discussions in a systematic way. Overall, there was something interesting on nearly every page and it is refreshing to read something that does not put Western sensibilities or considerations in the limelight, but rather in the foreground, warranting occasional and dispassionate mentions. Still, such a slog of a book.

If there is something I truly dislike, it is that the author ends his book in 2015, so we do not get to see his interpretation of the coup in Turkey and Erdogan's political shift towards full authoritarianism, as well as Turkey's later economic difficulties. It would have been fascinating to read, since the author's dispassionate tone, even when discussing Alevis, Kurds or Kemalists, is something that I am not used to even from émigré Turks.

[Türkay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Daha önce Pasif Devrim kitabı yayınlanmış olan Cihan Tuğal’ın, Türk Modeli olarak tanımlanan, İslami Liberalizmin çöküşünü ele aldığı kitabı okunması gerekenler listenizde olmalı.
Modelin neden kullanılamaz hale geldiğini karşılaştırmalı (Tunus, Mısır, İran) olarak ele alan kitap, oldukça ilginç argümanlarla savlarını ortaya koyuyor.
Kitabın kurgusu içinde altı farklı bölümle ele alınan karşılaştırmalı analizler, ülkeler için topluca yapılan değerlendirmeleri zorlaştırıyor.

Yazarın doktora konusu olan Türkiye’de Pasif Devrim konusu nedeniyle, özellikle Türkiye analizlerinin ayrı bir değer taşıdığını düşünüyorum. Kitapta yaralan saptamaların dikkatle değerlendirip, tartışılmasını umuduyla..,

[Jorge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cihan Tugal offers an interesting analysis of the Turkish neoliberal economic model and why it’s implementation in other Arab countries of the region has consistently failed. Very critic with the “Turkish model”, Cihan warns us of the increasing authoritarianism of the AKP party under Erdogan’s rule, at the same time he analyses the failures of the Arab Spring revolts in the 2011-2013 period. As a conclusion, he asks how the motivations that led to this wave of protests in 2011 can be sustained and advanced as the region advances into more authoritarian and sectarian violence. For him, the “left” has a new opportunity in the following decades to regain power and absorb the popular discontent to transform Islamic societies into a new post-capitalist world.

[Abdul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A timely book, considering the events in Turkey during the last three years. The book argues that the marriage between modern Islam and small-town traders that developed in Turkey was not a successful model for the rest of the Muslim world. One could read this as a repudaition of the Vali Nasr/Islamic Capitalism model.

[Dave · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

The events of the Arab Spring, including the driving forces, and perhaps more importantly the after effects are something of interest to a lot of people in the West. As an Australian, I watched on with interest as there were seemingly a wave of popular uprisings which overthrew a number of dictators. But the aftermath - particularly in Egypt - seemed to pose more questions than it answered. Thus I was interested to learn more about the history of politics in the region.

What I found in this book was an extremely well-researched, and well-references book which describes in minute detail the development of the politics of a number of countries, including Turkey, Iran, Tunisia, and Libya, and it uses a compare and contrast style to follow the successes and failures in each country.

What I got out of the book is that Western ideas of what politics, and democracy should and should not be do not necessarily translate into the culture and society of Middle Eastern countries. I find it interesting that we are prepared to accept countries like Saudi Arabia which are dominated by a ruling monarch, but are less tolerant of others.

The book is extremely dense, and jam-packed with information, much of which could get repetitive. I also found that because each chapter was usually broken down into several sub-sections for different countries, or different aspects of the author's argument, I found that chapters would often run to 30 or 40 pages, which made the book somewhat impenetrable to casual reading.

I found that the book was - all in all - very informative. As I said above, I don't think it lends itself to the casual reader, and would probably recommend it to people studying, or with an interest in political science, and Middle Eastern politics.