The CACI & SRSP Joint Center cordially invites you to

"Has the Turkish Military Been Subjugated, and Is a Liberal Order Emerging in Turkey?"

SILK ROAD FORUM
Tuesday, March 16, 2010, 12.00-14.00
ISDP, Västra Finnbodavägen 2, Stockholm-Nacka (Map)

Featuring:

Halil M. Karaveli
Senior Fellow and Editor, The Turkey Analyst
CACI & SRSP Joint Center

The recent arrest of dozens of Turkish military officers for alleged coup plotting (including several active duty and retired generals and admirals) suggests that Turkey is experiencing a historic shift in power from the military to the civilian leadership. However, the dynamics that underpin the confrontation in Turkey are generally poorly appreciated. Although recent events are indeed historic, they nevertheless do not necessarily augur a break with historical continuity. It is by no means clear that state authoritarianism and nationalism are about to be abandoned. What is at issue, and who are the parties, in the current confrontation? Are the highest echelons of the General staff locked in conflict with the AKP government, or is there actually a convergence of interests between them? Like other insurgents to state power before them, are the renegade ultranationalists within the military being dealt with jointly by the state institutions, including the General staff? Is the confrontation in Turkey in essence between a "secularist" military and an AKP government that seeks to reverse age old statist authoritarian traditions usually associated with the military? Or, alternatively, is it ultimately about who controls, rather than reforms, that state?

Halil M. Karaveli is a Senior Fellow with the Turkey Initiative at the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program Joint Center and Editor of the Turkey Analyst.

The Institute for Security and Development Policy is a Stockholm-based independent and non-profit research and policy institute. The Institute is dedicated to expanding understanding of international affairs, particularly the interrelationship between the issue areas of conflict, security and development. The Institute’s primary areas of geographic focus are Asia and Europe’s neighborhood. ISDP’s Silk Road Studies Program constitutes the European leg of a joint Transatlantic Research and Policy Center with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (www.silkroadstudies.org). It is the first Center of its kind in Europe and North America, and is today firmly established as a leading center for research and policy worldwide, serving a large and diverse community of analysts, scholars, policy-watchers, business leaders and journalists. The Joint Center publishes the CACI Analyst (www.cacianalyst.org), the Turkey Analyst (www.turkeyanalyst.org), the China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly (www.isdp.eu/cefq) and the Silk Road Paper series (http://www.isdp.eu/silkroadpapers).