Introduction
This article aims to examine the Turkish government’s practice of appointing trustees (kayyum) in Kurdish cities. That is, the Turkish government is removing elected mayors and appointing these trustees in their place without holding new elections. By briefly presenting the tensions between pro-Kurdish mayors and the Turkish State since 1999, which was the first time that a pro-Kurdish political party (HADEP – Halkın Demokrasi Partisi or People’s Democracy Party) participated in the local elections and won municipalities, this article underlines the novel features of this governmental practice of appointing trustees in Northern Kurdistan. It argues that the Turkish State’s forms of oppressive practices in relation to Kurdish political actors, as well as the legitimizing discourse for such practices, have greatly changed in recent years. It suggests examining “authoritarian neoliberalism” – a term that is used to account for the post-2007 political situation in certain countries, which derived from the need of neoliberalism for authoritarian governments in order to garner the necessary consent in times of economic crisis (Bruff Reference Bruff2014, 115) – in order to develop a better understanding of the current situation.
This article first presents the literature on authoritarian neoliberalism and underlines key concepts in relation to this literature. Later, it explains the system of local governments, the historical trend of authoritarian centralism in Turkey, and the ways in which the local governments were affected by AKP’s (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi or Justice and Development Party) neoliberal governmental strategies and policies. Following this, it establishes the context of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict and gives a brief overview of pro-Kurdish legal political parties in Turkey. After summarizing the history of pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey since the beginning of the 1990s, it shows the different reactions from the Turkish State towards pro-Kurdish mayors and offers an explanation of the change in these governmental strategies by establishing a relationship between such changes and the rising authoritarian neoliberalism. To this end, it examines the attempts of legitimation and justification of the recent appointments of trustees in Kurdish cities and compares them with the attempts of legitimation and justification of previous oppressive governmental strategies. In order to achieve this goal, it traces the attempts of legitimation in both the discourses of government officials and in the decisions of the constitutional court.
By examining the relationship between pro-Kurdish mayors and the Turkish State, we will see that the Turkish State indeed removed mayors before 2016. In some cases, these mayors were arrested. Pro-Kurdish legal political parties were regularly banned and their prominent politicians received political bans. However, after these removals either an election was held in the city council, which almost always resulted in the election of a new mayor from the same pro-Kurdish political party, or a member of the city council became deputy mayor – again, in all cases a politician from the same party. Appointing trustees without holding any kind of elections can be considered a considerably different practice, one that cannot solely be attributed to nationalism or discrimination against Kurdish people and political actors. This article attempts to understand this new form of oppression by linking it to the concept of “authoritarian neoliberalism.” Thus, the aim of this article is explaining the shift in strategies and policies of the Turkish State in relation to pro-Kurdish mayors starting from 2016. It focuses on “authoritarian neoliberalism” as an explanatory framework since the new policies are not justified by solely focusing on the indivisibility of State integrity as it used to be, and instead, they are accompanied by constant references to neoliberal values such as efficiency, profitability, and swiftness. This argument can be supported by both the trustees’ own propaganda videos and government officials’ addresses. AKP’s authoritarian turn has been investigated in relation to different phenomena, such as the Syrian War, the ongoing coalition with the extremist nationalist MHP (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi or Nationalist Action Party), the alleged July 15 coup attempt, or the struggle between AKP and Gülenists in general. However, none of these phenomena explain the frequency of economic references in justifying trustee rule and anti-democratic intervention into pro-Kurdish municipalities. That is the main reason why this article explains the recent political and discursive shift in relation to authoritarian neoliberalism.
By examining propaganda videos of trustees and posts of a Twitter account dedicated to promote public services of trustee-ran municipalities, this article argues that what makes the practice of appointing trustees as mayors in the Kurdish cities possible is, among other factors, this rising authoritarian neoliberalism which allows bypassing legal processes, makes way for direct state intervention into any institution, and undermines all democratic processes.
From “Authoritarian Statism” to “Authoritarian Neoliberalism’
Neoliberalism is a novel form of governmentality which intervenes to “make competitive mechanisms regulate every moment and point in society” (Lebow Reference Lebow2019, 382). As Foucault states in his pioneering work on neoliberalism, neoliberalism “should not be identified with laissez-faire, but rather with permanent vigilance, activity, and intervention” (Foucault Reference Foucault2008, 132). According to Foucault, the problem of neo-liberalism is “how the overall exercise of political power can be modeled on the principles of a market economy” (Reference Foucault2008, 131). Brown also argues that neoliberal rationality involves “extending and disseminating market values to all institutions and social action, even as the market itself remains a distinctive player” (Reference Brown2009, 39–40).
“Authoritarian neoliberalism” was first used to denominate neoliberal dictatorships in Latin America such as the case of Uruguay (Astori Reference Astori1985) and the case of Chile (Silva Reference Silva1992). In these cases, the question was how to combine neoliberalism with undemocratic dictatorships (Silva Reference Silva1992, 151). Electoral authoritarian regimes in which “some popular participation and elite contestation” is permitted by “holding periodic elections” (Croke et al. Reference Croke, Grossman, Larreguy and Marshall2016, 580) have different problems in terms of compatibility with neoliberal policies. Contemporary cases of authoritarian neoliberalism usually are either examples of electoral authoritarianism, such as Turkey (Selçuk and Hekimci Reference Selçuk and Hekimci2020; White and Herzog Reference White and Herzog2016; Laebens and Öztürk Reference Laebens and Öztürk2020; Kaya Reference Kaya2015) and Hungary (Peters and Pierre Reference Peters and Pierre2020; Gerschewski Reference Gerschewski2018; Kelemen Reference Kelemen2017, Reference Kelemen2020; Kaufman and Haggard Reference Kaufman and Haggard2019) or flawed democracies such as Brazil (Kivisto and Sciortino Reference Kivisto, Sciortino, Alexander and Tognato2018; Levitsky Reference Levitsky2018). The differences of these cases with 20th century’s Latin American military governments outnumber their similarities. That is why, throughout this article, authoritarian neoliberalism is used to denominate neoliberalism’s evolution as a response to the 2007–2008 crisis. AKP and its leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is considered one of the most prominent examples of such contemporary authoritarian neoliberalism (Biebricher Reference Biebricher2020; Kaygusuz Reference Kaygusuz2018). One result of being one of authoritarian neoliberalism’s pioneers can be seen in Kaygusuz’s (Reference Kaygusuz2018) claim of executive centralization. This centralization operates in conjunction with the “adoption of a neoliberal macroeconomic programme” which privileges “the executive as the sole arbiter of social and economic policy,” and systematically blocks democratic and popular avenues for contesting AKP’s policies (Tansel Reference Tansel2019, 2). AKP-led neoliberal centralization “has consolidated and expanded the arms of the executive in shaping key decision-making processes” (Tansel Reference Tansel2019, 6). Traces of such centralization that works within the limits of neoliberalism and combines it with authoritarian statism can be followed in the relationship between the Turkish State and pro-Kurdish legal political parties.
“Founding fathers” of neoliberalism, such as Friedman (Brown Reference Brown2019, 66), Hayek (Hayek Reference Hayek2011, 166; Kiely Reference Kiely2017, 738), and German ordoliberals (Kiely Reference Kiely2017, 732) legitimized political authoritarianism. Thus, contemporary authoritarian neoliberalism does not denominate a rupture from the earlier forms of neoliberalism, but a new political condition that surfaced within the neoliberal trajectory. Even though neoliberalism has “always contained authoritarian tendencies, this has become significantly more prominent since the outbreak of global capitalist crisis in 2008” (Bruff Reference Bruff, Springer, Birch and MacLeavy2016, 107). According to Bruff, the distinction lies in “the way in which neoliberalism’s authoritarian tendencies have come to the fore through the shift toward constitutional and legal mechanisms and the move away from seeking consent for hegemonic projects” (Reference Bruff2014, 116). Building on Poulantzas’ concept of “authoritarian statism,” Bruff views authoritarian neoliberalism “as a response both to a wider crisis of capitalism and more specific legitimation crises of capitalist states” (Reference Bruff2014, 124).
According to Poulantzas, authoritarian statism was a response to the “crisis of the State” (Reference Poulantzas2000, 205). Poulantzas develops the term as a response to a specific political crisis in Europe which was ongoing in 1970s; among his examples of authoritarian statism are countries such as Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, and France (Reference Poulantzas2000, 206). Poulantzas sees that the authoritarian tendencies in Europe at the time were not necessarily to lead to fascism which was bound up with “a quite distinct political crisis” (Poulantzas Reference Poulantzas2000, 208). After presenting a brief account of the conditions that led to the fascist state, Poulantzas concludes: “Thus, the emergence of authoritarian statism cannot be identified either with a new fascist order or with a tendency towards fascism” (Reference Poulantzas2000, 208). His authoritarian statism points to a “shift in class relations” which occurred due to a change in the relations and processes of production and the social division of labor (Reference Poulantzas2000, 210). This article argues that authoritarian statism of 1970s denominates a different kind of authoritarian state than contemporary authoritarian states. Features of Poulantzas’ authoritarian states, such as the role of “a dominant mass party as the state party par excellence” (Reference Poulantzas2000, 232), have not translated to today’s examples of authoritarian neoliberalism led by political figures such as Bolsonaro, Erdoğan, Orbán, or Trump. If we consider a crisis as “a moment in which an existing set of social relations cannot be reproduced using prevailing methods” (Chacko Reference Chacko2018, 4), then it is only plausible that the problems that different sets of social relations face will require different responses even though these responses will most certainly contain elements of the previous responses that were produced when faced with political or economic crises.
The idea of contemporary authoritarian neoliberalism is that “contemporary neoliberalism reinforces and increasingly relies upon (1) coercive state practices that discipline, marginalize and criminalize oppositional social forces and (2) the judicial and administrative state apparatuses which limit the avenues in which neoliberal policies can be challenged” (Tansel Reference Tansel and Tansel2017, 2). Tansel claims that authoritarian neoliberalism operates on two principles: “establishing a disciplinary statecraft which closes off key decision-making processes to popular pressures, public input and non-partisan auditing mechanisms” and “deploying the coercive, legal and administrative state apparatuses to marginalise democratic opposition and dissident social groups” (Reference Tansel2018, 199). According to him, “centralisation of economic and political decision-making” and “transformation of the rule of law through executive and judiciary interventions” are among the practices of authoritarian neoliberalism (Reference Tansel2018, 200). This article argues that the case of appointing trustees as mayors in Kurdish cities is a radical example of authoritarian neoliberalism. Here, the oppositional social forces are marginalized and criminalized by coercive state practices to the level that even the elections are completely overruled. This means that the decision-making processes are closed off to the public to the extent that the democratic elections are completely discarded in the name of efficiency and economic growth. Thus, the centralization of decision-making is brought to such a level that local governments cease to exist in the Kurdish cities and are replaced by branches of the central government.
As Bruff states, in the context of authoritarian neoliberalism, dominant social groups become “less interested in neutralizing resistance and dissent via concessions and forms of compromise that maintain their hegemony, favoring instead the explicit exclusion and marginalization of subordinate social groups through the constitutionally and legally engineered self-disempowerment of nominally democratic institutions…” (Reference Bruff2014, 116). This situation resulted in “aggressive” centralization in Turkey as “municipal administrations became sub-servient to the centre in project implementation,” especially after 2010 (Yardımcı Reference Yardımcı2020, 1525). By briefly examining this process, it can be seen that neoliberal policies in Turkey resulted in enhancing the power of the central government and administrative “recentralization,” similar to other “developing” countries that experienced the process of neoliberalization (Kuyucu Reference Kuyucu2018, 3). This article argues that the disempowerment of local governments and democratic institutions based on market criteria are among the principal factors that enabled the Turkish government to directly place trustees in mayoral offices. However, before engaging in this discussion, it is important to supply further information about the local government system in Turkey.
Local Governments in Turkey
Turkey has three types of local governments: 1) Special Provincial Administrations, 2) Municipalities, and 3) Villages. Since villages are mostly irrelevant to this study, this article does not examine the administrative structure of villages, but focuses on the difference between special provincial administrations and municipalities.
Both of these organizations function in the same territory. The figurehead of special provincial administrations is the governor (vali). Governors are directly appointed by the President, they represent the President, and they are responsible to the President (Provincial Administration Law, 1949). In the districts of cities, the governors are called kaymakam and they work under the governor of the city. The figurehead of municipalities is the elected mayor. Turkey has 81 cities, 30 of which are considered metropolitan municipalities due to their larger population while the other 51 are considered provincial municipalities. One important difference between metropolitan and provincial municipalities is the subordination of district municipalities to metropolitan municipalities in these 30 cities.
The Turkish Constitution is clear about the hierarchical relationship between special provincial administrations and municipalities. Article 127, under the section “Local Administrations,” states that “the central administration has the power of administrative tutelage over the local administrations” (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Anayasası [Constitution]). According to local hierarchical order of protocol in Turkey, elected mayor comes after the appointed governor, MPs from the general assembly that represent the city, and the highest-ranked military commander in the city (Ulusal ve Resmi Bayramlar Ile Mahalli Kurtuluş Günleri, Atatürk Günleri ve Tarihi Günlerde Yapılacak Tören ve Kutlamalar Yönetmeliği, 2012). The governor is the chief of all law-enforcement forces in the city; its powers include banning the entrance and exit of people to the city or some of its districts up to 15 days, declaring curfews, banning all gatherings, deploying the army into the city, and receiving foreign representatives (Provincial Administration Law, 1949). Municipalities’ task is providing public services, namely; infrastructure services such as sewer system or water supply system; urban information systems; environmental health, cleaning and solid waste; fire departments; “belediye zabıtası” which oversees the implementation of public services; immediate support and emergency rescue services; local traffic; cemeteries; forestation; parks and green areas; housing, culture and art; tourism; student dormitories; welfare services; marriages; skill courses for the unemployed; and improving the commerce (Municipal Law, 2005). As it can be seen, the appointed governors are responsible for governing the city, while mayors are responsible for providing public services, but even these public services are inspected and controlled by the governors (Provincial Administration Law, 1949).
Even though in Turkey local governments were always limited and subordinated to the central administration, recent changes in the legal regulations regarding the local governments considerably worsened the situation. A change made in 2016 allows the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the governors to appoint mayors when previous mayors are removed in relation to alleged terrorism charges. This change was the legal base of the removal of Kurdish mayors and their replacement with trustees.
Neoliberalization and Authoritarian Centralization: Turkey’s Case of Local Governments
AKP-controlled neoliberalization in Turkey resulted in various “reforms” in the local governments system. Similar to those in other so-called “developing countries,” this process of neoliberalization resulted in further centralization of decision-making power (Kuyucu Reference Kuyucu2018, 6). The “reforms” effectively stripped “all powers of local administrations in urban regeneration” as early as 2011 (Kuyucu Reference Kuyucu2018, 7). This urban regeneration became “a vehicle for enormous wealth generation” in Turkey in relation to strong patronage networks, clientelism, and corruption (Kuyucu Reference Kuyucu2020, 27). An important part of the so-called reforms was assuring that the local governments depend on “central government for funding and decision making” (Savaşkan Reference Savaşkan2020, 206). As a result, local governments “do not have the right to set the base or rate for local taxes,” “large infrastructure projects carried out by municipalities must be approved by the central government,” and the “founding of municipal companies is contingent on the consent of the central government” (Savaşkan Reference Savaşkan2020, 212). Local governments in Turkey lack necessary funds, and they are “dependent on funds coming from the center” (Kuyucu Reference Kuyucu2018, 19).
Other than the lack of autonomy and almost-complete dependence on the central government, it can also be argued that the current administrative structure resulting from neoliberal “reforms” also reproduces anti-democratic mechanisms from the local level. The strong mayor model in which the council is extremely weak is the clearest example of this reproduction. While the municipal administrative decisions continue to depend on the central government, within the municipalities the decision-making mechanisms are mostly non-democratic, depending on the decisions of the mayors. Especially in metropolitan municipalities, city councils are not directly elected by the people, but they consist of district mayors and a determined percentage of district council members, which means that city-wide decisions are usually taken directly by the mayor without democratic processes (Erder and İncioğlu Reference Erder and İncioğlu2008).
The local government system in Turkey shows that authoritarian neoliberalism is not only imposed from above, but it is also constantly re-produced from the local level. This article argues that the lack of transparency and democratic processes, exclusion of political opposition from decision-making processes, as well as networks of patronage and clientelism, derive from authoritarian neoliberal logic, which allowed the Turkish government to intervene in the local governments of Kurdish-populated cities. Before delving into this issue, some information about the background of the Turkish-Kurdish conflict is required in order to explain the context in which the examined cases have occurred.
Turkish-Kurdish Conflict and Pro-Kurdish Legal Political Parties in Turkey
Both Edmonds (Reference Edmonds1971) and Olson (Reference Olson1991) date the birth of Kurdish nationalism to the 19th century. Ozsoy also locates the political transformation of Kurds in the political, administrative, and social changes in the late Ottoman Empire (Reference Ozsoy2013, 104). Yeğen traces the roots of the conflict to the end of autonomy “that had been granted to the Kurdish principalities in Kurdistan” in the 19th century (Reference Yeğen2016, 2), while Van Bruinessen calls our attention to the abolition of the Kurdish emirates and to the Land Code that was issued in 1858 and has “greatly affected the social and economic organization of Kurdistan” (Reference Bruinessen1992, 182).
Even though the Turkish-Kurdish conflict dates back to the last centuries of the Ottoman Empire, it can be claimed that it has considerably intensified following the foundation of the Turkish Republic. The redrawing of the Middle Eastern political map following World War I resulted in a Kurdistan divided between Turkey, Iran, Iraq (British colony), and Syria (French colony) (Jongerden Reference Jongerden2018, 724). According to Anzaldúa, borders are dividing lines, and “vague and undetermined” places created by “the emotional residue of an unnatural boundary” are borderlands (Reference Anzaldúa1987, 3). In this sense, all of Kurdistan may be considered borderlands. This resulting situation allows us to adapt the famous Chicano/a saying that appears in the song “Somos Más Americanos” by Los Tigres del Norte (Ashcroft Reference Ashcroft, Concannon, Lomelí and Priewe2009, 16): the Kurds did not cross the border, but the border crossed the Kurds after WWI. In relation to this division of Kurdistan, “the dominant Turkish, Iraqi, Syrian, and Iranian national formations have conceived the Kurds as a severe threat to national unity and state sovereignty and established formal or secret alliances to deal with their respective Kurdish issues” (Ozsoy Reference Ozsoy2013, 104).
PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê or Kurdistan Workers’ Party) was founded in 1978 as a “Marxist-Leninist national liberation organization” (Ozsoy Reference Ozsoy2013, 106) by Abdullah Öcalan. It launched its first major attack against the Turkish army on August 15, 1984 (Yarkın Reference Yarkın2015, 31). PKK’s chief objective was “ending Turkish colonialism” (Yeğen Reference Yeğen2016, 8). Öcalan was a university student from the Faculty of Political Science at Ankara University. He was known as “Apo,” and followed by a group of Marxist students who were called Apocular (Apoists). A number of PKK cadres, including Öcalan, were active in a legal student organization called ADYÖD (Ankara Demokratik Yüksek Öğrenim Derneği or Ankara Democratic Higher Education Association) which was founded in November 1973 and shut down by the Turkish State on December 10, 1974 (Jongerden Reference Jongerden2017, 142–44). However, as Yeğen states, by 1989 PKK ranks were mostly filled by young villagers and the role of students was diminished (Reference Yeğen2016, 9). The PKK of 1989 was virtually the only Kurdish organization of considerable impact in Turkey and its aim was “the construction of an independent and democratic Kurdistan through armed struggle” (Yeğen Reference Yeğen2016, 9–10). Here, the PKK is a Marxist-Leninist national liberation organization with a classical communist party organization led by Öcalan as the general secretary (Yarkın Reference Yarkın2015, 31). After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ideology of PKK started to change, and with this change the PKK abandoned the target of constructing an independent state (Yarkın Reference Yarkın2015, 33; Yeğen Reference Yeğen2016, 11). This transformation of PKK accelerated after the capture of Öcalan in 1999 (Yarkın Reference Yarkın2015, 34).
In his defense following his capture, Öcalan rejected claims for an independent state and proposed a new political project, referred to as “democratic confederalism” or “democratic autonomy” (Jongerden Reference Jongerden2019, 77). This project “provides a framework, within which interalia minorities, religious communities, cultural groups, gender-specific groups and other societal groups can organize autonomously” (Öcalan Reference Öcalan2012, 32). While the project “builds on the self-government of the local communities and is organized in the form of open councils, town councils, local parliaments, and larger congresses” (Reference Öcalan2012, 32), “the state-related sovereign rights are limited” in this model which aims to “build federal administrative structures “in all Kurdish settlement areas in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran” (Reference Öcalan2012, 32–33). The objective of “democratic autonomy” is not “the substitution of the sovereign political body with a new one,” but it is “deploying political means for decomposing, transforming, and withdrawing from the existing state while also empowering citizens by way of radical democratization” (Küçük Reference Küçük2019, 756).
Pro-Kurdish Legal Political Parties and Participation in Local Elections
HEP (Halkın Emek Partisi or People’s Labor Party) is considered Turkey’s first pro-Kurdish legal political party (Fend Reference Fend, Taucher, Vogl and Webinger2015, 56). HEP was founded on June 7, 1990, by seven members of the parliament. These members were expelled from or had to left SHP (Sosyaldemokrat Halkçı Parti or Social Democratic Populist Party) for attending “The Kurdish Conference” in Paris jointly organized by the Paris-based Freedom Foundation and the Kurdish Institute (Watts Reference Watts1999). HEP and SHP made an electoral alliance for the 1991 general elections. SHP won 88 seats after these elections and 22 of them were HEP MPs. Due to tensions between support for nationalist policies from SHP and the pro-Kurdish posture of HEP MPs, the alliance was dissolved in 1992 and HEP MPs returned to HEP as an independent political party (Okudan Dernek Reference Okudan Dernek2014). However, HEP was banned by the Constitutional Court in July 1993 for “becoming a focus of illegal political activities and engaging in activities against the indivisible unity of the state with its country and people” (Watts Reference Watts1999, 639). The Kurdish political movement had already established ÖZDEP (Özgürlük ve Demokrasi Partisi or Freedom and Democracy Party) in October 1992 in anticipation of such a ban. When “the Supreme Court of Appeals Prosecutor’s office began a parallel closure lawsuit against ÖZDEP” (Fend Reference Fend, Taucher, Vogl and Webinger2015, 57), the founders dissolved the party in April 1993. ÖZDEP was officially banned by the Constitutional Court in November 1993, meanwhile most HEP MPs joined to newly founded DEP (Demokrasi Partisi or Democracy Party) in May 1993. In September 1993, 14 mayors joined DEP too, but none of them was a city mayor. Due to attacks and assasinations, DEP had to withdraw from 1994 local elections (Özsökmenler Reference Özsökmenler2014, 89). In March 1994, the parliament revoked the immunity of seven pro-Kurdish MPs (six MPs from DEP and one independent MP) and the MPs were arrested in the parliament compound. DEP was banned in June 1994.
Before DEP’s official ban, HADEP was established as a substitute party. HADEP participated in the 1995 general elections and received 4.17% but due to the ten percent electoral threshold in Turkey it did not win any chairs in the parliament. In 1999, HADEP participated in the local elections and won 37 municipalities, among which there are seven cities: Ağrı, Bingöl, Diyarbakır, Hakkari, Siirt, Van, and Batman. When HADEP was banned on March 13, 2003, the mayors joined DEHAP (Demokratik Halk Partisi or Democratic People’s Party), which was founded as a substitute party in October 1997.
Pro-Kurdish mayors that were elected on April 18, 1999 faced serious state oppression. Information about these mayors can be seen in table 1.
Table 1. Pro-Kurdish City Mayors Elected in 1999
DEHAP received 6.22 percent of the votes in 2002 general elections and failed to win representation in the parliament again because of the ten percent electoral threshold. In 2004, DEHAP made an electoral alliance with the new SHP (Sosyaldemokrat Halk Partisi or Social Democratic People’s Party). Pro-Kurdish DEHAP candidates won the elections in five cities: Diyarbakır, Dersim (official name Tunceli), Hakkari, Şırnak, and Batman. DEHAP dissolved itself since “the prosecutors tried to close down the party, accusing it of being a focal point for separatist activities and having ties to the PKK” (Fend Reference Fend, Taucher, Vogl and Webinger2015, 59). The mayors joined to DTP (Demokratik Toplum Partisi or Democratic Society Party) on December 16, 2005. Metin Tekçe, mayor of Hakkari, resigned from his post on November 11, 2007. Kazım Kurt from DTP was elected in the city council as the new mayor of Hakkari on November 23, 2007. During this term, none of the city mayors were arrested or removed from their posts but Ahmet Ertak, mayor of Şırnak, was arrested on December 24, 2009, after finishing his term.
DTP “did not participate as a party in the 2007 elections, but its candidates ran for office independently” (Fend Reference Fend, Taucher, Vogl and Webinger2015, 60). In this way, it won 21 seats in the parliament in spite of the existence of the ten percent electoral threshold. DTP won the local elections in eight cities in 2009: Diyarbakır, Dersim, Hakkari, Siirt, Şırnak, Van, Batman, and Iğdır. DTP was banned in December 2009, and the mayors joined to BDP (Barış ve Demokrasi Partisi or Peace and Democracy Party) on December 23, 2009. BDP was founded as a substitute party in May 2008. When DTP was banned, some of its members received a five-year political ban which prevented them from joining political parties. Information about pro-Kurdish city mayors elected in 2009 can be seen in table 2.
Table 2. Pro-Kurdish City Mayors Elected in 2009
As can be seen, the Turkish State regularly removed and arrested pro-Kurdish mayors before 2016. However, the new mayor was always elected more or less democratically and in almost all cases the new mayor was from the same political party as the old one. This changed after the 2016 alleged coup attempt. In order to demonstrate the changes, this article examines the examples of pro-Kurdish mayors elected in 2014 and 2019.
Appointing Trustees as a New Governmental Strategy
Pro-Kurdish candidates won the local elections in 11 cities in 2014. Ten of them were from BDP and one of them, Ahmet Türk – mayor of Mardin – had to run independently because of his five-year political ban. The other ten cities were Ağrı, Bitlis, Diyarbakır, Dersim, Hakkari, Siirt, Şırnak, Van, Batman, and Iğdır. It is important to note that BDP adopted a system of co-mayors in which one man and one woman jointly govern the city as co-mayors. However, the Turkish administrative system does not permit naming two people as co-mayors. For that reason, co-mayor was apponited as “deputy mayor.”
Mayors in Hakkari and Batman were removed from their positions prior to the alleged coup attempt and the following state of emergency in July 2016. Dilek Hatipoğlu, official mayor of Hakkari, was arrested on August 20, 2015 and replaced by Fatma Yıldız from the same party on September 1, 2015. Her co-mayor, Nurullah Çiftçi was arrested on August 20, 2015 and replaced by Nazmi Coşkun from the same party on September 1, 2015. Coşkun was also arrested on April 27, 2016 and replaced with Şaban Alkan from the same party. Sabri Özdemir, mayor of Batman, was removed from his post on October 14, 2015. Hürriyet Kaytar from the same party was elected in the city council election as the new mayor on October 19, 2015 (13 votes for, nine votes against). Co-mayor Gülistan Akel was arrested on September 21, 2015 and released on October 21, 2015.
After the state of emergency declared in July 2016, ten of the 11 pro-Kurdish city mayors were removed by the Turkish State and replaced with trustees without holding city council elections or popular elections. These cities were governed by the trustees until the following local elections in March 31, 2019. The information about the pro-Kurdish mayors between 2014–2019 can be seen in table 3.
Table 3. Pro-Kurdish City Mayors Elected in 2014
In 2019, pro-Kurdish HDP (Halkların Demokratik Partisi or Peoples’ Democratic Party) candidates won the elections in eight cities. All of them are now removed and the cities are governed by appointed trustees. The information about pro-Kurdish mayors since 2019 can be seen in table 4.
Table 4. Pro-Kurdish City Mayors Elected in 2019
New Strategies of Justification of Anti-Democratic Oppression
As was briefly shown, banning pro-Kurdish political parties, arresting Kurdish politicians, and removing Kurdish mayors from their posts are not, in themselves, new practices in Turkey. However, these practices were previously justified using a legal discourse based on protecting the integrity of the State and its Nation (Sevinç Reference Sevinç, Ünlü and Değer2011; Aydın Reference Aydın2005). In the past, pro-Kurdish political parties were banned in order to protect “territorial integrity of the state and unity of the nation” (Rosenblum Reference Rosenblum2007, 64). HEP was banned on the grounds that it was “aiming to destroy the indivisible integrity of the State with its territory and nation” (Dinler Reference Dinler2003, 94). ÖZDEP was banned “on the grounds that its programme sought to undermine the territorial integrity and secular nature of the State and the unity of the nation” (“Freedom and Democracy Party (ÖZDEP) v. Turkey” 1999, 279; Dinler Reference Dinler2003, 99). DEP was banned on the grounds that “aiming to destroy the indivisible integrity of the State with its territory and nation” (Dinler Reference Dinler2003, 103). HADEP was banned on the grounds that it provided support to PKK and that it was a focal point of activities against the State’s indivisible integrity with its territory and nation (Anayasa Mahkemesi [Constitutional Court] 2003). DTP was banned on the grounds that it became a focal point of activities against the State’s indivisible integrity with its territory and nation (Anayasa Mahkemesi [Constitutional Court] 2009). These oppressive and anti-democratic practices were justified with a State-oriented nationalist discourse.Footnote 1
Recent removals of pro-Kurdish mayors and their replacement with appointed trustees differ in respect to the justifying causes. State-oriented nationalist discourse that focuses on the integrity of the State and the nation continues but, now, it is accompanied by a different discourse based on authoritarian neoliberal rationality. Government officials and government-supporting media continuously claim that the people are content with trustees since they receive better public service. This is in line with the reports indicating that the AKP government promotes “pro-governmental views through public funds” (Özpek Reference Özpek2019, 44).
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Süleyman Soylu, shows many signs of this authoritarian neoliberal discourse in his speeches about the trustees in Kurdish cities. During a speech in Diyarbakır, Soylu has justified the practice of appointing trustees without holding new elections on the grounds that the trustee administration was better for tourism and local businesses while also justifying this anti-democratic practice by stating that under trustee rule the municipalities provide better public services such as clean water, asphalt roads, and sports facilities (Bodruk and Aslan Reference Bodruk and Aslan2018). On November 15, 2018, in the parliament, Soylu stated that the work that had been done by the municipalities under trustee rule showed that the decision of appointing trustees was a right one since they have created an investment of 7.5 billion Turkish liras for constructing 9,666 km of hot asphalt roads, 18,000 km of stabilized roads, 161 “culture centers for women,” 2,644 children’s parks, 5,191 km of water supply network, 4,000 km of wastewater collection network, and 1,649 funeral houses while also paying three billion Turkish liras worth of debt (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti İçişleri Bakanlığı 2018). Soylu made similar remarks in Siirt, citing the work and investment in relation to infrastructure in order to justify appointing trustees (“İçişleri Bakanı Soylu’dan ‘görevlendirme’ açıklaması,” Anadolu Ajansı, August 20, 2017). Similar remarks were made by trustees themselves. Turan Bedirhanoğlu, trustee of Şırnak, stated that the municipalities before trustees were not correctly conducting the work on water supply systems, drainage and sewer systems, infrastructure, and superstructure while justifying their rule by supplying drinking water and constructing parks, gardens, and picnic areas (Kaplan, Ergin, and Payan Reference Kaplan, Ergin and Payan2019). Trustee of Sur (Diyarbakır), Abdullah Çiftçi, justified their rule by stating that the municipalities under trustee rule had accomplished more public services in 2.5 years than HDP’s municipalities did in 17 years (Kaplan, Ergin, and Payan Reference Kaplan, Ergin and Payan2019). İdris Akbıyık, the trustee of Hakkari, stated that the municipality under his rule has constructed 86 km of hot asphalt roads and 175 km-long water supply network and asked the HDP to explain why the water was either cut or muddy during their term while it is spotless during his term; he followed his question by stating that they (the trustees) had finished the construction of 848 potable water pipelines and nine potable water wells while HDP municipalities were struggling with providing three hours’ worth of potable water in a whole week (T. C. Hakkari Valiliği Reference Valiliği2019). The trustee of Kayapınar (Diyarbakır), Mustafa Kılıç, bragged about constructing schools, kindergartens, roads, and funeral homes (“Cumhuriyet köyünde yüzler gülüyor,” İhlas Haber Ajansı, March 29, 2017). These remarks of government officials about the efficiency of the trustees show that the Turkish government justifies its anti-democratic practices based on the principles of a market economy.
Other examples of this discourse can be seen in state-controlled media. For example, Anadolu Agency (AA), the state-run news agency of Turkey, published public comments about “Diyarbakır receiving better service in the last 2 years than it did in the previous 20”; everything being better with the improvements of public transportation, air-conditioned bus stops, roads, and religious services; and trustees doing great service to the people by asphalting roads and constructing gardens and youth centers (Kaplan, Ergin, and Payan Reference Kaplan, Ergin and Payan2019). The same news agency also published comments criticizing previous HDP mayors of Diyarbakır for not providing public services, blocking the industrial development, and not attracting investments. In one example of such comments, the interviewee stated that “I think it was their (HDP’s) fault that there have been no factories in our region, that the industry is underdeveloped, that our cities were always ignored” (Kaplan, Ergin, and Payan Reference Kaplan, Ergin and Payan2019).
Turkey’s Ministry of Internal Affairs even published a book titled “Terör Nedeniyle Görevlendirme Yapılan Belediyelerin Hizmetleri” (Services of the Municipalities in Which Assignments Were Made Due to Terrorism). This book consists of 534 pages and explains the investments drawn to the cities thanks to trustees and their services. This is one example among many. In order to conduct rigorous analysis of comments that justify removing pro-Kurdish mayors and appointing trustees in their place, this article now focuses on a multimedia phenomenon entitled “oluyor.net” which aimed to present the “services” of trustees. Even though the web page of Oluyor (It is Happening) is shut down as of October 2020, its Twitter account and YouTube page contain ample information which will be examined in this article. The focus of this article will be on 89 YouTube videos from 89 different municipalities in which trustees themselves explain their deeds and aim to justify the practice of appointing trustees in Kurdish-populated cities.
Promoting Trustees: The Example of Oluyor.net
Oluyor.net was created to establish a platform that can garner public support for trustees. These municipalities were called “assigned” in order to avoid using the term kayyum (trustee) which is usually used in a negative sense. This initiative was promoted by AA, and the map that was used in the news clearly shows that the few municipalities that were not from Kurdish-populated towns with trustees were excluded from the initiative (Gemici and Bulur Reference Gemici and Bulur2017). The Twitter account of Oluyor.net follows only three accounts as of October 2020: Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (President of Turkey), Binali Yıldırım (Prime Minister of Turkey until July 2018), and Süleyman Soylu (Minister of the Internal Affairs since August 2016). It has published 262 original tweets and retweeted one entry from Süleyman Soylu’s account between December 4, 2017 and November 11, 2018. These tweets were frequently retweeted and liked by government officials and official accounts. The account has tagged the official account of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in 212 different posts and the minister Süleyman Soylu in 213 posts. Various trustees were tagged in some of their posts.
There was also a YouTube channel that belonged to Oluyor.net. The channel contained 95 original videos. 89 of these videos were videos of trustees explaining their deeds and services to the public, explicitly made for Oluyor.net. These propaganda videos in which the trustees of 89 different municipalities try to legitimize and justify their rule show the changing discourse of the Turkish State when it comes to defending anti-democratic governmental strategies in Northern Kurdistan. The videos date between September 2017 and March 2018. Total duration of the videos is 7.3 hours. The content of these videos were transcribed by the author, and submitted to the RQDA qualitative analysis program (Huang Reference Huang2018) in order to determine most frequently mentioned categories.
Twitter Account of Oluyor.net
Even though this article will focus on the videos of the trustees from Oluyor.net’s YouTube channel in order to demonstrate the ways in which they present and legitimize their own work, briefly examining the Twitter account of Oluyor.net will be helpful to understand the context in which the speeches of trustees should be understood.
The deeds that were mentioned in Twitter entries of the account were codified in the RQDA qualitative analysis program. In this way, four general categories are established: 1) construction and repair, 2) organizing events, 3) public services, and 4) other.
The category of construction and repair consists of 40 different codes that appear a total of 209 times in the examined 262 Twitter entries. The most commonly referred codes in this category can be seen in table 5.
Table 5. Sub-categories of “Construction and Repair’
The category of public services consists of 22 different codes that appear a total of 50 times. The codes that are referred more than twice in this category can be seen in table 6.
Table 6. Sub-categories of “Public Services’
The category of organizing events consists of 20 codes that appear a total of 32 times. 8 of these codes can be grouped under the headline of “training courses” which includes workshops and introductory courses usually aimed at children (such as skiing and swimming courses). Other than the courses, most frequent code in this category is the code of “sports events” which appears five times in the corpus.
The category of “other” includes 13 codes that appear a total of 24 times. Most frequent codes in this category are graffiti (seven times) and sporting success of local teams (six times).
These Twitter entries will be jointly examined with YouTube videos in relevant sections.
YouTube Account of Oluyor.net
The 89 videos that appear in the YouTube account show the trustees themselves explaining their deeds and legitimizing the practice of appointing trustees in Kurdish-populated cities. One striking fact that must be underlined is that all trustees that appear in these 89 videos are men. This shows the level of masculinization of the public administration and the high-level gender discrimination in Turkey under AKP rule. Another important fact is the low frequency of political criticism in these videos. Political criticism of former municipalities appears only in four videos, and three of them are terrorism-related, even though the trustees were supposedly appointed in relation to terrorism charges. Former municipalities are criticized in 16 out of 89 videos, but the major themes of criticism are not political. Instead, the most frequent reasons of the criticism are the lack of cleaning and garbage-collection services (seven videos) and general criticism about providing public services (seven videos). Municipality indebtedness (three videos) and inefficient personnel (two videos) are other criticisms that appear multiple times. It can be said that the trustees usually abstain from openly criticizing former municipalities, and when they do criticize, they prefer focusing on public services instead of terrorism accusations.
The deeds that were mentioned by trustees in these videos were coded in RQDA qualitative analysis program. The code that appears most frequently is “road-building, maintenance, and repair.” This code appears 161 times in 85 of the 89 videos. Other codes that appear in more than 10% of the videos are the following: “Building other public facilities” (67 times in 50 videos), “other public services” (71 times in 49 videos), “water-supply network, sewer system, and storm water system” (64 times in 47 videos), “children’s entertainment” (61 times in 50 videos), “parks and picnic areas” (46 times in 42 videos), “school repair and maintenance” (38 times in 36 videos), “building sports facilities” (35 times in 31 videos), “improving religious services” (32 times in 30 videos), “vehicle purchases” (32 times in 27 videos), “cleaning services” (26 times in 24 videos), “social aids” (29 times in 21 videos), “building private facilities” (23 times in 20 videos), “forestation and greening” (20 times in 19 videos), “establishing women’s centers and facilities” (16 times in 15 videos), “public services for disabled citizens” (14 times in 11 videos), “demolitions” (nine times in nine videos), and “establishing youth centers” (nine times in nine videos).
“Road-building, maintenance, and repair” includes applying hot asphalt; paving and pavement maintenance; road expansion; and sanding; among others. While some of the mentions are about finished work, a big portion of it is about ongoing work and entrusted but not yet started projects. Studying the case of Kenya and Kibaki government, Manji argues that “road building is an attempt to assert political authority derived from a longstanding developmentalist impulse” (Reference Manji2015, 206). According to Manji, road building constitutes “an opportunity for patronage, speculative profits, and authoritarian planning” (Reference Manji2015, 207). This developmentalism can be compared to the case of Turkey, especially considering that “development has always served as a powerful rhetoric that shaped Turkey’s political and economic landscape” since the latter days of the Ottoman Empire (Adaman and Akbulut Reference Adaman and Akbulut2020, 6). In Adaman and Akbulut’s research based on interviews with AKP supporters, it can be seen that the supporters brag about “building world’s largest airport,” “road expansions,” “planting trees,” and better public service in general (Reference Adaman and Akbulut2020, 8). This helps explaining the frequency of the “construction and repair” category among Twitter entries and references to related deeds in trustees” videos. The sub-category of “road-building and repair” was mentioned in 41 different Twitter entries of Oluyor.net’s account. Construction in general, and road-building in particular, are fundamental for AKP’s patronage and clientelism networks, since these allow the AKP to redistribute public resources to government-supporting businesses (Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2020).
The “building other public facilities” code includes buildings that are not included in other codes. Most frequent examples are condolence houses (11), cemeteries (7), livestock markets and slaughterhouses (7), bus terminals (6), and town squares (5). Condolence houses are very common in Kurdish cities and are used for taziye ceremonies after the dead. These ceremonies are open to the public (Koefoed Reference Koefoed2017, 8), and usually last three days. The frequency of livestock markets and slaughterhouses may be attributed to the fact that Northern Kurdistan is mostly mountainous and the cities that lack industrial facilities and arable land usually depend on animal breeding. These constructions are also related to clientelism and patronage networks, and they allow the AKP government to create business opportunities for its supporters and transfer public funds to pro-government businesses. However, it is also important that two of the three most constructed facilities are condolence houses and cemeteries, which hold an important spot in most Kurds’ religious lives. Thus, it may be thought that these constructions also aim to generate sympathy towards conservative AKP from conservative sections of the Kurdish population instead of progressive HDP, which is in line with the Turkish State’s general strategy of using religion as a tool to assimilate Kurdish people (Gurses and Ozturk Reference Gurses and Ozturk2020, 330).
The “other public services” code consists of public services not included in other codes. These include funerals, burials, and cemetery and condolence house maintenance (13); training courses (8); lighting (7); health services (6); and stream remediation (5). Here, a different kind of patronage network, aimed at the poorer people by mobilizing public resources in exchange for political support, can be detected. Similar trends were reported by different researchers (Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2020; Yıldırım Reference Yıldırım2020). Food aid mentions in Twitter entries are also linked to these patronage networks dedicated to consolidate support from people who need public aids for even their most basic necessities.
While the frequency of the “water-supply network, sewer system, and storm water system” code shares the same logic with road-building and maintenance, the high frequency of “children’s entertainment” seems a bit different. This code includes big and small playground constructions, summer camps, and children’s trips. “Construction of playgrounds and sports facilities” was also the most common code in the general code category of “construction and repair” in the examined Twitter entries. The focus on leisure activities may be related to the representation of Kurds as children in mainstream Turkish media (Nas Reference Nas2018, 74). It has been shown that the colonized is frequently depicted as children (Rollo Reference Rollo2018) which holds true both in the case of indigenous people (Narayan Reference Narayan1995, 136) and black people (Barrett Reference Barrett2017, 240). A similar logic that depicts the Kurds as carefree and childlike people may also explain the high frequency of mentioning “building parks and picnic areas,” “school repair and maintenance,” and “building sports facilities” by the trustees which are the most frequent three codes after “children’s entertainment.” The fact that the codes of “construction of parks,” “granting sports equipment,” and “training courses” (most of which are aimed at children) also occur frequently supports these claims in relation to infantilization of Kurdish people since facilities such as playgrounds or picnic areas are not among the urgent necessities in the war-torn region.
When trustees talk about “improving religious services” they almost always focus on Sunni populations. 30 of 32 codes include the word “mosque” while the other two are about Quran courses which are explicitly for Sunni populations. In total, Quran courses are mentioned five times while churches are only mentioned once and cemevis (sanctuaries of Alevi populations) are only mentioned twice. These religious centers that are based on Turkish Sunni Islam aim to alienate conservative Kurds from mostly socialist Kurdish political movement. It has been argued that AKP aims to include the Kurds under a “new nation” based on Islam (Aktoprak Reference Aktoprak, Nimni and Aktoprak2018, 141), and it was reported that during the peace process in Turkey “the AKP has begun to define ‘good’ Kurds in terms of religion” (Aktoprak Reference Aktoprak, Nimni and Aktoprak2018, 145). Thus, construction of Sunni religious centers can be read as an attempt to assimilate the Kurdish identity through religious propaganda.
In seven videos, the trustees claim that the local people are content with the services while in 29 videos they thank local people for their support. Even though it is not very common, some trustees mention their mottos or working philosophies. For three of them, this is “keep people alive so that the state will live” which is a phrase used by Erdoğan and translated as such in the official web page of the presidency (Presidency of the Republic of Turkey 2020). Another trustee uses the famous motto of Islamists: “service to people is service to God.” The mentions about keeping people alive are directly in relation to neoliberalism’s dichotomy of keeping alive and letting die. This may be one of the reasons for the frequent mentions about granting food and other basic necessities, the other reason being the infantilization of the Kurdish population.
An interesting fact is that the trustees’ mostly focus on public investments and public spending instead of private investment. In this discourse, the state becomes an important economic actor and its intervention in the market is painted as a positive attribute which differs from most cases of previous neoliberal experiences. However, the long-standing neoliberal logic shows itself in the way that public services are presented as favors instead of obligations of the state. The trustees almost act as if they are spending their own money instead of spending public resources which is in line with the claim that partisan redistribution of public resources is one of the defining characteristics of AKP government (Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2020).
The Effects of Trustee-Appointments in the Following Local Elections
Even though many trustees claimed that the people were content with the “efficiency” of the public services of trustees and they frequently thank the inhabitants of the municipalities, it is difficult to assert that the ruling AKP’s candidates emerged successful from the next local elections which were held in March 2019. The results of 2019 local elections were interpreted as HDP’s consolidation of “its power in Southeast Turkey” (Savaşkan Reference Savaşkan2020, 218), and it was argued that the results show that “HDP retains its strong control over the heavily Kurdish populated provinces despite the strong government crackdown” (Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2019, 15).
In the 89 municipalities that the appointed governors made propaganda videos, HDP won the most municipalities in the following local elections while AKP tailed behind. Here, it is important to underline the fact that it is practically impossible to talk about free and democratic elections when it comes to 2019 local elections in Turkey. Considering that HDP’s numerous MPs, including its former co-chairs were arrested, and approximately 6,000 HDP members were arrested from summer 2015 to December 2017 (Gunes Reference Gunes2020, 12), it is obvious that HDP did not participate in the election campaign in adequate conditions. During the election campaign, HDP suffered from government attacks and biased media coverage while its members were “attacked, harassed, and detained on numerous occasions to weaken the party organisation” (Esen and Gumuscu Reference Esen and Gumuscu2019, 12).
The information about the results of the 2019 local elections in the 89 municipalities can be seen in table 7.
Table 7. Examined Municipalities Won by Political Parties in 2019
It can be seen in table 7 that while HDP won 48 out of the 89 municipalities, AKP won 33 of them and eight of the municipalities went to other political parties. In five of these eight municipalities, Islamist SP (Saadet Partisi or Felicity Party) candidates came first while social-democratic CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi or Republican People’s Party), communist TKP (Türkiye Komünist Partisi or Communist Party of Turkey), and far-right Islamist and nationalist BBP (Büyük Birlik Partisi or Great Unity Party) each won one municipality, even though the YSK (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu or Supreme Electoral Council) did not accept the results in the municipality in which the CHP candidate came first (Rüstemgedik). While AKP came second 50 times and HDP 31 times; in eight municipalities other candidates were in the second place. Five of them were CHP candidates, one was from CHP’s secular nationalist ally İYİ Parti (Good Party), one was from AKP’s extremist right-wing ally MHP, and one was an independent candidate. In two municipalities, there was no third candidate, since the race was between two political parties (in Atabağı between AKP and CHP, and in Sırtköy between AKP and HDP – in both municipalities AKP candidates won). AKP participated in the elections in all 89 municipalities while HDP participated in 88, and both parties came fourth once. AKP was the fourth party in the city of Dersim (denominated Tunceli by the Turkish State) which was won by TKP while HDP was the fourth party in Tuzluca municipality which was won by SP. In the 88 municipalities where HDP participated in the elections, the average percentage of its candidates’ vote was 46.47, and the median was 45.44 percent. For AKP candidates, their average vote percentage was 39.27 and their median percentage was 39.75. The results show that even though HDP lost ground in various municipalities, it mainly held its ground. HDP won the elections in eight cities in 2019 which is less than the ten cities that it won in 2014 (11 considering Ahmet Türk who had to run as an independent candidate), but considering the political pressure, violent attacks, and media bias that the HDP had to face, the results can still be considered an electoral victory for HDP.
The (at least partial) failure of the AKP government in convincing Kurdish voters to switch their preferences is an intriguing subject that requires further research. Even with the public expenditures and investments on the one hand, and threats on the other, most Kurdish people continue to support pro-Kurdish candidates in local elections. There are many factors to explore in relation to this persistent support. It may be read as a reaction to the ethnic exclusion (Tezcür and Gurses Reference Tezcür and Gurses2017), oppression (Gourlay Reference Gourlay2018), and dehumanization (Tutkal Reference Tutkal2020) of Kurdish people; it may be linked to the strengthening of Kurdish nationalism in relation to resistance against ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) (Al-Ali and Tas Reference Al-Ali and Tas2018), or it can be interpreted as support to HDP’s ethnically and culturally pluralistic project (Burç Reference Burç2019).
Conclusion
This article showed that pro-Kurdish legal political parties in Turkey and their candidates in local elections faced enormous state pressure since the parties’ formation. Pro-Kurdish mayors were regularly detained, arrested, and removed from their posts. However, in previous years the justification of such practices was based on the protection of the integrity of the Turkish State. Now, these appointments are mainly justified based on providing better public services and maintaining better relations with the central government even though the “protecting the State’s integrity” argument has not completely vanished.
The trustees justify their rule by qualities such as being able to receive bigger budgets from the state or attracting more public investment. Democratic mechanisms are completely overlooked in such arguments. Democracy is subordinated to economic development in this discourse, which implies that if democratic mechanisms are not the best way of generating economic growth or providing better public services then they should be abandoned. As Foucault stated a long time ago, there is “only one true and fundamental social policy” in neoliberal rationality: “economic growth” (Foucault Reference Foucault2008, 144). Thus, economic growth may gain the power to legitimize almost any policy in any given public sector.
Considering the fact that all trustees were men and they overly focused on providing spaces of leisure, playgrounds, sports facilities, and the like, it can be argued that the Turkish State paints itself as “the father” while infantilizing the Kurdish people and overruling their political will. The state both offered some kind of a bribe in spending more money for public services and social aids, and threatened the Kurdish people with the use of violence and depriving them of their most basic necessities. Still, the results of the 2019 local elections show that the Kurdish people mostly prefer electing pro-Kurdish candidates again over receiving more public resources.
The issue about pro-Kurdish political parties in Turkey is not just about terrorism anymore. Democratic elections are basically deemed meaningless based on the argument that the state-appointed governors can work better with the central administration and can generate more economic growth. This argument is very dangerous since it completely undermines the legitimacy of holding democratic elections. What is happening in the Kurdish cities indicates that local governments or autonomous institutions are seen as unnecessary in authoritarian neoliberalism and it is probable that this trend will not limit itself with Kurdistan in Turkey. Indeed, the arbitrary rerun of İstanbul’s local election should be considered another example of undermining democratic mechanisms in relation to local governance.
When opposition CHP candidate Ekrem İmamoğlu won the local election in İstanbul in March 2019 against the AKP candidate and ex-prime minister Binali Yıldırım, the AKP government did not accept the results and rerun elections were held in June, in which the difference between the two candidates’ vote shares was almost 10%. Even though AKP had to accept the results, it started to impede various activities of İstanbul Municipality. Since İmamoğlu became the mayor, “public banks have started denying loans” for their capital projects (Savaşkan Reference Savaşkan2020, 219). Another example of government obstructions of the activities of opposition mayors was seen in the case of COVID-19 pandemic. Donation campaigns launched by opposition İstanbul and Ankara municipalities were banned by the government and bank accounts of the municipalities were blocked, which was justified by President Erdoğan who stated that aid campaigns can only be carried out “by entities announced by the presidency” (Savaşkan Reference Savaşkan2020, 219). These examples show that the ongoing authoritarian neoliberalism in Turkey does not limit itself with undermining democratic mechanisms in Kurdish-populated cities, but it attacks all democratic mechanisms of the country, effectively getting rid of local governments.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Isaura Castelao-Huerta for her support. I also thank the organizers of “The Ends of Autonomy colloquium” in July 2020 for allowing me to present the preliminary results of this research.
Disclosures
None.
