Politicized Armies, Militarized Politics: Civil-military Relations in Turkey and Greece

Despite their common Ottoman heritage, Greece and Turkey have diverged widely in their modem history of civil-military relations. The armed forces have a long record of intervention in both countries, but there is a crucial difference: the military emerged as a roughly unitary, independent political actor in Turkey, whereas in Greece it remained divided into factions aligned with civilian political parties through patronage relationships. This empirical observation is then used as a basis for an attempt at theorybuilding. Several countries exhibit a pattern of military interventions more similar to Turkey and others to those found in Greece. Societies which developed a strong parliamentary tradition early in the modernization process also acquired organized civilian political groups with clientelist networks extending into the armed forces. On the contrary, in countries with limited or weak parliamentary development and strong security pressures, political activism was often channeled through the military, which emerged as a hotbed of political thinking, predating and pre-empting any civilian party tradition. The former type of civil-military relations was more commonly found in Southern European and Latin American countries while the latter was predominant in non-Western societies that resisted Western colonization. Thesis Supervisor: Roger Petersen Title: Associate Professor of Political Science POLITICIZED ARMIES, MILITARIZED POLITICS: CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN TURKEY AND GREECE Although the political science literature on civil-military relations is voluminous, one important question remains understudied: why have some militaries been more often in bed with civilians than others? Latin American area specialists have heavily influenced the study of civil-military relations, leading to a general emphasis on the stereotypical anti-communist military enjoying some open or tacit civilian support. Although civil-military relations scholars command a broader knowledge of empirical cases beyond Cold War Latin America and have classified military regimes according to various criteria, a salient typology based on closeness of association with civilian circles has not arisen. This paper attempts to create such a typology based on a comparison of a rather odd couple: Turkey and Greece. Greece and Turkey are often discussed in pair as adversaries divided by history and culture, not as cases for a fruitful comparison. Even though both experienced numerous coups in the twentieth century, knowledgeable commentators avoid drawing any parallels between them. Indeed, Greece and Turkey differ on the subject of civilmilitary relations. Greece was a relatively stable parliamentary democracy in the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, its military became drenched in the political antagonisms between a republican left and a royalist right until a foreign policy disaster in Cyprus prompted a return to civilian rule, political reconciliation, and full civilian control. Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire, was born in a period of revolution spearheaded by its military and became the first secular independent Muslim state. Its military has long been studied by political scientists for its involvement in politics as an actor above parties, allegedly aiming to uphold the principles of the Kemalist reforms in a series of interventions. Although Turkey grew wealthier and more democratic during the twentieth century, its military is still considered to be playing a shadow role in government, an issue affecting Turkey's current application for admission to the European Union. And yet it is not immediately obvious why Greece and Turkey should be so different, since both societies sprang from the political system of the Ottoman Empire, which they had shared for centuries. A common historical background is often used as point of reference when discussing similarities among Latin American countries, not least in the area of civil-military relations. Cultural disparity may make it seem natural that Greece's political path would depart from Turkey's, but it is not at all clear which cultural traits were the culprits leading to this divergence. Is it religion that affected the relationship between the armed forces and the polity? Comparative political research has associated Islam with an abstract negative correlation to democratization, but Turkey has one of the longest records of secular reform among Muslim societies. Besides, it is not the quantity but the different nature of interventions that requires explanation: military coups in Greece were just as numerous.' The subject of civil-military relations is most often conceived as pertaining to general political stability, making the number and frequency of coups the first focus of any study. The major difference between Greece and Turkey on the civil-military dimension has not been the level of political stability but the different relationship between the military and the civilian elites. 'In the twentieth century, Greece experienced military coups or outright interventions in 1909, 1916, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1926, 1933, 1935, 1967, and 1973; Turkey in 1908, 1909, 1913, 1919, 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1980, and 1997. This numbering is not counting multiple coup attempts in the same year (there were two Comparing civil-military relations in Greece and Turkey would serve to explain their dissimilar political development and also check for possible interaction, since the two states have been in an antagonistic relationship for most of their modem history. A closer look will reveal that religion, external threat, or even the political party system do not offer any easy explanations for the divergence. A more logical explanation would point to another variable: institutional synchronism. After briefly reviewing the history of civil-military relations in each country, I will offer an explanation based on the reverse lag in the development of military and political institutions. CIVIL-MILITARY RELATIONS IN MODERN GREEK HISTORY The Kingdom of Greece was created in 1832 as a result of perhaps the first Western "humanitarian intervention" in modern history. The intervention of Russia, Britain, and France against the Ottoman Empire saved the Greek Revolution from the brink of disaster and created a fully independent state with a Bavarian monarch, Otto I. At its inception, this state did not have the resources to maintain a large military. Greece's independence was guaranteed by its great power patrons, but its small size forbade any solitary adventurism against the Ottoman Empire, still a vast and powerful state at that time. The only local military tradition available was that of the unruly bandits who had fought the War of Independence (1821-1830). Otto's Bavarian regents-the king was a minor when he accepted the throne-created a small professional military trained by a Bavarian contingent and disbanded most of the coups in Greece in 1935, 1967, and 1973). Counting attempted coups rather than "coup years," Greece actually experienced more coups than Turkey in the 20 th century. irregulars. Greek military doctrine in the mid-nineteenth century envisioned a mobilization of irregular units, in Greece proper and among Greek populations in the adjacent Ottoman territories, if and when an international opportunity presented itself, e.g. in the event of another Russo-Turkish war. Without an international opportunity at hand, Greece could not dare oppose the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, a large standing military at peacetime would be an expensive excess for the impecunious young kingdom. 2 As it is often ironically the case in civil-military relations history, small size did not prevent the Greek military from political involvement. First of all, the decision to disband the irregulars and commission a small number of professional officers, created bitterness among the Independence War veterans, several of whom returned to banditry or otherwise came into conflict with the Bavarian court. The domestic political situation and Greece's lack of a professional military tradition created a suitable setting for conspiratorial activity in a nascent society with very murky distinctions between military and civilian realms. The Bavarian administration, although efficient and industrious, ruled Greece without a constitution or parliament. In 1843, an agglomeration of bandit veterans and civilian politicians, assisted by the head of the Athens Cavalry Guard, led a popular revolution against King Otto demanding a constitution. The palace gave way, and Greece held its first parliamentary elections in 1844-a few years ahead of several Northern European states and two generations before the first elections in the Ottoman