Tolerance and Democratization in Turkey

Abstract

Social cohesion and mutual understanding among social groups is an essential component of any democratic society. History has shown that societies which reach a level of homoeostasis have obtained social connectivity and a strong civil society in which people agree to live together within the defined borders of a country. In that respect, Turkish society has faced several social and political challenges since the early 1900s. Even though social cleavages between the center and the periphery or between “traditionalists” and “modernists” go back even earlier, when we look at today’s Turkish society and political realm we see there are major issues of social discontent that have not been discussed openly as well as sources of division. At a time of polarization of political ideologies and attitudes, this chapter tackles one of the important components of social cohesion in Turkish society: tolerance. Limits imposed over freedoms abound in world history. During World War II, for example, when fascist dictators led the world into chaos, we observed how intolerance fueled animosity. The era of McCarthyism in the USA was another period when people faced serious limitations to their civil rights coupled with weakened political tolerance toward whoever differed from the prevailing political norms. In Europe, numerous studies have aimed to understand the interaction of multiculturalism and Euroskepticism, which both relate to tolerance toward immigrants or those born outside the EU member countries. Other survey research evidence demonstrates different aspects of the determinants and consequences of intolerance in South Africa (Gibson and Gouws 2003), Russia (Gibson and Duch 1993; Gibson 1998), and several other countries (Peffley and Rohrschneider 2003). Intolerance is thus a recurring problem where we see polarized societies facing serious social and political challenges, regardless of their democratic status. In Turkey, tolerance has a distinct place and a significant role to play. Turkish politics needs to nourish universal democratic values and to have these values accepted by the general public. Tolerance toward each other is the key to understanding how we can accept ideas with which we disagree. When we ask why this is important, the initial point of departure is the level of polarization in Turkish politics. Polarization imposes a significant influence upon intolerance with evidence of growing public polarization in Turkey over the past five years. © 2016 selection and editorial material, Cengiz Erisen and Paul Kubicek; individual chapters, the contributors.