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Millennium Development Goals
Turkey’s progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is moderate. The latest government reports for 2005 disclose that extreme poverty is rare with under 1 per cent of the population living on less than US$1 a day. Yet, over 20 per cent of the population falls below a broader definition of poverty and is vulnerable to any economic instability. This rate is even higher in rural areas due to a stagnating agricultural economy and slow labour transition to non-agricultural activities. Infant and child mortality rates are very high and life expectancy is low by European standards, in part due to difficulties in meeting the costs of medical attention.
As for education, the adult literacy rate is 85 per cent, with a significant gap between the literacy rates of men (94 per cent) and women (78 per cent). There are serious disparities at the regional level too. Literacy is as high as 98 per cent in the western and north-western parts of the country, while it goes down to as low as 40 per cent (for women) in the eastern part. Turkey also needs to improve in the area of women's empowerment and entrenched gender discrimination. The level of female economic activity is also significantly lower than that of males. Only half of the female population over 15 years of age is economically active and mostly working in the agricultural sector at low levels of productivity.
On the other hand, the number of university graduates has been rapidly growing over the last two decades, although high rates of unemployment amongst this group is a continuous problem. Hence, the country needs to widen the accessibility of basic education across regions while improving its absorption capacity for highly skilled human capital. Moreover, bridging regional disparities in human development between the least developed eastern and the developed western parts of the country is a major challenge for present and future governments.
Background Politics
The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923, after a nationalist independence movement following World War One. It was a modern republic replacing the institutions of the Ottoman Empire and reformed all aspects of social and political life. The Ottoman legal system was replaced by European legal codes. The new civil code empowered women in an unprecedented fashion. They received their right to vote and right to stand for election as early as the 1930s, well before many of their counterparts in Europe.
Turkey’s domestic political structure and its foreign policy orientation changed significantly after World War Two. A transition from one party system to multiparty democracy took place in 1946. The ruling party that had been in power since the establishment of the Republic was overturned by the opposition party through free elections in 1950. Around the same period, Turkey joined the western alliance. It became a member of the NATO, IMF and the OECD.
Contemporary Politics
The period from 1960 to 1980 was democratically unstable. There were three military interventions, which set a custom of military involvement in the country's politics. However, political life has since been quite vibrant with democratic elections bringing a variety of parties from different parts of the political spectrum into power. The decisive victor of the 2002 election was the Justice and Development Party (AKP) whose leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became Prime Minister only after a constitutional change restored his eligibility for parliament - previously denied on account of Islamist activity in a political meeting. In the July 2007 general elections for Parliament, the Justice and Development Party received more than 45 per cent of the total votes cast, securing another five year term in government.
The AKP party is seen by secularists as having strong Islamic association, with a “hidden agenda” to challenge the secular principles of the constitution. In that respect, the presidential election scheduled for May 2007 was controversial as the post symbolises the secularist ideals of the Republic. There was disapproval from the military and massive demonstrations against AKP's candidate for president, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who was blocked by the Constitutional Court, on the basis that the ruling party did not have sufficient majority in Parliament to elect the new president. This forced the AKP to go for early elections in July 2007.
Since 1990, civil society has been flourishing, at least in terms of numbers. However, the NGO sector remains in the background and has not made overtures to assume any of the state’s social responsibilities. The state-centric nature of Turkish political system and the patronage and clientelism derived from it is seen as the main obstacle to the development of well-functioning civil society as a major force in Turkish democracy.
The European Union (EU) influence in Turkish politics has been increasingly important. After its initial application in 1963, Turkey has aspired to graduate to full membership and since 1999, when it was officially accepted as a candidate country, there have been numerous reforms to the country’s political system, in compliance with EU standards. In December 2004, the EU members patched up their reservations and agreed to open accession talks in October 2005. This timetable has been honoured despite the fall-out from referendums on the European Constitution held in France and The Netherlands where the results have been interpreted by many as a vote against enlargement.
However, in December 2006 after Turkey refused to open its ports to the internationally recognised government of Cyprus against its legal commitment to the EU (given in return for EU’s promises to ease the embargo against Turkish Cypriots), eight out of some thirty chapters of Turkey’s membership negotiations have been suspended by the EU. These negotiations are likely to become even more difficult and in any event may take around fifteen years.
Economy
Turkey's economy is a mix of modern industry and commerce, along with a substantial agricultural sector employing a third of the labour force in 2003. Massive privatisation in essential sectors such as industry, banking, transport, and communications has diminished the role of the state in the economy. A thriving private sector and increasing integration into international markets in goods and services has created a vibrant economy over the last decade. However, lack of institutional innovation and inefficient bureaucracy are major obstacles to high levels of sustainable growth.
After years of chronic high inflation, increasing burden of foreign debts and lack of fiscal discipline, Turkey suffered an economic crisis in 2001. An IMF-led tight economic programme was introduced. Fiscal discipline has been established and inflation moved into single digit numbers for the first time in three decades. However, classical problems of ‘structural deficit’ - defined as high unemployment and high deficit in balance of payments - has so far remained. It has been argued that overvalued currency, high real interest rates and lack of labour policies conducive for growth hinders the manufacturing and services sectors from achieving their true potential. As for social policies, the IMF programme, primarily aiming at securing the country’s debt obligations, diverted vital resources that could otherwise have been used for human development.
In 1996 Turkey joined the EU customs union which is a free trade zone with a common external tariff. Further integration with the EU including free movement of labour would provide major opportunities for the county’s economic development.
Conflict
A long history of repression of the minority Kurdish peoples in the east and southeast of the country culminated in armed conflict in the 1980s and 1990s between government forces and those of the outlawed Kurdish separatist movement (PKK). The violence is estimated to have claimed over 30,000 lives. The military’s tactical success in the mid-1990s, and the subsequent capture in 1999 of the PKK leader, greatly reduced the incidence of violence. However, the PKK has continued to maintain a military base in northern Iraq and it has recently resumed its militant activities. For this reason, Turkey is increasingly concerned about the possible disintegration of Iraq and it considers the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq as a major security threat.
The commitment of the Kurdish political elite in Turkey to engage in democratic politics at the local and national levels is crucial for the democratic resolution of the conflict. This is constrained in part by rules demanding that minority parties achieve a minimum threshold of votes. However through the device of standing as independent candidates in the latest election in July 2007, there is now the prospect of the representation of a Kurdish political party in Parliament.
Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus in 1974 resulted in the de facto partitioning of the island between the Turkish and the Greek communities. Yet the government in the Greek side has continued to be recognized internationally as the government of the island. However, a window of opportunity to achieve a peaceful resolution to this long running conflict was missed in a referendum that took place separately and simultaneously in the two parts of the island in April 2004. The Greek Cypriots rejected a UN-initiated peace proposal, the Annan Plan, which was endorsed by the international community and supported overwhelmingly by the Turkish Cypriot voters.
Turkey officially acknowledges the atrocities suffered by Armenians during World War One while categorically refusing genocide claims, on grounds that the Ottoman state did not have direct involvement in the affair. Due to Armenia’s genocide claims and its ongoing occupation of some of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognised territory, Turkey does not have official diplomatic ties with Armenia and the borders between the two countries are closed. Resolving this conflict peacefully together with the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a big political and diplomatic challenge for regional stability.
Human Rights
The country has attracted serious attention for its human rights record in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Incidents involving political killings, the imprisonment of journalists, torture, and “extrajudicial” killings of suspects by police were frequent. Especially during the years of conflict between government forces and Kurdish secessionists, systematic human rights violations were committed by both sides.
Turkey's current constitution, which was introduced after a military coup in 1980, is generally considered to restrict democratic and civil rights. However, there has been continued progress on human rights since Turkey became an official candidate to the EU. The death penalty was abolished, tougher measures to eradicate torture and ill-treatment in police stations were introduced, and the penal code was reformed.
Information and Media
Turkey’s press is relatively free and vibrant, certainly by standards of past years. Since the beginning of the 1990s, numerous private TV and radio stations have been established as alternatives to the state broadcaster agency. There are currently around 300 private TV stations and 1,000 private radio stations.
These freedoms are held in check to a degree by the notorious Article 301 of the penal code which led to an international outcry over the prosecution of the writer, Orhan Pamuk, accused of "insulting Turkishness" in remarks about atrocities suffered by Armenians in World War One. Although his case was eventually dropped, similar cases continue to be brought against writers whose freedom of expression has been restrained.
In January 2007, a leading journalist of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink, was killed by a young Turkish ultra-nationalist in Istanbul. The incident created deep shock and anger in the community of moderate Turks. More than 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against the killing. The incident raised serious questions about the rise of ultra-nationalism in Turkey, especially amongst young generations.
Environment
There is increasing internal pressure for Turkey to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. However, there are few signs of serious effort to reduce carbon dependency by investing in renewable energy sources. Although the country offers ample potential for wind, solar and thermal energy, fossil fuels continue to provide more than 90 percent of all energy supplies.
Soil erosion, air pollution, hazardous wastes are other activities harmful to the environment in Turkey to which neither government nor wider public pays adequate attention. In cases of specific environmental damage, state authorities are often accused of being extremely slow and ineffective in their response.
Health
The quality of health service in general has been improving, and HIV/AIDS is not a major health threat in Turkey. Although there is no reliable data on HIV/AIDS, the adult prevalence rate is estimated to be less than 0.1%. With per capita expenditure on health no more than US$300 at 2001 prices, health services are of reasonable quality by developing country standards, but far below of those of developed countries.
Baris Karapinar has a PhD in development studies from the London School of Economics (LSE). He studied the political economy of agricultural and rural development in Turkey.
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Turkey’s progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is moderate. The latest government reports for 2005 disclose that extreme poverty is rare with under 1 per cent of the population living on less than US$1 a day. Yet, over 20 per cent of the population falls below a broader definition of poverty and is vulnerable to any economic instability. This rate is even higher in rural areas due to a stagnating agricultural economy and slow labour transition to non-agricultural activities. Infant and child mortality rates are very high and life expectancy is low by European standards, in part due to difficulties in meeting the costs of medical attention.
As for education, the adult literacy rate is 85 per cent, with a significant gap between the literacy rates of men (94 per cent) and women (78 per cent). There are serious disparities at the regional level too. Literacy is as high as 98 per cent in the western and north-western parts of the country, while it goes down to as low as 40 per cent (for women) in the eastern part. Turkey also needs to improve in the area of women's empowerment and entrenched gender discrimination. The level of female economic activity is also significantly lower than that of males. Only half of the female population over 15 years of age is economically active and mostly working in the agricultural sector at low levels of productivity.
On the other hand, the number of university graduates has been rapidly growing over the last two decades, although high rates of unemployment amongst this group is a continuous problem. Hence, the country needs to widen the accessibility of basic education across regions while improving its absorption capacity for highly skilled human capital. Moreover, bridging regional disparities in human development between the least developed eastern and the developed western parts of the country is a major challenge for present and future governments.
Background Politics
The Republic of Turkey was established in 1923, after a nationalist independence movement following World War One. It was a modern republic replacing the institutions of the Ottoman Empire and reformed all aspects of social and political life. The Ottoman legal system was replaced by European legal codes. The new civil code empowered women in an unprecedented fashion. They received their right to vote and right to stand for election as early as the 1930s, well before many of their counterparts in Europe.
Turkey’s domestic political structure and its foreign policy orientation changed significantly after World War Two. A transition from one party system to multiparty democracy took place in 1946. The ruling party that had been in power since the establishment of the Republic was overturned by the opposition party through free elections in 1950. Around the same period, Turkey joined the western alliance. It became a member of the NATO, IMF and the OECD.
Contemporary Politics
The period from 1960 to 1980 was democratically unstable. There were three military interventions, which set a custom of military involvement in the country's politics. However, political life has since been quite vibrant with democratic elections bringing a variety of parties from different parts of the political spectrum into power. The decisive victor of the 2002 election was the Justice and Development Party (AKP) whose leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became Prime Minister only after a constitutional change restored his eligibility for parliament - previously denied on account of Islamist activity in a political meeting. In the July 2007 general elections for Parliament, the Justice and Development Party received more than 45 per cent of the total votes cast, securing another five year term in government.
The AKP party is seen by secularists as having strong Islamic association, with a “hidden agenda” to challenge the secular principles of the constitution. In that respect, the presidential election scheduled for May 2007 was controversial as the post symbolises the secularist ideals of the Republic. There was disapproval from the military and massive demonstrations against AKP's candidate for president, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, who was blocked by the Constitutional Court, on the basis that the ruling party did not have sufficient majority in Parliament to elect the new president. This forced the AKP to go for early elections in July 2007.
Since 1990, civil society has been flourishing, at least in terms of numbers. However, the NGO sector remains in the background and has not made overtures to assume any of the state’s social responsibilities. The state-centric nature of Turkish political system and the patronage and clientelism derived from it is seen as the main obstacle to the development of well-functioning civil society as a major force in Turkish democracy.
The European Union (EU) influence in Turkish politics has been increasingly important. After its initial application in 1963, Turkey has aspired to graduate to full membership and since 1999, when it was officially accepted as a candidate country, there have been numerous reforms to the country’s political system, in compliance with EU standards. In December 2004, the EU members patched up their reservations and agreed to open accession talks in October 2005. This timetable has been honoured despite the fall-out from referendums on the European Constitution held in France and The Netherlands where the results have been interpreted by many as a vote against enlargement.
However, in December 2006 after Turkey refused to open its ports to the internationally recognised government of Cyprus against its legal commitment to the EU (given in return for EU’s promises to ease the embargo against Turkish Cypriots), eight out of some thirty chapters of Turkey’s membership negotiations have been suspended by the EU. These negotiations are likely to become even more difficult and in any event may take around fifteen years.
Economy
Turkey's economy is a mix of modern industry and commerce, along with a substantial agricultural sector employing a third of the labour force in 2003. Massive privatisation in essential sectors such as industry, banking, transport, and communications has diminished the role of the state in the economy. A thriving private sector and increasing integration into international markets in goods and services has created a vibrant economy over the last decade. However, lack of institutional innovation and inefficient bureaucracy are major obstacles to high levels of sustainable growth.
After years of chronic high inflation, increasing burden of foreign debts and lack of fiscal discipline, Turkey suffered an economic crisis in 2001. An IMF-led tight economic programme was introduced. Fiscal discipline has been established and inflation moved into single digit numbers for the first time in three decades. However, classical problems of ‘structural deficit’ - defined as high unemployment and high deficit in balance of payments - has so far remained. It has been argued that overvalued currency, high real interest rates and lack of labour policies conducive for growth hinders the manufacturing and services sectors from achieving their true potential. As for social policies, the IMF programme, primarily aiming at securing the country’s debt obligations, diverted vital resources that could otherwise have been used for human development.
In 1996 Turkey joined the EU customs union which is a free trade zone with a common external tariff. Further integration with the EU including free movement of labour would provide major opportunities for the county’s economic development.
Conflict
A long history of repression of the minority Kurdish peoples in the east and southeast of the country culminated in armed conflict in the 1980s and 1990s between government forces and those of the outlawed Kurdish separatist movement (PKK). The violence is estimated to have claimed over 30,000 lives. The military’s tactical success in the mid-1990s, and the subsequent capture in 1999 of the PKK leader, greatly reduced the incidence of violence. However, the PKK has continued to maintain a military base in northern Iraq and it has recently resumed its militant activities. For this reason, Turkey is increasingly concerned about the possible disintegration of Iraq and it considers the establishment of a Kurdish state in northern Iraq as a major security threat.
The commitment of the Kurdish political elite in Turkey to engage in democratic politics at the local and national levels is crucial for the democratic resolution of the conflict. This is constrained in part by rules demanding that minority parties achieve a minimum threshold of votes. However through the device of standing as independent candidates in the latest election in July 2007, there is now the prospect of the representation of a Kurdish political party in Parliament.
Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus in 1974 resulted in the de facto partitioning of the island between the Turkish and the Greek communities. Yet the government in the Greek side has continued to be recognized internationally as the government of the island. However, a window of opportunity to achieve a peaceful resolution to this long running conflict was missed in a referendum that took place separately and simultaneously in the two parts of the island in April 2004. The Greek Cypriots rejected a UN-initiated peace proposal, the Annan Plan, which was endorsed by the international community and supported overwhelmingly by the Turkish Cypriot voters.
Turkey officially acknowledges the atrocities suffered by Armenians during World War One while categorically refusing genocide claims, on grounds that the Ottoman state did not have direct involvement in the affair. Due to Armenia’s genocide claims and its ongoing occupation of some of Azerbaijan’s internationally recognised territory, Turkey does not have official diplomatic ties with Armenia and the borders between the two countries are closed. Resolving this conflict peacefully together with the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia is a big political and diplomatic challenge for regional stability.
Human Rights
The country has attracted serious attention for its human rights record in the 1980s and the early 1990s. Incidents involving political killings, the imprisonment of journalists, torture, and “extrajudicial” killings of suspects by police were frequent. Especially during the years of conflict between government forces and Kurdish secessionists, systematic human rights violations were committed by both sides.
Turkey's current constitution, which was introduced after a military coup in 1980, is generally considered to restrict democratic and civil rights. However, there has been continued progress on human rights since Turkey became an official candidate to the EU. The death penalty was abolished, tougher measures to eradicate torture and ill-treatment in police stations were introduced, and the penal code was reformed.
Information and Media
Turkey’s press is relatively free and vibrant, certainly by standards of past years. Since the beginning of the 1990s, numerous private TV and radio stations have been established as alternatives to the state broadcaster agency. There are currently around 300 private TV stations and 1,000 private radio stations.
These freedoms are held in check to a degree by the notorious Article 301 of the penal code which led to an international outcry over the prosecution of the writer, Orhan Pamuk, accused of "insulting Turkishness" in remarks about atrocities suffered by Armenians in World War One. Although his case was eventually dropped, similar cases continue to be brought against writers whose freedom of expression has been restrained.
In January 2007, a leading journalist of Armenian descent, Hrant Dink, was killed by a young Turkish ultra-nationalist in Istanbul. The incident created deep shock and anger in the community of moderate Turks. More than 100,000 people took to the streets to protest against the killing. The incident raised serious questions about the rise of ultra-nationalism in Turkey, especially amongst young generations.
Environment
There is increasing internal pressure for Turkey to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. However, there are few signs of serious effort to reduce carbon dependency by investing in renewable energy sources. Although the country offers ample potential for wind, solar and thermal energy, fossil fuels continue to provide more than 90 percent of all energy supplies.
Soil erosion, air pollution, hazardous wastes are other activities harmful to the environment in Turkey to which neither government nor wider public pays adequate attention. In cases of specific environmental damage, state authorities are often accused of being extremely slow and ineffective in their response.
Health
The quality of health service in general has been improving, and HIV/AIDS is not a major health threat in Turkey. Although there is no reliable data on HIV/AIDS, the adult prevalence rate is estimated to be less than 0.1%. With per capita expenditure on health no more than US$300 at 2001 prices, health services are of reasonable quality by developing country standards, but far below of those of developed countries.
Baris Karapinar has a PhD in development studies from the London School of Economics (LSE). He studied the political economy of agricultural and rural development in Turkey.
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