The structural causes of political crisis in Turkey

The December 17thprocess was started allegedly by a political move by the Gulen movement, which, until recently, had been seen as a religious organization. As the government and the parliament-- institutions of democratic representation--countered this move through the use of their constitutional powers, the debate has turned into a totalistic and ontological struggle. However, very few people argue that the problems are actually not independent of the constitutional system of the Turkish Republic, but rather unavoidable consequences of the existing system. If we consider the political steps and strategies pursued by the Gulen movement, we see that we are faced with the most familiar game in Turkish political history, namely the shaping of politics through the use of state institutions.
A contemporary observer of the French Revolution in 1789, Selim III, attempted to modernize the Ottoman army and administration by initiating the Nizam-i Cedid (the New Order) program in the [...]