[BRIEF NOTE] The Turkish Unpleasantness

The controversy over conservative Muslim politician Abdullah Gül's potential candidacy for the Turkish presidency, and the contesting of this candidacy by the Turkish deep state (i.e. the military and courts) on the grounds of Gül's possible threats to Turkish secularism, has attracted quite a bit of attention, unsurprisingly since it touches upon all manner of touchy issues: the relationship of Islam and democracy, the frontiers of Europe and European identity, even the future of emerging economies. The blogospheric coverage is quite extensive, but locally, in addition to the coverage at A Fistful of Euros, mawombat has been posting a few links on the crisis.

As has frequently been pointed out, whatever this crisis' outcome the apparent instability of Turkey's fragile democracy is quite likely to threaten the already-distant possibility of Turkey's accession to the European Union. In "Turkey: a perfect constitutional storm". Jonathan Edelstein places the threatened intervention of the military in civilian politics in the context of a worrying worldwide trend of militaries intervening as they see fit in the affairs of potentially unstable civilian-run democracies.

Evidently, with the world being seen as a more dangerous place and repeated scandals tarnishing the image of democracy in many developing countries, military leaders are increasingly reasserting the role of arbiters and defining national security to include political security. The problem with this, of course, is that it results in the final judgment as to constitutional limitations being made by an unrepresentative body that isn't accountable to democratic discipline. In many instances, even those such as the Central African Republic and Guinea-Bissau where a plausible case could be made for intervention, the cure turned out to be worse than the disease, with the new rulers creating their own set of abuses which were made all the more severe due to the absence of institutional checks. "Good" coups such as that in Mauritania are as rare as philosopher-kings, and the tendency of militaries to idealize themselves makes the bad ones unlikely to change course. Praetorian rule may increasingly come in a constitutional guise, but it doesn't benefit constitutional self-rule.

The increasingly long odds against Turkish accession, especially given Turkey's recent history of political reforms enacted with European Union membership in mind, makes it doubtful "what kind of deterrent effect [EU enlargement commissioner Olli] Rehn could have, either to the Turkish army or to watchful eyes in Georgia and Ukraine. The European consensus against Turkish membership may just have encountered the law of unintended consequences, and the medium term effects might bring instability to the EU's door."

Elsewhere, Geoffrey Wheatcroft at Slate ("Fried Turkey") argues that this European consensus has been strengthened by the United States' long-standing pressure on Europe in favour of Turkey's admission to the EU, a foreign-policy plank motivated by grand strategic reasons despite what has been--at best--a tepid reaction to the idea of Turkish membership.

The neoconservative platform has several planks: the Iraq war (at any rate before it went awry) and the larger scheme of democratizing the Middle East; strong support for Israel; and, far from least, ardent advocacy of Turkish admission to the European Union. Such American advocates have done Turkey no good at all, I might add: Every time George W. Bush in the White House or Thomas L. Friedman in the New York Times demands that Turkey should be admitted, the Turkish case is set back further. After serving as a Tory Cabinet minister in London and then as the last governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten became a European commissioner before returning home as chancellor of Oxford University. A few years ago, he was expressing the irritation of all his colleagues in Brussels—and every European politician—when he said dryly that it was very good of the Americans to keep offering Turkey EU membership, but that this was a question on which the Europeans themselves might feel they had some right to be heard.

If a pat judgement can be made, it would likely be something along the lines that most everyone involved with Turkey--the European Union, the United States, Turkey's neighbours, of course Turkey's multple factions--is implicated to one degree or another in causing this crisis, and that very few of these actors has much incentive to back down.

[BRIEF NOTE] Breaking up can be a catastrophe only if you're a drama queen

Doubtless inspired by the predicted strength of the separatist Scottish National Party's showing in the upcoming election for the Scottish Parliament, a recent article in The Economist ("Scotland's Eurodreams", 19 April 2007) took a look at the SNP's promises that an independent Scotland could automatically accede to European Union membership. After arguing out that this isn't so, that Scotland would have to make an application for membership once it was separate from the rump United Kingdom, the author makes the easy observation that politics would inevitably get involved.

Nobody doubts that Scotland would eventually get in, but this could take time. And even if Scotland were excused the set-piece process of full-blown membership negotiations, the EU treaties would at the very least need to be tweaked to decide such matters as how many members of the European Parliament and votes in the Council of Ministers Scotland should have. Yet any change to the treaties needs the unanimous approval of all the current members, giving every single country a chance to veto Edinburgh. Who knows whether some government or other might not fancy a wrangle over fish or the EU budget? The Spanish government might not want to nod Scotland through, for fear of encouraging its own separatists. As one EU diplomat puts it: “If your sole question is, would you like to have Scotland in the EU, everyone would say yes. But it's not as simple as that.” In Brussels high-level questions of law are often settled by low-level questions of horsetrading.

While it would be in the interest firstly of Scots, secondly of Britons, and generally of Europeans to come quickly to a fair settlement in the event of a clear majority referendum in favour of Scottish independence, then, politics would complicate a swift transition to one extent or another depending on all manner of variables. In other words, Scotland's future is entirely defined by what Scotland and its partners want.

Surprise, surprise. A simple comparison of the dissolutions of the federations of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia in the early 1990s makes that princple quite clear: Even though both federations were shared a common status as relatively prosperous multinational Communist states where unity was threatened by difficult transitions to the western European model of democracy, Czechoslovakia dissolved itself peacefully while Yugoslavia came apart rather violently. There were deep reasons for these differences, but there were highly contingent events which defined these two breakups, even no small amount of choices. Some sort of a peaceful, negotiated transition in Yugoslavia is conceivable assuming different Yugoslav politics in the last two or three decades of Yugoslavia's existence; a violent breakup of Czechoslovakia is much more unlikely, especially given the lack of claims made by the Czechs and the Slovaks against the other's territories.

Equally, in the case of Scottish independence, it's possible to imagine anything from the rump United Kingdom's assent to Scotland's transformation into the next (28th?) member-state of the European Union to an Anglo-Spanish axis that kept Scotland out for fear of further domestic consequences and a desire for a better settlement. (I'm excluding the idea of a reassertion of British sovereignty over Scotland on grounds of implausibility; others' mileage may vary, but I can't imagine how.) How should the rest-of-the-United Kingdom react to a hypothetical Scottish mandate for independence? I'd hope that enlightened self-interest would come heavily into play--if Scotland wanted out of the United Kingdom it wouldn't be an obviously good idea to force Scotland to stay in, and the United Kingdom would be well-advised to avoid Irish precedents from the early 20th century and maintain a friendly relationship with a newly independent Scotland. Though that choice remains (as always) up to the Scots and other Britons to make, I'd like to believe that they'd make a sensible choice: The world doesn't need a Yugoslavia by the North Sea.