2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey

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Conclusions Turkey’s internal and external complexity makes it inescapable that the scenarios discussed in this study must remain speculative at best. Indeed, the standard reaction of Turkish interlocutors being told that the authors of this report sought to predict their country’s evolution a decade and more ahead was a sly smile, followed by any variation of the following quip: “We hardly know what might happen in Turkey next week.” Indeed, given the multitude of external and internal factors – ranging from long-term trends to individual incidents – that stand to affect Turkey’s evolution, the mathematical probability that a series of major events will derail any scenario remains prohibitively high. A similar study written in 1998 – when Islamists had just been defeated following the February 28, 1997, National Security Council meeting – the idea that half a decade later, a revamped form of more moderated Islamism would secure control over power for the better part of a decade, buoyed by compact support from the U.S., EU and the domestic liberal intelligentsia, would have appeared ludicrous. Similarly, many of the assumptions underlying the analysis in this study are likely to be overcome by unexpected events. That said, this study has sought to identify the main trends in Turkish society, politics and foreign policy that are likely to be the main determinants of the way the country will look when celebrating its 100 th anniversary. All things considered, Turkey is likely to be a more conservative and religious country. Islamic conservatism is unlikely to have made Turkey more Western-oriented. Although Turkey will not have “broken” with the West strategically, the ties between it and the West are bound to have been weakened. Turkey will most probably not yet have entered the EU. It is likely to have continued to juggle, uneasily, the competing regional security challenges surrounding it, some of which (such as the Balkans) are likely to have become less problematic, while others (such as Iran) may have tested the republican establishment severely. Internally, its Kurdish problem is unlikely to have gone away.
Prospects for a ‘Torn’ Turkey 77 The Turkey at 100 will in many ways be recognizable to observers witnessing its 85 th birthday; but many elements of it will be sure to come as a surprise to the most seasoned observer of the republic’s earlier history. The republic was not “stillborn”, but neither has it been properly tended to. The greatest surprise would be if the republic at 100 will have broken with its longstanding traditions and succeeded in developing a truly secularizing ethos.
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Page 80: Authors’ Bio Svante E. Cornell is
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2008_10_SRP_CornellKaraveli_Turkey

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