Türkiye’deki Yeni Anayasadan Beklentiler: Liberalizmin Demokratikleşmesi Ya Da Demokrasinin Liberalleşmesi
Expectations from the “New Constitution” in Turkey: Democratization of Liberalizm or Liberalization of Democracy?

Summary/Abstract: This study analyses the main themes of the (new) constitution debate in Turkey by focusing on the representatives of different ideological/political dispositions in the Turkish print media. The recent debate revolving around the need for a new constitution, the deficits of the current constitution, and the expectations from the new constitution hints at the dominance of liberal perspective on the notion of democracy. Although this may not come as a surprise considering the long-lived global alliance between liberalism and democracy, it is interesting that the debate on the new constitution in Turkey is coupled with the concept of “advance democracy” and its timing parallels the deliberations on “democratisation of liberal democracy” in the world of political theory. However, while the latter refers to an endeavour to develop a critical perspective on the theory and practice of liberal democracy, based mainly upon the notions of participation, popular sovereignty and equality, in the Turkish case advance democracy comes to mean liberal (or more liberal) democracy. Such notions as ‘limited state’, ‘individual rights and liberties’, ‘rule of law’, and ‘legitimacy’, which are indeed the central themes of the liberal tradition, are recalled as the major characteristics of a democratic constitution in Turkey; and they also serve as the major criteria according to which the current constitution is criticized. But this happens without any reference to (or a sign of acknowledgement of) the history of complex relationship between liberal and democratic traditions. In other words, what we observe in the case of the debates on the new constitution in Turkey is the conflation of liberalism and democracy.

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