Entrepreneurs, Democracy, and Citizenship in Turkey

Abstract

Business leaders and business associations are key political actors in late industrializing societies. The relationship between business and democracy has been a source of continued controversy in comparative studies of democratic transitions and democratic consolidation. In the traditional view, businessmen are typically interested in stability. Whenever considerations relating to stability come into conflict with political pluralism and democratic opening, they tend to swing in the direction of authoritarian solutions. However, more recent studies have drawn attention to the increasingly progressive or favorable role that business or entrepreneurial groups can play in the process of democratic transition and consolidation.1 Why did business interests, notably big business, tend in the past to favor-or at least not to reject outright-authoritarian practices, while they have given growing support to liberal democracy and political pluralism in recently emerging second and third wave democracies? Turkey is an interesting case to examine from a comparative standpoint. It is an example of the second wave democracy. A broadly open polity has existed, albeit with certain interruptions, over a period of four decades, yet the democratic order falls considerably short of being fully consolidated judged by the norms of westernstyle liberal democracies. The Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen's Association (TUSIAD) is a voluntary interest association representing big business and large conglomerates in Turkey. The segment of the business community represented by TOSiAD has become increasingly vocal in recent years in favor of further democratic opening. Indeed, its recent publications and the pronouncements of its leaders in public have concentrated almost singlemindedly on legal and constitutional reforms. This position contrasts sharply with the earlier pattern in the 1970s and the 1980s, when the organization's efforts focused primarily on issues of economic reforms and largely evaded open discussion of issues relating to democratization and constitutional reform. Clearly, a number of challenging questions of wider interest from a comparative perspective emerges in this context. How can the striking shift in the preferences of the business community in the direction of participating in or even actively leading the prodemocratization coalition be explained? What does big busi