South European Society and Politics

ISSN: 1360-8746 (Print) 1743-9612 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fses20

Technology and Politics: Have the ICTs Turned into

a Domain for Civil–Military Relations in Turkey?

Rabia Karakaya Polat & Özlem Kayhan Pusane

To cite this article: Rabia Karakaya Polat & Özlem Kayhan Pusane (2016) Technology and
Politics: Have the ICTs Turned into a Domain for Civil–Military Relations in Turkey?, South
European Society and Politics, 21:3, 301-318, DOI: 10.1080/13608746.2016.1165404

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2016.1165404

Published online: 06 Apr 2016.

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South European Society and Politics, 2016
VOL. 21, NO. 3, 301–318
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2016.1165404

Technology and Politics: Have the ICTs Turned into a Domain

for Civil–Military Relations in Turkey?
Rabia Karakaya Polat and Özlem Kayhan Pusane

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The implications of technology have been widely acknowledged in Civil–military relations;
international relations. Studies ranging from the causes of war and technology and politics;
Turkey; e-memorandum;
military effectiveness to terrorism and nuclear proliferation have
Ergenekon; Sledgehammer
explored how technology shapes international politics. However, (Balyoz)
the implications of technology in domestic politics have not been
scrutinised much. This paper helps fill this vacuum through an analysis
of Turkey’s civil–military relations. Although civilian control over the
Turkish military has improved in the past decade, this process has
not been smooth. With a focus on the recent court cases involving
the military, the 2007 e-memorandum and the transfer of electronic
military intelligence apparatus to the civilian authority, this paper
demonstrates how technology has become an important domain
for civil–military relations in Turkey.

Technology and power relations are connected intimately. This has always been the case
across time and space, different types of technology being applied in multifaceted ways and
in diverse arenas by state and non-state actors. Throughout history, technology has helped
modern states establish control over their territories and citizens. The use of gunpowder
and advances in transportation allowed the centralisation of political power and helped
bring an end to the feudal ages. Printing technologies enhanced the process of nation-
building (Anderson 2006). The atomic bomb was a key factor enabling the emergence of
the United States as a superpower after World War II. Technology continues to help states
consolidate their power by providing policymakers with increased surveillance capabilities,
efficient bureaucracies and better border controls.
The significance of technological superiority (particularly military technology) in
international politics is widely acknowledged (McNeill 1982; Manjikian 2010). However, there
is limited literature about the relationship of information and communication technologies
(ICTs) to domestic politics. In Governing Electronically (2010), Henman analyses how
information and communication technologies (ICTs) have reconfigured power relations in
public administration. As early as 1991, Taylor and Williams claimed that information flows
through computer networks would ‘make it possible to transform organisational structures
towards greater functional and geographical decentralisation’ (cited in Hood 1995, p.175).
There is now a vast literature on electronic democracy analysing the use of ICTs, particularly

CONTACT Rabia Karakaya Polat rabia.polat@isikun.edu.tr

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
302 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

the internet and social media, as a way to challenge governments (Castells 2012; Diamond
& Plattner 2012; Loader & Mercea 2012).
In the past few years, it has been possible to observe the domestic implications of ICTs
in various dimensions of the Turkish context. During the 2013 Gezi protests, the protesters
benefited from the internet to get organised, to disseminate news, to challenge the
government’s discourse and to expose the excessive use of police force to a global audience
(Tuğal 2013; Genç 2013, pp. 42, 92–95). Only a few months later, the government was
challenged by the online broadcasting of audio recordings, allegedly revealing the corrupt
practices of several cabinet members. In both cases, the government responded to these
challenges with efforts to improve its control over technology through shutting down those
websites where audio recordings were shared, passing a new law limiting internet freedom,
and disseminating its own propaganda through social media (Kaya Uranli 2013).
Civil–military relations constitute one of the key areas of Turkish domestic politics, which
has been influenced by the increasing use of ICTs. Traditionally, the Turkish Armed Forces
(Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri – TSK) have played an important role in politics. More recently, there
has been a process of civilianisation as part of the country’s European Union (EU) accession
process and Turkey’s internal dynamics of democratisation. However, this process has been
marked by alleged coup plots, conflicts regarding the appointment of the high command,
and mutual accusations between the government and the military. For the past decade,
technology has constituted an important dimension of Turkey’s civil–military tension. This
tension mainly involved who uses and controls ICTs, as well as for what purpose.
This paper discusses the implications of ICTs for civil–military relations in Turkey within
the framework of two specific questions. First, to what extent has the use and control of
technology been a new domain in Turkey’s civil–military power struggle? In other words, is
it possible to talk about a radical transformation of Turkish civil–military relations caused by
technology, particularly ICTs? Second, what is the meaning of these changes in Turkey’s
civil–military relations regarding the question of democratic civilian control?
The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. The first two sections review the literatures on
the relationship between technology and politics as well as on the connection between
technology and civil–military relations. The third section presents an analysis of the history
of civil–military relations in Turkey. Finally, the fourth section examines three cases where
technology has influenced Turkey’s civil–military power struggle in recent years.

ICTs in politics
The nature of the interaction between technology and social factors has been a matter of
heated debate in the scholarship. One approach, technological determinism, argues that
the development of technology follows an autonomous path largely beyond cultural or
political circumstances. In fact, social and political change is driven by technological change.
A classic example is the Marxist claim that production technologies condition the general
framework of social, political and intellectual life. Another well-known representative of the
determinist approach, Jacques Ellul (1967), analyses how the collective organisation of a
society is mediated and increasingly driven by technology. He writes, ‘Technique constructs
the kind of world the machine needs and introduces order … It clarifies, arranges and
rationalises’ and ‘no human activity escapes this technical imperative’ (pp. 5–6, 21).
 South European Society and Politics  303

This approach stands in stark contrast to the literature on the social shaping of technology
(SST), which suggests that the consequences of technology are strongly shaped by society
itself, through culture, politics and the market. For example, the forerunner of the internet
was originally developed for military purposes, but later shaped by social factors including
the interests of academia and business. Mackenzie and Wajcman (1999) explore different
ways in which technology is shaped by economy, gender relations, law and politics. In their
edited volume, Weber (1999), for example, investigates how gender biases are embodied in
military aircraft design, whereas Cockburn (1999) analyses the ways in which the capitalist
class designs new technology in a way to reduce their dependency on certain categories of
labour.
Between ‘hard determinism’ and the SST, Winner (1980) proposes an alternative notion
of ‘soft determinism’. He argues that technologies are ‘inherently political’ and they often
have political implications, albeit complex and contingent. According to Winner, technological
determinism is largely discredited due to its simplistic assumptions about the ‘impact’ of
technology on society. However, the SST approaches also have shortcomings since they
have the potential to overlook the political implications of particular technologies. In his
seminal article ‘Do artifacts have politics’, Winner demonstrates two major ways in which
technologies have political implications, without falling into the trap of hard determinism.
First, Winner argues that technical arrangements can act as forms of order. They can be used
in ways that enhance the power, authority and privilege of some over others. Hence,
technology plays an important role in reconfiguring power relations, shaping ideas and
identities and creating new forms of inclusion and exclusion. For example, Robert Moses,
the master builder of roads, parks and bridges in New York City between the 1920s and
1970s, constructed bridges over the parkways in Long Island lower than usual as a way to
discourage the passage of buses through these parkways. This created a social class bias in
favour of automobile-owning upper and middle class white people, while the African
American and other poor who often used public transport would be kept off these roads (p.
30). Second, Winner states that some technologies require particular patterns of social
relations. For example, he compares nuclear technology, which requires a strong system of
state surveillance and hierarchy, with renewable energy, which is more compatible with a
democratic, egalitarian and decentralised community.
In addition to Winner’s two propositions, new technologies also bring new issues to the
political agenda (Street 1992). For example, developments in space technology added new
dimensions to international security during the Cold War. More recently, cyber-security has
emerged as a new security domain for both scholars and policymakers. Since the emergence
of the internet as an influential political tool, states have been working hard to achieve
greater control over it through new legislation, new institutions, monitoring tools or simple
censorship.
Recent research on the implications of ICTs, particularly the internet, has been largely
built on this literature. Today, there are both those researchers who claim that these
technologies will eventually be normalised into existing power relations (Margolis & Resnick
2000), and others who examine their potential to change, if not revolutionise, politics.1 For
example, while Shirky (2011) attributes a democratising role to the internet, others like
Morozov (2011) claim that authoritarian regimes use the same tools to oppress the people.
Optimistic accounts became widespread especially with the Arab Spring. In a documentary
called How Facebook Changed the World (2011), the BBC attributed a key role to this social
304 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

media tool in the overthrow of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. Although research has moved
to adopt a more empirical and comparative approach2 rather than making sweeping
generalisations, determinist approaches are still pervasive in the media and popular culture.
Post and Crone (2015) find that newspapers were too quick to identify social media as a
noteworthy element, or even the cause, of socio-political movements during the Arab Spring.
The scholarship on the connection between technology and politics reveals that there is
clearly a need for more empirical and meso-level studies. This paper explores the political
implications of ICTs, specifically the internet and surveillance technologies, for Turkey’s civil–
military relations from this perspective, and specifically within the theoretical frameworks
developed by Winner and Street.

Technology and civil–military relations

Scholars of civil–military relations have often discussed how technology shapes the
interactions between governments and the armed forces. Throughout the Cold War, this
issue was discussed mainly within the framework of nuclear weapons and the technological
modernisation of the armed forces in the East–West conflict. Janowitz, in The Professional
Soldier (1960), argued that the nuclear age transformed military professionalism. Changes
in weapons technology brought new missions for the military, which then led to a more
political role for the professional soldier. Pye (1961), Kolkowicz (1964) and Kamrava (2000)
all discuss the impact of technological developments, especially the advent of modern
equipment and technology, on military professionalism and civil–military relations. Pye
argues that in the newly emerging pre-industrial countries after World War II the modelling
of armies on industrial organisations made the officers involved politically conscious of the
need for modernisation in their societies. Similarly, while Kolkowicz discusses the impact of
strategic nuclear missiles on the internal dynamics of the Soviet military, Kamrava shows
that modern technology is likely to strengthen the military’s political ambitions in the Middle
East. Recently, Burk (2002) showed that this line of thinking is still well founded. He asserts
that in an era of weapons of mass destruction ‘there can be no clear distinction between the
ends and means of war, between the policy decisions of politicians and the operational
decisions of military elites’ (p. 13).
After the Cold War, discussions about the connection between technology and civil–
military relations continued within the framework of new military technology. Huntington
(1995) argued that the decreasing possibility of a total war reshaped the relationship between
the armed forces and their societies in the newly emerging democracies after the collapse
of the Soviet Union. More recently, research has focused more on the impact of the ICTs on
the command and control systems.
A few centuries ago, when the only way for political leaders to communicate with their
generals in the field was through runners or horsemen, it took days or weeks to carry the
politicians’ messages to the commanders. Communication was an even more serious problem
between the political authority and the navy. As a result, political leaders only had limited
control over decisions on the battlefield. However, with the advent of technologies such as
the telegraph, radio and television, real-time and/or near real-time communication between
political leaders and commanders became possible (Cohen 2000, pp. 90–91). According to
several scholars such as Avant (1998), Cohen (2000) and Coletta and Feaver (2006), this
situation has increased the likelihood of civilian intervention in operational and tactical
 South European Society and Politics  305

decisions, which then contributed to civil–military tension. In contrast to this predominant

understanding, other researchers such as Luttwak (1999) assert that changes in technology
and society have shifted the decision-making power from civilian governments to military
officers as the commanders have become more visible with the help of the media (p. 99).
Although various frameworks have marked the existing literature, in the past two decades
there has been a growing acknowledgment of the impact of technological developments
on civil–military relations. However, these frameworks have transpired primarily in contexts
of consolidated democracies, mainly the United States, where the main civil–military tension
revolves around the command and control mechanisms in times of armed conflict. The
Turkish case, instead, presents an example of how changes in technology have created new
dynamics in the government’s efforts to establish control over the armed forces and the
latter’s resistance to these attempts. The implications of technology for civil–military relations
in the Turkish case have been quite different from the impact on consolidated democracies.
An analysis of Turkey’s civil–military relations shows that technology has turned into an
important element of this interaction in recent years. However, this experience does not
support the arguments of technological determinism. In line with Winner (1980), the changes
in Turkey’s civil–military relations show that although the widespread use of the internet
and surveillance technologies has significantly shaped these relations, the dynamics of
Turkish politics have also affected how these technologies are used. For example, while the
use of the internet by the British military to run campaigns against the government is almost
unthinkable, the Turkish military used several websites to promote its position on political
issues. Thus, it is necessary to pay attention not only to the implications of technology, but
also to political processes that bring about a certain application of technology. Before the
internet, the Turkish military used to issue press releases and organise media briefings to
influence political developments. Therefore, it is not surprising to observe that the military
has used the internet for similar purposes in recent years.

History of civil–military relations in Turkey

The military has always been an important actor in Turkish politics. Due to their key role in
the country’s foundation, military officers have perceived themselves as the guardians of
the state, as well as the secular regime, and vanguards of the process of Westernisation.
The 1960 coup was the Turkish military’s first direct intervention in politics. From the
1960s onwards, the TSK did not hesitate to carry out direct and indirect interventions
whenever they were convinced that Turkey’s secular regime was in danger. And after every
intervention the military took steps to increase its autonomy in politics through several
means, including the establishment of the National Security Council (Milli Güvenlik Kurulu
– MGK) or control over the military budget (Cizre Sakallıoğlu 1997).
Turkey’s traditional pattern of civil–military relations began to change with two major
developments. First, the EU’s declaration of Turkey as an official candidate in 1999 increased
pressure on successive Turkish governments to comply with the EU acquis and Copenhagen
Criteria, an important aspect of which is the establishment of democratic civilian control
over the armed forces. ‘Democratic civilian control’ refers to a situation in which ‘the armed
forces are subordinated to democratically-elected authorities and subject to the oversight
of the judiciary as well as the media and civil society organisations’ (Democratic Control of
Armed Forces [DCAF] 2008, p. 1). This is not merely about the imposition of civilian control;
306 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

it requires well-established procedures for democratic accountability and transparency (Cizre

2006, p. 14; Luckham 1996, p. 128). Thus, first the coalition government between 1999 and
2002 and then the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) from
2002 onwards carried out several EU harmonisation reforms in the area of civil–military
relations. A second development in 1999 was the capture of the PKK leader Öcalan. Öcalan’s
imprisonment in Turkey, followed by the PKK’s unilateral ceasefire, provided a relatively calm
atmosphere within which decreasing the military’s role in politics, especially in the area of
national security, became possible.
The 2007 e-memorandum constituted a breaking point in the evolution of civil–military
relations in Turkey. When the AKP nominated the then Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah
Gül as the party’s candidate for the 2007 presidential elections, the General Staff posted a
declaration on its website announcing its opposition to Gül’s candidacy and ‘implicitly
threatening the governing party’ (Gürsoy 2012). In response, the government did not
acquiesce, but rather stated ‘the Office of the Chief of General Staff was constitutionally
answerable to the Prime Minister’ (Aknur 2013, p. 139). This reaction, when combined with
the AKP’s 2007 election victory and Gül’s subsequent election to the presidency, turned out
to be an important development, which marked a shift in Turkey’s civil–military balance of
power towards the civil authorities. This shift became more apparent with the Ergenekon
and Sledgehammer trials, which started in 2008 and 2010, respectively, based on the
allegations that several military officers were part of a coup plot aiming to overthrow the
government. Although these trials involved serious controversies, from 2008 onwards,
hundreds of civilians and military officers, including a former chief of General Staff, were
imprisoned based on these charges. Despite the release of several civilians and military
officers from prison in 2014 due to the alleged controversies in the Ergenekon and
Sledgehammer trials, the Turkish military’s ability to shape national security policy, as well
as its influence on high-level appointments and promotions, has been significantly curtailed
(Yinanç 2015).
The AKP’s victories in the 2011 and November 20153 national and 2014 local elections, as well
as the election of Tayyip Erdoğan to the presidency of the Republic in 2014 put the civilian
leadership in quite a strong position in consolidating civilian control over the TSK, but without
much emphasis on democratic oversight mechanisms. In fact, from the early 2000s onwards, the
AKP government took a number of steps that improved civilian control in three subject areas,
namely national security policy, defence expenditure and military judiciary. With respect to the
first area, AKP scored major accomplishments. For example, the MGK was reduced to an advisory
body with less frequent meetings within the context of the EU harmonisation reforms. The MGK
secretariat was civilianised, the secretary general’s powers were curtailed and the MGK budget
was transferred to the control of the Prime Ministry (Akay 2011; Aknur 2013, p. 136). Article 35
of the TSK Internal Service Code, which provided legal justification for military interventions, and
the secret Protocol on Cooperation for Security and Public Order (EMASYA), which authorised
the military to carry out operations against internal threats without the approval of civilian
authorities, were abolished (Sarıgil 2014, p. 12; Aydın-Düzgit & Keyman 2013, p. 118). The
government also began to play an active role in the preparation of the National Security Policy
Document, which was previously in the General Staff’s sphere of influence (Sarıgil 2014, p. 10).
Furthermore, there have been efforts to increase the role of civilian institutions in the area of
internal security, as shown in the increased role of police forces in counterterrorism and the
subordination of the Gendarmerie to the Ministry of the Interior. The civilian government has
 South European Society and Politics  307

also been increasingly involved in military appointments and promotions. Clear examples of this
situation include the government’s refusal to appoint General Hasan Iğsız as the next land forces
commander in August 2010 due to allegations about his involvement in a coup plot, as well as
the resignation of the Chief of General Staff Işık Koşaner together with land, air and naval force
commanders in connection with the Ergenekon arrests (Sarıgil 2014, p. 10; Aydınlı 2012, p. 105).
Under the AKP’s tenure, there have also been improvements regarding civilian control
over defence expenditure. A constitutional amendment in 2004 made it possible for the
Court of Accounts to audit the revenues, expenses and properties of the TSK (Yıldız 2006,
p. 18). Finally, the jurisdiction of military courts has decreased significantly. In 2006, the right
of retrial was brought to the military courts in line with the decisions of the European Court
of Human Rights (Sarıgil 2014, p. 12; Aydın-Düzgit & Keyman 2013, p. 118). Furthermore, the
2010 constitutional amendment allowed civilian courts to try military officers who are
accused of ‘crimes against the security of the State, constitutional order and its functioning’.
The same amendment also restricted the military courts’ jurisdiction to offences committed
by military personnel (against military personnel) or related to military services and duties
(Article 145).
However, these improvements came without well-established procedures to guarantee
democratic oversight. First of all, the Turkish Chief of General Staff is still accountable to the
Prime Minister rather than the Minister of Defence; and the army sometimes still makes
strong comments on political issues such as the Kurdish question. Moreover, moves such as
increasing the role of the police in internal security and making the Ministry of the Interior
responsible for appointments and promotions in the Gendarmerie will not contribute to
Turkish democracy unless there are well-established mechanisms of democratic oversight
over these institutions. Second, the Court of Accounts’ ability to monitor defence and military
expenditures is still limited. The audit process, which is based on a secret regulation, lacks
full accountability and transparency (Kemal 2012; Beriş 2012; Berksoy 2013, p. 18–20), and
there are still restrictions on the public disclosure of data on military spending. Furthermore,
the lack of civilian experts on defence and military issues significantly impedes parliamentary
control over military spending. Finally, despite improvements in military judiciary, its very
existence is problematic, since ‘there is no separate judicial mechanism within other
occupational groups’ (Berksoy 2013, pp. 13–14). In sum, although the AKP government has
been successful in establishing control over security policies as well as decreasing the
military’s institutional prerogatives, democratic oversight mechanisms involving parliament,
the judiciary, civil society and the media remain limited.
We now discuss three cases to demonstrate how technology has turned into a domain
as well as a new instrument of the above-mentioned dynamics of civil–military relations in
Turkey.

The use of the internet by the TSK

In the past few years, the TSK has used the internet, including its official website and several
others, for political purposes. Two cases are especially relevant, namely the military’s 2007
e-memorandum and the court case dubbed Internet Andıcı (Internet Memorandum). In both
cases, the military used the internet to promote and publicise its position on a number of
political issues.
308 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

On 27 April 2007, the Turkish General Staff posted an ultimatum on its website around
midnight and accused the AKP government of not taking action against the supposed rise
of Islamic reactionism. Called an ‘e-coup’ or ‘e-memorandum’, this event followed the AKP
government’s nomination of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdullah Gül, as a candidate for
the presidency of the Republic. Concerned about the nomination of a candidate with an
Islamist background, the General Staff stated on its official website that the military was
following the debate over secularism with concern and would ‘display its attitude and action
openly and clearly whenever it is necessary’.
The action of warning the government through an online ultimatum may not come as a
surprise to students of Turkish politics. However, in contrast to the academic literature and
worldwide developments on e-democracy, the e-memorandum clearly showed that the
internet has turned into an alternative path in Turkey through which the military has
intervened in politics. It was also unprecedented that the military’s warning was posted
around midnight without any signature. ‘This was an anonymous, bodiless, and virtual (but
not unreal) intervention’ (Karakaya Polat 2008). In the next few years, the questions of who
actually drafted the e-memorandum, whether it was posted online without the knowledge
of the Chief of General Staff Yaşar Büyükanıt and to what extent it reflected the frustration
of the military, which had failed to influence political developments through traditional
mechanisms, were widely discussed.
The text remained on the General Staff’s website for more than four years, only to be
removed in August 2011 when the TSK announced that the online archive would go back
only seven days. This was one month after the appointment of Necdet Özel as the new chief
of General Staff following the mass resignation of the three force commanders in 2011. For
many, Özel’s appointment signalled a normalisation in civil–military relations and the tipping
of the balance of power in favour of the political elite. The website was still there and the
technology provided the opportunity to keep the ‘warning’ in public sight. Yet, the military
backed off from using its website to keep the warning in place.
A similar situation was observed with respect to the Internet Memorandum trial. In
January 2012, Chief of General Staff İlker Başbuğ was arrested for plotting to overthrow the
government. He was accused of approving a document, the ‘Internet Memorandum’, in which
he allegedly ordered the creation of several websites in order to spread anti-government
propaganda. According to the charges, this was a propaganda campaign against the
government in an attempt to flood the internet with rumours that would undermine the
AKP government. Başbuğ and his lawyers rejected the accusations, arguing that their plan
was to use the internet to inform the public about current issues such as terrorism and anti-
secular activities, as well as publicising the TSK. They also claimed these sites had never gone
online and that four online websites had been closed down after news about them appeared
in a newspaper. Although Başbuğ was released from prison in 2014 by a Constitutional Court
decision, the trial is still going on.
Because this is an ongoing and a politicised trial, it is beyond the scope of this paper to
make a judgement about the validity of its claims. What matters is that the internet has in
recent years turned into a central framework within which discussions about the military’s
involvement in politics have taken place. While in the past the TSK issued press releases,
organised media briefings and developed close relations with journalists in order to influence
politics, according to the indictment in the Internet Memorandum lawsuit this time it was
using the internet to distribute propaganda against the AKP government.
 South European Society and Politics  309

In both cases, the agent who deployed information to convert or confuse others used
technology to put forth an alternative political discourse. The internet made it possible for
the Turkish military to disseminate information with almost no marginal cost. The new
communication environment allows everyone with a computer and an internet connection
to be a publisher and the TSK is no exception. When the TSK carried out its last direct military
intervention in 1980, General Kenan Evren appeared on the only TV channel and explained
the reasons for the coup to the public. The junta also easily took control of the printed media.
Hence, the army possessed almost total control over the information environment in a
relatively short period of time. This is no longer possible in the age of the internet.
The sharp contrast between the traditional and new media reminds us of Winner’s notion
of inherently political technologies. With its decentralised, difficult-to-control and non-
hierarchical structure, the internet seems to be compatible with an all-encompassing order.
Thus, it is possible to argue that the widespread use of the internet for political purposes
has reconfigured the civil–military balance of power in Turkey and brought about a more
inclusive political environment for these actors. Today, the military may use its official website
or other sites to put forward its position on political issues, distribute propaganda or criticise
the government. However, the same technology is also available for other actors. Keohane
and Nye (1998) argue that this leads to a ‘paradox of plenty’, since a plenitude of information
leads to a poverty of attention. In the past few years, the defendants of the above-mentioned
court cases and their families established their own websites to make their case to the public
and to the international community.4 Government-friendly online news sources have
published their own versions of the stories. Opposition groups have taken advantage of the
internet in order to break the dominance of the mainstream media. In such plenitude of
information, ‘political struggles focus less on control over the ability to transmit information
than over the creation and destruction of credibility’ (Keohane & Nye 1998, p. 90). In other
words, within the framework of multiple opposing arguments and political discourses, the
question of which political actors are able to convince their target audiences has acquired
more prominence in recent years compared with the ability to distribute information.

The use of ‘digital evidence’ in court cases

The influence of technology has also extended to the Turkish judiciary in recent years through
the lawsuits involving allegations against the TSK. Particularly, with respect to the court case
about the Council of State attack in 2006 and the more recent Sledgehammer case, there
has been an intense debate about the authenticity and reliability of digital evidence.
In May 2006, a gunman, Alparslan Aslan, attacked the Council of State building in Ankara
and shot dead one senior judge and wounded four others. Initially, it appeared that the
perpetrator was motivated by the Council of State’s ruling to ban the use of headscarf in
public offices and universities. However, it was later claimed that the attack was orchestrated
by the elements of the ‘deep state’ to create chaos and bring down the AKP government.
Although the details of this case are beyond the scope of this paper, it is important to point
out the debate around the disappearance of the surveillance camera recordings made during
the shooting. In the trial, prosecutors suggested that the Oyak Security Company, which
was in charge of the security of the Council of State building, disabled security cameras on
the day of the attack. Others claimed that the camera footage was deliberately deleted after
the attack. The Oyak personnel immediately denied the allegations and claimed that the
310 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

cameras were not functioning properly on that day. However, the Chairman of the Oyak
Security Company and nine other personnel were tried on charges of destroying evidence.
Allegations about the Oyak Security Company raised suspicions about whether certain
elements in the Turkish military were involved in this issue, because this company has been
affiliated with the TSK and had several retired military officers among its personnel. The
Council of State shooting case continued for nine years mainly because it was not been
possible to prove whether the camera footage of the attack was deliberately deleted. In
February 2015, the court decided to acquit all suspects.
The second court case is a more controversial one called the ‘Sledgehammer’. This lawsuit
started in 2010, when an unidentified person delivered a suitcase containing confidential
documents to Taraf, a Turkish daily newspaper with a critical stance towards the military.
Taraf published these documents claiming that they were plans to blow up mosques,
assassinate non-Muslim leaders, shoot down a Turkish warplane and blame it on Greece, all
for the purpose of destabilising the country and justifying a military intervention. These
allegations led to a court case against the so-called mastermind of the coup plot, General
Çetin Doğan, and hundreds of his alleged collaborators. It was claimed that the military
officers planned the coup at an army seminar in 2003. In response, the defendants argued
that in the army seminar, military officers worked on ‘a theoretical scenario to help them
prepare for potential unrest’ (BBC News 2014). With the Sledgehammer verdict in September
2012, more than 300 military officers, including former top commanders, were sentenced
to long prison terms.
Several CDs and hard disks that were delivered to Taraf formed the backbone of the
prosecution’s case in the Sledgehammer lawsuit. However, the credibility of these documents
has been questioned from the very beginning. First, these CDs and hard disks contained
electronic documents written with fonts that did not exist in 2003. Second, the documents
referred to several institutions, companies and non-governmental organisations that also
did not exist back then, along with many more pieces of evidence suggesting that they were
forged (Daloğlu 2014). Finally, they were in fact anonymous Word documents without any
signature. As a result, in the face of growing suspicion about the authenticity of the digital
evidence, in June 2014, Turkey’s Constitutional Court ordered the release and retrial of the
military officers involved in this case. A committee of three experts was appointed in
December 2014 to investigate the digital evidence and report on their authenticity. The
experts’ reports that were submitted to the court corroborated the presence of many
controversies in the digital evidence (Kınık 2015). Finally, in March 2015 the high court
cancelled all convictions and acquitted the officers.
Both the Council of State shooting and the Sledgehammer court cases have raised serious
issues about the credibility of technology, specifically the reliability of the use of digital
evidence in legal cases. Especially in these kinds of controversial cases, it is important to find
a good answer to the question of who is going to determine the credibility of the digital
evidence if one side accuses the other of digital fraud. For example, in Sledgehammer, the
defendants presented to the court six different expert reports from institutions in Turkey
and abroad, which pointed to serious inconsistencies in digital documents. However, in
the initial trial, the court only took into consideration those expert reports presented by the
prosecutor, all of which argued that the digital documents were genuine. Similarly, in the
Council of State shooting lawsuit, it was not possible to determine decisively whether
the security cameras were defective on the day of the attack or their footage was deleted
 South European Society and Politics  311

after the incident. In neither case did a clear path emerge to decide how to establish the
credibility of the digital evidence.
The problems that result from the use of digital evidence in court cases, specifically the
question of who will determine its authenticity, have emerged as important issues to tackle
given the growing use of digital data. In fact, the credibility of evidence – digital or not – may
be difficult to establish in many lawsuits, especially in those with a strong political dimension.
It is never surprising to observe opposing sides with their own versions of the truth and their
own expert reports supporting their points of view. However, with the increasing use of
digital evidence, this problem has acquired a new dimension and has led to the emergence
of new expert persons and institutions. These personal and institutional experts have become
visible as newly empowered actors that possess knowledge of new technologies. The
question of whether their expertise is sufficient for them to be included in the judicial process
is ultimately determined by political processes. Although the improvements in technology
have significantly influenced the Council of State shooting and Sledgehammer lawsuits
through the issue of digital evidence, the changing dynamics in Turkish civil–military relations
have also had an impact on the outcome of these cases.
In the initial years of its tenure, the AKP government took a number of steps to increase
civilian control over the military within the framework of the EU accession process. However,
the 2007 e-memorandum as well as several coup allegations showed that legal reforms and
amendments were not sufficient to change the civil–military balance of power in Turkey. In
light of these developments, the government began to feel that there were still actors in
the TSK that would not acquiesce to civilian authority. Thus, during its second term, the AKP
government put more emphasis on ‘cracking down on interventionist elements in the armed
forces’ through court cases about the alleged coup plots (Gürsoy 2012, p. 194). The Council
of State and Sledgehammer lawsuits developed within this psychological atmosphere and
turned out to be difficult and politicised cases. Especially in the Sledgehammer lawsuit,
concerns about the digital evidence have long been expressed by several politicians,
journalists, non-governmental organisations, the defendants themselves and their families.
More recently, hundreds of military officers involved in this case have been released and
their retrials have been initiated in an atmosphere of growing tension between the AKP
government and the Gülen movement.5 It has been argued that this change in the direction
of the lawsuit became possible only after government officials began to argue that the
Gülenist cadres inside the judiciary had distorted the available evidence that made these
prosecutions possible (Salt 2015, p. 129). However, it is still necessary to emphasise that
within the framework of these court cases technology has brought a new and important
issue to the political agenda, namely the question of how to deal with digital evidence, and
more specifically who has the authority to determine its authenticity in legal cases. New
individual and institutional actors with the necessary expertise on the technological
developments have been empowered in this process.

Transfer of the electronic systems command from the General Staff to the
National Intelligence Organisation (Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı – MİT)
Intelligence organisations are primarily ‘responsible for the collection, processing, and
dissemination of information’ with the goal of maintaining the security of society (Born 2002,
p. 3). Democratic control over the intelligence apparatus constitutes a problematic issue in
312 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

civil–military relations, because intelligence institutions work based on the principle of

confidentiality and it is difficult to maintain effective control over this secret apparatus in a
democratic society (Bruneau 2001, p. 323). Therefore, democracies formulate various
executive, legislative and judicial mechanisms in order to ensure democratic oversight of
intelligence services and their activities (DCAF 2003; Wills 2010). These mechanisms are
important to ‘authorise, oversee, and evaluate’ the intelligence services’ use of their powers
(Wills 2010, p. 18) and to make sure that they operate within the framework of national and
international law as well as human rights requirements.
Civilian control over the intelligence services has traditionally been an important
dimension of Turkey’s civil–military relations, too. Since the early Republican years, the
military has maintained significant influence in the MİT and its predecessor, the Directorate
of the National Security Service. Active and retired military officers have occupied key
positions in these organisations. It was not until 1992 that Sönmez Köksal was appointed to
the MİT as the organisation’s first civilian undersecretary. It is even argued that before the
1971 and 1980 military interventions, MİT refrained from informing the Prime Minister about
the coup plans within the TSK (cited in Almanac 2005, p. 161). Since the 1990s, there have
been significant efforts to civilianise the MİT. However, these efforts, which increased in the
2000s within the framework of Turkey’s EU accession process, were limited mainly to
improvements in transparency, and did not focus on developing democratic oversight
mechanisms. Especially in recent years, the efforts to increase civilian control over the MİT
have mainly ended up empowering the government vis-à-vis the military.
A recent effort by the government to increase its control over the area of intelligence
concerned the transfer of the GES to the MİT in 2012. Although this shift officially aimed to
achieve better coordination of intelligence activities and to prevent duplicate efforts, in fact
it has a larger significance (Yetkin 2011). GES is known as having the highest capacity for
intelligence gathering and monitoring activities in and around Turkey. Also, its headquarters
near Ankara is the military base that the top generals of the 1980 coup used as their
communication centre before their intervention in politics (Yetkin 2012b). Thus, this change
not only carries a symbolic meaning, but also signifies an important improvement in MİT’s
surveillance capacity.
The transfer of the GES to the MİT presents an excellent example of how technology has
become an important aspect of Turkey’s changing civil–military balance of power. Control
over these advanced technologies has undoubtedly empowered the civilian government
in the area of intelligence and surveillance, and in a way excluded the military from this
high-capacity intelligence structure. In line with Winner’s argument, technology has been
used to create new forms of exclusion for the Turkish military and civilian empowerment.
Indeed, it was argued that MİT successfully used these new technological capabilities in the
effort to rescue 49 people – including the Turkish Consul General in Mosul, Öztürk Yılmaz,
his family members and the rest of the Consulate staff – who were kept hostage by the
Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (Şardan 2014). In this operation, the government had a
chance to experience the importance of acquiring control over this advanced technology.
However, it must also be stated that transfer of the GES to the MİT also represents an
additional step in the Turkish political actors’ ongoing efforts to change Turkey’s civil–military
balance of power to the benefit of the former. In other words, while developments in the
intelligence and surveillance technologies have shaped the agenda of Turkey’s civil–military
 South European Society and Politics  313

relations, the nature of this relationship has also influenced how this technology has been
used.
Recently, increasing control over communication flows on the internet has also
become an important policy goal for the MİT. In April 2014, Turkey passed a new bill that
granted the MİT ‘sweeping powers to amass private data, documents, and personal
information in all forms without a court order’ (Human Rights Watch 2014). Furthermore,
in July 2014, Prime Minister Erdoğan announced the government’s plan to shut down
the Telecommunications Directorate (Telekomünikasyon İletişim Başkanlığı – TİB)6 – the
body that regulates the telecommunications sector in Turkey and which has the right
to carry out wiretaps legally – and transfer its duties to the MİT. TİB is already criticised
because of its overarching powers over information and communication flows, including
the use of the internet. Thus, increasing the powers of the MİT, which is not a transparent
institution, could further empower the government vis-à-vis other political actors in
Turkey.7 Here, it must be emphasised that the recent attempts to increase control over
TİB followed the corruption allegations about four ministers in the cabinet which were
revealed through the dissemination of taped phone conversations on the internet.
Previously, the extensive use of social media during the Gezi protests had already made
the government more alert to the potential use of the internet for mobilisation against
the government. Thus, increasing political control over intelligence technologies has
become an important issue not only with respect to the changing civil–military balance
of power in Turkey, but also in connection to the government’s broader goal of
consolidating its position in domestic politics.

Conclusion
This paper contributes to the debates about the political implications of technology, and
specifically ICTs, for Turkey’s civil–military relations. Since the early 2000s, despite a significant
increase in civilian control over the armed forces, the relationship between the AKP
government and the military has not been devoid of conflict. Our analysis shows that
technology has constituted an important dimension of this civil–military tension. Although
civil–military relations have always been an important topic for Turkish politics, the struggle
over the use and control of technology has not yet received sufficient attention. Our paper
addresses this vacuum in the scholarship. This focus is also valuable for the broader civil–
military relations literature, where the impact of technology has been studied mainly within
the framework of command and control systems in consolidated democracies.
In the light of three cases in which technology became an important domain in civil–
military relations, the paper argues that ICTs have influenced Turkey’s civil–military relations
in three important ways in the past decade. First, current internet and surveillance
technologies have emerged as new instruments in the existing power relations and created
new forms of political inclusion and exclusion between the civilians and the military.
Sometimes, these technologies have been used as a tool to reconfigure the balance of power
between the civilian government and the armed forces. The internet’s contribution to the
creation of a more inclusive political setting where both of these actors can transmit their
messages to their audiences and the use of advanced intelligence and surveillance
technologies to empower the civilian government vis-à-vis the Turkish military have been
important examples of this situation. In all cases, while sometimes actors imposed physical
314 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

control over technologies, other times there has been a discursive struggle where both sides
have used the internet to disseminate their own stories. Second, the widespread use of these
technologies has moved Turkey’s civil–military relations to a more decentralised and difficult-
to-control context. The internet especially has created a relatively non-hierarchical
environment where both civilian and military elites as well as the public have circulated their
viewpoints. In this environment marked by multiple political discourses, it has become more
important for both civilian and military actors to be able to convince their audiences rather
than for them to distribute information. Third, the improvements in technology have brought
new political issues to the agenda of Turkey’s civil–military relations and reshaped current
debates on this subject. Discussions about the use of digital evidence in court cases and the
question of who will control the advanced intelligence and surveillance capabilities in the
state apparatus are some of these latest issues. And, finally, all three cases show that although
ICTs have become important elements of the AKP government’s efforts to increase civilian
control over the Turkish military as well as to consolidate its power, Turkey still has serious
shortcomings in terms of the issue of democratic control, namely the establishment of
democratic oversight mechanisms to ensure transparency and accountability in the activities
of the TSK and intelligence services.
However, these findings do not support the predictions of hard determinism. In other
words, they do not attribute an autonomous and revolutionary role to technology. Although
technology has significantly influenced the dynamics of civil–military relations in Turkey, it
has not radically transformed these relations. Rather, the existing power relations between
the civilian government and the Turkish military have also influenced how technology has
been used in different aspects of civil–military relations. This is not to suggest that technology
is irrelevant. As our analysis reveals, both civilian and military actors in the past decade have
developed strategies, established alliances, and created and disseminated discourses in
dealing with the implications of the increased use of ICTs. As seen in our first case, the
inherently inclusive character of the internet as a decentralised, difficult-to-control and non-
hierarchical technology has made it more difficult for the military and the government to
take under total control. Furthermore, new institutions have been created or old institutions
have adapted to the new circumstances in order to deal with the opportunities and challenges
of new technology. In sum, as ICTs have influenced civil–military relations in Turkey, the use
of this technology has also been influenced by this relationship.
The widespread use of ICTs, particularly the internet, poses a great challenge to
political scientists in Turkey, who have been rather reluctant to embrace these
developments in their research agendas. This article addresses this challenge with an
analysis of the recent developments in Turkey’s civil–military relations. However, the
role of technology and especially the internet in both the Gezi Park protests and the
online distribution of corruption allegations show that it is becoming more and more
difficult for researchers to overlook this issue. Future research will surely investigate the
impact of this technology on various issue areas alongside civil–military relations and
in several other countries (such as Egypt, where the internet was heavily used by various
political actors during the Arab Spring). These comparisons will help highlight the role
of political factors vis-à-vis the often deterministic assumptions about the ‘impact’ of
technology.
 South European Society and Politics  315

Notes
1. 
This debate between the techno-optimists and techno-pessimists is evident in the concepts
they use such as liberation and freedom, on the one hand, and control, oppression, suppression,
on the other. See Deibert and Rohozinski (2010), Diamond (2010), Golkar (2011) and Thierer
(2010).
2. 
For analyses of the role of social media during the popular movements in the Middle East
and elsewhere see Castells (2013), Howard and Hussain (2011), Lynch (2011) and Genç (2013).
3. 
In the June 2015 national elections AKP, while remaining the first party, did not have a
parliamentary majority and its parliamentary seats dropped from 327 to 258. However, after
the November 2015 snap elections, the party’s majority jumped back to 317 seats.
4. 
http://balyozdavasivegercekler.com (literally ‘the Sledgehammer case and the truth’).
5. 
The Gülen (aka Hizmet) movement is ‘a cluster of religious, educational, and social organisations’
led by Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish preacher based in the US. (http://www.pewforum.
org/2010/09/15/muslim-networks-and-movements-in-western-europe-gulen-movement). It
is often argued that the Sledgehammer trial (and Ergenekon) was instigated by followers of the
Gülen movement, which was in an ‘alliance of convenience’ with the AKP. This alliance came to
an end when ‘Gülen sympathisers in the police and judiciary targeted Erdoğan by attempting
to arrest close associates of the AKP leadership on charges of corruption’ (Jenkins 2014).
6. 
TİB was been criticised following its decision to ban Twitter and YouTube. The bans were
removed after the Constitutional Court ruled unanimously that the bans were unconstitutional.
Also, an MİT bureaucrat was appointed as the TİB’s new chief in December 2013, shortly after
the above-mentioned corruption allegations. The plan for closing TİB later dropped from the
political agenda.
7. 
The oversight of the MİT is possible only through its own internal mechanisms, and the
investigation of an MİT member requires the Prime Minister’s permission (cited in Yetkin 2012a).

Acknowledgments
We presented earlier versions of this article at the annual conference of the Midwest Political Science
Association in Chicago and at a faculty seminar at Işık University in April 2015. We would like to thank
the audiences for their contribution. We would also like to thank the Editors of South European Society
and Politics and the anonymous reviewers for their very constructive comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors
Rabia Karakaya Polat is a professor of political science at Işık University, İstanbul. Her research interests
include electronic democracy, digital exclusion and political implications of technology in general.
She has published articles in European Journal of Communication, Security Dialogue, Parliamentary
Affairs, Australian Journal of International Affairs, Information Polity, Government Information Quarterly
and Citizenship Studies.
Özlem Kayhan Pusane is an assistant professor of international relations at Işık University, İstanbul.
Her research interests include security studies, civil–military relations, counterinsurgency and
counterterrorism. She has written mainly on Turkey’s counterinsurgency policies, the Kurdish question
and civil–military relations in Turkey.
316 R. KARAKAYA POLAT and Ö. KAYHAN PUSANE

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