Deparliamentarization in Turkey: A Major Decline in the Scrutiny Function

Mehmet Kabasakal
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Abstract

In parliamentary democracies, governments are formed through parliamentary elections, and both the cabinet and budget must receive the confidence of the legislature. The “golden age”, when parliaments make laws without any pressure from the executives and have strong control over cabinets, ended by 20th century. For the last few decades, however, legislative studies have been pointing to a shift in the balance of power from the legislative to the executive branch in many countries. The declining power of parliaments is explained by many factors. Scholars who studied “declining parliaments” generally agree on the commonly accepted contributing factors for deparliamentarization. These factors are “constitutional arrangements, increasing global regulations, the complexity of issues and technicalfocus in policy making, disciplinary party structures, the lack of intra-party democracy, the domination of parties by their leaders, and electoral systems.” Although a trend of deparliamentarization has been noted, mainly in parliamentary democracies, the decline of parliaments has not been as glaring and forbidding everywhere. Thus, the variation, especially among similar democratic systems, calls for a closer analysis of country cases. This study examines Turkey, and discusses the changes regarding the power balance between the executive and legislative branches of government by identifying the pattern of changes in constitutions and country’s electoral system, and party structures which tend to stress party discipline and maintain leaders’ control. The paper analyzes the politics of Turkey between 1946 and 2014 especially by focusing on the AKP rule after 2002. The power shift in Turkey has been from parliamentary supremacy to a very strong executive, and deparliamentarization has been particularly rapid and profound since the 1980s,. In 2017, a change in the constitution allowed a transition to a presidential system and the new system is legalized by the constitutional amendments. The paper concludes with the analysis that there is a significant decline in the power of the parliament in Turkey, after 1980s, mainly in its scrutiny function. The longitudinal study of changes shows that deparliamentarization, or the increase in the power of the executive, was caused by multiple domestic and international factors that occurred simultaneously and reinforced each other’s impact. The significant difference of Turkey from the other world cases are rapid constitutional changes, increasing leader authority within the parties, and existence of dominant party system in Turkey since 15 years.
土耳其的非议会化:审查功能的重大衰退
在议会民主制中,政府是通过议会选举产生的,内阁和预算都必须得到立法机关的信任。议会制定法律而不受行政部门的压力,对内阁有强大控制力的“黄金时代”在20世纪结束了。然而,在过去的几十年里,立法研究一直指出,在许多国家,权力平衡从立法部门向行政部门转移。议会权力的下降有很多原因。研究“衰落的议会”的学者普遍同意普遍接受的促成非议会化的因素。这些因素是“宪法安排、日益增加的全球监管、问题的复杂性和政策制定中的技术重点、纪律严明的政党结构、党内民主的缺乏、领导人对政党的统治以及选举制度。”虽然已经注意到一种非议会化的趋势,主要是在议会制民主国家,但议会的衰落并非到处都如此明显和令人生畏。因此,这种差异,特别是在类似民主制度之间的差异,要求对各国的情况进行更密切的分析。本研究考察了土耳其,并通过确定宪法和国家选举制度的变化模式,以及倾向于强调党的纪律和保持领导人控制的政党结构,讨论了政府行政和立法部门之间权力平衡的变化。本文分析了1946年至2014年间土耳其的政治,特别是通过关注2002年之后的正义与发展党统治。土耳其的权力转移已经从议会至上转向一个非常强大的行政机构,自20世纪80年代以来,去议会化尤其迅速和深刻。2017年,宪法修改允许向总统制过渡,新制度通过宪法修正案合法化。本文的结论是,土耳其议会的权力在20世纪80年代以后出现了明显的下降,主要是在其审查职能方面。对变化的纵向研究表明,去议会化或行政权力的增加是由多个国内和国际因素同时发生并相互加强影响造成的。土耳其与世界其他国家的显著区别在于迅速的宪法改革,政党内部领导人权威的增加,以及15年来土耳其存在的执政党制度。
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