Introduction

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the American government sought the assistance of several regional states. The American quest to open a northern flank in the military campaign against Iraq entailed the explicit cooperation of the Turkish government. Despite facing the mounting US demands, Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AK Parti), the Turkish government did not acquiesce to the US political pressure and did not gave a governmental guarantee in advance. Instead, it opted to employ democratic means and let the decision be taken by the Turkish Grand National Assembly. Eventually, the US demands were not accepted by the Turkish Parliament on March 1, 2003. The repercussions of the decision are still being discussed.

The foreign policy decision making process and the decision eventually taken by the Turkish Parliament, which are together referred as the March 1 Bill, are generally considered as the “historic days”[1] of the Turkish foreign policy due to the several novelties in the foreign policy decision making of Turkey and their significant repercussions in Turkish foreign policy. A thorough analysis of the March 1 Bill may provide insights about several aspects of the foreign policy decision making of states. This paper aims at analyzing the March 1 Bill in three complementary parts. The first part describes the preceding political developments and identifies the major actors influential in the decision making process. The second part is a critique of the Graham Allisons’s three mainstream models of foreign policy decision making enunciated in the Essence of Decision[2] and contends that these models do not provide satisfactory explanation of the decision taken on March 1. The last part is an attempt to explain the March 1 Bill by drawing on the decision making styles formulated by John Forester.[3]

The March 1 Bill

     Founded in August 2001 under the leadership of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, erstwhile major of Istanbul, as a right-wing conservative political party, Justice and Development Party won a decisive victory in the 2002 general elections.[4] It became the first party that secured an absolute majority in the Turkish Parliament since 1987. Subsequently, with the initiation of the American preparations to embark on an invasion of Iraq, the JD Party government found itself in a political predicament.

     The US invasion of Iraq commenced on March 20, 2003. Prior to the campaign, the Bush Administration conveyed its objective to launch an offensive over the northern Iraq to the Turkish government. In particular, in December 2002, Paul Wolfowitz, the then-deputy secretary of defense, impressed upon the JD Party government the US desire to utilize the Turkish territory for ground attacks against Iraq.[5] However, “Ankara refused to give Wolfowitz the green light to U.S. access to Turkish territory”[6] immediately and continued its hesitance despite the American offer of financial compensation and assistance worth of about $26 billion.[7] Quite contrary to the traditional Turkish foreign policy making, which was deemed as the government’s area of expertise and thus took place outside public sphere,[8] the JD Party government discussed the political developments, such as deliberations with the American policy makers, in public. By doing that, it indirectly contributed to the outbreak of a vehement dispute over the eventual decision of the Parliament.

     Under the great political pressure of the Bush administration, the JD Party government drafted the Bill on February 25, 2003, in the Council of Ministers.[9] On February 26, the Turkish government introduced the Bill to the Parliament since according to the Article 92 of the Turkish Constitution, “the power to authorize…to send Turkish Armed Forces to foreign countries and to allow foreign armed forces to be stationed in Turkey, is vested in the Turkish Grand National Assembly.”[10] The bill “authorized the entry of 62,000 US troops into Turkey, as a combination of the 4th Infantry Division, 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, 255 fixed wing and 65 rotary wing aircraft, unspecified special operations units, and combat support.”[11] Moreover, it authorized the dispatch of Turkish soldiers abroad. On 28 February, 2003, the National Security Council, which is probably the most influential institution in Turkish foreign policy making, convened. Yet, it did not proclaim any suggestion on the Bill, and thus tacitly gave its consent to the prospective decision of the Parliament.[12]

     Eventually, on March 1, 2003, in the closed session of the Parliament, 264 MPs voted for the Bill, 250 MPs voted against the Bill and 19 MPs abstained.[13] Although the majority supported the Bill, it was void since according to the Article 96 of the Constitution, “[u]nless otherwise stipulated in the Constitution, the Turkish Grand National Assembly shall convene with at least, one-third of the total number of members and shall take decisions by an absolute majority of those present.”[14] Thus, the bill was not admitted by a margin of 4 votes.[15]

     Although the decision was taken by the members of the Turkish Parliament, for a comprehensive account of the decision making process the actors’ influential in the process and their respective positions should be identified. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the incumbent Prime Minister of Turkey, was at that time the leader of the JD Party and was strongly in favor of the Bill. He strived to persuade the JD Party members to vote for the Bill during the decision making process, especially during the JD Party group meetings held on February 26 and 27.[16] The Prime Minister Abdullah Gül was strongly in favor of the Bill. He was in charge of conducting negotiations with the American government and reportedly complained about the drawbacks to persuade the Turkish public about the necessity of the Bill in a meeting with the members of the House of Representatives.[17] The Minister of Foreign Affairs Yaşar Yakış was strongly in favor of the Bill. On the eve of the parliamentary voting, in the JD Party group meeting, he seriously warned the JD Party MPs about the adverse implications of a possible repudiation of the Bill.[18] 

     On the other hand, the President Ahmet Necdet Sezer was slightly against the Bill. He highlighted the significance of international legitimacy on several occasions and fostered to postpone the parliamentary discussion until a second UN Security Council Resolution on Iraq.[19] The Head of the Parliament Bülent Arınç was slightly against the Bill as he stated its intention to vote against the Bill if he were to vote.[20] Deniz Baykal was the leader of the left-wing Republican People’s Party (RPP), which was the sole opposition party in the Parliament at that time. He was strongly opposed to the Bill as he considered its possible admission as being a part of the American plan of invading Iraq.[21] Finally, representing the Army’s position, the Chief of the General Staff Hilmi Özkök refrained from taking a position and suggested that the steps to execute military measures to protect national interests should be taken by the government.[22]

     The classification above suggests that instead of being rejected, the Bill must have been admitted by the Assembly dominated by the JD Party since the leaders of the JD Party were strongly in favor of the Bill, making every effort to get the MPs to support the Bill while the opposition was feeble, if not tenuous. So, how can this unanticipated foreign policy decision be explained? Can the three mainstream models of foreign policy decision making derived from the Essence of Decision be employed to achieve a satisfactory explanation? The subsequent part contends that these models do not provide satisfactory explanation of the decision taken by the Turkish Parliament on March 1, 2003.

Allison’s Three Models

     Originally published in 1971, and revised and republished in 1999, Essence of Decision has become the standard reading among students of foreign policy analysis. The main reason of its popularity lies in its demonstration that even the same event, the Cuban Missile Crisis, can be plausibly explained by three distinct models of foreign policy making, which are the rational actor model, the organizational behavior model and the governmental politics model.[23] Yet, despite the general reputation of their explanatory power, these models seems inadequate in explaining the March 1 Bill. 

     The rational actor model treats states as the unitary and primary unit of analysis, which identify the objectives defined in terms of national interests in a given situation. The state perceives alternative courses of action in advance and estimates the consequences of each course of action. After evaluating the consequences of each course of action according to their expected utility, the state selects the alternative whose outcomes rank highest in terms of state’s objectives, that is, the state selects the alternative that has the highest payoff. The actor is rational in the sense that “it has a coherent utility function” and always selects the value-maximizing alternative course of action.[24] As a corollary, this model assumes that the actor has complete information about the consequences of each alternative.

     The rational actor model is not suitable to explain the decision of the Turkish Parliament. Although the decision became one of the Turkish state at the end, the Turkish state did not acted as a unitary actor during the decision making process. There were several actors that have different preferences, that is, different utility functions, which culminated in severe contentions. Even though these actors can be classified into two main groups, pro-Bill and anti-Bill, their different descriptions of the national interest and their distinct predictions about the consequences of alternatives point out that the decision was not a single political reaction of the unitary Turkish state that had rigorously analyzed the situation.[25] Rather, the decision was the outcome of a political process characterized by quarrels of contending sides over several dimensions of the decision.

     The organizational behavior model posits that the unit of analysis is not unitary but rather “a constellation of loosely allied organizations on top of which government leaders sit” and the drawbacks governments face are “cut up and parceled out to various organizations.”[26]  These organizations, in turn, pursue standard operation procedures (SOPs), which are “simply conventions that make possible regular or coordinated activity,” to cope with their respective undertakings.[27] The tasks are executed by organizational priorities and, in general, implementation reflects the previously established routines embedded in the organizational structures. Accordingly, the details of organizational actions are determined “chiefly by organizational routines, not government leaders directions.”[28] In sum, the organizational behavior model contends that so as to explain an event, one has to identify relevant organizations play a part in the decision making process and has to display the patterns of organizational behavior from which the decision emerges.

     The organizational behavior model is conspicuously inadequate to provide an explanation of the decision taken on March 1, 2003. Above all, the problem of making a crucial decision under the pressure of the US government was not ‘parceled out’ to various governmental organizations. Instead, the problem as a whole was left by the government to the responsibility of the Parliament. Accordingly, it is impossible to reveal any patterns of organizational behavior in the decision making process. By the same token, it is impossible to indicate previously established routines in the decision making process because the March 1 Bill is rather ad hoc in the Turkish foreign policy making with its several peculiar dimensions. For instance, it was the first time that the Parliament had to vote about giving permission to the execution of a military campaign by foreign military personnel from the Turkish soil against a third state.[29]

     The governmental politics model suggests that the actions and decisions of governments are “intranational political resultants,” that is, the decision is the outcome of a bargaining process along standardized channels among governmental officials, who possess varied interests and uneven influence in the decision making process.[30] The officials are the primary actors, whose perceptions, preferences and positions are shaped by a myriad of factors. Likewise, their influence in the ultimate decision is determined by a host of factors, such as authority, expertise or persuasiveness.[31] Due to the divergent positions of players over an issue, misexpectation and miscommunication the final decision may not reflect a negotiated settlement that the group as a whole would approve of.[32] In short, according to this model, one has to identify relevant players and their interests, evaluate the relative influence of respective players, and describe the bargaining process in order to explain a governmental decision.

     The governmental politics model is not suitable to explain the decision of the Turkish Parliament. First of all, the decision rested with the MPs, not the governmental officials bargaining for the decision. Furthermore, all the governmental officials, from the Minister of Finance Kemal Unakıtan to the Vice Prime Minister Abdüllatif Şener, endorsed the Bill. Hence, the decision cannot be an ‘intranational political resultant’.

     The fundamental reason of the inadequacy of the three models discussed above in providing a through and satisfactory explanation of the March 1 Bill lies in the fact that these models are inferred exclusively from the decision making process of the executive branch of the state, that is, the government. In other words, they overlook interactive decision making processes that involve an array of variables in terms of actors, settings, etc. Accordingly, so as to explain the significant decision of the Turkish Assembly taken on March 1, 2003, which was the outcome of a dynamic and interactive decision making process, models proposed by John Forester should be consulted since they take several variables into account.

The Politics of Muddling Through

     In his influential article, John Forester identifies five “correspondingly distinct practical strategies of administrative action.”[33] According to Forester, there are mainly five dimensions of decision making that could be employed as variables to devise distinct decision making styles. First, agent can be single or multiple. Second, setting can be a closed system or an open system. Third, problem at hand can be well defined or there can be vague/multiple definitions of problem. Fourth, information can be perfect or imperfect/contested. And fifth, time can be infinite or limited.[34]

     Inferring from this classification, Forester identifies five possible styles of decision making that are optimization, satisfying, search, bargain and organizational.[35] All of these styles will not be discussed in detail here. Bargaining style of decision making resembles most to the decision making process culminated in the March 1 Bill for a couple of reasons. First of all, it suggests that the decision makers “routinely find themselves confronted by diverse and conflicting claims of competing interests, articulated by competing actors.”[36] Indeed, the members of the Parliament, the ultimate decision makers, found themselves confronted by contending claims of competing actors, such as leaders of ruling party, leaders of opposition party and heads of business groups. The setting was open to the influences of other actors, as the style assumes.

     Moreover, according to the bargaining style of decision making, “[d]ifferent interest groups have correspondingly different senses and valuations of the problems at hand.”[37] As it was partially displayed above, the contending sides evaluated the problem, i.e. the matter of accepting or refusing the Bill under the US pressure and bearing the consequential responsibilities, in highly different terms, which are sometimes mutually exclusive. For example, for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, accepting the Bill was to promote Turkish national interests. On the contrary, for Deniz Baykal, it is inimical to Turkish national interests.[38] Information was “contested, withheld, manipulated, and distorted.”[39] As an example, the exact amount of financial compensation, which was to be procured from the US, was never declared to the public by the JD Party negotiators since ambiguity seemed to be generated as a precaution against rigorous criticisms. Finally, time was limited, as the style assumes.

     Therefore, it seems somewhat obvious that the bargaining style of decision making dominated the decision making process that paved the way for the rejection of the Bill. However, a qualification should be made. The bargaining style of decision making presumes a bargaining process among several players, including decision makers, and the outcome of the bargaining process constitutes the decision. However, the decision making process that was witnessed prior to the rejection of the Bill demonstrated another type of bargaining style, which frequently takes place when a government introduces a bill to the Assembly and still cannot trust the unconditional allegiance of its party members to secure the passage of the bill. Therefore, a bargaining process among several players over the members of the parliament, mainly those of the ruling party, who are to decide on the bill, ensues. This is exactly what happened prior to the parliamentary voting on March 1, 2003.

     The final decision rested with the MPs of the JD Party since the position of the Republican People’s Party, which was anti-bill, was declared long before the parliamentary voting. Therefore, it is not implausible to argue that the discussions among several actors, ranging from Turkish commentators to the US politicians, aimed at inducing the JD Party MPs to vote in the ways these actors wanted. In other words, the pro-Bill and anti-Bill sides bargained with each other over the JD Party members and expected to influence the outcome indirectly. Eventually, the anti-Bill side succeeded in persuading 97 JD Party MPs to defy the demand of their party leadership and to vote against the Bill. A short comparison of the arguments stated by each side to advance their positions could be instructive about the course of ‘indirect bargaining’ and could reveal the unanticipated choice of 97 JD Party MPs.

     The pro-Bill side attempted to strengthen their arguments by presenting rational cost-benefit analyses formulated in terms of national interests. For instance, Minister of Defense Vecdi Gönül addressed to the JD Party MPs three days before the parliamentary voting and stated that it was in the interest of Turkey to espouse the Bill since otherwise a Kurdish state in northern Iraq, albeit incrementally, would be established, the US would support the Greek cause in the Aegean and Cyprus, and without the assistance of the US Turkey would suffer troubles in its economy.[40] An eminent commentator contended that it was impossible to preclude the outbreak of war and asked: “What should be done for the interest of our country?”. For him, the right answer was to vote ‘yes’ for a couple of reasons he listed.[41]

     On the other hand, the anti-Bill side also resorted to cost-benefit analyses formulated in terms of national interests. The paramount argument was that it was not in the interest of Turkey to support a war that suffered lack of international legitimacy since by supporting ‘the American war’ conducted without a UN Security Council resolution Turkey would “violate the law, attack Iraq as the tongs of America, break up with the Islamic countries, [and] become a country excluded from the European Union.”[42] Accordingly, rejecting the Bill was in the interest of Turkey since it would forestall aforementioned adverse consequences.

     The anti-Bill side also enjoyed the advantage of addressing to the sensitivities of the conservative JD Party MPs, which could be regarded as the crucial factor in inducing the dissident JD Party MPs to vote against the Bill. First, anti-Bill commentators fervently sustained a nationalistic discourse during the decision making process. For example, after delineating several caricatures from the US press sarcastically ridiculing Turkey due to its negotiations with the US for financial compensation, an infuriated commentator asked just the day before the parliamentary voting: “Which country’s personality was shot? Which country’s reputation blew up? Which country’s honor was destroyed? Over which country the bombs of shame fell?”[43] Second, anti-Bill actors addressed to the religious fervors of the Islamic, albeit moderately, JD Party MPs. For instance, Ali Bulaç, who is one of the most influential Islamic scholars in Turkey, implying the Day of Resurrection, urged MPs to think of ‘that day’ before saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the “edict of carnage.”[44]    

Conclusion

     The decision taken on March 1, 2003 by the Turkish Parliament refused the governmental bill that sought the constitutional permission of the Parliament to station American troops on the Turkish soil for a military campaign against Iraq in addition to the permission to dispatch Turkish military personnel abroad. Several facets of the foreign policy decision making process preceding this momentous decision have been analyzed. As explained above, an attempt to achieve a through analysis of the process by employing the three mainstream models of international relations literature is less suited since they tend to overlook interactive decision making processes that involve an array of variables in terms of actors, settings, information, time, etc. The bargaining style of decision making, which is proposed by John Forester, seems to be more illuminative in explaining the decision making process that led to the repudiation of the Bill. Yet, a qualification is necessary. The bargaining process indirectly took place in the form of contentious argumentation among several players over the members of the parliament, mainly those of the ruling party, who were to decide on the bill. Eventually, the informal anti-Bill coalition induced some MPs of the JD Party to defy the demand of their party leadership and to vote against the Bill. The rejection of the Bill has ramifications in Turkish domestic and foreign policy.[45] An analysis of the ramifications would be a subject of further inquiry for the students of Turkish foreign policy. 

NOTES

1                    Hürriyet, Zaman and Sabah are respectively the biggest newspapers of Turkey considering the circulation. Therefore, they are taken as the primary sources of reference from the Turkish media.    

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