Resistance and Military Defection in Turkey

Abstract

Turkey has experienced a heterogeneous collection of social movements and protests. While scholars have given substantial attention to coups in this context, it remains unclear if the Turkish Armed Forces have ever defected in favour of civilian mobilization during periods of political instability. In large-N databases on defection, cases in Turkey are either disproportionately skewed towards coups or are fully absent of observations on defection during resistance campaigns. In this study, we analyse cases spanning 1959–2017 to trace patterns of defection. Through triangulating qualitative evidence from memoirs of former military officers, media reports, and interviews carried out with multi-generational political actors, our analysis reveals that three instances of defection occurred in times of mass mobilization, two of which were vertical and one horizontal. Alongside three other instances of defection that occurred during coup attempts, these results illustrate the highly dynamic nature of defection in the Turkish context through interrelated processes of mobilization, defection, and coups.