Opening the Black Box: The Turkish Military Before and After July 2016

As any other modern militaries of the world, Turkish Armed Forces (TAF) is a complex organization relying on human force and other resources provided by society, being strictly founded on both an institutional setting and a framework of values, norms and rituals, and producing security with means and ways available to achieve the strategic objectives of Turkey. This inherent complexity reflecting the structure-culture-action nexus often means that scholars study modern militaries of the world with separated disciplines: Political Science, International Relations, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Administrative Sciences, Economics and Security Studies. With this book, the author’s hope is to make these connections explicit to better understand the military change both within the Turkish military and the Turkish Civil-Military Relations (CMR) before and after failed military uprising on July 15, 2016. To better understand TAF’s change before and after July 15, this book, which has benefited a lot from the author’s PhD research, seeks to follow a pragmatic multi-method approach at different levels of analysis (i.e. data and method triangulation) and eclectic theoretical design which borrows theoretical elements from both institutionalist literature and literature on military sociology.

In the book, relying on both his 20 yearlong insider experience within the Turkish military (both on the field and at the strategic corridors of the Turkish General Staff) and academic career, the author provides two snapshots, one about the pre-July 15 TAF and the Turkish CMR and other post-July 15 TAF and the Turkish CMR. It is worth noting that these snapshots have been enriched by empirical and qualitative scholarly insights seeking to examine the TAF as a security organization, TAF as a social institution and officership as a profession. In these snapshots, one would also find scholarly insights about the evolution of Turkish CMR over the last decade with a specific focus on the impact of the July 15 Military Uprising on the institutional identity of the Turkish military and the nature of the Turkish CMR.

After graduating from the Turkish War Academy in 1998 Metin Gurcan joined the Turkish Special Forces and served in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo and Iraq as the military adviser/liaison officer between 2000-2008. In 2008-2010 he achieved an