Transportation
Since the establishment of the republic, and particularly since World War II, economic development has involved large-scale state investment in transportation. Until the 1950s this investment was concentrated on the railway network, but in subsequent decades Turkey focused on its system of roads and highways.
Prior to World War I the only long-distance rail route extended from Istanbul to Adana and into Iraq, developed as part of a German plan for a Berlin-Baghdad railway (see Baghdad Railway) to provide an overland link between Europe and the Persian Gulf. Other early rail lines were confined to a few short stretches in the west, linking areas of commercial agriculture to ports on the Aegean and Sea of Marmara. In the interwar years the state railway company built several lines to link the main regional centres, notably a line connecting Ankara, Kayseri, Sivas, and Erzurum with the Soviet frontier (with branches to the Black Sea at Samsun and Zonguldak) and a line connecting Konya, Kayseri, Sivas, and Malatya with Diyarbakır and the Raman oil field. The major development of the postwar period was the construction of a line from Elazığ to the Iranian frontier, which involved a train ferry across Lake Van and was part of an ambitious plan to provide a rail connection between Europe and Pakistan. Despite these developments, the rail network remained rudimentary. Railways carried a proportion of freight traffic—mainly agricultural produce and minerals—and relatively few passengers, but both of these uses steadily declined throughout the 1990s. By the early years of the 21st century, only a negligible number of passengers chose rail as their means of transport; the proportion of freight transport taking place by rail was also slight. In response, the Marmaray Project was undertaken to improve approximately 45 miles (75 km) of Turkey’s railway network. The massive transport project was anticipated to upgrade rail service around Istanbul and included an ambitious rail tunnel running beneath the Bosporus to connect the European and Asian halves of the city. The project was stalled in 2006, however, with the discovery of a 4th-century port along the construction zone.
Roads are by far the most important carriers of both freight and passengers. In addition to domestic traffic, there is a large and growing international freight movement across Turkey between Europe and the Middle East. This has been made possible by massive state investment in the construction of a modern road network linking all the main towns. Buses are widely used. City thoroughfares in Turkey are generally congested.
Coastal shipping routes are important freight carriers, particularly along the Black Sea coast; the main international ports are Istanbul, İzmir, Mersin (İçel), İskenderun, and İzmit.
The state airline and several international carriers provide air links through Istanbul, Ankara, and İzmir, and there is an internal network linking these cities with more than a dozen provincial centres. Airports on the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts at Dalaman and Antalya have been improved and cater to the growing tourist charter traffic. Administration and social conditions Government
Following a period of authoritarian one-party rule under the first president of the republic, Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk; 1923–38), and his successor, İsmet İnönü (1938–50), multiparty democracy was instituted in 1950. Parliamentary democracy has for the most part remained in force since that date, although it has been interrupted by brief periods of military government at times when civilian rule was perceived as ineffective. After each military interlude (1960–61, 1971–73, 1980–83), power was returned to civilian hands under a revised constitution. Constitution
Under the current constitution, approved by national referendum in 1982 and amended several times since, the main legislative body is a 600-member parliament, the Grand National Assembly (Büyük Millet Meclisi), elected by universal adult suffrage for a five-year term. Members are chosen by a modified system of proportional representation based on political parties. There are a number of restrictions: extremist parties of both left and right are banned, and no party that obtains less than 10 percent of the national vote may be represented in the parliament. Though religion had been largely discouraged from appearing in the political sphere, the role of Islamist parties in Turkish politics expanded in the 1990s and 2000s.
Executive power was originally divided between the prime minister as head of government and the president as head of state. However, in a constitutional referendum in 2017 a majority of voters favoured abolishing the office of prime minister and expanding the role of president, changes that were to take effect after the 2018 elections. Originally, the president was able to call or dissolve parliament, return legislation to the parliament for reconsideration, refer laws to the constitutional court, declare a state of emergency for up to three months, and submit proposed constitutional changes to a popular referendum. The changes resulting from the 2017 referendum, which went into effect in July 2018, also allow the president to appoint a cabinet, form and regulate ministries, declare a state of emergency for up to six months, and draft the budget.
Before the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, Turkish civil law was linked to religion and was administered by Sharīʿah courts. With the reforms of 1926, a number of new legal codes were established based in part on the Swiss Civil and Italian penal codes. Following these changes, the independence of the judiciary—including the constitutional court and the courts responsible for criminal, civil, and administrative matters—has been ensured by the constitution. A number of superior courts, including a court of appeals, also exist to examine these rulings.
Turkey’s provinces are administered by governors, who are appointed by the Council of Ministers, subject to the approval of the president. Provinces are divided into districts and subdistricts. Villages are governed by a headman and a council of elders, both elected by the village residents. Political parties
Between 1950 and 1980 the number, names, and composition of Turkish political parties changed frequently. Generally, there was one main leftist and one main rightist party—receiving roughly equal shares of the popular vote—and several smaller parties. As a result, the country often was ruled by unstable coalitions. The 1982 constitution, with its 10 percent electoral threshold for parliamentary representation, was designed to reduce the need for coalition governments but has largely failed to do so.
A recurrent theme in Turkish politics is the conflict between progressive and conservative elements, the former intent on fully implementing Atatürk’s vision of a wholly secular, Westernized state and the latter seeking to preserve the values of traditional Islamic-Turkish culture. The legacy of Atatürk remains central to Turkish political life; throughout the first 50 years of the republic, all major political parties professed adherence to the doctrines of Atatürkism, which defined Turkey as nationalist, republican, statist, populist, and revolutionary and emphasized Westernization, the separation of religion from politics, and a leading role for the state in economic affairs. In the 1980s and ’90s there were significant changes: state intervention in economic matters was reduced, a program of privatization of state-run farms was introduced, and private enterprise—both indigenous and foreign—was encouraged. Most striking, while the maintenance of a secular state remained enshrined in the constitution, this issue became even more prominent as a focus of political dispute; support for pro-Islamic political parties increased greatly, resulting in the expansion of the role of Islamist parties in Turkish politics in the 1990s and 2000s. Foreign policy