A week ago, on a two day official trip, Turkish Prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan visited Pakistan. In his honour, Lahore and Islamabad were adorned with colourful banners and billboards, extolling Pak-Turkish friendship and celebrating Turkish success with slogans such as: “We are proud of Turkey.” He was given a guard of honor, a 19 gun salute and one of the greatest welcoming extravaganza in the history of Lahore.
Perhaps, the Turkish republic and its leadership deserves such accolades. Amidst global economic slowdown, Turkey has experienced enviable economic growth, emerging as an important player in a region, beset with serious political and economic turmoil.
Anyone visiting Turkey in the late 90s or early 2000s, would remember it as a country struggling with political instability, soaring inflation, high unemployment and huge budget deficits. In ten years or so, all of this has changed. The turnaround by Turkey and the consequent economic success is termed by World Bank as, “one of the greatest success stories of the global economy based on rapid economic growth and development.” In a decade, Turkey has achieved most of its millennium development goals, and is aiming to become one of the top ten economies of world by 2023.
This brings us to the main question, i.e. how Turkey has achieved impressive economic growth and what is the key to it’s success?
Few years ago, I raised this question to a Turkish journalist, currently working for Al jazeera. His response was surprising and interesting. According to him, Turkish transformation owed itself to the institutional reforms, introduced by the AK party, to fulfil the Copenhagen criteria, required by European Union to start accession talks with Turkey. Though the dream of joining EU still eludes Turkey, the process itself has put the country, on a fast track of greater political liberalisation and economic expansion.
What were the incentives that led AK party to adopt this course of action is apparent from country’s history. Turkish history has been dominated by secular political parties and sporadic military interventions. The secular foundation of the country and military’s role as its protector, pushed Islamists to the fringes of society. This changed in 1990s, when widespread disappointment with Turkish politics brought Welfare Party (Refah Partisi), under the leadership of Necmettin Erbakan in power.
This was the first time in republic’s history that a party with Islamic roots took over the government. However, in 1998 a constitutional court banned the Welfare Party along with Erbakan. Some members of Welfare Party tried to form a new party, by the name of Virtue Party, but that was also banned in 2001.
Under these circumstances, in August 2001, Abdullah Gul and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan founded Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP). AK in Turkish also means clean. AKP presented itself as a political organization committed to democratisation, corruption free politics and most importantly, a bid for EU membership.
In 2002 parliamentary elections, AKP won an absolute majority, and formed their government. AKP’s top leadership must have realized that to avoid the fate of Necmettin Erbakan and his Welfare Party, AKP has to limit army’s role in politics and to deliver on it’s promises. The best way to achieve both of these goals was to start working for EU accession, a course of action adopted as a means for political survival.
Before EU accessions process could begin, Turkey needed to fulfil Copenhagen criteria; “the essential conditions all candidate countries must satisfy to become a member state.” To achieve this, Erdogan led government strengthened the rule of law, devolved power, expanded political liberties, ensured freedom of press, accorded cultural rights to minorities, removed military personnel from key civilian positions, and brought Army’s budget under the civilian oversight.
In the economic sphere, deputy PM and finance minister Ali Babacan reformed banking sector, reigned in the sprawling budget deficit and poured money into infrastructure and social services. These efforts were perused with such an ardor that by 2005 Turkey fulfilled the Copenhagen conditions.
Staeven A. Cook, senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, describes the effects of these reforms as, “Taken together, these reforms [Copenhagen criteria] represented a significant boost for Turkish democracy. The changes were wildly popular throughout Turkish society... The military, which had long claimed to be a vanguard of modernisation, simply could not afford to undermine the AKP’s European project.”
Erdogan European project has two important characteristics, the first being that Islamism is not contrary to modernism; a modern Islamic state can in effect, achieve economic growth and development.
Second important corollary, is that fundamental reforms such as devolution of power, prudent allocation of resources, and establishment of competitive and inclusive markets, are required to spur economic growth. While more democratisation strengthens the constitutional rule, the competitive economy leads to economic growth and development.
Turkey’s EU dream is still a distant one. Europe’s current economic crisis has further jeopardized Turkey’s accession bid. Nonetheless, the institutional reforms undertaken by AKP has strengthened Turkish democracy and benefited it’s economy. Even without an accession, Erdogan’s European project is already a success.

The writer is a freelance columnist and has worked as a broadcast journalist.

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