Turkey has to “be realistic and demand the impossible” for a new constitution. This is the only way it can become the tenth largest economy of the world.

Have you ever thought if the innovation process in an economy and the new constitution might be associated? This is what the Worldwide Governance Indicators published by the World Bank reveals. In my consideration, no innovation can be made in Turkey without a new constitution. Let me tell you what I saw, and then you decide.

I remember telling you that the Turkish economy first has to transform itself from a medium-tech exporting to high-tech exporting economy. The way to achieve this is to pave the way for innovation. Here lies the key importance of innovation: It takes place at the conjunction of science and industry, university and commercial life. Turkey has to convince those who can make a difference in the processes of doing business by assessing those processes to do so. Those to assess the processes of doing business must have better skills. The competence of the university system, the realm of science, therefore, is of critical importance. Turkey, meanwhile, has been trying to make the Inter-university Board (IUB) dysfunctional by letting the Higher Education Council establish squatter universities. What is Turkey doing? It is trying to “democratize” universities and university titles, which are supposed to be the temple of elitism. So, what is Turkey doing? It is thinking through ways to downgrade the associate professorship title, which already reflects mediocrity. It also is initiating steps to ruin the system via a democratic voting process at the IUB. It is lumping together successful universities and peripheral universities, the number of which has been increasing.

Only those who look at the matter can see. And those eyes should definitely be skillful. Though necessary, however, this is not sufficient. The condition for competence is that foreign investors consider Turkey not only as a market to sell their products, but also as an area of production. The fact that foreign companies mainly have marketing departments in Turkey closely relates to the legislative quality and the modus operandi of the court system. At least, this is what I see. The latest constitutional amendment that changed the structure of the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors did nothing but downgrade the quality of the Council that already was mediocre. The operational problems of the judiciary remain intact. Practices do not match the target to become the tenth largest economy of the world.

A new constitution is needed to solve both of the above challenges. This is what TEPAV economic policy analyst Ozan Acar talks about in his new commentary on the Worldwide Governance Indicators, which is available on TEPAV’s website. In my consideration, the change in Turkey’s position in comparison to that of the EU-27 countries during the 2002-2010 period implies the following: First, during the Justice and Development Party (AKP) rule, political stability gradually deteriorated. Winning the majority of votes and building stability are two different things. There appeared a relative improvement in 2002 compared to 1996. However, by 2010, what had been succeeded between 1996 and 2002 was lost. Why? Sub-indicators suggest that this deterioration is related closely to the Kurdish issue. If the survey results for 2011 were also available, the results most likely would be the same as those in 1996. This is the first point to state. Second, during the AKP rule, no significant progress has been made in terms of the freedom of expression and the rule of law. The gap between the EU countries and Turkey in this respect has been maintained. Third, between 2002 and 2010, the government made progress in terms of the government effectiveness and fight with corruption, whereas regulatory quality deteriorated. This is bad.

This is what this picture tells if you can look at it: The way to make progress with respect to the Kurdish issue, reinforce political stability and pave the way for investments, improve the implementation capacity of the country via judicial reform, and to ensure university autonomy and expand the scope of freedoms is to initiate a healthy process for constitutional debate. Turkey has to “be realistic and demand the impossible” here. This is the only way it can become the tenth largest economy in the world. Empty words will not fill an empty space. Innovations cannot be made unless a new constitution is made.

This commentary was published in Radikal daily on 20.12.2011