State, Society and Democracy in Turkey

212 pp, pb, in English.

This book consists of articles that analyze the rnodernızation experience of Turkey. It is an experience of political struggles that centered on the history of battles fought on two fronts: economy and derııocracy. In the world of Ottornan traditıon, neither existed as independent domains of activity. The economy was neıther autonomous nor selfgoverning, and neither were the people. The economy was auxıliary to a political logic of provision, welfare and warfare. The people were subject to a political center medıated by diverse cultures constıtutive of multıple communitıes.

Modernity entailed the disassociation of the economy from the state, and decoupling of the people from their local ties of culture. The disassociation of the economy from the administrative and rrıilitary imperatives of imperial rule is fundamentally the story of the formation of a market economy, and the decoupling of the individual from local cultures is essentially the story of the emergence of a national culture and the development of a nation of citizens. İt is the history and polıtics of this double transformation that is the major theme of thıs book.

If we are to judge contemporary Turkey by the standards it set for itself: How deeply and comprehensively is the nation a nation of cıtizens, and how free is the economy from partisanship, particularism and state patronage? How legalratıonal is the state? What is the balance of power among man as citizen (democracy) , economic man (market economy) , and the administrator-bureaucrat Istatel? Furthermore, what is the balance between civic virtue and private self-interest, between what is shared and common and what is private and different? Ttıese are some of the irTıportant questions raised in Chis book.