Turkish State, Turkish Society

Turkish State, Turkish Society

Andrew Finkel,
Nükhet Sirman

Routledge

Turkey is turning to the West. As the nation develops, it has capitalised on its strategic position to extend its political influence into the arena of European affairs. Recent Turkish history presents a picture of a highly volatile state fluctuating between tentative democracy and military rule. However, wooing the West has necessitated reform. For its part Europe must deepen its understanding of the Turkish military and bureaucracy.
Turkish State, Turkish Society examines the causes and effects of the tension between Turkey’s formal constitution and the actual practice of power. The book analyses this tension from perspectives as diverse as that of Kurdish tribesmen, urban feminists, soldiers, and national and local administrators. It presents an expansive, detailed and highly colourful patchwork of the complex relationship between society and state in Turkey.

Andrew Finkel is a freelance writer.
Nükhet Sirman is Lecturer in Anthropology at Boğaziçi University, Turkey.

Contents

List of Contributors / viii

Acknowledgements / ix

1 Introduction
Andrew Finkel and Nükhet Sirman / 1
2 State, Village and Gender in Western Turkey
Nükhet Sirman / 21
3 The Turkish Army in Politics, 1960-73
William Hale / 53
4 The Greywolves as Metaphor
Ayşe Neviye Çaglar / 79
5 Politics and Procedure in the 1987 Turkish General Election
Andrew Finkel and William Hale / 103

6 The Place of Parliament in Turkey
Bülent Tanör / 139
7 Class and Cllentellsm in the Republican People's Party
Ayşe Güneş - Ayata / 159
8 Municipal Politics and the State in Contemporary Turkey
Andrew Finkel / 185
9 The Politics of Turkish Development Strategies
Atila Eralp / 219
10 Women in the Changing Political Associations of the 1980s
Șirin Tekeli / 259

11 Kurdish Tribal Organisation and Local Political Processes
Lale Yalçın-Heckmann / 289

List of Contributors

Ayşe Neviye Çaglar is a Ph.D. student at
McGill University currently living and researching in Berlin.

Atila Eralp lectures in the Department of International Relations at the
Middle East Technical University.

Andrew Finkel taught at Bogaziçi University, Istanbul.
He now lives in London where he is a writer and commentator on Turkish affairs.

Ayşe Güneş-Ayata lectures on political sociology in the
Department of Public Administration at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

William Hale was formerly Chairman of the Politics Department at the
University of Durham and has recently joined the staff of the
School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Nükhet Sirman lectures in anthropology at the
Boğaziçi University, Istanbul.

Bülent Tanör is a former lecturer in the Faculty of Law of
Istanbul University. He continues to publish as a constitutional jurist.

Șirin Tekeli is a former lecturer in political science at Istanbul University.
She is well known for her writings on Turkish women and feminism.

Lale Yalçın-Heckmann is a former lecturer in anthropology at the
Middle East Technical University, Ankara. She currently resides in Nümberg.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book follows in the wake of a conference convened in May 1986 at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London on the theme 'Political Participation in the Turkish Republic’. The papers presented at the conference provided a starting-point but most of the material has been prepared subsequent to the meeting and reflects a great deal of co-ordinated and well-focused scholarship; the editors are grateful to the authors for their co-operation. The initial conference was made possible by funds granted by the Research Committee of the School of Oriental and African Studies and by The British Academy. The British Council also assisted, as did a number of the contributors, in providing travel funds. The editors are particularly grateful to Tony Allan, the Chairman of the School's Centre for Middle Eastern Studies from 1984-88, for providing encouragement and organisational facilities the entire length of the process from planning the conference to producing the printed page. They are also appreciative of the Centre's publications staff - headed by Diana Gur - for all they have done to facilitate the publication. In addition, they would like to thank Engin Akarh for lending moral and intellectual support. They would also like to thank Nora Sirman for help in the translation of two articles later commissioned for this volume. A final debt is to Caroline Finkel who read many of the articles in draft form with a critical eye for detail.

Andrew Finkel and Nükhet Sirman

Note: The material in this volume reflects the opinions of the authors and editors. Officials of the School of Oriental and African Studies, at which the conference on which this book is based took place and where the material appearing here was co-ordinated and edited, do not necessarily share the views expressed.

1

Introduction

Andrew Finkel and Niikhet Sirman

The discrepancy between the formal constitution of political power and the actual way power is exercised within society is a well-established point of departure for political science. That what politics 'does' is not necessarily what it says or is enfranchised to do is not an insight confined to any one methodology. Politics and the discourse to which it gives rise may be the medium of dominant economic interests or manipulated by other types of social power (including the threat of legal or illicit violence). Although a mass political system may be formally structured to include moments of effective participation and to value the ideal of genuine discourse, politics is also about the pressures to minimise an active dependency on processes of accountability and legitimation.

This volume sets out to consider how a realm of public accountability is established in contemporary Turkish society. It examines the way in which communication, obligations and relations of power are established between the formal institutions of the Turkish state and its citizens. The chapters it contains consider the practical interpretation which political organisation gives to society and the way in which society responds to and influences that interpretation.

The overall premise is that the notion of political participation is an effective entry into the paradox of a formally defined political system and the actual conduct of state institutions. It touches upon the complexities of the individual's relation to authority and of a citizenry to public administration.

The need for a re-examination of the political participative processes in Turkey seems obvious enough. A volume on political participation in Turkey, which arose from a conference held in 1972, contained the following passage among its concluding remarks:

'Whichever combinations of parties govern Turkey in the next four years, it will be to [their] advantage to operate in a parliament whose power and prestige are strengthened through the experiences of the last two decades.'1

…..

Andrew Finkel
Nükhet Sirman

Turkish State, Turkish Society

Routledge

Routledge publications
Turkish State, Turkish Society
Edited by Andrew Finkel
Nükhet Sirman

Routledge publications of the SO AS
Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies

A publication of the SOAS Centre of
Near and Middle Eastern Studies
Routledge
London and New York

First published 1990
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
a division of Routledge, Chapman and Hall, Inc.
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

© 1990 Centre of Near and Middle East Studies, SOAS

Printed in Great Britain by Billing & Sons Ltd, Worcester

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system,
without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Turkish state, Turkish society.
1. Turkey. Social conditions
I. Finkel, Andrew, 1953-
II. Sirman, Niikhet, 1953-956.1038

ISBN 0-415-04685-8

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
has been applied for.