CONFORMITY VERSUS INFORMALITY: ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SOCIALISTS AND BUREAUCRATIC ELITE IN TURKEY

Abstract

Might the history of socialism in Turkey be
 read as the history of “ostracism” and “proscription”
 of the socialists from the political
 system? On the other hand, might the socialists in Turkey be considered as a (one of the) outsider(s) or political (one of
 the) enemy/enemies? This article wants to answer these questions and focus on
 the problem of how Turkish socialists affect the political system, while they
 are in mainly the outside of the system. The main argument of this article is
 that the socialists can be considered as an outsider/public enemy of Turkish
 political system by the bureaucratic elite,
 but social relations occurred in the non-political institutions of Turkish
 society have given opportunities to the socialists for affecting the political
 system. In other words, nonpolitical
 social institutions and daily social relations occurred in these institutions
 have been the only space for the socialists to be politically active and to
 illegally and informally affect the inside (formal institutions) of the political system. This is also one of the main
 reason for the endemic informality and/or
 illegality tradition in the Turkish left. The main aim of this study is to
 explore the relationship, interactions, and
 dilemmas regarding conformity versus illegality in line with the contradictive
 evolvement of relations between the socialists and bureaucratic elite in the
 Turkish political life.