The State, Political Party and Society in post-1983 Turkey

Abstract

IN TERMS OF THE HISTORICAL CATEGORIES FORMULATED BY S. N. Eisentadt, the origins of the Ottoman-Turkish polity were imperial-bureaucratic rather than imperial-feudal or patrimonial. The regime was not patrimonial because the centre had its own distinctive normative system; the values of the centre were just a pale reflection of those of the periphery. The regime was not imperial-feudal for the centre did not have to face civil societal groups able to challenge it and impinge upon it. The members of the periphery could not develop horizontal loyalties; instead they competed among themselves for a limited number of privileges such as tax-farming rights or quotas for import or export which the centre granted. The Ottoman-Turkish peripheral elements did not develo into an aristocracy or a bourgeoisie with political influence. Consequently, the efforts towards modernization initiated during the nineteenth century took on a particular twist. Modernization meant Westernization, which in turn was perceived from the perspective of Enlightenment tradition. Informed by a ‘cast-iron theory’ of Islam ,the state's salvation was seen to lie in substituting reason for religion as the basis of public policy-making. The military and the bureaucratic elites came to see themselves primarily as the guardians of raison d'état.