Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T09:04:37.337Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Class, State and Property: Modernity and Capitalism in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2012

Eren Duzgun*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, York University, Toronto [[email protected]].
Get access

Abstract

This paper argues that the class-based analyses that seek to make sense of the recent transformation of Turkish modernity rest on a pre-given duality between the state and the bourgeoisie. This not only jettisons the relational and temporal context in which classes define and articulate their interests, thereby leading to determinist explanations of various sorts, but also obscures the historical distinctiveness and mutual re-transformation of two different modes of socio-spatial organization, modernity and capitalism, in Turkey. Based on a novel historical materialist method known as Political Marxism, I suggest that re-conceptualizing class as property-relations sheds new light on the historical-comparative specificity of Turkish modernity, which, in turn, leads to a radical re-interpretation of Turkey’s recent transformation.

Type
Research Articles
Copyright
Copyright © A.E.S. 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahmad, Feroz, 2002. Modern Turkiye’nin Olusumu (Istanbul, Kaynak Yayinlari).Google Scholar
Ahmad, Feroz, 2009. “Kemalizmin ekonomi politiğI”, in Ahmad, Feroz, ed., Ittihatçılıktan Kemalizme (Istanbul, Kaynak Yayınları, pp. 178-198).Google Scholar
Akin, G. Gulsen, Aysan, Ahmed Faruk and Yildiran, Levent, 2009. “Transformation of the Turkish Financial Sector in the Aftermath of the 2001 Crisisin Önis, Ziya and Fikret, Senses, eds., Turkey and the Global Economy: Neo-liberal Restructuring and Integration in the Post-Crisis Era (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Alavi, Hamza, 1972. “The state in post-colonial societies: Pakistan and BangladeshNew Left Review, 74, pp. 59-81.Google Scholar
Alper, C. Emre and Öniş, Ziya, 2003. “Financial Globalization, the Democratic Deficit, and Recurrent Crises in Emerging Markets: the Turkish Experience in the Aftermath of Capital account Liberalization”, Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, 39 (3), pp. 5-26.Google Scholar
Altuğ, Sumru, Filiztekin, Alpay and Pamuk, Şevket, 2008. “Sources of Long-Term Economic Growth for Turkey, 1880-2005”, European Review of Economic History, 12, pp. 393-430.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amin, Samir, 1976. Unequal Development: an Essay on the Social Formation of Peripheral Capitalism (New York, Monthly Review Press).Google Scholar
Amsden, Alice H., 1985. “The State and Taiwan’s Economic Developmentin Evans, Peter, Rueschemeyer, Dietrich and Skocpol, Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back in (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 78-106).Google Scholar
Amsden, Alice, 2003. The Rise of “the Rest”: Challenges to the West from Late-Industrializing Economies (Oxford, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Anderson, Perry, 1974. Lineages of the Absolutist State (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Atasoy, Yildiz, 2009. Islam’s Marriage with Neoliberalism (London, Palgrave Macmillan).Google Scholar
Aydın, Suavi, 2008. “Sosyalizm ve Milliyetcilik: Galiyefizm’den Kemalizm’e”, Modern Turkiye’de Siyasi Dusunce: Milliyetcilik (Istanbul, Iletisim, pp. 438-447).Google Scholar
Aydın, Zülküf, 2005. The Political Economy of Turkey (London, Pluto Press).Google Scholar
Aydın, Zülküf, 2010. “Neo-Liberal Transformation of Turkish agriculture”, Journal of Agrarian Change, 10 (2), pp. 149-187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barkey, Henri, 1990. The State and the Industrialization Crisis in Turkey (Boulder, Westview Press).Google Scholar
Bedirhanoğlu, Pinar, 2007. “The Neoliberal Discourse on Corruption as a Means of Consent Building: Reflections from Post-Crisis Turkey”, Third World Quarterly, 28 (7), pp. 1239-1254.Google Scholar
Berberoglu, Berch, 1982. Turkey in Crisis: from State Capitalism to Neo-Colonialism (London, Zed Books).Google Scholar
Bishku, Michael B., 2007. “The resurgence of Kurdish Nationalism in Northern Kurdistan-Turkey from the 1970s to the Presentin Ahmed, Mohamed M. A. and Gunter, Michael M., eds., The Evolution of Kurdish Nationalism (Costa Mesa, Mazda Publishers, pp. 78-97).Google Scholar
Boratav, Korkut, 2004. Türkiye İktisat Tarihi (Ankara, İmge Kitabevi).Google Scholar
Boratav, Korkut and Yeldan, Erinc, 2006. “Turkey, 1980-2000: Financial Liberalization, Macroeconomic (In)-Stability, And Patterns of Distributionin Taylor, Lance, ed., External Liberalization in Asia, Post-Socialist Europe and Brazil (Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 417-455).Google Scholar
Brenner, Robert, 1977. “The Origins of Capitalist Development: a Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism”, New Left Review, 104 (1), pp. 25-92.Google Scholar
Brenner, Robert, 1987. “The Agrarian roots of European Capitalismin Aston, T.H. and Philpin, C.H.E., eds., The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 213-327).Google Scholar
Bromley, Simon, 1994. Rethinking Middle East Politics (Austin, University of Texas Press).Google Scholar
Buğra, Ayse, 1994. State and Business in Modern Turkey: A Comparative Study (Albany, State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Buğra, Ayse, 1998. “Class, Culture, and State: an Analysis of Interest Representation by two Turkish Business Associations”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 30(4), pp. 521-539.Google Scholar
Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, 1980. “On the Characterization of Authoritarian regimes in Latin Americain Collier, David, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp. 33-57).Google Scholar
Chibber, Viveck, 2003. Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India (Princeton, Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
Cizre, Ümit, 2011. “Disentangling the Threads of Civil-Military Relations in Turkey: Promises and Perils”, Mediterranean Quarterly, 22 (2), pp. 57-75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cizre, Ümit and Yeldan, Erinc, 2005. “The Turkish Encounter with Neo-Liberalism: Economics and Politics in the 2000/2001 Crises”, Review of International Political Economy, 12 (3), pp. 387-408.Google Scholar
Comninel, George C., 1987. Rethinking the French Revolution: Marxism and the Revisionist Challenge (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Cosar, Simten and Yeğenoglu, Metin, 2009. “The Neoliberal Restructuring of Turkey’s Social Security System”, Monthly Review 60 (11).Google Scholar
Çolak, Yilmaz, 2006. “Ottomanism vs. Kemalism: Collective Memory and Cultural Pluralism in 1990s Turkey”, Middle Eastern Studies, 42 (4), pp. 583-598.Google Scholar
Eligür, Banu, 2010. The Mobilization of Political Islam in Turkey (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Evans, Peter, 1989. “Class, State, and Dependence in East Asia: lessons for Latin Americanistsin Deyo, Frederic C., ed., The Political Economy of the New Asian Industrialism (New York, Cornell University Press, pp. 203-226).Google Scholar
Evrensel, Ayse, 2004. “IMF Programs and Financial Liberalization in Turkey”, Emerging Markets Finance & Trade, 40 (4), pp. 5-19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gellner, Ernest, 1981. Muslim society (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Godelier, Maurice, 1978. “Infrastructures, Societies, and History”, Current Anthropology, 19 (4), pp. 763-771.Google Scholar
Göle, Nilüfer, 2006. “Islamic Visiblities and Public Spherein Göle, Nilüfer and Ammann, Ludwig, eds., Islam in Public: Turkey, Iran and Europe (Istanbul, Istanbul Bilgi University Press).Google Scholar
Gülalp, Haldun, 2001. “Globalization and Political Islam: the Social Bases of Turkey’s Welfare Party”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 33 (3), pp. 433-448.Google Scholar
Gümüşçü, Sebnem and Sert, Deniz, 2009. “The Power of the Devout Bourgeoisie: the Case of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey”, Middle Eastern Studies, 45 (6), pp. 953-968.Google Scholar
Günaydin, Gökhan, 2009. “Türkiye tarım politikalarında’yapısal uyum’: 2000’li Yıllar”, Mulkiye, 262, pp. 175-222.Google Scholar
Güran, Mehmet Cahit, 2011. “The Political Economy of Privatization in Turkey: an evaluationin Çetin, Tamer and Oğuz, Fuat, eds., The Political Economy of Regulation in Turkey (New York, Springer, pp. 23-50).Google Scholar
Heper, Metin, 1985. The State Tradition in Turkey (Walkington, Eothen Press).Google Scholar
Holloway, John and Picciotto, Sol, 1991. “Capital, Crises and the Statein Clark, Simon, ed., The State Debate (New York, St. Martin Press).Google Scholar
Inci, Ibrahim, 2009. “1923-1960 “Döneminde Türkiye’de Tarım Faaliyetleri Üzerinden Alınan Vergiler”, SAÜ Fen Edebiyat Dergisi, 9 (1), pp. 101-130.Google Scholar
Islamöğlu, Huri and Keyder, Çaglar 1977. “Agenda for Ottoman HistoryReview, 1 (1), pp. 31-55.Google Scholar
Kantarci, Hasan Bülent and Karacan, Rıdvan, 2008. “Mali Disiplinin Sağlanması Açısından Türkiye IMF İlişkilerinin Değerlendirilmesi”, Maliye Dergisi, 155, pp. 144-158.Google Scholar
Kasaba, Resat, 1997. “Kemalist Certainties and Modern Ambiguitiesin Bozdogan, Sibel and Kasaba, Resat, eds., Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey (Washington, University of Washington Press).Google Scholar
Karadag, Roy, 2010. “Neoliberal Restructuring in Turkey: From State to Oligarchic Capitalism”, MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/7.Google Scholar
Kasnakoğlu, Haluk, 1986. “Agricultural Price Support Policies in Turkey: an Empirical investigation”, in Richards, Alan, ed., Food, States, and Peasants (Boulder, Westview Press, pp. 131-157).Google Scholar
Kazancigil, Ali, 1994. “High Stateness in a Muslim Society: the Case of Turkey”, in Doğan, Matter and Kazancigil, Ali, eds., Comparing Nations (Oxford, Blackwell).Google Scholar
Kazgan, Gïlten, 1999. “1980’lerde Türk tarımında yapısal değişmein Baydar, Oya, ed., 75 Yılda Köylerden Şehirlere (İstanbul, Tarih Vakfı Yayınları).Google Scholar
Keyder, Çaglar, 1987. State and Class in Turkey: a Study in Capitalist Development (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Keyder, Çaglar, 2004. “Ulusal kalkınmacılığın iflası ve demokrasi” in Keyder, Çaglar, ed., Ulusal Kalkınmacılığın Iflası (Istanbul, Metis, pp. 160-183).Google Scholar
Keyder, Çaglar and Yenal, Zafer (2011) “Agrarian change under globalization: markets and insecurity in Turkish agriculture”, Journal of Agrarian Change, 11 (1), pp. 60-86.Google Scholar
Keyman, Emin Fuat (2010) “Modernization, globalization and democratization in Turkey: the AKP experience and its limits”, Constellations, 17 (2), pp. 312-327.Google Scholar
Keyman, Emin Fuat and Koyuncu, Berrin, 2005. “Globalization, Alternative Modernities and the Political Economy of Turkey”, Review of International Political Economy, 12 (1), pp. 105-128.Google Scholar
Kirisci, Kemal, 2009. “The Transformation of Turkish foreign Policy: The rise of the Trading State”, New Perspectives on Turkey, 40, pp. 29-57.Google Scholar
Köymen, Oya, 1999. “Cumhuriyet doneminde tarimsal yapi ve tarim politikalariin Baydar, Oya, ed., 75 Yılda Köylerden Şehirlere (İstanbul, Tarih Vakfı Yayınları, pp. 1-30).Google Scholar
Küçükömer, Idris, 1994. Batılılaşma ve Düzenin Yabancılaşması (Istanbul, Baglam Yayinlari).Google Scholar
Lacher, Hannes, 2006. Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality and the International Relations of Modernity (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Mardin, Şerif, 1989. Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey (Albany, State University of New York Press).Google Scholar
Mardin, Şerif, 2006a [1967]. “Historical Thresholds and Stratification: Social Class and Class Consciousnessin Mardin, Şerif, ed., Religion, Society and Modernity in Turkey (New York, Syracuse University Press, pp. 1-22).Google Scholar
Mardin, Şerif, 2006b [1969]. Power, Civil Society and Culture in the Ottoman Empire, in Mardin, Şerif, ed., Religion, Society and Modernity in Turkey (New York, Syracuse University Press, pp. 23-43).Google Scholar
Mardin, Şerif, 2006c [1980]. “The Transformation of an Economic Codein Mardin, Şerif, ed., Religion, Society and Modernity in Turkey (New York, Syracuse University Press, pp. 60-82).Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, 1976 [1847]. The Poverty of Philosophy, Collected Works, Vol. 6. (New York, International Publishers).Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, 1991 [1894]. Capital, Vol. 3 (London, Penguin).Google Scholar
Meillassoux, Claude, 1972. “From Reproduction to Production”, Economy and Society, 1 (1), pp. 93-105.Google Scholar
Mello, Brian, 2010. “Communists and Compromisers: Explaining Divergences within Turkish Labor Activism, 1960-1980”, European Journal of Turkish Studies, 11, pp. 2-21.Google Scholar
Milor, Vedat H., 1989. A Comparative Study of Planning and Economic Development in Turkey and France: Bringing the State back in (Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of California, Berkeley).Google Scholar
Yeğen, Mesut, 1990. “The Genesis of Planning in Turkey”, New Perspectives on Turkey, 4, pp. 1-30.Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington, 1966. Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, Beacon Press).Google Scholar
Morton, Adam D., 2005. “The Age of Absolutism: Capitalism, the Modern States-System and International Relations”, Review of International Studies, 31, pp. 495-517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo A., 1988. Bureaucratic Authoritarianism: Argentina in Comparative Perspective (Berkeley, University of California Press).Google Scholar
Oğuz, Şebnem, 2008. Globalization and the Contradictions of state Restructuring in Turkey (Unpublished doctoral thesisYork University, Toronto).Google Scholar
Oktar, Suat and Varlı, Arzu A., 2010. “Demokrat Parti’nin tarim politikasi, 1950-1954Marmara Üniversitesi I.I.B.F Dergisi, 28 (1), pp. 1-22.Google Scholar
Ozel, Isik, 2012. “Is it none of their Business? Business and Democratization, the Case of TurkeyDemocratization, DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2012.674369Google Scholar
Öniş, Ziya, 1992. “The East Asian Model Development and the Turkish Case: a Comparative Analysis”, Metu Studies in Development 19, p. 4.Google Scholar
Öniş, Ziya and Senses, Fikret, eds., 2009 Turkey and the Global Economy: Neo-Liberal Restructuring and Integration in the Post-Crisis Era (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket, 2008a. “Agriculture and Economic Development in Turkey, 1870-2000in Lains, Pedro and Pinilla, Vicente, eds., Agriculture and Economic Development in Europe since 1870 (London/New York, Routledge, pp. 375-395).Google Scholar
Pamuk, Şevket, 2008b. “Globalization, Industrialization and Changing Politics in Turkey”, New Perspectives on Turkey, 38, pp. 267-273.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parla, Taha and Davison, Andrew, 2004. Corporatist Ideology in Kemalist Turkey: Progress or Order? (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press).Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl, 2001 [1944]. The Great Transformation, 2nd edition (Boston, Beacon Press).Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, 1985. “Latin American Class Structures: their Composition and Change during the Last Decades”, Latin American Research Review, 20 (3), pp. 7-39.Google Scholar
Post, Charles, 2011. “The American Road to Capitalism: Studies in Class-Structure, Economic Development and Political Conflict” (Leiden, Brill, pp. 1620-1877).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosenberg, Justin, 1994. The Empire of Civil Society (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Sanlı, Kerem Cem and Ardıyok, Şahin, 2011. “The Legal Structure of Competition Policy in Turkeyin Çetin, Tamer and Oğuz, Fuat, eds., The Political Economy of Regulation in Turkey (New York, Springer, pp. 75-120).Google Scholar
Sayer, Derek, 1987. The Violence of Abstraction: the Analytic Foundations of Historical Materialism (London, Basil Blackwell).Google Scholar
Sayer, Derek, 1991. Capitalism and Modernity: an Excursus on Marx and Weber (London, Routledge).Google Scholar
Shilliam, Robbie, 2009. German Thought and International Relations (London, Palgrave MacMillan).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Springborg, Robert, 1990. “Agrarian Bourgeoisie, Semiproletarians, and the Egyptian State: Lessons for Liberalization”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 22(4), pp. 447-472.Google Scholar
Teschke, Benno, 2003. The Myth of 1648 (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Thompson, Edward P., 1995. The Poverty of Theory (London, The Merlin Press).Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles, 1990. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992 (Oxford, Blackwell).Google Scholar
Timur, Taner, 2001. Türk Devrimi ve Sonrası (Ankara, Imge).Google Scholar
Toprak, Binnaz, 1996. “Civil Society in Turkey” in Norton, Augustus R., ed., Civil Society in the Middle East (Leiden, Brill, pp. 87-118).Google Scholar
Tuğal, Cihan, 2009. Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Stanford, Stanford University Press).Google Scholar
Turner, Bryan S., 1984. Capitalism and Class in the Middle East: Theories of Social Change and Economic Development (London, Heinemann).Google Scholar
Türkmen, Buket, 2009. “A Transformed Kemalist Islam or a New Islamic Civic Morality? A Study of ‘Religious Culture and Morality’ Textbooks in the Turkish High School Curricula”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 29 (3), pp. 381-397.Google Scholar
Üstel, Füsun, 2004. Makbul Vatandaş’ın peşinde: II. Meşrutiyet’ten bugüne vatandaşlık eğitimi (Istanbul, İletişim).Google Scholar
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 1980. The Modern World System, Vol. 2. (New York, Academic Press).Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 1981. “The Separation of the Economic and the Political in Capitalism”, New Left Review 127, pp. 66-95.Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 1991. The Pristine Culture of Capitalism: a Historical Essay on Old Regimes and Modern States (London, Verso).Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 1994. “From Opportunity to Imperative: the History of the Market”, Monthly Review, 46 (3).Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 1995. Democracy against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 1997. Modernity, Postmodernity or Capitalism?, Review of International Political Economy, 4 (3), pp. 539-560.Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 1999. The Origins of Capitalism (New York, Monthly Review Press).Google Scholar
Wood, Ellen Meiksins, 2012. “Marxism and Democracyin Musto, Marcello, ed., The Marx Revival (London, Palgrave).Google Scholar
Yalman, Galip, 2009. Transition to Neoliberalism: The Case of Turkey in the 1980s (İstanbul, Bilgi University Press).Google Scholar
Yavuz, M. Hakan, 2003. Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (London, Oxford University Press).Google Scholar
Yeğen, Mesut, 2009. “Prospective-Turks or Pseudo-Citizens: Kurds in Turkey”, The Middle East Journal, 63 (4), pp. 597-616.Google Scholar