One prominent intellectual of the early Turkish Republic, İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu, argued that the new Republic should be “a Republic of fine arts.” Indeed, the early Republican project in Turkey perceived culture and art as media through which the Republic could not only represent its achievements but also “create” itself. The present study focuses on the cultural policies and elite perceptions of culture during the single-party regime in Turkey. More specifically, it looks into the developments that took place in the plastic arts and in elite approaches towards aesthetics. This is done in order to shed light on young Turkey's cultural modernization. Examining the interaction between aesthetics and power, this discussion stands at the intersection of political studies and cultural history.

This study examines the gender dimension of the brain drain in Turkey, drawing on the results of an online survey to argue that the gender inequality present in sending countries can serve as a push factor in women's decisions to migrate and return or not return. The results indicate that the gender gap in the labor market in Turkey is an important factor in shaping the return intentions of female Turkish professionals and students living abroad. The findings reveal a gender gap in return intentions independent of other main factors, such as age, field of study/occupation, or duration of stay.

Can a new generation of countries emerge and establish themselves as major exporters of manufactures on the basis neo-liberal economic policies and thus replicate the outstanding performance of the first generation Asian and Latin American newly industrialized countries (NICs)? The article seeks to answer this question on the basis of a case-study, Turkey, a country which has managed to undertake a significant switch from import-substitution to export-orientation under an essentially neo-liberal reform package. The central argument may be summarized as follows. Neo-liberal reforms, when combined with a number of favourable “external conditions”, are quite successful in terms of engineering a shift of the existing productive capacity from import-substitution towards exports. Yet, such policies, on the whole, are less successful in terms of generating the level of investment necessary to sustain rapid growth in manufactured exports over time and also to achieve a steady process of export deepening. A sustained breakthrough in manufactured export growth cannot be realized by trade liberalization and exchange rate policy alone. Macroeconomic management and strategic industrial policy are likely to play a key role, particularly following the initial and comparatively easy phase of export-substitution.

The purpose of the research on which the present article is based was to collect and analyze socio-economic and cultural data on seasonal and permanent migration within the South-eastern Anatolian Project (GAP) Region and between that region and the Metropolitan areas of Turkey. The absence of social scientific knowledge on intra- and interregional migration in this particular context has already been emphasized in the GAP Master Plan Study Report (SPO, 1989). In addition, the region is interesting for social scientists not only because of radical transformations taking place due to the construction of large dams and irrigation projects but also because of the ethnic identity questions that are raised by some Kurdish speaking groups in the region. The present article presents the framework of the research, carried out in 1993, and some of its findings. The findings reported here do not shed direct light on the so-called “ethnic question” or “Kurdish question”; but they help in understanding the transformation and continuity of socio-economic and cultural structures that shape social and political action in the region.

In the past decade there has been a resurgence of studies in the social sciences that emphasize the role of “the social” in market exchange and economic development. This is a welcome change from the “asocial” homo economicus of neoclassical theory and finds various expressions, most notable among them being studies on social capital, trust, and networks. Simplified, the argument is that men and women do not enter into economic transactions in a social vacuum; rather, their community ties, their face-to-face relations, and their networks of such relations facilitate gainful exchange and may ultimately contribute to successful economic development in a country or region.

This study uncovers the neo-conservative “style of thought” informing the ideology of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (Justice and Development Party, AKP). The AKP's politico-cultural strategy in pursuing Turkey's goal of full membership to the EU is constituted on this ideological ground. Based on critical constructivism, this article argues that the AKP constitutes a domestic-foreign policy nexus of change characterized by a neo-conservative “style of thought” that aims to redefine the identity of Turkey. Along this line of politics, Europe appears as a politico-cultural space, as an ideational structure, enabling and limiting the AKP to act as a political and cultural agent. While the AKP adopts and sublimates the position of the “other” in the ideational structure of Europe, it reconstitutes the identity and interests of Turkey through neo-conservative ideas. Both are mutually reinforcing.

This worthy man combined in his single person the various characters of diplomatist, husbandman, merchant, manufacturer, and master of a privateer. To be more explicit-he was drogueman to the French consul at Chios; in town he kept a silkloom at work; in the country he had a plantation of agrumi (citrus); he exported his stuffs and fruits to the principal sea-ports of the Archipelago, and, in the first Russian war, he employed all his spare money in fitting out a small vessel to cruise against the enemy-for so he chose to consider the Russians, in spite of all their amicable professions towards the Greeks. As a loyal subject of the Porte, and an old servant of the French government, he felt no sort of wish to be delivered from the yoke of the Turks; and he looked upon those barbarians of the north, who cared no more for the Patriarch of Constantinople than for the Pope of Rome, as little better than rank heretics, not worthy of being treated even like his silkworms, which he got every year carefully exorcised before their spinning time. (Hope, 1819, vol. 1:2)

The aging population and, along with it, increasing long-term care needs create pressure globally on the social and health care spending of governments under the constraint of shrinking tax bases. The common tendency of governments is to minimize the cost by transferring the elderly care burden to families. However, care provision comes with penalties for caretakers in the form of potential income losses and a rising, unpaid workload that requires a gender-based assessment. These impacts intensify with additional demographic trends that impose new challenges. Increasing longevity accompanied by decreasing fertility and delays in having children in Turkey have contributed to the growth of the “sandwiched generation” which encounters the care needs of their elderly as they care for their children. This study investigates whether and how caring responsibilities can be associated with the caregivers’ economic participation in Turkey, where the retreat from institutional provisioning of elderly care services is concealed with a neoconservative family-oriented rhetoric. Using the 2014–2015 Time Use Statistics compiled by TurkStat, we analyze the relationship between informal elderly care provision and employment hours, taking into account the potential impact of providing elderly care on labor force participation, focusing on sandwiched- generation women.

This essay seeks to analyze the daily reproduction of inequalities in and around a contemporary İstanbul civil courthouse. Based on an ethnographic study in three poor urban neighborhoods and their civil courthouse, I examine the mode of conduct in the latter and the ways in which this mode is perceived. This study shows that routinized divergences from formalistic premises in the courthouse are not perceived as flaws, but placed within informal relations. This enmeshing of formal and informal practices is considered normal by both the legal professionals and lay low-income litigants. These constituencies, however, perceive this conduct rather differently in relation to their own and others' attributes. Lay low-income litigants locate it within a broader idiom of “doing administration,” a series of tactics to engage within a horizon of perpetual injustice. For legal professionals, on the other hand, the daily mixing of formal and informal practices has to do with their mission of “educating” and transforming those in need to participate in the culture of the state. I discuss the particular relation of these two perceptions in normalizing the view of the law as a site, not of formal egalitarianism, but of hierarchical social engagements.

Islamic banks create an interest in their own right as a rising branch infinancial intermediation, particularly in the post-crisis era. In addition, theyalso deserve the attention of students of Islamism due to their possibleconnection with Islamic movements. Through a comparison of Islamic andconventional banking, we analyze the motivations and behavior of Islamiceconomic actors who determine the cash flow to Islamic banks. Our findingssuggest that, in contrast to popular views that portray these actors asideologues or financiers of radical Islam, they have pragmatic motivations andmay adapt to liberal systems in order to seize economic incentives.

The 1980s witnessed the rise of feminist and Islamic fundamentalist movements in Turkey. In diametrically opposed ways, both movements pushed the debate over women's issues and rights in Turkey into the spotlight of public discussion. The feminist movement made visible, and condemned, acts of physical violence against women, problematized women's lack of substantive rights, and the articles of the Criminal Code that discriminate against women. For the Islamic fundamentalists, on the other hand, women's right to wear headscarves in educational institutions and government offices was a focal and continuous rallying point throughout the 1980s. Less prominent have been campaigns by Islamic groups to segregate men and women in public life, by calling for separate buses, hospitals for men and women. While the feminist movement remained an informally organized, non-parliamentary opposition group, Islamists gained ground within state institutions by virtue of being a vocal constituency of the conservative ruling party in power since 1983. Apparently in response to the heightened debate concerning women's status, in the latter half of the 1980s and especially in the past year the government put legal measures into effect, creating legal obligations at the international level and institutional structures at the governmental level to address issues concerning women.

Widely recognized by nationalists, Islamists and conservatives as the heroine of the Turkish Right in the twentieth century, Sâmiha Ayverdi influenced the renaissance of right-wing politics in Turkey as an important leader of the Rifaȋ order, a prolific author, an unyielding anti-communist, and finally as an institution-builder for right-wing causes. This article focuses on the apparent paradoxes in Ayverdi's long career, such as her modernist interpretation of Islam, her relationship with her sufi master, preference for memoirs, and her unabashed elitism. Such characteristics defy clichés associated with the stereotypical conservative/nationalist/Islamist intellectual in Cold War Turkey. Our in-depth study of Ayverdi's works thus reveals the complexity of right-wing identities, and the fact that our protagonist is an outspoken woman intellectual also adds an important twist to the story.

In this study I propose to outline the political history of Cezayir-i Garp, the Ottoman province of Algeria, during the seventeenth century, while at the same time noting the correspondence between this history and the various developments at the center of the Ottoman Empire as well as in some of the provinces. This similarity suggests that Ottoman rule in Algeria was influenced by the same factors that affected the rest of the Empire. The pattern of development of the province's Ottoman elite, and the nature of this elite's behavior, reinforce its position within the imperial framework, even in periods when it was considered to be on a divergent path. My argument is that the history of the Ottoman province of Algeria was an integral part of an imperial pattern and structure forged by complex and dynamic relations between the imperial capital and its provinces.

“Song of the Children's Protection Society” (Himaye-i Etfal Türküsü)

Oh, Homeland! Homeland! Homeland!

It is these Turkish children

Who protect you, who make you shine,

Who increase your renown.

Oh, Nation! Nation! Nation!

It is these Turkish children

For whom you wished happiness

And created this great state.

It is these Turkish children

Who walk, crawl,

Who adorn your homes

Who await nurturance and assistance.

It is these Turkish children

For whom assistance should be endless.

Do not distinguish rich from poor,

They are all your eyes, your heart, and your equals.

It is these Turkish children

Who will be the guardians of the country tomorrow,

Armed with science and ammunition,

The grandchildren of the Grey Wolf.

-Aka Gündüz, 1929

The Turkish retail industry is experiencing a transformation towards larger-scale retailing. This restructuring has occurred at a time when an assertive corporate private sector has begun to look ready to take the leading role from the state in the development process; and when efforts (real and perceived) towards a cautious and gradual retreat of the state from economic activities have been intensified. This paper addresses the transformation and, because of the above mentioned simultaneity, places substantial emphasis on the role of the state in the development process and in the changes recently experienced in the distribution system. In the process, the paper compares the Turkish experience with those of other countries in which the role of the state has been far-reaching.

This paper explores how discourses of nationalism and neo-liberal conceptualizations of economic performance interact in Turkey, by analyzing cultural productions about business elites and workers in the media. I take up both business elites' attempts at self-representation and how mainstream media portrays them to argue that these actors attempt to draw the contours of national belonging with respect to economic success. Even though the representations are diverse in definitions of national identity, they all formulate service to the nation in terms of business success and market performance. In addition, struggles with syndicated labor also produce relevant discourses of economic necessity and rationality only to be challenged by other ideas of political belonging, drawing their force from social rights. These reveal the contingency of formulations that construct desirable citizenship on the basis of one's ability to contribute to economic growth. Through these examples, I suggest that discourses about market economies do not necessarily divest themselves of nation-state frameworks. Instead, they interact with cultural tools in local contexts, producing new social and political constellations that attempt to explain shifting social stratifications. I argue that these struggles over representation are part of a terrain of banal nationalism, transforming connotations of economic rationality, national belonging, and citizenship.

This paper explores how the state employs digital technologies in its pacification of dissident political bodies, subjectivities, and communicative capabilities. It explores strategies of resistance to the surveillance practices which come to the fore as a state form, as a means of social control, and as a mechanism for creating manageable and disciplined crowds. Drawing upon ethnographic data, it focuses on the contemporary politics of the Kurdish movement in Turkey. In particular, it analyses the digitized surveillance and resistance of Kurds, both of which function as crucial components of contemporary power regimes in Turkey.