Turkey’s association over the past thirty years with what is now known as the European Union has further stimulated the debate about the nature of European-Turkish relations. This debate began early in the nineteenth century, intensified after the modern Turkish state was founded, and has continued throughout the post-war period.

Because it derives from a conceptual heritage developed within a cohesive world of academic reviews, political journals, research projects, institutes, and other bodies and organizations, the body of literature accumulated during the last two decades, particularly during the 1980s, can be deciphered and its overt as well as latent reasoning sketched. The basic elements of this conceptual heritage come primarily from students of Turkish-European relations and Turcological historians, but also from public officials (such as diplomats and bureaucrats), military personnel, and researchers in social sciences.

The “East Asian miracle”, involving the phenomenal growth experience of countries such as South Korea and Taiwan, has attracted enormous intellectual attention in recent years. What has been striking in the development experience of countries like South Korea and Taiwan is not only their ability to achieve extremely high rates of economic growth, an average of nine to percent per annum sustained over the course of three decades, but also their capacity to combine these high rates of economic growth with equally striking performances in relation to other major indicators of development. These, in turn, include a relatively egalitarian pattern of income distribution, eradication of absolute poverty on a broad scale, significant employment creation as well as the virtual absence of macroeconomic crises. The Turkish experience also constitutes an interesting case of late industrialization from a comparative perspective. It is clearly a case of moderate success judged by the East Asian standards of economic growth. Furthermore, Turkey has displayed patterns of income inequality and macroeconomic instability that are, in many ways, closer to “Latin American” standards. Yet, from a different perspective, when we exclude the East Asian superperformers from our sample, Turkey’s growth performance, an average of five to six percent per annum over time, compares favorably with other late industrializers. Indeed, what makes Turkey particularly interesting and somewhat unique from a comparative perspective is that these reasonably high rates of economic growth and the creation of a substantial industrial base over time have been accomplished within the framework of broadly democratic institutions during the post-war period.

One of the main objectives of the Stabilization and Structural Adjustment Program (SSAP) introduced in Turkey in January 1980 was to transform the industrial trade strategy from archetypal import-substitution to export-orientation and to attain a higher level of integration with the international economy through market-based policies. International financial institutions like the IMF and, in particular, the World Bank have been closely involved in this process. Apart from a number of stand-by agreements with the IMF, Turkey received five successive structural adjustment loans from the World Bank during 1980-84 with their conditionality extending into a wide range of spheres like import liberalization, export promotion, and financial liberalization. Not only was Turkey one of the first to conclude such agreements with the World Bank, it was also identified as one of the countries complying with their provisions with “low slippage”.3 Even when there were no formal agreements, successive governments since 1980 have had very close and amicable relations with both of these Bretton Woods institutions.

The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the economic aspects of armament expenditures in Turkey in recent years. There are two forms of arms acquisitions: purchasing from abroad and purchasing from domestic arms producers. In both cases, the government is the sole purchasing and/or ordering body. When purchasing from domestic producers, the government expresses a preference in terms of promoting a new industrial activity. Hence the acquisition decisions of the Turkish armed forces are reflected onto the markets through the government. This is the main reason why armament decisions do not remain solely in the political and/or military domain, but have serious economic implications, the means of financing being the most important.

The process of contemporary globalization in its most general form involves a tension between universalism and particularism (see Robertson, 1992, pp. 8-61). On the one hand, with Francis Fukuyama’s “the end of history thesis” which suggests universalization of liberal democracy, along with the globalization of free market ideology, the dissolution of differences into sameness can be said to mark an emergence of cultural homogenization. On the other hand, it can be suggested that particularistic conflicts have begun to dictate the mode of articulation of political practices and ideological/discursive forms in global relations, which draws our attention to the tendency towards cultural heteroge-nization. Arjun Appadurai asserts in this context that “the central problem of today’s global interactions is the tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization”, or, as he puts it:

the central feature of global culture today is the politics of the mutual effort of sameness and difference to cannibalize one another and thus to proclaim their successful hijacking of the twin Enlightenment ideas of the triumphantly universal and the resiliently particular (Appadurai, 1990, p. 17).

In accord with a widespread belief that “modernization” brings about improvement in the quality of life, it is also sometimes assumed that in communities undergoing urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization the older generation will enjoy more leisure time than did their own parents. Whether or not this might be true generally, the reverse seems to be true for farm families in two villages in southwestern Turkey.

Thirty years ago, living in one of these villages, I was struck by a pattern that contrasted with my own experiences first as a Midwestern farmgirl and later as an urbanite in the Midwest and California. That is, parents in this village, dubbed Dutluk (Mulberry Orchard), typically enjoyed semi-retirement by the time their oldest son was in his mid-twenties. During this stage of their lives, these middle-aged and older people spent a good deal of their time in civic activities, socializing with friends, playing with the grandchildren, grooming the cows, etc. The older generation was also more likely than the younger one to perform the namaz (ritual prayer) daily. The married son(s) and daughter(s)-in-law did most of the strenuous work, although unmarried sons and daughters also did increasing amounts of work as they matured.