İrem Hacıalioğlu
March 2010
Modernization in Turkey response paper
TURKISH MODERNIZATION: UNITY IN DIVERSITY (AND AMBIGUITY)
In this paper, I firstly aim to briefly explain what modernization is through different approaches and by different scholars; and then I will speak of the constituents of modernization. Secondly, I will describe the reformist movements starting from the late imperial era of the Ottomans to the early republican times, looking closer to the perceptions of the society on those reforms, the ‘progress’ -as it was put- itself, and namely the modernization process. Lastly, I will try to show how the changes affected Turkey, linking ‘now’ to ‘then’. I will mostly make use of Reşat Kasaba’s work Kemalist Certainties and Modern Ambiguities; because I personally believe that the effect of modernization on Turkey can be understood at looking at dilemmas in all areas of development and that what we understand –as a country- from the values presented in the question are all hidden in those paradoxes and ambivalences.
Fundamentally, modernization refers to the transition process of a particular state from a traditional era to a modern one. Early modernists such as Gabriel Almond, Sydney Verba, Samuel Huntington and Lucian Pye demonstrated modernization as a linear process and they simply made a distinction between what is ‘traditional’ and what is ‘modern’ in terms of values. Almond and Verba (1963) argued that modern men and women tend to judge others by universalistic standards – to believe in the possibility and desirability of change; to think about issues outside the sphere of one’s family, neighborhood, or village; to believe that one can influence the political system.[1] Those people often equated modernism with Westernism and saw it as a process of getting developing nations to think and act more like Western. Marion Levy even stated that “The more highly societies become, the more they resemble one another.” [2] While these examples of modernization theory are not so respectably referenced today, dependency theory got its hold on explaining development and modernization. I believe that the Ottomon-Turkish modernization process cannot be explained through modernization theory and that it is more of an example of the dependency theory. I will not go into detail on this particular issue but by the end of this paper I am assuming that the reader will have grasped this idea of Turkish modernization not having certainties/absolute ideologies to follow up a certain path.
As Marshall Berman puts it, modernization refers to “generalized images which summarize the various transformations of social life attendant upon the rise of a market society and the nation-state.”[3] But Reşat Kasaba uses modernization in a little different concept, as “the freeing of individuals and communities from some of their traditional obligations, enabling them to take part in the expanding market society.” There, we can say, are three different constituents of modernization. First, growth of the market society, economy to be open up to international arena, thus newly emerging institutions, organizations and practices; second, a countermovement of protection, redefinition of institutions; and then the discourse on human rights and freedoms and their creations (again as new institutions).
During 1830s, Ottoman Empire officials realized that the empire could not maintain with the war booty anymore, and that unless they keep up with the new world order (international trade – as an outcome of a liberal economy; liberalism, technological developments), they would not survive as a whole. Thus, the Ottoman economy and markets became linked to the European markets and Ottoman Empire successfully adopted the first constituent of modernization according to the earlier sub-division in the previous paragraph. We can reference to the Balkan rebellions as protectionist countermovement. And lastly, with the edicts made in the earlier 19th Century, we could say that the Ottoman Empire demonstrated the practice of the third constituent of modernization; the discourse of human rights and freedoms.
Bernard Lewis states that after turning their backs to Asia during the Middle Ages, Turks returned to their rightful path in the 18th Century by turning to the West once again, for modeling their imperial institutions after the Western ones.[4] Although Lewis was criticized for his generalizations and his idea of equating modernism with Westernism, Reşat Kasaba makes use of his works and backs up his idea of ‘ambiguities against certainties’, making contra-arguments to Lewis’s. Kasaba picks out some statements made in Lewis’s classic, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, and he explains what I aim to demonstrate in this paper. I will return to this subject after a brief summary of the earlier reforms.
If I am to give details about the reforms, I should again touch on the need of opening up to the international market. Trade was not only in the hands of the non-Muslims and not surprisingly new kinds of laws were needed; namely the commerce laws. Bill of Alliance (1808) was signed in order for the Sultan to share his administrative power with the grand vizier. Edict of Tanzimat (1839) was introduced to the people which was guaranteeing lives and properties, equitable collection of taxes and free trial for everyone. Then came the Edict of Reform (1856) which strengthened the earlier edict and afterwards the Kanun-i Esasi (1876), the first Ottoman constitution was put forward.
These reforms led to some disparities, all because they drew the attentions of many groups within the empire and while people in a way were very keen on being ‘civilized’ and ‘advanced’ they were also promoting the usage of Sheria in their lives. Because in the Ottoman way of live, state was mostly tagged with religion as religion was also tagged with the state. They were inseparable. Thus, the perception of the people would reflect the same notion; they were dependent on each other and that even the Sultan (who was again linked with state in a ‘heavenly’ way) represented this unity within his existence. As Kasaba also puts it, people were not necessarily clear-minded about modernization and this dilemma was even in the literature of the Ottomans. [5]
In the following years, from the late imperial time to the republican era, political elites saw themselves as the most important among the people and that they felt they were the only median who can forcibly bring about a social change to whatever era they are in. They regarded the society as a ‘project’, thus the people become the objects of their experiments. A top-down process was taking hold and that the elites were thinking that the behaviors of the people could easily be molded if the environmental change takes place first. Especially the Young Turks of Ottomans and Kemalist leaders of Turkey sampled the Jacobins who were the revolutionist group in France in late 1700s. Turkish admirers of Jacobins have also put a line in between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ (as they simplify it) after they came to power. While doing these, they kind of worshipped science, and instead of seeing it as something that they should be engaged in, doing it by themselves; they regarded it as it was something that could be borrowed for specific purposes. Thus, they thought that the religious life, like moral and economic life, must also be reformed on scientific lines.
Therefore, science can be one of the sides of the approaches of Ottoman-Turkish modernism. The other would be the nation-state idea. Early Enlightenment philosophers had a broader vision in terms of progress. They thought of progress universally. But towards the end of the 19th Century, the rise of nation-state throughout Europe had elites and political leaders thinking it in a narrower concept which prevented some of the cultures from integrating to progress. People started to believe that some of the cultures cannot develop if they did not leave their identities. This also affected Turkish nationalists and while ambiguities were out of tolerance, certainties took hold. Those people wanted to create ethnically solid communities with the same patterns in terms of culture and identity. They saw the survival in an homogenous society. All in all, all these perceptions were seen as vital pieces of modernism.
Political elites excluded Islamists and non-Muslims from the progress process they were leading. Also, any other ideas or institutions rather than theirs were labeled as dangerous. They simply looked down upon other people. New textbooks were written through their perceptions of modernism and all of these were made in the name of a social engineering process.
After a matter of time, namely right after the multi-party system was established in 1946, people started to look back on their history. Especially after the 1980 military coup, institutions, cultures, beliefs and identities became questionable. The top-down process of a ‘linear’ modernization failed to go on. Thus, a social flux started. People with questions became intolerant to the ones without questions, and vice versa. Some saw questioning of all the values as reactionary, and some saw it necessary in order to live in a pluralist society.
Today, all the differences between Turks and minorities (mostly the Kurds), secularists and Islamists, rural people and urban people are still becoming more and more pronounced. Fights in terms of human rights and freedoms are taking place. Despite many views regarding them as ‘dangerous’ now, I believe that this is also a process that we need to go through. We are still living in dilemma in many areas of life, but it is clear that another top-down intervention cannot be expected as we, as individuals, should, by ourselves, carry out the changes. I am not questioning the way things were done in the past; as I did nothing but explaining why we perceive things how we perceive today – and not judging it. I just ‘see it from today’ that we do not need further interventions of any kind and I believe that we, ultimately, will be capable of living without absolute and certain ways of thinking.
[1] Gabriel Almond & Sydney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
[2] Marion Levy, Jr.. 1967. “Social Patterns and Problems of Modernization” in Readings on Social Change, ed. Wilbert Moore and Robert Coole. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
[3] Berman, Marshall. 1982. All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
[4] Lewis, Bernard. 1966. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. New York, London: Oxford University Press.
[5] Kasaba, Reşat. 1997. “Kemalist Certanties and Modern Ambiguities” in Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, eds. Bozdoğan, S. and Reşat Kasaba. Seattle: University of Washington.
Political Ideologies Response Paper
Movie Report (dandirik papers vol. 8899876)
Title: It’s A Free World…
Writer: Paul Laverty
Director: Ken Loach
(...) THE CIRCLE ONLY HAS ONE SIDE*
In the movie It’s A Free World…, the writer Paul Laverty and the director who’s famous for his political films, Ken Loach, tell us about the vicious cycle of capitalism through some characters. The movie is basically about the world order we are practicing today and presents us the story of a once-worker-now-boss woman and a group of immigrant workers coming to England to – simply – keep on living. The title itself, actually, gives us an idea about what we should be expecting. We are living in a free world, as it’s been said for a matter of time; but are all the people actually allowed to be free?
The people who hold the means of production, who are employers, from any background or any level (no matter how wealthy they are), who are living at the cost of other people’s lives are the targetted in the movie. Their way of living is questioned and criticized.
The main character, Angie, is an employee working for an employment agency in which she is surrounded mostly by men, and she is portrayed as she would not really get to the point where she wants to be in her career - as a woman. One day she gets mobbed by one of her bosses. She reactions instead of keeping quiet and she gets fired the next day. At this point, we see her as a rightful worker who demands justice and we applaud her reaction. But things change in the next scenes where she decides to open up an agency with a friend and starts exploiting immigrant workers for her own profit. She does exactly the same as what she had seen in her previous job. We realize that nothing changes; nothing but the roles and the characters.
Ken Loach wants to make sure that his message is transmitted: it is only a free world for the ones who can be free. The sentence coming out of Angie’s mouth to her friend Rose says it all when Rose asks her to pay the workers their money: “If you really want to pay them, you can pay them out of your own pocket; it’s a free world!”
Yes, it was a free world but to those workers, freedom only meant a day with food and little money to look after the ones they are responsible to. They did not ask for more or less. We could get the idea from one of the scenes, actually, where Angie’s son was taken away from home by the immigrant worker for a couple of minutes. Those people who captured Jamie never hurt him and never told him anything that might frighten him. They were just concerned about equity and justice. And the only addressee was Angie, no other person or nothing else. I think this was a good detail.
On the other hand, in spite of how crucial Angie seems, Loach secretly tells that no matter how rightful and sensitive you might be, the system forces you to exploit others once you get the chance. Angie has got her own reasons for doing that and maybe Rose do not have that kind of reasons but that does not mean that she will not have one day. Thus, we can say that the director knows not everything is just black or white and he wants us to realize that fact too. It is just the system which took root and stays there strongly with just one solid color.
If we stopped to think like a social scientist and think more like a liberalist (and as a matter of fact, like a neo-liberalist), we might further this last argument. Maybe the movie does not efficiently tell us about the patterns that drive all these people to be this way. And maybe Social Darwinism is right in a way and instead of complaining we should all be pursuing our own ways 'out'. Or maybe it is just a corrupted form of the system we are faced today and that the modern/contemporary social liberalism has nothing to do with it.
Still, there is this cycle and no doubt we are a part of it.
Irem Hacialioglu
Murray State University
Writing for Social Sciences
Poisiton Paper - April 2009
Running head: WOMEN’S QUOTA
Positive Discrimination for Women in Politics
The Issue
While social and economic position of women has improved in many countries over years, and female enrollment in higher education and labor force participation has risen, women empowerment in elected office is still far behind. Majority of the women in the world today are still suffering from not being able to be represented equally as men, in the decision-making mechanisms of all kinds. Particularly in politics, women’s representation is very low since statistics (Inter-Parliamentary Union, Women in National Parliaments, 2005) show that eight and a half out of ten members of national parliaments worldwide are men.
This issue brings out the problematic side about how values like human rights, democracy and equality are practiced. If women in the world today constitute the half of the population and still cannot get a chance to be equally represented as men in politics, then democracy and equality become ‘so called’. This also leads to the suspension of the ‘common good’. This problem can only be solved by implementing quotas – in other words, positive discrimination, favoring women. The implementation should last to some extent and should be restricted in time. Whenever the goal of using quotas is reached, namely when the women are finally represented equally as men, it should be called off to avoid any further inequalities from occuring.
Why and How to Increase Women’s Representation?
There are several reasons why an extra effort is vital to help increase the representation of women in politics. First of all, it is essential for the practice of an effective democracy. By definition, democracy requires countries with democratic administrations to treat every single individual equally; providing them equality of opportunity. Thus, a democratic country cannot afford to let one of the genders involve more in the decision-making, since participation in the management or in government is a human right according to the 21st Article of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations (UN) (1948).
Equal representation is also needed to improve the status of women. Without setting a gender approach into the decision-making process, countries cannot develop in terms of modernity. Because, it is parliament’s, government’s and any other public bodies’s task to decide on how the distribution of social opportunities to the different segments of the society should take place. Thus, it is very important to have women as well as men, in such mechanisms to make sure the distribution takes place more equally.
All of these taken into consideration, many countries in the world today are setting policies and taking actions towards the issue. Equal participation of women and men in public life and in politics is one of the cornerstones of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 1979 and is in force since 1981. Countries that signed the convention are bound to take measures to promote women’s participation in decision-making and leadership positions. Most of these countries adopted the quota system to stick to the convention. In 1995, the UN 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing, named “the Beijing Platform for Action”, renewed the pressure for the implementation of the provisions of CEDAW. Even the former UN Seceretary-General Kofi Annan stated that “Peace is inextricably linked to equality between women and men. Maintaining and promoting peace and security requires equal participation in decision-making.”
Soon, positive discrimination, namely setting quotas favoring women in politics became a joint resolution for most of the countries, both the ones that had taken part in CEDAW and the ones that had not. In sum, positive discrimination for women is regarded as a political action taken to better the opportunities of a disadvantageous group, in other words; a step taken to make sure every group starts the race at the same level.
Why Quota? Pros and Cons
Tan, Ecevit, Usur, and Acuner (2008), the authors of the publication named “Gender Inequality in Turkey: Problems, Priorities and Solution Overtures” argue that setting gender quotas is an intervention not to the decision of the voter, but to the process of determining the candidates. This argument is very just not only because it makes a rightful definition of the term but also it answers some of the questions of the opponents of quota system.
Academics and activists who oppose to the system hold that setting gender quotas is undemocratic because it prevents voters from deciding who is going to be elected and it encumbers the equality of opportunity. This point of view is a little biased and defective; because a recent research of Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) (2007) show that, in most of the existing election systems in the world today, candidates are determined beforehand, by the elector bodies of the political parties and presented to the people, afterwards; which means people elect their own candidate of choice, freely. Moreover, it is again proven by the same institute that, in countries which practice quota systems, setting quotas is a step taken towards to be more democratic as it actually paves the way to a society where equality of opportunity is practiced more – with the help of special measures.
Another opposed view argues that what important in politics is the individual qualifications and not the gender, therefore; politicians should not be elected just because they are women. This view lacks the fact that women are also as qualified as men, but their qualifications are often disregarded because they are seen as to be in the secondary roles in a society. Furthermore, quotas imply that a number of women together in a committee can minimize the stress experienced by the women in the society.
Another negative argument is that, introducing quotas may cause conflicts within the organization of political parties and may lead to a bigger conflict for the country. This argument can be altered with the answer, “Yes, but temporarily.” Opponents of gender quotas often neglect the fact that women have the right as citizens to equal representation and that experiences of women are needed in political life.
Conclusion
Based on this research, I came to realize that supporting quotas for women is like demanding intervention from the state – which is a little socialistic, in terms of distribution of services. On the contrary, opposing quotas for women is like a Social Darwinist kind of idea – which holds that the state should not intervene in anything and the society should be left on its own, so the fittest in the society can survive and everything can occur evolving by itself. As this ideology does not have many followers today and the modern states choose to regulate most areas (like the social services), if not all, it would not be improper to say that values like democracy and equality need extra effort to be thoroughly practiced.
Overall, most of the academics and their works on the issue show that using gender quotas is sine qua non on the way to a more democratic and equal representation. Their significant works prove this paper’s argument that the equality and democracy do not occur all by themselves, therefore taking positions and putting up measures is what there is to be done, strategically.
References
Ballington, Julie (2005). Introduction. In J. Ballington & A. Karam (Eds.), Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. A Revised Edition. Section 1. (pp. 23–30). Stockholm: Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
Dahlerup, Drude (2005). Increasing Women’s Political Representation: New Trends in Gender Quotas. In In J. Ballington & A. Karam (Eds.), Women in Parliament: Beyond Numbers. A Revised Edition. Section 2. (pp. 141–153). Stockholm: Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA).
(2007) Geçici Özel Önlem Politikası: Kota (Temporary Special Measure Policy: Quota). Kota El Kitabı (Quota Handbook). Istanbul: Publication of Women Candidates Association of Turkey (KA-DER).
Tan, M., Ecevit, Y., Usur, S. S. & Acuner, S. (2008). Turkiye’de Toplumsal Cinsiyet Esitsizligi: Sorunlar, Oncelikler ve Cozum Onerileri (Gender Inequality in Turkey: Problems, Priorities and Solution Overtures). Istanbul: Publication of Women Entrepreneurs Association of Turkey (KAGIDER).
Norris, Pippa (2000). Breaking the Barriers: Positive Discrimination Policies for Women. In Jyette Klausen and Charles S. Maier (Eds.), Has Liberalism Failed Women? Parity, Quotas and Political Representation: Assuring Equal Representation in Europe and the United States. Chapter 10. (pp. 89–110). New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Whittington, S. (2004). UN Goals for Gender Mainstreaming. Conference on Women and Post-War Reconstruction: Strategies for Implementation of Democracy Building Policies. Miami: Florida International University.
Şarkı Söyleyip Dans Edelim ve Sosyal Bilgiler derslerimde A+'ya doymuyorum ama Amerika'nın Avrupa Parlamentosu'ndaki komite sistemini neden uygulamaması gerektiği ile ilgili bikaç sağlam argüman yazıp bu gerizekalı policy brief projemi tamamlamazsam asıl derslerimden birinden kalmam işten bile değil. Okusun diye gönderdiniz, artist olup gelecek. I'm cool as the other side of your pillow.
Ödevlerle başım dertte. Pazartesiye yetişmesi gereken öküz uzunluğunda 2 deli ödev var. Bu vücut, bu kafa böyle zulmü doğduğundan beri ilk kez görüyor. Hayatımda hiç son 4,5 ayda yaptığım kadar ödev yapmadım. Şimdi söyleyeceğim şey kesinlikle abartı, yanlış/eksik bilgi ya da bir manipülasyon içermiyor: Ödevsiz geçen tek günüm, quizsiz/testsiz geçen tek haftam olmadı.
Bugün Intl. Honors Day, All Campus Sing'deki dehşetengiz başarımız taçlandırılacak. Yarın da barbekü partisi yapıcaz. Mekan geniş, bilmeyenlere futbol oynamayı öğretmeyi planlıyorum. Soccer denmez, futbol denir demek istiyorum. Niyeyse futbol aşkım kabardı. Ayrıca İngiliz karşılaştırmalı politika hocası Galatasaray'ı çok beğendiğini söyledi ve "Galatasaray is big in Europe" dedi. :) "Peki Fenerbahçe?" dedim, yüzünü buruşturdu.
Shivaree ile pelteleştikten sonra The Chemical Brothers ile ayıldım. Bu kardeşler ödeve birebir. İki şarkıda bir sayfa bitti. Mucize.
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