Ataturk And The Modernization Of Turkey

Jacob M Landau

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429725913
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who founded the Republic of Turkey sixty years ago, dedicated himself to westernizing the Turkish state and its society and culture. In this first attempt to evaluate Ataturk's overall contribution to the modernization of Turkey, an international group of scholars examine a broad range of subjects, including the Kemalist

Part 1
Kemalist Ideology

1
The Kemalist Regime and Modernization: Some Comparative and Analytical Remarks

S.N. Eisenstadt

The Classical Theories of Modernization

In the following pages we shall attempt to analyze some aspects of the Kemalist regime and the transformation of Turkish society under its aegis from the point of view of the comparative study of modernization, thus throwing light on the validity of different theories of modernization.

A closer look at the Kemalist experience exposes the relative inadequacy of those early theories of modernization which posited a unilinear development or transition from traditional to modern societies, and a movement of the latter toward some common end stage.

The studies of development and modernization that became, from the Second World War, a major focus of research in sociology, political science, economics and anthropology heralded a revived interest in comparative macro-sociological studies, in the dynamics of various civilizations, in the relations and contrasts between modern and premodern western and non-western civilizations, and in the historical process, which had been among the major foci of classical sociological theories. These studies also served as the background for most aid and development programs undertaken by national and international agencies.

The emphasis was on how to "develop" the "under-developed" societies. New analytic approaches and new methodological tools of inquiry were used in post-Keynesian and econometric studies, attitude studies, survey research, demographic and ecological research, and in sociological and political analysis. This work linked up with some of the major theoretical developments in those fields, especially the "systemic" and structural-functional approaches to social and political life.

This combination of developments in sociological theory with research into the "Third World" reopened the major classical problems of sociological theory. These included the characteristics and internal dynamics of various types of societies, their processes of change and conditions of stability, the process of transition from one type of society to another, and the extent to which such transition evinces a discernible universal evolutionary tendency from the simple to the complex. The analysis of historical process thus came back to the forefront of sociological concern and theory.

The research that developed out of these concerns and dominated comparative studies in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s attempted first of all to identify the differences between traditional and modern societies. These were defined in many ways by using socio-demographic indices such as urbanization, occupational structure, the spread of the communications media and the like. They were also defined in terms of structural differences—traditional societies being characterized, to use Parson's terminology, by particularistic and ascriptive criteria of role allocation, and modern societies by universalistic and achievement criteria. These differences between traditional and modern societies were couched in most of the studies in terms of the respective range of systemic problems with which they could cope, or environments—both internal (social, cultural) and external (technological, economic)—which they could "master."

From this perspective, traditional societies were perceived as very restrictive and limited, whereas modem societies were seen as much more expansive and adaptable to a widening range of internal and external environments and problems. Special emphasis was given to the ability to cope with change in general, and with economic development and industrialization in particular. Such qualities of modern life as rationality, liberty, or progress, which had engaged the classics of sociology, were now subsumed under the "systemic" aspects of societies. Although not entirely neglected, they were seen, or assumed, to follow naturally from the capacity to grow and to absorb change.

The vision of the historical process associated with these developments was very much in line with the classical evolutionary view, heavily stressing the passage of most societies through rather similar intermediate stages towards the common end stage of modernity.

Given the strong emphasis on development, it was not sufficient to stress the differences between traditional and modem societies. No less important was the question of how the transition from traditional to modern could be effected. The model that guided this body of research implied that the development of a viable, growth-sustaining, modern society that would enable a continuous growth in the various socio-demographic and/or structural indices mentioned above necessitated the almost total destruction of all traditional elements. When scholars working within this paradigm addressed themselves to the problems of transition, they developed two crucial assumptions: the process of modernization tends to follow relatively similar patterns in the economic, political and other institutional spheres; and once the institutional kernels of a modern system are established in any one of these areas they lead to similar, irreversible structural and organizational developments in all social spheres and to sustained growth in the common evolutionary direction.

These assumptions were especially important in guiding the initial analysis of "transitional" societies and their variability, but the very attempts to explain this variability gradually undermined the initial model of modernization. This is most apparent in the way the concept of stages was utilized, and in the explanation of the varied ability of traditional societies to effect the transition.

Typologically, transitional societies, standing between traditional and modern societies on different indexes of "modernization," constituted a special developmental "stage." However, the concept also acquired a dynamic connotation that stressed the historical transitionality of such societies, and the inherent tendencies which pushed them in the direction of modernity. By virtue of this connotation the systemic qualities and the static, self-perpetuating tendencies of transitional societies were subordinated to their presumed "dynamic" tendencies to develop in the direction of the end-stage of modernity, even though it was sometimes acknowledged that societies may "halt" at some intermediate stage.

Accordingly, nonmodern societies were studied in terms of their relative resistance to internal or external forces of modernization. Even though there was a growing recognition of the possible diversity of traditional societies, it was still assumed that such diversity would virtually disappear at the end-stage of modernity.

These general assumptions were also shared by the various theories of the convergence of industrial societies. Both the theories of modernization and those of convergence assumed that it was the organizational dynamics of economic and political institutions, especially those shaped by industrial technology, that provided the dynamic force or structure of any complex society. Both theories assumed that as the world became more and more developed and industrialized, societies would become relatively more similar, because the internal dynamics of modernization or industrialization created certain organizational and institutional problems which tended to obliterate any major differences in institutional patterns.

The theories assumed that differences were stronger at the start of change and therefore most evident in the period of transition. The more societies became modernized, developed and industrialized, the more similar they became, leaving only the area of folkloristic usages and customs as a sort of survival of tradition, varying greatly from one society to another.

Thus they portrayed a world growing more and more homogeneous under the driving force of technology and industrialization and, to some degree, of the tendency toward wider political participation.

The Breakdown of the Paradigm

By the 1950s and early 1960s, both the momentum of research and developments on the world scene made it more and more clear that the various assumptions analyzed above were unable to explain either the specific changes that had occurred in various modern and modernizing societies or the institutional constellations that developed within them.

It became apparent that the various socio-demographic or structural indices of modernization could indicate only the extent to which traditional, self-contained societies or communities had weakened or disintegrated, or to paraphrase the title of Daniel Lerner's book—the extent to which traditional society is passing. They could not by themselves indicate the extent to which a viable modern or posttraditional society capable of continuous growth might develop, or exactly what kind of society would develop and what its institutional contours would be.

Similarly, it became clear that the mere destruction of traditional forms of life did not necessarily assure the development of a viable modern society, and that the disruption of traditional family, community, or even political settings often tends to lead to disorganization, delinquency and chaos rather than to the foundation of a viable modern order.

There was also a growing awareness that in many countries modernization had been successfully implemented under the aegis of traditional symbols, and even by traditional elites. In such countries, many tokens of tradition—the Emperor in Japan, the symbols of the realm in Britain, the symbols of provincial life in Holland—were retained or even reinforced. In other cases, as for instance Russia, the modernizing elites tried, even if haltingly, to revive such traditional symbols after early attempts to undermine them.

The recognition that the earlier assumptions were inadequate for the analysis of many new nations has given rise to the concepts of "breakdowns" of modernization and "political decay." Researchers have analyzed the conditions under which such breakdowns and political decay take place. The concept of "traditional" societies has emerged as a key tool in the study of modernization.

But these concepts and analyses were still largely bound by some of the premises of the earlier models. The studies did not ask what might happen after such a "breakdown" occurred, or what type of socio-political order could develop after such periods of decay. It seems that they somehow assumed, if only implicitly, that a breakdown would be followed by either a new recuperation towards modernity, or a general regression towards some (unspecified) chaotic instability.

In actual fact, while the elements of chaos and institutional instability were not lacking—whether in Africa or Burma, in Indonesia or Latin America—this very instability often tended to evincc a continuous and systematic pattern of its own. Breakdowns or stagnation did not necessarily lead to the total collapse of the new regimes or to their return to traditional social and political forms. These polities certainly differ in many ways from the "older" modern polities of the West; nor do they necessarily develop in the direction of other models of modernity like Russia or Japan. Yet however strong their similarity to their traditional settings, they are by no means any longer simple replications of those settings. Moreover, however stagnant or unstable the regimes may seem to be they evince some capabilities for reorganization and continuity, developing various internal and external policies aimed at assuring for themselves the conditions of such continuity.

The new developments have shown that while the older theories are indeed of great importance in the analysis of common problems stemming from such processes as urbanization and industrialization—problems which do indeed consistently arise in the different stages of development—they are unable to explain the specific institutional modes of coping with these problems, which vary between societies, or the crises that develop within these societies.

Thus, for example, it is not possible to explain the relative instability of Turkey's democratic regime, the propensity to military take-overs, or the specific characteristics of the country's military regimes in terms of the degree of urbanization, exposure to mass media, and the like. One must analyze the institutional contours of the Kemalist regime that developed out of the specific historical experience of Turkey. In particular, one must examine the country's basic cultural orientations; the structure of its primary elite and the modes of constitutional control; the international system impinging on it and its mode of incorporation into that system; the structure of its secondary elites; and the movement of protest that developed over the years.

The Specificity of the Turkish Revolution

A good way to analyze these specific aspects of the Turkish historical experience and their repercussions for the modern institutional contours of Turkey is to compare the Kemalist revolution with the great "classical" revolutions in England, America, France and Russia.

The special background characteristics of the Turkish revolution greatly influenced the institutional pattern of the postrevolutionary Kemalist regime, distinguishing it from other modern postrevolutionary regimes. However, before analyzing these specific patterns, it might be worthwhile to stress the characteristics which the Turkish revolution shared with other modern revolutions.

All these revolutions pushed the societies in which they took place toward modernization in both the organizational and the symbolic spheres. The postrevolutionary societies experienced growing structural differentiation and specialization. They became integrated into international organizational frameworks and markets; market economies and modern industrial or semi-industrial institutional frameworks were developed; relatively open, non-traditional systems of stratification and mobility were elaborated, in which criteria of achievement—economic, occupational and educational—become relatively predominant; traditional strata formation was weakened and replaced by more open class formation in the structuring of social hierarchies and centralized political systems. These organizational changes were closely associated with the basic premises of the revolutionary image—freedom and solidarity—and with their basic institutional derivatives—the undermining of traditional legitimation, the restructuring of centerperiphery relations, the growing impingement of the periphery on the center in the name of revolutionary premises, and the far-reaching transformation of the nature and contents of societal centers and of the rules of access to them.

Such social transformation, of course, took place in varying degrees in all the modern and modernizing societies. In revolutionary societies it occurred by means of violent upheavals and through specific constellations of processe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• About the Book and the Editor
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction: Atatürk's Achievement: Some Considerations
• PART 1: KEMALIST IDEOLOGY
• PART 2: POLITICAL CULTURE AND BUREAUCRACY
• PART 3: SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES
• PART 4: WESTERNISM AND CULTURE
• PART 5: PERCEPTIONS OF KEMALISM
• List of Contributors
• Index