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Department: search.filters.department.Department of SociologySubject: search.filters.subject.Social sciences

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 25
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    Between Neo-Ottomanism and Ottomania: navigating state-led and popular cultural representations of the past
    (Cambridge Univ Press, 2017) Karakaya, Yağmur; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Ergin, Murat; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 106427
    In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the official state discourse and popular culture. This nostalgia appropriates, reinterprets, decontextualizes, and juxtaposes formerly distinct symbols, ideas, objects, and histories in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we distinguish between state-led neo-Ottomanism and popular cultural Ottomania, focusing on the ways in which people in Turkey are interpellated by these two different yet interrelated discourses, depending on their social positions. As the boundary between highbrow and popular culture erodes, popular cultural representations come to reinterpret and rehabilitate the Ottoman past while also inventing new insecurities centering on historical truth. Utilizing in-depth interviews, we show that individuals juxtapose the popular television series Muhteem Yuzyl (The Magnificent Century) with what they deem proper history, in the process rendering popular culture a false version. We also identify four particular interpretive clusters among the consumers of Ottomania: for some, the Ottoman Empire was the epitome of tolerance, where different groups lived peacefully; for others, the imperial past represents Turkish and/or Islamic identities; and finally, critics see the empire as a burden on contemporary Turkey.
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    Bringing registration into models of vote overreporting
    (Oxford Univ Press, 2007) Fullerton, Andrew S.; Borch, Casey; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Dixon, Jeffrey C.; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    Voting is a socially desirable act and a basic form of political participation in the United States. This social desirability sometimes leads respondents in surveys, such as the National Election Study (NES), to claim to have voted when they did not. The methodology of previous studies assumes that people only overreport voting and that the sample of potential overreporters (i.e., nonvalidated voters) is not systematically different from the sample of potential voters. In this research note, we explore several different ways of examining the determinants of overreporting at two different stages (registering and voting) and with a consideration for selection bias. Comparing the traditional probit model used in previous research with sequential and heckit probit models, we find that the determinants of overreporting registering and voting differ substantially. In addition, there is a significant selection effect at the registration stage of overreporting. We conclude with a discussion of contemporary implications for pre-election polling and the postelection analysis of survey data.
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    Caring for the poor: Islamic and Christian benevolence in a liberal world.
    (Cambridge Univ Press, 2019) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
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    Class and politics in Turkey's Gezi protests
    (New Left Rev Ltd, 2014) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Yörük, Erdem; Yüksel, Murat; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 28982; N/A
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    Diaspora engagement in the United States: the case of India and Turkey
    (Taylor and Francis, 2018) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Akçapar, Şebnem Köşer; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 221081
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    Economic crises and the social structuring of economic hardship: the impact of the 2001 Turkish crisis
    (Cambridge Univ Press, 2011) N/A; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Rankin, Bruce; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    Drawing on a growing cross-national literature on the social impact of economic crises, this paper investigates the social structuring of economic hardship among urban households in Turkey following the 2001 economic crisis. My goal is to compare the Turkish crisis to other recent crises, particularly in Latin America and Asia, and to assess competing claims about the vulnerability of different social groups. Using data from the study entitled Turkish Family Life under Siege a nationally representative sample of urban households of work-aged married couples the results paint a picture of widespread social devastation as measured by key labor market outcomes: job loss, unemployment duration, earnings instability, and under-employment. The findings suggest that existing patterns of social inequality related to class and status education, age, ethnicity, and occupation were reinforced and exacerbated by the 2001 macro-economic crisis. In contrast to claims that the impact was skewed towards higher socio-economic groups, the brunt of the 2001 crisis was felt by disadvantaged social groups with few assets to buffer economic hardship. Economic hardship was higher among labor force participants who are younger, less educated, male, Kurdish-speakers, private-sector employees, and residents of non-central regions. I discuss the implications with respect to the previous research on economic crises, the role of Turkish contextual factors, and the need for social policy reform, particularly in the context of the current global economic crisis.
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    Eternal life as privilege: cultural boundaries and social stratification in death announcements (1950-2010)
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Ergin, Murat; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities
    Behind a veneer of "disinterested" concern, death rituals reflect and reproduce patterns of social and cultural stratification. This paper examines 296,483 death announcements published in a Turkish daily newspaper in a 60-year timespan. The content analysis of the texts shows that, first, the discourses around death reveal the complex overlaps between cultural boundaries and social stratification. Second, the patterns of social and cultural stratification in death announcements interweave with broad historical trends, making it possible to "read" societies through the lens of death. These historical trends map onto foundational issues, such as the gender gap, neoliberal transformations, modernization, and religiosity.
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    How the west came to rule: the geopolitical origins of capitalism
    (Cambridge Univ Press, 2017) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
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    Human rights, humanitarianism, and state violence: medical documentation of torture in Turkey
    (Wiley, 2016) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Can, Başak Bulut; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219278
    State authorities invested in developing official expert discourses and practices to deny torture in post-1980 coup d''etat Turkey. Documentation of torture was therefore crucial for the incipient human rights movement there in the 1980s. Human rights physicians used their expertise not only to treat torture victims but also to document torture and eventually found the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT) in 1990. Drawing on an ethnographic and archival research at the HRFT, this article examines the genealogy of anti-torture struggles in Turkey and argues that locally mediated intimacies and/or hostilities between victims of state violence, human rights physicians, and official forensics reveal the limitations of certain universal humanitarian and human rights principles. It also shows that locally mediated long-term humanitarian encounters around the question of political violence challenge forensic denial of violence and remake the legitimate levels of state violence.
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    Impacts of the tax system on poverty and social exclusion: a case study on Turkey
    (Homer Academic Publ House, 2008) Özertan, Gökhan; Saglam, Ismail; Zenginobuz, Ünal; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Gökşen, Fatoş; Faculty Member; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 51292
    This article makes use of two different data sets on Turkey to explore the relationship between the tax structure and issues such as democratic representation, citizenship rights, and poverty and social exclusion. The first of these data sets is the extensive Household Consumption Survey (2003) by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TURKSTAT). This extensive survey data allows a very comprehensive quantitative analysis of the tax burden on the consumption baskets of households in different income groups, as well as in different regions of Turkey, The second data set incorporates qualitative data on Turkish citizens' views and attitudes towards different aspects of the Turkish tax system-such as its fairness (justice), transparency, and efficiency in generating funds for public activities-obtained through focus group meetings and in-depth interviews conducted with citizen groups and various stakeholders in cities in different regions in Turkey. The quantitative findings presented in the study clearly reveal that, if anything, taxes are expected to exacerbate the problem of inequality and poverty in Turkey. Heavily relying on regressive consumption taxes results in the poor paying a disproportionate amount of their income as indirect taxes, more so for those in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia where poverty is more extreme. On the other hand, the qualitative part reveals that ordinary citizens find the current tax system highly unfair and feel that they receive very little in terms of public services in return for the taxes they pay. In spite of the merits attributed in theory to taxation as a means to provide services and thereby legitimize the state, the payment of taxes is met with considerable reluctance. Most of this reluctance is attributable to factors such as the citizens' inability to pay, and a lack of clarity with respect to the obligations and reasons for paying. It also emerges that the unwillingness to pay is a protest against the degradation of public services and the perceptions of unfairness, corruption, and other administrative failings.