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    A clash of civilizations? Examining liberal-democratic values in Turkey and the European Union
    (Wiley, 2008) Department of Sociology; Dixon, Jeffrey C.; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    Turkey's proposed entry into the European Union (EU) has been undermined by Europeans' perceptions of Turkish-European cultural differences, particularly regarding the liberal-democratic values that the EU promotes (democracy, rule of law, and respect for and appreciation of minority/human rights). Yet, cross-national research on values has not focused on Turkey, the EU, and these liberal-democratic values, leaving assumptions of cultural differences and their explanations untested. Through analyses of World and European Values Survey data (1999-2002), this article asks whether people in Turkey have the same values regarding democracy, rule of law (versus religious and authoritarian rule), and minority/human rights as people in EU member and candidate states (as of 2000)? What factors explain these values? I find that people in Turkey support democracy to the same extent as people in EU member and candidate states, but people in Turkey are more supportive of religious and authoritarian rule and are less tolerant of minorities. Although the 'clash of civilizations' thesis expects liberal values to be ordered according to countries' religious traditions, with western Christian the most supportive and Islamic the least, only for tolerance of minorities values is this pattern found. Instead, economic development most consistently explains differences between Turkey and EU member and candidate states in support for these values. I conclude with calls for theoretical refinement, particularly of the clash of civilizations thesis, along with suggestions for future research to examine more Muslim and Orthodox countries; I discuss the debate over Turkey's EU entry.
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    A cultural map of Turkey
    (Sage Publications Ltd, 2014) N/A; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Rankin, Bruce; Ergin, Murat; Gökşen, Fatoş; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A; 106427; 51292
    There is a growing body of empirical research on national patterns of cultural consumption and how they are related to social stratification. This paper helps to broaden the basis of comparison by focusing on cultural patterns in Turkey, a developing, non-Western, and predominantly Muslim context. Our analysis of cultural tastes and activities using data from a new nationally-representative survey shows three broad cultural clusters that clearly map onto differential positions in the social structure and are largely differentiated by degree and form of engagement with Turkey's emerging cultural diversity, particularly their orientation towards Western cultural forms. In general, local cultural modalities do not distinguish groups, attesting to the robustness of local culture. The results are discussed in light of previous work on cultural patterns in other national contexts.
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    PublicationOpen Access
    A social revolution: politics and the welfare state in Iran
    (The University of Chicago Press, 2019) Department of Sociology; Yörük, Erdem; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 28982
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    A tale of ambiguity: citizenship, nationalism and democracy in Turkey
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) Keyman, Emin Fuat; Department of International Relations; Kancı, Tuba; Researcher; Department of International Relations; College of Administrative Sciences and Economics; N/A
    We argue that historically the official Turkish nationalism and citizenship regime have been marked by an ambiguity that arises from the simultaneous existence of - and repeatedly occurring swings between - the ethno-centric and civic-political understandings of citizenship. We also suggest that the concept of territoriality, which took precedence over other factors in the creation of a new state in 1923, has functioned as a hegemonic reference in the official conceptualisations of the Turkish nation and self. The territorial focus, over time, has been conflated with the ethnic conceptualisations of the nation: both become the underlining elements of the discourse of official nationalism in Turkey, and are utilised in the successive reformulations of citizenship into the 2000s. Through the analysis of schoolbooks and curricula, we further argue that the major oscillations in nationalism nevertheless coincided with the ruptures that characterised the making of modern Turkey: modernisation, democratisation, globalisation and Europeanisation.
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    Across the sea ... and beyond
    (Policy Press, 2018) Crawley, Heaven; Jones, Katharine; McMahon, Simon; Sigona, Nando; N/A; Duvell, Franck; Other; Migration Research Program at Koç University (MIReKoç) / Göç Araştırmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi (MIReKoç); N/A; N/A
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    Applied acculturation research: working with, for and beyond communities
    (Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, 2010) Ward, Colleen; Department of Psychology; Kağıtçıbaşı, Çiğdem; Faculty Member; Department of Psychology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A
    The paper examines the role of theory in acculturation research "with and for communities" and its application for enhancing social and psychological outcomes. It also discusses common themes in community-based acculturation research; the diverse investigative methods used; the nature of the partnerships forged between academics and grassroots organizations, including the practical problems involved in these collaborations; and the evolution of positive social change. Finally, the paper concludes with recommendations for increasing the application potential of contemporary acculturation theory and research, whether based in the laboratory or the wider community. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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    Authority, modernity and gender-relevant legislation in Iran
    (Routledge, 2011) N/A; N/A; Halper, Louise; Other; Law School; N/A
    A widely accepted view, both in scholarly and more general writing, is that Muslim women benefit from a regime of secular law and suffer under religious law. Thus, we are accustomed to conflating the situation of women in countries as diverse as Iran and Afghanistan and thinking that the status of women in both is dreadful. In fact, however, indicators of women’s advancement in Iran1 are quite comparable to those of women in Turkey, which has had a secular tradition since 1924. In contrast, the situation of women in Afghanistan continues to be abysmal. At a glance, then, it appears that the presence or absence of shari’a as the law of the state is, at the least, non-determinative, whatever influence it may have. It is in fact my hypothesis that the situation of women is impacted less by the nature of the legal regime than by their political status; that is to say, the salience of women to the political process and their active involvement in it. Iran is my key example of this hypothesis, and modifications in the law of marriage and divorce there since the Islamic Revolution of 1978 to 1979 constitute my data. Let me first set out some actual data. With respect to literacy, illiterates as a percentage of Iranian women aged 15 to 24 declined from over one-third in 1980 to under 10 percent in 2000.2 Over the same period, the illiteracy rate for the entire population of adult women was cut in half, from about 60 percent to about 30 percent.3 As for education, the number of women in secondary school as a percentage of the eligible age group more than doubled from about 30 percent to almost 80 percent.4 As of 1999, for every 100 boys in primary school, 96 girls were enrolled, indicating that boys and girls were almost equally likely to be learning basic literacy and numeracy skills.5 In 2000, one-half of all Iranian university students were women,6 as were 60 percent of entering students,7 who were selected on the basis of a difficult nationwide exam. Twenty-seven percent of working-age women were in the labor force as of 2000, up from 20 percent in 1980.8 In terms of health, life expectancy went up by 11 years between 1980 and 2000 for both Iranian men and women.9 With respect to family planning, “levels of childbearing have declined faster than in any other country,” falling from an average of 5.6 births per woman in 1985 to only 2.0 births in 2000,10 a drop accomplished by a voluntary, but government-sponsored, birth control program.11
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    PublicationOpen Access
    Between the state and the world market: small-scale hazelnut production in the Black Sea region
    (İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınevi, 2020) Erköse, H. Yener; Şahin, Osman; Yükseker, Deniz; Department of Sociology; Sert, Hüseyin Deniz; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities
    Turkey is the world's largest hazelnut producer and exporter, yet hazelnut farmers have been growing hazelnuts in increasingly difficult conditions even for the years when production levels and hazelnut prices are high. In this paper, we take up the contradictions in hazelnut cultivation in Turkey and seek to show that, despite the commonsense opinion that the problem stems from small-scale cultivation, the more important problem is the unequal power relations that exist in the hazelnut market. We make the following arguments in the paper based on some of the findings from the field study we carried out in the Western and Eastern Black Sea regions in 2017. Issues exist regarding productivity and profitability in hazelnut cultivation characterized by small holdings. Hazelnut farmers are often unable to meet the expenditures and investments required for raising productivity. These problems arise more from the farmers' demographic profiles and debt levels and the unequal power relations in the hazelnut market with respect to small-scale production. Therefore, resolving the problems in hazelnut cultivation might require making changes that favor small farmers' power relations in the hazelnut market rather than enlarging holdings. / Türkiye dünyanın en büyük fındık üreticisi ve ihracatçısı konumunda. Ancak fındık üreticileri, bazı yıllar bol mahsul veya mahsullerine iyi fiyat alsalar bile, giderek daha zorlu koşullarda üretim yapıyorlar. Bu yazıda, Türkiye’de fındık üretiminin barındırdığı çelişkileri ele alacağız. Sorunların kaynağında fındık işletmelerinin küçük olmasının yattığı yönündeki genel kabulün aksine, sorunun aslen fındık piyasasındaki eşitsiz güç ilişkilerinden kaynaklandığını göstermeye çalışacağız. 2017’de Doğu ve Batı Karadeniz Bölgeleri’nde yaptığımız alan araştırmasının verilerinin bir bölümünün bulgularına dayanan makalede şu savları ortaya koyuyoruz. Türkiye’de küçük işletmelerde yapılan fındık tarımının verimlilik ve kârlılık konusunda sorunları vardır. Fındık üreticilerinin çoğu verim artırımı için gerekli harcamaları ve yatırımı yapamamaktadırlar. Bu sorunlar, üretim birimlerinin küçük olmasından çok, fındık üreticilerinin demografik profili, borçlanma ve fındık piyasasındaki eşitsiz yapıdan kaynaklanmaktadır. Dolayısıyla, fındık üretimindeki sorunların çözülmesi için üretim ölçeğini büyütmekten çok, eşitsiz güç ilişkilerinin hâkim olduğu küresel piyasada üretici lehine değişiklikler yapmak daha uygun olabilir.
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    Beyond social mobility: Biographies, habitus and responses to changing 'Conditions of Existence' among university scholarship students
    (Sage, 2021) N/A; N/A; Nimer, Maissam; Researcher; Migration Research Program at Koç University (MIReKoç) / Göç Araştırmaları Uygulama ve Araştırma Merkezi (MIReKoç); N/A; N/A; 355744
    Wider access to higher education at a global level has been accompanied by growing literature on experiences of social mobility often using the concept of habitus as a theoretical tool to frame responses to changes in 'conditions of existence'. Drawing on the case study of a scholarship programme within an elite university in Lebanon, through in-depth interviews with students and university faculty and staff, this article elaborates on the typologies in responses that emerged as students position themselves in a new environment. These typologies, in contrast to the literature which presents them as a result of alterations in the habitus, appear to be related to each other and occur simultaneously within one person's trajectory. As such, instead of viewing these responses as degrees of incorporation of each set of schemes of perceptions from both fields, the context of origin and the new social context appear to be multi-faceted, and the interaction between them is complex. I argue, along the lines of Lahire's dispositional perspective, that the situation of contradictory experiences is not exceptional but characterizes all individuals to a certain extent, especially in the Lebanese context which is distinguished by its diversity in terms of regional and religious affiliations and in which class intersects with other types of identifications.
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    Bound together: the secularization of Turkey's literary fields and the western promise of freedom
    (University of Michigan Press, 2021) Department of Sociology; Büyükokutan, Barış; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 126139
    Bound Together takes a new look at twentieth-century Turkey, asking what it will take for Turkish women and men to regain their lost freedoms, and what the Turkish case means for the prospects of freedom and democracy elsewhere. Contrasting the country’s field of poetry, where secularization was the joint work of pious and nonpious people, with that of the novel, this book inquires into the nature of western-nonwestern difference. ​Turkey’s poets were more fortunate than its novelists for two reasons. Poets were slightly better at developing the idea of the autonomy of art from politics. While piety was a marker of political identity everywhere, poets were better able than novelists to bracket political differences when assessing their peers as the country was bitterly polarized politically and as the century wore on. Second, and more important, poets of all stripes were more connected to each other than were novelists. Their greater ability to find and keep one another in coffeehouses and literary journals made it less likely for prospective cross-aisle partnerships to remain untested propositions.