Researcher:
Gürel, Burak

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Burak

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Gürel

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    Classes and status groups in times of great transformation: reading agrarian change in Çukurova through the lens of Yaşar Kemal
    (Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi, 2019) Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
    This study investigates the changing positions of social classes and status groups during the capitalist transformation of agriculture in Turkish Çukurova region throughout the last century from the perspective of Yaşar Kemal’s literary works. The study begins with a methodological discussion on the use of literary works in historical and sociological studies. It stresses three points regarding the agrarian change in Çukurova. Firstly, the resistance of lower classes to the capitalist agrarian transformation had a wide scope spanning from the Luddite-type machine-breaking to land and labor struggles. Secondly, proletarianized villagers viewed wage work as a temporary rather than a permanent condition, which would help them accumulate funds and engage with small-scale farming. Finally, transformations of classes and status groups were closely related. While the previous generations of landlords remained loyal to precapitalist social norms, failed to adapt to capitalist transformation and thereby declined, new generations started to rise, embracing profit maximization as the main goal. / Bu çalışma, geçen yüzyılda Çukurova bölgesinde yaşanan tarımsal dönüşüm sürecinde toplumsal sınıfların ve statü gruplarının değişen konumlarını Yaşar Kemal’in edebi yapıtlarının sunduğu perspektiften inceliyor. Makale edebi eserlerin tarihsel ve sosyolojik çalışmalarda değerlendirilmesine ilişkin yöntemsel bir tartışmayla açılıyor. Daha sonra, Yaşar Kemal’in eserlerinden yola çıkarak Çukurova’daki tarımsal dönüşüme ilişkin üç noktaya dikkat çekiyor. Birincisi, alt sınıfların tarımın kapitalistleşmesine karşı direnişleri Luddite tipi makine kırıcılıktan toprak ve emek mücadelelerine uzanan geniş bir yelpazeye sahipti. İkincisi, proleterleşen köylülerin bir bölümü ücretli işçiliği kalıcı bir durum olarak değil, küçük ölçekli çiftçilik için gereken birikimi yapmaya yardımcı olan geçici uğrak olarak görüyordu. Son olarak, sınıfların ve statü gruplarının dönüşümleri birbirleriyle yakından ilişkiliydi. Kapitalizm öncesi döneme ait toplumsal normlara bağlı kalan toprak ağaları kapitalistleşme sürecine uyum sağlayamayıp gerilemiş, kâr maksimizasyonunu öncelikli hedef olarak gören yeni tip toprak sahipleri bu süreçte yükselişe geçmiştir.
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    Semi-private Landownership and capitalist agriculture in contemporary China
    (Sage Publications Inc, 2019) Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
    Although the existing scholarship on the capitalist transformation of Chinese agriculture uses the concepts of the Marxist political economy to analyze class differentiation, it has not systematically analyzed the role of the Chinese state (as manifested in the current semi-private land system) in this transformation with reference to Marx's theory of agricultural rent. Capitalist transformation of Chinese agriculture in the context of continuing strong government control over farmland provides a unique opportunity to assess the validity of Marx's hypothesis that private landownership is a barrier to capitalist development in agriculture and that state ownership of land is a possible way to overcome it. Analysis highlights two advantages of the current system for the capitalist transformation of Chinese agriculture. First, by enabling local governments to transfer large and consolidated tracts of farmland to agribusiness companies and large farmers and relieving them from the burden of dealing with each and every private owner for land access, the semi-private landownership system minimizes the transaction costs incurred by agrarian capital. Second, farm workers are guaranteed access to small plots of land and this subsidizes agrarian capital by reducing the costs of the reproduction of labor power, thereby putting downward pressure on wages. JEL Classification: P32, P1
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    How the west came to rule: the geopolitical origins of capitalism
    (Cambridge Univ Press, 2017) Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
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    Counterrevolution: the global rise of the far right
    (Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2020) Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
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    The state, capital and the historical sociology of capitalism
    (Mülkiyeliler Birliği, 2018) Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Yörük, Erdem; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277; 28982
    This paper makes a brief critical review of the different perspectives on the capital, state, and capitalism of Fernand Braudel and Giovanni Arrighi’s world systems analysis, Charles Tilly’s Weberian-Marxist synthesis, and Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood’s Political Marxism. It mainly focuses on the relationships between the territorial logic and capitalist logic, coercion and capital, accumulation of power and capital, and the formation of states and cities. Braudel, Arrighi, and Tilly detected two main historical tendencies. First, capitalist logic of power became powerful enough to transform the territorial logic of power in the longue durée of capitalism. Second, the fusion of the spaces of capital and coercion created the most sustainable resources for war-making and led the nation state to triumph over other state forms. Although the Political Marxist critique is not strong enough to refute the works of these scholars fully, it has significantly contributed to the debates on capitalism by encouraging the construction of a clearer chain of causality on the origins of capitalism. / Öz: Bu yazı, Fernand Braudel ve Giovanni Arrighi’nin temsil ettiği dünya sistemleri analizinin, Charles Tilly’nin temsil ettiği Weberci-Marksist sentezin ve Robert Brenner ile Ellen Meiksins Wood’un temsil ettiği Politik Marksizmin sermaye, devlet ve kapitalizme ilişkin yaklaşımlarına dair kısa ve eleştirel bir değerlendirme yapıyor. Esas olarak teritoryal mantık ile kapitalist mantık, zor kullanımı ile sermaye, gücün biriktirilmesi ile servetin biriktirilmesi, devletlerin oluşumu ile kentlerin oluşumu arasındaki ilişkilere odaklanıyor. Braudel, Arrighi ve Tilly iki tarihsel eğilim tespit etmiştir. Birincisi, kapitalizmin uzun vadeli gelişimi sürecinde kapitalist güç mantığı teritoryal güç mantığını dönüştürecek düzeyde etkili hale gelmiştir. İkincisi, sermaye mekânları ile zor mekânlarının kaynaşması, savaş yapma açısından en sürdürülebilir kaynakları oluşturmuş ve ulus devleti diğer devlet biçimleri karşısında üstün kılmıştır. Politik Marksist eleştiri, bu araştırmacıların yapıtlarını yanlışlayacak ölçüde güçlü olmasa da, kapitalizmin kökenine ilişkin daha net bir tarihsel nedensellik zinciri kurmayı teşvik ederek kapitalizm hakkındaki tartışmalara ciddi katkıda bulunmuştur.
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    The collectivist legacy and agrarian development in China since 1978
    (Sage Publications Inc, 2023) Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
    This article contributes to the study of the collectivist legacy in Chinese agriculture after 1978 by making five main arguments. First, it demonstrates that the construction of a robust agricultural infrastructure in the collective era enabled the government of the reform era to reduce its infrastructural spending without harming agricultural productivity in the 1980s. Second, village administrations were heavily involved in farm organization in the same period. Third, the collective-era legacy of labor mobilization was relatively strong until the early 2000s. Fourth, the degree of local self-financing remained significant until the abolition of the agricultural tax in 2006. Finally, although the "one project, one discussion" (sic)(sic)(sic)(sic) reform of 2008 has failed to raise a significant amount of labor and funds from villagers on a voluntary basis, it nevertheless shows that collective mobilization of labor and financial resources has not been entirely forgotten and continues to inform Chinese agrarian policy to a certain extent.
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    Critique of the critics of Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Bejiıng
    (Rasim Özgür Dönmez, 2019) Department of Sociology; Taylan, Eylem; Gürel, Burak; Master Student; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; N/A; 219277
    This short critique of some of the reviews of Giovanni Arrighi’s Adam Smith in Beijing makes four points. First, the characterization of contemporary China as a non-capitalist market economy is the most serious shortcoming of Arrighi’s book. Second, Arrighi’s explanation of the Industrial Revolution in relation to the increasing military requirements of the European states has solid historical foundations. Third, Arrighi makes a cogent argument that the “Great Divergence” of Europe and China was rooted in the relative extroversion of power struggles in Europe versus their relative introversion in China and the consequent imbalance of naval power between the two regions. Finally, Arrighi’s structural analysis of hegemonic transitions in the world system enables the reader to track the links between China’s economic ascent and the crisis of the U.S. hegemony. One of its most important implications is the increasing bifurcation of economic and military power in the contemporary world, signaling the immense difficulty of a single nation-state (including China) to turn itself into a world hegemon. / Giovanni Arrighi’nin Adam Smith Pekin’de: 21. Yüzyılın Soykütüğü başlıklı kitabına yapılan bazı eleştirilerin kısa bir eleştirisini yapan bu makale dört temel argümanı savunuyor. Birincisi, Çin’in kapitalist olmayan bir piyasa ekonomisi olarak tanımlanması Arrighi’nin kitabının en ciddi eksikliğidir. İkincisi, Arrighi’nin Sanayi Devrimi’ni Avrupa devletlerinin artan askeri ihtiyaçları ile ilişkilendirmesinin sağlam tarihsel dayanakları mevcuttur. Üçüncüsü, Arrighi’nin analizi Avrupa ile Çin arasındaki “Büyük Ayrışma” ile güç mücadelelerinin tarihsel olarak ilkinde nispeten dışa ikincisinde nispeten içe dönük gelişimi ve iki bölgenin donanma gücü arasında Avrupa lehine ortaya çıkan dengesizlik arasında kurduğu bağlantılara ışık tutuyor. Son olarak, Arrighi’nin dünya sistemindeki hegemonya değişimlerine ilişkin yapısal analizi Çin ekonomisinin yükselişi ile ABD hegemonyasının krizi arasındaki ilişkinin kavranmasını sağlıyor. Günümüz dünyasında ekonomik güç ile askeri güç arasındaki bağlantının giderek çatallanması, bunun sonucunda (Çin de dahil olmak üzere) herhangi bir ulus devletin kendisini yeni bir dünya hegemonuna dönüştürmesinin muazzam ölçüde güçleşmesi bu analizin en önemli güncel sonuçlarından birisidir.
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    China's agrarian transition: peasants, property, and politics
    (Sage Publications Inc, 2018) Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
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    Project-based state intervention and agrarian change in contemporary China: the case of rice production in Pingwan County, Hunan
    (Brill, 2019) Gong, Weigang; Department of Sociology; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 219277
    This article analyzes the role of the state in the development of capitalist agriculture in contemporary China by focusing on the implementation of the central-government-sponsored National Grain Security Project and Agricultural Industrialization Project in Pingwan county of Hunan province since 2009. It demonstrates that by providing significant (formal and informal) subsidies and transferring large tracts of farmland to large farmers and agribusinesses, the Chinese government has made the capitalist transformation of rice production possible. We stress that in the absence of private property rights, the local governments' strong control over farmland transactions makes it relatively easy to transfer large tracts quickly, helping agribusinesses and large farmers avoid significant transaction costs they would otherwise have to face under a system of private landownership. The article also shows that existing policies support the transfer of farmland in regions with favorable geographic and climatic conditions over other regions and therefore lack the capacity to significantly decrease regional inequalities.
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    Does violent conflict affect the distribution of social welfare? Evidence from India's Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act
    (John Wiley and Sons Inc, 2023) Koyuncu, M.; Department of Sociology; Department of Sociology; Yörük, Erdem; Gürel, Burak; Faculty Member; Faculty Member; Department of Sociology; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; College of Social Sciences and Humanities; 28982; 219277
    What are the contentious political dynamics of the largest workfare program in the world, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) of India? Combining quantitative analysis with a close reading of government documents and a survey of the existing literature, we suggest that the Indian government's counter-insurgency strategy against the Maoist unrest is a significant dynamic shaping the distribution of MGNREGA benefits. In our empirical analysis, we examine the effect of Maoist incidents on household income due to MGNREGA by merging a nationally representative household survey (Indian Human Development Survey-II) and a Maoist incidents dataset. Controlling for relevant household and district characteristics, we show that higher intensity of violent conflicts is associated with higher MGNREGA benefits. This result is robust to using a variety of alternative specifications and estimation methodologies.