Modernization, globalization and development: the state problem in Turkey

Abstract

Relying on the analytical distinction drawn by both Joel Migdal and Nicos Poulantzas in their own groundbreaking works on the state, between the idea/type and the reality/form of the state, this chapter employs an understanding of the state as both a "complex institutional ensemble with its own modes of calculation and operational procedures" and a "site where the specific material condensation of power and domination relations among political forces and classes take place," and applies it to the case of Turkey. In doing so, it suggests that while the strong-state tradition constitutes the idea, rheoteric or type of the state in Turkish modernity, the practice, reality or form of the state has been differential and open to remodifications in accordance with the specific condensation of political forces and classes. In substantiating this argument, the chapter will first provide an account of the strong-state tradition in Turkey, and secondly analyze the differential practices and transformations of the state in the process of continuity and change that Turkish modernity has been undergoing since the late Ottoman times, but especially since the decleration of Turkey as an independent nation-state in 1923. In exploring the differential practices and transformations of the state in the process of continuity and change in Turkish modernity, the chapter will also provide a brief account of the role of the state in agriculture at each stage and phase of capitalism and modernity.