Toplum ve Bilim as terrain for independent social thinking
HURİCİHAN İSLAMOĞLU
The article focuses on tendencies of instrumentalization and absolutization of social thought in the context of both central bureaucratic regimes and of present-day private and ‘autonomous’ bodies which are replacing bureaucracies as governing bodies. Such tendencies signal subservience of social thinking to domination relations and deprive it of its potential for raising questions about and for problematizing definitions or descriptions of social reality presented in its different idealized formulations, be it scientific socialism, modernization theory, market reform packages. The article points to the institutional environments where ideas and research on society germinate. These include the academies, universities, research institutes of central bureaucratic states (increasingly outmoded and receding into the past), and private research institutions, boards or commissions of governance, as well as non-governmental organizations. In pointing to the importance of the development of critical social thinking for challenging categories or premises about social reality, in any given hegemonic environment, the article raises the issue of independence of institutions where social thought is produced. The article argues that such independence is not given but is politically achievable and identifies Toplum ve Bilim, in light of its specific historical trajectory, as one such independent domains for production of social knowledge.
“Social science”, politics and academy
MURAT BELGE
The first issue of Toplum ve Bilim was published in 1977, two years after Birikim. The latter can be characterized as more “political” and the former more “academic”. But it is appropriate to say commonalities between the two are far more than the differences. Commonalities were based partially on the intellectual background of the publishers and partially on the social atmosphere of the period. Birikim was designed as a bridge that would fill the gap between theory and practice, the knowledge of the reality and its transformation. Rather than being a new political center, it chose to communicate with everybody in politics. Toplum ve Bilim’s more “academic” position which was built up for making contributions in the more abstract and general spheres of new “knowledge production” was not in contradiction with this. On the contrary, it can be said that the two projects support and complement each other. They have withstood many vicissitudes and they both continue to be published. The social atmosphere has changed rather than the journals. The belief in science as an irreplacable means of problem solving has weakened.
Talking from the periphery
AYŞE BUĞRA
For those living in a peripheral country, dealing with social science is not an easy task. Paradigms are produced in center and put into your service. This means, not only that the theories and the methods you are going to use are produced without your contribution but also that these theories and methods produced within the reality of different societies bring with themselves the judgments as to which questions are worth asking and which subjects are worth studying. But there exists hundreds of questions worth asking and subjects worth studying for you. At this point, two widely used peripheral strategies appear. Some loosen their ties with empirical reality. They aim using theoretical language properly and prioritize form over content. The second strategy involves delinking with the international academic milieu. The aim of storing local empirical knowledge determines the research. Of course, outside of these two strategies, there are always those who try to understand and analyze what they see. I see Toplum ve Bilim as the ground on which our voices reach each other and our foreign colleagues. I think it is the ground for voices from the periphery, voices which reject being provincial.
The value and the limits of social science in Turkey: An evaluation over Peter Andrews’ works and a recently published “encyclopedia”
SUAVİ AYDIN
Although we think that a new paradigm has become dominant in the “postmodern” world, we still stand on a positivist ground and universities are administered by positivism. The term “information” in the phrases like “information age”, “information society” is the knowledge that is defined as the object of positive sciences; it is knowledge that can be measured and modelled. Under such conditions, social science can merely play the role of guarding the regime. What happens when the benefits expected in the name of status quo are not provided by social sciences? We can understand this easily by looking at what happened to social scientists who enter different research areas and put findings that do not comply with the official perspective. In this essay, the reaction towards Peter Alford Andrews’ book Ethnic Groups in the Republic of Turkey is analyzed. All rejections and assaults stem from the fact that a new knowledge which does not comply with the official perspective and the nationalist-statists’ homogenising approach –based on the denial of the others- has appeared. Also a recently published “encyclopedia” -Türk Dünyası Ortak Edebiyatı Türk Dünyası Edebiyatçıları Ansiklopedisi (The Encyclopedia of Turkic World Common Literature Turkic World Writers)- is criticized of being full of errors and of being nationalist.
Interdisciplinarity, theory and books that come out of dissertation studies
FERDAN ERGUT
We need to make history more social scientific and social sciences more historical. However, those who make interdisciplinary historical studies should be careful not to develop parasitic relationships with theory. Especially, the books that come out of dissertation studies may have such a bias. After reviewing the relevant literature in introductory chapters they usually begin to narrate their stories without any reference to the works that are cited in those chapters. We have to make theory an indispensable part of our historical narratives. Theoretically-informed historical studies rely more on “explanation” rather than on “understanding”. In other words, they give the causal accounts of the practices by situating them into some kinds of structural contexts that are constructed by the historian herself. However, in doing this, we have to acknowledge that there will be no definitive solution to the age-old problem of “structure versus agency.” Analytically strong, rigid (hence beautiful) studies might be far away from the reality. On the other hand, studies which rely exclusively on lively narratives and claim that the reality could only be captured by presenting all the different shades and colors of real life might come up with totally meaningless, and sometimes irrelevant, little stories. Once again: rather than solving the tension, we have to preserve it. And the only way to preserve it is to give both context and process equal importance and attempt to show their interactions continuously in our historical narratives.
An essay on the prospects for the democratization of academic knowledge
YÜKSEL TAŞKIN
This essay emphasizes the pressing need for seeking new means of democratizing the academic knowledge. Accordingly, instead of power trying to become powerful, it should be made knowledgeable. This concern should not be limited solely to the social scientists as the recent struggles against the abuses of scientific improvements by the war industry has also indicated. A critical attitute needs to be assumed against the very process of building the identity of the scientists that results with isolating them from the society in general. When scientists are defined as experts with an exterior relationship to their society, their knowledge could readily be expropriated by the dominant power holders and with their consent as well. This essay also explores the ways for creating a legitimate ground for different schools of social sciences distinguished by their particular normative frameworks. Such legitimacy would bring an end to the otherwise illegitimate rivalry of various ‘hidden curriculums’. There should also be an increasing concern for questioning the well-established imagination of academic progress solely as individual scientists’ achievement. We must emphasize on the collective nature of academic production and resist its reduction to individual contributions since this clearly facilitates expropriation of the final product by the power holders.
Referee system of academic periodicals
İZZETTİN ÖNDER
Referee system employed in academic periodicals should be prevented from being an arbitrary mechanism of ideological selection. The way to secure such an end may be twofold; firstly, the referee can make herself/himself known by the author after the job has been completed, secondly a method of ex-post exposition of sides to each other can be employed. Thus, the referee as well as the author can be brought to the general evaluation of readers. Obviously, a referee should give her/his technical objections, suggestions, and/or hints on the material, but she/he should not be permitted to act as a judge and the whole system should not be employed as indirect means of banning and/or intimidating some authors from expressing their views.
Return to the limits: Social Text affair
FERDA KESKİN
In this essay we present certain aspects of what has come to be known the ‘Social Text Affair’ with a view to emphasize some of its consequences and side effects. The affair involves, according to Alan Sokal, not only scientific and epistemological issues revolving around the notions of objectivity and truth, but also fundamental questions concerning the relationship between scientific practice and politics of the Left. Hence we first make an attempt to outline the political position that informs Sokal’s intellectual objections to certain ways of thinking successively associated with postmodernism, Cultural Studies and various French thinkers throughout the unfolding of the ‘affair,’ and then underline the limited function that he assigns to the social study of science. We then raise certain questions about the scope of this function and conclude with a brief discussion of how defining objective facts may give license to certain practices that should matter for political Left and therefore calls for a reconsideration of the limits Sokal wishes to set to the social study of science.
Law and legitimation in Empire
ÇAĞLAR KEYDER
The trajectory of the last century of the Ottoman Empire was from a differentiated and layered system of millets to constitutionalism and finally to the imposition of national supremacy; the trajectory of the world system of the last several decades has been from a system of hegemony with nation states to multilateral globalization, and finally to the beginnings of an imposition of a unilateral empire. In both cases, it was the imperial (and hegemonic) states that promoted constitutionalism (multilateralism) and the ground level construction of new networks that could not be contained either within millet or national communities that required it. Similarly, it was the state officials in the empire and the hegemonic state who decided that constitutionalism implied loss of control, and a new form of governance was needed. For the Ottomans the experiment ended with a rump state and isolation.
“Leftist fascism” or authoritarian modernism in Turkey 1923-1946
ZAFER TOPRAK
As the result of the “the age of catastrophe” in the interwar years, liberal democracy as a political system has dissolved over time leaving its place to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. The world experienced varieties of fascism in Europe as well as in other contitents as the state apparatus became omnipotent and omnipresent. The Single Party era in Turkey went through similar stages in the wake of the establishment of the Republic. Constitutionalist and reformist in the early years, the Republican People’s Party tilted towards authoritarianism in the thirties under the impact of continental fascist regimes, and finally adopted eternal charismatic leadership as Mustafa Kemal passed away. However, Turkey stayed as one of the rare countries that passed through the interwar period without abrogating its national assembly, manipulating the populace through mass demonstrations and propaganda and imposing harsh measures to limit daily life of the ordinary people. Although a collective identity and homogenity in the expectation of a united society free from all types of class discrimination are imposed upon citizen, as the main motto of populism, Turkish authoritarianism had a modern image and managed to transform itself into, and paved the way for a pluralistic democracy in the wake of the Second World War. In fact Turkish single party regime is hailed as transformatory or progressive authoritarianism, or “leftist” fascism, by main historians and historical sociologists in the West.
Nihal Atsız as the sub-consciousness of ultra-nationalist movement
CENK SARAÇOĞLU
The shared symbols, myths and rituals have always had a vital importance in the establishment, organization and maintenance of popular nationalist movements. Art and literature can be the spheres of the invention and creation of new symbols and new myths; and in some cases the artistic and literal works, themselves, can be nationalist symbols. Turkish nationalism is not an exception to the fact that literal and artistic works effectively provide or reproduce nationalist symbols and practices. However, as Turkish nationalism has had diverse manifestations, its symbols, myths and rituals have considerably varied. The Nationalist Action Party (MHP) or the idealist movement (ülkücü hareket – ultra-nationalist movement) is one of the political and social movements who adopted and developed a distinct understanding of Turkish nationalism. While the movement itself produced some of the shared elements in the ülkücü nationalism, through its own social and political practice, a great part of these shared symbols, rituals and myths were transferred from official Turkish nationalism. The symbols and representations used in some independent literary and artistic works have also become a source of inspiration for the organization and mobilization of the Nationalist Action Party. Nihal Atsız, for instance, was one of the most important figures that have influenced the ülkücü movement.
This situation demands the following significant question: Although Hüseyin Nihal Atsız did not have any organic link with ülkücü movement and although he did not share many ideas and policies developed by the leadership of the ülkücü community, what might have led to his continuous popularity and influence over ülkücüs? While answering this question, I indicate that certain continual structural characteristics of the ülkücü movement created a convenient milieu for Nihal Atsız’s ideas and symbols to be inspiring for the ülkücü community. Without a doubt, the answer to such a question would be impossible without the analysis of Nihal Atsız’s worldview, itself. Therefore, this answer contained the analysis of both the essential components of the ülkücü ideology and the nature of Nihal Atsız’s world-view.
This situation demands the following significant question: Although Hüseyin Nihal Atsız did not have any organic link with ülkücü movement and although he did not share many ideas and policies developed by the leadership of the ülkücü community, what might have led to his continuous popularity and influence over ülkücüs? While answering this question, I indicate that certain continual structural characteristics of the ülkücü movement created a convenient milieu for Nihal Atsız’s ideas and symbols to be inspiring for the ülkücü community. Without a doubt, the answer to such a question would be impossible without the analysis of Nihal Atsız’s worldview, itself. Therefore, this answer contained the analysis of both the essential components of the ülkücü ideology and the nature of Nihal Atsız’s world-view.
