On and about Muqaddimah
ÜMİT HASSAN
In this essay the interpretations and analyses derived form mediated readings of Ibn Khaldun are criticized and the genuinity and the coherence of the approach of his conceptual framework to science is analysed. Then several questions as to “what Ibn Khaldun means ultimately” are formulated, all of which should be dealt with in its own right in separate essays. Also, how the interaction between Engels –his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State– and Ibn Khaldun’s thought should be envisaged is elaborated.
Reading our age through Ibn Khaldun’s work
ZERRİN KURTOĞLU
In this paper, my aim is to criticize the understandings of religion, history and violence in our age with respect to Ibn Khaldun’s views who was faced with the most significant intellectual problem of his age which was to establish a human society free of religion. Our age witnesses the revival of political-mundane claims of religions on the one hand, and the breaking of the concept of history from time by means of culturalist-essentialist ideologies under the banner of “clash of civilizations”. The result is a destructive violence. The reason why I would like to read these understandings in the light of Ibn Khaldun is that, although he belongs to a totally different intellectual context, he had a word on the issue. Because for him, to establish a humane sphere it was necessary to determine the limits of reason, thereby the limits of knowledge, and by way of separating the religious sciences from rational sciences epistemologically to demonstrate the objects and legitimate domains of each on the one hand, and to turn history into a rational narrative by means of a methodology (umran bilimi) which would give unity and coherence to human actions. Violence, which Ibn Khaldun legitimizes with the concept of “asabiyya”, is not destructive but constructive. He is in search of a universal understanding of history and universal principles upon which societies should be established. Also for him religion is a phenomenon whose main reference is God and the other world, and which is by no means essential for the social sphere.
Regional political preferences and Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi - AKP)
OĞUZ IŞIK - MELİH PINARCIOĞLU
This article is structured around two main objectives. The first objective is to find out a regional pattern of political preferences. The second one is to evaluate the performance of AKP in the 2002 general elections.
For the first objective Anselin’s method of LISA (local indicators of spatial association) is used and cluster maps are prepared for political groups for the 1995 and 1999 elections, i.e. the period preceding the foundation of AKP. These cluster maps are then combined into one by a simple scoring which, we believe, represents the regional pattern of political preferences before the AKP. This general map indicates a sharp segregation among the regions in Turkey in terms of their political preferences, with centre left and right dominant in the west, nationalist right in the Central Anatolia, and Islamist right and regional left in the east and southeast. We then compare this map with the performance of the AKP in the 2002 elections to conclude that AKP has been successful in areas dominated previously by Islamist right and nationalist right in addition to those where no political group was dominant.
The fact that the AKP votes have a clear geography leads us to the conclusion that it has not radically altered the existing geography of political preferences in Turkey. On grounds of the resilience of the political geography of Turkey, we conclude that the AKP may run into trouble in the future if, in the medium to long term, it cannot manage to create a new space for itself.
For the first objective Anselin’s method of LISA (local indicators of spatial association) is used and cluster maps are prepared for political groups for the 1995 and 1999 elections, i.e. the period preceding the foundation of AKP. These cluster maps are then combined into one by a simple scoring which, we believe, represents the regional pattern of political preferences before the AKP. This general map indicates a sharp segregation among the regions in Turkey in terms of their political preferences, with centre left and right dominant in the west, nationalist right in the Central Anatolia, and Islamist right and regional left in the east and southeast. We then compare this map with the performance of the AKP in the 2002 elections to conclude that AKP has been successful in areas dominated previously by Islamist right and nationalist right in addition to those where no political group was dominant.
The fact that the AKP votes have a clear geography leads us to the conclusion that it has not radically altered the existing geography of political preferences in Turkey. On grounds of the resilience of the political geography of Turkey, we conclude that the AKP may run into trouble in the future if, in the medium to long term, it cannot manage to create a new space for itself.
The electoral geography of Istanbul: 1999-2002
SİNAN ZEYNELOĞLU
This article has three main purposes. The first is to draw a picture of the electoral geography of Istanbul at the detailed neighborhood level and, subsequently, to determine similarities and dissimilarities among political parties. The second aim is to assess correlations between party votes and socio-economic indicators. The final target is to evaluate the relational position of parties, and in that way, to infer estimations on volatility among parties.
The results of the 1999 and 2002 General Elections are analyzed with neighborhoods (mahalle) within the Supreme Municipality of Istanbul as units of ecologic analysis. To ensure comparability, the neighborhood boundaries of 2002 were adjusted according to the administrative division of 1999. Party vote percentages were computed with the number of registered voters as the denominator. In that way success and failure of each party can be assessed more precisely, besides the group of non-voters is also analyzed as a separate group.
Party vote percentages are correlated with each other and with socio-economic indicators using ‘Spearman’s rank order correlation’. Level of education is measured in terms of ‘years spent in education’. As a proxy of wealth, on the other hand, ‘median value of land prices per sqr-meter’ is used. The results reveal parties with similar spatial structures. Further, ecologic level relations of parties with wealth and education are estimated. Finally, ‘multiple scaling analysis’ is performed to assess the relational positions of political parties as measured in terms of spatial variation among neighborhoods of Istanbul.
The results point that between 1999 and 2002, CHP changes its relational position by ‘gaining votes’ and moves closer to the position of ANAP and DSP in 1999. MHP on the other hand, changes its relational position initially close to FP and AKP by ‘loosing votes’ in 2002. ANAP, on the other hand, loses voters at a large scale, however, retains its relational position. At the other edge of the relational space, AKP, similarly maintains the position of FP, while increasing its votes. In other words, the rank order of neighborhoods in which the two parties are relatively strong or weak did not change in 2002 despite significant changes in the actual level of votes they received. Contrary to the common discourse of its leadership, AKP should be viewed as the successor of FP, since all data points in this direction. More surprisingly, CHP seems to have harvested previous ANAP voters in 2002, and appears to have changed its spatial as well as social composition of voters.
The results of the 1999 and 2002 General Elections are analyzed with neighborhoods (mahalle) within the Supreme Municipality of Istanbul as units of ecologic analysis. To ensure comparability, the neighborhood boundaries of 2002 were adjusted according to the administrative division of 1999. Party vote percentages were computed with the number of registered voters as the denominator. In that way success and failure of each party can be assessed more precisely, besides the group of non-voters is also analyzed as a separate group.
Party vote percentages are correlated with each other and with socio-economic indicators using ‘Spearman’s rank order correlation’. Level of education is measured in terms of ‘years spent in education’. As a proxy of wealth, on the other hand, ‘median value of land prices per sqr-meter’ is used. The results reveal parties with similar spatial structures. Further, ecologic level relations of parties with wealth and education are estimated. Finally, ‘multiple scaling analysis’ is performed to assess the relational positions of political parties as measured in terms of spatial variation among neighborhoods of Istanbul.
The results point that between 1999 and 2002, CHP changes its relational position by ‘gaining votes’ and moves closer to the position of ANAP and DSP in 1999. MHP on the other hand, changes its relational position initially close to FP and AKP by ‘loosing votes’ in 2002. ANAP, on the other hand, loses voters at a large scale, however, retains its relational position. At the other edge of the relational space, AKP, similarly maintains the position of FP, while increasing its votes. In other words, the rank order of neighborhoods in which the two parties are relatively strong or weak did not change in 2002 despite significant changes in the actual level of votes they received. Contrary to the common discourse of its leadership, AKP should be viewed as the successor of FP, since all data points in this direction. More surprisingly, CHP seems to have harvested previous ANAP voters in 2002, and appears to have changed its spatial as well as social composition of voters.
Notes on the sociology of the incidents in Trabzon
GÜVEN BAKIREZER
Some of them political (several attempts to lynch and the eventual murder of a Catholic priest), some not, the incidents that occurred in Trabzon in a period shorter than a year between 2005 and 2006 evoked in minds the question of what was going on in the city. The answers given varied from quite irrational, conspirative, and empirically invalid ones to such scientific ones as bad economy, unemployment, migration, and rising nationalist and religionist emotions. Although those in the latter category shed some light on the background of the incidents, they were not made inter-related and thus remained either superficial or just part of the picture. More importantly, no analysis of class appeared. With no consumptive assertion, this article argues that the political incidents in Trabzon are a phenomenon of the rising right more rapid than that in Turkey in general, behind which basically lies the transformation in class-structure from the destruction of peasants to the expansion of small tradesmen more intense than that in Turkey in general and the reaction of mostly small tradesmen to poverty and threat of unemployment caused by the high speed of the structural transformation of economy. This reaction to some extent takes extreme nationalist and Islamist forms not only because of the class nature of traditional petit-bourgeoisie but also because of the fact that the economic distress is an effect of a foreign source, namely globalisation. Albeit economic in essence, the political and cultural dimensions of globalisation in general and the candidacy to the membership of the EU in particular creates a question of identity in people, fueling the reaction of the economically losing sectors of society. As a city both metropolitan and provincial, in which a metropolitan way of life in downtown has been surroundered by the strict community morality of migrated peasants and traditional small tradesmen, Trabzon is quite open to the cosmopolitan effects of globalisation and in turn reacts to them. Also the ethnic and cultural legacy of the Byzantine Greeks and Armenians opens the channels to exploit the emotions of Trabzon’s people.
The border and otherness as a space of memory:
The city of Kars
ZEHRA AYMAN
In this study I intend to understand and explain the representations of space in modern world by looking at the experiences of nation-state and its borders in one of Turkey’s frontier cities, Kars. I examined the process of construction of modern discourses concerning space and time, geography and history, nation-state and globalisation, cognitive and territorial mappings in the historical and memorial processes. I tried to describe the process of the spatialisation of power relations in the borders within cultural spaces which represent various complex dynamics of globalisation. Therefore, the border reproduces the binary oppositions in all areas and also have the capacity to move beyond them even in the case of a rigid border like the one between Kars and Armenia.
Rereading Ismail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu:
The death of the “gentle sex” or ode to masculinity
AYLİN ÖZMAN
This article focuses on the construction of female identity in the thought of İsmail Hakkı Baltacıoğlu (1886-1978) who has been among the prominent representatives of conservative thought in Turkey. The texts of Baltacıoğlu constitute a fertile ground both for the detection of the meaning attributed to woman in the context of Turkish modernization as well as its constructive function in the formulation of the relationship between the modern and the traditional. Accordingly, this study provides a two level textual reinterpretation. First, it explores the representation of the female identity with a view to the basic problematic and the general theoretical perspective of the author. Second, it interrogates the possible/critical implications of the mentioned representation in delineating Baltacıoğlu’s ideological position. Correspondingly, the study aims to formulate an answer to the following question: how the ideological stance of Baltacıoğlu has been solidified in his views regarding the female and femininity? Throughout the study conservatism and Kemalism, two main trends of thought that Baltacıoğlu tries to reconciliate throughout his works, have been taken up as the major ideological options.
Determining political and social factors n the institutionalisation of psychology in Turkey
SERTAN BATUR
From a critical historiographical perspective, the history of psychology is a social history. This paper discusses first the immanent relation of psychology to the capitalist form of production and then the characteristics of the institutionalisation of psychology in Turkey with its connections with the development of capitalism and modernism. This process is a “top-down” process and determined by the needs of the modernist social policies. Thus the institutionalisation of psychology as an independent discipline in Turkey is a very instructive example with its sui generis characteristics for the social functions of psychology in late-modernised countries.
Neoliberal experience of Latin America
AYŞE SERDAR
This paper analyzes the neoliberal experience of five Latin American countries, Mexico, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. As a criticism of state-centered readings of neoliberal transformation, which emphasize state autonomy, capacity, political and technocratic elites, the paper underlines the decisive role played by domestic social actors. During the reform process, far from a defensive position, capitalist classes have been very effective in formulating, supporting and reproducing neoliberal market reforms. On the other hand, the declining power of traditional trade unions has strengthened capital’s hand. The dissolution of the corporatist labor-state alliance and the implementation of neoliberal labor and labor market reforms have weakened trade unions and their ability to represent working classes. The existence of strong and relatively autonomous capitalist class and powerful business organizations are key factors to sustain neoliberal reforms. When economic reforms are supported by political and social ones in an institutionalized fashion, social roots of neoliberalism become more embedded that complicates a radical break from the reform process. On the other hand, the failure of traditional trade unions in defending labor rights and resisting against reforms indicate that recent anti-neoliberal movements and forces are based on new social actors, indigenous movements, and new labor organizations. The paper argues that the neoliberal reform process has both crafted new alliances between states and social actors, and new means for intra-class re-formations; all has shaped the trajectory of neoliberal experience and its aftermath.
