Turkey

Turkey is a country that has been the outcome of domestic and global political, economic, societal challenges over two thousand years of massive transformations, from the nomadic Asian steppe to the Mediterranean agrarian world, to Islam, and to modernity, as well as from the cosmopolitan Ottoman ruling class to the modern Turkish nationalist elite and, recently, globalization and identity politics. Turkey’s history has been marked by confusion about the Ottoman Empire, which has been viewed as too European/Roman to be considered distinctly Asian and too Eastern to be considered European. Its successful centuries-long rule in Southeastern Europe has been a matter of curiosity, as has its turbulent modernization, which started pretty soon after the French Revolution. Its heir, the Turkish Republic, has been a typical modern state in accordance with the European political geography. Yet another recurrent theme has perhaps been the curious paradox of strong state and low state capacity. No matter whether foreign or domestic policy, economy or politics, history or present-day, (self-)perceptions and studies have oscillated between a strong Turkish state and its lower capacity on such issues as institutions, identity cleavages, class, gender, regional inequalities, protracted poverty and deprivation, and so on. Turkey has often been thought of as a latecomer to modern development, and this tension of missing and catching universal development has often been a recurrent theme since the Ottoman modernization in the 1830s or the proud new Republic’s substantial reforms in the 1920s, and at a level ranging from everyday life conversations to the highest level of official discourse. The political elite have often failed in state-society relations, but the country has often been subject to discussions on democratic consolidation; the economy has often been unstable, but it is still a member of the G20. In sum, the Republic of Turkey has been but one manifestation of world history: a modern state heir to a universal agrarian empire that disappeared like its fellows, a swift authoritarian modernization in the interwar years whose heritage still occupy minds, a Cold War security state that has developed in America-centered global capitalism, a post–Cold War state of neoliberal globalization trying to find its way in the turbulences of world politics and economy, with a failed desire of leadership in its neighborhood. Accordingly, the more than eighty sources cited and annotated here guide the readers through various manifestations of Turkey within historical, political, cultural, societal, economic, and foreign policy (with focus on the regional and the European dimensions) contexts. All in all, Turkish society has always been able to cope with all the above-mentioned challenges and manifestations, but it has been often very difficult for those earning and enjoying life with their honest labor.