The problematic of Turkey's political regime on the axis of change of the state

For more than a century, the discussions on the political regime in Turkey have kept all their vitality. The political discourses and fights in Turkey are focused around the problem of "political regime", and much noise is made about this issue. The discussions on the regime range from a partial criticism of the regime to its condemnation as the cause of all evil, from the demand for reform to the design of utopian political projects. The discussions about the regime in Turkey point to the "smoke" of a "fire", so to speak. While pointing to the smoke, the discussions hardly mention the source of the smoke. Actually the problem of the burning political regime caused by the country's pains of transition to capitalism in the 19th century, constitutes the subject of the research. In this context, the problem of the political regime should be examined from a perspective that also considers the infrastructure elements and unequal power relations at the world level. The study which adopts a critical realist methodological position displaying a psychoanalytic and dialectical approach, differentiates between the "self" (substance) and "appearance" (form) of something at the first stage. In this context, the thesis aims to illuminate the substance and form of the (political) regime problematic in Turkey, how and why the subject has become an issue, and the dynamics of the state-regime relationship. In this sense, although at first glance the regime issue in Turkey manifests itself as the conflicts between the "traditional" and the "modern", the "East" and the "West", the "theocratic" and the "secular", the "centre" and the "periphery", the "civil" and the "bureaucracy", the "progressive" and the "reactionary", the "conservative" and the "enlightened", the study puts forward the argument that underneath the appearance of these conflicts lie the problems and controversies arising from the production process and the world system. The study which excludes the current process from the scope is restricted specifically to the 20th century. In the study, firstly the concepts of state and political regime are analyzed. Then these concepts are placed on a structural and historical axis. In this direction, by analyzing the system at the world level and Turkey's historical and social structure, it is tried to shed light on the regime problematic in Turkey at the level of political economy. In the theoretical background of the thesis, Robert Cox's production-state-world matrix and Bob Jessop's strategic-relational approach are utilized, and Jessop's mentioned approach is extended also to the concept of political regime/politeia. In the study, at the level of theory, the concept of politeia which is of ancient Greek origin has been proposed as it better allows to objectively understand the problematic in Turkey. As a matter of fact, it has been observed that the concept of political regime has moved away, in terms of content from politeia, which is the counterpart of political regime in antiquity, and that over time this concept has been reduced to an institutional mechanics by excluding the "social". It has been determined that some of the issues brought to the fore in Turkey are in fact purely politeia problems that also include infrastructural and superstructural aspects. It has been determined that there is the "state problematic" at the heart of the politeia/regime problematic and that the state problematic derives from the political economy and the dynamics of the world order. The concept of politeia, at a high level of abstraction, includes the components of "accumulation", "regulation", and "hegemony". When a problem arises in any of the components of politeia, this problem is considered a "regime problem" as soon as it reaches a "moment of crisis" by interacting with other components and rising above all components. In this context, it has been found that certain problems originating from politeia and reaching a moment of crisis in Turkey manifest as regime problems. The importance of the study is that it contributes to the deciphering of the origins by tracing such manifestations. Although the basis of the political regime issue is based on the political economy and the dynamics of the world system, it has been determined that the regime debates in Turkey have been detached from this basis, blurring the essence of the issue, and that it has been tried to replace the constitutive determinations by some alternative conceptual binary oppositions. In the thesis, it is argued that the phenomenon of interpellation, which can be translated into Turkish as "ideolojik celp" (ideological call), is functional in "mystifying" the basic foundations of the regime issue in Turkey. As a result it can be said that the regime problem in Turkey can only be withered away by overcoming some intricate systemic and political-economic problems arising from the historical structure of the world and Turkey.