The role of the army in Ottoman-Turkey modernization: Historical institutional and professional factors

This thesis examines the relations of the army and its military factors with the Ottoman-Turkish modernization process. Furthermore, the aim is to discover possible correlations between the historical process of the army and military service in Turkey, its institutional development and periodic transformations, and the causes and consequences of the decisive role they played in Turkish modernization. In this context, by critically analyzing the established literature and theoretical approaches regarding Turkish historiography and particularly the modernization of Ottoman-Turkish and the links between the army and the military profession and modernization in Turkey will be questioned in the light of contemporary interdisciplinary method. Hereby, a new synthesis will be attempted. A methodology that is traditionalist approach focused on the relations and hierarchy of the state and society; Marxist approach based on traditional economic phenomena such as spoils of war, iqta, and timar, as well as modern economic phenomena such as trade and industry, and the modernization approach based on cultural relations and differences with Western civilization, regarding the army and military profession as a subset of modernization. Unlike these methodologies, the goal of this study is to build a specific institutionalist approach that focuses on the structure and dynamics of the army and the military profession. For this purpose, a periodic and evolutionary route will be followed in the historical development process from the Asiatic foundations of Turkish military history to the current neoliberal-entrepreneurial defense industry phase. As a result, the distinction and dichotomy that exist between army and military profession with civil society and politics can be addressed within the framework of a questioning paradigm which aims at established understandings that sometimes lead to conflict. This paradigm enlighten the question, whether military personality and values are integrated in line with ethno-cultural codes based on archaic foundations or not. Possibilities will be sought to answer the question if this is the main factor determining the place of the army in the Ottoman-Turkish modernization process