The social and political economy of the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey (1908 – 1939)

Turkish modernization does not align with the endogenous type of modernization in which capitalist economic development plays a central role by triggering and carrying on social and political modernization. On the contrary, it was an exogenous type of modernization carried out by a group of ruling elite via adapting modern social and political institutions to an economically, socially and politically underdeveloped state. Undoubtedly, the time period that begins with the Young Turk Revolution in 1908 and continues up to the inception of World War II in 1939 is the radical progressive epoch of Turkish modernization. This period demonstrates a great deal of continuity of modernization on the basis of nationalist, positivist and secularist ideas despite the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 1922 and the establishment of The Turkish Republic in 1923. However, during this period, the majority of the traditional Turkish society, which can also be labelled as a primitive political community, frowned on modernization process as they had no need for highly developed social and political institutions. Therefore, either during the governance of the Committee of Union and Progress or the governance of the Kemalists, modernization attempts were met with resistance arising from society. In some instances, it was experienced that these resistances transformed into counter revolutionary and reactionary rebellions. Hence, the most effective and efficient implementations on the route of economic, social and politic modernization were secured in the statist, mono-party periods when the anti-modernizers were politically restrained. Besides, the economic and social modernization was also accelerated with the intensive state involvement according to the framework of statist social and economic programs. Depending on the historical records, this study argues that the centralist and statist political implementations rather than pluralist and liberal implementations were more effective towards modernization goal in economic, social and political arenas during the period between 1908 and 1939. Also, this study seeks to create a new perspective on the concept of authoritarianism by reinterpreting the statist policies on the way of modernization.