Determining factors of the attitudes of intellectuals toward the changes in power in Turkey: The case of the period of February 28

Coups and coup periods in Turkish political history have a significant impact on the institutional and social structure. During these periods, some intellectuals act together with the military and civil bureaucracy in the coup and its aftermath. This attitude of intellectuals needs a sociological explaination. Therefore, the aim of the thesis is to examine the relations of Turkish intellectuals with power in the process of February 28 coup. The government, which came with a democratic election, was removed from power in the February 28th period as a result of a postmodern coup and a military tutelage was formed. In our study, In this process, I asked the question of what the responsibility of intellectuals was in this coup process in Turkey. I tried to show the contradictions of some of Turkish intellectuals who ignore social values, fundamental rights and freedoms in their supporting attitude vis-a-vis the coup and its aftermath. When assessed in the context of historical sociology, the February 28 coup d'etat, though a part of a history of coups in almost every decade after the second half of the twentieth century, had a series of similarities and differences to the previous ones in one way and the other. In this process, the attitudes of intellectuals in evaluating social events should be analyzed in order to see how they are consistent in analyzing social events and what conclusions they are leading to. In this context, the Feb. 28 coup process is analyzed with a special reference to the attitudes of intellectuals throughout the whole political spectrum in Turkey: Liberal, Conservative, Kemalist, Left and Islamic intellectuals. Some intellectuals in Turkey have a strong influence of the positivist perspective on their ideas on religion. For example, the reactions of the Kemalist intellectuals to the February 28th coup period have a series of similarities to the evaluations of the (classical) left intellectuals. However, the Kemalist intellectuals' assessment on this issue, and this coup process could be more rigid than the left-wing intellectuals in Turkey, defending the coup in terms of the regime maintainance as a crucial and legitimate step. One would naturally expect conservative-Islamic intellectuals and their publics to be the sharpest critics of the February 28 coup process as it targets primarily their religious communities; but it is not possible to talk about a common oppositional discourse in the conservative camp of intellectuals. Liberal intellectuals argued that 28 February process was built on a mentality that was constant and persistent in the history of Turkish republic. According to them, the country is always governed by an official ideology of the Republic, and this administration has pursued a domination of social-political life through its own cadres top down, rather than a common will to participatory politics in Turkey. As a result, some intellectuals in Turkey generally acted relatively more independently in the face of the powers, and defended the human rights and freedoms while others have a more passive attitude towards the power. Another group of intellectuals took the side of power, perceived the values and freedoms of the society as a threat to the state.