Debates of Turkey

Course content

This course aims to cover the principal academic and political debates on Turkey’s social structure. Debates on the following issues are to be examined: The formation, consolidation and collapse of the Ottoman Empire; main paths in Ottoman modernisation; the foundation of the Republic; 1930s: present vs. past and inkilaps vs. traditions; the agents of the inkilap: the Turkish Hearths, the People’s Houses, and the Village Institutes; the transition to multi-party era and the true nature of Democratic Party; the 1960 Coup; Turkey as a feudal, Asiatic or capitalist society; the rise of political Islam and ethnic revival in 1990s.