CONFORMITY VERSUS INFORMALITY: ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE SOCIALISTS AND BUREAUCRATIC ELITE IN TURKEY

Year 2019, , 96 - 121, 29.04.2019

Mete Kaan Kaynar

https://doi.org/10.18490/sosars.559093

Abstract

Might the history of socialism in Turkey be
read as the history of “ostracism” and “proscription”
of the socialists from the political
system? On the other hand, might the socialists in Turkey be considered as a (one of the) outsider(s) or political (one of
the) enemy/enemies? This article wants to answer these questions and focus on
the problem of how Turkish socialists affect the political system, while they
are in mainly the outside of the system. The main argument of this article is
that the socialists can be considered as an outsider/public enemy of Turkish
political system by the bureaucratic elite,
but social relations occurred in the non-political institutions of Turkish
society have given opportunities to the socialists for affecting the political
system. In other words, nonpolitical
social institutions and daily social relations occurred in these institutions
have been the only space for the socialists to be politically active and to
illegally and informally affect the inside (formal institutions) of the political system. This is also one of the main
reason for the endemic informality and/or
illegality tradition in the Turkish left. The main aim of this study is to
explore the relationship, interactions, and
dilemmas regarding conformity versus illegality in line with the contradictive
evolvement of relations between the socialists and bureaucratic elite in the
Turkish political life.  

Keywords

Turkish Politics, Conformity, Informality, Bureaucratic Elite, Socialists

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