Property, State and Geopolitics: Re-Interpreting the Turkish Road To

Property, State and Geopolitics: Re-interpreting the Turkish Road to Modernity Eren Duzgun A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Program in Political Science York University Toronto, Ontario January 2016 © Eren Duzgun, 2016 Abstract This dissertation re- interprets and re-historicizes the origin and development of capitalism in the late Ottoman Empire and Turkey, and by doing so, it explores in a new light the question of ‘multiple modernities’. Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Historical Sociology and International Relations, I argue that the formation of ‘market societies’ should not be considered the outcome of ‘economic’ processes, but rather of systematic political and cultural interventions into existing ways of life that ensure the commodification of the means of subsistence, especially of land and labour. Departing from the ‘evolutionary’ understanding of the transition of capitalism, I show that the (early) modern world did not witness a concentric extension of largely similar market-making projects following the rise of British capitalism. Instead, historically specific social and geopolitical struggles generated qualitatively different modernities within and outside Europe. In particular, the modernization associated with Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, i.e. the Jacobin model, not only proved (at least for a while) the viability of an alternative path to modernization that did not require the commodification of the means of life, but also became a model itself to be emulated and selectively adapted by others in and beyond Europe. In this context, my argument is that from 1840 to 1950 Ottoman/Turkish modernization efforts did not follow a single project of ‘westernization’; but rather, that Ottoman/Turkish elites appropriated, oscillated between and recombined with local resources two inherently contradictory development strategies originally advanced by Britain and France. Overtime, however, the reactions from ‘below’ and interventions from ‘outside’ increasingly forced the Ottoman/Turkish state to consolidate the Jacobin model at the expense of market society. The state, unable/unwilling to commodify land and labour, increasingly substituted the relations of market society with the Jacobin model, while repeatedly recombining the latter with domestic ii social and ideological resources. The cumulative result of this century-long Turkish experiment with modernity, therefore, was a historically specific Jacobinism that bypassed capitalism (and socialism) based on an alternative form of property and sociality. Relatedly, although capitalist property relations began to penetrate the social fabric from the 1950s onwards, this Jacobin legacy had a profound impact on the manner in which capitalism was instituted in Turkey. Seen from this angle, I contend that postwar modernization in Turkey cannot be understood merely as another form of capitalism, nor can Turkey’s current transformation signify a mere transition to another form of modernity. Overall, then, the dissertation contributes to a deeper understanding of the social content, tempo and multi-linearity of world historical development. By departing from the evolutionary conceptions of capitalist development, it undermines the unilinear understanding of the ‘Western’ path to modernity, which in turn has paradigmatic implications for the quality and manner of the arrival of modernity in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey. iii Acknowledgements It has taken me 4 years to finish writing this dissertation. Combined with 2 years of PhD course work as well as two Masters degrees, I have spent almost a decade of my life as a graduate student. I am not sure what to make of this fact, whether I should feel sorry for or proud of myself. Regardless, over the years, I have incurred great debts to many people for their support and intellectual guidance. The number of people runs into the dozens and dozens and unfortunately precludes a complete listing of their names. However, I feel particularly obliged and owe a debt of gratitude to the following individuals. I am most indebted to my supervisor Hannes Lacher. Hannes was the toughest critic as well as the most generous supporter of this dissertation project. Indeed, the very idea of my thesis crystallized in his Comparative Politics seminars, and I have tried to build on and reformulate some of the theoretical questions Hannes raised in his own dissertation. Ellen Meiksins Wood, to whom I was introduced by Hannes, was a continuous source of inspiration until the final penning of this dissertation. I met Ellen only once, and I was extremely lucky that she agreed to be a member of my dissertation committee. Unfortunately, Ellen fell ill during the writing of this dissertation and passed away. I am very sad, as I am sure are others that we could not benefit more from such a giant of a scholar. Anyone who reads this dissertation will understand the extent of my debt to Ellen from the frequency of references to her work, and from my endorsement of her particular interpretation of historical materialism. Upon Ellen’s illness, I was fortunate that George Comninel accepted to take her place. George offered numerous invaluable suggestions regarding the content and prose of the dissertation, while saving me from making a couple of embarrassing errors. I also benefitted immensely from his graduate seminar, which left an enduring impact on my methodology as well as on my understanding of early modern European history. Likewise, I am grateful to Feyzi Baban, Kamran Matin, Greg Albo and Thabit Abdullah for providing extensive feedback on the dissertation. Their iv comments and suggestions not only forced me to formulate my arguments much more clearly, but will also guide the future development of my work. Credit also goes to many of my professors back in Turkey and England, where I spent a significant portion of my university life. In particular, I wish to thank Adam David Morton, Andreas Bieler, Galip Yalman, Zulkuf Aydin, Pinar Bedirhanoglu, Necati Polat, Mustafa Turkes and Meliha Altunisik for their guidance and encouragement. I will never forget the friendship I have shared with a number of individuals. Aziz Guzel, Thomas Chiasson-Lebel, Lilian Yap, Serdar Sozubek, Ezgi Dogru, Frantz Gheller, Julian Germann, Sumerjan Bozkurt, Ali Riza Gungen, Sam Putinja, Vedat Altun, Erdem Akbas, Barbara Calvo, Lucy Angus and Nicole Swerhun deserve special thanks. Each contributed to this project in their own way, shared my interest in obscure questions and came to my rescue during the painful research and writing process. Finally, I want to thank my mother and brother, Destine Celal and Baran Duzgun, from whom I have learned more than all the books I cite in this work. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1. Early Modernity and ‘The Rise of the West’: Questioning the 13 ‘Pristine’ Conditions of Capitalism ‘Eurocentric anti-Eurocentrism’: Universalizing and Naturalizing 17 Capitalism Capitalism, Modernity and International Relations 25 The Mode of Production: Rent or Tax? 34 Class, State and Geopolitics: Historicizing Transitions and 36 Transformations Chapter 2. Capitalism, Absolutism and Jacobinism: The International 43 Relations of Modernity Uneven and Combined Development in Post-Feudal Europe: 45 England vs. France The Politics and Culture of Capitalism: England’s Capitalist 52 Modernity The Politics and Culture of Absolutism: France’s Absolutist 60 Modernity The Geo(politics) of Enlightenment: The Invention of ‘Reason’ and 64 the ‘Improvement’ of the ‘Public’ The Process of Substituting Capitalism: The ‘Citizen-Soldier’ and 71 ‘Public School’ as keys to Understanding Alternate Routes to Modernity Conclusions: Rethinking the French Model 84 Chapter 3. Modernity as Substitution: Disputing the Ottoman Path to 87 Modernity From ‘Bourgeois Revolution’ to ‘Uneven and Combined 91 Development’: Transitions to Modernity and Varieties of the Bourgeois Paradigm Capitalism as ‘Market-Dependence’ and Modernity as ‘Substitution’ 97 Uneven and Combined Development in Early Modern Europe 104 Explaining Ottoman Geopolitical Backwardness 108 vi French Revolution and Ottoman Late-Late Absolutism 117 The Tanzimat, 1839-1876: Between Capitalism and Jacobinism 123 Sharecroppers, Peasants and ‘Merchant Capital’: The Persistence 133 of Non-capitalist Forms of Social Labor The Ottoman Constitution of 1876: The Rise of Jacobinism 143 Abdulhamid II (1876-1908): Educating the ‘Nation’ 146 From Abdulhamid II to the Young Turks: Redefining Islam and 153 Reinventing the Public Sphere The Geo(politics) of Revolution: Reimagining the ‘People’ 159 The Young Turk Revolution, 1908-1918: A Capitalist Revolution? 164 Substituting Capitalism via ‘National Economics’ 176 Conclusions: 1908 as a Substitute Jacobin Revolution 182 Chapter 4. Beyond the Turkish Sonderweg: Kemalism as the Ultimate 187 Turkish Substitution for Capitalism Agrarian Change, Industrialization and the Economistic Fallacy: 191 Reconceptualizing Late Modernization The Turkish Sonderweg: Kemalism as State Capitalism? 200 After the Deluge: Nationalists, Bolsheviks and the Question of 203 ‘People-ism’ The Geo(politics) of Sharecropping: Class, State and the Nation 207 Ten ‘Bourgeois’ Years, 1923-1932: Capitalism Unbounded? 210 The ‘Etatist’ Thirties: Industrialization, Monopolization, 221 Peasantization From the Agrarian Question to the National

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