2007 Yılı Doktora Yeterlilik Sınavı sorularını görmek için tıklayınız
From November 2002 on, the Department of Political Science and Public Administration has altered its rules governing the Ph.D. Qualifying Exams. According to the new rules, Ph.D. candidates are required to take exams in three of the fields designated below: (Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü Kasım 2002 itbariyle Doktora Yeterlik Sınavlarına ilişkin kurallarında değişiklik yapmıştır. Yeni kurallara göre Ph.D. adaylarının aşağıda belirtilen alanların üçünden sınava girmeleri gerekmektedir.)
Field 1: Theory of Public Administration
Field 2: Public Policy
Field 3: Local Government and Urban Politics
Field 4: Political Thought
a) Classical
b) Modern
Field 5: Comparative Politics and Government
Field 6: Studies in Mass Communication, Ideology and Culture
Field 7: Political Sociology
Field 8: Turkish Politics
Some examples of the questions previously asked by the Department of Political Science and Public Administration are presented below. (Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü tarafından daha önce sorulmuş sorulara ilişkin örnekler aşağıda sunulmuştur.)
Please click on the field name below in order to see the relevant questions.
Fields 1 and 2: Theory of Public Administration and Public Policy. 3
Field 3: Local Government and Urban Politics. 7
Field 5: Comparative Politics and Government 14
Field 6: Studies in Mass Communication, Ideology and Culture. 19
Field 7: Political Sociology. 21
Fields 1 and 2: Theory of Public Administration and Public Policy
§ "The debate between scientific management and human relations is a continuing one. It may be tempting to regard the theories of Taylor and Mayo as mutually exclusive-at one time one theory is pre-eminent while at other time the other is- but this would be misleading". Discuss; particularly refer whether this is still a viable argument in public administration theory?
§ In the evolution of public administration as a discipline there have been important "turning points" which have seriously affected the course of development in the ensuing years. Discuss, referring to some of these turning points and elaborate how they have had repercussions in discipline's evolution.
§ There seems to be a consensus from the right and the left of the political spectrum that public bureaucracies play a significant role in public policy making process. Discuss.
§ “Public Administration contains three relatively distinct approaches that grow out of different perspectives on its functions. Some have viewed it as a managerial endeavor, similar to practices in the private sector. Others, stressing the publicness of the public administration, have empnhasized its political aspects. Still others, noting the importance of sovereignty, constitutions, and regulation in public administration, have viewed it as a distinctly legal matter”. Can these approaches be considered as asset and/or liability –at the same time- for the discipline? Discuss.
§ It is claimed that the governance school of administration brings back the political back to the core of public bureaucracies whereas the history of the discipline remarks to efforts towards politics-administration seperation. Write an essay in which you critically discuss the implications of governance school upon the issue of politics-administration dichotomy.
§ What is the role and significance of bureaucracy in public policy-making process? Elaborate.
§ Give a brief account of the evolution of the discipline Public Administration in general and in Turkey, in particular.
§ Select a prominent name in the field of Public Administration, and discuss where this prominence comes from.
§ Please critically analyse public administration system in this country from a structural-functional perspective; single out major issue areas and argue remedies, ways and means to ameliorate the system and its inadequacies.
§ Write an essay on how the issue of “public interest” is treated by different approaches/theories of public administration.
§ Write an essay on the topic of “administrative praxis” as treated by different approaches/theories of public administration.
§ “The ideal construct of bureaucracy set forth by Max Weber is frequently used as a model for comparising administrative systems. Although this model has received a great deal of praise, as well as criticism, it has not always been useful for explaining reality, particularly in the developing countries.” Please write an essay critically evaluating the above quotation.
§ Critically evaluate the contribution of Fred W. Riggs to the development of the sub-field of comparative public administration.
§ Write an essay critically evaluating the relationship between comparative public administration and comparative politics.
§ In elaborating the consequences of globalization it is argued that "…public administration will continue to persist as both a self-conscious enterprise and a professional field. Research and development in public administration may be negatively affected by globalization to some extent, but the continuity of the field of inquiry is intact; all states are needed for globalizing capitalism, and all states have public administration functions that can not and will not be dismantled". Within the above framework, write an essay critically evaluating the implications for comparative public administration.
§ Write an essay critically evaluating Ferrel Heady's contribution to the development of the field of comparative public administration.
§ It is generally claimed that a substantial paradigm shift occurred in the discipline of public administration in recent decades, during the restructuring of contemporary capitalism. One of the reflections of this paradigm shift is the replacement of "Public Personnel Administration" with "Human Resources Management". Critically evaluate and comment on the statement.
§ It is argued that there has always been a built-in tension between "merit system" and its implementation, and "representative bureaucracy" in public administration systems. Discuss this issue in general and in relation to Turkish personal administration in particular.
§ Outline a workable-implementable public personnel system for this country that would respond to some of the fundamental personnel issues faced.
§ Politicization of the civil service has been considered as “a dilemma”. Do you agree? Discuss.
§ What would be some repercussions of “new public management movement” on public personnel practices? Critically discuss.
§ It is argued that “representative bureaucracy” – (civil service) is a prerequisite for a sound democracy to exist. Elaborate.
§ Write an essay in which you explain and compare philosophical, theoretical and practical foundations of the ‘pluralist’ and the ‘network’ models of public policy making process.
§ In order to grasp the intricacies of the public policy process it is argued that it is necessary to relate it to a complex set of variables, and actors such as power structure of the society as a whole, functioning of the public “bureaucratic” organizations and role and significance of administrator as an individual decision-maker, and the “street level bureaucrat”.
§ The view that “public administration theory must be subject to an unprecedented revision in this world of drastically changing and transforming public service” has been increasingly getting acceptance among scholars of this field. Write an essay in which you discuss and evaluate this view. In your essay make a special emphasis on the issue of ‘novelty’ of contemporary theories of public administration.
§ Select three ‘well-known’ names from the field of public administration and explain why you think they should be considered ‘well-known’?
Field 3: Local Government and Urban Politics
§ According to Castells, when squatter movements break their relationship of dependency vis a vis the state, they may become potential agents of social change. Please discuss this view with reference to the Turkish case.
§ In the 1960s and the 1970s, the Turkish cities were studied around a duality metaphor.
a. What were the limitiation of such a metaphor in understanding the Turkish cities of that period.
b. Do you think such a metaphor would help us to understand the current dynamics and structure of the Turkish cities.§ There is widely held view that the strength of democratic tradition in a society is measured against the degree of decentralisation of power. According to this view, the more decision making bodies are decentralised, the more a society becomes democratic. Please critically evaluate this view with reference to Turkish case.
§ Discuss the centrality of gender and ethnicity to urban conflict and change in the work of David Harvey.
§ It is a well-known argument that there is an intimate and necessary relationship between decentralization ad democratisation. Please discuss this argument with reference to the Turkish case.
§ Compare and contrast Castell’s positions with that of the Chicago School concerning the Urban Question and the City and the Grassroots.
§ Dwell upon the assertion that ‘minimal state’ leads to increased efficiency and enhanced individual liberties.
§ Please discuss the validity of the quotation below. “Local government is an indispensible element of contemporary society both as a service delivery instrument and as a channel of participation”.
§ Discuss the transition from urban managerialism to entrepreneurialism in Turkey by referring to so-called Administrative Reform package of the current government.
§ It is one of the common assumption that local scale is the scale of democratic governance. Discuss this statement in the light of the quotation given below.
‘Different societies not only produce space… but also produce scale. The production of scale may be the most elemental differentiation of geographical space and it is every bit a social process. There is nothing ontologically given out the traditional division between home and locality, urban and regional, national and global scales. The differentiation of geographical scales establishes and is established through the geographic structure of social interactions. With a concept of scale as produced, it is possible to avoid on the one hand the relativism that treats spatial differentiation as a mosaic, and on the other to avoid a reified and uncritical division of scales that repeats a fetishism of space.’
§ It is widely argued that patron-client relations are one of the dominant form of interest representation at the local level in Turkey. For some, patron-client relations are transitory phenomenon and would give way to more pluralist forms of interest representation. Please write an essay on this issue by taking the recent dynamics of local politics in Turkey into account.
Field 4: Political Thought
§ Please explain and discuss the approach to the individual in the context of Renaissance-humanism in comparison with the metaphysical-organic image of the world of the Middle-agean Christian thought.
§ Please explain and discuss Macchiavelli’s contribution to contemporary political theory.
§ What are the main symptoms of the transition from premodern” to “modern” thinking in the work of N. Machiavelli? Discuss.
§ Please explain and discuss the problem of the shift from “pre-modern” to “modern” times/political thought in the work of N. Macchiavelli with reference to the works of Plato and Aristotle.
§ Please discuss and evaluate early forms of secular thinking in the context of the ideals of the Renaissance.
§ Please discuss the problem of morality in Macchiavelli.
§ To what extent Hobbes is a liberal thinker? Please discuss.
§ How are the concepts of legitimacy, rights, consent, and the social contract linked together in classical liberal theory? Please discuss.
§ How are the concepts of freedom and sovereignty brought together in the theory of Thomas Hobbes? Discuss.
§ Write an essay explorating different meanings attributed to the conception of freedom in Kant, Hegel and Marx. Comment on their political implications in a comparative perspective.
§ Compare and contrast Locke’s and Marx’s ideas on private property and liberty. Do their conception on these issues have an influence on their understanding of the modern state, and if so, how?
§ According to many writers Rousseau is evaluated as a critic of liberalism. Is that true? In which respects are Rousseau’s ideas consistent with classical liberalism and where do they depart?
§ Critically evaluate the evolution of the concept of consent in modern political thought. What was the significance of this notion in relation to political authority? Answer by reference to Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.
§ Please compare and contrast Rousseau’s and Marx’s understanding of social inequality. Do their differences entail different political projects?
§ Discuss and evaluate Hobbes’ interpretation of the natural law teaching.
§ Write an essay explicating different meanings attributed to the conception of freedom in Kant, Hegel and Marx. Comment on their political implications in a comparative perspective.
§ Modernity involves a tension between the principle of individuality and the primacy given to the necessity of the state. In what ways this tension is dealt by Hobbes, Kant and Marx.
§ Explicate the views of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau concerning human nature and discuss their political implications in each theorist in a comparative perspective.
§ Discuss and evaluate the significance of John Rawl’s idea of “justice as fairness” within the context of contemporary debates on freedom and equality.
§ Explain and discuss the topics of the New Right. To what extent and at what points do the New Right theorists diverge from classical liberal ideas of freedom and equality?
§ Can Rawls’s contribution to political theory be seen as a grand solution to the problem of legitimacy? Discuss by giving one example (of a social-political situation) that affirms Rawlsian project, and another that falsifies his basic assumptions.
§ Discuss the meaning of the civil society debate within the context of the new global order.
§ Compare and contrast the significance of the concept of hegemony within the theoretical frameworks of Gramsci and Poulantzas.
§ How is the relationship between law and polical power portrayed in contemporary liberal tradition. Answer by reference to Rawls and Habermas. How would Foucault criticize this tradition?
§ "What the state fear is not so much crime or brigandage, even on the grand scale of the Mafia or heavy drug traffic, as long as they transgress the law with an eye toward particular benefits, however important they may be. The state is afraid of fundamental, founding violence, that is, violence able to justify, to legitimate, or to transform the relations of law, and so to present itself as having a right to law".
Do you agree with the above statement. Answer by reference to the traditions of Political Liberalism (Rawls), Critical Theory (Habermas), and Deconstruction (Derrida)
§ Please write an essay on the contribution of Antonio Gramsci to contemporary political theory.
§ What are the characteristics of the teleological views of nature and human action in ancient Greek political theory? What are the implications of this view for ethical and political conduct? Answer by reference to Plato and Aristotle.
§ I. Berlin states that the originality of Machiavelli lies in his criticism of certain Christian values (such as peace, obedience, humbleness. Otherworldliness) as anti-political and his attempt to associate political activity with certain pagan values (such as fame, glory. Victory). Do you agree? Why? Why not? Discuss with reference to Machiavelli’s texts.
§ How are the concepts of freedom and equality brought together in the theory of Thomas Hobbes?
§ Discuss and evaluate the process of monopolization of violence in the foundation of the state in social contract theories by giving reference to at least two thinkers in a comparative perspective.
§ Discuss the civil society concept in Gramsci and its (possible) implications on current debates on this issue.
§ Foucault argues that more individualizing forms of power in modern societies also imply the possibility of more totalizing interventions. What does he mean? What is the significance of this argument from the angle of criticizing contemporary liberalism?
§ What are the points of continuity and discontunity between J.J. Rousseau's political theory and K. Marx's thought?
§ Comment on John Rawls's views in Political Liberalism in terms of his position with respect to classical liberal ideals.
§ To what extent the conception of consent can be accepted as the criterion for political legitimacy? Answer by reference to (at least) two thinkers.
§ For many interpreters, J. J. Rousseau is a genuinely anti-liberal thinker. Do you agree? Comment on the major themes of his work to evaluate the extent which he does, or does not depart from the premises of classical liberalism.
§ Explain and discuss the emergence of secularism in political thought by reference to the works of three well-known thinkers.
§ How is the relationship between law and political power portrayed in the theories of Rawls and Habermas? Compare and discuss. What are the criticisms directed to the projects of these thinkers?
§ Please explain and discuss Machiavelli’s approach to religion within the context of his “amoral” conceptualization of politics.
§ Please explain and discuss the problem of motion and processuality in Hobbes’ thinking.
§ The Renaissance is often defined as a “shift away” from the theocentrical thinking of the Middle Ages. Please explain and discuss.
Field 5: Comparative Politics and Government
§ Write an essay critically evaluating S. Huntington’s notion of the clash of civilizations in the context of political development theory.
§ Please write an essay which analyzes the history and trends in Comparative Politics, focussing basically on the methodological shortcomings of the field.
§ Please compare and contrast the disciplines of Comparative Politics and Comparative Government. What are their defining characteristics and to what extent are they related to each other?
§ Write an essay critically evaluating Karl Marx’s and Antonio Gramsci’s conceptions of the relationship between ‘base and superstructure’ by taking into account their implications for comparative study of state-society relations.
§ Write an essay critically discussing the concepts such as corporatism, populism, neo-patrimonialism in regards to the characterisation of state-society relations in the Third World social formations.
§ Please write an essay about the history and trends in Comparative Politics, focusing basically on the methodological shortcomings of the field.
§ "Following an analysis of how various models of party can be located in terms of the relationship between civil society and the state, we contend that the recent period has witnessed the emergence of a new model of party, the cartel part, in which colluding parties become agents of the state and employ the resources of the state (party state) to ensure their own collective survival". Make an assessment on this statement referring to party system change in Western European democracies.
§ Write an essay on the theories of development and underdevelopment by focusing both on the mainstream and alternative/radical approaches.
§ Karl Marx and Max Weber are sometimes considered the precursors of social sciences. Their ideas have substantially shaped the field of Comparative Politics, too. Write a comparative essay on some of the most essential concepts in the thought of Marx and Weber that influenced the major subfields of Comparative Politics.
§ What is Comparative Politics? In what types of studies does the discipline engage in? How does it relate to Political Science in general and Comparative Government in particular? What are some of the main turning points and problems in the history of Comparative Politics?
§ Compare and contrast presidential, parliamentary and semi-presidential systems by analyzing their advantages and disadvantages. In answering the question, you are expected: 1) to provide examples (country cases) for each system, 2) to comment on the Turkish case and discuss the desirability of a presidential system in Turkey.
§ Please write an essay on the applicability of presidential system in Turkey. In answering the question, you are also expected to provide clear examples from other presidential countries as well as the basic characteristics of this system.
§ Compare and contrast modernisation and dependency approaches. Do you consider them as providing relevant frameworks for the analysis of state/society relations in the contemporary era? If so why, if not, why not?
§ Discuss the relationship between democracy and liberalism in the context of globalisation.
§ “…state power is capitalist to the extent that it creates, maintains, or restores the conditions required for capital accumulation in a given situation and it is non-capitalist to the extent that these conditions are not realised”.
§ Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not? Please write an essay explaining your answer.
§ What do we understand by the concept of “postmodern political theory”? Discuss in a critical context by considering the works of Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard.
§ Write an essay critically evaluating the compatibility of the Statist-Institutionalist approach to the state-society relations and the characteristics of Max Weber’s methodology.
§ Write an essay critically evaluating Karl Marx’s and Antonio Gramsci’s conceptions of the relationship between ‘base’ and ‘superstructure’.
§ Postmodernity is claimed to have emerged from within modernity and to contain all contradictions of modernity. Discuss.
§ What is the connection between democracy and liberalism?
§ What is the connection between “state”, “nation” and the “nation state”? Give references to recent debates in globalization theory.
§ Elaborate on the concept of participation relating it to different types of democracy.
§ To what extent can "civil society" help enrich public life in a period marked by fraying communities, widespread apathy and unprecedented levels of contempt for politics?
§ To what extent can nation-state be considered as one of the consequences of modernity? How can we explain racism, fascism and patriotism and their relationships with the nation-state? Are they archaic forms of "nation-ness", or the extremities of modern nationalism?
§ “There is no need to ‘bring the state back in’ to Marx’s account of the making of modernity. It was in at the beginning”. Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
§ “The Enlightenment project is no longer a living force in contemporary culture”. Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
§ What are the complexities and difficulties in thinking of “political science as science”. Answer your question by giving references to different traditions of thought in contemporary political theory.
§ Please write a comprehensive essay analyzing the evolution and proliferation of standpoints and attitudes regarding democracy, participation and protection of fundamental rights and freedoms in various political parties, groups and movements in Turkey, in the period between 1950-1980. In your essay make specific reference to individual political parties and their stands (such as HP, MP-ÇKMP, MHP, MNP-MSP, AP, YTP and of course CHP and its evolution) in the light of major theories of democracy and political parties.
§ Discuss the meaning of the civil society debate within the context of the new global order.
§ Write an essay discussing the notion of democracy and its bases on universal human rights, fundamental freedom and equality as they are conceived in the public-private dichotomy and new social movements.
§ Elaborate on the concept of participation relating it to different types of democracy.
§ Compare and contrast the significance of the concept of hegemony in the theoretical frameworks of Antonio Gramsci and Nicos Poulantzas.
§ How meaningful is it, in your view, to distinguish between alternative conceptualisations of state-society relations in terms of state-centred and/or society-centred perspectives?
§ How is the relationship between law and polical power portrayed in contemporary liberal tradition. Answer by reference to Rawls and Habermas. How would Foucault criticize this tradition?
§ Evaluate the contributions (negative and/or positive) of any two of the following writers to political science: Almond/Verba, Gramsci, Habermas, Easton, Skocpol.
§ Discuss the advantageous and disadvantageous aspects of presidential model for Turkey.
§ What are the dimensions of globalization? How can a developing country responds to this process?
§ Write an essay on the logic behind studying Comparative Politics? What is the discipline about? What are same of the basic parameters and problems in studying Comparative Politics? In answering the question, make sure to include some of the most important historical turning points in the history of the discipline.
§ Write an essay on the logic behind studying Comparative Government. What is the discipline about? What are some of the basic parameters and problems in studying Comparative Government? What were some of the basic turning points in the history of the discipline?
Field 6: Studies in Mass Communication, Ideology and Culture
§ Please discuss the "dominant ideology thesis" with specific reference to major theorists/arguments pro and con.
§ Do you subscribe to the view that "encoding" shapes "decoding"? If not, how can you conceptualise the reception of mass-mediated products in relation to the production process?
§ Please discuss the structure of the field of cultural production in Turkey with reference to the theoretical framework you presented in Question 1 and/or 2.
§ It is asserted that the media industries (including TV broadcasting) are currently undergoing major changes which are having a significant impact on the nature of media products and the modes of their production and diffusion. Please write an essay to explain and critically discuss these recent trends in the media industries.
§ Can the media play a role in the formation of a ‘public sphere’ at a time when public service broadcasting is virtually eliminated and the press targets the market with an output of celebrity gossip and sensational reporting?
§ Please write a short essay to elaborate on the effects of media globalization (rise of the global media).
§ One might argue that there are basically two approaches to mass media; one privileges the production process and the other consumption. Explain the basic claims and representatives of these approaches. Discuss whether they are necessarily mutually exclusive.
§ Discuss the following statement: There are no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses.
§ Discuss the effects of media globalization on the public sphere.
§ Please compare and contrast the ways in which major cultural theorists and critiques conceptualize the significance of modes of reception and appropriation of popular cultural products with regard to ideological effects of popular culture.
§ Do you think that the “”dominant ideology thesis” is powerful and plausible? Please refer, in your answer, to “false consciousness”, “culture industries”, “ideological state apparatuses” and “society of spectacle”.
§ It is argued that the process of modernisation involves the “invention of tradition”. Discuss the argument with specific reference to the role and significance of “the people” and popular culture in the cultural politics of (classical) Kemalism.
§ "The commercialization of mass communication progressively destroyed its character as a medium of the public sphere". Please write an essay to explain and discuss the above statement.
§ To what extent can one speak of the dominance of binary hierarchical relations ("high culture" vs. "popular culture") in Turkish cultural history? And what are the continuities and discontinuities between the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey in that respect?
§ It is argued that the main reason for the abandonment of the notion of "ideology" is that it embraces everything so that there is left no extra-ideological ground supposed to provide the standard for measuring ideological distortion. Discuss.
§ Discuss the role of television in the formation of "public sphere" in Turkey.
Field 7: Political Sociology
§ A key concept in political sociology is that of power. This concept has been defined and utilized in various forms and ways to analyze how individuals and groups in society interact with each other and influence decisions in both the state and civil society contexts. Please write an essay discussing and comparing critically Marxist and Weberian views and perspectives on the bases of power and its institutionalization in society.
§ Classical elite theorists have rejected liberal prescriptions for state-civil society relationship on the assumption that these theories are based on an essentially rational and egalitarian logic which does not correspond to reality. Who are the classical elitists and what is the reality they are talking about? How do they explain and elobarate their own position on distribution of political power in society? Please write an essay identifying the arguments of some of the main classical elitists; discussing their shared assumptions and comparing their fundamental position with that of democratic theory?
§ It is often claimed that one of the main contemporary challenges to the state has been the phenomenon of new social movements. Please state the fundamental characteristics of NSM, and write an essay discussing their relationship to and impact on the distribution of power in society and the state-civil society relationship.
§ Conventionally, the discipline of political sociology has dealt with the analysis of power relations and power structures at the societal level. Most political sociologists, thus, have focused on studies of the social bases of power, power structures and institutional and extrainstitutional aspects of politics. The conventional models of power (such as elitist, Marxist, pluralist, corporatist etc.) have often formed the bases of the theoretical and empirical analysis in this discipline along these lines. In the more recent approaches to political sociological analysis one notices a tendency to move away from the state-society axis so predominant in earlier works as well as a shift in the basic parameters of the discipline, including the power dimension as such. Such a change has, to a large extent, stemmed from the experiences and claims of the New Social Movements (NSM) (such as the feminist and environmental movements.) The ideologies and practices of the NSMs have formed some of the fundamental arguments and criticisms to existing theories and structures of political analysis. Write an essay discussing the issues presented above and critically evaluating the evolution of political sociology as a discipline. In your essay make specific references to theories and/or sources from the literature, wherever necessary, to support your ideas and/or elaborate your views.
§ Has “class” as an analytical concept lost importance in the recent social theory? Why and why not?
§ Has globalization displaced deep social structures such as capitalism, the state and bureaucracy, the nation and nationalism?
§ Discuss how classical sociologists defined what is “new” in modern society and how they studied modernity? Refer to at least two of the following names: Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel and Park.
§ Discuss the relationships among agent/actor, structure/system and action/practice.
§ Discuss the relationship among class, ethnicity and gender in early, mature and late/post modern-capitalist societies.
§ Can a gender perspective be integrated into modern political theory?
§ Discuss the problem of representation in the feminist understanding of politics.
§ Discuss the main obstacles that international and transnational feminism encounter while imagining and working towards women’s equality in the world societies.
§ How is the public sphere being disorganised and/or reorganised in contemporary late capitalist societies? Discuss in relation with various theories of ‘public sphere’.
§ What could terms like ‘radical’ or ‘anti-system’ movements possibly imply in the context of social and political transformations covered under the rubric of ‘globalisation and postmodernity’?
§ In what senses politics of identity can be regarded as a field of study in social sciences? What are the “new” theoretical and methodological issues that are generated by the studies in this field? To what extent these studies challenge the established approaches in social sciences? Please discuss by referring to various debates and studies in this area of study.
Field 8: Turkish Politics
§ Do you agree with the statement that Turkish State Nationalism has its roots only in the process of ‘Nation State Building’ and not in the ideological nationalism of the 20th century? Discuss.
§ Turkey has experienced a vast migration from the rural to the urban areas in the last five decades reversing the rural-urban population ratios. What are the political impacts of such an urbanization? Analyze.
§ It is claimed that the authors of constitutions and electoral laws in Turkey have always wanted to design a two and a half party system. Whereas the election results have had a tendency to be fragmented. What are the basic reasons for this fragmentation? What are the reasons for the desire for having fewer parties?
§ Political Islam that has developed significantly after 1980 is an outcome of the failure of the Turkish Modernization and Westernization Project. Discuss.
§ “Turkish electorate is highly volatile and the party system has an inclination towards fragmentation. So two ballot, single member constituency system as proposed by some circles recently will serve the stability of politics.” Discuss.
§ The Kemalist state tradition in Turkey is the major hinderence to the development of the civil society. Discuss.
§ Please discuss and evaluate the role of the military in Turkish politics.
§ Please discuss and evaluate the Motherland Party as a neoliberal party by analyzing its role in the Structural Adjustment Program since 1980, its voter support, and the internal structure of the party.
§ There are different approaches to the role of the state and its tradition in Turkey. Please analyze and discuss them.
§ Please discuss Islam-politics relations in Turkey, with special emphasis on its impact on the consolidation of democracy in that country.
§ Please discuss military-politics relations in Turkey, with special emphasis on its impact on the consolidation of democracy in that country.
§ Please discuss media-politics relations in Turkey, with special emphasis on its impact on the consolidation of democracy in that country.
§ The shift from single party to multi party politics in Turkey represents a transition to a democratic form of politics. Do you agree? Discuss with special
reference to the contemporary debates on democratization in Turkey.
§ 1980s represent a turning point in the Turkish republican history. Do you agree?
§ Discuss the ideological and legal grounds for the “national chief” rule in the single-party period in Turkey.
§ To what extent can the contemporary Turkish political structure be analysed in terms of the “centre/periphery conflict”? Discuss with special reference to the 12 September coup, Özalism/Motherland Party period and the “28 February Process”.
§ Discuss and evaluate the different approaches towards state and military in the current debates on democratization in Turkey.