Bill Park, Modern Turkey: People, State and Foreign Policy in a Globalized World, New York, Routledge, 2011.
Tamer Kaşıkçı*
The phenomenon of globalization is one of the most puzzling issues in international relations discipline. While many scholars argue that the globalization process affects the world in a revolutionary way that causes questioning the territory-based understanding of politics, economics and international relations and re-explaining these areas with a non-spatial approach, others describe this phenomenon as a new tool of big powers to redesign the world politics and economics. Defining what the globalization is only the beginning of the puzzle. Then more complicated questions arise such as: How did the globalization process develop? Is it a natural process that occurs per se or driven by any actor? What kind of effects does it have on states and societies?
Many scholars have studied on these kinds of questions to explain the globalization process. Bill Park’s recent book called Modern Turkey is one of them. In his book, Park, who has academic experience in many universities in Great Britain and currently works at King’s College London and has researched widely on Turkish foreign policy, discusses the globalization over the case study of Turkey. His main question is in what ways globalization
* Tamer Kaşıkcı is a research assistant and PhD candidate in the Department of International Relations, Ankara University, Turkey.
affects Turkey. By answering this question Park aims to exhibit concrete effects of globalization over states, which is one of the major controversies in globalization studies.
Park starts his analyses with a theoretical introduction which is aimed to explain how he defines globalization and its effects on states and societies. Park describes the globalization as the universalization of values, connections, linkages etc not only in economy, but also in politics, cultures, religions and so on. Moreover he does not see globalization as a new phenomenon that occurs with the recent development in technologies. For him, the globalization dates back to the ancient history. He insists over two important effects of globalization in international relations. The first one is the growing importance of international and transnational organizations. Those organizations challenge the hegemony of states over international relations as states are no more the only actors of international relations. The second effect of globalization that Park mentions is the transcendence of issues such as terror, Islam, economy etc out of national borders. These issues are getting more globalized everyday and state is not the only actor that has the ability to handle them. These effects have impacts on the foreign policy-making process of states. In Modern Turkey Park contends how these impacts shape the Turkish foreign policy-making process.
Even though Park intends to focus on today’s Turkey and its recent political life, he brilliantly observes that four historical roots have deep impact over today’s modern Turkey. These are (1) the Turkish identity which is dated back to the Central Asia and still have regional connections between Turkey and other Turkic peoples in Caucasus and Asia, (2) the Islamic identity which has had a tremendous influence over many Turkish states after the adoption of Islam by Turks and makes Turkey an important actor in the Islamic world; (3) Ottoman legacy which has still impact
over Turkey’s relations with the countries that once were under the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire; (4) Kemalist ideology which determined the New Republic priority as Westernization and modernization and is still one of the strongest political views in the country. Park argues that one has to keep in mind these factors and the struggle between them to understand Modern Turkey, since they all have an effect in different level over Turkey’s political behavior in a global world.
After exposing the ideational roots in Turkish political life, Park continues by explaining how these roots have replied the changes in the international system, since the system has shifted remarkably after the establishment of the New Republic. The contemporary international political environment is not the same with the one in 1923. Park successfully analyses the domestic changes in the Turkish political life and the changes in the international system and exhibits the parallels and intersections between in and out processes.
The first and fundamental international issue that Park argues is the Turkey’s European adventure. He evaluates the Turkish demand for joining the European Union as the part of the westernization project of Kemalist ideology and traces it back to the last period of Ottoman Empire. Although Europeanization is seen as a part of Kemalists westernization project, they have confronted with a paradox which is originated from European values such as democracy, human rights, freedom of speech etc. While Kemalists have not had any hesitation with the ideal of being a Western power, they have not had the same enthusiasm about adopting European values since they would undermine their control over the state and society. For that reason it is not fair to claim that the EU integration process for Turkey has been very slow only because of the reluctance of European leaders. It is also the same for the Turkish ruling elite class. The EU process for
Turkey gained momentum with the liberalization efforts of Turgut Özal, and accelerated through the end of 1990s with the acceptance of Turkey as a formal candidate for the EU. The then Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit and his coalition party made the EU integration as the first target of their government and started a reform movement to adopt the EU standards. This reform policy has been continued by the AKP government after 2002. These reform packages included many structural changes in legislative, executive and judicial institutions and aimed fostering democracy and transparency. Although in recent years the EU process slowed down again and there are still structural problems in Turkey, by means of reform packages a more democratic political structure has been established. Moreover this democratization process has created a more open society by raising political awareness and settling down the European culture and norms within the Turkish society.
Another factor that has a tremendous influence over the evolution of Turkish society and political life is the globalization itself. Before mentioning the effects of the globalization over Turkey, Park shows how Turkey became a part of Western bloc during the Cold War and how this process created a dependent state and a closed society. The end of the Cold War and the acceleration of the globalization by the means of great technological development in transportation and communication created new opportunities for Turkey. Politically, the Europe was no longer the only target for Turkey. The Kurdish problem pushed Turkey into Middle Eastern politics. The issue of transporting the Eastern gas and oil to Western markets put Turkey in the center of global energy politics. The Armenian pressures over the so-called genocide claims forced Turkey to drive a more active foreign policy especially against Armenian diaspora. The disintegration of Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War rivalry removed the obstacles in front of having close relations with countries in
Balkan, Blacksea and the Caucasus regions. All these developments created suitable environment for Turkey to have a wider and multi-optional foreign policy. At the same time the globalization fostered that process by melting away the borders and increasing the relations between nations.
According to Park, culturally Turkish society easily get adopted to global age by using actively social media tools, visiting and living in foreign countries etc. Knowing and understanding the rest of the world transformed the society into a more open -minded one. Even the marginal identities within the society have had the opportunity to raise their voices and created awareness in the whole society about their existence. The AKP easily and successfully become the representative of the sections that have been unsatisfied from the policies of the Kemalist ruling elite. Park demonstrates that Gülen movement is a successful example which uses fruits of globalization effectively and creates a non-western path for the society.
As a conclusion it is fair to say that Bill Park's Modern Turkey gives the reader a comprehensive framework to understand the effects of Europeanization in particular and globalization in general over Turkish social and political life. He has fascinating observations about the ideational roots of political views and how they have evolved and contradicted with each other throughout the history of Turkish Republic.
