Turkish Modernization as Structuration against Neo-Patrimonialism Approach

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With regard to neo-patrimonialist perspective, despite the institutional and legal modernization in Turkey, the patrimonial mentality and strong statism inherited from Ottoman back never faded away and these characters are still alive. Therefore, the experienced change is considered as the distorted modernization called neo-patrimonialism not a real modernization. Neo-patrimonialism regards modernization as the institutional and political project of the state and ignores social agent with all its innovative, creative activities. This paper discusses neo-patrimonialist perspective, which sees the state as the mere actor and guide of modernization, excludes activities of social agent, as methodological statism. Opposed to methodological statism, this paper offers Giddens’s structuration theory with its constituent concepts like reflexivity, unintended consequences of action and duality of structure as the interpretative tools of modernization. This paper analyzes the dichotomies structure-agency, statesociety, macro-micro, past-today as the basic elements in reflexivity of modernization and claims that methodological statism can not transcend them. In this paper, an alternative methodology that considers creative acquisitions of the social agent in the process of this reflexivity (modernization) are both the tools, performers and consequences is presented

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Modernization , Structuration , Neo , patrimonialism , Methodological Statism , Turkey

Afyon Kocatepe University Journal Of Social Sciences

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Afyon Kocatepe University Journal Of Social Sciences