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ADM3162 TURKISH POLITICS AND POLITICAL STRUCTURE II

Course Objectives

The objective of this course is to survey the developments  in Turkish politics  since the 1940s to provide for the students of politics with familiarity with the following issues in Turkish politics:

1. the forces of continuity and change in the political history of Turkey with a specific focus on democratization dynamics;

2. the development of its political institutions, basic  parameters of Turkish  political culture, and its major political actors;

3. turning points in the Turkish political development including the military coups and the transitions to democracy;

4.the development of major political ideologies 

5. patterns of state-society relations during the  specific phases of democratic progress

6. recent issues in Turkish democratization with a focus on its specific challenges

Students will survey Turkish political history until the 2000s on the basis of the above-mentioned objectives. 

The evaluation criteria will be  based on  exams, in -class presentations  and written assignments.

Course Content

This course follows ADM 3429 chronologically, and tells the political, social and economic history of contemporary Turkey from 1946 onwards. The DP era, the coups detat of 1960, 1971 and 1980 are all analyzed as part and parcel of a process which can best be described as economic development and re-structuring of the Turkish economy and society.

Course Learning Outcomes

Students, who passed the course satisfatorily, will be able to ;

* understand and explain the continutities between the latest period of the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the 20th century and the early Republican era in the 1920s and the 1930s;

*understand the nature of the Turkish single party regime in Turkey and  of the Republican People's Party during M. Kemal Ataturk's lifetime and afterwards;

*explain the  parameters of the Republican reforms and their consequences for democratic development, state-society relations as well as fıor economic development in Turkey;

*analyze the  internal and external dynamics of the transition to competitive electoral process in Turkey in the 1940s ;

* analyze and discuss the political legacy of the Democratic Party (1950-1960) and the dynamics of the bi-party competition in this period;

* analyze the causes and the consequences of the May 27, 1960 military coup

* analyze the constitution-making process in 1961 and the  transition period;

*understand the major actors in the Turkish party system and the civil society in the 1960s and electoral dynamics the 1970s up to the 1980 military intervention;

* analyze and discuss the 1971 semi-coup and the 1980 coup d'etat comparatively ;

* gain insights into post-1980 democratization dynamics and its actors and  the major challenges of democratic consolidation  in Turkey after 1983.

Program Outcomes Matrix

0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution