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  • Modernity and Economic Nationalism in the Formation of Turkish Nationalism
  • Cevdet Yılmaz (bio) and Mustafa Şahin (bio)

Nationalism is a highly debated concept and does not have a uniform or standard meaning. Adding an adjective before the concept, as we do, may further increase its complexity, but a better understanding of nationalism calls for careful analysis of its various dimensions in diverse contexts in which the concept emerged as a political force.

Modernization or the aspiration for modernity seems to be a critical factor for the rise of nationalism. Gellner relates nationalism to the transition from agraria to industria, which requires a homogeneous, flexible, and mobile workforce,1 whereas Anderson conceives the modern nation as an "imagined community,"2 rising with the help of print-capitalism, creating a new time/space for human consciousness. Taylor somewhat combines these two modernist explanations and declares that nationalism "cannot be understood as an atavistic reaction. It is a quintessentially modern phenomenon."3

There is not one single route toward a single notion of modernity, but rather these are diverse modernities, according to Taylor. Once modernity becomes a force in certain parts of the world and begins to exert its influence upon the rest, then traditional cultures and polities start to reinterpret and reconstruct [End Page 53] themselves.4 This happens through a "creative adaptation," which, by definition, differs from culture to culture. The modernizing elite, which aspires to modernity but at the same time feels its dignity threatened, initiates this transformation.

Taylor's account seems to fit into the rise of Turkish nationalism in its general characteristics. Turkish nationalism has risen in the modernization process in an imperial/dynastic context, first as an elite and then as a mass phenomenon. In order to speak about the dignity of elites, one should already have an elite and a state structure in which that elite develops a sense of dignity against a foreign threat. That is why it seems to be significant to make a distinction between people and elite with a traditional state structure from those who were stateless when the modernization process began. For the stateless elite living under an imperial domination, modernization might not mean a threat but could rather be welcomed as an opportunity for them to create their own state structure. Under such conditions, modernity may be perceived not as an abstract process but one functioning in multiple ways under different contexts. In other words, it is important to know, in the context of state-nation dialectic,5 which comes first, the state or the nation.

In this essay on the background of the modernist approach to nationalism, the role of an elite in the formation of Turkish nationalism will be discussed. We attempt to relate this new nationalist discourse with the basic economic strategies adapted in the early republican era. The main argument is that the way nationalist discourse is formed has important reflections on economic strategies.

The General Context of the Ottoman Encounter with Modernity

The Ottoman case is an encounter with modernity in which the state already existed, with its bureaucracy and social organization. It was a multiethnic [End Page 54] and multireligious state having a long tradition in statecraft and administration.6 Nationalism for such a state structure would mean disintegration and loss of power. Therefore, the primary concern for the Ottoman elite was how to save this state structure that was facing military and ideological threats coming from modern nation-states in Europe.

The quest for an answer to the problem led to the suggestion of three ideological formulas by the Ottoman elite: Ottomanism, Islamism, and Turkish nationalism. Ottomanism was aiming at something similar to the US experience. It was expected to unite different nations/ethnic groups and religions under one single political structure. Islamism became important as a tool for integration when the Muslim population dominated the population of the empire as a result of the breaking away of many non-Muslim nations in the Balkans in the nineteenth century. Turkish nationalism arrived as the last formula to maintain the state when most of the non-Turkish constituents of the empire disintegrated from the center as well.

Taylor speaks about the "modernizing elite...

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