Ph.D. Theses

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The making of a makbul father : a socio-political exploration of heteronormative fatherhood in Turkey
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Yıldırım, Mürüvet Esra.; Yazıcı, Berna.
This dissertation critically analyzes the notion of heteronormative father-hood within the context of nationalism. Drawing upon thirty-six formal, semi-structured, and tape- recorded interviews with lower-middle class men who identify themselves as Turkish-Sunni-Muslim and have children be-tween the ages of eighteen to forty, in six cities in the Marmara, Central Anatolia and the Black Sea Regions, it examines the relationship between makbul citizenship and the construction and experiences of heteronormative fatherhood. For the interviewees, the social meaning of fatherhood goes beyond having children. It is the ability to shoulder financial responsibilities and differentiate makbul from non-makbul on behalf of their dependents, namely, their spouses, siblings, and children. Men ground their fatherly authority over their dependents on some of their qualities, such as being nationalistic and religious, that enable them to be included in formal and informal networks of solidarity. However, the difficulties they endured as a child motivated them to prevent their children from being socially and economically vulnerable in life as they were. Thus, they have created an environment for their children to dare to be demanding from their family in many senses. They invented new mild methods to sustain fatherly authority. But they also complain about being unappreciated. In this sense, they are fathers in-between.
The transformations of the regime of intimate violence in Turkey
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Kosukoğlu, Nazife.; Türem, Ziya Umut.
When and how do regimes of intimate violence change? What lies behind the changes in legal norms and rules concerning the regulation of male violence? How do legislators, jurists, and scholars affect the flows of law with regards to the gendered hierarchies of power? These questions lie at the crux of this study which examines the transformations of the regime of intimate violence in Turkey throughout the long twentieth cen tury. Analyzing the decisions of the Court of Cassation, scholarly, and par liamentary debates and legislation, this study traces the links between masculine power and state power in Turkey and presents an alternative account of modern Turkish history, revealing the extent to which state institutions have contributed to the reproduction of gendered hierar chies of power and marginalization of gendered bodily harms. This study shows that this regime of intimate violence went through various changes since the late Ottoman era and that its history followed a fluctu ating course that included major masculinist restoration periods. In my analysis of these changes, I argue that major shocks that led to changes in the structure of the judico-political field or in the stance and standing of actors populating this field were crucial for the changes in rules and norms about intimate violence. This study also highlights the power of legal interpretation in leading to major changes in ground rules concern ing masculine domination and underlines the importance of global legal flows in shaping such changes. It also challenges the argument that fem inist activism is the more or less straightforward determinant of progres sive changes in policies and legal rules concerning gender violence and shows that -because of the intervening and constraining roles of institu tions and male state elites in these institutions- such regimes may be come even more tolerant of intimate violence in periods marked by the rise of mass and autonomous feminist movements.
Educating citizens for “Sexual Manners” : politics of sexuality between 1945-1965 in Turkey
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Yurttagüler, Laden.; Özbek, Nadir.
This study aims to examine the discourse on "sexual manners" that has become visible in the public sphere in Turkey between 1945 and 1965, a period marked by political, economic, and social changes. On the one hand, "sexual manners" turned into a constructive and regulative discourse for concepts such as femininity, masculinity, marriage, family, reproduction, and birth control, based on the legitimacy of "scientification," when the sexuality of the citizens was considered invisible and muted in the public sphere. The sexual manners discourse, produced by the authors gathered around Seksoloji magazine and similar publishing houses, developed discussions in line with the global literature for the well-being of the individual and collective body. On the other hand, sexual manners contributed to the circulation of new norms for “desired” citizenship by aiming to regulate intimate relations between individuals. This dissertation aims to discuss the transformation regarding the "appropriate sexuality" of the period by focusing on the tensions between discourse and practice through subjects such as virginity, sexual pleasure, divorce, and extramarital affairs.
Metropolitics : the political economy of Istanbul’s rail infrastructure
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Kanzık, Alp.; Yazıcı, Berna.
This dissertation narrates the historical trajectory of Istanbul’s urban rail infrastructure to trace the transformation of state-business relations and urban politics under late Turkish capitalism. Urban rail transit infrastructure, de spite being an aspiring political vision throughout late Ottoman and Repub lican history, would only be realized after the introduction of neoliberal re forms and a novel legal-institutional environment following the 1980 coup d’état. However, this vision would be partially realized throughout the first two decades of Turkish neoliberalism. Only after the financial and political opportunities and reconfigurations during the AKP era and following the 2008- 2009 crisis, a pervasive infrastructural transformation would take hold. This dissertation, building upon mainly media archives, legal documents, ur ban plans, infrastructure contracts, market research databases and interviews, is preoccupied with the political purposes and meanings that urban rail infra structure was imbued with throughout the four decades of Turkish neoliber alism. The dissertation, with a sensitivity towards continuities and ruptures between each political era, posits that that the historical and contemporary significance of urban rail projects within late Turkish politics lies in its con troversial utilization in the service of patronal ties and its endowment with an ambivalent urban vision, torn between urban populism and global city aspi rations. The dissertation concludes that this neoliberal transformation of ur ban rail infrastructure, rather than being decisively marked by coherence, turns out to be ridden with contradictions, shortcomings and political ten sions, which helps one to posit a “revisionist” take on the academic threads of neoliberalism and economic reforms.
Conservative women in contemporary Turkish politics : mobilization, party politics and voting
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Kourou, Nur Sinem.; Karaömerlioğlu, M. Asım.
This dissertation examines women's political participation process (a.k.a political feminization) in the case of Turkey's AKP. Therefore, it is built on a puzzle between the number of women in the party and the party's gender agenda. It focuses on the political participation process of women through qualitative research on the party's women's branches and party's women voters. By analyzing the relationship, the party's anti-feminist agenda deliberately specifies the limits of women's political involvement bolstering it with the party's Islamist-conservative ideology. Afterwards, without challenging the strict bounds of the party, women activists (actors in the party's women branches) rigorously navigate their political survival by polishing their mobilization abilities. The research findings suggest that AKP reaches out women without pledging to gender equality or feminist emancipation while rhetorically encouraging their participation into politics both as activist and voter. In return, women form their political style considering the limits and pushing the presumable opportunities, which stem from the the limits. Moreover, women voters raise their political agency by routinizing the voting behavior and identifying themselves as the AKP's supporters.
Representation of Beyoğlu in short story writing of the 1940s generation in Turkey
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Çankaya, Ercan.; Babuna, Aydın, 1959- .
This study focuses on the representation of Beyoğlu in short stories written between the end of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1950s by nine authors who were accepted as the representatives of the 1940s generation. Two developments marked the political history of this long decade: The Second World War and discussions about the transition to multi-party life. In these years, a radical change concurrently occurred in the positions of intellectuals in society and at the state level. The lit erary intellectual, who was a part of the bureaucracy in the early Repub lican period, became both excluded from the state elite and impover ished. In literature, as the little man became a common theme, the figure of the narrator who lived among the little men and narrated them rose to prominence. As story writing was poised for a rapid rise in the 50s during this period, literary modernism also became a major trend. The story writer began to focus more on his own individuality as the “loitering little man.” The study reveals the relationship between the rise of literary modernism in Turkish short story writing and the increase of Beyoğlu representations in number and content. How the representations of Beyoğlu shaped the modernism of the 1940s and how the rise of modernism affected the literary representation of Beyoğlu are dis cussed.
Poor enlighteners : pedagogy, politics, and elementary school teachers in the early republican era
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2022., 2022) Ertürk Asar, Esin.; Türem, Ziya Umut.; Toprak, Zafer.
This study examines the relationships between elementary school teachers and the early republican regime in Turkey between 1923 and 1940. Unlike the educational history literature in which the teachers are figures in the shadows, this study seeks to answer the question of how elemen tary school teachers made sense of the partnership between the teachers and the new regime and how they appropriated and recreated the repub lican ideology in their local contexts. In this study, the relationship between elementary school teachers and the republican regime is examined on three levels. First, the economic and institutional aspects of the relationship between the teachers and the republican regime are investigated. Second, the pedagogy of the early re publican period and the transformations in pedagogical literature are ex plored as factors that shaped the relationship between teachers and the republican regime. Finally, the concrete manifestations of this relation ship, as recalled by the teachers themselves, are examined. This study demonstrates that the state did not present a homogeneous unity in the field of education during the early republican era, and that the relationship between the teachers and the regime was more compli cated than the teachers' being merely obedient servants of a unified rul ing cadre. They were social and political actors who adopted the regime's principles and educational policies in their local contexts, and their rela tionship with the new regime was characterized not only by compro mises but also by conflicts and tensions.
Mine workers, the state and war: The Ereğli-Zonguldak coal basın as the site of contest, 1920-1947
(Thesis (Ph.D.)-Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2005., 2005.) Gürboğa, Nurşen, 1971-; Toprak, Zafer.
This study investigates the complex relations between the people of the Eregli- Zonguldak basin, who supplied the underground workforce of the coalmines, the mining companies and the state in the early Republican era, and the tough relations between the basin's people and the state brought by the compulsory paid labor regime during the Second World War period. The study aims to reveal the conditions of the mineworkers following flexible work pattern between mining and subsistence-agriculture, their identities, patterns of solidarity and of struggle. During the period, the labor relations in the basin were shaped by the low-wage policy and labor-intensive production choices of the companies, fluctuations in demand for coal, the state's nationalization policy of the capital and protectionist-etatist industrialization projects, the repressive labor policies of the single-party era, the means of extra-economic coercion and the workers' struggles. The identity of the workers, their relations to the other actors, their patterns of solidarity and of struggle came into being on a junction formed by the articulation of the mining to the village community. During the 1940s, the forced labor regime made the relations between the state and the people of the basin tense. Instead of submitting, the basin's people developed a wide resistance repertoire. In the post-war era, the state guaranteed labor supply through reconstituting previous work pattern and offering social services to the mineworkers. Hence, the whole basin with its villages became a "company-village" under the control of the state. Contrary to the arguments which define the underground workers as belonging to primarily a peasant universe and to pre-capitalist social relations, this study defines them as a modern form of labor compatible to the capitalist production relations in the mines. The Zonguldak mineworkers with their cheap and unskilled labor constituted the lowest stratum of the regionally-segmented labor market, who at the same time shouldered the reproduction cost of labor force through subsistence-agriculture.
Making sense of mafia in Turkey: conceptual framework and a preliminary evaluation
(Thesis (Ph.D.)-Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2005., 2005.) HatipKarasulu, Hatice Ahu.; Buğra, Ayşe,
The aim of this dissertation is to make sense of mafia and make sense of mafia in Turkey. The discussions are limited to racketeering. That is, smuggling is not included. The arguments are developed on a conceptual level and reflected to Turkey. As a specific concept in criminology, mafia or organized crime points at an organization accruing illegal gains through a multiplicity of crimes, using threat or violence. Departing from the criticisms of this conceptualization, in this dissertation, it is argued that white-collar or corporate crime should not be taken as distinct, and the slim line of intersection betweenpolitical economy and criminology should not bedisregarded. That is, committing a profit-oriented crime, mafia is not independent of the 'place of economy in society' and the state-business relations shaped therein. This is especially important in the context of neoliberal economic transformation, within which mafia, as a metaphor of reciprocity relations aiming at illicit gain on the borders of the legal economy, stigmatized by the economic transformation process itself, unless the rise of the market economy is restrained with a redistributive state and rule of law. With respect to Turkey, first, the rare lines of knowledge on mafia are discussed. By and large, the works of legal scholars and criminologists are in line with the orthodox definition, and share the same shortcomings. The mafia metaphor is introduced with outlining the neoliberal economic transformation in the post-1980 period, and exemplified with the transformation of the "kabadayı", so-called "Civangate" and Turkbank privatization.
Greek foreign policy towards Turkey under PASOK rule of 1981 – 1989
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2021., 2021.) Hasan, Barış.; Babuna, Aydın, 1959- .
This dissertation analyzes the impact of the Cyprus issue, Aegean dis putes and minority conflicts on Greek foreign policy towards Turkey un der PASOK rule between 1981 and 1989. The continuity of traditional Greek expansionist motivation and its reflections on the foreign policy strategies of PASOK governments during the 1980s; the populism created with the dramatization of Cyprus issue around Turkey’s political and mil itary presence on Cyprus island; PASOK’s nationalist discourse on Cyprus and attempts to internationalize the Cyprus conflict as part of geopoliti cal strategies of Greek foreign policy towards Turkey; its post-modern approaches to Aegean disputes through continental shelf and territorial waters issues and instrumentalization of the Turkish Minority in Greece in the bilateral relations with Turkey constitute the main focal points of the study. These issues are evaluated with the developments in Greco Turkish relations in a historical context of geopolitical conjuncture. This dissertation is mainly based on documents from the Greek and Turkish archives, and, analysis of Greek scholars in order to construct a framework by understanding the mainstream approaches to Greco-Turk ish conflicts in the Greek academic circle. The dissertation argues that traditional Greek extensionist policies, which arise from the well-known Megali Idea phenomenon, have a continuous character which has ef fected every generation of Greek ruling elite throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The work shows that the continuity of traditional Megali Idea in a post-modern character was one of the most dominant element in shaping PASOK’s foreign policy strategies towards Turkey during its ruling period between 1981 and 1989. In this respect, although PASOK ap peared as a political movement challenging the established order in Greece, it has adopted Greek nationalism and the traditional features of Greek foreign policy and transformed itself to a mainstream political ac tor embracing the national issues instead of the socio-economic prob lems of the Greek society. In that sense, the study is trying to uncloak the reasons of the motivation behind PASOK’s instrumentalization of Cyprus, Aegean and minority issues in the historical context of Greco-Turkish re lations.
Ottoman intelligence :|the second branch and its operational characteristics, 1914-1918
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2021., 2021.) Şimşeker, Somer Alp.; Kırlı, Cengiz.
This study is about the Second Branch of the Ottoman Empire’s General Staff, which was originally established as a military intelligence institu tion and represented centralization tendency during the First World War. With the defeat in the Balkan Wars, the 1913 coup and the Martial Law administration along with the mobilization for the First World War, the Ministry of Defense became an important decision-making authority in the Ottoman Empire. These conditions contributed to the transfor mation of the Second Branch into a centralized structure in intelligence. With the Martial Law administration, the Second Branch carried out the duties of propaganda, censorship, domestic and foreign intelligence. Other intelligence institutions and their sources were canalized to the Second Branch, and all activities against espionage in the Empire was prohibited without its consent and the order. The control over propa ganda and censorship activities were given to the Second Branch. Prop aganda activities became a mortar of modern Turkey’s ideological infra structure. Second Branch gathered military, political and partly economic intelligence for foreign intelligence at the strategic, opera tional and tactical levels. The centralization tendency was assessed along with the administrative and organizational structure of the Sec ond Branch. This study contributes to the intelligence studies by pre senting a centralizing intelligence institution while many other states established separate institutions or new units regarding domestic and foreign intelligence during total war conditions.
Locals and migrants in the late Ottoman Empire :|a study of state-society and intercommunal relations in the Izmit district, 1877-1914
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2021., 2021.) Koç, Berk.; Özbek, Nadir.; Toumarkine, Alexandre,
This thesis investigates the social, economic and political impact of mass migration into the Ottoman Empire after the Russian-Ottoman War of 1877-1914 on locals, migrants and thestate, and their everyday responses to each other in the district of Izmit. By discussing relational changes between the Empire’s largest ethnic-religious millets and the state“on the ground”during watershed moments of the late Ottoman period until the First World War, this study intends to present an analysis of post-migration experiences of ordinarypeople, from locals and migrants to bureaucrats and various other local actors. As a monograph on the Izmit district, the present study seeksat the same time to document changes in admin istration, demography, and socio-economic conditions during the period 1877-1914. The management of settlement, theintegration processes of migrants as well as locals and their responses to the state’s policies and to each other against the backdrop of socio-political and economic tur moilin the Hamidian andSecond Constitutional eras demonstrate that ordinary people were active agents rather than muted objects of state formation.This thesis argues that the daily struggle for survival,andthe competition over land and natural resources transformed nativesa nd migrants in toimportant local actors, but also intensified the antagonism between different ethnic-religious groups, alienating especially the Empire's Christian subjects.
A civil unionist :|the biography of Mehmed Cavid Bey, 1876–1926
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2021., 2021.) Yazıcıoğlu, Ayşe, 1976-; Karaömerlioğlu, M. Asım.; Toprak Zafer.
This dissertation, titled A Civil Unionist: The Biography of Mehmed Cavid Bey (1876–1926), analyzes three issues related to the life of Mehmed Cavid Bey, who was the Minister of Finance during most of the Second Constitutional Period. First, as a reflection of the international arena during this period, the close interaction between the Ottoman Empire’s financial issues and its foreign policy is examined. Second, the policy making processes of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) are analyzed. Third, how the political preferences of the ruling elite were determined during the transition from empire to nation-state will un fold along the axis of Cavid Bey's life story. The original value of this dissertation is its effort to understand the multi-dimensional structure of the history of a country and its desire to achieve poltical and financial independence amid wars, conflicts, revo lution, and ideological transitions through examining the life of an indi vidual.
Fashion, handicraft and women between the wars in Turkey :|modernization, nationalism and women’s movement
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2021., 2021.) Dilber, Özlem.; Karaömerlioğlu, M. Asım.
This study looks at women’s fashion-related agenda, tailoring and handicraft works in interwar Turkey. To that end, it revisits the history of the women’s movement and analyzes the activities of four women-run institutions — Women’s Branch of Red Crescent, Organization for the Protection of Ottoman (and) Turkish Women, Turkish Women’s Tailoring School and Turkish Women’s Union. It also focuses on the girls’ institutes as well as tailoring schools and enterprises run by women. It demonstrates that women remained active participants of public life in early republican Turkey thanks to their fashion-related activities, tailoring and handicrafts works. Women in this period not only propagated but also produced domestic clothing. A considerable number of women earned their livings as tailors and embroiderers. The Kemalist regime also encouraged their employment in tailoring-related works. Women who participated in these activities thereby rescued themselves from restriction to their homes and instead made themselves visible in the public sphere. In other words, women's engagement in occupations traditionally associated with womanhood and the domestic sphere brought them the opportunity to join public life. This study argues that women’s activities in interwar Turkey show that the boundaries between public and private sphere were not strict but porous. Women were in turn able to blur these boundaries to their advantage, which increased their opportunities in public life and improved their social status.
The Turkish mission civilisatrice? :|governance of Dersim as an internal colony (1927-1952)
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2021., 2021.) Devres, Murat S.; Kırlı, Cengiz.
Global modernity was achieved through the formation of nation-states that conducted respective versions of forced homogenization by implementing centralizing principles.This dissertationargues that theRepublic ofTurkey adoptedmanytechniquesofthefamedmissioncivilisatriceoftheFrenchThird Republic;adiscourseofsuperiorcorevalueswasusedtosuppressthelocal cultureandsocioeconomicstructureofahithertowillinglystatelesspeoplein the mountainous region of Dersim. The quarter century considered in this dissertationcoincides with the Inspectorates-General,whichIarguewasan internalcolonialinstitution.Throughanin-depth analysisofreportswrittenin thelate1930s andearly1940s byNecmeddinSahir(1898-1992),ajournalist, bureaucrat and entrepreneur, as well as additional archival material, this dissertation presents a critical reading of Turkish history in relation to the GreaterDersim region, whichincludespresent-dayTunceli. Thecontemporary polemicthatcontinuestodivideTurkishpolitics,centeredaroundtheevents of 1937 and 1938, is a sensitive subject that deserves special attention in relationtocontemporaryidentitypoliticsinTurkey.Theoriginal contribution ofthisworkresidesinitsmissiontoovercomepoliticalpolemics surrounding theseeventsbyemployingsocioeconomicdatafromthereportsofNecmeddin Sahir and interpreting them from the perspective of subaltern studies spotlighting thosevoicesthatwouldnormallynotbefoundinstaterecords.
Utopia and history :|political movements, the explosion of communication and education, and unimaginable encounters in the 1960s and 1970s in Turkey
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2020., 2020.) Ünlü, Ummahan Ceren.; Ahıska, Meltem.; Kırlı, Cengiz.
This dissertation is a critique of historiography and presents a critical historical reading of leftist political movements of the GHI8s and GHJ8s in Turkey, including both youth and worker movements. It scrutinizes historical narratives and the historical process of the politicization of the period. First, the coup d’état of September G7, GHg8, is examined as both a rupture with harsh impacts on leftist politicization, especially on the practices of communication and education, as well as a constructive historiographical moment that sponsored a hegemonic historical narrative under the wave of neoliberalism. The study also analyzes the impact of the military memorandum of March G7, GHJG, questioning the supposition that the intervention separated the GHI8s from the GHJ8s. The dissertation analyzes testimonies and other historical narratives that have piled up since the late GHg8s to interpret the trends in the remembrance and forgetting of the leftist politicization of the period. Second, after introducing the concept of utopia as a theoretical tool to problematize the discrepancy between historical process and discourse, the dissertation conducts a critical historical reading via a problematized utilization of archival materials. It investigates the communication boom of the GHI8s and GHJ8s – the proliferation of communicative practices and cultural production around leftist movements. It then traces the education boom – the broad concept and manifold practices of education by leftist associations, organizations, and trade unions. These two historical trends and their utopian features such as the sociopolitical encounters of various social segments – which have been forgotten or rendered unimaginable in present narratives – are analyzed.
Turkey’s soft power and public diplomacy in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Sandžak (2002-2017)
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2020., 2020.) Muhasilović, Jahja.; Babuna, Aydın, 1959- .
As an emerging regional power, Turkey’s soft power and public diplo-macy are attracting the attention of academia in recent years. One of the principal elements of Turkish soft power and public diplomacy are reli-gious diplomacy run by Diyanet, today one of the strongest religious institutions in the Sunni World, student exchange diplomacy run by Turkiye Burslari, and a very vibrant city diplomacy run by the different municipalities and municipality unions, among which the most promi-nent is the Union of Turkish World Municipalities. For centuries Balkan peninsula was an area of interest for the Otto-man Empire and later for Turkey. The region serves Turkey as the only gateway to Europe. After a break during the Cold War, Turkey’s active engagement in the region has been restored. Today it is possible to say that Turkey is back in the region. It is the soft power that has been the main tool of Ankara’s influence in the region and public diplomacy lies at the core of that soft power. Public diplomacy institutions are serving as the visible face of Turkey’s policies, ambitions, goals, and vision in the region. For that reason, analysis of the Turkish public diplomacy provides a clear insight into what Turkey’s aims and potentials in the Balkans are.
Reclaiming the Empire :|environment, marshes, and hydraulic engineering in the late Ottoman period
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2020., 2020.) Akpınar, Özkan.; Özbek, Nadir.
This dissertation analyzes the transformation of the environment and the tensions and contestations to which this transformation led among various social actors in the Ottoman Empire. It focuses on attempts to reclaim marshes and other wetland regions such as lakes and rivers in different parts of the empire in the late Ottoman period. According to this dissertation, reclamation projects, which sought to turn uncultivated wetlands into agricultural lands, were part of a new concept of development that attributed the survival of the empire and the prosperity of the population to the growth of public works and a rise in agricultural production and commercial activity. They were related to an Ottoman modernity project in which the Ottoman government sought to establish authority over its territories, population, resources, economy, lands, and environment. Reclamation attempts were initially state-led projects, but in time because of the 1inancial problems of the Ottoman state, they became pro1itable private enterprises over which entrepreneurs competed. These projects not only transformed the environment and ecology but also caused the disappearance of some means of subsistence for the local population such as 1ishery. Thus, they created winners and losers in society, leading to social tensions among various relevant actors. This dissertation problematizes the late Ottoman period by focusing on these tensions and struggles over the environment.
A social history of rice in Turkey
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2020., 2020.) Ceylan, Okan.; Karaömerlioğlu, M. Asım.
This dissertation examines the transformation of rice farming before the state, the society, and the economy in Turkey between 1948 and 2018. Rice is one of the most important fields of application of the Green Revolution after the Marshall Plan is examined from a spatial point of view in three basins such as the Meriç Basin, the Lower Kızılırmak-Lower Yeşilırmak Basins and Karacadağ Agricultural Basin. Both the geographical locations of these basins in Turkey and the differences in their agricultural structures and human capital are determinative in their preference as a field study. However, apart from these basins, there has been rice farming culture in South Marmara, Adana, West and Central Black Sea sub regions. In other words, this dissertation both explains the story of agricultural transformation in a historical process and presents a comparative perspective among these basins on a spatial scale. Therefore, this study can be evaluated in the fields of economic history, social history and environmental history. The main claim of this dissertation is to prove that thanks to the biological and agricultural properties of rice, it is a historical actor that directs the state, society, and the economy. On this basis, this study is far from putting sharp boundaries between nature and society and the anthropocentric historiography. In this context, this study examines the subject by putting the reciprocal relations and interests between the desires of human beings and the biological and agricultural requirement of rice into the center. The main purpose of this study is to explain the bureaucratic, economic and social networks of rice from its cultivation and harvest to its processing in to paddy and consumption. The main findings of this dissertation are that rice is a social, cultural, economic, artistic and bureaucratic commodity. In this context, rice requires specialized and intensive labor to collaborate with society, the state and market actors to be able to spread and carry its genes into the future. Besides, acquisition, nutrition and profit underlie in the desire of a human being toward rice. To sum up rice with one word, it can be conceptualized as the crop of controversies. As a matter of fact, it is too difficult to find any other crop that accommodates collaboration and conflict of interest and also the bureaucratic control in the cultivation of rice and free market economy in the sale of rice at the same time.
The advertising industry in Turkey :|the field, history and recent trajectory
(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History, 2020., 2020.) Tan Çelebi, İpek.; Türem, Ziya Umut.
This dissertation analyzes the advertising industry in Turkey from a historical and sociological standpoint. Unlike earlier works on advertising that overwhelmingly employ semiotic and symbolic readings of ads, this study focuses on the production process of advertising. In doing so, I describe and analyze the actors within the field of advertising and the network of relations that span and constitute this field. Unlike the available historical narratives of the advertising field in Turkey, which are mostly produced by the "insiders"- and, as such, "official" historical narratives- this study analyzes the evolution of advertising as a field of cultural production by taking into account other social and economic factors as well as the internal dynamics of the field. In order to do this, I employ sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's "field analysis" as a methodological device. The study shows that advertising field has been historically constituted on a fundamental tension between creativity and commerce in Turkey and it is shaped by the struggles among two dominant groups and peculiar agents in its formation stage. Advertising business was of the entrepreneurial character as a brokerage task in its initial stage and along with the social and economic developments, it is transformed into a cultural production field with an artisanal character. In addition to focusing on the formational stage of advertising, the study examines the recent trajectory of the field and demonstrates the changes in power relations and balances of capital in the field depending on foreign agency partnerships and globalization.

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