Academic literature on the topic 'Oligarchy – Turkey'

<p>This paper intends to explore the historical aspect of Mamalik dynasty. It was associated with Daulah Islamiyah in Mesir which lead by slave group (Mamalik) from 13th century up to 16th A.D that became one of unique Islamic political faces. At that time, civil society can form themselves as military power driven by slavers. Retired slavers emerged as political elite and bodyguard of Sultan. Mamalik group divided into two groups. First, Mamalik Bahriyah coming from middle Asia, especially Turkey Qipsaq. Second, Mamalik Burjiyah coming from Sirkasia race in·Kaukasus (East Europe). Historically, Mamalik Dynasty in Mesir classified into three periods. First, the period of Mamalik government formation which was "oligarchy". Second, the period of development in which Mamalik group cooperated with Mogol and Europe country. Third, the period of saturation or the decrease of Mamalik dynasty in Mesir which was caused by the attack of Turkey Utsmani, disease epidemic, and corruption.</p><p> </p><p>Makalah ini bermaksud untuk mengeksplorasi aspek historis dinasti Mamalik. Itu terkait dengan Daulah Islamiyah di Mesir yang dipimpin oleh kelompok budak (Mamalik) dari abad ke-13 hingga 16. yang menjadi salah satu wajah politik Islam yang unik. Saat itu, masyarakat dapat membentuk diri mereka sebagai kekuatan militer yang dikendalikan oleh budak.<br />Mantan budak muncul sebagai elit politik dan pengawal Sultan. Kelompok Mamalik dibagi menjadi dua kelompok. Pertama, Mamalik Bahriyah yang berasal dari Asia tengah, terutama Turki Qipsaq. Kedua, Mamalik Burjiyah berasal dari ras Sirkasia di Kaukasia (Timur Eropa). Secara historis, Dinasti Mamalik di Mesir digolongkan ke dalam tiga periode. Pertama, periode pembentukan pemerintahan Mamalik<br />yang merupakan "oligarki". Kedua, periode perkembangan di mana Kelompok Mamalik bekerja sama dengan Mongolia dan negara Eropa. Ketiga, periode kejenuhan atau penurunan dinasti Mamalik di Mesir yang disebabkan oleh serangan Turki Utsmani, epidemi penyakit, dan korupsi.</p>

The democratization of political institutions in the Republic of Azerbaijan is considered in the context of the formation of a new world order and at the same time as a natural process of transformation of the Azerbaijani society, taking into account the historical, geopolitical and other features of the country. The author emphasizes the causal relationship between the cardinal transformation and the acceleration of the pace of globalization, which is reflected in the formation of a new understanding of the essence of democracy in transformational societies, and, accordingly, in the positive and negative results of changes. The development of constitutionalism in Azerbaijan from 1918 to 2016 is traced as a reflection of the gradual democratization of the country's political system and the strengthening of unifying tendencies. Particular attention is paid to the periodization of democratization in Azerbaijan, starting from the time of gaining political independence in 1991. The assessment of institutional changes by both domestic and foreign political analysts is provided. The article deals with the relations of the Republic of Azerbaijan with partner countries and neighbors - Turkey, EU, RF. The article examines the positive and negative factors of democratization. The strengthening of the institutions of an independent state, Azerbaijan's accession to the Council of Europe in 2001, the creation of ASAN public service centers on the principle of "one window" are indicated among positive achievements; the continuation of the strict rules of the oligarchy, the preservation of neo-patrimonial features of the political regime, social inequality, the unpreparedness of a certain part of the political elite for the process of deepening democracy, the underdevelopment of civil society, resistance to a real fight against corruption, and others are indicated among the negative factors. It is concluded that the role of the state and the political class, especially the ruling elite, is significantly increasing in countries that are carrying out political and economic transformation during the transition period.

Defence date: 7 April 2017
Examining Board: Professor Christian Reus-Smit, formerly EUI/University of Queensland, Supervisor; Professor Philippe Schmitter, European University Institute (Emeritus); Professor Laurence Whitehead, University of Oxford; Professor Ayşe Zarakol, University of Cambridge
This dissertation takes as its focus the emergence of guardian political order – a hybrid political system in which elected officials must contend with non-elected ‘reserved domains’ dominated by state elites that exercise a ‘tutelary’ or ‘guardian’ function in relation to the overall polity – in modern Turkey and Thailand in the second half of the twentieth century. Its central objective is to explain how guardian regimes emerge and consolidate, and why they assume their distinctive regime morphology – a hybrid constitutional structure bifurcated between elected institutions and unelected tutelary ones. This broad inquiry into puzzling ‘regime outcomes’ entails a subsidiary set of questions. Given that hybrid regimes generally tend to follow in the wake of authoritarian ones, what would induce authoritarian incumbent elites to cede their monopoly of power to a political system bifurcated in this way? How do we explain the substantial variation in the institutional design of guardian structures in different cases when they first come to life? Why have guardian hybrid regimes proved so durable and long-lasting? Finally, how can we account for distinctive regime trajectories – the patterns of ideological–institutional reconfiguration that guardian hybrid regimes undergo over time? This dissertation advances a novel theory of how guardian hybrid regimes come about, the shape they take when they are born, how they reproduce (institutionally speaking) over time, and also how they adapt or change over time both institutionally and ideologically. It argues that guardian hybrid regimes emerge as contingent outcomes of intra-elite conflict during historical breakpoints in national political development. During these ‘critical junctures’ traditional state elites engage in intense factional contestation over the task of fashioning a new, post-authoritarian political system. Deep, longstanding socio-political cleavages in the body politic and the particular quality of the domestic and international security environment condition elite conflict and elite choices over regime structure during the critical juncture and shape the eventual ‘architecture’ of the new political system. This explains the distinctive institutional morphology of guardian hybrid regimes – a bifurcation of the overall framework of political authority within the state between elected institutions (the ‘political realm’) and guardian tutelary ones (the ‘deep state’). Once established, guardian hybrid regimes are sustained and reproduced by institutional complexes of socially-embedded notions of legitimate political authority and strategic bureaucratic incumbency. These complexes consist in three mutually reinforcing elements that generate mechanisms of inherent institutional reproduction: a hegemonic state ideology (HSI); a ‘monist’ public sphere, and; periodic ‘strategic’ interventions by guardian actors to ‘discipline’ the political realm. Guardian hybrid regimes are also adaptive. In the wake of guardian settlements, processes of reaction and counterreaction to those settlements produce transitions through different institutional–ideological configurations as different guardian actors jockey for primacy within the deep state in response to varying challenges from the political firmament. I develop this argument and ground these claims through a critical juncture-path dependence analytical framework. Path-dependent explanations in comparative-historical analysis unfold through a sequence of analytical elements or components – critical junctures and antecedent conditions, institutional reproduction, reactive sequences and final outcomes – that work together to provide robust explanations of institutional outcomes, including patterns of regime development.

Chapter 7 traces how politics, and Paine’s objectives, turned out in France, America, and Britain from the 1790s into the early nineteenth century. It shows that Paine’s policies, although sometimes acknowledged and even inspirational, fell behind the evolving problems and initiatives in these three arenas. In France he had been traumatized by the Terror and gave much support to the Directory, despite its oligarchic constitution; he fell silent with the military dictatorship of Bonaparte. In America he deplored the increasingly authoritarian nature of Washington’s government, was on the wrong side of an Evangelical revival, and was often ostracized. In Britain, although more often honoured as an iconic figure, he was irrelevant to the new ideologies of utilitarianism and socialism, and shared in the general fragmentation of natural rights discourse.

No appreciation for the early history of the Turkish Republic can begin without a proper understanding of the origins, desires, and tribulations of the Young Turks. Their era by no means constituted a mere placeholder or prologue to the dramatic events that occurred thereafter. Turkey, as it came to be defined philosophically, was the unintended offspring of this movement. The most profound attributes of Atatürk’s state, its thirst for radical social change, its predilection for chauvinistic nationalism, and its oligarchic structure, descended directly from the Committee of Union and Progress’ approach towards politics. Ultimately, their displacement from the imperial stage allowed for Mustafa Kemal to rise to prominence and paved the way for an altogether new regime.

For the past thirty years the United States has been suffering from increasing constitutional rot. Constitutional rot is the decay of the features of a constitutional system that maintain it both as a democracy—responsive to popular will, and as a republic—devoted to the public good. The Constitution’s framers believed that all republics would eventually decay, so they designed the constitutional system so that things would bottom out before the country turned to mob rule, oligarchy, or dictatorship. They sought to buy time for democracy so that the inevitable periods of constitutional rot would be followed by periods of constitutional renewal. Constitutional rot often produces demagogues. Donald Trump is a demagogue. His rise to power was made possible because constitutional rot has been growing for a long time and is now very advanced. The good news is that political changes offer possibilities for renewal.