Sociological Analysis of Civil-Military Relations in Turkey according to the Civil-Military Relations Modeling of Morris Janowitz and Samuel P. Huntington in the Context of Military Sociology
Author: Seyda Nur Koca Peker, kocaseyda@gmail.com
Department: Sociology
University: Ankara Haci Bayram Veli University, Turkey
Supervisor: Aysel Günindi Ersoz
Year of completion: 2022
Language of dissertation: Turkish
Keywords:
Military Sociology
, Civil-Military Relations
, Militarism
, Civil Control
Areas of Research:
Armed Forces and Conflict Resolution
, Political Sociology
, Participation, Organizational Democracy and Self-Management
Abstract
Military sociology, which has the characteristics of an interdisciplinary field, is based on the structure of the military institution as a social organization, army politics and civil-military relations. The main subject of the interdisciplinary field of military sociology, whose early studies are based on studies done in the 19th century and its theoretical development during the Cold War period, is the issue of civil-military relations. One of the founding names of the field of military sociology is Morris Janowitz who has substantial contribution on the theoretical basis of the civil-military relations issue. The basic view of Janowitz in civil-military relations is that professional military service dominates the social and political ground. Another name who contributed to the field of military sociology with his theory and analysis of civil-military relations is Samuel P. Huntington. According to Huntington, providing subjective and objective civilian control in democratic countries is necessary for the democratization of civil-military relations. This study, in which the theoretical method is adopted, aims to present the sociological analysis of Turkey's civil-military relations between the years 1960-2016 within the framework of the theoretical background of the field of military sociology and Turkey's historical, political and social resources. In this thesis study, which is based on civil-military relations within the framework of the coup practices between 1960 and 2016, military tutelage culture, militarist society model, professional military service and civilian control attempt, which are Turkey's historical, political and social resources, are discussed as the main phenomena that determine civil-military relations. The lack of military sociology studies in the literature and the evaluation of the Turkish civil-military relations as a sociological issue, which was handled within the time intervals determined as 1960-1970, 1970-1980, 1980-1990 and 1990-2016, constitute the importance of this study. When evaluated from a theoretical perspective, it is possible to conceptualize the failure of civilian control in the determined historical range and the resulting coup practices to be conceptualized as a 'shift of authority'. One of the findings reached in the study is that the civil-military relations create a hegemonic appearance on the political and social ground due to the military domination that took place in the mentioned historical interval. Based on the concepts and theories stated in the study, it was observed that between the years 1960-2016, Turkish civil-military relations underwent a transformation from militarization to civilianization as a result of democratization-oriented social change. The result of the study is that the establishment of civilian control in the army institution together with the development of the civil democratic political structure have generated social change and the formation of democratic civil-military relations.
