Kemal Tahir's Political Philosophy: State, Bureaucracy and Social Change in Turkey

Abstract

This article, aims to search about “State, Bureaucracy and Social Change in Turkey” based on the concept of “Kerim State” which Kemal Tahir has developed. In the study, novelist and also philosopher Tahir's “urban novels” works were analyzed within the context of politics and bureaucratic staffs in Turkey. The theoretical framework of the article was created with reference to Karl Marx's concept of “Asiatic Mode of Production”, which has decisive influence on Kemal Tahir's understanding of eastern societies. In this respect, Tahir’s approach that makes a categorical distinction between Eastern and Western societies is evaluated primarily in terms of state, politics and society relations. Secondly, his novels were examined, in the axis of his argument that the key point of Eastern societies was “the ontological priority of the state to society”. The rule of the state over society necessarily makes the bureaucratic political elite the subject of history. In Eastern societies, the political movement of bureaucratic staffs is essential rather than social movement understanding based on class dynamics. While the individual stands out in modern bourgeois societies, political elites are perceived as the actors of history in Asian cultures. In this context, Kemal Tahir romanized the political life of the bureaucratic staff against the bourgeois individual. In novels, Kemal Tahir portrayed not the class conflict but the "state circulation," as defended in the thesis. This perspective is reflected in Tahir's novels as a political tradition of the Republic of Turkey, which extends the time period of the Ottoman Empire.