Turkey in the World System and the New Orientalism

Abstract

Turkey’s integration into the world system of capitalism after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire is usually understood from the restrictive perspective of a Western ‘Orientalist’ view. This perspective presents the Ottoman Empire either as a Feudal Mode of Production (FMP) or as an Asiatic Mode of Production (AMP). Although Turkish and Western contributions to World Systems Analysis (WSA) have challenged both these views (Keyder 1987), the shift from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic and the associated implications for Turkey’s role in the current world system of globalising capitalism are often restricted to a Christian, post-Enlightenment view of progress: that after a period of peripheralisation followed an impressive story of upward mobility culminating now in the civilising process of EU accession.