THE METHOD OF ANALYSIS OF TURKISH SOCIETY STRUCTURE BY SERIF MARDIN

Abstract

The well-known social scientist Serif Mardin, who died recently, studied and analyzed Turkish society
structure via new and modern conceptual modellings. These modellings have made him a pioneering
scientist during his own period. He studied religion-state and centre-priphery concepts that are
believed to be one of the problematic areas in the course of Turkish Modernization. Therefore, he
bases the study of conceptual modellings on these two contradictive concepts. In this paper, I aim to
address how Serif Mardin pictures and phases above-mentioned concepts in ongoing modern Turkish
life. Unsurprisingly, his studies made great contributions to the political science studies worldwide
and the Turkish intellectual history. The late twenty years of Turkish society is being examined in this
paper in the light of Serif Mardin’s analysis. This analysis covers his words on the phases of the
Turkish social changes and developments and the structure of Turkish political society.
In this paper, I will try to analyze Serif Mardin’s mentality by laying stress on the uniqueness of his
studies. Looking back at his family line, Serif Mardin is a member of a deep-rooted family tradition
that brought up many philosophers and religious scholars in Kasimiye Madrasah. Besides this, he
continued his academic studies in the USA far away from the tension of Turkish political life in
Turkey. These two states have an impact on his distinctiveness. In 1962, he published his doctoral
thesis as his first book named ‘The Genesis of New Ottoman Thought’. Later, he published his second
book the ‘Continuity and Change in the Ideas of the Young Turks’. According to Mardin, in order to
understand and interpret the structure of Turkish society, -the toughest and the most controversial
topics needed to be analyzed.
Mardin believed that the Turkish social structure of the Republic of Turkey was a continuation of the
social structure in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, he also focused on how social sciences methods
should be in Turkey. This paper consists of three parts. In part one, his system of thoughts is analyzed.
In part two, religion-state and centre-priphery concepts are discussed. In part three, the influence of
these concepts on Turkish intellectual life is discussed.