Month: November 2015

The policy relevance of meta-theory is frequently debated in both academia and policy circles. Most characterize meta-theoretical debates as exercises in philosophy that has little to do with the daily conduct of politics.

However, I came across two striking examples that demostrate how these debates indeed guide policy making and thus practice.

In 1931, during the Third Congress of the Republican People Party, Secretary General Recep Peker remarks that

“We consider as ours all those of our citizens who live among us, who belong politically and socially to the Turkish nation and among whom ideas and feelings such as ‘Kurdism, ‘Circassianism’ and even ‘Lazism’ and Pomakism’ have been implanted. We deem it our duty to banish, by sincere efforts, those false conceptions, which are the legacy of an absolutist regime and the product of long-standing historical oppression. The scientific truth of today does not allow an independent existence for a nation of several hundred thousand, or even of a million individuals…” (Peker quoted in Waxman 1997: 9)

This, I believe clearly demonstrates the deterministic, positivistic approach of the era, together with Kemal Atatürk’s saying that “Science is the true guide in life (Hayatta en hakiki mürşit ilimdir)”

This positivist approach, with its claims of absolute truth, seems to have resulted in an oppressive practice that discredits other possibilities about social, political and religious identity; and legal venues for expressing them.

Fastforward to 1980s; after assuming office in the first multi-party elections following the 1980 coup, late prime minister and president Ozal rejected an absolute truth claim that Western civilization was pinnacle of human achievement and instead argued for a synthesis of equally valid Muslim and Western civilizations, which would be embodied in the nation of Turkey (Laciner 2003: 170-2). It is striking how this argument coincides with an era when positivist social science and its claims of objective truth was being challenged by a post-positivist school of thought that makes a case for the existence of multiple, constructed versions of reality.

But, it appears that in Turkish policy-making, rejection of one absolute truth claim does not necessarily entail peaceful coexistence of multiple versions of reality. For example, President Ozal in his argument for a synthesis between Islam and West, did not consider being human or being Anatolian as the common identity but being a Westernized Muslim.

These two examples, I believe, represent only a small fraction the link between meta-theory and practice. Such examples also point to the need for situating the political in a wider context that takes into account the trends in science and society and the relations between the two.

References:

Laçiner, S. (2003). Özalism (neo-Ottomanism): an alternative in Turkish foreign policy?. Yönetim Bilimleri Dergisi, 1(1). pp. 170-2

Waxman, D. (1997). Islam and Turkish national identity: A reappraisal.Mediterranean Quarterly, 80. p.9

When I switched from Yahoo to Google as my default web search engine around 2003, I used to type in keywords on the search bar to get what I am looking for on the net. But since Google gained its own character and began correcting me on whether I meant something else, I recognize its snobby personality and directly ask questions to it as if something casually came to my mind and I was curious about its opinion.

Two days ago, I asked: “Is there a pdf program that I can highlight the document, take notes on it and export the notes?” These days I am trying to find a way to reduce my paper use as much as possible while doing research.

To my surprise it said yes! This is how I began using Mendeley. It is an almost perfect pdf organizer, reader and citation manager. It allows you to create a library along with subfolders, highlight and take notes on the pdf and then export only the notes in a single report.

In the good old days, I used to print out the article, underline the parts I find important, take notes on the margins, compile these notes and underlined parts in a Word document, repeat this for every article I read and then combine these Word reports to produce a research piece.

With Mendeley, I can now complete most of this process as I go. Once reading, highlighting and note taking is done, the program produces a report of the notes taken on the pdf. And thus with two clicks, I have a 3-page report of notes and quotations from a 30-page article. It is also very convenient for recalling the article later without going through the whole 30 pages.

The program also comes with a citation manager that has a cite-as-you-write feature. And the best part is it’s free.