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Exploring the military mindset: Phenomenological insights for security sector reform in Turkey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 July 2015

Çağkan Sayın
Çağkan Sayın*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and International Relations, Başkent University, Bağlıca Yerleşkesi 06810 Etimesgut, Ankara, capkan@ttmail.com.
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Abstract

This study focuses on the mindset of a group of post-graduate cadets and academic cadres of the Turkish Military Academy and attempts to reveal, explore, and interpret this mindset regarding the normative structure of security sector reform, as well as the cultural and historical background of the Turkish context. While formal structures can be changed rather rapidly, changes in the underlying interpretive frameworks require more time and have no guarantee of institutionalization. Such changes entail the transformation of prevailing norms, perceptions, conceptions, and patterns of thought that underpin the role(s) of the military. If security sector reform aims to transform military culture and the civilian-military relationships in specific contexts, the traditional military mindset also must undergo a substantial transformation. How can we understand such a transformation? To answer this question, the methodological background of the study derives from linguistic-oriented phenomenology as a means for revealing and interpreting the mindset of post-graduate cadets and military academic cadres. The results of the research indicate that there are three dominant meaning clusters in the mindset of the sampled group, involving the parameters of paternalism, old security understanding, suspicion towards the civilian realm, and an understanding of state-society relationships that mark the pre-security sector reform era. The prevalence of these understandings might pose serious challenges to the internalization of the normative aspects of security sector reform and to the compliance to reforms.

Keywords

security sector reformnew security understandingmilitary mindsetTurkish militaryphenomenologyinstitutions and reform
Type
Research Article
Information
New Perspectives on Turkey , Volume 43 , Fall 2010 , pp. 97 - 133
Copyright
Copyright © New Perspectives on Turkey 2010

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