Questions of modernization have been closely related to issues of identity and therefore of internal order and foreign policy in Turkey ever since the nineteenth century. For Ottoman reformers and their successors in the Turkish Republic, modernization, in turn, has meant the fashioning of the polity along European lines or “westernization.” This transformation of the land of the infidel from enemy to a societal blueprint to be emulated has brought in its wake serious problems regarding identity and appurtenance. Over a period of a hundred years, the polity has transformed itself from an eastern empire to a modern nation-state seeking inclusion within the institutional and cultural fold of the West. This makes Turkey an interesting case to look at, especially since, in many other countries outside the West, identity has largely been defined in terms of opposition to the West.

The recent rise of Islamic Radicalism in the Middle East is generally associated with anti-Western sentiment and interpreted as a continuation of the traditional conflict between Christian and Islamic civilizations. It is thought to reflect a traditionalist opposition to the modernization process which originated in the West and then was introduced to the Islamic countries (for an example of this literature, see Youssef, 1985). But this view cannot explain the historical timing and specificity of the current Islamic political revival. In this paper I suggest that Islamic radicalism is not a traditionalist plea to return to a pre-modern era. Quite the contrary, it is a product of the contradictions of Third World modernization and represents a post-modern reaction to the specific form of modernization experienced by the Islamic Third World. In the Islamic countries, where modernization has been synonymous with westernization, the response to the contradictions of modernization has taken the form of a “politics of identity.”

The end of the First World War marked the complete disintegration of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire. This disintegration was followed by a powerful surge of various nationalistic currents on the one hand, and an international power struggle for the control of the region on the other. The 1918-1923 period, therefore, represents a crucial phase, for not only were the overall forms of the international power relations in the area defined during these years, but the political structures and the orientations of various social and political interests within the states concerned were also similarly determined.

Peasant migration was the subject of careful regulation in the Ottoman Empire. The government tried to control peasant movement in order to ensure the supply of agricultural labor; peasants, on the other hand, used migration as one weapon against government abuses. This article examines Ottoman policy towards migration and recorded instances of peasant migration in sixteenth-century Palestine.

Peasant migration is most commonly considered in the context of seasonal labor movements, responding to large-scale agricultural enterprises or temporary labor shortages. Alternatively, migration may occur as a result of some disaster: war, famine, drought, or flood. Temporary migration suggests a short-term move, wherein people pull up stakes for a denned period and retrace their steps after some months or years. This article, however, examines migration as the action of individuals who appear to have left their former homes permanently.

The velocity of money (V) indicates the number of times money stock turns over in the economy to accommodate a given level of transactions (proxied by GNP). In other words, velocity measures the relationship between nominal income and the money stock. In the original version of the quantity theory of money, nominal income is equal to velocity times money stock; i.e. Py = MV where P stands for the price level, y is real income, M is the money stock. In this framework, when velocity is assumed to be constant, changes in money stock can create predictable effects on the nominal income.

After experiencing serious macroeconomic imbalances in the 1977-1980 period, fundamental policy changes were introduced in Turkey on January 24, 1980. The problems addressed were typical of a middle income country constrained by its balance of payments: inability to service foreign debt and inability to finance imports required for production, high inflation rates, and all other related macroeconomic imbalances. The reasons for the 1977-1980 crisis and subsequent developments, including post-1980 developments, have already been studied extensively by a number of researchers. We shall, therefore, refer the reader to the relevant literature (e.g. Celasun and Rodrik, 1989; Ekinci, 1990; Uygur, 1991) and concentrate on the narrower topic of external financial liberalization or capital account liberalization and the related topic of exchange rates which has attracted much less attention.

Feminism in Turkey has reached a new exciting dimension in the last decade with the emergence of autonomous and multifarious female voices. Duygu Asena, an editor and novelist, has much to do with paving the way for the emergence of these voices. With her controversial writings and independent lifestyle, she is an icon of Turkish feminism, the Gloria Steinem of Turkish culture. As a proponent of staunch individualism, she has not allied herself with any group or movement. But through her editorials in Kadinca (Womanly) and two controversial novels, Kadinin Adi Yok (Woman Has No Name) and its sequel Aslinda Aşk da Yok (In Reality, Love Does Not Exist Either) that insist on female equality and autonomy, she has greatly shaped public opinion that has made possible the mobilization of other feminists.