Modern state and the elite–mass dilemma: Halide Edib Adıvar and Ali Fuad Başgil in the intellectual history of Turkish modernization

Abstract

Turkish political history has been marked by recurring authoritarianisms that this thesis traces to an unresolved tension of modernization: the simultaneity of constructing the people as modern political subject and the centralized state as a form of modern power. Conceptualizing this tension as a dilemma between elite/state-led modernization and the rule of the masses—two poles understood not as fixed camps but as competing claims on modernization—the thesis examines the political thought and positionalities of Halide Edib Adıvar (1884–1964) and Ali Fuad Başgil (1893–1967). It asks whether their politically contentious and hybrid combinations of Western and local vocabularies constitute a genuine critique of, or alternative within, this dilemma. The analysis proceeds through two key issues central to both Turkish modernization and the figures’ interventions: secularism/religion and civil rights. The findings reveal that while both figures articulated significant opposition to the implementation of Turkish modernization and to its political actors, they largely remained within the power/knowledge configurations of the dilemma, falling short of articulating systematic alternatives. Furthermore, this thesis interprets Edib and Başgil as precursors of two modes of modern conservatism, namely Edib's cultural-traditionalist and Başgil's statist-moralist orientations, demonstrating that modern conservatism in Turkey emerged entangled with Western liberal-conservative vocabularies rather than as a purely local reaction. By doing so, the thesis contributes to Turkish historiography by demonstrating that transitions between political and ideological contexts reconfigure rather than resolve the dilemma, transforming the terms of contestation without eliminating the underlying tension.