Does political culture matter for Europeanization? Evidence from the Ottoman Turkish modernization in state‐labor relations

Abstract

Purpose

Contextualizing its argument specifically into the role and impact of the traditional political culture on the process of modernization, this paper aims to examine the “culture matters” approach through the two‐century experience of the top‐down modernization of the Ottoman‐Turkish civilization in the realm of state‐labor relations.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper makes a comparative analysis of the interplay between the state and craft associations in the Ottoman Empire, and then the state and labor organizations in contemporary Turkey in terms of the influence of the rules, norms and institutions transferred by the bureaucratic élites from Western Europe.

Findings

The paper concludes that a substantive democratic setting for the interplay of the state and labor organizations could not be built up without a self‐supportive political culture in view of the fact that the process of top‐down modernization/Europeanization in the Ottoman‐Turkish context has given rise to a never‐ending center‐periphery dichotomy between both inter‐class and intra‐class relationships.

Originality/value

The paper sheds light on the labor relations part of the Ottoman‐Turkish political culture and reveals its impact on the never‐ending top‐down modernization initiative.

Citation

Akan, T. (2011), "Does political culture matter for Europeanization? Evidence from the Ottoman Turkish modernization in state‐labor relations", Employee Relations, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 221-248. https://doi.org/10.1108/01425451111121759