A rich cultural melting pot and a bridge between East and West, Turkey’s emerging democracy faces challenges and uncertainty in the years ahead.

Positioned almost in the heart of one of the most politically and socially active regions of the world, Turkey is a lucrative soil for political scientists. Historically, Turkey boasts of being the home of the first known human settlement and some of the largest empires and civilizations in history, including the Byzantines and the Ottomans. Situated at the crossroads between Asia and Europe, Turkey has always featured a rich cultural mosaic of ancient faith traditions and diverse national heritage. Its transition from an absolute monarchy to constitutionalism and then to republicanism has not been an easy one, and democracy, in the true sense of the word, has yet to appear in the horizon. However, Turkey is a significant testing ground for the compatibility of Islam with democracy; its success or failure in bringing them together draws worldwide interest. I hope that Turkey’s Path to Democratization is a useful reference for those interested in Turkey and the wider region.

With the recent advance of globalization, commentators, researchers, and journalists of all stripes and many nations have concerned themselves with Turkey’s hard road to democratization. Is it still underway? What are the hindrances or blockages? What are the motivations and roles of civil society groups in this evolving democracy? What is the current stance and role of the military, given Turkey’s recent history of recurring military coups d’états? Will Turkey ever succeed in gaining admittance to the European Union?

In addition, as a result of the frequency and extent of military action in the Middle East, much has been made in the media of Turkey’s real or imagined role as an intermediary in the shifting world order. Turkey’s role in NATO clearly interacts with Turkey’s constantly changing relations with its neighbors in the region. Is Turkey moving West – or is it turning to the East? What are the implications for Turkey and the region of the relatively new “state” of Northern Iraq—now commonly known as “Kurdistan”?

Paradoxically, many foreign “experts,” while insisting that Turkey is an “outsider” to the “European tradition,” insist on measuring events in Turkey according to a variety of yardsticks crafted by that tradition. In fact, as with every country, there are vital areas in which Turkey’s history and recent conditions are specific and cannot be evaluated according to measures commonly used when discussing most Western European societies. There are yet other respects, still largely unexamined by foreign commentators, in which Turkey’s history is very similar to other European societies. In the twentieth century, for example, Turkey suffered under a military regime similar to those endured by Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Greece, and much of South America – and for similar reasons. This similarity is rarely acknowledged outside of Turkey, let alone examined. Thus, Turkey is viewed through a number of distorting “orientalizing” lenses, and all its troubles attributed to “Islamism.”

However, to understand contemporary social phenomena in Turkey, one needs to understand the changing circumstances in which the attempt was made to establish, and then hold on to, a nationalist, laicist, and Westernized republic after the end of the Ottoman Empire. With respect to the emergence, dynamics, and outcomes of social and political movements in Turkey, the political system, its institutions and processes, and the larger social and cultural ethos all constitute highly significant material factors. Thus, it is necessary to trace the seeds of collective action in Turkey to the early Republican years, when a new state and society formed. To this end the book starts with a brief history of the early years of the Republic of Turkey.

A few months before this book went to press and just before local and metropolitan elections in March 2014, the police in Turkey laid charges against more than 40 people for bribery, rigging state tenders, violating the laws on construction in protected sites, forgery, and smuggling gold to Iran (breaching international sanctions). This was not the first time rumors of corruption had touched the government, but this time the investigation involved government ministers and their families. The then-Prime Minister Erdogan immediately swung into action to stifle the investigation.

Without any disciplinary procedure, several thousand members of the police and bureaucracy, and over a hundred judges and prosecutors, were dismissed. Many more civil servants were reassigned to other regions or cases. Simultaneously, as in the 2013 Gezi Park protests, the Prime Minister directed a highly pugilistic rhetoric at a selection of scapegoats to deflect public attention toward foreign “foes” (Turkey’s allies and trading partners, such as the US and Israel) or minority groups labeled as the “enemy within” (in this case, the Hizmet movement; on other occasions, it has been the Kurds, the Alevis, etc.).

While a number of public officials dared to brave the Prime Minister’s ire and publicly contradict his claims, evidence of corruption continued to leak on the internet. In response to this defiance, the government issued an order to close down Twitter and YouTube in Turkey.

At the same time, although the Speaker of the House questioned the extent to which the executive was interfering with the judiciary, the ruling party managed to push through Parliament a bill extending the executive’s power over the judiciary, undoing the constitutional reforms of 2010—reforms which had been endorsed by the Venice Commission, the European Union, and, indeed, by the public in a referendum.

In the course of the election campaign, there were mass resignations from the AK Party among local councilors; and 10 Members of Parliament have resigned from the AK Party so far. I was among them.

In spite of this political turbulence, the populace prioritized economic stability and growth over financial probity, and the AK Party won 43% of the vote in the local elections on a turnout of 80%. This was perhaps not so surprising. The opposition parties in Turkey were still demonstrating their lack of capacity to produce viable policy alternatives, even at the level of local services. Thus, the various civil society organizations which expressed their concern were reduced to asking the public to vote against something negative (corruption), rather than for something positive (a raft of alternative policies or principles).

Despite heavy criticisms levied against Erdogan, especially due to his style of ruling and addressing others, his party won the local elections and then later, in August, he was elected as President. Thus, Turkey becomes an interesting field of experiment where the society is split into two polarized groups: those who oppose the government and those who support it at all costs. While the former ones are extremely concerned for democracy and basic human rights, the latter seems to be ready to suspend all these rights for the sake of another term for the government.

These events have thrown up new questions. The “heroes of the periphery” seem to have swallowed whole the political strategies of their former foes. Will the “new elite” be even more protectionist than the old? What will be the outcomes in the next few years?

The aim of this book is to provide some background from an “insider” perspective for journalists, academics, researchers, and students who study Turkey’s internal and external relations and who look to the country as an experiment of democratic evolution. I also hope it will be illuminating and interesting for the general reader.

Yet, despite all the attention devoted by academic observers, activists, and policymakers, progress in remedying these still endemic social problems has been limited, uneven, and all too reversible. Why have the efforts of an army of social scientists working over several generations not yielded more tangible progress in combating our most pressing social problems? In this essay, I argue that the lack of a coherent conception of human nature has contributed to the frustrating results of our attempts to advance human society through scientific inquiry. I suggest that greater understanding of the human spirit can contribute to the overarching project of improving the human condition that unites all of the social sciences.

Speaking broadly and simplifying vastly (as limited space necessitates), two meta-paradigms concerning human nature have guided much social science research in the past several decades. On the one hand, there is a rationalist paradigm that theorizes human beings as egoists rationally pursuing their self-interest. This understanding of human nature provides the foundation for the discipline of economics and has become increasingly dominant in political science. In emphasizing that actions follow a “logic of consequences” in which decisions are based on how expected outcomes will affect an individual’s utility, the rationalist paradigm does not consider morality an inherent dimension of human action. In this framework, people are portrayed as largely amoral, only taking normatively proper actions if doing so benefits them personally or if they happen to derive unusually high utility from virtuous behavior due to idiosyncrasies in character.

In political science, the assumptions underlying the rationalist paradigm lead to a rather pessimistic outlook on the likelihood of arriving at morally agreeable outcomes. For instance, there is no reason to believe that a dictator will stop employing violence against his own citizens just because the international community urges that it is the right thing to do; rather, such behavior will continue until the leader’s incentive structure changes, making political repression too costly to continue. However, characterizing people as rational actors need not entail such a bleak outlook. In economics, for example, there seems to be an almost axiomatic faith in Adam Smith’s notion that the rational pursuit of self-interest benefits the entire collectivity.

In contrast to the rationalist approach, there is a normative paradigm that conceives of human beings as primarily concerned with aligning their actions to standards of appropriateness for particular roles and identities in different social situations. While the rationalist paradigm thrives in economics and political science, the normative paradigm is most prevalent in sociology. From this perspective, people are less concerned with doing whatever it takes to achieve their aims than with determining which actions are prescribed for given circumstances and behaving accordingly. In this way, actors do what is perceived as right for its own sake, operating according to a “logic of appropriateness” rather than a “logic of consequences.” In a sharp contrast to the amoral egoists that populate rationalist models of the world, human actors in the normative paradigm are conceived of as fundamentally moral beings, deeply influenced by what their communities consider right and proper.

While acknowledging the potential for a gap between standards of appropriate behavior and the capacity to adhere to those standards in practice, the normative paradigm tends towards an optimistic estimate of the possibility of achieving morally desirable outcomes. Problematic behavior can be corrected through moral suasion based on clearly articulated normative standards, without necessarily appealing to the self-interest of deviant actors, as in the rationalist paradigm. For instance, pro-democracy international institutions might be able to socialize officials from authoritarian countries into valuing democracy for its own sake, transcending their rational inclination to perpetuate oppressive arrangements.

How can we reconcile these profoundly disparate visions of humanity in analyzing and attempting to remedy social problems? Many acknowledge that social action can follow both the rationalist “logic of consequences” and the normative “logic of appropriateness,” but social theorists have yet to construct a coherent framework that can explain when action might follow one or the other logic. Far too much energy has been expended in unproductive debates in which analysts draw on limited empirical findings to assert the superiority of their favored approach.

To be sure, both paradigms are intuitively plausible, and one can easily find cases that fit the predictions of each. But both approaches are incomplete, and unable on their own to account for the full range of human behavior. The rationalist paradigm offers no explanation for why discourses about norms and morality comprise such an essential part of everyday human experience, while the normative approach fails to account for the pervasiveness of anti-social and immoral behavior. But if we are neither the self-seeking sociopaths envisioned by the rationalist paradigm nor the perfectly socialized automatons imagined by the normative paradigm, then who are we?

I suggest that social scientific analysis and policymaking might be well served by drawing on conceptions of human nature that derive more from the inherited wisdom of religious traditions and less from the abstract deductions of contemporary theoretical paradigms. The perspective I advocate takes up a broad theme of the Abrahamic faiths – the universal corruptibility of the human spirit, beginning with the transgressions of the very first human beings in the story of the Garden of Eden. In other words, I argue that it is analytically useful for social science research to conceptualize human beings as sinners.

With this characterization, I suggest that people are highly aware of and concerned with the normative prescriptions of the various social groupings to which they belong, and typically act to uphold and reinforce these standards of behavior. However, as the fallible creatures that we are, we fall prey to a range of spiritual lapses that lead us to use to violate even our most sacred moral codes. Common-sense reflection on the historical record of human behavior can shed light on how our penchant for sinfulness expresses itself. We have shown that we disregard the lives of others in the pursuit of profit and power. We dehumanize and oppress those whom we perceive as different from ourselves. We grow comfortable in positions of wealth and influence, protecting our own standing against changes that would benefit the rest of society. We think only of our own short-term gain rather than our long-term responsibilities to those who will come after us. We are indifferent to the suffering of strangers. We break promises, tell lies, and act hypocritically. We take for granted and hurt the ones we love.

Of course, our propensity for sinful behavior does not mean that we are only capable of depravity. Indeed, most of the time we follow the moral standards of our communities in an unreflective, straightforward fashion. And we are certainly capable of deep compassion and heroic self-sacrifice. But our spiritual imperfection means that we all have an inherent potential to stray from a righteous path, especially during extreme conditions like warfare, political instability, poverty, and economic depression. This potential is universal and timeless, and exists within men and women, rich and poor, traditional and modern, educated and illiterate, believer and skeptic alike. The exact nature of our vices, and the extent to which they impact other people, might vary according to our social positions (a prince’s failings can cause greater harm than a pauper’s), but corruptibility is something we all share.

Imagining human beings as sinners makes sense of the paradoxical views of humanity offered by the rationalist and normative paradigms while overcoming their limitations. This perspective incorporates the normative paradigm’s insight that people care about upholding the standards of appropriateness of their communities, but sheds the naïve expectation that they will almost automatically abide by these standards. This perspective also accepts the rationalist paradigm’s premise that people often engage in aberrant, self-serving action. However, while the rationalist paradigm suggests that people pursue their own satisfaction without considering the normative implications of their behavior, the view of humans as sinners recognizes that people generally aspire towards decency, even if they are sometimes susceptible to moral breakdown. Eschewing firm a priori assumptions about people’s inclination towards normatively appropriate behavior, the spiritual paradigm I propose starts from acknowledging our demonstrated capacity for both upstanding and immoral behavior. A social science research program built upon such a vision of humanity would aim to investigate the social conditions under which people engage in different types of behavior – virtuous and vicious – and draw upon this knowledge to design policies that will better confront the most lasting and pernicious social problems.

An inadequate understanding of humankind’s spiritual character can lead to two types of problems that have plagued modern attempts to shape our societies for the better. First, we often craft policies that rest on naïve assumptions about human nature, and which could only work in practice if we were saints rather than sinners. For instance, a laissez faire approach to economic regulation stems from the notion that allowing people to freely pursue their economic self-interest leads the economy to thrive. But this position underestimates the extent to which economic actors, left unchecked, are prone to greedy or shortsighted behavior that can harm society as a whole. The current financial crisis resulted from the creation of high-risk financial instruments that led consumers to take on mortgages they could not afford and companies to over-invest in dubious mortgage-backed securities. These policies enriched the finance industry and expanded the ranks of homeowners in the short-term, but the bursting of the housing bubble led to an epidemic of foreclosures, a stock market crash, a drying up of credit, and a global economic recession.

The policy of abstinence-only sex education is another case in which the likelihood of virtue is overestimated. This policy relies on the sexual restraint of young people to reduce pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections among teenagers. Such programs have been found to be ineffective because they fail to appreciate the difficulty of resisting the temptation to engage in risky sexual behavior for even the most steadfast advocates of abstinence. These examples suggest that policies too dependent on the proper behavior of those involved will tend not to be very successful.

A second problem deriving from our inadequate understanding of human nature is our tendency to divide the world into rigid categories of those who are righteous and those who are wicked, often succumbing to the hubristic assumption that God is on our side. Rather than recognizing that we are all equal in our potential for moral failure, we forget our own sinfulness, with the ironic result that those most ostensibly committed to social progress along Enlightenment principles can be guilty of the most brutal inhumanity.

Idealistic political movements have frequently illustrated such a dynamic. The French Revolution, for instance, produced the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789, proclaiming liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression to be natural rights. Just a few years later, Robespierre’s Committee for Public Safety launched a program of arbitrary executions to protect the revolutionary government from the perceived threat of internal enemies, an absurd blasphemy of the Revolution’s foundational principles. Similarly, the vanguard of the Bolshevik Revolution viewed itself as leading the world towards a communist future that would eradicate inequality and establish the conditions for universal human flourishing. Yet this project devolved into a paranoid police state that imprisoned and executed millions of kulaks, Cossacks, and other class enemies for the sake of the unquestionably righteous Revolution.

As casual observers of history, we tend to attribute such atrocities to the uncommonly evil character of the key figures involved: Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao. But such horrors as chattel slavery, colonialism, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and the Darfur crisis are not simply the work of a single monstrous leader or a few bad apples. They require many hands, and arise from an all-too-human capacity to inflict harm on others, to be overcome with hatred, to turn a blind eye to suffering and injustice – in short, to be inhumane. The urge to dissociate ourselves from such evils is powerful, as we like to think of ourselves as good people, incapable of such savagery. But the history of human suffering is the story of allegedly good people doing terrible things to each other. Thus, we must accept any sin committed by another person as potentially one of our own.

Treading a righteous path – as individuals, as corporations, as nations – is difficult, but certainly not impossible. Bringing our aspirations for values like equality, liberty, and peace closer to fruition requires not just technical knowledge, but also attention to how the spiritual character of human beings shapes the implementation and effectiveness of policy initiatives. When we acknowledge the darker aspects of our nature, the design of policies becomes a matter of identifying and protecting against the sources of temptation we may face.

The structure of American political institutions might serve to illustrate a well-crafted policy in this regard. Wary of the concentration of power in the hands of any one entity, the drafters of American institutions dispersed authority among three distinct branches of government. While members of each branch have worked to enhance their own power, the separation of powers ensures an ongoing wrangling between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the result being that no one branch can accumulate absolute authority. Instead of trusting political actors to refrain from power seeking, the founders anticipated the temptation to extend one’s reach and devised mechanisms to check that tendency. In this way, democratic rule has survived for over two centuries.

The modern social sciences offer an impressive array of techniques for acquiring systematic knowledge about human societies. But scientific knowledge will not lead the world on a linear march of progress if not coupled with an honest and accurate reckoning of human nature. Turning with humility to the insights into the human spirit offered by religious traditions may be the best way to appreciate and temper the shortcomings we have shared from the beginning.

P. Geoffrey Bakken is PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Wisconsin.