Introduction to the Modern State's Methodology : Measuring Politics and Society (original) (raw)

This course aims to examine the practices, motivations and impacts of the modern state's measuring society and politics. This course investigates modern state's "scientific" methodologies including first and foremost censuses and elections alongside its other statistical undertakings such as plebiscites, referendums and public opinion surveys. Modern state not only constructs and maintains itself through these means, it also designs the entire field of politics while governing society. Moreover, modern state is idealized through these tools as follows: it is established via plebiscite (the principle of the people's self-determination), its rulers are determined by elections, it consults the opinions of the ruled-i.e. its people-about crucial matters, it takes the people's political pulse via public opinion polls, it undertakes censuses to find out about the profile of its population to be able to govern better, and it is an ideal state that closely follows social changes by means of other quantitative and qualitative field research. While this course has a primary focus on modern Turkey, it also has both a historical and global perspective. With specific attention to such prominent tools as the Ottoman tahrirs, the course strives to show the differences between the empire and the nation-state. By a view on international organizations such as the United Nation and the IMF, this course also pays attention to international bodies to effectively locate Turkey's place within global statistical operations. Therefore, the course goes into a debate on the impacts of the attempts at the compatibility between global and national measurements, including those of globalization. Finally, simultaneous with investigating modern political power's application of scientific methodologies to society and politics, this course scrutinizes political science methodologies.

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact