Evaluating Social Movement Impacts 9781441184283, 9781501300493, 9781441111074

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts Comparative Lessons from the Labor Movement in Turkey

Brian Mello

N E W YOR K • LON DON • N E W DE L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

www.bloomsbury.com Bloomsbury is a registered trademark of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2013 © Brian Mello, 2013 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury Academic or the author. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mello, Brian Jason. Evaluating social movement impacts: comparative lessons from the labor movement in Turkey/by Brian Mello. pages cm Based on author’s doctoral dissertation. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4411-8428-3 (hardcover: alk. paper) 1. Labor movement–Turkey– History–20th century. 2. Labor movement–Case studies. I. Title. HD8656.5.M45 2013 331.8809561–dc23 2013005650



ISBN: HB: 978-1-4411-8428-3 ePub : 978-1-4411-9072-7 ePDF : 978-1-4411-1107-4

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Contents List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Preface 1 2

Introduction: The Impact of Alternative Collective Subjectivities Collective Subjectivity and Divergences in the Shaping of State–Labor Relations in Great Britain and the United States 3 Dreams of Solidarity: Populism and State–Building without Class Antagonism 4 Recognition and Redistribution: The Politics and Impact of Labor Insurgency in Turkey, 1960–80 5 Democracy and Economic Justice: Labor Activism and Contemporary Turkish Politics 6 Japan, Turkey, and the Comparative Analysis of Social Movement Impacts Bibliography Index

vi viii x 1 25 61 79 113 145 161 177

List of Abbreviations By appearance in the text: Abbreviations – British Case: TUC LTC GTC WMA SDF ILP ASE LRC

Trade Unions Congress London Trades Council Glasgow Trades Council London Working Men’s Association Social Democratic Federation Independent Labor Party Amalgamated Society of Engineers Labor Representation Committee

Abbreviations – American Case: AFL ALU IWW CIO

American Federation of Labor The American Labor Union International Workers of the World Congress of Industrial Organizations

Abbreviations – Turkish Case: CHP Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi) DP Democrat Party (Demokrat Partisi) EU European Union Türk-İş Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions TİP Turkish Workers’ Party (Türk İşçi Partisi) DİSK Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions (Devrimci İşçi Sendikası Konfederasyonu) AP Justice Party (Adalet Partisi) MHP Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi) Hak-İş Confederation of Righteous Trade Unions MİSK Nationalist Confederation of Labor Unions (Milliyetçi İşçi Sendikası Konfederasyonu)

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KESK Confederation of Public Laborers’ Unions (Kamu Emekçileri Sendikaları Konfederasyonu) AKP Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi) DDKO Revolutionary Eastern Cultural Hearths PKK Kurdistan Workers’ Party HEP People’s Labor Party (Halkın Emek Partisi) Democracy Party DEP HADEP People’s Democracy Party DEHAP Democratic People’s Party RP Welfare Party (Refah Partisi) MÜSİAD The Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen

Acknowledgments Completion of this book would not have been possible were it not for the inspiration, support, feedback, and assistance of many people and organizations. Academically, this book, and the doctoral dissertation upon which it builds, represents the culmination of a journey that has benefited from and been inspired by a number of true teachers. The foundation of this work emerged from my undergraduate experience at Fairfield University, where Marcie Patton and Kathi Weeks helped inspire my interest in Turkish politics and questions of subjectivity and political theory. At the University of Washington, I was able to continue this development through the guidance and supervision of a dissertation committee that was both supportive of my project and willing to give me the freedom to define my own path. Michael McCann was supportive of my wish to design an exam field in social movement studies, and was instrumental in helping me strive to clarify my argument and analysis. Nancy Hartsock was influential in my efforts to bring political theory into comparative politics research. My understanding of Turkish politics would be woefully inadequate if not for Reşat Kasaba. Finally, I could not have imagined a better dissertation supervisor than Stephen Hanson. My understanding of comparative politics owes much to Steve’s ability to capture the subfield. I would like to thank Selim Kuru for teaching me Turkish, helping translate my interview questions, supporting my interest in Turkish leftist politics, and connecting me with his family while I was in Ankara in 2004. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the tremendous importance that the Turkish Studies Group at the University of Washington had on this project and my growth as a scholar. This organization of faculty and students who study all aspects of Ottoman and modern Turkish society, politics, and culture read, critiqued, and offered feedback on this project since its inception. I would also like to thank Nicole Watts for offering me support and access to some of her own research materials during the very early stages of this project. Nicole also invited me to serve as a guest editor for a special issue of the European Journal of Turkish Studies based on the labor movement in Turkey. The article that I contributed to this project, and the helpful feedback of several anonymous reviewers transformed the way that I conceptualized the theoretical framework developed in this project. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my colleagues and to two Provosts, who, over my five years at Muhlenberg College, have supported my research agenda. A grant from Muhlenberg allowed me to work with an excellent student, Katherine Pearson, on the research that informs my reading of the Japanese case, and a summer grant from the Provost’s Office allowed me to update the Turkish material with new publications that had been brought to my attention during the process of finalizing the European Journal of Turkish Studies issue. In addition, my early research on the labor movement in

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Turkey would not have been possible without financial assistance from the University of Washington Graduate School’s Chester Fritz Fellowship; a research grant from the Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies; and a dissertation writing grant from the Institute of Turkish Studies. In addition to this financial assistance, support for my fieldwork in Turkey was provided by the helpful guidance of Gavin Brockett, and by a number of Turkish labor activists who set up and transported me to group interviews, took me on walking tours, and shared their experiences, thoughts, and tea with me. Finally, I owe the greatest debt to my hero and spouse, Jennifer Smith. She has been my strongest supporter and best friend.

Preface I often begin discussing the labor movement in Turkey by recalling my experiences at a May Day rally in Ankara that I attended in  2004.1 The rally itself was a mix of carnival and politics. Groups of young people danced beneath banners, while labor leaders spoke about the need for greater government concern for the working class, about the need to resist the privatization of state–owned industries, and about the need to end the US military occupation of Iraq. While I have never been so naïve as to think these particular public displays of the Turkish labor movement’s political concerns led to any political changes, I was struck by just how much more political this celebration of labor’s contribution to society seemed than Labor Day in the United States, which, while replete with picnics and department store sales, lacks these annual mass demonstrations of political concern. The differences between the labor movement in the United States and in Turkey, which this event evoked, are an indication, I argue, of the enduring legacy of the Turkish labor movement activism of the 1960s and 1970s. To those familiar with the massive state repression that the Turkish labor activists faced after the 1980 military coup, this may seem counterintuitive. Indeed, the contrast between the thousands of workers gathered in the heart of the nation’s capital on May Day and academic declarations of the Turkish labor movement’s relative lack of historical importance lies at the heart of this project. This book seeks to advance our understanding of how social movements matter by drawing comparative lessons from the labor movement in Turkey. The empirical problem that serves as the catalyst for this book involves the fact that some social movements usher in rapid and radical political and social changes, while others are incorporated into existing political systems, and still others inspire harsh repression. Why do social movements elicit varying policy responses from states and why do movements vary in their effect on the societies in which they occur? Additionally, in this project I ask how seemingly inconsequential movements— movements (like the Turkish labor movement) that are either repressed or fail to achieve many of their policy goals—can nonetheless have enduring impacts. I explore these questions through a comparative historical analysis of four cases of labor movement mobilization and state–labor relations focusing on the critical junctures surrounding the initial formation of national labor union confederations: the British labor movement during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the American labor movement during a similar timeframe, the Japanese labor movement from 1945 to 1960, and, my primary case, the Turkish labor movement during the mid to late 1900s. The significance of the project lies in the effort to expand the way we think about social movement impacts and to extend the analysis of social movements to

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the case of the labor movement in Turkey. I find that, despite often being considered a failed movement, the Turkish labor movement has had an important and enduring effect on the shaping of Turkish state–society relations. Through the comparative historical analysis of evidence drawn from movement texts, individual and small group interviews and surveys, the examination of memoirs and oral histories, analysis of media coverage of important events, and through the analysis and interpretation of existing secondary sources, this book develops and tests a new framework for understanding social movement impacts. I argue that it is the type of claims put forth as well as the values and collective understandings forged during critical junctures in movement formation that indicate a movement’s likely impact on state–society relations. In short, I suggest that the type of impact a movement has on state–society relations depends on whether or not a particular movement is able to sustain the mobilization of an alternative collective subjectivity. Alternative collective subjectivities involve a sustained forging of subversive collective subjects out of the complex and multiple subject positions which individuals inhabit. The emergence of an alternative collective subjectivity in the context of movement activism involves three linked elements: First, alternative collective subjectivities have an identity component, which entails solidarity based on a collective identification of shared political views. Second, the formation of alternative collective subjectivities requires instances of collective action that are linked to and reinforce the building of solidarity. Finally, alternative collective subjectivities involve the articulation of an alternative vision for society, politics, and/or the economic system that fundamentally critiques prevailing values. This book adds to and expands on our understanding of social movements in general and Turkish political history in particular, in several ways. Concerning the broader study of social movement outcomes, I develop and test an explanatory framework that is designed to expand our understanding of movement impacts—abandoning a focus on movement success or failure. The explanatory framework presented in this study is one that seeks to develop a broader understanding of movement impacts by applying an interpretive analysis to the state–society relations that surround social movement activism. In this way, policy changes, repression, and counter-mobilization are used to evaluate the extent to which movements challenge who has a right to rule, and question or reshape legitimacy. Furthermore, this task is accomplished by extending the literature on social movements to an area of the world that has not traditionally been at the center of social movement analysis. Let me suggest three reasons for taking the importance of the labor movement in Turkey (the primary case in this text) more seriously. First, doing so suggests continuity in contemporary Turkish politics. Just as recent historiography has sought to downplay what the Turkish Republican elite wished to present as a radical break from the Ottoman past, so too I hope to raise skepticism about what the military regime sought to portray in the early 1980s as a radical break from the “anarchic” politics of the previous decade. Second, considering the importance of the alternative collective subjectivity developed by Turkish labor politics helps to shed light on the peculiar nature of contemporary Kurdish and Islamic politics in Turkey. Indeed, this project implies that more research

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ought to be conducted to examine the extent to which the case of the labor movement in Turkey is part of a broader trend throughout the world in which earlier labor and socialist movements have shaped contemporary politics. Finally, it suggests that even failed social movements can have enduring effects on state–society relations, and that it is incumbent upon social scientists to engage in a more serious consideration of movements that have previously been dismissed as inconsequential or unworthy of analysis.

Note 1 For a full recounting of this experience, see Brian Mello, “(Re)Considering the Labor Movement in Turkey,” European Journal of Turkish Studies, no 11 (2010): 2

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Introduction: The Impact of Alternative Collective Subjectivities The study of social movements has become increasingly important for sociologists and political scientists.1 It is not difficult to tell why. Social movements challenge and seek to reshape the political status quo. In so doing social movements mobilize mass, public, political action that often draws media attention, and certainly the attention of the state. Movement activists march, strike, or conduct performative theatrical events like die-ins;2 the police or the military make mass arrests, let loose dogs and fire hoses, confront protestors with tanks, or provide facilitative escorts; and the media reports and records the spectacle, which constructs a sense of meaning for public consumption (“A march and a message from union members” or “Chaos closes downtown”).3 It is these moments of contention that then draw the attention of social scientists because social movements provide empirical contexts in which to examine the dynamics of collective action, the construction and reconstruction of identity, and the possibility of social change instigated by collective action.4 Much of the work on social movements has focused primarily on questions involving why movements emerge and why individuals decide to participate in them. Consequently, while studying the outcomes of social movements has always been an implicit part of the analysis of social movements, this topic has only recently gained a prominent place in the literature.5 Those who wish to evaluate social movement outcomes must address two crucial problems—how to define movement outcomes and how then to develop specific causal links between social movement actions and the outcomes one wishes to explain. In this book, I apply an explanatory framework that articulates a set of factors and mechanisms that can be used to explain and interpret the impact that a particular movement is likely to have. Throughout, two central questions guide this project: why and how do social movements have differential impacts on the states and societies in which they exist? And, when and how might even seemingly failed or inconsequential movements— movements that fail to achieve many, if any at all, of their ultimate goals—nonetheless matter? I explore these questions through comparative historical analysis of four cases of labor movement mobilization and state–labor relations focusing on the periods surrounding the initial formation of national labor union confederations: the British labor movement during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the American labor movement during a similar timeframe, the Japanese labor movement during the 1940s and 1950s, and my primary case, the Turkish labor movement during the 1960s and 1970s.6

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I concentrate most directly on the latter case, as it is this case which presents the best demonstration of the impact of a “failed movement” that ultimately fell victim to massive state repression. Each of these cases and periods shares certain common features including rapid industrialization, rapid growth in union membership, and multiparty democratic governments. Examining how social movements shape politics is a difficult task. Johnston and Klandermans suggest concentrating “on key junctures in movement development, key organizational situations, and points of contact with institutional and structural constraints.”7 Consequently, this study takes as its focus the periods surrounding the initial formation of national labor union confederations. The initial formation of national labor union confederations is important on two levels: First, it is indicative of growth and maturation of a labor movement—a symbol, that is, of organizational strength. Therefore, the establishment of national organizations suggests that labor movements, and labor unions as their principal organizational form, are emerging as important factors within state–labor and labor–capital relations in a particular state. Second, it is during this process that the long-term character of labor movements tends to be defined. In essence, the ideas, beliefs, and political aspirations adopted during these critical moments tend to have enduring consequences for the way labor unions and labor movement activists view their political role for decades to come. Consequently, these cases reflect what might be called critical junctures in the development of labor politics in these states.8 I argue that a movement’s impact is best explained with reference to the type of collective subjectivity that is forged during such critical junctures in movement formation. Moreover, I argue that movements that develop what I call alternative collective subjectivities are likely to have more profound impacts in shaping state–society relations than movements that do not. This is the case, I suggest, because movements that develop and sustain  alternative collective subjectivities embody identifications, promote collective action, and articulate a vision for the future that is different from and fundamentally in contradiction to prevailing state views. As a result, movements that develop alternative collective subjectivities are more likely to “create patterns of organization and interaction that exert influence several years after demobilization.”9 The argument developed in this book is founded on an understanding that the key questions in political life—questions that get raised and debated in a multitude of contexts—involve the collective consideration of who we are, what kind of world we want to live in, and how, then, we ought to act. In short, politics is the shaping of behavior, identifications, awareness about friends and enemies, and conceptions of good and bad, just and unjust, designed to promote particular world views. The processes through which politics plays out are complex and historically diverse. At one level they include, for example, state–making and the relations of economic production, and at another level they involve the family and gender. This project seeks to improve our understanding of how social movements shape our political world. Based on an assumption, following the work of Joel Migdal, that the basic goals of any state actors are compliance, participation, and legitimation, I argue that the emergence of alternative collective subjectivities signals a low level of compliance with, participation in, and

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legitimation of the state’s answers to questions of who ‘we’ are, what ‘we’ want, and how ‘we’ ought to act.10 Furthermore, the sustained diffusion of alternative collective subjectivities signals the persistence of such defiance over time. Movements that forge sustained alternative collective subjectivities represent a direct threat to the basic goals of the state. Consequently, we can expect that social movements that mobilize, diffuse, and sustain  alternative collective subjectivities will elicit more dramatic changes in state policy and have a more profound effect on the reshaping of political outcomes. I begin this chapter by offering an alternative way to understand movement impacts—one that pushes empirical analysis away from models that focus on the notions of “success” and “failure” and instead highlights how movements help constitute and reshape participants’ understandings of who they are and what kind of world they want to live in. After developing this alternative way of thinking about movement impacts, I turn to an examination of the concept of “culture” in the study of contentious politics in order to examine some more satisfying ways to study how movements matter. I then introduce the concept of alternative collective subjectivity in order to link these two literatures. Finally, I set out my empirical argument that the nature of collective subjectivity is paramount for our understanding of similarities and differences in how the labor movements in the United States, Great Britain, Japan, and Turkey shaped political developments in each state.

Toward a cultural analysis of movement impacts While there is consensus in the social movement literature about the need to conduct greater analysis on social movement outcomes, there is little agreement about how this difficult task is to be carried out. This disagreement, I believe, results from the lack of consensus about how to conceptualize movement outcomes, as well as a tendency in the existing literature to conceptualize movement outcomes far too narrowly. Jennifer Earl, for example, points out that studies of social movements can focus on intramovement or extramovement outcomes.11 Much of the work on social movement outcomes has implicitly addressed intramovement outcomes—focusing on such questions as how movement leaders build and sustain participation. Within the literature on extramovement outcomes, the focus has been on quantifiable political outcomes—such as changes in public policy, and not on the cultural importance of such policy changes. The explanatory framework I propose for this study is one that offers a broader understanding of outcomes—an understanding rooted in the cultural analysis of the state–society relations in which movements take place. I take as a starting point for this analysis the need to offer a better framework for explaining how social movements matter. This is especially true given that the tendency in social movement studies has been to give too much credence to dichotomous notions of success and failure. Indeed, although social movements rarely simply succeed or fail, much of the literature on movement outcomes takes movement success and failure as the focus of analysis.12 There are, I suggest, four major shortcomings with this focus on movement success or failure.

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First, models that focus on success and failure tend to focus too much attention on quantitative changes in public policy. In their analysis of poor peoples’ movements, Piven and Cloward, for instance, identify successful protests as those that can wrest concessions from the government.13 Yet, if we simply focus on such policy changes (or concessions from the government), we risk avoiding consideration of the spirit in which such concessions are granted. Focusing on policy changes, thus, does not necessarily reveal the extent to which policy concessions represent reforms within existing economic, political, and ideological systems, and when they might present more radical challenges. Second, focusing on the dichotomous variables of success and failure has contributed to a tendency to link repression with failure. Thus, for Piven and Cloward, successful movements depend on the ability of movements to shield themselves from retribution. On the contrary, as the case of Turkey demonstrates, repression (and even repressive public policy) is more likely an indicator of a movement’s importance than its failure. Indeed, Piven and Cloward’s focus on the ability of successful movements to shield themselves from retribution cannot explain how seemingly failed movements (like the Turkish labor movement) may nonetheless be critical for (re)shaping state–society relations. As the Turkish case demonstrates, it is quite possible for movements to fail to achieve their policy goals, or to be repressed, but nevertheless to have had an impact on the shaping of political developments in a state. My contention in advocating a movement away from the language of success and failure is that sometimes focusing on failure gives us an insufficient look at why/how particular movements matter. Third, and linked to this previous problem, models that focus on success and failure risks dismissing failed movements as inconsequential. Indeed, this is precisely what has occurred in the existing scholarship on the labor movement in Turkey, where Alpaslan Işıklı, for example, declares, “it is not possible to speak of a unionization movement with any determining influence during the principal turning points of the democratic history of Turkey.”14 Too often repression and counter mobilization are taken as indicative of a weak or inconsequential social movement, but why would the state mobilize its coercive force or opposition groups mobilize, if a social movement’s activism mattered little? In fact, even brutally repressed social movements can have profound impacts—impacts that can result in what movement participants, social scientists, and historians could perceive as positive as well as negative effects. My goal, then, is to take the impact of seemingly failed or inconsequential movements more seriously. Finally, models that focus on movement success and failure, as Amenta and Young point out, risk missing other ways that movements matter.15 Thus, I advocate replacing the narrow focus on success and/or failure, with the broader concept of movement impacts. Broadening the focus of analysis onto a movement’s impact means not only focusing on how movements inspire policy changes and provide collective benefits, but also examining how a social movement may instigate massive state repression. More importantly, though, it means making the cultural importance of movements a central aspect of the study of how movements matter. Consequently, the framework I develop here takes seriously recent calls for “greater attention to strategic choice, cultural meanings, and emotions” in the study of social movements.16

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To be sure, there has been some recent effort to incorporate more than just policy changes into the analysis of movement success and failure. Keck and Sikkink’s Activists Beyond Borders is perhaps the most notable example of recent work that seeks to broaden the criteria used for analysis of movement success/failure—in their case, the success/failure of transnational activist networks. For Keck and Sikkink, transnational activists can have a more or less successful impact in five different ways: through agenda setting, by challenging discourse, by causing procedural changes in institutions, by affecting policy, and by changing the behavior of others.17 However, Keck and Sikkink’s approach still relies on dichotomous measures of success and failure. To reiterate, in the process of state–society interaction that is the central feature of social movement activism, movements most often experience both successes and failures, but questions still remain regarding the long-term consequences of these successes and failures What appear to be the most successful movements in the short run may be less radical and less important than what appear to be failed movements (like the Turkish labor movement), which in the long run may have an important impact that dichotomous measures of success and failure cannot accurately capture. I believe that the study of movement impacts ought to focus on their cultural (or meaning-making) aspects. As Doug McAdam puts it, “The real promise of the ‘cultural revolution’ in movement studies . . . can only be realized if we place the processes of collective interpretation, meaning-making, and what elsewhere has been termed social appropriation at the center of our models of movement emergence, development, and decline.”18 Culture has prominently figured in social movement studies in three main ways: in the focus on repertoires of contention; in attention paid to the diffusion of norms and agenda setting; and in analyses of framing processes. One of the most influential techniques for bringing culture into the analysis of movement outcomes is offered by the concept of repertoires of contention. Broadly defined, repertoires of contention involve the forms of protest and types of symbols used in protest within an area. According to McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, “Culturalists see national traditions of ritual and symbolism as important in shaping the repertoires of insurgents.”19 Contentious episodes, it is argued, can lead to the reshaping of these repertoires, and such reshaping is broadly indicative of a change in political culture. Examining how movements matter by focusing on repertoires of contention helps to demonstrate how social movement activism, whether successful or not, shapes the nature of broader political action. In their study of the impact of feminist movements in the United States and Great Britain, Joyce Gelb and Vivien Hart offer a cultural analysis of movement impacts that focuses on the diffusion of norms. Specifically, they argue that feminist movements in these countries have been able to impact public policies—if not through direct policy changes, then at least through agenda setting (specifically, on abortion, domestic violence, and economic equity), as well as through the diffusion of feminist norms. Gelb and Hart provide an illustration of how social movements can have important and enduring impacts despite opposition and institutional oppression. Indeed, they conclude that the most important commonality between the United States and British

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feminist movements is “that into their second decade of right-wing and antifeminist political strength, both movements have not only survived but have continued to sustain their principles, develop dialogues, innovate organizationally and strategically, win at least some important battles, and position themselves for new opportunities.”20 Finally, the studies of framing processes represent an effort to conduct the cultural analysis of movements in a way that is inherently linked to repertoires of contention and the diffusion of norms.21 In their influential conceptualization of framing, Snow and Benford utilize the concept in order to make us see “movement organizations as actively engaged in the production and maintenance of meaning for constituents, antagonists, and bystanders.”22 Framing, according to this account, is defined as “an active, process-driven phenomenon that implies agency and contention at the level of reality construction.”23 In short, studying framing processes involves examining the ways in which social movement activism encompasses the contestation of meaning and effort to articulate an overall view of social relations.24 Analysis of framing processes, therefore, can help us to better evaluate movement impacts insofar as it focuses our attention on the degree and extent to which movement activism involves the on-going construction and reconstruction of meaning. Analysis of framing processes highlights the way movement impacts include more than simply quantifiable policy changes; rather impacts result from the interaction among state actors, movement activists, and other social groups (including the media) that help shape framing processes.25

Indicators of impact Overall, the explanatory framework that is presented in this study builds on these efforts to move toward a cultural analysis of movement impacts in order to develop a broader understanding of social movements by applying a cultural or interpretive analysis to the state–society relations that surround periods of social movement activism. Such an understanding of impacts suggests that if we are to develop accurate understandings of social movements we must account for the cultural significance of movement outcomes. In practice, this involves abandoning the commitment to simple quantitative methods—not all impacts are out there for our easy counting, nor can we easily isolate variables to measure in combination. Moreover, the cultural importance of those that are more readily quantifiable still may not be transparent. Instead, we must conduct qualitative analyses that focus both on the level of the state, vis-à-vis positive and negative policy changes linked to movement activism, and on the level of society, vis-à-vis the production of, or contest over, shared understandings about the society in which people live. In evaluating how social movements matter I suggest conducting interpretive or cultural analysis of five indicators of movement impact. First, the impact of a social movement can be understood with reference to changes in public policy. However, rather than focusing on the achievement of policy changes that are beneficial to movements, I stress the need to examine more broadly whether and how public policy changes are used by state actors to react to, control, appease, and curb movement activism. Second, the impact of a social movement can be understood with reference to changes in political

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party platforms and electoral results. On one level party platforms are a statement of a party’s policy preferences, but at the same time, it is within political party platforms that understandings of national ideology take form and change. Consequently, a movement’s impact can be revealed through changes in party platforms that respond or seek to tap into movement activism, and in the subsequent results of parties at the polls.26 Third, a movement’s impact can be measured through the policing of protest, which reveals the extent to which a movement’s activism is perceived as a threat or a critical challenge by state officials. As Francesca Polletta makes clear, repression, when considered as a cultural factor, is not just about the number of guns and police present during movement actions, it is also requires focusing on how the police or military are viewed or view themselves.27 Fourth, the presence, absence, and relative strength of counter-mobilization indicate the extent to which a movement’s activism is perceived as a threat or a critical challenge by other social actors. Finally, the impact of a social movement can be seen in the influence of a social movement on the emergence and trajectory of future social movement activism.28

Alternative collective subjectivities and the cultural analysis of movement impacts A central argument in this book is that the labor movement in Turkey, despite suffering massive state repression in 1980, has and continues to be an important force in shaping Turkish state–society relations. However, scholars who only focus on indicators of movement success and failure will miss the long-term and profound importance of the Turkish labor movement. The importance of this movement will also elude the more sophisticated efforts to look at social movement impacts in terms of agenda setting or long-term collective benefits. The enduring importance of this seemingly failed social movement will even elude the attention of “cultural” approaches that see only successful examples of “framing” or changes in “repertoires” as worthy of systematic study. Rather, building on the movement toward a cultural analysis of social movement impacts, and drawing from recent efforts to incorporate culture into the comparative study of contentious politics, I argue that a social movement’s impact is best understood in relation to the types of collective subjectivity forged during critical junctures in movement formation. Furthermore, by testing this framework in comparative contexts, I hope to show how a focus on collective subjectivities formed by movement activism can provide a better means for understanding when and how movement activism matters. In Dynamics of Contention, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly point out that prior social movement theory fails to tell us what exactly happens at critical junctures in movement formation. To remedy this, they advocate focusing on the importance of political identity formation. In the context of contentious politics, they define identity as a social concept that affects collective action and outcomes, even though activists’ identities are constantly being changed and often tap into other preexisting sources

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of identification. The concept of collective subjectivity that I employ in this project takes seriously, albeit in a modified way, this call for rethinking how political identity formation matters. I begin this section, therefore, by offering a conceptualization of collective subjectivities and of alternative collective subjectivities. Here, I draw from Douglass North’s discussion of the role of ideology in explaining stability and change in economic history, and March and Olsen’s more recent elaboration of the logic of appropriateness. I then outline a set of concepts and mechanisms that influence the creation of collective subjectivities. I conclude the section by explaining how alternative collective subjectivities matter. In the end, there are some important similarities to the ways in which I see collective subjectivities operating and the ways in which North discusses the role of ideology in shaping behavior. “Ideologies,” North states, “are intellectual efforts to rationalize the behavioral pattern of individuals and groups.”29 Therefore, according to North, ideologies involve both a comprehensive worldview that allows for decision making to be simplified and conceptions of fairness that facilitate moral and ethical judgments.30 The role of ideology in shaping political behavior is, according to North, often underestimated—especially by rationalist arguments that locate the explanation for particular outcomes in the strategic, cost-benefit analysis of individuals.31 For example, North points out that the willingness of individuals to participate in collective action often requires the emergence of a common understanding that existing practices are unfair or illegitimate, and that collective action is required in order to address the source of this unfairness. North argues that individuals are moved to adopt new ideologies when “inconsistencies between experience and ideologies accumulate.”32 At such points of inconsistency, the possibility for the emergence of counter ideologies is enhanced. “If the dominant ideology is designed to get people to conceive of justice as coextensive with the existing rules and, accordingly to obey them out of a sense of morality,” North summarizes, “the objective of a successful counter ideology is to convince people not only that the observed injustices are an inherent part of the existing system but also a just system can come about only by active participation of individuals to alter the system.”33 March and Olsen’s articulation of what they term the logic of appropriateness can help clarify how counter ideologies or what I term alternative collective subjectivities come about. Similar to the definition of politics I lay out above, March and Olsen argue that, “most of the time humans take reasoned action by trying to answer three elementary questions: what kind of situation is this? What kind of person am I? What does a person such as I do in a situation such as this?”34 Consequently, March and Olsen maintain that individuals’ actions are shaped in fundamental ways by institutional perspectives. “To act appropriately,” they state, “is to proceed according to the institutional practices of a collectivity, based on mutual, and often tacit, understandings of what is true, reasonable, natural, right, and good.”35 Where alternative institutions emerge, therefore, we can expect to see substantial challenges to existing ideologies. Alternative institutions can emerge for a number of reasons. For instance, alternative institutions can result from transformations

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in previously fragmented political systems that cause once separate institutional settings to come into contact with one another—often in irreconcilable ways. They may also emerge from larger social, political, or economic transformations that alter individual experiences in ways that reduce the salience and legitimacy of what was once deemed “appropriate behavior.”36 So, for example, we can examine the ways in which the emergence of alternative institutions within the Turkish labor movement implied a rejection of the rules developed during prior years of institution building in Turkey. In the case studies that follow, I focus on the causal importance of the nature of collective subjectivities that result from and reinforce the institutional changes at critical junctures in state–labor relations.

Conceptualizing collective subjectivity and alternative collective subjectivities According to Heike Härting “Subjectivity is a concept that refers to the cultural, social, political, and psychological processes that shape and determine who we think we are and how we situate ourselves in the world.”37 Subjectivity involves more than just identity, and as a concept it specifically calls into question the essentializing tendencies of some analyses that take identity as an explanatory variable. Rather, collective subjectivities involve an identification of shared political views (shared answers to the key questions of political life) that are constructed around particular events, actions, and/or social relations. As Härting points out, the formation of subjectivities (especially as articulated by contemporary Marxian and critical theory) emphasizes the link between power, language, self-perceptions, and the broader environment. In short, subjectivity is not natural, but rather is produced through various social relationships and is the effect of power and knowledge. Because we are all embroiled in an array of complex social interactions, there are a number of different forces that shape one’s subjectivity. Indeed, it is perhaps more accurate to say that an individual actually holds a number of subjectivities. One’s subjectivities are shaped, for example, through education, by one’s friends and associates, by one’s position within the relations of economic production, by one’s generational ties, by religion, race, and gender. However, because subjectivity results from social construction, the processes that shape one’s subjectivities are never beyond the possibility of transformation. For critical theorists, this means that “social life is shaped by both . . . social structures that determine the motivations and effects of human action, and self-conscious attempts to understand and alter those structures.”38 Indeed, as Chantal Mouffe points out in relation to feminist politics, “an ensemble of subject positions linked through inscription in social relations, hitherto considered as apolitical, have become loci of conflict and antagonism and have led to political mobilization.”39 Yet, the process of forming an awareness of who one is and what one wants is not an isolated one. Rather, the political, economic, and social worlds that we inhabit are constituted by shared experiences and collective understandings of who we are and what we want. Consequently, I focus on collective subjectivity in order to emphasize the idea that subjectivities are not simply characteristics of an individual.

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts

Collective subjectivity, therefore, is a concept that is designed to refocus analysis from the individual as the primary agent of change and onto the causal importance of the collective. Collective subjectivity need not correspond to “the idea of centered subjectivity—well demarcated, closed and autonomous, built upon a clear identity, steered by a well-established decision-making nucleus.”40 Domingues summarizes the causal importance of collective subjectivity in stating, “The interaction between collectivities—of collaboration, conflict, dominance or subordination—is an essential aspect to the process of formation of a social system’s perspective.”41 Insofar as they involve the creation of collective subjectivities, social movements involve the ability of people to come together in order to engage in collective political action that may be either contentious, status-quo reaffirming, or transformative. The causal importance of social movement collective subjectivities depends on the factors that contribute to the emergence of differing types of collective subjectivities, the logic of appropriate actions that emerges from social movement institutions, and the political action resulting from a particular collective subjectivity and responses to it. In this study of social movement impacts, I focus on the causal importance of different types of social movement collective subjectivities, and in particular on the importance of alternative collective subjectivities. I argue that movements that can develop and sustain  alternative collective subjectivities have more profound effects on the shaping of state–society relations. Alternative collective subjectivities involve a sustained forging of subversive collective subjects in the context of social movement activism out of the complex and multiple subject positions that individuals inhabit. Alternative collective subjectivities involve three linked elements: First, they have an identity component, which entails solidarity based on a collective defining of group membership. In the social movement literature, Doug McAdam captures this dimension by highlighting the geographical, issue, and organizational convergence that is necessarily a part of movement mobilization.42 Second, the formation of alternative collective subjectivities requires instances of collective action that are linked to and reinforce the building of solidarity. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, alternative collective subjectivities involve the articulation of an alternative vision for society, politics, and/or the economic system that fundamentally critiques prevailing state views. I suggest that the impact of alternative collective subjectivities, or the legacies of social movements that forge them, involves challenging who has the right to rule; it involves the questioning and reshaping of legitimacy; and it involves the endurance of such challenges over time.

Differences in social movement collective subjectivity Not all social movements mobilize alternative collective subjectivities, and not all social movements that mobilize alternative collective subjectivities are sustained over time. In thinking about the factors that affect movement subjectivity, I rely on insights drawn from the political process model. I argue that what really matter are those factors that promote or inhibit the emergence of an alternative collective subjectivity. These include structural conditions (including socioeconomic structures and enduring racial,

Introduction: The Impact of Alternative Collective Subjectivities

11

ethnic, or religious cleavages); movement resources; changes in political opportunities (including the openness/closure of the political system; presence/absence of elite allies; willingness/capacity to repress; and stability of elite alignments); and perhaps most importantly, the interpretive processes by which political actors make sense of these things.43 However, more recently political process theory has been criticized (by practi­ tioners and critics alike) for a tendency to draw a picture of movements that relies on a set of variables that is too static, structurally biased, and not tuned enough to cultural factors. Toward this end, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly offer four key mechanisms at work in identity formation that can help tell us how alternative collective subjectivities are formed. Identity formation, they argue, often involves brokerage, or the linking of previously unconnected social sites; category formation, or the establishment of boundaries of inclusions and exclusion; object shift, where the focus of a grievance changes in ways that potentially broaden or narrow the scope of activism; and certification, or the validation of movement activists by other political actors.44 According to McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, while these mechanisms can be observed in a wide range of contentious politics (and in their text they provide evidence from fifteen separate episodes of contention), they function differently depending on the context in which they occur, their sequence, and their combination. In short, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly provide one way to specify exactly what is occurring in the classic process model. Still, McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly’s innovations are not without their potential problems. For instance, even they readily admit that their discussion of mechanisms fails to provide a clear and consensual way to operationalize them.45 Consequently, while they hope to abandon the language of opportunities and resources, it seems that ultimately it is only in the context of these variables that the mechanisms they identify make sense. In addition, I seek to blend insights from the process model with insights drawn from March and Olsen’s discussion about the importance of institutions for shaping collective understandings of appropriate action. For the purpose of this study, I identify two social movement ideal types that, borrowing terminology from McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, I call contained social movements and transgressive social movements. As with all ideal type categories, real social movements may not always stand up to these ideals. Nonetheless, when evidence demonstrates that a movement has forged an alternative collective subjectivity, this movement can be thought of as a transgressive social movement. For McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, transgressive politics involves innovative collective action, where claims, identifications, or actions are “unprecedented or forbidden within the regime in question.”46 Transgressive social movements seek to advance alternative visions of how the social, political, and economic world should be ordered. We can contrast transgressive social movements with contained social movements that seek simply to advance goals (be they goals of greater inclusion or individual utility maximization) within the existing social, political, and economic systems. The difference rests on the ultimate goals movements and activists promote, rather than the tactics they use to achieve them.47 This distinction is crucial because it means

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts

that movements can be transgressive without meeting the stereotypes associated with revolutionary groups. In the context of an analysis of labor movements, for example, it means that alternative collective subjectivities ought not to be conflated with an idealized Marxian notion of an industrial proletariat conscious of itself as a class. Alternative answers to questions of who we are and what we want can come in a host of forms—some of which may be progressive, others conservative; some based on radical rejections of existing institutions, and others that tend to promote their agenda without, for example, seeking to eradicate the state. Indeed, if we search for alternative collective subjectivities that resemble an idealized revolutionary proletariat, we are all too often forced to conclude that labor movements are weak, inconsequential, underdeveloped, beset with false consciousness, merely syndicalist, or worst of all, opportunistic. In addition, we should not expect social movements that develop alternative collective subjectivities to be entirely unified and thoroughly cohesive. In short, even though differences exist within a social movement, while important for a fair overall understanding of a particular movement, such differences do not mitigate the existence and causal power of alternative collective subjectivities. Contained social movements, though they may unite broad collective action in order to pursue a particular set of goals, ought to have qualitatively different impacts on state–society relations.

Alternative collective subjectivities and the (re)shaping of state–society relations It is my contention that movements that develop and sustain  alternative collective subjectivities have a more profound impact on shaping state–society relations.48 The logic of this hypothesis is based on an assumption about the social forces that shape the political arena.49 For political science this has often involved a focus on state actors and their social challengers. The modern state, as Migdal asserts, has been ascribed so much importance because it has possibly been the most important social force in shaping individuals’ lives.50 We can define the state as a political institution designed to promote particular answers to questions of who we are, what kind of world we want to live in, and how we should act—designed, that is, to promote the particular collective subjectivities of citizens. Consequently, we can say, in line with Migdal, that the basic goals of any state actors are compliance with demands and articulations of appropriate action; participation in state projects, which vary from revenue generation to the production, reproduction, construction, and reconstruction of symbols and meanings; and legitimation of the state as the primary and accepted force in the articulation of answers to questions of who we are and what we want.51 Insofar as the articulation of alternative collective subjectivities signals a low level of compliance with, participation in, and legitimation of the state’s answers to questions of who we are and what we want, and their endurance signals the persistence of such defiance over time, sustained alternative collective subjectivities represent a direct threat to the basic goals of the state. Therefore, we can expect that social movements

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which mobilize, diffuse, and sustain  alternative collective subjectivities will elicit more dramatic changes in state policy, and will have a more profound effect on the reshaping of politics.52 Moreover, I argue that these enduring effects can occur regardless of movement success or failure. In this sense, a focus on the impact of alternative collective subjectivities draws upon James Scott’s concept of hidden transcripts.53 As Scott argues, even where repression pushes once public transcripts into the realm of hidden transcripts, the sustained articulation of alternative collective subjectivities contributes to a long-term transformation in collective understandings of one’s society. Whereas some scholars argue that the failure of mobilized identities to achieve success will lead to their abandonment, I argue that movement legacies can persist and potentially resurface as public transcripts in the future.54 With this study of state–labor relations, I hope to contribute to the advancement of social movement studies by applying a cultural analysis of social movement impacts systematically and comparatively.

Measuring collective subjectivity and impact If the presence or absence of alternative collective subjectivities is to be considered a central element for explaining how it is that social movements matter, then research on social movements must be able to accomplish two empirical tasks. Foremost, social movement analysis must take stock of the enduring, dominant state ideologies. In essence, the researcher must be able to establish a benchmark against which the claims put forth by particular social movements are to be measured. In the context of research focusing on labor movements this involves some measure of the state’s view of class-based politics, union rights (such as the right to strike), and desire to address working-class concerns. Second, analysis of social movements must be based on reliable empirical evidence that can be used to reach some overarching conclusions about the nature of collective subjectivities that emerge in a particular movement. This task can be accomplished through a combination of qualitative methodologies. For instance, the nature of a collective subjectivity can be revealed through analysis of movement texts, through interviews and surveys with movement activists, through the examination of memoirs and oral histories, and through analysis and possibly innovative reinterpretation of existing secondary sources. Looking at a movement’s public claims, at its persuasive communications, and at its framing of episodes of contention, and comparing these to prevailing state ideologies reveal whether or not a movement forges an alternative collective subjectivity.

Testing the framework: Four cases of state–labor relations The case selection for this study is based on the presumption that generalizable explanations ought to be able to account for variations in particular outcomes without ignoring the historical contexts in which political events occur. Such a notion of

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts

generalizability and comparability as tied to the articulation of a set of explanatory concepts has been developed by a number of scholars holding various theoretical predispositions.55 Consequently, this project is designed to examine the variation of state response to social movement activism, as well as the variation in the type of impact movements have. I focus on four cases of labor movement mobilization: the British labor movement during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the American labor movement during a similar timeframe, the Japanese labor movement in the 1940s and 1950s, and the primary case of the Turkish labor movement during the 1960s and 1970s. These cases have been selected to provide some variation in both type of social movement and response from the state,56 and because the comparative study of national labor movements is an ideal place to watch the dynamics of alternative collective subjectivities (or lack thereof). The choice to focus on cases of state–labor relations acknowledges the historical importance of labor movements in shaping politics throughout the last century and a half. Indeed, the importance of labor movements has contributed to a slate of canonical works in comparative politics. This study is influenced by a number of these important works, even as it seeks to advance some of the concepts they develop, and at times challenges their conclusions.57 My focus is on the formal labor sector and on state– labor dynamics rather than on labor–capital conflicts. The logic behind these choices follows Collier and Collier who argue that while state–labor relations are not necessarily more or less important than labor–capital relations, state–labor relations address “the distinctive political dynamics of support and legitimation” of the state.58 By focusing on state–labor relations, I hope to highlight how labor movement mobilization is as much a political as it is an economic phenomenon. In addition, while the constraints of this study call for me to abstract from their true complexity, I make a concerted effort to acknowledge and highlight important differences, competitions, and conflicts within the labor movements studied.59 In this book, the Turkish, British, and Japanese cases represent examples of labor movement activism that led to the sustained mobilization of alternative collective subjectivities, while the US case represents a social movement that fell short of mobilizing an alternative collective subjectivity. Table 1.1 presents an overview of how these cases fit into the explanatory framework I outline above. I should note that there is a third possibility for which this study does not explicitly account (but which would not affect the overall explanatory theory being tested). This third possibility arises when states ignore movements that sustain the mobilization of alternative collective subjectivities.60 It is these instances, I would argue, that lead to a greater civil conflict. Comparing the United States and Great Britain during the late-nineteenth century with mid-twentieth century, Japan and Turkey may seem counterintuitive to some. However, this choice can be supported for both practical and theoretical reasons. First, the inclusion of the lesser known Japanese and Turkish cases with the British and American cases, which have been studied extensively, allows this project to build from existing social science research while extending and expanding the knowledge of the empirical world. In addition, the union growth and rapid industrialization

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Table 1.1  Selection of cases

Does social movement activism lead to the sustained mobilization of alternative collective subjectivities?

State Response to Movement Activism

Reform:

Yes

No

Major changes in state policy and cultural changes in society. Nonrepressed movements transform the state and may enter government.

Policy changes within predominant institutional framework resulting from either (or a combination of) the movement being co-opted, incorporated, or ignored.

Example: British labor movement (late 19th/ early 20th century)

Example: US labor movement (late 19th/early 20th century)

Repression: Repression represents a Movements become interest response to movement groups, or wane. activism; repressed movements nonetheless shape future political developments. Example: Turkish labor movement (1960–80): Japanese labor movement (1945–60)

Turkey experienced from the late 1950s through the 1970s, and that Japan experienced in the postwar decades, represents conditions similar to those that existed in latenineteenth century Great Britain and the United States. On a more theoretical level, though, both the history and institutions of Japan and the Turkish Republic are broadly similar and yet systematically different from those of Britain and the United States. Thus, Turkey, Japan, Great Britain, and the United States have democratic political systems, yet the development and impact of labor movement activism have differed in each. On the other hand, religious differences, military interference with democratic politics, implications from international entanglements, and differences in productive processes differentiate late-nineteenth century American and British society from mid-twentieth century Turkish and Japanese society. Yet, in the British, Japanese, and Turkish cases, politicized labor movements forged alternative collective subjectivities that had profound impacts with enduring legacies on the shaping of British, Japanese, and Turkish state–society relations. Furthermore, if the sustained mobilization of alternative collective subjectivities is the most important indicator of the type of impact a social movement is likely to have, then the selection of cases should allow for some implicit control for alternative

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts

explanations. These cases allow the study to build in a means to evaluate the possibility that the structure of political systems and local institutions explains movement impacts, or that repression or changes in incentive structures explain movement impacts. Opportunities for testing the framework against alternative explanations are built into each level of explanation. The ability to evaluate alternatives is facilitated by the utilization of process tracing—that is, by “analyzing a case into a sequence (or several concatenating sequences) of events showing how those events are plausibly linked given the interests and situations faced by groups or individual actors.”61 Consideration of two primary alternative explanations is built into the design of the study: First, explanations based primarily on regime type—that is, arguments that stress the importance of regime openness and closure and institutional arrangements (i.e., federal, presidential, or parliamentary systems)—can falsify my claim about the importance of movement collective subjectivities.62 For example, if differences between the impact of the British, American, Japanese, and Turkish labor movements result from differences between American federalism and the more centralized British and Turkish parliamentary systems, then my claim about the centrality of movement subjectivity can be falsified. Second, if mobilized identities that do not achieve policy changes are doomed to whither away, then my claim about the centrality of alternative collective subjectivities can, indeed, be falsified. Finally, while I focus primarily on the case of Turkey and the Turkish labor movement as an example of a social movement that was able to achieve a sustained mobilization of an alternative collective subjectivity, I recognize that many scholars familiar with the Turkish labor movement may be skeptical of this choice. Without, at this point, analyzing the existing work that has been done on the labor movement in Turkey, let me simply state that the evidence demonstrates that the labor movement in Turkey did develop and diffuse an alternative collective subjectivity; and that this alternative collective subjectivity—best characterized as Turkish leftist nationalism— involved a socialist critique of economic injustice combined with an alternative vision for Turkish politics, economics, and society that stressed independence from foreign capital and military interests, and advocated a positive role for the state in addressing lingering economic inequities.

Conclusion In this book, I present a project that seeks to test an explanatory framework for evaluating social movement impacts. Why should we care about social movement impacts? Social movements are important because they are part of the political process by which state policy is formed and promoted. Social movements and their interactions with state actors are part of the explanation for the formation, dissemination, acceptance, and challenge of state policies. More than that, though, social movements are one forum in which people come together in order to address such basic political questions as who we are and what kind of world we want to live in. Furthermore, differences between social movements and the responses they elicit

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indicate the degree to which state actors are able to accomplish their basic goals. In short, social movements matter to the political construction of the world in which we live. Developing a better set of analytic tools for understanding the impacts they have, and a set of variables that condition those impacts helps us understand exactly how social movements matter. In the chapters that follow, I present research designed to advance our knowledge of social movements, labor politics, and political culture through comparative political analysis. Chapter 2 applies the theoretical framework to two benchmark cases: the British labor movement during and surrounding the formation of the Trades Union Congress and the American labor movement during and surrounding the formation of the American Federation of Labor. The British case examines the extent to which the sustained mobilization of an alternative collective subjectivity contributed to the formation of the Labor Party and subsequently the fundamental alteration of the landscape of British politics. On the other hand, I argue that the absence of an alternative collective subjectivity contributed to the AFL’s adoption of a business unionism. Chapters 3–5 focus on the case of the Turkish labor movement. In contrast to the American and British cases, very little English language scholarship has focused on the labor movement in Turkey. Consequently, Turkey represents an important empirical addition to the literature on social movements and state–labor relations. Furthermore, the case of the Turkish labor movement will be used to evaluate the boldest hypothesis in this study—that even seemingly inconsequential social movements can have an important impact on the development of state–society relations. Chapter 3 sets the baseline against which the alternative collective subjectivity that emerged in the Turkish labor movement was forged. This chapter traces the history of the state’s view of social classes and organized labor from the inception of the Republic until the military coup of 1960. Throughout this history, even with the transition to multiparty politics, the Turkish state maintained a commitment to a unique concept of populism that sought to generate working-class support for, participation in, and compliance with state policies, while denying the saliency of class divisions or the legitimacy of class-based politics. The specific goal of Chapter 4 is to see how Turkish labor movement activism in the 1960s and 1970s contributed to the sustained mobilization of an alternative collective subjectivity. This task is accomplished by examining claims put forth by labor movement activists, and by evaluating the response to labor movement politics from the state and other social groups. Particular attention is paid to legal changes, changes in political party platforms and electoral success, the policing of protest, and counter mobilization. Chapter 5, then, examines the extent to which the alternative collective subjectivity forged by Turkish labor movement activism in the 1960s and 1970s shaped the landscape of politics in Turkey from 1980 until the present day. I suggest the legacy of the Turkish labor movement can be seen in at least three crucial aspects of contemporary Turkish politics: Kurdish activism in the 1980s and 1990s; working-class elements of post-1980 Islamist political mobilization; and the resurgence of political unionism in the late

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts

1980s and 1990s. In each of these cases we can see the focus on socioeconomic justice and democratization transfer to contemporary politics, even while other elements of 1960s and 1970s labor politics get dropped. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes by discussing the extent to which the framework developed can be extended to other social movements. In particular, I examine how insights applied to the Turkish case might help us to reevaluate the impact of another seemingly failed social movement—the labor movement in postwar Japan. This chapter also examines some of the normative implications of the study. Specifically, I discuss the extent to which this framework accounts for how social movements in general, and labor movements in particular can be more or less democratic.

Notes 1 While a number of scholars who address social movements do so by focusing on different concepts such as contentious politics and public-spirited collective action, social movements are generally defined as political networks that are tied together based on some combination of shared goals, beliefs, and solidarity, which mobilize contentious, collective political action (generally) through “nontraditional” methods such as strikes, protests, and street theaters. See, for example, Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly, Dynamics of Contention (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Dennis Chong, Collective Action and the Civil Rights Movement (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991); and Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani, Social Movements: An Introduction (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1999). 2 Thus, for example, Michael Brown discusses ACT-UP Vancouver’s efforts to raise awareness about AIDS by holding public die-ins. Michael P. Brown, RePlacing Citizenship: AIDS Activism & Radical Democracy (New York: The Guilford Press, 1997). 3 These are two headlines that appeared in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer on 1 December 1999—the day after the protests against the World Trade Organization began in Seattle. 4 While my focus is on the leftist and labor movements, the political left does not hold a monopoly on social movement activism. Indeed, the world of social movements is also inhabited by the radical right, by social conservatives, by religious fundamentalists, and by antigovernment libertarians. The public events that are the hallmark of social movement activism are not the only way in which political identities are shaped and contested. For a good discussion of such public events, see Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Indeed, I am grateful to Michael Meeker for reminding me that there are a number of important studies that highlight the ways in which quiet social formations challenge and reshape state–society relations. See, for example, James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Michael Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002); Diane Singerman, Avenues of Participation:

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5 6

7 8

9 10 11 12

13 14 15

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Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), and Asef Bayat. Life As Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010). See, for example, the collection of essays contained in Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly, eds., How Social Movements Matter (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). Comparative historical analysis, as Mahoney and Rueschemeyer point out, shares “a concern with causal analysis, an emphasis on processes over time, and the use of systematic and contextualized comparison.” James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer, “Comparative Historical Analysis: Achievements and Agendas,” in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, eds. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 10. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans, “The Cultural Analysis of Social Movements,” in Social Movements and Culture, eds. Hank Johnston and Bert Klandermans. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 17. Collier and Collier define critical junctures as “A period of significant change, which typically occurs in distinct ways in different countries, and which is hypothesized to produce distinct legacies.” Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, The Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 29. Johnston and Klandermans, 9. Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State–Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), 32–3. Jennifer Earl, “Methods, Movements, and Outcomes: Methodological Difficulties in the Study of Extra-Movement Outcomes,” in Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, Vol. 22, ed. Patrick G. Coy. (Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 2000). Among the most influential studies that address social movement outcomes by focusing on movement success or failure, we can count: Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, Poor People’s Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New York: Vintage Books, 1979); William A. Gamson, Strategy of Social Protest, 2nd Edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1990); and Margaret E. Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998). Piven and Cloward, 25. Alpaslan Işıklı, “Wage Labor and Unionization,” in Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives, eds. Irvin Schick and Ertugrul Ahmet Tonak. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 309. In their work, Amenta and Young suggest focusing on social movement impacts by examining their effect on the provision of collective benefits and collective goods. Edwin Amenta and Michael P. Young, “Making an Impact: Conceptual and Methodological Implications of the Collective Goods Criteria,” in How Social Movements Matter, eds. Marco Guigni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 22. Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper, “Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process Theory,” in Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning,

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17 18

19

20

21

22 23 24

25

Evaluating Social Movement Impacts and Emotion, eds. Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 27. Keck and Sikkink, 201. Doug McAdam, “Revisiting the U.S. Civil Rights Movement: Toward a More Synthetic Understanding of the Origins of Contention,” in Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion, eds. Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 225. Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow and Charles Tilly, “Toward an Integrated Perspective on Social Movements and Revolutions,” in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture, and Structure, eds. Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 156. Joyce Gelb and Vivien Hart, “Feminist Politics in a Hostile Environment: Obstacles and Opportunities,” in How Social Movements Matter, eds. Marco Guigni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 181. My focus here is particularly on studies that emphasize framing as an interpretive process connected with the construction of meaning, rather than with studies that examine frames as distinct variables, as if they were objective resources or tools available to movement activists. I find studies that utilize frames as distinct variables, rather than framing as a political process, to be problematic. According to the logic of those who take frames as distinct variables, movements pick and choose from a host of frames, seeking out those that can resonate with movement participants in ways that forge a collective identity, name an injustice, and inspire a sense of agency. However, to consider frames as if they were just another resource mobilized by movements suggests that movement participants are easily organized and separated from their existing ways of thinking about the world. This utilization of frames, I believe, also assumes a static view of culture—culture as an enduring constraint on behavior, rather than as a dynamic political construct. David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest,” in Social Movements: Perspectives and Issues, eds. Steven M. Buechler and F. Kurt Cylke, Jr. (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co., 1997), 458. Ibid., 458. In studying the policing of protest in Italy and Germany, Donatella della Porta offers one such utilization of framing to analyze the movement impacts. Specifically, della Porta presents a cross-national study of four types of frames (diagnostic, prognostic, protagonist definition, and antagonist definition) in order to evaluate the effects of social movements. Donatella della Porta, “Social Movements and the State: Thoughts on the Policing of Protest,” in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, eds. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy, and Mayer Zald. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Donatella della Porta, “Protest, Protesters, and Protest Policing: Public Discourses in Italy and Germany from the 1960s to the 1980s,” in How Social Movements Matter, eds. Marco Giugni, Doug McAdam, and Charles Tilly. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999). A prime example of why we should emphasize the meaning-making aspects of movements and not simply approach the study of movement impacts in terms of success and failure is presented in Michael McCann’s Rights at Work. McCann examines the role and effect of legal mobilization in the movement for pay equity

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26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

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in the United States. For McCann, law is best understood as a mechanism for the social construction of norms and values. Legal mobilization, he argues, was of particular importance in the early stages of the pay equity movement, as it helped to form a normative language for identifying and addressing problems of unequal pay. Moreover, McCann concludes that “equity activists derived substantial power from legal tactics despite only limited judicial success.” Thus, legal mobilization mattered not so much because it contributed to successful outcomes in the court, but because it was a crucial part of the processes by which activists developed solidarity and a vision for change. McCann’s insights about the impact of legal mobilization are analytically useful for studies of social movements. Specifically, taking a broader view of movement impacts demonstrates how movements help to constitute and reshape participants’ understandings of who they are and what they want, while focusing on such narrow criteria for success and failure as policy outcomes can only obscure the impact of social movements both on the lives of movement activists and on the societies in which they occur. Michael W. McCann, Rights at Work: Pay Equity Reform and the Politics of Legal Mobilization (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 4. One might think, for example, of how the antiabortion movement or the tea party movement has reshaped the platform and electoral agenda of the Republican Party. Francesca Poletta, “Culture is not Just in Your Head,” in Rethinking Social Movements: Structure, Meaning, and Emotion, eds. Jeff Goodwin and James Jasper. (Lanham, Maryland: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, 2004), 101. As I make clear in Chapter 5, this fifth indicator of impact is facilitated by a number of mechanisms, including generational ties connecting activists across movements or movement cycles; organizational connections across movements or movement cycles; the demonstration and appropriation of successful tactics and frames; and the transference of ideas. Douglass C. North, Structure and Change in Economic History (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981), 48. Ibid., 49. Ibid., 11. Ibid., 49. Ibid., 54. James March and Johan Olsen, “The Logic of Appropreiatness,” ARENA Centre for European Studies Working Papers, https://www.arena.uio.no/publications/workingpapers2004/papers/wp04_9.pdf (accessed Aug. 19, 2011), 4. Ibid., 4. Ibid., 15. Heike Härting, “Subjectivity,” Globalization and Autonomy Glossary (2005): par. 1. http://www.globalautonomy.ca/global1/glossary_entry.jsp?idCO.0036 (accessed August 8, 2006). Roger S. Gottlieb, History and Subjectivity: The Transformation of Marxist Theory (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), 3. Chantal Mouffe, The Return of the Political (London: Verso, 1993), 77. Furthermore, certain groups and forces tend to dominate the processes by which collective subjectivities are shaped. Consequently, collective subjectivity has been shaped by dominant groups’ control of education, military power, the means of production, and the legitimate use of violence, punishment, and coercion. We can think, for

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42 43

44 45 46 47

48 49

Evaluating Social Movement Impacts example, of the twentieth-century revolutionary regime as the epitome of dominant groups marshalling state power to shape subjects. From the Bolsheviks to the Iranian mullahs these regimes have used education, policing, surveillance, and control of the media to shape compliant subjects—to shape and to enforce (if not acceptance, then at least) compliance with particular understandings of who “we” are, what “we” want, and how, then, “we” should act. Jose Mauricio Domingues, Sociological Theory and Collective Subjectivity (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995), 111. Indeed, this search for a coherent, centered subject has been thoroughly criticized and deconstructed. Consequently, those who advance the importance of collective subjectivity have been quick to point out that to suggest that the collective is the primary agent of social change is not to suggest “that the category of the collective is either straightforward or unproblematic.” Kathi Weeks, Constituting Feminist Subjects (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 155. Domingues, 130. The causal importance of collective subjectivity does not necessarily depend on the intentional actions of individual members of collective subjectivities. Domingues concludes: “Collective causality eschews an atomistic and instant notion of causality . . . this specific sort of causality consists externally also in a process connected to the interaction collectivities develop with one another, entailing mutual and feedback casual influences. With their own collective causality, collective subjectivities create movement in social life . . . producing stability and triggering change.” Ibid., 137. Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930– 1970 2nd Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), Chapter 7. In the literature on social movements, political opportunities are generally defined in relation to these latter four criteria. See, for example, Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer Zald, “Introduction: Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Framing Processes—Toward a Synthetic, Comparative Perspective on Social Movements,” in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, eds. Doug McAdam, John D. McCarthy and Mayer Zald. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 10. McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, “Dynamics,” 142–6. Ibid., 310. Ibid., 8. In her discussion of feminist theory in action Charlotte Bunch provides a means for recognizing the differences between transgressive and contained movements. Bunch, however, uses the language of revolution and reformism. Charlotte Bunch, Passionate Politics: Feminist Theory in Action (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987), 103–5. McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly echo this sentiment, stating, “substantial short-term political and social change more often emerges from transgressive than from contained contention.” McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly, “Dynamics,” 8. Migdal utilizes the term “social forces” to capture the common mechanisms for guiding associative behavior. Social forces include social movements, informal organizations, and the state. For Migdal, we ought to “focus . . . on these environments – these arenas of domination and opposition – where various social forces engage one another over material and symbolic issues, vying for supremacy through struggles and accommodations, clashes and coalitions.” Migdal, “State,” 107–8.

Introduction: The Impact of Alternative Collective Subjectivities

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50 It is important to note that I do not wish to promote a conceptualization of the state that is monolithic. Rather, I believe it is necessary for the empirical social science to take into account that any given state is composed of varying actors with, at times, conflicting goals. 51 Migdal, “Strong,” 32–3. In discussing the nationalist mobilization that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mark Beissinger offers a similar understanding of the state’s basic demands: “through its policies the state seeks to shape the beliefs of its citizens about nationhood in accordance with dominant understandings, to naturalize these understandings, and to present them as inevitable and unalterable.” Beissinger, 150. 52 It is also important to note that states do not simply respond to social movements. Rather, various state actors are also involved, at times, in efforts to facilitate or co-opt movement activism. It is also important to note that this hypothesis should not be read as advancing the position that social movements that do not mobilize alternative collective subjectivities have no important effects. Rather, it means that the effects of such movements ought to be qualitatively different. 53 Scott, xii; 71–6. 54 For a specific example of an empirical framework that argues that mobilized identities will be abandoned if they do not succeed, see Beissinger, 24. 55 For instance, in Analytic Narratives, Bates et al. argue that a generalizable model should be able to have its basic assumptions applied to a variety of situations. Thus, for instance, if there is explanatory power for a rational choice analytic narrative dealing with a single case, then presumably a similar framework—one that highlights such concepts as collective action problems, the power of the pivot, gate-keeping authority, and veto points—can be applied to different situations, and we should be able to specify probable outcomes. Robert Bates, Avner Greif, Margaret Levi, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and Barry R. Weingast, Analytic Narratives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 234–6). In relation to the study of social movements, such a technique has been successfully utilized by Christopher Ansell, whose study of French labor history is designed to test a Weberian framework for understanding the set of social, political, and economic conditions that lead to varying periods of schism and solidarity in social movements. Christopher K. Ansell, Schism and Solidarity in Social Movements: The Politics of Labor in the French Third Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Dietrich Rueschemeyer and other practitioners of comparative historical analysis share a similar understanding of theory development. For Rueschemeyer, “Even analytically oriented analysis of single historical cases . . . can yield significant theoretical gains.” Dietrich Rueschemeyer, “Can One or a Few Cases Yield Theoretical Gains?” in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, eds. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 332. Katznelson, too, echoes this understanding of generalizablity, stating, “It is by the selection of tools for the construction of cases as analytic narratives that even single-country case studies become accessible to comparison.” For Katznelson, “This consideration requires that case research be informed by an explicitly posed analytic agenda that can be applied to interrogate quite distinctive instances with the goal not of flattening but of illuminating difference.” Ira Katznelson, “Structure and Configuration in Comparative Politics,” in Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture,

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58 59 60

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts and Structure, eds. Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 96. James Mahoney argues that small-n studies can take one of three forms: they can be nominal, ordinal, or within-case analyses. I envision this framework and the cases selected to fit partly within the nominal and partly within the ordinal category. Specifically, the study is a nominal one because it hypothesizes that movements that sustain alternative collective subjectivities will have more profound impacts; yet, the study is an ordinal one because it leaves open the possibility of multiple degrees of alternative collective subjectivities, which do not result in determinable impacts. See, James Mahoney, “Strategies of Causal Inference in Comparative Historical Analysis,” in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, eds. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) and James Mahoney, “Strategies of Causal Inference in Small-N Anlaysis,” Sociological Methods & Research 28, No. 4 (2000). For instance, I share Collier and Collier’s focus on the importance of critical junctures, as well as their understanding of the role of labor movements in expanding the scope of politics to include the social question. Building on Collier and Collier, I suggest that the legacy of labor movements also depends on the type of collective subjectivity forged after the emergence of the first national union confederations. Furthermore, Collier and Collier offer some important precautionary advice for those who study labor movements. For example, they highlight the methodological and theoretical dilemmas involved in focusing on the formal versus informal labor sectors; in considering the homogeneity versus heterogeneity of labor movements; and in focusing on either state–labor or labor– capital cleavages. Collier and Collier, 47. Collier and Collier, 44–7; Friedman, 62–3. Such a situation may have existed in the period leading up to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979. By most accounts, the Shah’s initial response was to ignore the opposition movement rather than repress it—a response that contributed to the civil conflict that culminated with the Iranian revolution. The overthrow of Mubarak’s government in early 2011 may have repeated this phenomenon. Jack A. Goldstone, “Comparative Historical Analysis and Knowledge Accumulation in The Study of Revolutions” in Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, eds. James Mahoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 47. Further discussion of process tracing in the context of case-based analysis can be found in, Alexander George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005). Amenta and Young, for example, suggest a set of 12 hypotheses regarding the way various state structures shape movements and their outcomes. Edwin Amenta and Michael Young, “Democratic States and Social Movements: Theoretical Arguments and Hypotheses,” Social Problems 46, no. 2 (1999): 153–68.

2

Collective Subjectivity and Divergences in the Shaping of State–Labor Relations in Great Britain and the United States

“We deny the assertion made by some of our opponents when they say the American Federation of Labor is against political action.” – Samuel Gompers at 1904 Convention of the A.F.L. “. . . it is highly desirable that the trades of the United Kingdom should hold an annual congress, for the purpose of bringing the trades into closer alliance, and to take action in all Parliamentary matters pertaining to the general interests of the working classes.” – Resolution adopted at the 1st Trades Union Congress, 1868 In the late nineteenth century, modern, industrial capitalism was expanding its dominance in the realm of economic production. This expansion, though, was hardly confined to the factory; rather, it helped to radically transform the very nature of social relations. Consequently, as an industrial capitalist mode of production became ensconced new social cleavages, and lines of social differentiation were accentuated. One crucial aspect of these social, political, and economic upheavals was the emergence of a new, dynamic class conflict, with labor movements as important political forces in the development of state–society relations.1 Consequently, since the late nineteenth century, labor movements have represented an important social force in shaping national and global political developments. This chapter places the labor movements in Great Britain and in the United States during and surrounding the emergence of the first national confederations of labor unions within a comparative analytic framework designed to explain social movement impacts. Because this was a period of dramatic industrial development accompanied by an increase in the overall membership and types of workers included in labor unions, as well as the rise of national labor organizations, labor movement activism during this period set the tone for the future of state–labor relations. In short, the period during and surrounding the emergence of the first national confederations of labor unions marked what Collier and Collier call a critical juncture—“A period of significant change . . .which is hypothesized to produce distinct legacies”—in state–labor relations.2 In the framework outlined in the previous chapter, I argue that social movements that are able

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to develop and sustain alternative collective subjectivities present a critical challenge to other state and social actors, and are, therefore, likely to have a more profound effect on the development of state–society relations than the social movements that do not. Social movements that fail to develop or sustain  alternative collective subjectivities still shape political developments; however, I argue that these impacts ought to be qualitatively different, involving less profound changes within the predominant political institutional settings in which they operate. Here, I argue that the labor movement in Great Britain during and after the formation of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) represents an exemplary case of a social movement that fostered an alternative collective subjectivity—one that ultimately contributed to the formation of a political party designed to take control of the state in order to promote working-class goals. On the other hand, I argue that the labor movement in the United States during and after the formation of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) represents an exemplary case of a social movement that was unable to sustain an alternative collective subjectivity—an outcome that resulted in what has been described as the AFL’s turn to business unionism. Consequently, in this chapter I consider these cases as benchmark cases within the analytic framework by focusing on the circumstances and contexts within which these movements developed. The goal of this chapter is to provide an analysis of the political opportunities and difficulties faced by these labor movements; of the claims these movements made against the state; and of the states’ effort to respond to or co-opt these movements. The purpose here is to show how the different ways these movements saw themselves, and the political, social, and economic contexts in which they existed, are critical for explaining the differences between these movements’ impact on the development of state–society relations in Great Britain and the United States. In order to make sense of the differences between the labor movement in the United States and Great Britain, scholars have explored a range of possible explanatory variables including institutional arrangements such as the importance of American federalism versus the British parliamentary system; the role of the judiciary in the United States; the willingness and ability of the state and industrial elite to engage in repression; material conditions; racial and ethnic homogeneity within the working class; and differences between skilled and unskilled laborers. The argument advanced here suggests that what matters is not simply racial differences, ethnic differences, or repression, but how these things, which define the broader contexts (or opportunity structures) within which movements emerge and act, promote or inhibit the ability of a movement to forge alternative political visions. In short, I argue that what matters is the way these factors shape how movement leaders and activists understood themselves and their broader contexts. In both Britain and the United States there was court opposition to the growth of the labor movement, there was hostility from industry, and there were differences within the labor movement over the correct strategy to achieve working-class goals. In the end, what won out in Great Britain was an alternative collective subjectivity that stressed a socialist-inspired working-class identification, and articulated a theory of action that stressed political activism. Whereas in the United

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States, important racial and ideological divisions undercut working-class subjectivity, fettering the development of an American socialism. Thus, we see important similarities in the structural conditions and opportunity structures facing the labor movements in Great Britain and the United States in the late nineteenth century. Both movements emerged within periods of dramatic industrialization; both suffered repression from the counter-organization of industrialists; both found themselves on the losing end of court battles; and both had to confront the dynamics of interactions between skilled and unskilled workers. Yet, in Great Britain, the labor movement embraced political action and was able to emerge as a transformative political force in the shaping of state–society relations, while in the United States, the labor movement chose to pursue a strategy of business unionism, seeing its role as part of industrial and economic relations, rather than state–society relations. Before turning to these cases, though, a word of clarification is necessary. Much has been written that paints the differences between the labor movement in the United States and Great Britain with broad and overly simplistic strokes. To be sure, the case of the labor movement in Great Britain cannot be reduced to an idealized notion of radical labor activism driving the development of state welfare policies. The alternative collective subjectivity that emerged in Great Britain is more complex than this. Similarly, some of the literature that stresses American exceptionalism—implying that unionism in the United States was somehow weaker and less political than its European counterparts—belies the history of industry-level militarism that was pervasive in the American labor movement even after the AFL adopted a strategy of business unionism. Nonetheless, significant differences derived from how these labor movements saw themselves and involving the legacy of the labor movements in these two countries do exist.

From the factory to the house of commons – The labor movement in Great Britain The explanatory narrative I develop here is one that traces the British labor movement from a business orientation with few political goals—a movement facing hostile courts, divisions between skilled and unskilled workers, the effects of economic cycles, and Parliamentary reforms that made pursuit of legislation more difficult—to a labor movement that developed an alternative collective subjectivity based on the notion that there was a legitimate role for the working class in politics; that there was a legitimate role for the state in addressing the social and economic concerns of the working class;3 and that existing parties had failed to adequately meet these goals. This alternative collective subjectivity critiqued the state’s view of working-class political participation and socioeconomic needs as inadequate, and therefore presented a critical challenge to the state—one that inspired important reforms and ultimately the formation of the Labor Party. The guiding principles in early-nineteenth-century British political society involved an elitist view of who ought to govern, underpinned by the value of social deference,

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Liberal individualism, and consequently little acceptance or tolerance of a legitimate political role for the working classes. The development of state–labor relations in latenineteenth-century Great Britain was preceded by the Chartist movement, which advocated parliamentary reforms designed to expand electoral participation in order to improve the ability of the government to address social questions, and the development of early craft unions, both of which E.P. Thompson has linked to the making of the English working class.4 Thompson offers an extensive study of the reading and writing practices that began to offer the working classes distinct interpretations of their collective conditions and the need for change, even during the late 1700s. He summarizes his analysis: [W]orking men formed a picture of the organization of society, out of their own experience and with the help of their hard-won and erratic education, which was above all a political picture. They learned to see their own lives as part of a general history of conflict between the loosely defined ‘industrious classes’ on the one hand, and the unreformed House of Commons on the other.5 Still, if these are the foundations of the English working class, it was not until the 1860s that the institutions that would shape the modern British labor movement began to emerge. Trade unionism in Great Britain, as elsewhere in Europe during the nineteenth century, emerged with an initial focus and organizational structure that concentrated on the local level—primarily with the goal of bargaining with employers, rather than pursuing broader political concerns.6 As the institutional representatives of the British labor movement, unions originally established themselves as self-help associations, avoiding an explicitly political focus.7 In the mid nineteenth century most British unions involved skilled workers and were concerned with protecting their higher wages and jobs against the threat of women and less-skilled workers.8 In general, these unions were not radical, but strike averse; seeing their role as advocates for the selfimprovement of members and for the assurance of social and economic stability.9 However, in his study of the emergence of the TUC, B.C. Roberts notes that the basis for national cooperation between unions in particular and the working class in general was forged in the direct action that began in the 1850s, such as the Building Trades of London’s fight for a 9-hour work day.10 One lesson for trade unionists from these early labor–capital conflicts was that current workers’ organizations were not well structured to deal with the challenges of industrial change; they were local, small, and not well-financed. In response to the circumstances they faced, unionists and working-class advocates began to promote broader organizations, at first city wide, in order to coordinate action. Toward this end, the emergence of the London Trades Council (LTC) in  1860 signaled the start of institutional development that would culminate with the first TUC by the end of the decade. The LTC was created as an organization that would keep an eye on the political and economic issues concerning London’s unions and workers in order to coordinate better collective responses. Leaders involved in the LTC would

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provide essential guidance for the labor movement in Great Britain for years to come.11 However, the LTC originally exhibited hesitancy in addressing working-class political concerns. The LTC’s second annual report (1861/2), for example, reflects the economic nature of British labor movement subjectivity at this time: Your Council was urged to give their support and to take up political questions as a council; but as most of the members of the Council are in favour of Reform, they determined to co-operate with other bodies, not as a Council, but as individuals.12 It would take until the end of the 1860s for the LTC to embrace its political role. Of the local trade councils that emerged in the 1860s, the Glasgow Trades Council (GTC) deserves particular mention for its role in mobilizing its members for the pursuit of changes in public policy. In 1865 the GTC formed a committee to push for changes to the existing law on masters and servants, which had effectively criminalized absences from work. The work of the GTC has been credited with catalyzing workingclass support that contributed to the Master and Servant Act of 1867, an act that reformed the most egregious aspects of the older legislation.13 Indeed, according to Roberts, “This campaign and the way in which it was conducted was of the utmost significance, for it not only established a pattern for future political activities by the trade union movement, but stimulated the development of trade councils, as well as of closer cooperation between them.”14 The emergence of these local trade councils spawned a series of working-class publications. For instance, the LTC’s Beehive (1862–1865) is a noted example of the spread of working-class presses. The Beehive provided important leaders of the trade unions in London with a forum in which views on local labor disputes, as well as legislative issues before Parliament, could be expressed. The broader point for the development of the labor movement in Great Britain was that these papers helped to break down the barriers to solidarity and collective action including geography, workplace isolation, and differences in craft.15 One consequence of these increased organizational developments that helped to facilitate both the growth of and connections within the British labor movement was the founding of the London Working Men’s Association (WMA) in 1866. The WMA was designed to pursue political reform. The goals of the organization were not to revolutionize the state, but to add the working-class view and stir—a goal that could be accomplished through franchise reform and/or the election of working-class individuals to Parliament.16 In his history of labor representation, A.W. Humphry states, “the great aim of those favouring Labour representation was to show the breadth of the working man’s outlook and the identity of his interests with those of the community at large.”17 While the WMA was not officially or exclusively an organization of trade unions, it was the “first organization to attempt a national movement for labour representation.”18 Yet, despite the lack of a revolutionary challenge to the state, the WMA’s foray into national politics was seen by some Members of Parliament as a threat to the nature of British politics. Humphry writes, “Of many criticisms, the main one was, that for

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the working-men to enter Parliament would be to introduce class representation, which would be followed by class legislation, and so bring about a revolution in the representative system of the country and in the composition of parliament.”19 On the whole, the 1850s and early 1860s were most remarkable for the growth of national unionism, which was assisted by technological and communication changes, as well as the growth of industry. Overall, the British trade union movement grew from an estimated 100,000 members in the early 1850s to 1,191,922 by 1874.20 For a number of reasons, though, 1867 stands out as a particularly crucial year in the development of the labor movement in Britain. Three events deserve particular attention: the so-called Sheffield Outrages; the court’s ruling against the Boilermakers’ claim for financial protection in the case of Hornby versus Close; and the passage of the 1867 Reform Act. Of these three events, the first two marked a threat to the broader legal and societal view of the legitimacy of labor unions, while the third elevated the importance of the working class as an electoral constituency. Consequently, it was an environment of growing political participation on the part of labor groups that preceded the first TUC. The Sheffield Outrages involved several incidents where union members were accused of using coercion and violence against nonunion workers in local industrial conflicts. Occurring in the context of a growing working-class push for expanded suffrage, union actions were cited by opponents of expanding the franchise. Fraser notes that the incidents raised the ire of both the press and antiunion forces throughout the country: “For opponents of democracy. . . . the existence of trade unions was evidence that the working class was not to be trusted with the vote, since it showed that they did not fully accept Liberal values of individualism and would tend to coerce the minority for the good of the majority.”21 In short, these incidents provided legitimacy to those who sought to limit the scope of working-class political action. The Sheffield Outrages culminated in the formation of a Royal Commission to examine union practices. The work of the Royal Commission was feared by leaders throughout the labor movement who recognized the potential for the Commission’s report both to galvanize antilabor public opinion and to jeopardize the legal status of unions. In fact, it was the formation of the Royal Commission in 1867 that brought together the LTC’s leadership, aware that, “Opponents of the extension of democracy were painting unions as violent and dangerous class conspiracies.”22 Consequently labor movement leaders successfully lobbied for the addition of some commission members who were friends of labor. As feared, the Commission’s majority report was hostile to unions. The decision of the Royal Commission came during a period where British courts “were developing concepts of civil conspiracy, that the existence of a combination might in itself make an act a criminal ‘threat’ or ‘molestation,’ which if done by an individual was not criminal.”23 According to the majority report: So far as relates to workmen who are not members of the union, picketing implies in principle an interference with their right to dispose of their labour as they think fit, and is, therefore, without justification.24

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However, the vigilance of the unions and their efforts to assure some members of the Commission were sympathetic to their goals led to a minority report that called for the legalization of union rights. The minority report declared: It is in our opinion essential to any serious amendment of the law relating to trade unions that the doctrine of Common Law whereby it is presumed that all combinations, whether of workmen or employers, are unlawful, and according to some authorities are punishable as conspiracies. . . . should be broadly and unequivocally rescinded.25 This would become a platform that unions would seize upon, organize around, and, eventually, would become the basis of the Trade Union Act of 1871. The second event involved the decision against the Boilermakers’ Society in the case of Hornby versus Close, which had been brought by the union against its own secretary at its branch in Bradford. The Society accused its secretary of illegally withholding twenty-four pounds; the Society had argued its funds were protected by the Friendly Societies Act. The court, however, ruled that unions were unlawful organizations and therefore “could not secure the protection of its funds.”26 The ruling, in effect, put the financial integrity of unions in jeopardy and served as an important motivation for future political action. Most importantly, in 1867 a Reform Act was passed that expanded male suffrage.27 The passage of this reform partially reflects the fact that by the mid-1800s, the view of labor unions as bad and extremist was beginning to recede as some politicians began to see the advantages of dealing with organized labor.28 Indeed, some employers even began to view unions of skilled workers as a chance to promote industrial peace and labor force discipline.29 The impact of these reforms elevated the working class within electoral politics, making the “working class vote” a more important part of the electoral equation. As Roberts summarizes, the 1867 Reform Act “ensured that in future the interests of trade unions could not be ignored by the legislature, and that in turn the trade unions would become increasingly concerned with what went on in Westminster and Whitehall.”30 As these important events were playing out, an economic downturn had been having its effect throughout the British economic system. Since the downturn began in 1866, employers throughout the country had resorted to an increasing campaign of lockouts as a means to thwart union power and avoid giving in to the demands of labor unions. In response, the Wolverhampton Trades Council issued a call to unite unions and trade councils against the lockouts. Subsequently, 138 labor union delegates assembled in Sheffield to take up this task. These efforts to coordinate action and pool resources within the labor movement on a national level led the Manchester and Salford Trade Councils to call for a TUC to convene in 1868. The idea behind this congress was not to form a new, national political group, but to establish an annual meeting—modeled after other debate societies—at which unionists from around the country could present papers and discuss issues and concerns various unions faced. On 2 June 1868 the first TUC convened.

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The TUC remained predominantly a debating society until its third meeting in 1871. The third meeting of the TUC came on the heels of the 1871 Trade Union Act—an act for which labor unions and working-class organizations had lobbied hard. This legislation provided a formal legal basis for the formation of trade unions. Yet, while the act was largely supportive of unions, its third clause (which was added as an amendment by the House of Lords) contained language prohibiting the use of threats or violence; a clause generally viewed by unions as a means to inhibit strikes and picketing. In addition, when the legislation moved from the House of Commons to the House of Lords, its passage was made contingent on the adoption of separate legislation designed to place stricter legal scrutiny on picketing. Subsequently, a coalition of business interests in the House of Commons helped to pass the Criminal Law Act Amendment, which expanded the ability for the prosecution of strikers through the use of anticonspiracy cases.31 Even before these antilabor measures began to be used against the unions, the legislation served as a jolt toward the politicization of the labor movement. According to Martin, for labor activists, “their interest in political action had been sharply intensified by the certain prospect of parliamentary legislation on trade unions which would either confound or confirm their hopes for the future.”32 Thus, at the 1871 TUC, a Parliamentary Committee was created in order to better promote the interests of workers. For the first time, the TUC began to issue recommendations to its member unions advising unionists which Members of Parliament had voted against labor.33 According to Roberts, the third TUC marked the culmination of the transformation of the TUC from a debate society to “the national organization of the trade union movement.”34 The fallout of the Criminal Law Act Amendment was felt most dramatically in a case brought against the gas stokers’ union in London.35 In  1872, in the midst of a fight for increased wages and reduced hours, two workers at the Beckton Gasworks presented the owners of the company with a petition outlining the workers’ demands. The two workers were fired, which instigated a general strike. Six individuals were singled out and prosecuted for wide-ranging conspiracy charges, found guilty, and sentenced to one-year prison terms.36 For George Howell, a leader in the trade union movement and an eventual Member of Parliament, “Every such prosecution, especially if conviction followed, accentuated our indignation against Parliament, and our condemnation of the policy of the government which had landed labour in a quagmire.”37 These conspiracy cases further galvanized the labor movement in its effort to seek favorable public policy changes. In fact, after much lobbying and protesting (including a large protest in London’s Hyde Park in June of 1873) the Conservative government enacted the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, which weakened provisions in the Criminal Law Act Amendment, thereby legalizing peaceful picketing.38 With the labor movement’s growth in number of members and actions, labor questions—questions about the impact of industrialization and the role of the state in mitigating the negative social effects of industrial capitalism—grew in importance. However, labor’s claims regarding the role of the state were not always clear and

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consistent. That is, at least in the years leading up to and immediately following the formation of the TUC, the alternative collective subjectivity growing within the labor movement was one critical of state policies that limited the legitimacy of labor unions, but not yet one that saw a major role for the state in addressing the negative social effects of capitalist relations of production. Pat Thane adds to this the empirical insight that during the initial emergence of the TUC, alternative answers to questions of what the British working classes wanted did not consist of calls for greater state welfare policies. Examining materials from friendly societies, labor unions, and socialist organizations, Thane concludes that the initial preference of working-class activists was to address the social problems associated with capitalism by altering the system of wage labor and strengthening the role of unions so that the social process of work allowed people to help themselves.39 Consequently, the early years of the TUC were marked by intense internal debates over issues ranging from the state’s role in relieving unemployment to the state’s role in carrying out industrial reforms.40 While it was clear that labor activists found the state’s ability to address working-class concerns insufficient at best and antagonistic at worst, and that policy changes were needed to remove the legal barriers the labor unions faced, there is ample evidence that skepticism of state intervention was widespread within the British labor movement. According to Martin, it was this “Distrust of state intervention and faith in independent unionism [that] formed the core of what the Lib-Labs, as they came to be known stood for.”41 Despite this early Lib-Labism, by the mid 1880s, the TUC had engaged in a range of political activities including lobbying, campaigning, demonstrations, and even running candidates for office.42 Furthermore, other political actors did not simply give in to the demands of unions or labor movement activists. Some of these early legislative changes were motivated by members of the Liberal and Conservative Parties who sought to legislate changes designed to mitigate industrial conflict and reduce the social strain of industrial capitalism for strategic reasons. In short, the allies of labor in Parliament were not simply passive players, but actively sought to harness the political power of the working-class vote.43 On this point, Thane notes of Joseph Chamberlain: From the late 1880s he advocated state old age pensions and improved working class housing, with a shorter working day and minimum wages among other things, not only because they were desirable in themselves, as he believed, but also because they could ensure social and political stability and diminish the influence of Labour. In the 1890s he advocated redistributive welfare on the grounds that ‘the foundations of property’ are made more secure when no real grievance is felt by the poor against the rich.44 Nonetheless, the growing political acceptance of unions is supported by changes in both public policy and party policy, as well as in the growing access to consultations with leading politicians and backbenchers.45 On the whole, while it may be too strong to suggest that every legislative change promoting working-class interests—some 69 between 1868 and 1889—owed to labor’s political activism, “there can be no doubt

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that the general political influence of union leaders was enhanced by the new electoral significance of the working class.”46 By all accounts, the collective subjectivity developed by the labor movement in Great Britain would change and become more explicitly political and socialist during the 1880s and 1890s. Three noteworthy events that mark this transition are the increasing prominence and importance of socialists and socialist organizations (especially H.M. Hyndman’s Social Democratic Federation—SDF); the rise of “new” unionism; and the influence of Keir Hardie of the Scottish Miner’s Union, who, in  1883, having decided that workers could not simply rely on the support of the existing Liberal or Conservative Parties, formed the Independent Labour Party.47 Combined, these events signal the increasingly socialist nature of the alternative collective subjectivity offered by the labor movement in Britain during the 1880s and 1890s. Of this socialist influence Hobsbawm states: In rejecting the current economic orthodoxy and the union tactics based on it, in combating sectionalism and concentrating on the largest geographical national and social units of action—class and nation, or even world—socialism became, without particularly trying to, a potential programme of modernization for trade unions. The value of this programme cannot be judged by the specific innovations actually proposed by socialists in union organization . . . . It must be judged by the general stimulus which it gave to all union activities and reforms.48 Part of the politicization of the British labor movement in the late 1880s and early 1890s is connected with the rise of “new” unionism. “New” unionism is often linked to the 1889 strike by London’s dock workers, and is meant to capture the infusion of unskilled workers into the ranks of organized labor. The expansion of working-class organization exemplified by “new” unionism, particularly in London, was supported by the spread of socialist ideas and the emergence of socialist organizations. Writing about the essence of this “new” unionism in 1890, socialist-influenced Tom Mann and Ben Tillett declared: A new enthusiasm is required, a fervent zeal that will result in the sending forth of trade union organizers as missionaries through the length and breadth of the country. Clannishness in trade matters must be superseded by a cosmopolitan, brotherhood must not be talked of but practiced; and that the real grit exists in the ‘new’ unions is evident, not only from the manner in which they are perfecting their organizations, but also from the substantial way in which they have contributed to the support of others.49 Accordingly, “new” unionism, it is said, helped to push the British labor movement, and the economically inclined older unions, toward political action. The rise of “new” unions, however, cannot simply be ascribed to the success of the 1889 dock workers’ strike. Rather, as A.E.P. Duffy has pointed out, the growth of “new” unions and the effort to organize unskilled and semiskilled workers had been taking

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place in various industrial fields and throughout Great Britain in the years preceding the strike.50 The effort to expand the scope of labor organization to other elements of the working class necessarily involved the assistance of older unions.51 For Duffy, what really marks the emergence of “new” unionism was a commitment to militant action—a commitment that spurred the British labor movement’s shift toward political mobilization. Indeed, he argues, skepticism of a political role for unions in the late 1880s and 1890s became increasingly less based on a principled stance regarding the nonpolitical role of organized labor.52 He writes, “Running through the whole skein of Trade Unionism in the eighties, like a bright coloured thread, and generally assuming eminence as the main issue . . . is the question of state ‘interference.’”53 In the end, it must be acknowledged that the overall importance of “new” unions in shaping the political impact of British trade unionism was moderated by the fact that the road for “new” unions was difficult and conflict-ridden, and this had important and harmful effects on decimating the membership of many “new” unions by the end of the 1890s.54 Nevertheless, driving and drawing from the emergence of new unionism, the British labor movement “became increasingly linked with the demand for state intervention.”55 Within the British labor movement, events in the 1880s and 1890s also encouraged the movement toward the support of electing representatives of the labor movement to Parliament. For instance, a motion adopted at the 1882 meeting of the TUC declared: [I]n the opinion of this Congress, a larger measure of direct representation of Labour in Parliament is desirable in the interest of the working classes, and that the time has arrived when this question should pass from the region of abstract discussion to the domain of practical Labour politics.56 Consequently, while many within the labor movement tried to capitalize on the dependence of the two major political parties, but in particular of the Liberal Party, on the support of the working class, the effort of Keir Hardie and his supporters culminated in the formation of an Independent Labor Party (ILP). While differences within the TUC and the broader labor movement over whether or not to support the ILP persisted, its mere presence challenged the two major parties to change the way they sought working-class support. For example, Martin points out, “Liberal leaders did not neglect these sources of support in their policy-making, but they made no concerted effort to cultivate union leaders as such until the dependability of their working class support appeared to be endangered.”57 Moreover, while the entirety of the British labor movement and the TUC did not embrace radical socialism, there was a “genuine shift in . . . attitudes towards the proper province of state action.”58 This included calls for state involvement in securing the 8-hour day, better working-class housing, old-age pensions, unemployment protections, and support for higher wage rates. In short, the British labor movement was in the process of forging an alternative collective subjectivity that sought a role for the state in addressing the negative social externalities that accompanied industrial development.

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The development of this alternative collective subjectivity did not occur in the absence of counter-mobilization and resistance, nor did it occur in an entirely favorable institutional environment. Labor activism in Great Britain during the period 1880–1898 was replete with industrial conflict and resistance to unionists’ goals. For example, the Employers’ Federation of Engineering Associations was formed in 1896 in order to resist the demands of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE).59 Subsequently, in the conflict that ensued over the ASE’s push for an 8-hour day, for example, “The [ASE] went down to comprehensive defeat.”60 In addition, institutional changes in British politics also presented a challenge to labor’s political goals. Most notably, reforms (in 1896 and again in 1902) strengthening party discipline and the role of the cabinet made it more difficult for the labor movement to pursue a legislative agenda.61 No longer could labor rely on its friendly MPs to introduce legislation from the backbenches. Nonetheless, even when facing potential repression, countermobilization, and difficult institutional changes, the British labor movement deepened its resolve to engage in political action and to challenge the historical role of the British state in addressing working-class concerns. In 1886 the TUC voted to establish Labor Electoral Associations in order to better fulfill the political goals of the British labor movement. Addressing his hopes for these associations at the 1887 meeting of the TUC, the president of the Amalgamated Tailors’ Society declared: I hail with hope the formation of the Labour Electoral Associations in every part of Great Britain, and it seems to me they have struck the right chord by throwing open their membership to unionist and non-unionist, skilled and unskilled labour. This is as it should be. If the Labour Party is divided into hostile camps, skilled labour on the one side and unskilled on the other, then assuredly the Labour cause is irreparably damaged, and energy and time are but thrown away. No Labour candidate thinks of asking only for Trade Unionists to vote for him—he appeals for the votes of workingmen.62 In 1900 these forces converged at a meeting in London between trade unionists and other socialists, including Hyndman’s SDF, members of the ILP, and members of the Fabian Society.63 Out of this meeting the Labor Representation Committee (LRC) was formed. The LRC was created in response to Hardie’s call to form a parliamentary group that could better respond to legislation that affected the working classes. The LRC, in effect, proved to be the organizational foundation that would lead to today’s Labor Party. At first, the response of unions to the LRC was tepid, but after several court cases—and especially the 1902 Taff-Vale decision—threatening the legal rights of labor unions, union support for the LRC dramatically increased. The impact of the LRC was made clear in the general elections of 1905–6 when 54 Labor candidates won seats in Parliament helping to form a Lib-Lab coalition government. However, Roberts points out, as unionists, and those within the unions who wanted to keep the Lib-Lab ties ongoing, saw the success of Labor candidates, a schism developed between some in the labor movement and the Liberal Party.

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Table 2.1  Important court cases in British labor history Name of case (Year) Temperton v. Russell (1893)

Trollope v. Condon Building Trades Federation (1895) Lyons v. Wilkins (1896) Quinn v. Leatham (1901) Taff Vale v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (1901) Osborne v. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants (1909)

Effect of decision It became illegal to refuse to handle goods from a firm employing ‘scab’ labor; or from an antilabor firm. It became illegal to publish a blacklist of strike breakers or employers who hired them. It became illegal to use pickets to persuade men not to work. It became illegal to strike or threaten to strike to get an employer to fire nonunion workers. Required damages be paid to the Taff Vale Railway Company as a result of damages involved in their ‘industrial dispute.’ Ruled unions could not make financial contributions to political parties.

After all, what was the need to support a candidate from one of the traditional parties if you could elect a Labor candidate instead?64 As Martin summarizes, “By the end of the decade . . . memories of the Liberals’ limited concessions when in office, the Conservatives’ generally stiff reaction to union policy proposals, the mounting problems of depression and unemployment, and the success of the employers’ industrial counter-attack had all helped to sway union opinion towards an independent electoral strategy.”65 Throughout the last decade of the nineteenth century and first decade of the twentieth century, the greatest threat to the labor unions in Great Britain continued to come from the courts. Roberts, for instance, identifies several cases that threatened and/or eroded the legal rights of unions. Table 2.1 outlines the effects of some of the more important cases.66 Perhaps we should not go too far in stressing the threat these decisions posed to the labor movement. Hobsbawm cautions: “the Taff Vale judgment . . . did not lead to a systematic attack on trade unionism and did not apparently deter strikes much.”67 Hattam, too, is quick to point out that before this decision could present a real threat to organized labor, the Trades Dispute Act of 1906 provided unions with freedom from civil liability for damages involved in industrial unrest.68 And, the decision in the Osborne case was overturned by the Trade Unions Act of 1913. The moderating of these decisions resulted from the concerted political pressure of organized labor. Although these decisions may not have sought to eradicate unions, they certainly did intend to dramatically restrict their scope of legitimate action. Reaction to the Osborne judgment highlights the seriousness with which labor movement activists interpreted the threat from courts: A few Judges have decided that Trade Unions must not defend their members and advance their interest by political means . . . . How can Trade Unions do their

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts work with this power taken from them? Parliament has become the field upon which the great battles between capital and labour are to be fought. By using its political power, Trade Unionism has won the: The Workingmen’s Compensation Act, Factory and Mining Legislation, Unemployed Workmen’s Act, Fair Wages in Government Contracts, and similar Working class benefits. They have secured freedom of combination, and they repelled the last attack made upon their liberties by the unjust Taff Vale Decision.69

Yet, unlike their American counterparts, who, when faced with a similar series of court injunctions, committed to business unionism, the British labor movement deepened its commitment to political action. In addition to court-led efforts to restrict the activities of organized labor, the British labor movement also faced opposition from social groups such as the Liberty and Property Defense League. However, the view that unions were developing in an environment of total state hostility would be an overstatement. For instance, Fraser proclaims, “The state’s main concern was generally to achieve social stability and this often meant strengthening the bargaining power of Labour.”70 Indeed, at various points, both the Liberal and Conservative Party acted to promote policies they hoped would gain working-class support, as well as policies that reversed prior court decisions that were antagonistic to labor unions. Consequently, the period from 1906 to 1914 saw many legislative changes targeting the social concerns of the working class.71 These include worker’s compensation for industrial disease (1906); medical inspection for school children (1907); government old-age pension (1908); limits on hours of work for miners (1908); a national system of state–labor exchanges (1909); trade boards for setting minimum wages in the sweated trades (1909); health insurance (1911); unemployment insurance in major industries (1911); and minimum wages outside of the sweated trades (1912).72 These changes are important indicators of the impact of the British labor movement in shaping state–society relations. The importance of the alternative collective subjectivity developed by the labor movement in Great Britain following the emergence of the TUC is evident in the ability of the movement to organize an effective challenge to the legitimacy of the state. While initially labor activism was confined to the goal of legitimizing and freeing up unions to address the social problems associated with capitalist development, in the 1880s and 1890s, the labor movement challenged the legitimacy of the state by advocating a shared belief that the state ought to play a significant role in securing working-class protection from the negative externalities of life in the industrial capitalism. Furthermore, as this shared belief in an interventionist role for the state took hold, it was accompanied by the shared belief that it was the labor movement’s purpose to engage in political action that would lead to this fundamental transformation in the role of the state. The challenge of this emergent alternative collective subjectivity was not easily ignored by the major state actors. While neither the Liberal nor the Conservative Party could ultimately provide the labor movement acceptable policy alternatives, neither party could afford to ignore the importance of the working-class challenge to British

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state–society relations. Powell summarizes this legacy of the British labor movement’s impact in stating: Whatever its weaknesses, the appearance of an independent Labour Party in parliament after 1906 was a major change in the party political system. With its solid base of trade union support it represented a partial institutionalization of industrial conflict in the political sphere . . . . a separate Labour Party seemed a better guarantee of a fair deal from the institutions of a political system still controlled largely by the wealthy middle classes.73 In short, by examining the context in which the TUC emerged, the claims articulated by activists within the labor movement in Great Britain, and the response of the state, I argue that the labor movement in Britain exemplifies the sustained development of an alternative collective subjectivity—an outcome whose legacy contributed to enduring changes in state–society relations. This enduring legacy involved both the fundamental transformation of the British party politics, and the enduring role of the labor movement in shaping state–society relations. This legacy can be noted with reference to labor’s role in British politics during the World Wars and through its social contract with the Labor Party in 1974. This interpretation of the British labor history contrasts, for example, with Greggory Luebbert’s analysis of European political regimes between the World Wars. For Leubbert, the British labor movement saw the state as legitimate and never presented a fundamental challenge to the state or the economic system. Furthermore, by focusing on differences within the labor movement, Luebbert concludes that the modest legacy of the British labor movement was shaped by an incoherence in the working class. Luebbert’s characterization of the British labor movement, I believe, hinges on an unfair and unrealistic belief that labor movements that present a fundamental challenge to the state must embody an idealistic, radical, or revolutionary class consciousness. If this is to be our measure, then it seems true that the British labor movement falls short. To be sure, there remained important differences within the British labor movement. For example, differences regarding the political role of the TUC in comparison with the Labor Party persisted until around 1914. Yet these differences were over strategies and tactics, not over the fundamental question of the labor movement’s legitimate political role.74 Even during World War I, when international socialists may have been dismayed at the lack of solidarity from the British working class, British unionism was far from a passive player willing simply to accommodate the British state. Toward this end, the British government’s strategy designed to prevent labor unrest during the World War I, exemplified by the Munitions of War Act in  1915, which sought to prevent labor mobility, to dilute the power of skilled workers, and to prohibit strikes and lockouts in the munitions industries, ultimately contributed to greater labor unrest. Martin reports, “Unable to coerce labour’s compliance, [the government was] obliged to adopt the more complex strategy of winning its cooperation.”75 In the years after the World War I, the British labor movement continued to capitalize on its fundamental ties with

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the Labor Party, and continued to push for changes in the state in order to better the position of the working class. As Fraser summarizes, “The early years of the twentieth century had seen a remarkable advance in the position of Labour. Foundations were laid which were to survive until the 1980s.”76 In short, I argue that the British labor movement during and following the formation of the TUC developed an alternative collective subjectivity. Though content and character of this alternative collective subjectivity may have been far from the revolutionary proletariat envisioned by doctrinaire Marxists, its political power presented a fundamental challenge to British politics and transformed the nature of British party politics and state–society relations well into the latter half of the twentieth century.77 The labor movement that emerged in Britain following this critical juncture helped transform the way the British state responded to social concerns and social groups. The political legacy of the British labor movement and the TUC is also evident in the expanded scope of political concerns it promoted: “initially limited to the law relating to employers and trade unions, and a few issues of legal administration. By the time of the World War I they included the whole social welfare area as well; by the 1920s, foreign policy; and by the 1930s, the upper reaches of economic policy.”78 By the late 1970s and early 1980s changes in the international political economy were favoring the rise of neoliberal economic policies that came to be embodied in the principles of Reaganism and Thatcherism. Globally, this meant a challenge to the state’s role in addressing social questions; and a declining role for the state has, in turn, inhibited the ability of the labor unions and the labor movements throughout the world to rely on the state. Locally, in Great Britain, these transformations altered the role of the labor movement in shaping state–society relations. For instance, Norman Tebbit, Prime Minister Thatcher’s Minister of Employment, attacked unions head on accusing them of leaving Britain comparatively disadvantaged, signaling a change in the state’s view of labor’s legitimate political role. This change in rhetoric was matched by the changes in public policy. For instance, in  1982, an Employment Act banned “pre-entry” closed shops, required compensation for workers who refused to accept a closed shop, and permitted employers to sue for damages or injunctions against industrial action.79 As Fraser summarizes: One sees a fundamental change in political strategy from that of the previous 60  years. Since at least the First World War unions had been increasingly incorporated into the political system, becoming one of the ‘estates of the realm.’ From now on that was to be replaced by a deliberate policy of exclusion aimed at reducing both union and worker power, at strengthening individual rights at the expense of the unions.80 The legacy of the early British labor movement activism had a profound effect on the shaping of state–society relations until the transnational economic transformations gave rise to neoliberal ideals. Within this context, and only with the concerted exercise of the state power, the influence of the British labor movement was fundamentally curbed.

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Exceptionalism and collective subjectivity in the American labor movement Whereas the labor movement in Great Britain spawned the development of the Labor Party and presented a radical critique, if not of British political institutions, then of the legitimacy of the state actors who held power within those institutions, the American labor movement turned toward a strategy of business unionism—confining radicalism to the factory floor or minority organizations heavily targeted with state repression. What explains the different nature of the American labor movement’s trajectory and the impact has been the source of a controversial debate over American exceptionalism.81 In offering his take on “America the unusual,” John Kingdon notes: there are several theories—the lack of feudalism, early universal suffrage and political party development, working class heterogeneity, and the strength of the courts—that attempt to explain why class conflict is muted in the United States compared to other countries, why there is less working class solidarity, why labor unions are less involved in partisan politics, and why there is no viable American democratic socialism.82 I argue that the particular impact of the American labor movement owes to the nature of labor movement collective subjectivity that arose in late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century America; a collective subjectivity formed by the dynamics of overlapping racial, ethnic, and class cleavages, combined with labor leaders’ preferences that shared the antistatist, individualist, and republican ideology of the American state. Building on the extensive secondary literature, I argue that, despite the presence of socialist ideologies and the willingness of union members to engage in militant activism, at the critical juncture in American labor politics when the first national confederation of labor unions emerged, the labor movement failed to develop an alternative collective subjectivity. Furthermore, the argument advanced here suggests that rather than being apolitical, sold out by its leadership, underdeveloped, fettered by the structure of American political institutions, or the victim of exceptional repression, the American labor movement developed in a context in which the complexity of subjectivity in the United States, with all of its racist and anti-immigrant baggage, combined with the ideological predispositions of important labor leaders, stressed the primacy of labor–capital conflict. When compared to Great Britain, the result of the collective subjectivity that emerged during this critical juncture in the development of the American labor movement is found in its qualitatively different impact on state– society relations. Selecting the emergence of the AFL as a critical juncture in labor politics because it was the first confederation of the national labor unions is not intended to belie the importance of the Knights of Labor, which preceded and overlapped with it. The Knights of Labor was formed in Philadelphia in 1868 in order to unite all wage earners, not just the traditional working class.83 As a driving force in the burgeoning American

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labor movement, the Knights helped to galvanize membership (upward of 700,000 by the summer of 1886) and organize political and economic collective action. In his comprehensive history of the Knights of Labor, Leon Fink argues that scholars do not traditionally take the organization’s continued forays into politics seriously enough. The Knights of Labor’s political action, according to Fink, takes three dimensions: a national lobbying effort (1884–86); a locally focused grassroots politics (1885–88); and association with a national third party affiliated with the farmers (1890–94).84 Refuting the notion of exceptionalism, Fink argues that the Knights’ political agenda was drawn from the French notion of the commune. The Knights, therefore, saw politics as the need for “self-organized society—not the individual and not the state—as the redeemer of their American dream.”85 Fink, among others, argues that this commitment to an alternative republican idealism was both the Knights’ strength and downfall—it helped to mobilize members who felt disconnected by the capitalist social relations, but it ultimately failed as a response to changing social conditions as industrial capitalism developed.86 In short, had the Knights been able to continue to present an understanding of social, economic, and political conditions that resonated with workers, it may, in fact, have been able to build a sustained alternative collective subjectivity in the American labor movement, but it did not. In the end, the enduring importance of the Knights of Labor on the development of the American labor movement should not be lost. The political and economic activism promoted by the Knights helps to partially explain why Friedrich Engels, for instance, saw 1880’s America as more advanced in the proletariat struggle than Europe. Writing in 1887, Engels proclaimed: In European countries it took the working class years and years before they fully realized the fact that they formed a distinct and, under the existing social conditions, a permanent class of modern society; and it took years again until this class consciousness led them to form themselves into a distinct political party, independent of, and opposed to, all the old political parties formed by the various sections of the ruling classes. On the more favored soil of America, where no medieval ruins bar the way, where history begins with the elements of the modern bourgeois society as evolved in the seventeenth century, the working class passed through these two stages of its development within ten months.87 Moreover, Kim Voss notes a twofold aspect of the Knights’ legacy: “it strengthened employers’ sense of collective identity and bolstered their organizational abilities. In future labor conflicts, they would be an even more formidable opponent . . . . Second, workers drew lessons from the failure of the Knights about what kinds of strategies and organizations were likely to succeed in the future.”88 While the Knights of Labor played an important role during the rise of the American labor movement, it is with the formation of the AFL in  1886 that the institutional and organizational shape of the modern American labor movement truly took form. In his study of the rise of the national trade union, Lloyd Ulman points out that the development of the AFL was not without conflict. As was the case with

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the TUC in Great Britain, the AFL emerged in a context in which national unions supplanted local federations or city central trade unions as the main organizational form and location of union power.89 Ulman summarizes, “In emerging at the end of the nineteenth century as the dominant form of labor organization in the United States, the national union triumphed over powerful and determined opposition in the American labor movement.”90 As a confederation of national unions, the authority of the AFL was consequently dependent on its member unions from the start.91 This, when combined with racial and ethnic cleavages within the labor movement and larger American polity, highlights the importance of different subjectivities in fettering the growth of and cohesion around an alternative collective subjectivity in the American labor movement. At the start of this chapter, I argued that one of the hallmarks of labor movements and labor unions is that they seek to address the social concerns of the working class as they arise from the negative consequences of life in a capitalist mode of production. Yet, while the British labor movement forged an alternative collective subjectivity that sought to reshape the state’s role in addressing these concerns, the American labor movement rejected such a role for the state, focusing its energies on the desire for labor unions to perform this role themselves. By the early twentieth century the majority of the American labor movement, with the AFL having consolidated its position as the foremost organization within it, had clearly come to view itself as an actor within the economic, rather than a political realm. In 1904, a series of trade union epigrams published in the AFL’s magazine, The American Federationist, highlight this: ●● ●●

●●

●●

●●

It is the worker, not the voter, who governs the conditions of labor. It is the universal experience that the union that goes into politics goes into

trouble. Take care of the economic interest, and the moral, social, and political interests will take care of themselves. In politics the minority of voters, no matter how great their numbers, can accomplish nothing. In trade unionism the minority of workers, though comparatively few in numbers, as it happens, have made their influence felt materially upon every phase of labor’s existence. Labor does not ask the government to better its conditions, but simply to give it a chance to do that for itself.92

The way the AFL came to see itself was the combined result of ideological predisposi­ tions labor leaders shared with America’s individualist, antistatist value system and the way these predispositions interacted with the historical context of overlapping racial, ethnic, and class divisions. In American political history, the framers’ desire to guard against the negative aspect of centralized state authority, concern about factions—particularly based on class, and desire to protect property rights helped find a political system designed to thwart classbased politics.93 Concerning America’s unique value system, Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks suggest that American ideology is composed of five core beliefs:

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antistatism, laissez-faire, individualism, populism, and egalitarianism. Furthermore, they point out, “The antistatist, antiauthoritarian component of American ideology, derived from Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, remains an underlying source of the weakness of socialism in the United States.”94 Many of the most important labor leaders throughout the history of the American labor movement, but particularly during and surrounding the formation of the AFL, were ideologically disinclined to view the state as the legitimate realm for working-class struggle. That labor leaders saw their struggle as one that involved industry, rather than the state is highlighted, for example, by Samuel Gompers’s arguments that interpret the strike as an exclusively economic, rather than a political right. “A strike or lockout,” he writes, “is a disagreement between the buyer and seller of labor power in order to arrive at what each other both may determine to be a more rational and equitable condition upon which production and distribution shall proceed.”95 While his rhetoric was, no doubt, trying to win over potential allies, Gompers nonetheless goes on to cast the strike as a method for industrial peace. He concludes by warning that workers will always fight for their rights, but declares that they will not “transgress beyond the limits of legal and strictly industrial warfare.”96 The antistatist beliefs that underpinned the American labor movement’s collective subjectivity are probably best exemplified by the discussion that emerged in  1893 and 1894 regarding a proposed political platform for the AFL. At the AFL’s 1893 convention, socialist-inclined labor activists pushed through a resolution designed to promote a political platform advocating a greater political activism in order to bring the American labor movement closer to its European counterparts:97 Whereas the trade unionists of Great Britain have, by the light of experience and the logic of progress, adopted the principle of independent labor politics as an auxiliary to their economic action; and whereas such action has resulted in the most gratifying success . . . . Therefore resolved, That this Convention hereby indorse this political action of our British comrades, and Resolved, That this programme and basis of a political labor movement be and is hereby submitted for favorable consideration of the labor organizations of America.98 The adoption of this resolution kicked off a year-long debate within the labor movement at the local, regional, and national levels regarding the desirability of pursing independent political action. Initially, it appears that Gompers believed that, with potential alterations, the platform would be adopted. In fact, in an article in the New York Herald in January 1894 Gompers stated, “I believe that the time has come for independent action on the part of organized labor . . . . The people are now beginning to see how insincere and shallow the protestations of friendship from the old parties and politicians are, and that the time has come to take independent action.”99 However, the political platform’s tenth plank involving “The collective ownership by the people of all means of production and distribution” became a lightening rod for the internal division. By the time the AFL convened in 1894, President Gompers had issued a report warning against independent action from organized labor:100

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During the past year the trade unions in many localities plunged into the political arena by nominating their candidates for public office, and sad as it may be to record, it is nevertheless true that in each one of these localities politically they were defeated and the trade union movement more or less divided and disrupted. What the results would be if such a movement were inaugurated under the auspices of the American Federation of Labor . . . . I need only refer you to the fact that the National Labor Union, the predecessor of the American Federation of Labor, entered the so-called independent political arena in 1872 and nominated its candidate for the presidency of the United States. It is equally true that the National Labor Union never held a convention after that event. In view of our own experience, as well as the experience of our British fellowunionists, I submit to you whether it would be wise to steer our ship safe from that channel whose waters are strewn with shattered hopes and unions destroyed.101 Subsequently, an intense debate consumed the AFL’s convention. Opponents of an increased political role for the American labor movement argued for either stripping the political platform of any radical rhetoric or abandoning the experiment altogether. One delegate declared, “I have come from San Francisco to do everything in my power to conserve the union of the American Federation of Labor and to keep the virus of politics out of it.”102 Others critiqued the tenth plank as, at best, an impractical dream, and at worst, the gateway to powerful government control. According to the antistatist beliefs of one delegate, ‘Collective ownership by the people’ is a very pretty phrase indeed, but it either means ownership by the government or it means absolutely nothing. . . . Control by the government is not control by the people and never can be for the government is the natural enemy of the people.”103 Finally, opposition to the political platform reflected a blend of individualism and the view of labor unions as important republican institutions: “The good people seem to think the State can carry everything. They are like the bad child who has burnt fingers and runs to its mother for help, and so they run to our grandmother, the government for every single thing.”104 Those in favor of the political platform clearly represented a different understanding of the role of the labor movement and of what the state’s role in addressing the working-class concerns ought to have been. John Tobin of the Boot and Shoe Workers’ International Union declared: We have heard that the labor organizations of this country are in a demoralized condition because of the introduction of politics. Now, I make the claim that that is not so. I say that the labor organization is in the condition they are today because they have failed to go into independent politics. . . . What I mean is a movement by wage earners by themselves and by those in the interest of their class, and free from any endangering alliance with any other party.105 Perhaps one of the strongest defenses of the tenth plank called its opponents to task for holding back progress for the working class:

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts It is expected by all that this plank and this measure under discussion is a socialistic measure. I will admit it. I will also right here give the definition of socialism by the greatest authority in the English language. Socialism is a theory of society which advocates a more precise and harmonious arrangement of the social relations of mankind than that which has hitherto prevailed. In the name of common sense and justice, what are we American workingmen made of? Today, on the eve of the middle of the last decade in the nineteenth century, is it possible that there should be men gifted with no more intelligence than the eye of an oyster, that shall attempt to defeat or shall attempt to stop the progress or call a halt to the laws of evolution?106

In the end, the effort to promote a more radical, socialist political agenda was defeated, but at the cost, for Gompers, of the AFL presidency (albeit for just one year). The defeat of this alternative vision for the labor movement is often seen as the event that secured the predominance of business unionism within the American labor movement. The defeat of the political program underscores the fact that, “The American anti-statist tradition produced a union movement which in principle . . . refused to look to government to improve the position of the American worker.”107 In addition, the development of labor movement subjectivity during this critical juncture was fundamentally affected by the overlapping of racial, ethnic, and class cleavages. According to Reuschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens, race and ethnicity affect the prospects for democratic developments, especially as race relates to class and the state: “As sharp and often rigid distinctions of states, [racial and ethnic divisions] can reinforce and deepen class differences as well as cut across class lines and weaken class cohesion.”108 Racial divisions were a fundamental part of the structure of the American society before the growth of the American labor movement, and subsequently played an important role in shaping the class-based political organization. During the formation of the AFL, racial and ethnic divisions, combined with a predisposition toward business unionism, which stressed the need to protect union jobs and acquired benefits from the threat of cheaper labor, and salient ethnic and racial divisions that tracked divisions between skilled and unskilled labor, undercut prospects for the development of a labor movement alternative collective subjectivity.109 As in Great Britain, the earliest unions in the United States involved skilled workers, who adopted a number of strategies in order to secure their advantaged status. Racism became one of these strategies almost from the initial formation of American craft unions. As Bloch notes, racial discrimination was incorporated into the structure of unions during the rise of the first national unions in the 1860s: “Of some thirtytwo unions in existence during the early 1860s, none accepted the Negro into their fraternities.”110 Consequently, racial and ethnic divisions clearly had the potential to cut across class cohesion, and an awareness of this did not escape the grasp of American labor leaders. Throughout his early statements, it is clear that Gompers sought to motivate collective action around class, rather than racial or gender lines. Toward this end, he called for the formation of a labor movement that de-emphasized race, gender, and color differences: “Coming into the meeting of the Union . . . all other divisions

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and causes for antagonism should be left outside.”111 Under Gompers’s leadership, the AFL even maintained a policy of refusing to admit member unions that maintained official discriminatory policies. Nevertheless, despite the rhetoric of AFL leaders like Gompers, there is little doubt that racism, the exclusion of women, and anti-immigrant sentiments played an important role in weakening the working-class solidarity throughout the period surrounding the emergence of the AFL. Indeed, faced with both the need to have the AFL strive to make good on his belief in its role as a representative for all working people and to avoid a schism in the labor movement, when it came to issues of race and ethnicity in practice, Gompers “took a straddle position; he fought on both sides of the fence.”112 For instance, when it came to enforcing nondiscrimination policies within the AFL-affiliated unions, in some contexts he sought to expand the power of the AFL to issue union charters, in other contexts he would declare that the AFL “did not compel any of its affiliates to accept Negroes.”113 In examining the dynamics of race and class in the formation of the labor movement in the United States, Robin Archer points out that the counterpart to racism against Blacks involved the nativist hostility toward Chinese and newer European immigrants.114 In an 1894 letter to Vice President Adlai Stevenson regarding relations with China, Gompers provides an example of the American labor movement’s hostility toward immigrant workers: It is needless here to discuss the impossibility of the amalgamation or assimilation of the Chinese in America with our people. That has been so clearly demonstrated as to need no elucidation at my hands. That the immigration of Chinese into this country is undesirable and should be prohibited, is not only self-evident but is even admitted by the representative of the Chinese Government in the proposed Treaty itself.115 Writing of the history of race and trade unionism in the United States, Bloch states, “In protecting the jobs of their members, labor unions did not invent discrimination; they merely re-articulated in a new form what had slowly pervaded the social structure and the consciousness of social groups since the Negro . . . made his appearance in the United States.”116 Yet, while racial and ethnic divisions played an important role in shaping the development of the American labor movement, there is no necessary link between race and labor movement subjectivity. Archer, for instance, highlights the ways in which racial differences in Australia—a country with similarities to the United States that include its image as a land of opportunity; early, universal White male suffrage; and an influx of immigrant labor—actually promoted class-wide solidarity.117 Rather, what matters is the way racial and ethnic divisions interact with ideological predispositions in order to enhance multiple, nonclass-based subjectivities. In the United States, the intersection of a working-class organization that was steeped in an ideological preference for business unionism, with racism, helped to promote nativism and discrimination against non-White workers. The result of this involved undercutting efforts to build lasting ties between skilled and unskilled, rural and urban workers,

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and the undermining of prospects for the development of a politicized alternative collective subjectivity. Consequently, Lipset and Marks conclude, “In the United States, basic social, economic, and political institutions undermined class consciousness by reinforcing the multiplicity of contending, cross-cutting, cleavages based on religion, ethnicity, and race. . . . Although workers were subject to the pressures of capitalism and industrialism in the workplace, these were mediated by cultural, religious and ethnic identifications.”118 The AFL’s turn toward business unionism ought not to be taken as an indicator of a compliant or passive labor movement. From its inception through the end of the nineteenth century, the AFL promoted and engaged in intense labor activism against industrial interests. This tradition of workplace activism flies in the face of those who would argue that a perceived working-class docility owes to comparatively better working conditions and the possibility of upward mobility. The history of major industrial conflict during the AFL’s formative years suggests that the labor movement was quite far from docile in its efforts to influence labor–capital relations. Here, three incidents deserve particular mention—the Haymarket Square Riots, the Homestead strike, and the Pullman car strike/boycott.119 In the immediate aftermath of its formation, the AFL launched a national campaign for an 8-hour day. As part of the campaign, the AFL called for strikes on workplaces that refused to accept the 8-hour day. One such strike took place at the McCormick Harvester Works in Chicago. On 3 May 1886, violence between striking workers, strikebreakers, and the police broke out amid the protests in front of the factory. The next day a meeting was held in Haymarket Square in order to protest the actions of the previous day. While the official account of anarchist-instigated violence is disputed, undisputed is the fact that a bomb exploded in the midst of the police, the police opened fire on the crowd, and when the smoke cleared hundreds were killed or wounded. The willingness of the state to use its repressive apparatus to enforce “law and order” and thwart labor unionism was not confined to the use of local police in protecting industrial interests. In July 1892, the management at the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania tried to impose pay cuts designed to break the union. When the workers refused to accept these, the plant laid off the entire workforce. The workers’ resistance was confronted by a two-pronged wave of repression—first from Pinkertons hired by the company after a stalemate in contract negotiations led to a lockout on 30 June; then from the mobilized forces of the Pennsylvania National Guard. A third example of the willingness of the state to mobilize its repressive apparatus in antiunion ways involves the federal government’s entrance into the Pullman car strike,  a workplace action begun in  1894 by workers affiliated with the American Railway Union at the Pullman Car Company. In order to maximize the pressure against the company, the union asked for its members throughout the railway system not to handle Pullman cars. Zinn summarizes the effect of what amounted to a boycott of all trains: “Soon all traffic on the twenty-four railroad lines leading out of Chicago had come to a halt. Workers derailed freight cars, blocked tracks, pulled engineers off trains if they refused to cooperate.”120 As the strike dragged on, the Attorney General of the

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United States intervened on the grounds of investigating mail tampering and sought to break the deadlock by using the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against the American Railway Union.121 Additionally, despite the predominance of business unionism, it would be inaccurate to suggest that the entire American labor movement abandoned the socialist goals for a more political unionism that could pose a greater challenge to the legitimacy of the existing political system. Accordingly, Kimeldorf and Stepan-Norris wrote: The doctrine of ‘voluntarism,’ which the AFL embraced early on as its official position, was never accepted by its main rivals on the left, particularly the Socialists; nor was it accepted by the men and women who organized industrial unions a generation later. Even the national AFL chose to ignore, when convenient, its own policy of voluntarism by forging ties with the Democratic Party in order to pass various legislation.122 Examples of the emergence of more radical organizations include the Western Labor Union, the Western Federation of Miners, the American Labor Union (ALU), and the International Workers of the World (IWW). The ALU was formed out of the Western Labor Union and the Western Federation of Miners. The ALU and its affiliated unions engaged in more militant industrial confrontations throughout the West. In the face of the AFL’s willingness to forgo a radical political agenda, the ALU “viewed socialism as an end, which could and would be brought about by the political action of a Socialist party. It regarded unions merely as an aid and supplement to the great movement towards the cooperative commonwealth.”123 The IWW was founded in 1905 as the successor to the ALU. IWW activists believed in the importance of class conflict, worker control of the political agenda, and democratic decision making in theory and practice.124 While the IWW was initially able to increase its membership, it also bore the brunt of massive state repression.125 In the end, in addition to facing external repression, “In conceiving of workers as a cohesive class, socialists were struggling against the ethnic affinities of most workers and their organizations, as well as against individualistic and egalitarian values in American culture.”126 Each of these cases—as well as several others—demonstrates the willingness of the state at the local, state, and federal levels to mobilize its repressive apparatus in ways designed to thwart, control, and dictate the legitimate role unions could play. In addition, the labor movement inspired significant industrial counter-mobilization. Fantasia, for example, provides a summary of the multiple ways in which the employers tried to curb union power including selective hiring, open shop campaigns, company unions, blacklisting, public accusation, red-baiting, spies, cultivating good relations with local police/militia, and hiring strikebreakers.127 This repression has been seized upon by scholars in order to advance an explanation for American exceptionalism that is different from the one offered here. For those who stress the importance of the state’s willingness to engage in repression, a more accurate conclusion regarding the AFL’s strategy of business unionism owes to incentives for embracing a politically moderate strategy. In essence, then, what makes the United States exceptional is the

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exceptionally repressive environment in which the AFL emerged. Kimeldorf and Stepan-Norris conclude: Repression by local police forces and state militia and massive employer opposition to such left-wing groups as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and the Socialists meant that, in many cases, the AFL was the only game in town. Rank-and-file support for the more successful AFL thus did not reflect a primitive understanding of politics or a lack of class consciousness, but was an expression, under those circumstances, of ‘simple rationality.’128 However, comparative studies suggest that repression alone does not necessarily curb a radical social movement. Indeed, in the arena of social movement activism, repression has often been useful for promoting further radicalism. For instance, repression against American civil rights activists in the 1950s and 1960s contributed to the growth of political radicalism, rather than the moderation of the movement. Moreover, Lipset and Marks argue, “even when total repression has been used, as in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and, to a lesser degree, during the Franco regime in Spain and Pinochet’s rule in Chile, it does not appear to be a stable outcome, either in sustaining the regime or in eliminating the sources of radical opposition.”129 In short, while repression is not inconsequential, repression alone is not a satisfactory explanation for the differences between the historical legacy of the American and British labor movements. Another alternative explanation for American exceptionalism highlights the nature of American political institutions. In particular, this view stresses the increased willingness of the courts, after the formation of the AFL, to prosecute cases under conspiracy laws, as well as the increasing role of the court injunctions in labor disputes. In fact, as was the case in Great Britain, the late nineteenth century did indeed see the prosecution of labor activists on conspiracy charges. By the early twentieth century, the injunction had replaced the conspiracy as the “judicial thorn in labor’s side.” According to Fusfeld, “All of this was done under the protective umbrella of an appeal to law and order, the sanctity of private property, the United States Constitution, and ‘Americanism.’”130 For Hattam, the important lesson here is that labor leaders came to see the structure of the US government as inhospitable to labor’s goals—the legislatures were too weak, and the courts were too strong and activist.131 This view argues that the AFL’s conception of politics changed over frustrations regarding state–control and antipathy toward organized labor. The AFL, it is suggested, increasingly sought ways to keep the state out of labor’s affairs, and to keep itself out of the courts.132 Advocates of the view that the American labor movement turned toward business unionism after decades of legal obstacles point to one of the AFL’s main legislative agenda’s—freedom from court injunctions and relief from antitrust suits.133 The AFL’s reaction to the 1906 case of Buck’s Stove and Range Company’s injunction suit and contempt proceedings lends credence to the notion that labor leaders were deeply affected by the courts. This case involved a suit against the AFL after the company

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was placed on a local “do not patronize” list for having discharged union workers and refusing to maintain the 9-hour day. The president of the company sought and won an injunction against the AFL and its affiliates, which were ordered not to publish or publicize the name of the company on such a list. In addition to the initial injunction, the courts later charged AFL leaders with contempt for not obeying the initial court order.134 Epitomizing the frustration and contempt leaders in the labor movement came to hold toward the courts, a report on this case to the 1909 AFL convention declared: “The issuance of injunctions in labor disputes is not based upon law, but is a species of judicial legislation, judicial usurpation, in the interests of the money power against workmen innocent of any unlawful or criminal act.”135 However, the fact that the courts played a leading and antagonistic role toward the labor movement in Great Britain suggests that the role of courts alone is not a sufficient explanation for the nature of the American labor movement. Indeed, as in the case of the British labor movement, the extent to which the courts sought to eradicate labor unions and not simply to control or regulate them is contestable. Mason, for example, suggests that despite Gompers’s public claims, the legal status of labor was never really threatened.136 Consequently, he concludes that the AFL’s pursuit of legislation affirming the legal status of unions—legislation encompassed in the Clayton Act of 1914—was not a radical victory. He states, “In short, a careful reading of section 6 (of the Clayton Act) leads to the conclusion that this section does no more than solemnly declare to be lawful that which was pretty generally admitted as legal before the act was passed.”137 The key difference between the United States and Britain, though, is that whereas in Great Britain commitment to a shared vision for political mobilization in order to reverse the adverse court decisions was deepened, in the United States, a similar political mobilization was not to be found. In the absence of an alternative collective subjectivity, as George Lovell notes, the legislature remained content to defer to the courts—an outcome which allowed judicial restraints on unions to remain in place.138 In addition to the role of courts, those who see the explanation for American exceptionalism in the political institutions of American government have also singled out the nature of American federalism as well as the two-party system. Federalism, according to this view, creates a diffusion of power, preventing the labor movement from easily pooling its resources targeted for political reform. The two-party system, on the other hand, is said to create disincentives for labor activists to support the working-class political parties that have little chance of success. In a letter to Friedrich Sorge, Engels developed this critique: “[the two party system] causes every vote for any candidate not put up by one of the two governing parties to appear to be lost.”139 This view is summarized in Tomlins’s argument that: “Confronted with state institutions which were always actually or potentially hostile . . . workers had no alternative but to protect their rights and advance their interests through certain of their own institutions.”140 But questions about the explanatory power of federalism for moderating labor movements are raised, for example, by Lipset and Marks, who point out, “the histories of working class mobilization in Australia, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland” do not bear

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this out.141 And, the British labor movement also developed within an enduring two-party system. According to these explanations, the industrial conflict that marked the 1880s and 1890s; the use of repression; and the frustration of dealing with the courts, provided a political context in which a growing cooperation between labor conservatives and corporate liberals seeking “industrial peace” and economic gains created the incentive structures that made business unionism the most rational choice for the American labor movement.142 In short, the AFL’s refusal to engage in political mobilization challenging the state was less the reflection of an apolitical tradition than a strategic realignment given the willingness of the state to engage in repression, the cohesion of antilabor industrial organization, the relative lack of elite allies in either of the major political parties, and frustration over the lost court battles. However, comparative studies have highlighted important weaknesses in these explanations for American exceptionalism. In late-nineteenth-century Great Britain, a labor movement that embraced political action and a new role for the state in addressing working-class concerns emerged despite a series of antagonistic court decisions, unfavorable changes in political institutions, and counter-mobilization. And, as we shall see, in the 1960s and 1970s a Turkish labor movement that embraced political action and sought to transform the state emerged despite massive state– repression and social counter-mobilization. Yet, the American labor movement differs from these other cases. This difference I have argued is best explained by the inability of the American labor movement to develop an alternative collective subjectivity— an inability linked to the interaction of ideological predispositions with overlapping racial, ethnic, and class cleavages. The basis for the subjectivity that infused the AFL’s strategy of business unionism remained intact until fundamental structural changes precipitated by the economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s created the potential for the emergence of a more radical, labor movement alternative collective subjectivity. The depression pushed many labor activists to reject individualist and antistatist attitudes, and also contributed to a brief decline in the saliency of racial and class differences as a result of near-universal economic hardship.143 Within this context, the emergence of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and its more militant unionism, accompanied by the rise of communist influences within the labor movement as a whole, did represent the possible formation of an alternative collective subjectivity—one that challenged the state to take on a more active role in addressing working-class concerns. For Greenstone, the labor movement during the 1920s and 1930s contributed to a political realignment that “radically altered the agenda of national politics.”144 The legacy of this impact is discernable in Roosevelt’s New Deal, which ushered in a new era of state involvement in working-class concerns, and in the connections forged between organized labor and the Democratic Party. While this legacy persisted, the impact of the American labor movement was ultimately limited by economic recovery World War II, the Cold War that followed, and the resurgence of racial and ethnic cleavages. After flirting with a more radical political subjectivity, the American labor movement returned to its historical roots.

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Conclusion On the whole, the political legacy of the American labor movement during the critical juncture surrounding the formation of the AFL is captured by its stress on business unionism—concentrating its energies in the sphere of labor–capital, rather than state–labor relations. While the American labor movement developed in a manner that did not develop a collective subjectivity that challenged the legitimacy of the state, it has nonetheless had an important role in the shaping of American politics. It, for example, established the system of collective bargaining that continues to structure American industrial relations; and, as Greenstone highlights, it has performed an important interest group role within the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition.145 Furthermore, this legacy has meant that the American labor movement has not embodied what Margaret Levi calls social movement unionism, or a unionism that aims “to serve the economic interests of their members while also encouraging membership engagement with larger issues of democratization . . . social justice, and economic equality.”146 To be sure, the economic crises of the late 1920s and 1930s created the conditions within which an alternative collective subjectivity that called for a greater role for the state in addressing working-class needs began to grow within the American labor movement itself. Undeniably, the growth of this alternative collective subjectivity helped contribute to important political changes within the American government and within the American labor movement. In the end, though, as the economy recovered and anticommunism spread, the overall legacy of labor movement subjectivity forged in the labor movement activism surrounding the formation of the AFL remained the dominant force in shaping state–labor relations in the United States. As Levi concludes: “Organized labor has never been and cannot be a partner in a governing coalition . . . . It lobbies and pressures, but it does not rule. This may be a result of the opposition of government to such efforts, particularly in the nineteenth century, but it also reflects the attitudes and ideology of a long stream of AFL and CIO leadership.”147 The AFL’s turn to business unionism did not mean an abandonment of all political activities. The AFL still supported candidates for political office and still lobbied for legislation that would be favorable to labor unions. The difference, though, is that it sought to work within the state’s existing institutional framework, rather than seeking to transform or assume control over it. The impact of the labor movement in the United States, consequently, is qualitatively different from that of the labor movement in Great Britain. One adopted an interest group mentality while confining its radicalism to the realm of labor–capital relations, while the other ultimately increasingly concentrated on reshaping the nature of labor–state relations, orchestrating a political take-over of the state. Why did these labor movements have different impacts? Ultimately, I have argued that the difference in impact owes to the nature of collective subjectivity that emerged during the critical junctures that surrounded the formation of the first confederations of national labor unions. The British labor movement was able to develop and sustain an alternative collective subjectivity, while the effect of racial and ethnic differences

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combined with ideological predispositions fettered the ability of the labor movement in the United States to develop an alternative collective subjectivity. The next chapters will provide an important test of the explanatory power of social movement collective subjectivity, especially in the context of state repression. The case of the Turkish labor movement will show that there is no direct causal link between repression and the political legacies of labor movements. Repression is not simply a moderating force. Nor does the degree or willingness of the state to engage in labor movement repression have a definitive importance—as the history of the Turkish labor movement will show, it is difficult to find a greater example of a state repressing labor than what followed the 1980 military intervention. In short, the case of the labor movement in Turkey provides an important test of the causal importance of collective subjectivity in reshaping the political arena even for a movement that endures massive state repression.

Notes 1 See, for example, Jürgen Kocka, “Problems of Working class Formation in Germany: The Early Years, 1800–1875,” in Working class Formation: Nineteenth-Century Patterns in Western Europe and the United States, ed. Ira Katznelson and Aristide Zolberg. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), 281–3. 2 Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, The Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 29. 3 Concerning this, Michael Savage has argued that working-class politics are ultimately based on the goal of reducing the insecurity created by life in a capitalist mode of production. Insecurity, he argues, results because, under capitalism, volatile market forces underpin the social relations that are the basis of one’s economic survival. Savage suggests that if we study the practical politics of workers and unions, we can understand precisely how workers come to understand their world (who we are) as well as the way workers seek to reduce the insecurity of life in capitalism (what we want). The point is that the British labor movement adopted an explicitly political strategy for addressing the insecurity of life in capitalism. The state increasingly came to be seen as the best means for addressing working class social and economic concerns. Michael Savage, The Dynamics of Working class Politics: The Labour Movement in Preston, 1880-1940 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 16. 4 The extent to which these forces constituted a true challenge to the British state has been contested by some contemporary scholars. Jones and Keating, for instance, argue that Thompson focuses on elites such as Tom Paine, who they see as outliers not typical of the English working class. Barry Jones and Michael Keating, Labour and the British State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985). 5 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Vintage, 1966), 712. 6 A.W. Humphrey, A History of Labour Representation (London: Constable and Company, 1912), 8.

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7 Ross Martin, TUC: The Growth of a Pressure Group, 1868-1976 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 21. 8 Still, there were a few notable efforts to broaden the organization of unions to include the unskilled. One notable example can be found in the Agricultural Laborer’s Society, established in 1872, but virtually nonexistent by the end of the decade. W. Hamish Fraser, A History of British Trade Unionism, 1700–1998 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999), 50–1. 9 Ibid., 55. 10 B.C. Roberts, The Trades Union Congress, 1868–1921 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1958), 14–15. 11 The five most important leaders within the LTC were coined the Junta by the Webbs as a means to convey their prominent role in shaping unions’ national representation. Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb, The History of Trade Unionism, revised edition (New York: Longman’s Green, 1920). 12 Keith Laybourn, British Trade Unionism, 1770-1990: A Reader in History (Wolfeboro Falls, NH: Alan Sutton Publishing Company, 1991), 58. 13 Roberts, 21–22; Carl Brand, “The Conversion of British Trade Unions to Political Action,” American Historical Review 30, no. 2 (1925): 256–8. 14 Roberts, 22. 15 On the role of working class and socialist publications, see for example, Roberts; Humphrey; and Logie Barrow and Ian Bullock, Democratic Ideas and the British Labour Movement, 1880-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 16 In 1867 the WMA published a manifesto declaring its parliamentary goals in The Beehive. As Roberts reports: “The programme included demands for the extension of the franchise to manhood suffrage; the ballot; the return of working men to Parliament; the abolition of class legislation and the evils it had engendered; the termination of Church rates; an improvement in the relations between landlord and tenant; a national and unsectarian system of education; legal protection for trade union funds; reduction in the hours of labor; the development of cooperatives; improved housing for the working class; and emigration to the colonies.” Roberts, 42. 17 Humphrey, 17. 18 Ibid., 10. 19 On this point he singles out several Members of Parliament including Lord Derby, A.H. Layard, and G.J. Goschen. Ibid.,16–17. 20 These numbers are drawn from both Laybourn, 53 and Martin, 45. 21 Fraser, 43. 22 Ibid., 44. 23 Ibid., 47. 24 Laybourn, 67. 25 Ibid., 68. 26 Roberts, 35. 27 Martin reports that this Reform Act and a second passed in 1884 brought significant expansion of the electorate, from 1 million in 1866 to 4.4 million in 1885. Martin, 27. 28 See, for example, David Powell, British Politics and the Labour Question, 1868-1990 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 8; Martin, 27; and Brand, 262. 29 Fraser, 64–5.

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30 Roberts, 41. 31 For extended discussions of these legislative changes, including the differences within and between the major political parties and the two houses of Parliament, see: Roberts, 61; Powell, 9; and George Howell, Labour Legislation, Labour Movements, and Labour Leaders (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1902), chapter 20. 32 Martin, 25. 33 Roberts, 66. 34 Ibid., 64. 35 Howell provides the accounts of several cases prosecuted under the new act. Howell, 200–6. Additional accounts can be found in R.Y. Hedges and Allan Winterbottom, The Legal History of Trade Unionism (London: Longman’s Green, 1930), Chapter 4. 36 For a more detailed account of the Gas Stoker’s strike, see: Howell, 237–43 and Roberts, 75. 37 Howell, 194. 38 For a discussion of the 1874 legislation, see for example: Powell, 11–14 and Laybourn, 76. 39 Pat Thane, “The Working Class and State ‘Welfare’ in Britain, 1880-1914,” The Historical Journal 21, no. 4 (1984): 880. 40 Powell, 17–18. 41 Martin, 34. 42 Ibid., 35. 43 This view of early prolabor and state-welfare policies is advanced by Henry Pelling, Popular Politics and Society in Late Victorian Britain: Essays (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1968) and expanded by Thane. 44 Thane, 881. 45 Martin, 29. 46 Ibid., 28. 47 For a more detailed analysis of the SDF and its spin-off, the Socialist League, see Barrow and Bullock. For more details on the dock workers’ strike, see Howell, 477-448. New unionism is a term coined to refer to the younger leaders and unskilled workers who used more confrontational tactics to organize workers. For more details on Kier Hardie and the Independent Labour Party, see Roberts, 139–40. 48 Eric J. Hobsbawm, “Trade Union History,” The Economic History Review 20, no.2 (1967): 362. 49 Laybourn, 86–7. 50 A.E.P. Duffy, “New Unionism in Britain, 1889–1890: A Reappraisal,” The Economic History Review 20, no. 2 (1961): 306. 51 Fraser, 76. 52 Duffy, 315. Citing, for example, the debate over whether or not to pursue 8-hour legislation, Duffy notes, “Only a small segment of the established union leadership still clung stubbornly to a belief in ‘laissez-faire’ and the virtue of ‘self-help.’” Ibid., 319. 53 Ibid., 318. 54 Fraser, 80–1. 55 Laybourn, 80. 56 W. J. Davis, The British Trades Union Congress: History and Recollections (New York: Garland Publishing, 1984), 93. 57 Martin, 64.

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82 83 84 85 86 87

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Ibid., 67. Fraser, 85–6. Ibid., 86. Martin, 70–1. Davis, 129. The Fabian Society was formed in London in 1884 by a coalition of intellectuals with a socialist bent, but who argued that socialist change was best achieved through a more gradual plan—using, rather than rejecting, the existing state institutions. Roberts, 209. Martin, 69. For further discussion of these cases, see Roberts, 164 and Fraser, 98–100. On the Taff Vale case, much has been written, including sections in Powell; Roberts; and Hobsbawm to name a few. Hobsbawm, 360–1. Victoria C. Hattam, Labor Visions and State Power: The Origins of Business Unionism in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 201. Laybourn, 22. Fraser, 103. Martin, 97. Ibid., 97. Powell, 52. On these internal divisions, see Martin, 119–126; Roberts, 303; and Robert A. Dahl, “Workers’ Control of Industry an the British Labour Party,” The American Political Science Review 41, no. 5 (1947): 898–9. Martin, 133. Fraser, 126–7. See, for example, Bernard Hennessy, “Trade Unions and the British Labor Party,” The American Political Science Review 49, no. 4 (1955): 1050–66. Martin, 328. Fraser, 237. The resolve of the Thatcher government to alter the role of unions in British politics was tested by the National Graphical Association, against which the government came out strongly—sequestering funds and threatening sympathetic workers with dismissal. Ibid., 237. For a comprehensive overview of this debate—one that ultimately sides with those who believe empirical evidence supports some claims to American exceptionalism—see Michael Kammen, “The Problem of American Exceptionalism: A Reconsideration,” American Quarterly 45, no. 1 (1993). John Kingdon, America the Unusual (New York: St. Martin’s/Worth, 1999), 74. Leon Fink, Workingmen’s Democracy: The Knights of Labor and American Politics (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1983), 13. Ibid., 19. Ibid., 34. Ibid., 34–5. Friedrich Engels, “The Labor Movement in the United States,” in German Essays on Socialism in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Frank Meclenburg and Manfred Stassen. (New York: Continuum, 1990), 68.

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88 Kim Voss, “The Collapse of a Social Movement: The Interplay of Mobilizing Structures, Framing, and Political Opportunities in the Knights of Labor,” in Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings, eds. Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 255. 89 National unions gained control over local or city-based federations by means of controlling the admission and discipline of members, asserting the authority to authorize strikes, and by controlling the economic policies such as dues and allocation of strike funds. Lloyd Ulman, The Rise of the National Trade Union: the Development and Significance of its Structure, Institutions, and Economic Policies (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1966), 422. 90 Ibid., 3. 91 This point is not to imply, however, that the TUC was somehow more authoritative. Indeed, the TUC too was dependent on the consensus of its member unions—a fact that figures prominently in historical accounts of strategic differences that often prevented or delayed the TUC’s support for varying policy changes. 92 Walter Macarthur, “Trade Union Epigrams: Some Reasons for the Faith Within Us,” in American Federation of Labor: Miscellaneous Pamphlets (1904), 10–11. 93 William Forbath, Law and the Shaping of the American Labor Movement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 27–8. 94 Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000), 22. 95 Samuel Gompers, “Organizing Labor: Its Struggles, Its Enemies and Fool Friends,” in American Federation of Labor: Miscellaneous Pamphlets (publication date unknown), 1. 96 Ibid., 6–7. 97 This platform contained 11 planks, including: “compulsory education; direct legislation; a legal eight-hour work day; sanitary inspection of workshop, mine, and home; liability of employers for physical disability; abolition of contract labor in all public work; abolition of the sweating system; municipal ownership of street cars, electric light, and gas plants; nationalization of telegraphs, telephones, railways, and mines; collective ownership by the people of all means of production and distribution; the principle of referendum in all legislation.” The Samuel Gompers Papers: Volume 3 Unrest and Depression, 1891-94, eds. Stuart B. Kaufman and Peter J. Albert. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 435. Hereafter SGP. 98 Ibid., 443. 99 Ibid., 444–5. 100 In fact, Foner concludes, “Gompers actually lagged behind the AF of L membership and even the leaders of the craft unions on the crucial issue of independent working class political action.” Philip S. Foner, History of the Labor Movement in the United States, Volume 3 (New York: International Publishers, 1955), 186. 101 SGP, 612. 102 Ibid., 621. 103 Ibid., 632. 104 Ibid., 656. 105 Ibid., 624. 106 Ibid., 633.

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107 Lipset and Marks, 39. 108 Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 48. 109 According to Paul Buhle, many political and labor leaders during the early years of the AFL held that incorporation of women or Blacks into the workforce would exacerbate class differences. As a result, many early labor leaders tacitly and explicitly accepted the need to create racist and sexist labor market protections and controls. Paul Buhle, Taking Care of Business: Samuel Gompers, George Meany, Lane Kirkland, and the Tragedy of American Labor (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1999), 23–4. 110 Herman Bloch, “Labor and the Negro 1866–1910,” The Journal of Negro History 50, no. 3 (1965): 166. 111 Quoted in Foner, 185. 112 Bloch, “Labor,” 178. 113 Ibid., 179–80. The limited ability of the AFL to force its member nationals to admit Black members is also noted in Ulman, 389. 114 Robin Archer, “Why Is there No Labour Party? Class and Race in the United States and Australia,” in American Exceptionalism? U.S. Working class Formation in an International Context, ed. Rick Halpern. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 70. Buhle argues that the AFL’s anti-immigrant stance flew in the face of overwhelming evidence that immigrant labor was neither taking union jobs nor was a major source of strikebreakers. Buhle, 45. 115 SGP, 488. 116 Herman Bloch, “Craft Unions and the Negro in Historical Perspective,” Journal of Negro History 43, no.1 (1958): 10. 117 Archer, 57; 68. 118 Lipset and Marks, 113–14. 119 These incidents were not just AFL-led. The Haymarket Square riots were preceded by a strike wave that the Knights of Labor helped organize, and avowed socialist Eugene Debs’ American Railway Union instigated the Pullman car strike. 120 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present, Revised Edition (New York: Harper Perennial, 1995), 274. 121 On this point, see Foner, 266. 122 Howard Kimeldorf and Judith Stepan-Norris, “Historical Studies of Labor Movements in the United States,” Annual Review of Sociology 18 (1992): 496. 123 Louis Levine, “The Development of Syndicalism in America,” Political Science Quarterly 28, no. 3 (1913): 495. 124 Daniel R. Fusfeld, “Government and the Suppression of Radical Labor, 1877-1918,” in State Making and Social Movements: Essays in History and Theory, eds. Charles Bright and Susan Harding. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1984), 362 125 The federal crackdown on the IWW in 1918 is well documented. See, for example, Fusfeld, 368–9 and Kimeldory and Stepan-Norris, 505. 126 Lipset and Marks, 125. 127 Rick Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), 40. 128 Kimeldorf and Stepan-Norris, 505. 129 Lipset and Marks, 243. 130 Fusfeld, 353. 131 Hattam, 158–9.

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132 Christopher Tomlins, The State and the Union: Labor Relations, Law, and the Organized Labor Movement in America, 1880-1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 76–7; Forbath, 61–2. 133 Forbath, 16. 134 For their part, the AFL had appealed, not simply ignored the initial decision. 135 American Federation of Labor, “Buck’s Stove and Range Company Injunction Suit and Contempt Proceedings: A Compilation of the Reports of the Executive Council and President Gompers to the Convention of the American Federation of Labor, November 8–10, 1909,” in American Federation of Labor: Miscellaneous Pamphlets (1910), 23. 136 Alpheus T. Mason, “The Labor Clauses of the Clayton Act,” The American Political Science Review 18, no. 3 (1924): 492. 137 Ibid., 496. 138 This thesis contradicts the central argument of Hattam’s work, which is that the U.S. courts were institutionally stronger than the British courts. George Lovell, Legislative Deferrals: Statutory Ambiguity, Judicial Power, and American Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). 139 Friedrich Engels, “Why There is No Large Socialist Party in America,” in German Essays on Socialism in the Nineteenth Century, eds. Frank Mecklenburg and Manfred Stassen. (New York: Continuum, 1990) 75. 140 Tomlins, 6. 141 Lipset and Marks, 55. 142 Fusfeld, 356–7. 143 Lipset and Marks, 100. Regarding this, Greenstone writes, “The CIO induced so many factory workers to risk employer reprisals and to ignore their own racial and ethnic animosities because the workers were moved by a powerful, if temporary, class solidarity and outrage at the failure of American capitalism.” Greenstone, 42. 144 Greenstone, 46. 145 Ibid., 70. 146 Margaret Levi, “Organizing Power: The Prospects for an American Labor Movement,” Perspectives on Politics 1, no 1 (2003): 47. 147 Ibid., 50.

3

Dreams of Solidarity: Populism and State–Building without Class Antagonism

The previous chapter focused on two widely studied cases of state–labor relations, and concluded that the different legacies of the British and American labor movements can best be understood with reference to the nature of collective subjectivity that emerged during the critical juncture surrounding the formation of the first national labor union confederations. I now seek to push the analysis further by examining the extent to which the shaping of Turkish state–society relations can be explained by the nature of collective subjectivity forged during a similar critical juncture in Turkish labor activism. In fact, the next three chapters will demonstrate that Turkish labor activism during the 1960s and 1970s did develop and sustain an alternative collective subjectivity; that this alternative collective subjectivity contributed to significant changes in state– society relations; and that despite bearing the brunt of state repression after the 1980 military coup, the legacy of this alternative collective subjectivity continues to shape contemporary Turkish politics. This chapter sets the baseline against which the alternative collective subjectivity that emerged in the Turkish labor movement was forged. Consequently, I trace the history of the state’s view of social classes from the inception of the Republic until the military coup of 1960. Throughout this history, even with the transition to multiparty politics, the Turkish state maintained a commitment to a concept of populism that sought to generate working-class support for, participation in, and compliance with state policies, while denying the saliency of class divisions or the legitimacy of classbased politics. In assessing the state’s prevailing view of working class and class-based politics, I focus on commonalities, differences, and key events in two main periods. First, I examine the development of the Kemalist tenet of populism during the oneparty period (1923–46)—briefly tracing its origin from the theoretical insights of Turkish ideologists like Ziya Gökalp to the rhetoric of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi – CHP). I argue that we ought to understand this articulation of populism as a reflection of the nascent state’s ideology. The ideas found in the Kemalist understanding of populism helped to legitimize various state efforts to curb or control working-class political participation. Second, I examine the transition to multiparty politics (1946–60), briefly tracing the endurance of the Turkish state’s understanding of the legitimacy of working-class politics.

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Populism in the era of single-party rule (1923–46) If politics involves the effort to articulate answers to questions of who we are and what kind of world we want to live in and states are political institutions designed to promote particular answers to these questions, then nationalist ideologies represent a chief mechanism by which state actors articulate and seek to mobilize support for, compliance with, and legitimation of particular answers to such questions. Consequently, I begin this discussion of the labor movement in Turkey with an historical overview of Kemalist national ideology—as it relates to questions of class-based politics, workers’ rights, and the legitimacy of workers’ associations. This historical background is presented in order to establish the predominant and enduring understanding of legitimate action promoted by state actors from the inception of the Republic through the period of multiparty rule and into the 1960s. This overview of Turkish nationalism and the Kemalist principle of populism highlights the ways this principle, and the relative lack of industrial development, affected class-based political action in the early Turkish Republic. The Turkish Republic emerged out of a tremendous period of social and political upheaval that included the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the devastating losses of World War I, population relocations, violent conflict over Armenian nationalism, and the Treaty of Sèvres, which resulted in the occupation of land in what was to become Turkey, by the Entente powers. For Atatürk and other leaders of the struggle for Turkish Independence, “only the will of the nation” could oust the occupying powers.1 Within this climate of upheaval, the nationalists began to refine the ideological principles that were to constitute a new Turkish nation. From the inception of the Republic, Atatürk’s Republican People’s Party used its authority in an attempt to promote a new national identity, rather than to rely on traditional symbols.2 While recent scholarship points out the continuities between Kemalism and ideas first promoted in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenthcentury Tanzimat reforms and expanded by the Young Turks from 1908 to 1913, the foundation of the Turkish Republic was accompanied by a self-conscious effort to formulate and inculcate a new understanding of Turkish nationalism. State ideology during these early years was guided by what Ayşe Kadioğlu calls “an elitist project from above,” which hoped to transform Turkish society into a modern, westernized state.3 This ideology was articulated through the six arrows of the CHP, which were adopted by the party in  1931, and in  1937 became part of Turkey’s constitution. The CHP’s arrows included Nationalism, which represented the effort to promote identification with the nation above separate religious or ethnic groups; Populism, as we shall see in greater detail below, represented the Kemalist belief in mobilization of social support for the nation; Statism, corresponded to the belief that the state should have an important role in the economic future of the nation; Secularism, which represented a key break from the Ottoman past, is characterized by Zürcher as “not so much separation of state and religion as control of the state over religion.”4; and Revolutionism referred to the Kemalist belief that the changes needed to differentiate the Republic from the Imperial past would be nothing short of revolutionary. Finally,

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Republicanism represented the difference in political systems—from an Imperial system headed by an unelected Sultan to a presidential–parliamentary system governed by elected officials. Karal summarizes the relation of the six arrows of the CHP in terms of the promotion of a national ideology: “The triad ‘revolutionism, nationalism, secularism’ symbolizes the rejection by the Turkish revolution of the Ottoman dynasty, the Caliphate and ümmet ideology . . . The triad ‘republicanism, populism, and étatism’ presents the social ideal of the Turkish state.”5 While the arrows of the CHP constitute Kemalism’s set of beliefs, there was also a set of practices designed to enhance the power of the state and its ideology. Secularizing reforms such as the abolition of the caliphate, Şaria, Islamic family law, and call to prayer in Arabic, as well as the banning or discouragement of the traditional headgear of men and women were all undertaken in order to promote the transition to a modern, western, secular nation.6 Additionally, Kemalism led to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and the Swiss Civil Code in order to demonstrate the westernizing break from the Ottoman past. People’s Houses (Halk Evleri) were created in order to bring the ideology of Kemalism directly into the Turkish society.7 Finally, the CHPcontrolled state used legislative and police power to prevent challenges to Kemalism as the primary and legitimate source for answers to questions of national identity and legitimate action.8 To be sure, Kemalism represented a coherent set of beliefs and practices designed as the Turkish state’s answers to the basic questions of politics, and served as the state’s societal mobilization mechanism par excellence. And, to be sure, the historical circumstances, institutional/bureaucratic continuities with the Ottoman government, and cult of personality that emerged around Atatürk contributed to an initial success of Kemalism—especially among elites. However, as Çaglar Keyder points out, “The problem with solving the problem of westernization through the invention of nationalism was that the notion of national identity, let  alone the veneration of the national past, had no popular roots: It had to be taught afresh.”9 In short, the Kemalists’ commitment to a single national identity, guided by extreme secularism, based on the denial of class and ethnic differences, proved to be impractical. Moreover, the ideology of Kemalism failed to supplant other bases of identification and shared aspirations for the future, and did not, therefore, thoroughly monopolize control over Turkish society.10 My primary concern in this chapter, however, centers on the Kemalist tenet of populism. Within the ideology of Kemalism, populism (halkcılık) signified a commitment to the promotion of popular political action that supported the Kemalist agenda. The subtext of this rhetoric invoking popular action in support of the state was a strong admonition of popular action that would undermine nationalist goals and objectives. Moreover, populism and the policies that it justified illustrate the predominant and enduring understanding of the Turkish state regarding the legitimacy of working-class politics. The Kemalist tenet of populism owed its intellectual justification to, among others, the social theory of Ziya Gökalp. Influential among Young Turk and early Republican political leaders, Gökalp developed a theory of Turkish nationalism by drawing heavily

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from the work of Emile Durkheim. Among Gökalp’s principal goals was the effort to articulate a basis for national identification that would avoid class antagonism. For Gökalp: Strengthening national solidarity requires the raising not only of patriotic and civic morals but also of professional morals. As a result of social division of labor, every nation is divided into a number of professional and specialized groups . . . . Each group is necessary and indispensable to the other. Is there not a sort of solidarity in the services they perform for each other and in their mutual need?11 According to Durkheim, the state’s role is to prevent the division of labor in society from its pathological forms—the anomic division of labor.12 Consequently, Gökalp declared that state investments would address socioeconomic problems and prevent the social division of labor from contributing to antagonism. “Everything necessary,” he wrote, “will be done to end all forms of misery and to assure the well-being of the populace.”13 Subsequently, according to Robert Bianchi, populism “became the main Kemalist principle underlying social policy and associational life during the one-party era.”14 In a speech made before the Izmir Economic Congress of 1923, Atatürk provided an overview of this conception of populism: “In my opinion, our nation does not possess various social classes that will pursue interests that are very different from one another and that will, accordingly, come into a state of struggle with each other. The existing classes are necessary and indispensable to one another.”15 Far from simply being a pragmatic response to economic exigencies, the Kemalist tenet of populism represented the very real attempt to forge a new set of beliefs around the relationship between work-life and national identity. Ahmad points out that, insofar as the early Republican political elite accepted the notion that classes did not exist in Turkey, “they saw themselves as leaders of the people (halk).” Moreover, the word: ‘People’ implied the coalescing of the various social forces against the old order. The principle task of this collective was not merely to destroy the old society but to contribute in the creation of a new one. Both tasks required total cohesion and unity among all the groups who made up the ‘people’ and there was no room for a conflict of interest among them.16 CHP documents demonstrate an increasing effort to assert that Turkish society was a classless society and that the state’s role was to assure that this continued.17 Toward this end, Bianchi quotes an address by Atatürk to CHP candidates in 1931: One of our basic principles is to consider the people of the Turkish Republic not as composed of separate classes but as a community divided among various occupations with regard to the division of labor for individual and social life. . . . The labor of each is indispensable to the life and well-being of the others

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and society in general. The goal at which our party aims with this principle is to obtain social order and solidarity instead of class conflict and to establish harmony among interests so that they will not injure one another.18 The commitment to such principles was reinforced in 1935, as the platform of the CHP, mirroring Atatürk’s language, declared: It is one of our main principles to consider the people of the Turkish Republic, not as composed of different classes, but as a community divided into various professions according to the requirements of the division of labour for the individual and social life of the Turkish people . . . . The aims of our Party, with this principle, are to secure social order and solidarity instead of class conflict and to establish harmony of interests.19 Moreover, the political corollary of populism was the series of dictums and decrees designed to prevent any coordinated political action based on subnational or classbased interests. An overview of the history of organized labor in Turkey during the one-party era illustrates both the endurance of the state’s commitment to populism and the reality that the Kemalist vision of a classless, solidaristic society was, at best, an unattainable rhetorical goal. Evidence of working-class organization and class-based collective action periodically burst into the public sphere during the Ottoman Empire.20 For the founders of the Turkish Republic, the working class and its organizations were initially seen as a means for getting people involved in the anti-imperialist struggle.21 In fact, the coalition that supported the CHP had its basis in the alliance to prevent the partition of Turkey after World War I. This coalition was bound together through the anticolonial struggle. Ahmad reports that “Initially workers had enjoyed the status and prestige of a group in this coalition.”22 Consequently, the years leading up to Turkish independence brought the creation of a spate of working class and socialist political parties. For instance, the Social Democrat Party (Sosyal Demokrat Fırkası) was created in 1918, but showing little noticeable success in subsequent elections was disbanded in 1922. The Worker and Farmer Socialist Party of Turkey (Türkiye İşçi ve Çiftçi Sosyalist Fırkası) was established in 1919. In its program, it advocated the creation of workers foundations, the right to strike, and the 8-hour workday. It, too, was not successful in elections, but did create the Worker’s Association of Turkey (Türkiye İşçiler Derneği) in 1922, which helped strengthen working class political action. A third party, the Socialist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Sosyalist Fırkası) was also established in 1919. From 1920 to 1922 it served as a center for unions in Istanbul.23 Furthermore, May Day celebrations held in Istanbul in 1921 voiced workers’ opposition to the English occupation.24 Table 3.1 presents an overview of strike activity during the struggle for independence. However, after winning the war for independence, it soon became clear that the interests of the working class and of CHP leaders diverged, and after 1923 “the Kemalist regime became less tolerant of [working class associations].”25 Consequently,

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Table 3.1  Strikes during the struggle for Turkish Independence, 1919–23 Location of strike by region and industry February, 1919 July, 1919 August, 1919 October, 1919 April, 1920 May, 1920 October, 1920 July, 1921 September, 1921 February, 1922 July, 1923 August, 1923 September, 1923 October, 1923

Istanbul – Tobacco Workers Istanbul – Dock Workers Istanbul – Municipal Cleaners Adana – Typesetters Istanbul – Kasımpaşa Shipyard Workers Istanbul – French & Greek Newspaper Typesetters Istanbul – Beyoğlu Tünel Workers Istanbul – Kasımpaşa Shipyard Workers Istanbul – Firemen Istanbul – Istanbul-Edirne Railroad Workers Tokat, Ankara, & Yozgat – School Teachers Istanbul (Zeytinburnu) – Factory Workers Istanbul – Tramway Workers Istanbul – Municipal Cleaners Istanbul – Beer Workers Zonguldak – Coal Miners Izmir – Fig Gatherers Izmir – Izmir-Aydin Railroad Workers Istanbul – Typesetters Istanbul – Tramway Workers

Source: Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türkiye’de Grevler,” 493.

even as the CHP sought to promote its newly articulated principle of populism, May Day rallies held in Istanbul in 1923 and a protest by workers in Ankara on May Day, 1924 attest to the threat-organized labor posed to the state’s vision of a classless society. As Ahmad describes this early example of state–labor interaction, workers marched in Ankara presenting demands to the Turkish Grand National Assembly for 8-hour workdays, weekly holidays, and May Day as an official state holiday. Their march was met with arrests and repression of newspapers and workers’ organizations, as well as an official measure declaring 1 May as Spring Holiday—a move designed to co-opt the date.26 Table 3.2 presents an overview of strike activity during the early republican era. As the Kemalist regime consolidated political control and advanced its goal of reconstituting the state along European lines, Keyder submits, “the ruling faction was concerned not only with eradicating all rival principles of association, but also sought to achieve a formal appearance of uniformity.”27 The Kemalist tenet of populism provided the ideological basis for this. Consequently, in the 1930s, the Turkish state took on an increasingly interventionist role in the economy, putting in place policies to promote industrial development and economic independence, as well as reforms designed to curb or control working-class organization.28 These policy changes include an amendment to the Penal Code of 1935, which expanded punishments for strikers; the Labor Code of 1936, which made the state final arbiter of industrial conflicts and prevented the legal right for workers and employers to form unions or associations in certain economic sectors; and the Law of Associations of 1938, which solidified the

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Table 3.2  Strikes during in the Early Republican Period, 1925–33 Location of strike by region and industry 1926

Soma – Bandırma Railroad Workers Istanbul – Port Workers

1927

Istanbul – Tobacco Workers

1928

Istanbul – Railroad Workers

1929

Istanbul – Tramway Workers

1930

Izmir – Fig Gatherers

1931

Istanbul (Ortaköy) – Factory Workers

1932

Izmir – Tobacco Workers

Source: Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türkiye’de Grevler,” 493.

illegality of associations based on class interests. Moreover, the antilabor policies of the 1930s helped both to promote the growth of industry by keeping wages down, and to promote the state’s vision of social solidarity. Consequently, workers faced declining wages, unemployment, and higher costs of living.29 Ahmad aptly points out that, “These measures suggest that there was an undercurrent of ideological dissent among both the intelligentsia and the workers that the government was determined to stifle.”30 Suppression of working-class organization deepened with the onset of World War II. Perhaps nowhere was this more evident than in the coal-mining industry in the Black Sea area of Zonguldak. Coal mining in Zonguldak dates back to the late Ottoman Empire, when, beginning in the 1880s and 1890s, concessions were made to European companies in order to increase production of the Empire’s most important mined resource. Coal production, which was carried out through rotational labor drawn from the villages in and around Zonguldak, continued to be the Turkish Republic’s most important domestic energy source. The implementation of the second five-year plan in 1938 placed an even greater stress on industrial development and coal production. To meet the demand, the Ministry of Justice even authorized the use of prison labor in  1937.31 As coal became increasingly important for industrial plans, Zonguldak’s mines were nationalized in 1940, keeping the industry labor intensive, and assuring the state a cheap supply of coal. As Kahveci points out, “One of the major aims of the new Turkish state throughout the 1930s and 1940s was to maintain a docile labour force in order to increase production and reach the five-year plan targets. To achieve this, workers were forced to work long hours for little pay and under unsafe working conditions, while unions were outlawed and strikes banned.”32 Toward this end, with the onset of World War II, the National Protection Law of 1940 was adopted. This legislation dictated that males over sixteen years of age, who had miners in their family, should become miners as well. A forced labor agency was created to assure compliance, and by 1942, 58,000 forced laborers, mostly working rotationally, 45 days on 45 days off, were employed in Zonguldak’s mines.33

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To be sure, societal challenges to populism were limited during the CHP’s singleparty rule because of the relative lack of industrialization. As Ahmad points out, the size of the Turkish industrial working class was extremely small—the census of 1927 showed that 70% of all businesses had fewer than four employees, and Talas reports that in 1925 80% of the population was involved in agricultural production.34 Indeed, the kind of industrial employment amenable to working class organization lagged behind peasant farmers and small craftsmen. Still, while direct challenges to populism were scarce during these early years, there is ample evidence to suggest that antipopulist currents were either detected or at least feared by the CHP-controlled state. According to Ahmad, “The Kemalists recognized the potential power of the Turkish workers and the threat they posed to their classless, corporatist vision of Turkish society.”35 The CHP’s single-party rule reveals a desire to strictly limit and control legitimate forms of working class association. Moreover, the CHP’s consistent denial of the legitimacy of working class organizations contributed to declining working class support for the party. These were the conditions present when domestic and international pressures facilitated the transition to multiparty politics.

Populism and the transition to multiparty politics (1946–60) The growing importance of the United States at the end of World War II and the subsequent restructuring of the international political system, combined with growing internal discontent with the CHP’s rule, shaped changes in domestic Turkish politics. The restructuring of the international system resulted from the emergence of the United States as a hegemonic power in the capitalist world with the goal of promoting its vision internationally. Under President Truman’s leadership, US foreign policy took on an increasingly hard-line position toward the Soviet Union and communism. For the US, the struggle against communism meant assuring both internal freedom to choose elected governments, and the development of an economic world based on capitalist principles. The Truman Doctrine subsequently placed particular emphasis on helping assure that Greece and Turkey would develop politically and economically along western lines. Through the Marshall Plan, Truman’s program included $400 million of economic help for Turkey and Greece, as well as the offer of military and civil assistance designed to promote democratization.36 On the domestic front, pressures for democratic reforms coalesced around rural complaints of religious oppression and urban complaints of oppressive state control over the economy.37 The driving source of economic opposition came from the nascent commercial elite who were able to profit from the war conditions. Members of this emerging class wanted to free themselves from the state’s economic control. Moreover, Keyder argues that, with the end of  World War II, the rift between the CHP’s bureaucratic elite and the growing commercial elite became a key element of domestic Turkish politics, which combined with social and political discontent with the regime’s

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authoritarianism from peasants and members of the working class to create demands for social and political change.38 Consequently, while economic conditions were creating the groups that would assert a challenge to the CHP, global political changes were driving the political liberalization that, in turn, allowed these opposition forces to participate in Turkish politics. Having chosen to ally Turkey with the US, in 1945 President İnönü declared that “the main shortcoming of Turkish democracy was the lack of an opposition party.”39 On 7 January 1946, the Democrat Party (Demokrat Partisi—DP) officially came into existence. In general, the DP’s ideological and political program shared the CHP’s goal of integration into the capitalist political economy, but placed a greater emphasis on market freedoms. The market, the DP argued, “would bring with it a field of opportunity where economic accomplishment could be pursued independently of the structure of privilege.”40 Despite the fact that the emergent commercial class had the most to benefit from such market reforms, popular elements joined in support of the DP, because of the party’s critique of the CHP’s control over society. As Keyder summarizes, “against the absolutist authority of the bureaucracy, resistance based on universal principles potentially unified elements of all social classes.”41 The advent of multiparty politics, according to Fatih Güngör, “symbolized a new phase from the point of view of working class history.”42 With the establishment of a real opposition party and its appeal to the Turkish working class, combined with international pressure from the United Nations and the International Labor Organization, prohibitions on class-based organizations were lifted on 10 June 1946.43 However, the 1946 Law of Associations still prevented labor unions from engaging in “political activities.”44 According to Toker Dereli, the CHP felt it was important that any unions to emerge as a result of this legislative change “were also national organizations in the sense that they should treat national interests as being above their own economic and organizational interests.”45 The easing of restrictions on class-based associations spurred the formation of working class parties and organizations. On 14 May 1946 the Socialist Party of Turkey (Türkiye Sosyalist Partisi) and on 10 June 1946 the Socialist Worker and Peasant Party of Turkey (Türkiye Sosyalist Emekçi ve Köylü Partisi) were founded. Both of these immediately became active in promoting local, regional, and national union growth.46 The Socialist Worker and Peasant Party, in particular, contributed to the emergence of the Istanbul Labor Union Association—an organization that would play a pivotal role in formation of Turkey’s first national confederation of labor unions. The efforts of these parties, however, were thwarted by the CHP-controlled government on 17 December 1946, when martial law was declared and authorities moved to close “socialist parties and ‘dangerous’ union organizations.”47 İnönü justified these decisions within the context of the Cold War. “Our attempt, with the legal road,” he said, was to prevent the use of “associations and parties as tools of foreign associations and parties.”48 It should be clear, then, that the effort to legalize unions and working class organizations was meant to promote Kemalist populism—welcoming only working class participation in existing state institutions, without promoting organizations and ideologies on the left that would undermine the vision of social harmony. While working class organization

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was controlled or prohibited in the one-party era, in the multiparty era it was to be permitted, but only insofar as it served the electoral and nationalist goals of the major parties. In February 1947, the CHP further responded to domestic and international pressures by adopting legislation (law 5018, the Worker and Employer Unions and Union Associations Law) officially permitting union formation. Yet, this legislation, too, placed strict constraints on acceptable union activity. As a result, Ümit CizreSakallioğlu argues that the CHP’s policy shift did not represent a shift away from populism per se, but rather was “part of a strategy to preempt the subsequent emergence of autonomous unions not dependent on the state.”49 Unions were prohibited from participating in politics and disseminating political propaganda. At the same time, these provisions hardly discouraged both parties from trying to capture union and working class support. For its part, the CHP created a Workers Bureau in 1947, which was designed to gain support among leaders from the labor movement. The DP, on the other hand, began internal discussions that ultimately contributed, in 1949, to the party’s declaration of its support for the right to strike. On the whole, though, the prohibitions included in the 1947 labor law contributed to growing working class discontent with the CHP. This, combined with the DP’s adoption of the belief that the right to strike was necessary for Turkish democracy, helped gain the Democrats important allies in the labor movement. Speaking before party supporters in September 1949, DP leader Celal Bayar declared, “Right next to the unions a strength is neglected. That strength is the right to strike.”50 The DP’s warm relations with unions and the labor movement helped to propel it to victory in the 1950 elections, ending the period of one-party rule. Positive relations between the DP and labor unions continued during its first years in power, helped out, in part, by increasing real wages from 1950–1957.51 Room for the right to strike was included in the May 1950 party program—the party’s first while in power, and debate about supporting the right to strike carried over into the Turkish Grand National Assembly, where one DP deputy from Istanbul proclaimed, “The [right to] strike is a guarantee for workers . . . . In a democracy, it is a freedom for a citizen to work or not to work in the place that one wants . . . . As for giving the [right to] strike to unions—it is a right!”52 While the DP used its support for the right to strike to garner working class electoral support, the CHP failed to respond. On the cusp of losing power, CHP’s Labor Minister Reşad Şemseddin Sirer continued to insist, “Prohibiting the strike and democracy are not contradictory.”53 Citing Italy and France and the specter of communism as reasons against allowing the right to strike in Turkey, Sirer declared, “Not all expressions of democracy are the same.”54 Moreover, he insisted that the CHP could not be called antidemocratic “just because we don’t want strikes and lockouts.”55 President İnönü, too, reflected the delicate line the CHP adopted in trying to reconcile workers’ rights and democracy, by continuing prohibitions on the right to strike. Saying that he could see benefits to the arguments for a right to strike, he nonetheless declared, “Maybe one day, we too, will accept the right to strike.”56 In the end, though, he insisted that the DP’s position regarding the right to strike “is election propaganda.”57

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A first impression, then, might suggest that the DP was offering an alternative to the Kemalist conception of populism adopted by the CHP; such a conclusion, however, would be mistaken. The DP never did put forth the effort needed to legalize the right to strike. By 1952, it was clear that the party’s leaders were reluctant to push for such a right, its spokesman saying that granting unions the right to strike could have negative consequences for the country’s economy, and that the road forward would have to be slow.58 Moreover, reminded of the party’s promise to support the right to strike, Prime Minister Adnan Menderes is reported to have said, “Stop this nonsense. Is Turkey to have strikes? Let’s have some economic development first and then we’ll think about this matter.”59 In fact, by the mid-1950s, the DP had changed its policies regarding the right to strike, and as the economy turned for the worse, unions became a less reliable source of the party’s electoral support.60 In an effort to prevent class-based political action that was not in its interest, the DP, as the CHP before it, moved to suppress working class associations.61 Consequently, as Robert Bianchi points out, the DP’s stance can be viewed as a shift in the qualitative nature of how Turkish state officials confronted social cleavages. Older strategies of relying simply on the repression of class-based groups were “gradually being supplemented by attempts to enlist the support and cooperation of still weak and insecure interest group leaders in implementing economic policies without substantially increasing their political autonomy or widening their roles in policy formation.”62 Indeed, Bianchi quotes one DP official, who despite recognizing the importance of social organizations like unions, declared: We cannot accept the fact that the social classes have irreconcilable interests and have to struggle with each other. . . . This is the sole reason why the Democrat Party is not a class party producing conflicts of interest among the social classes, but on the contrary is a ‘national party’ assembling around itself all those citizens believing in the above principles.63 It has often been pointed out that there was tacit agreement between the Democrat Party and the Republican People’s Party that an independent labor movement would be detrimental to Turkish national interests.64 Consequently, the transition to multiparty politics created a legal context for the controlled emergence of unions that would work with the state.65 In fact, Berik and Bilginsoy submit, “one enduring aspect of state policy toward labor organizations in both the single- and the multiparty period was the repression of independent labor organizations.”66 Several aspects of the political and economic climate of the 1950s nevertheless helped to open opportunities for the Turkish labor movement. Foremost, political opportunities for working class mobilization during the 1950s were created by a marked trend toward urbanization and industrialization in Turkey. In addition, the growth of the working class meant its continued increase in electoral importance. Throughout this period, the DP passed legislation designed to benefit working class needs. This included: “paid weekends, annual leave, statutory bonuses, extensions of the scope of the Labour act and of social security, labor tribunals with a worker serving as judge, subsidized construction loans for workers, [and a] minimum wage.”67 Furthermore, in

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an effort to seize on dissatisfaction within the labor movement over the DP’s failure to grant the right to strike, beginning in 1953 the CHP included support for the right to strike in its party program.68 The 1950s were also important for the structural changes that were beginning to transform Turkish society. With the mechanization of agriculture, the percentage of the population living in urban centers increased from 18.5 to 25.2 over the decade.69 In fact, Keyder points out that, over this ten year period, the population of the four largest cities increased 75%.70 Still, while these changes would help open the road for the organization and activism of the 1960s and 1970s, according the 1955 census, there were just 11.6 million workers in Turkey, with only 14% employed in wage labor.71 In short, the vast majority of Turkish workers continued to toil in nonwage family or agricultural settings. As a result, Keyder concludes, “Class conflict proper to capitalism was still a subordinate current within the totality of social dynamics.”72

Türk-İş and the growth of working class organizational strength Without question, though, the most important development within the Turkish labor movement during the DP’s rule was the emergence of the Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş) as the first national confederation of labor unions in Turkey. The emergence of Türk-İş followed the formation of the first union federations as well as regional union organizations in the industrial centers of Istanbul, Izmir, Ankara, Zonguldak, and Adana after the passage of law 5018. In the late 1940s and early 1950s the goal of forming a confederation of labor unions gained domestic and international support. Domestically, support for forming a national confederation of labor unions was solidified in an April 1952 meeting of union leaders and activists hosted by the Istanbul Labor Union Association. On 31 July 1952 Türk-İş was officially created. The goals that the founders of the confederation charged the organization with indicate the sources of domestic support for the formation of a national labor union confederation. Türk-İş’s goals included: the creation of unions in industries that still had no unionization; strengthening union centralization by bringing together unions in the same industry (especially within the same city); increasing government spending on social assistance; extending labor union rights to all citizens in all industrial sectors; and introducing the right to strike.73 International support for the development of a national confederation of labor unions resulted from the Cold War strategy of preventing the emergence of radical, communist labor movements throughout the world. The US government (and its Marshall Plan authorities), the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, the AFL, and the US Agency for International Development, believed that the formation of a national labor union confederation would make it easier to have influence over the Turkish labor movement in general.74 Irving Brown, who served as the AFL’s director in Europe after World War II, and was charged with bringing American influence to

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European labor unions, attended the April 1952 meeting that led to Türk-İş’s creation. In discussing the particular influence of American unionism on the formation of Türk-İş, Brown states: “American unions were willing to share their beliefs with anyone: These include, for example, a unionism independent from the government, independent from the bosses, and independent from religion.”75 From an international perspective, there was a certain danger to the economic crisis that followed World War II, which presented an opportunity for communist control of postwar unionism. As Brown states, “We wanted to help unions, because we were on the side of a free unionism. . . . In particular we were opposed to the Russian system where unions were used for the purposes of the party, the government.”76 Brown, however, acknowledges that the creation of Türk-İş depended more on domestic support for a national labor union confederation: “Türk-İş was created directly from the side of the workers in Turkey and we helped them.”77 According to Brown, “We said that in every country that has a national, united union [movement] it has been better.”78 Especially during its early years, the rhetoric utilized by leaders in Türk-İş was in line with the Kemalist principle of populism. Toward this end, in its original governing laws, Türk-İş pledged not to organize “in a religious manner and not to use philosophical beliefs and political propaganda in struggle.”79 Rather, Türk-İş declared itself a “nationalist organization,” independent of political parties and the government. According to its governing laws, the confederation should not be used in political party propaganda or as a tool for spreading it, nor should it be “a tool for the advancement of foreign state ideologies.”80 Berik and Bilginsoy conclude, “Türk-İş’s unionism was premised on the harmony of class interest, which opposed class-based politics and fitted neatly with the nationalist ideology.”81 DP officials recognized the emergence of Türk-İş as an opportunity to cut off any militancy of rank-and-file union members and control the union movement through ties with its leadership. Subsequently, the DP aligned with Türk-İş in a semicorporatist relationship, whereby in return for popular support, the DP would pass legislation favorable to Türk-İş (and workers more generally).82 In essence, in an effort to prevent political action based on class interests, the state, under the DP, continued to control and limit the political action of working class organizations. David Waldner offers three indicators of the continuity of the principles of populism during the DP’s rise to power: First, the formation of an alliance with labor was the project of state elites seeking societal support and not a response to the demands of a powerful labor movement. Second, the alliance rested on state provision of material benefits in the form of public goods. Third, labor unions were compelled to accept organizational weakness and political marginality as the price of these material benefits.83 The DP’s strategy of appealing to workers was one that sought to mobilize popular support without transforming the enduring desire to limit and control working class associations and therefore the legitimacy of class based politics. That workers supported the DP despite its nonprogressive policies reflects the relative underdevelopment of the Turkish labor movement during this period, rather than “false consciousness.” It

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also reflects labor leaders’ strategic choices given incentive structures, and especially after 1958, when the DP (and Prime Minister Menderes), more openly used religion to gain popular appeal, it reflects the complexity of subjectivity insofar as other nonclass bases of collective subjectivity undercut a distinctly class-based solidarity. Still, the DP was unable to achieve a lasting corporatist relationship with Türk-İş. In the late 1950s, as a result of economic hardships and the DP’s enduring support for constraints on working class rights and political participation, Türk-İş began more publicly advocating for eliminating legal obstacles to union growth and power.84 A 1959 report from Türk-İş’s Representatives Committee declared, “For the development of Turkish unionism, there is a need for a new draft law. When this legislation is prepared, there needs to be room made for union representation.”85 Moreover, the report concluded, “Nowhere in the world can you create a free bargaining system where the right to strike isn’t realized.”86

Conclusion From its foundation in 1923 until the first military intervention in 1960, the Turkish state and the political parties that held power shared a view that denied the saliency of class differences. In short, Turkish national ideology was based on the premise that class antagonism did not exist, and consequently there was no legitimate basis for class-based political action. The Kemalist tenet of populism was the central feature of Turkish national ideology that embodied this belief; a belief that was enforced through public policy designed to limit, control, or prohibit working class association and political activity. In the end, even the transition of power to the Democrat Party did not mark a shift away from the prior understanding of populism. Rather, the DP utilized political strategies designed to preempt societal challenges to populism. Marcie Patton summarizes this shift in stating, “Regime transformation to democratic rule in 1950 precipitated a shift in regime strategy from exclusion to contingent political incorporation without there being any alteration in commitment to Kemalist principles.”87 Nonetheless, the legal changes that accompanied the transition to multiparty politics were important insofar as they provided the catalyst and initial opening of political opportunities for the emergence and growth of the Turkish labor movement. Indeed, dissatisfaction with legislation concerning labor unions, distress at the inability to address industrial conflicts in a timely or satisfying manner through collective bargaining or the courts, combined with increased urbanization, migration, and industrialization, created the conditions for future labor movement growth and the organization and diffusion of an alternative collective subjectivity within the Turkish labor movement.88 Indeed, the first major military intervention into Turkish politics on 27 May 1960 presented for labor activists a radical opening of political opportunity structures. After 10 years of Democrat Party rule the Turkish military ousted the DP government and elicited the support of university professors to draw up a new Turkish constitution. The new constitution safeguarded the right of workers to organize, form unions, and even to strike. These constitutional provisions were translated into public policy through

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the Act on Trade Unions and the Act on Collective Bargaining, Strikes, and Lockouts, both adopted in  1963 after pressure from organized labor. For the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic, the right to strike was legally granted. In addition, the legislation permitted union shops (where nonunion members could be required to pay fair-share dues), and prohibited the hiring of permanent replacement workers as a means to break strikes.89 In short, the stage was set for the growth and maturation of the Turkish labor movement. In the following chapter, I turn to the evaluation of labor movement activism during this critical juncture in the development of the Turkish labor movement. I will argue that the nature of collective subjectivity forged by Turkish labor movement activism in the 1960s and 1970s made it increasingly likely to concentrate on state–labor interactions and challenge the legitimacy of the Turkish state—shifting collective understandings of politics, rather than shying away from political action and concentrating on labor–capital interactions. Moreover, the following chapters examine how, in the decades that followed, the Turkish labor movement affected the development of state–society relations.

Notes 1 Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998), 156. 2 See, for example, Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1993), 56. 3 Ayse Kadioğlu, “The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction of Official Identity,” in Turkey: Identity, Democracy, Politics, ed. Sylvia Kedourie. (London: Frank Cass, 1996), 184. 4 Zürcher, 195. 5 Enver Ziya Karal, “The principles of Kemalism” in Atatürk: Founder of a Modern State, eds. Ali Kazancigil & Ergun Özbudun. (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1981), 28. 6 For greater detail on these reforms see Zürcher, 194–5, and Kadioğlu, 186. 7 For further reading on People’s Houses, see Arzu Öztürkmen, “The Role of People’s Houses in the Making of National Culture in Turkey,” New Perspectives on Turkey, 11 (Fall 1994): 159–81, and M. Asim Karaömerlioglu, “The People’s Houses and the Cult of the Peasant in Turkey,” in Turkey Before and After Atatürk: Internal and External Affairs, ed. Sylvia Kedourie. (London: Frank Cass, 1999). 8 For an overview of the CHP’s wielding legislative and police power to enforce their vision, see Zürcher, 176–82. 9 Çağlar Keyder, “The Dilemma of Cultural Identity on the Margin of Europe,” Review 16, no. 1 (1993): 24. 10 Indeed, the lack of social acceptance of the Kemalist ideology is precisely what Mardin describes as the Republic’s center-periphery problem. Şerif Mardin, “Center-Periphery Relations: A Key to Turkish Politics?” in Post-Traditional Societies, ed. S.N. Eisenstadt. (New York, W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 1974). 11 Ziya Gökalp, The Principles of Turkism, trans. Robert Devereux. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968), 65. 12 Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labor in Society, trans. W. D. Halls. (New York: The Free Press, 1997), 295.

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18 19 20

21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

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Evaluating Social Movement Impacts Gökalp, 123. Bianchi, 100. Quoted in Bianchi, 101. Ahmad, “Making,” 79. See, for example, Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 2nd Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). 466–7. According to Lewis, “the explicit rejection of class-war ideologies by [Atatürk] in his opening speech [at the Izmir Economic Congress] set the keynote for the congress, and indeed for the social and economic ideologies of the Kemalist state, for a number of years.” Quoted in Bianchi, 102. Quoted in Ahmad, “Making,” 65. For an overview of the strike wave that accompanied the Young Turk revolution of 1908, see, Donald Quataert, Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 1881-1908: Reactions to European Economic Penetration (New York: New York University Press, 1983). Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 68. Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 (London: C. Hurst & Company, 1977), 7. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 68. Yıldırım Koç, Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Tarihi (Turkey Working Class and Unionist History) (Ankara: Yol-İş, 2003), 52. Ahmad, “Experiment,” 7. Feroz Ahmad, “The Development of Working-Class Consciousness in Turkey,” in Workers and Working Classes in the Middle East: Struggles, Histories, Historiographies, ed. Zachary Lockman. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 136. Indeed, this effort to co-opt the first of May proved largely successful as the next significant labor protests on May Day did not occur until 1976. Çağlar Keyder, State and Class in Turkey: A Study in Capitalist Development (London: Verso, 1987), 89. Ibid., 97. Ibid., 104–5. Ahmad, “Development,” 141. Erol Kahveci, “The Miners of Zonguldak,” in Work and Occupation in Modern Turkey, eds. Erol Kahveci, Nadir Sugur, and Theo Nichols. (London: Mansell, 1996), 183. Ibid., 182. Ibid., 184. Ahmad, “Development,” 137 and Cahit Talas, İçtimai İktisat (Social Economics) (Ankara: Ajans Türk Matbaası, 1961), 212. Ibid., 136. Fatih Güngör, “1946-1960 Döneminde Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Hareketi ve Demokrasi” (“The Turkish Labor Movement and Democracy in the 1946–1960 Period”), in Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Hareketleri İçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelişimi (The Development of Democratic Concepts in the Union Movement in Turkey), ed. Alpaslan Işıklı. (Ankara: Kalkan Matbaacılık, 2002), 133–4. Keyder, “Political,” 40. Keyder, “State,” 110.

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61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

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Zürcher, 221. Keyder, “State,” 118. Ibid., 122. Güngör, 131. Günseli Berik and Cihan Bilginsoy, “The Labor Movement in Turkey: Labor Pains, Maturity, Metamorphosis,” in The Social History of Labor in the Middle East, ed. Ellis Jay Goldberg. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 41, and Güngör, 131. Bianchi, 114. Toker Dereli, The Development of Turkish Trade Unionism (Istanbul: Istanbul University Faculty of Economics, 1968), 77. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 69; and Güngör, 145. Güngör, 131. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 70. Ümit Cizre-Sakallioğlu, “Labour and State in Turkey: 1960-1980,” Middle Eastern Studies 28, no. 4 (1992): 714. M. Şehmus Güzel, Türkiye’de İşçi Hareketi: Yazılar Belgeler (The Labor Movement in Turkey: Writings and Documents) (Istanbul: Sezari Ekinci Matbaası, 1993), 255. Koç, “Türkiye,” 95. Güzel, 261. Quoted in Güngör, 165. Ibid., 166. Ibid. Ibid., 167. Ibid. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 70. Quoted in Ahmad, “Making,” 110. Mehmet Beşeli, “1960-1980 Döneminde Sendikacılık Hareketleri İçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelişimi” (“The Development of Democratic Concepts in the Turkish Union Movement in the 1960-1980 Period”), in Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Hareketleri İçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelişimi (The Development of Democratic Concepts in the Union Movement in Turkey), ed. Alpaslan Işıklı. (Ankara: Kalkan Matbaacılık, 2002), 204–7. Yıldırım Koç, Workers and Trade Unions in Turkey (Ankara: Demircioğlu Printing Co., 1999), 37. Bianchi, 106. Ibid., 104–5. See, for example, Ahmad, “Development,” 142; Berik and Bilginsoy; and Bianchi, 104–5. Güngör, 131. Berik and Bilginsoy, 41. Yıldırım Koç, Workers and Trade Unions in Turkey (Ankara: Demircioğlu Printing Co., 1999), 36–7. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 71. Keyder, “Political,” 44.

78 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

83 84

85 86 87 88 89

Evaluating Social Movement Impacts Keyder, “State,” 137. Koç, “Türkiye,” 71. Keyder, “State,” 142. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türk-İş,” 328. Güngör, 172. Kenan Öztürk, Amerikan Sendikacılığı ve Türkiye: İlk İlişkiler (American Unionism and Turkey: Initial Relations), (Istanbul: Türkiye Sosyal Tarih Araşrırma Vakfı, 2004), 16. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 30. Ibid. “Türk-İş’s Governing Laws (1952)” (“Türk İşçi Sendikaları Konfederasyonu Ana Nizamnamesi (1952)”), in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarihi Vol. 1, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 3. Ibid., 4 Berik and Bilginsoy, 42. Concerning the notion of corporatism, Collier and Collier define a corporatist labor organization as one that results from state structuring, is state subsidized, and state constrained. Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, The Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), 51. David Waldner, State Building and Late Development (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999), 64. The AFL-CIO also played a role in urging Türk-İş to resist control over the confederation by the DP. Toward this end, Irving Brown recalls, “The first ten years in the life of [Türk-İş], there was a struggle to be independent from the political parties, from the government, from the bosses.” Öztürk, 19–20. “Türk-İş’s Representatives Committee Summary Report (1959)” (“Türk-İş Mümessiller Heyeti’ne Sunulan Rapor(1959)”), in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarihi Vol. 1, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 197. Ibid., 198. Marcie J. Patton, “Strategies of Exclusion and Inclusion in Turkey vis-à-vis Kurds and Islamists: La Fin du Kemalisme, or Le Kemalisme Devoye,” Unpublished Manuscript. Concerning the ineffectiveness of the procedures outlined by the 1946 Law on Associations, and legislation passed in 1950 establishing a court system for adjudicating industrial disputes, see Dereli, 84–8; 97. For a more detailed analysis of the provisions of this legislation see, for example, Dereli, 111–28.

4

Recognition and Redistribution: The Politics and Impact of Labor Insurgency in Turkey, 1960–80

This chapter examines the interaction between the labor movement in Turkey during the 1960s and 1970s and other actors within the Turkish state and social groups. In this analysis, therefore, I seek answers to two questions: first, what was the nature of the collective subjectivity forged by labor activism during this critical juncture in state–labor relations in Turkey and second, what impact did this activism have on state–society relations? The answer to the first question will be revealed in the process of addressing the second. Turkish labor insurgency, I will argue, came to embody an alternative collective subjectivity best described as Turkish leftist nationalism. It was an alternative collective subjectivity critical of what was understood as the most important threat to Turkish sovereignty—economic inequality and the growing influence of international capital. Thus, the labor movement was critical of what it saw as lingering feudal relations—especially in Kurdish regions; the growing influence of American capitalist and military influence; and the state’s failure to help the poor, unemployed, and marginal elements of Turkish society. As part of this leftist organization, the labor movement offered an alternative vision for Turkish politics, economics, and society—one that stressed independence from foreign capital and military interests and one that advocated a positive role for the state in addressing lingering economic inequities. In evaluating the impact of the Turkish labor movement during the 1960s and 1970s, this chapter applies the explanatory framework developed in Chapter 1. I draw from existing models in order to explain the emergence of a social movement that forged an alternative collective subjectivity, and begin evaluating the impact of this movement by focusing on the way it contributed to changes in public policy, changes in political party platforms and subsequent electoral results, and on the policing of protests and counter mobilization. In particular, labor movement activism contributed to changes in political party platforms and the electoral success of parties supportive of labor. It also contributed to changes in public policy—in ways that both addressed working-class concerns and that sought to curb the more radical elements of the labor movement. Finally, the impact of labor movement activism can be seen in state repression of protests, as well as in rightwing counter-mobilization. Throughout the chapter, I examine four distinct events—the coal miners’ wildcat strike in  1965, the general strike in Istanbul in 1970, the 1977 May Day rally, and the protests that swept

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through Izmir in early 1980—demonstrating that they are better understood as crucial moments in a shared process that illustrates the importance and formation of an alternative collective subjectivity. Much attention in recent political science and sociology has been given to the origins of social movements, revolutions, and other similar forms of contentious politics. Furthermore, unlike other areas of study in the social sciences, analysts of contentious politics have actively sought to draw insights from divergent theoretical approaches. Such an integrated approach to the study of social movements is offered by, for example, Doug McAdam’s study of the rise and decline of black insurgency in the United States. The first part of this chapter offers an empirical extension of such an approach to the explanation of social movement emergence to the case of the labor movement in Turkey. The predominant view of the labor movement in Turkey is one that sees the movement as relatively inconsequential to the development of Turkish state–society relations. This conclusion is based on three lines of reasoning: first, the notion that the state granted labor rights and freedoms without a protracted struggle from below, second, the notion that the military coup of 1980 effectively crushed the Turkish labor movement, and finally, the belief that the Turkish labor movement became hampered by internal divisions resulting from abstract theoretical debates. For example, Mehmet Beşeli concludes that the granting of political rights prior to political struggle is the most important reason for “The limited role of the union movement in democratic developments.”1 After highlighting the repression of labor activism in the 1980s, Günseli Berik and Cihan Bilginsoy argue, “the labor movement in Turkey did not play an active role in the political and economic transformation of the country.”2 Alpaslan Işıklı declares, “it is not possible to speak of a unionization movement with any determining influence during the principal turning points of the democratic history of Turkey.”3 Metin Heper concludes, “It is in Turkey . . . that interest groups have been virtually ignored.”4 Ahmet Samim sees the factional conflict between socialists, communists, and social democrats that emerged in Turkish labor activism during the 1970s as a waste of resources that contributed to the failure to generate enough popular support to resist repression. “Instead of demonstrating that there were rational and reachable alternatives to the urgent – and obviously social problems of every day life,” he laments, “Turkish socialists offered voluminous debates on whether or not the ‘Theory of Three Worlds’ was opportunist.”5 Applying insights from the political process model, I argue instead that the emergence of labor insurgency in the 1960s and 1970s contributed to profound increases in unionization; increased militant actions ranging from strikes to workplace occupations to demonstrations; the emergence, growth, and eventual state–imposed closure of the Turkish Workers’ Party; the internal debate that led to the Republican People’s Party shift to the left-of-center; and the counter mobilization of rightist and ultranationalist groups contributing to growing political violence. Moreover, this period was characterized by the development of what March and Olsen term “alternative institutions”. During these tense decades, these alternative institutions carried with them new logics of appropriateness, or what I term alternative collective subjectivities, which shaped contentious working-class action. Were the wildcat strikes at Zonguldak

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Table 4.1  Strikes, workers affected, and number of workdays lost (1963–80)

1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980

Number of strikes

Number of workers involved

Number of workdays lost

8 83 46 42 101 54 77 72 78 48 55 110 116 58 59 87 126 220

1,514 6,640 6,593 11,414 9,499 5,289 12,601 21,156 10,916 14,879 12,286 25,546 13,708 7,240 15,682 9,748 21,011 84,832

19,739 238,261 336,836 430,104 350,037 174,905 235,134 220,189 476,116 659,362 671,135 1,109,401 668,797 325,830 1,397,124 426,127 1,147,721 1,303,253

Source: Oya Baydar, Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Hareketi (The Unionist Movement in Turkey) (Istanbul: FES Istanbul, 1998), 35 and Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türkiye’de Grevler,” 493.

in 1965, the 15 and 16 June protests in 1970, and May Day rally in 1977, and the conflict that engulfed the entire section of Izmir in early 1980 to have been the only evidence of labor militancy it would be easier to cast them as outliers—as exceptions that prove the overall weakness and underdevelopment of Turkish unionism and working-class consciousness. However, there were dozens of other actions involving Turkish labor activists during the 1960s and 1970s.6 From workers’ involvement in protests against the arrival of the US Navy’s 6th fleet in July 1967, to the Great Teacher Boycott of 1969, to the refusal of unions to give in to austerity demands through strikes, factory occupations, and democracy rallies in 1979 and 1980, labor activism had a profound impact on the shaping of Turkish state–society relations. Although reliable statistics are difficult to come by, Table 4.1 provides a reasonable picture of strike activity, just one type of labor militancy during this period.

Political process and the emergence of labor insurgency In his analysis of the emergence of civil rights activism, Doug McAdam demonstrates that movement emergence is shaped by broader structural changes—changes that challenge the enduring bases of ideological, political, economic, and social contexts; by the type and availability of organizational resources (as well as the willingness of

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movement leaders to utilize them); and by the way individuals and groups interpret their political, economic and social context and interactions with other actors. Examining these criteria, I suggest, can help explain the rise of labor movement insurgency in Turkey during the1960s and 1970s. In short, the 1960s and 1970s saw the development of an important labor insurgency in Turkey. This insurgency, as Chapter 3 demonstrates, was rooted in transnational changes in the 1940s and 1950s that promoted democratic reforms and economic changes in the 1950s that included the mechanization of agriculture and industrialization—both of which contributed to increasing urbanization. Combined, these events challenged older forms of social order, disrupting patterns of social cohesion, fostered elite conflict, and created the space for “new interpretations of reality and the innovative lines of action that follow.”7 The importance of financial and organizational resources to the explanation of movement emergence has been highlighted by the articulation of the resource mobilization model for explaining social movement emergence. Among the useful aspects of these explanations which McAdam incorporates into the political process model is the notion that social movements seem to be “dependent on some combination of formal and informal groups for their persistence and success.”8 The emergence and strengthening of working-class organizations in Turkey highlighted in Chapter 3 provided the resource base necessary for the emergence of labor insurgency in the 1960s and 1970s. In his statement on its tenth anniversary, the President of Türk-İş Seyfi Demirsoy pointed out that in 10 years, the confederation had grown to six regions with between 210,000 and 300,000 members.9 This growth in numerical strength was accompanied by the financial resources provided, in particular, by the United States Agency for International Development. In the case of the Turkish labor movement, the local, regional, and national labor organizations that emerged in response to changing national and international economic and political conditions provided the nascent organizational and resource base for the growth of labor movement activism. Opportunities for working-class organization were also promoted by the emergence of elite conflict in the late 1950s. McAdam points out that when broader social, political, and economic conditions become uncertain, the likelihood for elite conflict increases. Elite conflict can, in turn, “serve simultaneously to render a given political system more vulnerable to challenge and to telegraph this fact to previously unorganized and nominally apolitical segments of the population. By encouraging the latter to mobilize, these instances of institutionalized conflict evolve into broader episodes of popular contention.”10 Thus, even while we can note continuity between the Republican People’s Party’s tenet of populism and the Democrat Party’s unwillingness to expand the legitimate scope of working-class associational rights, electoral support of the working class became an increasing source of conflict between CHP and DP political elites. Recall, for example, that after the DP failed to act on its promise to implement the right to strike, the CHP began to support the right to strike in its party platforms beginning in 1953. Furthermore, oral histories of Türk-İş union activists who first became involved in the labor movement during the 1950s suggest that, in fact, this elite contention

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did contribute to growing popular contention. One unionist affiliated with the cotton industry Vahap Güvenç recalled, “Until 1955–56 the DP supported workers’ rights . . . . Most of the workers were Democrats.”11 Yet, as the DP continued to curb working-class associative rights, this support waned. For example, Sadık Şide, who, in 1974, was elected the General Secretary of Türk-İş, recalled, “Both in the CHP period and in the DP period there was pressure. The security forces were always watching. Some unionists were detained in cells in the police stations. Unionists were always accused of being communists.”12 Fahri Karakaya, who eventually rose to be president of a national textiles union, recalled one run-in he and his fellow unionists had with the local security forces in January 1959. One of the union organizers, he recalled, “couldn’t stand on his feet for sixty-five days. . . . After this event, I lost my love for the DP, and I left the DP.”13 Indeed, one former activist concluded, by the time of the 1960 coup, “The Democrat Party was losing its electoral base in industrial cities such as Istanbul, Zonguldak, and Adana.”14 The first major military intervention into Turkish politics on 27 May 1960 presented for labor activists a radical opening of political opportunity structures. After 10 years of Democrat Party rule the Turkish military ousted the DP government and elicited the support of university professors to draw up a new constitution. The new constitution declared the Turkish Republic a “social state,” subsequently expanding the scope of rights and freedoms for the Turkish people. As part of this expansion of rights, the new constitution safeguarded the right of workers to organize, form unions, and even to strike. Of these changes in the institutional structure of the Turkish political system, Kemal Karpat concludes, “The constitutional rights granted to labor, the sympathetic intellectual interests in the workers’ problems, the regime of freedom after the elections of 1961, and the weak coalition governments from 1961 to 1965 created favorable conditions for labor activities.”15 Political opportunities for the expansion of the Turkish labor movement were also fostered by the period of rapid industrialization and social change that continued throughout the 1960s. Feroz Ahmad states: By the end of the 1960s, the character of Turkey’s economy and society had changed almost beyond recognition. Before the 1960s, Turkey had been predominantly agrarian with a small industrial sector dominated by the state. By the end of the decade, a substantial private industrial sector had emerged so much so that industry’s contribution to the GNP almost equaled that of agriculture, overtaking it in  1973. This was matched by rapid urbanization as peasants flocked to the towns and cities in search of jobs and a better way of life.16 In short, just as the rapid social and economic transformations of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century marked critical junctures in the development of the British and American labor movements, similar transformations helped make the 1960s and 1970s a critical juncture in the development of Turkish state–labor relations. In each case, these critical junctures were characterized by the emergence of new institutions for organizing the working class. As March and Olsen argue new institutions that emerge

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out of such critical junctures can potentially alter the experiences of individuals in ways that reduce the legitimacy of what was once deemed “appropriate behavior.”17 McAdam points out that broader structural changes, the availability of resources, and changes of political opportunity structures only matter insofar as activists interpret these as either openings or threats, and then use the resources available to them in order to mobilize popular contention.18 That new opportunities were recognized by movement activists and labor organizers—that new institutions presented individuals with altered standards of appropriate behavior—is evident in the mobilization of union activism calling for legislation enforcing the constitutionally protected rights to organize and strike; in the interpretation of working-class concerns offered by the increasing number of union members; and in the formation of the Turkish Workers’ Party (Türk İşçi Partisi—TİP). Between the adoption of the new constitution on 9 July 1961 and the passage of legislation formally permitting union rights and collective bargaining, several actions were held in order to push for the actualization of constitutionally guaranteed union rights. The most important action was held in Istanbul on 31 December 1961. The Saraçhane meeting was attended by 140 worker organizations and over 100,000 workers.19 While workers carried banners and placards with slogans such as “to the deputies raises, to the workers grief,” “we want social justice,” and “we want unconditional strike,” union leader İbrahim Denizcier told the audience, “The right to strike, for the worker, is as important as oxygen is for life to continue.”20 This political pressure was translated into public policy through the Act on Trade Unions and the Act on Collective Bargaining, Strikes, and Lockouts, both adopted in 1963. For the first time in the history of the Turkish Republic the right to strike was legally granted. In addition, the legislation permitted union shops (where nonunion members could be required to pay fair-share dues), and prohibited the hiring of permanent replacement workers as a means to break strikes.21 Interviews, oral histories, and other accounts drawn from unionists active during the early 1960s further demonstrate a growing working-class awareness that opportunities for the growth of the Turkish labor movement were opening. One particularly useful source for understanding exactly how Turkish labor activists interpreted these changes is the oral history project conducted by Türk-İş from 1987 to 1998.22 For instance, Ali Riza Akkemik, a union activist who worked for the regional directorate of the state highway system in İzmir, recalled “I didn’t hear of resistance in the highway [system] in the period before I entered the job. Until 1963–64 there wasn’t resistance. In fact, until 1960 the union didn’t have that much of a function.”23 After 1960, though, the union assumed a greater purpose as a result of enhanced regional and national coordination following the formation of a national union to represent highway workers, Yol-İş.24 Another activist, Orhan Erçelik, affiliated with the State Water Works in Kayseri, recalled following with deep interest the constitutional debates as well as the debate over new labor legislation. Of his own growing awareness of working-class concerns, he reflected: I have no patience for injustice. In those years we didn’t know many of our rights. For example, let’s say a worker became sick; workplace leaders wouldn’t give

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visitation papers. I would go and stand firm. ‘Why won’t you give [permission],’ I said. If the boss said ‘you’re not sick,’ I would remind him of the law. The boss couldn’t decide whether or not the worker was really sick.25 That workers interpreted these changes as an opening of opportunities is perhaps best exemplified in the title of Engin Ünsal’s account of the growth of Turkish labor activism: İşçiler Uyanıyor (The Workers are Awakening).26 Finally, and perhaps most significantly, that Turkish labor activists interpreted the early 1960s as a period of expanding opportunities for collective action is demonstrated by the formation of the Turkish Workers’ Party. TİP was formed on 13 February 1961 by a coalition of 12 labor union activists. From its inception, TİP advanced the belief that economic progress was only possible through a noncapitalist path of development—a path that highlighted the importance of the state acting in the interest of the working classes.27 The party argued that the Kemalist tenet of populism, with its denial of class differences, allowed the growth of a comprador capitalist class, which acted in the interest of international capital, not the Turkish people.28 According to party literature, the open market was harmful to Turkish interests because, as an underdeveloped country, Turkey was being exploited in the free market for the benefit of more developed countries.29 In his conversations with workers throughout the country, Ünsal provides an overview of the way workers understood the need for a political party. The general secretary of the mining union Maden İş, Ruhi Yümnü, for instance, argued: “If a political party is established in parliament, it would strengthen the representation of unions.”30 President of Lastik-İş Sendikası (the Rubber Workers’ union) and future TİP party representative Rıza Kuas declared, “Just as in the body two arms and two legs are necessary, so too both unions and a party are necessary.”31 When asked why he supported TİP, Ahmet Top of the Gaziantep Association of Unions answered: Because those who sit in parliament are not on the side of labor and the laws they pass do not benefit the worker. If we put representatives of peasants and workers in parliament then this situation would change and laws to our benefit would be passed. So far we have struggled as unionists but this produced no results. On this issue we are willing to collaborate with intellectuals who are on the side of labor. If we as workers don’t gather around a political center, we will achieve success with difficulty.32 In short, the acknowledgment of the need for both unions and a party among certain labor movement leaders and activists is indicative of a crucial difference between the subjectivity of labor activists in Turkey and their American counterparts. At first, members of Türk-İş’s leadership supported TİP, but after 1962, following the urging of allies in other political parties, a number of them withdrew their support.33 These disagreements became exacerbated with the growth of Turkish labor activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Nonetheless, support for TİP’s formation, combined with the direct action that preceded the labor legislation of 1963 and accounts presenting

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activists’ own interpretation of this period, demonstrates that labor movement activists did interpret the early 1960s as an opportunity for advancing movement activism.

The rise of an alternative collective subjectivity Turning away from the causes that explain the emergence of labor insurgency to focus on the nature of that insurgency, in this section I argue that the labor movement in Turkey developed and sustained an alternative collective subjectivity, and that this alternative collective subjectivity was fundamentally linked to the new institutions that emerged within the Turkish labor movement. The nature of this alternative collective subjectivity and its impact on the development of Turkish state–society relations are revealed in three ways: First, its emergence can be highlighted through examination of the growing competition between Türk-İş and its more militant and leftist offshoot, the Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions [Devrimci İşçi Sendikası Konfederasyonu (DİSK)]. Part of this competition can be explained by the way in which the position of workers and union leaders within the broader institutional structure of the Turkish economy shaped the ideological outlook of union leaders and activists. Second, the strength of this alternative collective subjectivity can be seen in the internal debate that pushed Türk-İş to embrace a social democratic unionism. Finally, four key events—the 1965 wildcat strike of coalminers in Zonguldak, the 15 and 16 June 1970 protests, the 1977 May Day rally in Istanbul, and the January/February 1980 protests in Izmir— reveal the nature of labor movement collective subjectivity at the rank-and-file and leadership level. These moments of contention, I contend, reinforced the socialist and radical ideologies that many labor activists already held, and pushed some workers and labor leaders toward a more radical political unionism. By the middle of the 1960s, the Turkish labor movement had taken on a stable form, which involved four levels of organization: the local, birliks (regional across industries), federations (national within an industry), and confederations (multiple nationals). As the differences over support for TİP demonstrated, divergences between unions in terms of strategy and the role of political unionism also shaped this increased labor movement activism. In general, the strategic outlook of particular unions has been explained with reference to the nature of labor/capital relations in which the growth of union activism in the 1960s occurred, and to the subsequent preference of various union leaders. In different studies of the Turkish labor movement, Robert Bianchi and Toker Dereli have demonstrated that the development of collective subjectivities within unions and the subsequent inclination toward political activism tends to vary depending on the type of industry (state–run vs. private), and the type of industry management (younger managers, older paternalists, and commercial profiteers).34 In general, during the early 1960s, the most conservative unions—those least inclined toward socialist or social democratic political unionism—were found in state economic enterprises. These unions demonstrated a willingness to forego militancy and political unionism in favor of material benefits and business unionism when the economy was good and such benefits were to be had, but became more militant and explicitly

Recognition and Redistribution Private Sector

Public Sector

87 Total

1200000 1000000 800000 600000 400000 200000 0

80 19 79 19 78 19 77 19 76 19 75 19 74 19 73 19 72 19 71 19 70 19 68 19 68 19 67 19 66 19 65 19 64 19 63 19

Figure 4.1  Public sector, private sector, and total union membership, 1960–80 political beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s when the economy suffered and benefits diminished. On the other hand, during the early 1960s, unions most inclined toward socialist and/or social democratic political unionism were located primarily in privately owned industries. Figure 4.1 presents an overview of membership in public and private sector unions. Those opposed to political unionism drew inspiration from their American counterparts. Halil Tunç, for example, said that he did not support TİP because there needed to be “union consciousness” before political organization. “In those years,” he recalled, “you could find Justice Party unions, CHP unions.” Consequently, politics would have to wait until unions could be “independent from political parties.”35 In late January and early February, 1964, at its fifth general convention, Türk-İş moved toward the adoption of an official policy of remaining “above party politics” (partiler üstü politikası). The actual implication of this stance was not a complete avoidance of political concerns. In fact, in the 1965 general elections Türk-İş published a blacklist in Milliyet Gazetesi that opposed ten candidates for parliament. Subsequently, the confederation waged an active campaign against nine of them because of their opposition to workers and unions.36 From one point of view, the adoption of an “above party politics” stance was inspired by TİP and the uneasiness of some Türk-İş leaders with members who sympathized with the party. From another point of view, remaining nominally above party politics made a good deal of strategic sense to Türk-İş’s leadership, as it allowed the confederation to continue to force the parties in power and in opposition to compete for its support. Indeed, social science theory tells us that when labor mobilization comes to challenge the state, state actors will be more likely to move to co-opt and/or repress labor.37 In relation to the Turkish labor movement during the 1960s and 1970s, various actors within the Turkish state increasingly engaged both in strategies of contingent inclusion and repression. Efforts to incorporate unions into the state were central to the Democrat Party’s successor, the Justice Party (Adalet Partisi—AP), which sought to harness the electoral support of the working class, while simultaneously stifling the potential for labor unions to exhibit autonomous political power.

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To be sure, the leadership of Türk-İş demonstrated a keen awareness of the potential material and political benefits that amicable ties to the dominant political party might elicit. That Türk-İş leaders’ strategies (especially during the 1960s) were influenced by this set of incentive structures is evident in at least three ways: First, through the decision to remain nominally above party politics. Second, recognizing the chance to enhance their material and political goals, Türk-İş’s leadership supported the Justice Party’s effort in the 1970 revisions to the laws governing union representation. This legislation, which will be discussed at greater length below, required a union to represent at least one-third of the workers in an industry in order to gain status as a legal representative, strengthening the position of Türk-İş as the largest confederation of labor unions in Turkey. Finally, the leadership of Türk-İş was careful to distance itself from militant union actions. In particular, the leadership of the national confederation moved to purge perceived socialist influences from the mine workers’ union responsible for the wildcat strikes in Zonguldak in 1965 and punished affiliated unions that offered support to striking factory workers at the Paşabahçe Glassworks in 1966.38 Nonetheless, these efforts at incorporating labor unions into the state’s ideological and institutional framework were not as successful as some critics of Türk-İş and of the labor movement in Turkey in general would have us believe. That efforts to incorporate labor unions—to head off political unionism and the development of a movement built on an alternative collective subjectivity—were unsuccessful is evident by examining major protests of the period, as well as, by ultimate recognition within the leadership of Türk-İş that the continued success of DİSK as a rival, owed to the latter’s ability to offer its increasing membership an alternative basis of solidarity in political unionism and a rejection of the state’s interpretation of legitimate behavior for workers and unions. Thus, a closer examination of key episodes of contention helps to reveal how the emergence of political radicalism resulted from the way in which particular moments of contention fostered labor militancy within a segment of the Turkish labor movement. For these activists, the business unionism of Türk-İş failed to address the political and economic concerns of the Turkish working class. In the end, despite a strategic environment where state actors were seemingly providing the means for labor activists to achieve the goals of political inclusion and enhanced material benefits if they were willing to forego radical ideas and political unionism, efforts to incorporate labor unions were ultimately unsuccessful. For a significant and growing number of labor activists in Turkey, existing economic conditions were clearly understood as unfair, and an in order to address these conditions a new an alternative ideology for guiding union activity, with a concommitment alternative logic of appropriate behavior began to take hold. Consequently, the early 1960s saw the emergence of a more radical and politically oriented form of unionism that provided activists with an alternative basis of solidarity in political activism and a rejection of the state’s (and, for that matter, Türk-İş’s) interpretation of legitimate behavior for workers and unions. This split in the Turkish labor movement culminated with the emergence of the Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions as a rival to Türk-İş. Zonguldak is a region toward the Istanbul side of Turkey’s Black Sea coast. The region has been, since the late Ottoman period, the most important source of

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domestically mined coal. The Zonguldak mines have been owned by a state–owned enterprise (the Ereğli Coal Establishment) since 1940. In 1965, approximately 46,000 people worked in the region’s coal mines.39 Coal production in the Zonguldak region has always relied on labor power rather than technological advancement. The bulk of underground labor force came from the villages surrounding the mines, while more skilled surface workers were recruited from other distant Black Sea regions.40 In March of 1965 a wildcat strike spread throughout the region over what were perceived by workers as unfair changes in remuneration of bonus pay. As Delwin Roy recounts in his examination of the events that occurred in Zonguldak from March 11–13, the strike began with 5,000 workers and spread from one mine and shift to the next, ultimately encompassing most of the region’s 46,000 miners. While the “bread and butter” issue of pay provided the genesis for the strike, the strike demonstrated the growing rank-and-file discontent with existing social, economic, and political conditions. Toward this end, newspaper coverage of the strike highlighted the ways in which workers’ understanding of the state’s culpability for their insufficient wages and bad working conditions motivated both the initial work stoppage and the continuance of it even after deadly clashes with police and military forces. That the appeal of an emergent alternative collective subjectivity motivated this wildcat strike is captured by one anonymous worker quoted in Hürriyet Gazetesi who defended his support of the strike by asserting, “We, too, want to live as a human being.”41 Consequently, questions of legality and the legitimacy of working-class activism lie at the heart of the conflict that ensued. The leadership of the local union tried unsuccessfully to rein in the rank-and-file. Rather than accepting legitimate motivations for the workers’ actions, union officials blamed outside agitators for fomenting worker recalcitrance.42 According to the union leadership (based on the statements from Türk-İş president Seyfi Demirsoy, Madenİş president Kemal Özer, and the local union president Osman İpekçi) “the events in [Zonguldak] were a provocation, and this provocation had an external origin.”43 Indeed, Özer declared, “I don’t know who is responsible for this provocation. This, the security officials will certainly get to the middle of. But, that this was a provocation is 100% certain.”44 That the union leadership neither supported nor controlled the militancy of the rank-and-file leads to two conclusions: First, it highlights the differences between the subjectivity of different groups of workers. As Nichols and Kahveci point out, “[Union leaders] were insulated from the membership by their occupancy of permanent positions and they adopted a collaborative stance toward the state appointed management.”45 Second, it suggests that, despite the common depiction of Türk-İş as adverse to political unionism, rank-and-file members exhibited a collective political militancy that was indeed guided by the first seeds of an alternative collective subjectivity. There is also evidence that raises doubt about claims that workers lacked consciousness and therefore outside agitators must have been responsible for provoking the strike. Take, for example, the case of Turkish Workers’ Party organizers—a specter that takes a central place in Roy’s overall analysis of the strike. Presumably, if TİP organizers had the presence and power to whip 46,000 workers into a wildcat strike,

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they could certainly bring voters out to the polls in droves. However, this was not the case. In the elections held later in 1965—the very elections in which TİP achieved its greatest national electoral success—the party only won between 4,000 and 7,000 votes in the Zonguldak region.46 This suggests that the true catalyst for the strike was the development and actualization of the workers’ alternative collective subjectivity rather than the influence of outside agitators. In 1966, a cleavage tore through the Turkish labor movement when the leadership of Türk-İş condemned an unauthorized strike in the Paşabahçe bottle and glass factory in Istanbul.47 This dispute between the confederation and the local union involved local factory workers’ demands on one side, and the interests of Türk-İş to maintain industry-level bargaining on the other. On 31 January 1966 factory workers represented by Kristal-İş and Cam-İş began a strike for better pay and working conditions. At a meeting in Ankara on the 21st of March, Türk-İş went over the head of the local union and workers and negotiated a protocol that would allow the company to fire any worker who had attacked the company, including union leaders. According to the protocol, workers would not be paid for the period of the strike, but would receive a larger bonus when work resumed. Local union workers and leaders refused to accept these terms and began a factory occupation. On 6 April, a meeting was held by unions who opposed Türk-İş’s decision to end the strike. Together they formed the Paşabahçe Strike Support Committee.48 Strikers returned to work on 23 April after a state injunction ended the strike. In December, Türk-İş reprimanded and suspended those unions involved in the strike and their main supporters.49 In many ways, this conflict proved to be the last straw for those within the labor movement who favored socialist ideas and more militant activism.50 According to Kemal Sülker, “The Paşabahçe strike opened a new road for development between unions. Türk-İş’s opposition to workers’ rights left the strikers stranded.”51 On 15 January 1967, representatives from 17 unions met at the Şafak Cinema in Istanbul and began to lay the groundwork for breaking away from Türkİş.52 This conflict ultimately ended with these unions, in addition to the construction and bankers unions, withdrawing from Türk-İş and forming the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions on 13 February 1967. Of these events, TİP leader Mehmet  Ali Aybar explained, “We went forward with the dream of creating a new confederation. [We believed] that Türk-İş was of no use to unionists, that they were not of the opinion to support workers’ rights. In the end . . . [it was] decided to form a new confederation.”53 Koç and Koç argue that while a radical leftist (socialist and communist) activism was beginning in 1967, there was no mass movement yet. Thus, the term “revolutionary” in the name of the new confederation, Koç and Koç argue, ought to be understood as “progressive,” which is the way the confederation referred to itself in English. The use of the term “revolution,” therefore, was closer to the Kemalist conception of necessary change than a communist version of a radical proletariat engaged in armed struggle to achieve revolutionary goals.54 Yet, it would be problematic to conclude from this that this split was not all that revolutionary. To reach such a conclusion one would have to adopt a problematic understanding of what it means to be revolutionary or radical.

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Moreover, to diminish the significance of this split in 1967 underestimates the ways, ideologically, politically, and in terms of contentious action, that DİSK represented a significant departure within labor union politics in Turkey, and a challenge to the state. Moreover, DİSK was, clearly, interpreted as an important challenge by its opponents both within the government and within the labor movement. Thus, whereas Koç and Koç suggest that DİSK only became a radical challenger to the ideological and political system in the mid-1970s when Communists gained control of DİSK’s leadership, I contend that, from the beginning, the formation of DİSK attests to the growth of the Turkish labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity.55 The nature of this alternative collective subjectivity can be distilled, for example, from statements DİSK released upon its creation. Toward this end, the confederation listed 15 reasons for its breaking away from Türk-İş. It is worthwhile to consider a few of the most important. First, the decision to break away was taken “Because Türk-İş is failing to apply with much effort the principles written in its constitution and decided on in its congresses.”56 In addition, DİSK claimed that Türk-İş was failing to solve any of the important problems that workers faced. For instance, Türk-İş had not been an effective advocate regarding tax policy for workers, producers, farmers, or villagers.57 Furthermore, Türk-İş was seen as advocating a “politics that is contrary to social reality.”58 Citing financial support from the US Agency for International Development, DİSK concluded, “Türk-İş has withdrawn from national independence, and stands for independence with American help.”59 Subsequently, DİSK’s founders argued that Türkİş’s ties to the United States meant that its leaders were getting educated in a politics that was contrary to the needs of the Turkish workers. In short, DİSK was critical of Türk-İş’s view that politics was a distraction and an impediment for workers.60 Finally, DİSK cited as justification for the split the belief that “Türk-İş has come out against every justified strike.”61 The decision to leave Türk-İş rested on the belief that Turkish unions needed to be independent from foreign exploitation, defend the rights of workers provided in the constitution, and improve the quality of life for the working class. In order to achieve these goals, “it was thought a true worker confederation’s creation” was needed.62 The founders of DİSK believed that, “Our confederation’s strengthening of the working class in the country’s administration will vanquish slavery and establish an order with the goal of equality and brotherhood from every direction, and will guarantee that the working class will play an influential role in [solving] the country’s problems.”63 On the whole, whereas Turkish state actors (from the military to the dominant political parties) had historically denied the importance of class differences, the formation of DİSK offered the Turkish working class a different set of answers to the basic questions of politics. This alternative was premised on the belief that current social relations were better understood through a socialist interpretation of the salience of socioeconomic injustice and class antagonism on the one hand, and the belief that active political action could address these injustices on the other. As Ilkay Sunar summarizes, DİSK “subscribed to the radical view that the aim of the Turkish labor movement ought to be political – that is to say: the reconstruction of society rather than simply improved welfare within the bounds of the existing system.”64

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DİSK’s answers to questions of what Turkish workers wanted can be drawn from its own understanding of what it meant to be revolutionary. Revolution, according to DİSK’s founders, involved: a revolution in nourishment, a revolution in housing (water and electricity as a basic right), a revolution in health (availability of and access to medical care as a political issue), a revolution in education (“We want all workers to be able to read and write”),65 a revolution in work (ending unjust power over workers, inequality faced by women and child laborers, allowing public sector unions, providing jobs for everyone), a revolution in national income, a revolution in taxes (lowering taxes for the working and productive classes), a revolution in workers’ production, a revolution in freedom from debts, and revolution in organization.66 “This is our revolutionism,” DİSK’s founders declared, “changing today’s conservative, regressive economic, social, and political relations in accordance with the constitution . . . . Revolutionism, so that everyone can own property and unionism working to guarantee the possibility of equally benefiting from civilization’s blessings.”67 In the end, DİSK’s founders articulated six objectives or fundamental principles that constituted the alternative collective subjectivity that infused Turkish labor activism during the late 1960s and 1970s: First, a planned, statist economic system that was independent from foreign influence could solve working-class problems. Second, the state should take a greater role in controlling and developing heavy industries and other key financial industries like mining, energy, and banking. Third, the state ought to play a greater role in assuring living standards and protecting the unemployed. Fourth, domestic and international events must be evaluated from a scientific viewpoint in order to raise a revolutionary working-class consciousness. Fifth, there ought to be land reform that improves the living condition of villagers and helps the unemployed. Finally, labor rights should not just involve economic or professional struggle: “In order to use the democratic rights that are in the constitution, political struggle, too, is needed.”68 DİSK, whose membership started around 67,000 in 1967 and which would expand to approximately 500,000 by 1980, explicitly challenged the state’s understanding of legitimate action by advocating political unionism.69 Bruce Millen, for example, quotes Abdullah Baştürk (the future president of DİSK) who, in addressing the December convention of DİSK in 1967 stated: It is a fact that the collective bargaining system is insufficient to protect the workingmen’s rights totally. . . . To our mind, unions are not institutions of the type that can remain outside politics. . . . We do not mean that unions should become branch offices of a political party . . . but unions should involve themselves in the affairs of political parties which [have] the same political lines.70 Toward this end, DİSK joined with student groups and left-wing organizations in protesting the US Sixth Fleet visits in July 1968 and February 1969, and criticized the US military involvement in Vietnam as a form of capitalist imperialism.71 DİSK also publicly advocated for Turkey to pull out of NATO.72 Furthermore, in its election statement for the 1969 elections, DİSK announced its support for TİP, “Because the

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Turkish Workers’ Party is the only party that will bring the working people to power.”73 According to DİSK, “Only the Turkish Workers’ Party accepts the struggle for a second independence against American imperialism, only TİP is working for a Turkey without an influence from a foreign state, only TİP offers a foreign policy of independence from the blocs.”74 At first, Türk-İş, whose strength came from its ties with the ruling right-of-center government and the subsequent ability to achieve some of its agenda, was not practically threatened by DİSK. However, as Koç and Koç point out, DİSK’s mere existence caused Türk-İş to increase its organizing intensity.75 Over time though, partially in response to the organizational success of DİSK, and partially in response to the declining ability of the state to offer material incentives, the leadership of Türk-İş took on a more favorable view of political unionism. This process began during the 1969 Türk-İş convention, at which a more leftist mission was adopted, including the call for a 45-hour work week, collective bargaining rights for all workers, 20–40 days paid leave for workers, and the support for nine of its members as candidates for elected office.76 The influence of political unionism within Türk-İş was accelerated, however, in January 1971, when four Türk-İş unions issued a report criticizing the confederation’s enduring support for remaining above party politics. This initial report gained the support of seven additional unions and was followed by a second report calling for a social democratic order for the Turkish labor movement.77 While this project was intended as an alternative to DİSK unionism and not universally accepted within Türk-İş, it did spur the growth of social-democratic activism and force a decade-long challenge to increase the confederation’s acceptance of political unionism.78 Toward this end, as Halil Tunç emerged as the successor to Demirsoy, he “eventually became convinced that Türk-İş had to organize a political counteroffensive against new threats to union freedoms and to democracy itself.”79 Consequently, during the 1970s, Türk-İş, through its pursuit of a social democratic political agenda, joined the alternative collective subjectivity forged by DİSK activism, as it, too, presented a challenge to the legitimacy of the Turkish state’s ability to address working-class concerns and protect working-class rights of association. Although the rhetoric that emerged from the two major labor union confederations in the late 1960s and early 1970s clearly articulated an alternative collective subjectivity— one that challenged the state’s legitimacy in terms of the failure of prevailing ideologies and policies for explaining working-class political, economic, and social conditions and addressing injustices associated with them—we ought to be careful not to base our interpretation of the labor movement’s collective subjectivity on rhetoric alone. Yıldırım Koç, for example, cautions against reading too much into rhetoric. He warns that much of the rhetoric was for public consumption and may not have been what motivated individuals at the rank-and-file level to participate. “Sometimes,” he said, “we need to make statements to please parties, or our political friends.”80 However, augmenting the analysis of movement texts with an overview of specific examples of movement activism demonstrates the actualization and broad appeal of these rhetorical challenges to the state’s legitimacy. Here, I want to highlight and link the strike activity presented earlier that preceded the formation of DİSK, with three defining events: the

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protest by Istanbul factory workers after the passage of the 1970 changes to the law governing unions, the 1977 May Day rally in Istanbul, and the protests that engulfed Izmir in January and February of 1980. One critical event that demonstrates collective action motivated by the labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity is the protest organized by Istanbul factory workers after the passage of the 1970 legislation designed to thwart DİSK’s ability to organize legally. On the morning of 15 June, 70,000 workers joined initial actions to protest changes to laws governing labor unions that had been approved by the Grand National Assembly on 12 June.81 Though the actions were sponsored by DİSK, workers affiliated with Türk-İş unions joined in solidarity, with one union even threatening to withdraw from Türk-İş if the confederation continued to support these changes.82 According to Vatan Gazetesi’s coverage of these events, workers from 113 factories in Istanbul engaged in a series of sit-down strikes, marches, and other actions. The workers’ placards included statements such as: “to hell with Türk-İş,” “we will fight to the end for our rights,” and “to hell with American unionism.”83 DİSK president Kemal Türkler summarized the goal of the protests in stating, “Our wish is that these modifications, which are 100% contrary to the constitution, be turned back.”84 Emphasizing its direct social challenge to the nationalist ideology, Berik and Bilginsoy summarize: “The significance of this event lies as much in its sheer magnitude as in its expression of the rank and file’s outright rejection of the corporatism favored by conservative politicians, union leaders, and business.”85 The two-day protests were met with military and police repression, and on 16 June, with the declaration of martial law. On the next day most of DİSK’s leadership was detained by the police.86 As we shall see below, the state’s willingness to mobilize repressive force is a reflection of the threatorganized labor posed to the state’s ability to marshal support for, cooperation with, and beliefs in the legitimacy of its social and political understandings of the legitimate scope of working-class politics. A second important event, the May Day rally in Istanbul’s Taksim Square in 1977, indicates the continuing importance of the labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity in motivating popular contention. May Day, particularly for DİSK unionists, represented the importance of socialist explanations for the socioeconomic injustices faced by the Turkish working class. At the same time, it was also a direct challenge to the Turkish state’s enduring restrictions on working-class politics. In short, May Day was important for DİSK unionists because it was a way of bringing into the open “the entirety of economic, political, and ideological struggle” of the Turkish working class.87 On 1 May 1976, for the first time since the early years of the Republic, Turkish labor unions, joined by leftist activist youth groups, socialist party leaders, and famous writers and artists, held a 200,000 person march and rally in Istanbul. DİSK president Kemal Türkler declared that the goals of this event were to expand political rights (including adoption of the referendum, lifting of restrictions on strikes, and the adoption of the right to hold general and sympathy strikes) and to force the state to adopt May Day as an official state holiday.88 The success of this event motivated DİSK to organize an even larger rally for May Day, 1977.

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The 1977 events began with labor movement activists and allies meeting in the Beşiktaş neighborhood of Istanbul, and then culminated with a march to Taksim Square for a public rally. Leading up to 1 May, DİSK president Türkler issued a call for Türk-İş workers to join their brothers in celebration of May Day, and in support of a political unionism that called for antifascist activism; a progressive, democratic political order; an end to the State Security Courts; equal pay for equal work; the nationalization of oil and natural resources; and independence from foreign political and economic exploitation.89 In his address to the 500,000 people who attended the rally, Türkler declared: “In each passing year, May 1st is celebrated with greater enthusiasm, by wider masses, and with more consciousness. Because when spheres of exploitation, oppression, and tyranny are narrowed, the frontiers of peace, welfare, freedom, and friendship can be widened.”90 The final contentious action that I wish to highlight occurred in Izmir at the beginning of 1980.91 Here the political conflict between the left and the right that had been growing throughout the 1970s boiled over into an armed conflict between workers and state security forces. Protests originally organized by communist and socialist workers within Izmir’s agricultural and textile industries spilled over into the neighborhoods in which many of the workers lived. Consequently, protests that originally involved a few hundred workers were quickly joined by thousands more, as well as by students from Ege University, and ultimately by close to a hundred thousand residents in the Gültepe neighborhood. In the late 1970s workers in the Izmir region found themselves at the center of violent left-right clashes. The events in question began on 18 January 1980 when union workers in textile factories and agriculture-related businesses began a factory occupation in response to changes that resulted from the elections of 1979. The workers alleged that groups affiliated with the Nationalist Action Party [Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP)], one of the parties that had come to power as part of the rightist Nationalist Front government, engaged in the torture of union activists, and caused the dismissal of others from their jobs for political reasons. In addition, Koç and Koç suggest the protesters were reacting to the choice for a new director in these state– owned industries.92 Those involved in the protests sought to combat what they believed to be an organized political effort to purge the workforce of left-leaning workers and replace them with workers aligned with the Nationalist Front. Members of the MHP were quick to argue for urgent state intervention to combat communist terrorism. Taken together, these events demonstrate that ideas coming from labor movement leaders were not merely provocative and abstract rhetoric. Rather, these events demonstrate that the ideas articulated provided labor activists with an alternative understanding of working-class concerns, of what kind of society they should strive for, and how then they should act in order to bring this vision about. Far from the compliant participants envisioned by the Kemalist tenet of populism, here were collective demonstrations that labor activism in the 1960s and 1970s was reshaping the political arena in Turkey. Indeed, after interviewing Istanbul workers in large and small factories during the 1970s, David Makofsky concluded, “Class hostility is, then, no middle class or foreign import on Turkish soil.” In short, “To discover the salience

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of class hostility . . . it is only necessary to go in the factories.”93 Writing of DİSK, C.H. Dodd concludes, “It became scarcely distinguishable from a political body in organizing invariably violent May Day demonstrations, engaging in political propaganda, and taking the lead in denouncing the rightist coalition governments.”94

(Re)Evaluating the impact of the turkish labor movement In evaluating how social movements matter I suggest focusing on a cultural analysis of five indicators of movement impact. In the remainder of this chapter, I will focus on four of these, leaving the fifth for Chapter 5. First, the impact of a social movement can be understood with reference to changes in public policy. However, rather than focusing on the achievement of policy changes that are beneficial to movements, I stress the need to examine more broadly the way public policy changes are used by state actors to react to, control, appease, and even pre-empt movement activism. Second, the impact of a social movement can be understood with reference to changes in political party platforms and subsequent electoral results. A movement’s impact can be revealed in changes in party platforms that respond to or seek to tap into movement activism. Third, a movement’s impact can be measured through the policing of protest, which reveals the extent to which a movement’s activism is perceived as a threat or a critical challenge by state officials. Finally, the presence, absence, and relative strength of counter-mobilization are indicative of the extent to which a movement’s activism is perceived as a threat or a critical challenge by other social actors.

Policy changes and social movement activism Changes in public policy related to social movement activism represent one of the most widespread means sociologists and political scientists have employed in order to evaluate movement impacts. Yet, while changes in public policy are, in fact, important to an understanding of how social movements matter, I have argued that we need a broader understanding of such changes—one that is not confined simply to identifying successful policy changes. Rather, I argue that by examining the motivations behind policy changes we gain insight into the way state actors respond to and even seek to influence or control movement activism. The importance of collective subjectivity forged by a social movement is revealed in this interaction between state actors and movements. In general, I argue that movements that develop and sustain an alternative collective subjectivity tend to elicit major policy changes, rather than more minor reforms. In the case of the Turkish labor movement, the threat to the Turkish state’s enduring view on the legitimacy of class-based politics is evident in the efforts by various actors within the Turkish state who sought to harness the electoral support of the working class, while simultaneously stifling the growth of political unionism. Important legislative changes designed to increase workers’ rights and material conditions included: the Social Security Law of 1964, legislation granting state civil servants the right to unionize (also in 1964), minimum wage legislation (in 1972), and legislation

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targeting improvements in workers’ health and job security (in  1974).95 Moreover, according to Bianchi, especially after the emergence of DİSK: The government became more willing to grant official recognition to [Türkİş’s] claims. Türk-İş leaders were commonly accepted as labor’s exclusive representatives in mixed consultative board and regulatory commissions in the State Planning Organization, the Minimum Wage Commission, the State Economic Enterprises, the National Productivity Council, the Turkish Standards Institute, and in ad hoc consultative committees preparing labor legislation.96 As Koç points out, these changes are better understood as an effort to influence and control the growth of the Turkish labor movement, rather than simply a series of concessions.97 As mentioned earlier, efforts to gain union support did, in turn, shape the willingness of certain labor leaders to cooperate with the state. This was particularly true in the case of Türk-İş’s leadership’s support for Law No. 1317, the 1970 labor law revisions proposed by the Justice Party. The most important features of this legislation involved new restrictions on the ability of unions and union confederations to be legal representatives, easing of requirements needed to leave a union, new restrictions on which workers had the legal right to organize, and new restrictions on the time a worker must work in a work place in order to be eligible to form a union.98 DİSK and TİP activists argued that the intention of these changes was specifically to limit the activities and organizational abilities of its unions—an intention, they argued, that was revealed in public remarks prior to the law’s passage and in the parliamentary debate.99 In fact, during the floor debate on the legislation, one Member of Parliament all but made this connection, saying the legislation was needed because, “TİP is Marxist and Leninist, not Atatürkist. TİP and DİSK are on the side of violence and tyranny.”100 In the end, this effort to restrict the scope of legitimate associational rights was motivated by the perception among many state actors that the radical unionism promoted by DİSK represented an alternative to the present Turkish political system.

The impact of labor activism on political party platforms and electoral success A second means for evaluating the labor movement’s impact is the analysis of political party platforms. Changes in party platforms are important because it is in the platforms promoted by national parties that nationalist ideologies take form or change shape. With reference to this period of labor movement activism in Turkey, two political parties are of particular importance: The Turkish Workers’ Party and the Republican People’s Party. Ideologically, the Turkish Workers’ Party presented Turkish voters with a socialistinspired analysis of political, economic, and social conditions and agenda for change. TİP was never able to achieve overwhelming electoral success, but its electoral support in 1965 attests to the importance of labor movement political action. Specifically, in the 1965 elections, TİP garnered 270,000 votes, which translated to 15 seats in the

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Grand National Assembly.101 This electoral success provided the party with a platform from which to influence the rising tide of leftist student and labor activism. Moreover, Feroz Ahmad concludes of TİP’s importance: “the Turkish establishment had been unable to cope with the effect of the Workers’ Party on the political environment—not because [TİP] was ever an electoral threat but because it had played a role totally out of proportion to its size in politicizing the country. Its influence on the unions and the youth movement had been particularly marked.”102 While many of the activists who helped lead the formation of DİSK were also involved in TİP, and while DİSK formally supported TİP in elections, a rift emerged between some of TİP’s more extreme left voices and the union confederation. In 1970, for example, Mihri Belli argued in Türk Solu Dergisi that DİSK had done nothing revolutionary. DİSK may be “to the left of Türk-İş, she argued, “but they are short of revolutionary unionism and remain on the right [of the political spectrum].”103 Perhaps most importantly, though, even the moderate electoral success of TİP, combined with the increased labor movement activism have been cited as contributing to the CHP’s move toward a left-of-center stance in 1966.104 Amid the climate of labor activism, and under the leadership of Bülent Ecevit, the CHP evolved into a self-defined left-of-center party. Ecevit suggests that the source and debate about the decision to embrace a left-of-center stance began after the 1965 parliamentary elections, and included a program of land reform, tax reform, advocacy for greater democratic rights for workers, and laws against the exploitation of labor.105 As Ilkay Sunar points out, the new CHP still maintained a commitment to populism “defined in terms of a commitment to integration, mobilization, and development.”106 The key difference, though, was the reformed CHP’s version of populism embraced the salient concerns of the working class.107 Explaining his support for the shift to the left, Ecevit writes, “One of the characteristics of the period that followed the revolution of 27 May 1960, in Turkey, is the emergence of labor as a new social and political force.”108 According to Ecevit, “This healthy development in the labor movement made possible by the democratization of Turkey, has contributed, in turn, to the strengthening of democracy in Turkey. Trade unions are now among the chief bulwarks of democracy in Turkey.”109 Though the shift toward a left-of-center stance began after 1965, its supporters fully consolidated their dominance of the party only in May 1972 when Ecevit was elected the party’s leader. After 1972, Ecevit described the party as democratic left; its ideology as populist and democratic.110 The political and economic program of the party was not a rejection of capitalism, but sought to reform Turkey’s market economy in line with European social-democratic parties. This included the broader goals of social security for all working people, unemployment assistance, and health insurance for all citizens.111 Consequently, the pursuit of a social-democratic agenda and working-class alliances— especially with Türk-İş—became an important pillar for the CHP throughout the 1970s, contributing to the CHP’s electoral success in 1973 and 1977.112 Toward this end, DİSK decided to actively support the Republican People’s Party in the 1977 general elections. DİSK’s electoral concerns included: freedom of thought, organization, and expression in Turkey comparable to what other European countries enjoy; freedom for workers to choose the union that they want; an end to lockouts; the rights to organize, bargain

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Table 4.2: Percentage of votes won by party in Parliamentary Elections (Seats in Parliament), 1950–77 Party

1950

1954

1957

1961

1965

1969

1973

1977

CHP

39.9 (69) 53.3 (408)

35.3 (30) 57.5 (490)

41.1 (173) 47.9 (419)

36.7 (173)

28.7 (134)

27.4 (143)

33.3 (185)

41.4 (213)

34.8 (158)

52.9 (240) 3.0 (14)

46.5 (256) 2.7 (2)

29.8 (149)

36.9 (189)

11.8 (48) 3.4 (3)

8.6 (24) 6.4 (24)

DP AP TİP MSP MHP

3.0 (1)

Source: Sabri Sayarı and Yılmaz Esmer, eds. Politics, Parties, and Elections in Turkey (Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2002), 190.

collectively, and strike for all workers and civil servants; unemployment insurance; wage equality for women workers; social security for all workers; a fair tax system for all workers; protections for Turkish workers abroad; an end to the extraordinary power of the State Security Courts; democratization of the regulations regarding martial law; May Day as a state holiday; an end to limits on the right to strike; an end to all limits on democratic rights and freedoms (especially those imposed after the 12 March 1971 military intervention); and an end to the influence of the United States and NATO on Turkish politics.113 Moreover, DİSK was increasingly concerned that the exploitation of workers was becoming easier with the rise of a “fascist order.” In such a political climate, it was thought opponents of the labor movement “will want to prohibit even the smallest strikes by citing [concerns for] ‘national security.’”114 For DİSK, in order to advance this agenda and counteract these trends, the decision was made “to support the closest party to these concerns in the 1977 general election, the CHP.”115 While it is difficult to show with absolute certainty that the CHP’s embracing of a party platform and ideology that reflected the concerns expressed by the labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity directly caused the party’s increased electoral success, there is a demonstrable correlation between its electoral support before and after gaining labor movement support. In fact, the CHP increased its percentage of the popular vote from 27.4% in  1969 to 33.3% in  1973 and 41.4% in 1977. Moreover, the increased electoral support in both elections provided the CHP with the largest number of seats in parliament, giving the party the opportunity to lead the formation of a coalition government. Furthermore, the CHP was particularly successful within working class and poor neighborhoods in larger cities. In the poor gecekondu neighborhoods of Izmir and Istanbul, for example, the CHP’s vote increased from 22.6% and 21.8% in 1969 to 44.2% and 47.5% in 1973.116 Table 4.2 provides electoral results for a selection of major political parties during the period considered in these last two chapters. The trends indicate a correlation between

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the rise and fall of support for a party and the rise and fall of support provided by the labor movement. Thus, for instance, as labor activists became discontent with the Democrat Party’s failure to support the right to strike, its electoral supported began to wane by the end of the 1950s, and conversely, support for the CHP increased following its adoption of a democratic left platform. Furthermore, between the years 1969 and 1973, there was a dramatic shift away from electoral support for the Justice Party in Zonguldak, with gains going mostly to the CHP. Specifically, the AP’s vote declined from 55.6% to 38.2%, while the CHP’s increased to 39.8% from 30.7%, and in 1977 the CHP’s vote increased further to 45.7%.117

Policing, repression, and movement impacts A third means of evaluating the impact of the labor movement in Turkey involves the consideration of the policing of particular protests and the view of the police/military toward labor activism more generally. I argue that these factors are indicative of how various state actors view a particular movement’s political significance. If an instance of political activism is seen as legitimate, then the police may be present, but generally to help facilitate the event. If a protest action is interpreted as illegitimate, then the state will generally move to repress it. We can see how this plays out in the United States. For instance, in 1999, the police enforced a no-protest zone in downtown Seattle, making mass arrests over three days of anti-WTO protests. Yet, at the same time that these police actions were taking place against groups deemed anarchists, property destroyers, and disturbers of the peace, the police helped to facilitate several labor union events (ranging from the large labor march on 30 November to the reenactment of the Boston Tea Party with reference to the dumping of foreign steel). It is not too difficult to understand these differences within an American political system that has generally come to view mainstream organized labor as a legitimate and useful institutional framework for addressing social conflict. In the case of Turkey, however, labor protests against the state throughout the 1960s and 1970s—in the guise of employer and in the guise of political authority—tended to elicit a strongly repressive response. In order to examine the state’s reaction to and therefore interpretation of labor activism, let us return to the four cases of labor activism introduced earlier in the chapter. In each case, labor activism contributed to an often-deadly clash between workers and police/military forces. The state’s response to the coalminers’ wildcat strike in Zonguldak represents an important turning point in the development and impact of Turkish labor insurgency. Here, for the first time during this critical period of labor movement growth, the Turkish state mobilized its full repressive apparatus in an effort to control labor activism. And here, for one of the first times during this critical period, labor activists did not back down, but rather fought back. Indeed, for the police and government officials, the workers’ actions were illegal. Remarks made by the region’s governor Fuat Kadioğlu to the workers emphasize this point: “When you act like this the laws which protect you are being violated—you will cause these rights to be taken from you. We can do nothing; you will be punished.”118

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However, these law-and-order arguments failed to persuade the workers (who viewed the law as problematic and the status quo as intolerable) to end the strike. As the strike spread through the region the workers’ political action drew concern from the government in Ankara. Roy recounts, “In Ankara it had been decided that troops would have to be sent to Zonguldak to quell what appeared to have now turned into an open rebellion by the workers. Orders were issued to Army Headquarters in Bolu; 10,000 soldiers prepared to move to Zonguldak.”119 In the clashes between the military, police, and the workers, two workers were shot dead, many were wounded, and 49 workers were arrested.120 Republican People’s Party leader Ismet Inonu lamented, “Until today, such regrettable blood-spilling events had not occurred [in Turkey].”121 Clearly, the state perceived the wildcat strike as a challenge to its legitimacy—a conflict underpinned by a collective subjectivity that challenged the state’s understanding of what constituted legitimate working-class politics. As mentioned above, the 15–16 June 1970 protests against the labor law changes also provoked a strongly repressive response from the state. As the police, gendarme, and even military forces tried to restore order, Milliyet Gazetesi reported that clashes with security forces left at least three people dead in the Kadiköy and Levent areas of Istanbul.122 In response to the threat posed by the size and motivation of the labor activism, martial law was declared for the Istanbul and Kocaeli regions. Prime Minister Demirel said that although he did not want to impose martial law, it had become necessary in order to assure that “Turkey won’t become an anarchist country.”123 Here, again, the state’s willingness to mobilize its full repressive apparatus indicates the seriousness of the perceived threat presented by labor insurgency. Whereas the responses to the Zonguldak strike and the June 1970 protests are clearly linked to the state’s goal of curbing the public, political influence of labor movement activism, the events of 1 May 1977 are a bit more complex. On that day, DİSK’s planned march and rally had gone off without incident until the end of Kemal Türkler’s closing address. Toward the end of his speech, around 7:00 p.m., shots were fired into the massive crowd in Taksim Square. While the exact source and explanation for this initial violence is the subject of much debate,124 what is less uncertain is that after fighting broke out, panic ensued and was exacerbated by police action including the use of noise grenades, water cannon, and the firing of weapons in the air. As Ahmad concludes, “Few people had any doubts that this massacre had been aided and abetted by state forces.”125 In short, first the police and later the conservative politicians used the initial outburst to come down hard on labor and DİSK. The police response contributed to the image of chaos, allowing the press to call Taksim Square a war zone, and provoking Nationalist Action Party leader Türkeş to declare, “DİSK and its supporters together with the CHP’s extreme leftist groups are responsible for the bloody May 1 events.”126 Perhaps the starkest example of repression occurred during the Tariş events in Izmir. On 22 January security forces with police tanks and live ammunition attacked the factory that the workers were occupying. Two hundred and fifty-one workers were detained. Outside the factory, the police assault was interpreted as a state–

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sponsored massacre motivated by the political goal of handing over control of the factories to allies of the Nationalist Front government. The next day 11,000 workers joined in solidarity with the besieged workers involved in the original occupation. They demanded a halt to the security operation, the release of all detained workers, and admission of state responsibility for escalating the violence. Students from Ege University, as well as workers’ families joined the protest in support of those engaged in the original occupation. On 25 January DİSK unions in Izmir engaged in solidarity actions, including a two-hour work stoppage and work slow downs, and on the 27th organized a large rally in support of the workers. DİSK’s Abdullah Baştürk declared that, “In Tariş the bourgeoisie has declared war against us. War we must accept.”127 Ten thousand military troops were mobilized in order to end the protests, and a military ultimatum was issued to the workers who refused to leave, precipitating a massive military invasion of the occupied factories. DİSK responded by calling for a two-day general strike, which then led the military to engage in the full-scale invasion of the Gültepe neighborhood—detaining individuals and searching homes. Barricades were erected and holes were dug in the streets by the residents in order to prevent the movement of tanks. As they had after the 1977 May Day violence, newspaper accounts described Izmir as a war zone. When order was finally restored, some of those detained by security forces were charged with seeking to overthrow the state. In addition, the impact of radical labor activism in Turkey can be understood with reference to the military interventions of 1971 and 1980.128 Indeed, both military interventions explicitly targeted labor activists as responsible for social unrest. The military action of 1971 followed on the heels of the June 1970 protests. Directly challenging the legitimacy of labor’s political action, economic growth, it was argued, required the reining in of, not giving in to, forces of social and economic conflict.129 As part of the targeting of left-wing activists during the 1971 intervention, Ahmad reports “On 3 May the martial law authorities in Ankara forbade strikes and lockouts.”130 These restrictions were accompanied by the closure of TİP on 10 July 1971, as well as other legal and constitutional changes that restricted union rights and freedoms—in particular the rights of civil servants and teachers to form unions.131 Yet, these efforts to curb the influence of political unionism were clearly ineffective as labor activism increased and political conflict became increasingly acute throughout the 1970s. On 12 September 1980, the military once again intervened in Turkish politics. According to General Kenan Evren, the military intervention had been necessary because of the artificial divisions that had marred recent Turkish political history. In his statement about the military takeover in 1980 Evren declared: As you know and observe, anarchy, terrorism, and separatism have been taking the lives of more than 20 of our compatriots every day. The Turkish citizens who share the same religion and identical national values, for reasons of political opportunism have been divided into various camps through the creation of artificial divisions and have been practically turned into enemies who lost all their senses to the extent to shed each other’s blood unscrupulously.132

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In effect, Evren evoked the need to safeguard the Kemalist tenet of populism as justification for the military intervention. On the other hand, critics charge such rhetoric as a smokescreen for the real goal of the coup, which they see as the need to clear out all potential opposition, especially from labor, in order to implement economic liberalizing reforms.133 In either case, that the military exerted such energy, arresting labor leaders and curbing labor activism, indicates not so much that the labor movement was weak, but rather that it was understood as an important challenge to enduring Kemalist ideals.

Counter-mobilization and movement impact Social movements, as McAdam emphasizes, do not exist in vacuums. In addition to the interaction between movements and state actors, movements often inspire countermobilization. I argue that the likelihood of counter-mobilization increases when social movements forge alternative collective subjectivities that threaten the interests of other social groups. In the case of the Turkish labor movement, beginning in the late 1960s and especially in the 1970s, labor activism was challenged by widespread—often violent—rightwing counter-mobilization. Rightist counter-mobilization included the formation the Nationalist Action Party, which sought to counter the left by forming its own Nationalist Confederation of Labor Unions, as well as the rise of the Grey Wolves—a right-wing commando group linked to political violence and clashes with leftist activists. Ultimately, this counter-mobilization contributed to the increasingly violent conflict that marked the 1970s in Turkey. For example, by analyzing press reports, C. H. Dodd has estimated that deaths from political violence rose from 35 in 1975 to nearly 1,000 in 1978, and 3,500 by 1980.134 According to Hugh Poulton, “Radical right violence can be seen in this period as essentially anti-communist rather than as being aimed at seizing the state or instigating widespread terror.”135 Therefore, rightwing counter mobilization, Poulton argues, was motivated by a shared desire to provoke state intervention that would confront leftist activism. To be sure, the left and labor movement did not simply ignore the challenge presented by this counter-mobilization. DİSK, for example, held a two-hour work stoppage on 20 March 1978, in a show of solidarity for university students who had been killed in recent political violence.136 And, on 5 January 1978, following rightwing violence in Kahramanmaraş, DİSK unions observed 5 minutes of silence out of respect for those killed.137

Conclusion Examining the rise of labor insurgency in Turkey during the 1960s and 1970s, it is clear that the Turkish state’s view of legitimate working-class political participation and response to lingering economic inequities was rejected by working-class activists. And, while multiple answers to questions of how to change the current political and economic order were offered by different social democratic and socialist unionists,

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there was a clear opposition to the earlier Republican vision of how social institutions should be ordered—a vision that included unions not as class-based political associations, but as associations that should promote the broader goals of upholding national unity and encouraging industrial production. In the end, both the rhetoric and the actions of labor movement activists demonstrate the forging of an alternative collective subjectivity best characterized as Turkish leftist nationalism. Thus, what were seen as capitulations to western capitalist and military interests underpinned much of the leftist rhetoric and action during the 1960s and 1970s. As part of this leftist organization, the labor movement offered an alternative vision for Turkish politics, economics, and society—one that stressed independence from foreign capital and military interests, and one that advocated a positive role for the state in addressing lingering economic inequities. To be sure, labor unions’ protests against the Turkish state were not entirely viewed as legitimate expressions of difference—as a means for giving voice to democratic political concerns. Rather, they were viewed as a threat and challenge to the continued effort by certain actors within the Turkish state to inculcate a particular understanding of Turkish citizenship that disavowed class-based politics.138 From the point of view of these state actors, the Turkish labor movement from 1960 to 1980 represented an alternative collective subjectivity—a form of politics that was viewed as subversive to and alien from the Turkish nation. Consequently, the emergence of political unionism during this critical juncture in state–labor relations had a profound impact on the development of Turkish state–society relations throughout the 1960s and 1970s. With the military intervention of 1980, the labor movement was directly targeted by massive state repression. Many of the rights workers had come to enjoy in the 1960s and 1970s were curtailed, union leaders were arrested, and strict limits were placed on the right to strike. In essence, the Turkish labor movement failed to achieve many of its ultimate goals. Yet, while some see this labor repression as indicative of the Turkish labor movement’s relative weakness, I have argued that it is better understood as indicative of the movement’s overall impact. Furthermore, Chapter 5 examines the extent to which, despite suffering state repression, the Turkish labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity had an enduring effect on the shaping of Turkish state–society relations.

Notes 1 See, for example, Mehmet Beşeli, “1960–1980 Döneminde Sendikacılık Hareketleri İçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelişimi” (“The Development of Democratic Concepts in the Turkish Union Movement in the 1960–1980 Period”), in Türkiye’de Sendikacılık Hareketleri İçinde Demokrasi Kavramının Gelişimi (The Development of Democratic Concepts in the Union Movement in Turkey), ed. Alpaslan Işıklı. (Ankara: Kalkan Matbaacılık, 2002), 236–7. 2 Ibid., 37.

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3 Alpaslan Işıklı, “Wage Labor and Unionization,” in Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives, eds. Irvin Schick and Ertugrul Ahmet Tonak. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 309. 4 Metin Heper, “The State and Interest Groups with Special Reference to Turkey,” in Strong State and Economic Interest Groups: The Post-1980 Turkish Experience, ed. Metin Heper. (New York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1991), 21. 5 Ahmet Samim, “The Left,” in Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives, eds. Irvin Schick and Ertagrul Ahmet Tonak. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 170. 6 For examples of other important actions, see Koç, “Türkiye,” 141 and 166–8; and Ertuğrul Alatlı, Belgeleriyle 9 Mart 1971 “Antiparlamentarist-Baasçı” Darbe Girişimi (Development of the 9 March 1971 “Antiparliamentist-Baathist” Coup with Documents) (Istanbul: ALFA Basım Yayım Dağıtım Ltd., 2002), 107–46. 7 Doug McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency, 1930–1970, 2nd Edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), xxxiii. 8 McAdam, 23. 9 Seyfi Demirsoy, “Türk-İş On Yaşında” (“On Türk-İş’s Tenth Anniversary”), in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarih, Vol. 1, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 285–6. 10 McAdam, xxix. 11 Yıldırım Koç, ed., Türk-İş Tarihinden Portreler: Eski Sendikacılardan Anılar-Gözlemle, Vol 1 (Portraits From Türk-İş’s History: Memories and Observations from Old Unionists) (Ankara: Türk-İş, 1998), 264. 12 Ibid., 220. 13 Ibid., 56. 14 Metin Kara, “The workers as a class were defeated,” Merip Reports 121 (1984): 22. This quote comes from an interview with the named author, a pseudonym for a DİSK staff member who fled to Europe after the 1980 military coup. 15 Kemal Karpat, “Social Groups and the Political System After 1960,” in Social Change and Politics in Turkey: A Structural-Historical Analysis, ed. Kemal Karpat. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973), 273. 16 Feroz Ahmad, The Making of Modern Turkey (London: Routledge, 1993), 134. 17 March and Olsen, 15 18 McAdam, xxi–xxvi. 19 Zeliha Etöz, Sanduktan Senikaya: Tekgida-İş’in Hikayesi (From Imagination to Union: The Story of Tekgida-İş) (İzmir: Tekgida-İş Sendikası Eğitim Yayını, 2002), 70. 20 Ibid., 70. 21 For a more detailed analysis of the provisions of this legislation see, for example, Toker Dereli, The Development of Turkish Trade Unionism: A Study of Legislative and Socio-Political Dimensions, (Istanbul: Istanbul University Economics Faculty, 1968), 111–28. 22 Portions of interviews with 77 Türk-İş activists are available in a two volume set edited by Yıldırım Koç, Türk-İş Tarihinden Portreler (Portraits from Türk-İş’s History). 23 Yıldırım Koç, ed., 35. 24 Ibid, 36–7. 25 Ibid., 185.

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26 Engin Ünsal, İşçiler Uyanıyor (The Workers are Awakening) (Istanbul: Tan Gazetesi ve Matbaası, 1963). 27 Igor Lipovsky, The Socialist Movement in Turkey, 1960-1980 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 13–16. 28 Murat Sarıca, Toplumcu Açıdan: Halkçılık, Milliyetçilik, Devrimcilik (From the Socialist Point of View: Populism, Nationalism, Revolutionism) (Istanbul: Türkiye İşçi Partisi, 1966), 8–9. 29 Türkiye İşçi Partisi, TİPli’nin El Kitabı (TİP Handbook) (Ankara: TİP Bilim ve Araştırma Kurulunca, 1969), 10. 30 Ünsal, 17. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., 28. The translation used here, however, is from Feroz Ahmad “The Development of Working class Consciousness in Turkey,” in Workers and Working Classes in the Middle East: Struggles, Histories, Historiographies, ed. Zachary Lockman. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), 145. 33 Beşeli, 236–7. In addition, the Türk-İş leadership sought to create an alternative to TİP, the Çalışanlar Partisi. 34 Robert Bianchi, Interest Groups and Political Development in Turkey (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 213–14 and Dereli, 53–4. 35 Yıldırım Koç, ed., 70. 36 The candidates represented diverse areas and multiple political parties. From the CHP: Ahmet Aydin Bolak (Balıkesir); Zeynel Gündoğdu (Erzincan); Ruhi Soyer (Niğde); Ali Şakir Ağanoğlu (Trabzon). From the AP: Naci Güray (Elaziğ); İhsan İnal (İçel); Sait Sina Yücelsoy (Konya); From the Nation Party: Ahmet Bilgin (Kırşehir). From the New Turkey Party: Zeyyat Kocamemi (Tokat). Despite the efforts of Türkİş’s leadership to stress their support for what would benefit the Turkish people and not just the working class, this act was opposed by the state, and on 18 August 1965 the 3rd Court of Justice in Ankara issued a warrant for the police to search the Türkİş building; 100 campaign books were confiscated in the search. Then, on 28 August 1965 three Türk-İş representatives were arrested in Tokat during a campaign stop. In the end, the confederation was acquitted of any wrong-doing, and only three of the candidates that it had opposed were re-elected. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türk-İş,” 334. 37 See, for example, Maria Victoria Murillo, Labor Unions, Partisan Coalitions, and Market Reforms in Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Edward C. Epstein, “Conclusion: The Question of Labor Autonomy,” in Labor Autonomy and the State in Latin America, ed. Edward C. Epstein. (Boston: Unwin Hyman Inc., 1989); and Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, The Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 38 See, for example, Bianchi, 216. 39 Delwin Roy, “The Zonguldak Strike: A Case Study of Industrial Conflict in a Developing Society,” Middle Eastern Studies 10, no. 2 (1974): 143. 40 Theo Nichols and Erol Kahveci, “The Condition of Mine Labour in Turkey: Injuries to Miners in Zonguldak, 1942–1990,” Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 2 (1995): 199. 41 Hürriyet Gazetesi, March 13, 1965, 7. 42 These efforts to delegitimize the workers’ actions, as we shall see in the final section of this chapter, were shared by the Turkish state’s interpretation of these events.

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43 Halûk Besen, “Olayların Gerçek Sebepleri” (“There are definite reasons for the events”), Cumhuriyet Gazetesi, March 15, 1965, 1. 44 Hürriyet Gazetesi, March 13, 1965, 7. 45 Nichols and Kahveci, 201. 46 Ahmad, “Development,” 151. 47 Koç and Koç, however, offer a different view of these events. For them, the lack of support for strikes and contentious actions is not sufficient for explaining why an organization chooses to leave a confederation. Rather, they suggest that this split is better explained by the emergence of two fronts with the Turkish labor movement— one anticommunist and the other anti-imperialist; a reflection of the internalization of the Cold War competition within Turkish politics. Canan Koç and Yıldırım Koç. DİSK Tarihi efsanae mi gerçek mi? 1967-1980 (DİSK’s History truths or myths? 1967–1980) (Ankara: Epos Yayınları, 2008), 35–5 & 81. 48 This meeting was joined by leaders from Petrol-İş, Maden-İş, Lastik-İş, Tez Büroİş, and Basın-İş. This reconstruction is based primarily on the account offered in: Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Paşabahçe,” 514. 49 Petrol-İş and Kristal-İş were suspended from the confederation for fifteen months; Maden-İş for six; and Basın-İş for three. Ibid., 514. 50 The punishment of strike supporters followed the failure to support striking coal miners in March, 1965 and the prohibiting of TİP-supported unionists from taking part in the 7–14 March, 1966 Türk-İş convention. Beşeli, 239. 51 Sülker was a former general secretary of DİSK. Kemal Sülker, 100 Sorunda: Türkiye’de İşçi Hareketleri (In 100 Questions: Labor Movements in Turkey) (Istanbul: Gerçek Yayınevi, 1968), 112. 52 A representative from the regional leadership of Türk-İş attended the meeting, but was shouted down by protestors who called him a servant of America and imperialism. Outside the theater the Türk-İş official decried the meeting as the work of TİP propaganda. Koç and Koç, 80. Speaking at a different union meeting on the same day as the Şafak Cenema meeting, Türk-İş General Director Sefyfi Demirsoy asserted that known political agents were behind the movement to form DİSK; that those who support DİSK have written in support of proletarian dictatorship, and that in such regime’s there were no unions; and that Türk-İş supports democracy as the means to assure workers and human rights. Ibid., 81. For more on the Şafak Cinema meeting see: Yıldırım Koç, Türkiye İşçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Tarihi (Working Class and Unionist History in Turkey) (Ankara: Yol-İş, 2003), 125. 53 Quoted in Beşeli, 239. 54 Koç and Koç, 83. 55 DİSK, they contend, adopted a socialist agenda at the beginning in 1971, arguing only then that, “on the one hand economic struggle” was necessary, but that on the other hand, the ideological development of the working class was necessary. Moreover, they point out that while there were about 20 DİSK organized workplace occupations in 1968 and 1969, these actions were motivated by collective bargaining and workplace concerns, and “did not have a political purpose.” Ibid., 100–1. 56 DİSK, DİSK Kuruluş Bildirisi, Anatüzülüğü (DİSK’s Establishment Communiqué, Main Principles) (Istanbul: Istanbul Matbaası, 1967), 5. 57 Ibid., 7. 58 Ibid., 7–8.

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59 Ibid., 9. 60 Ibid., 9–10. 61 Ibid., 11. Among the litany of strikes specifically cited are the 1965 Zonguldak strike and, of course, the Paşabahçe strike. 62 Ibid., 14. 63 Ibid., 16. 64 Ilkay Sunar, State and Society in the Politics of Turkey’s Development (Ankara: Ankara University Press, 1974), 164. 65 DİSK, “Kuruluş Bildirisi,” 23. 66 Ibid., 21–8. 67 Ibid., 31. 68 Ibid., 32. 69 Membership numbers for Turkish labor unions are notoriously difficult to report with accuracy. It is widely acknowledged that Turkish labor laws encouraged the over-reporting of membership numbers. Consequently, what estimates are available often vary. Nonetheless, by way of comparison, Türk-İş reported a membership of 497,857 in 1967 and an increase to 700,000 dues paying members by 1976. Defections from Türk-İş to DİSK between 1970 and 1973 contributed to a dramatic increase in DİSK’s membership from 88,650 to 270,000. “Türk-İş’e üye Kuruluşlar,” in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarih, Vol. 2, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 160–4; and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, “Türk-İş” and “DİSK,” http://www.fes.de/ fulltext/bueros/istanbul/00253003.htm#LOCE9E3 (accessed Oct. 20, 2005). 70 Bruce Millen, “Factions of the Turkish Labor Movement Differ Over Political Role,” Monthly Labor Review June (1969): 35. 71 Over 40,000 people attended the 1969 march, which was marred by violence and became known as Turkey’s Bloody Sunday. For information on the 1968 protests, see Koç and Koç, 108–13. For information on the 1969 protests see Koç and Koç 120–1. 72 Ibid., 116. 73 DİSK, “Demokratik Toplumcu ve DİSK” (“Democratic Socialism and DİSK”) (Istanbul: Çinar Matbaası, 1970), 1. 74 Ibid., 2. 75 Koç and Koç, 97. 76 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türk-İş,” 337. 77 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 74. 78 In fact, just as it had prohibited TİP members from taking part in the 1966 Türk-İş convention, at the 1973 convention in Ankara, supporters of social democratic unionism were kept out. This contributed to the decision of four unions to leave the confederation and join DİSK: Genel-İş (1975), OLEYİS (1977), Ges-İş (1975), and Çağdaş Metal İş (1973). Beşeli, 240–241. And, at the 10th Türk-İş convention in 1976, 2/3 of those present supported a change to the “above party politics” principle. Nonetheless, leadership opposition prevented a change from coming to fruition. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türk-İş,” 340. 79 Bianchi, 220. 80 Personal interview at Yol-İş national headquarters in Ankara, 22 April 2004.

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81 The final tally for the vote on law number 1317 was 230 to accept, 4 to reject, while 214 members did not vote. Millet Meclisi Tutanak Dergisi, vol. 6 (National Assembly Journal of Record, vol 6.) (Ankara: T.B.M.M. Matbaası, 1970), 387. 82 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “15–16 Hazıran Olayları,” 453. 83 Vatan Gazetesi, June 16, 1970, 1. 84 Hürriyet Gazetesi, June 17, 1970, 11. 85 Günseli Berik and Cihan Bilginsoy, “The Labor Movement in Turkey: Labor Pains, Maturity, Metamorphosis,” in The Social History of Labor in the Middle East, ed. Ellis Goldberg. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), 48. 86 After the June protests, competition between Türk-İş and DİSK took on more explicitly political tones. Türk-İş leaders called DİSK’s actions a rehearsal for a communist revolution; some of its members protesting outside of DİSK’s offices in Ankara with posters that read “To hell with the communists, long live Türk-İş.” In response, DİSK’s Riza Kuas issued a lengthy statement castigating Türk-İş as a client of the ruling party. Koç and Koç 157 & 164 87 DİSK, 1 Mayıs: Birlik-Dayanışma-Mücadele (May 1: Unity-Solidarity-Struggle) (Istanbul: DİSK Yayınları, 1978), 52. 88 Nail Güreli, İki 1 Mayıs (Two May 1sts) (Istanbul: Gür Yayınları, 1979), 20–1. 89 Ibid., 42–4. 90 Cumhuriyet Gazetesi, May 2, 1977, 5. 91 For a comprehensive overview of these events, see Hacay Yılmaz, Tariş Olayları (The Tariş Events) (Istanbul: Yalçın Yayınları, 1987), and Koç and Koç, 568–78. 92 Koç and Koç, 570. 93 David Makofsky, “In the Factories: The Development of Class Consciousness Among Manual Workers in Istanbul,” Urban Life 6, no. 1 (1977): 94. 94 C.H. Dodd, The Crisis of Turkish Democracy (North Yorkshire: The Eothen Press, 1983, 41. 95 For a complete list of legislative changes regarding working class and union concerns, see, Koç, “Türkiye,” 103–6. 96 Bianchi, 126. 97 Perhaps this point is best understood with reference to a provision that made 24 July labor day as part of the legislation adopted in 1963 that expanded union rights and freedoms. Koç, “Türkiye,” 106. 98 Article 2 limited anyone connected with the military or gendarme from sharing union rights. Article 4 set limits on public sector unions. Article 6 outlined the procedures for withdrawing from union membership, which now simply involved a notary public and a source of identification. Article 9 stated that for a union to be an official, legal representative, it must represent one-third of the workers in an industry; for a union federation to be legal, it must represent at least one-third of the workers in an industrial sector; and for a confederation of unions to be legal, it must represent at least one-third of all union members. T.B.M.M. Kanunlar Dergisi, vol. 53 (Turkish Grand National Assembly Journal of Laws, vol. 53) (Ankara: T.B.M.M. Basımevi, 1970), 449–57. 99 In fact, in its effort to have the Constitutional Court repeal this legislation, TİP declared, “The debate about the rules was driven by the goal of dissolving the Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions.” “Anayasa Mahkemesi Kararları” (Constitutional Court Decisions”), T.C. Resmi Gazete, October, 18 1972, 2.

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100 Quoted in: Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “15-16 Hazıran Olayları,” 451. 101 Lipovsky, 19. This represented 3% of the national vote. The Highest provincial vote totals for TİP in 1965 came in Istanbul (7.9%) and Diyarbakır (8.0%). 102 Feroz Ahmad, The Turkish Experiment in Democracy, 1950-1975 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1977), 311. 103 Quoted in Koç and Koç, 128–9. 104 On this point, see, for example, Lipovsky, 41. 105 Bülent Ecevit, Ortanın Solu (The Left of Center, 5th edition) (Ankara: Tekin Yayınevi, 1973), 16. 106 Sunar, 177. 107 Sunar writes, “The new populism was designed to appeal to the growing mood of discontent, especially among the low-paid public employees, urban service workers, small shopkeepers and artisans, poor peasants, and unemployed.” Ibid., 180. As Ayşe Güneş Ayata emphasizes, “The left of center movement in 1966 claimed a much different ideology of populism than the populism of the 1930s.” Ayata, Ayşe Güneş, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi: Örgüt ve İdeoloji (The Republican People’s Party: Organization and Ideology) (Ankara: Gndoğan Yayınları 1992), 83. 108 Bülent Ecevit, “Labor in Turkey as a New Social and Political Force,” in Social Change and Politics in Turkey: A Structural-Historical Analysis, ed. Kemal Karpat. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1973), 151. 109 Ibid., 174. 110 Ayata, 87. 111 Ibid., 89–90. 112 Çağlar Keyder, “The Political Economy of Turkish Democracy,” in Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives, eds. Irvin Schick and Ertagrul Ahmet Tonak. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 57. Perhaps, though, one should be careful not to ascribe too much to this recognition of class activism. Thus, Berik and Bilginsoy point out that the CHP remained largely ambivalent toward DISK. Berik and Bilginsoy, 49. Nonetheless, one cannot ignore the significance revealed by the acknowledgment of the CHP—the party of Atatürk—of labor’s legitimate political concerns. 113 DİSK, DİSK’in 1977 Genel Seçimlerinde CHP’yi Destekleme Kararının Gerekçesi 114 Ibid., 3. 115 Ibid., 4. 116 Ayata, 91. 117 Sabri Sayarı and Yılmaz Esmer, eds. Politics, Parties, and Elections in Turkey (Boulder: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 2002), 201–5. 118 Quoted in Roy, 148. 119 Ibid., 168. 120 Nichols and Kahveci, 201. Of this incident, the regional gendarme commander said, “It is possible that [the order to fire] was given by one of the company or squad commanders, first they fired into the air, they shot when they got angry from seeing their friends in the gendarme wounded from the rain of stones coming from the workers.” Milliyet Gazetesi, March 15, 1965, 1. 121 Vatan Gazetesi, March 13, 1965, 1. 122 Milliyet Gazetesi, June 17, 1970, 1.

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123 Milliyet Gazetesi, June 18, 1970, 1. In the crackdown that followed, DİSK’s president and general secretary, as well as 18 other union leaders were placed under arrest, and various right-wing politicians called for the closure of TİP. 124 Various individuals and groups blamed Maoist students with a pro-Kurdish agenda whose participation had been inhibited by DİSK security officials. Güreli reports that a group carrying a large placard reading “Independence,” red flags, and pictures of Marx, Stalin, and Lenin entered the square and instigated the violence. Güreli, 117. Others blamed the CIA for seeking to provoke a strong law-and-order, antileftist response. Former TİP leader Mehmet Ali Aybar, for example, declared, “The Taksim events were a CIA provocation . . . . The CIA wanted to give the green light to fascist interference.” Finally, others, including CHP leader Ecevit called the bloody events a set up orchestrated by the Nationalist Front coalition before the elections scheduled for 5 June 1977. Vatan Gazetesi, May 2, 1977, 1. 125 Ahmad, “Making,” 169. 126 Güreli, 231. 127 Quoted in Yılmaz, 18. 128 More generally, in his account of the anatomy of the Turkish armed forces, Mehmet Ali Birand highlights the way military officers are steeped in Atatürkism as an ideology. In reference to unions, texts on Atatürkism explain “Theoreticians of revolutionary political syndicalism are workers’ groups who would have all political organization work only in their interests, so that they can eventually take over political power and sovereignty. . . . Who will stop them from working only in their interests if some of these groups join forces in the representative assembly and come to power?” Mehmet Ali Birand, Shirts of Steel: An Anatomy of the Turkish Armed Forces, trans. Saliha Paker and Ruth Christie. (London: I.B. Tauris, 1991), 61. 129 Keyder, 51. 130 Ahmad, “Experiment,” 294. 131 The party’s support for class-based politics, as well as its growing emphasis on Kurdish political rights, contributed to the decision to close TİP. 132 Kenan Evren, “The Military Takeover in 1980 and the Third Phase,” in Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East, revised edition, ed. Kemal H. Karpat. (New York: Praeger, 1982), 391. 133 See, for example Berik and Bilginsoy, 52–3. 134 Dodd, 27. DİSK’s president Kemal Türkler was among those who were victims of this violence. On 22 July 1980, Türkler was shot and killed while getting into his car in front of his house. 135 Hugh Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf, and Crescent: Turkish Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (New York: NYU Press, 1997), 161. 136 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “DİSK,” 315. 137 Ibid., 315. 138 These state actors include major political parties—post-1966 CHP and TİP excluded, as well as the military and bureaucratic elite—that murky set of actors known now as the “deep state,” who understood their own role as that of protecting the sanctity of Atatürk’s original vision.

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Democracy and Economic Justice: Labor Activism and Contemporary Turkish Politics1

The period following the 1961 military intervention in Turkey resulted in an opening of political opportunities for labor unions and advocates of working-class politics. Subsequently, the 1960s and 1970s saw profound increases in unionization; increased militant actions ranging from strikes to workplace occupations, to demonstrations; the emergence, growth, and eventual state–imposed closure of the Turkish Workers’ Party (Türkiye İşçi Partisi – TİP); the internal debate that led to the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi – CHP) move to the “left-of-center”; and the counter-mobilization of rightist and ultranationalist groups contributing to growing political violence. In Chapter 4, I suggested that Turkish labor movement activism in the 1960s and 1970s developed an alternative collective subjectivity that is best described as Turkish leftist nationalism. This leftist nationalism was critical of widespread economic inequality and the growing influence of international capitalist and military interests, which were viewed as the most important threat to Turkish sovereignty. It motivated political participation based on both a radical politics of redistribution guided by a critical (often socialist and Marxist) analysis of socioeconomic injustice, and demands that the state address these injustices through social welfare protections and the provision of jobs guided by the development of industry; and a radical politics of recognition involving the demand that the state address the injustice that derived from the persistent failure of the state to help the poor, unemployed, and marginal elements of Turkish society.2 Throughout the 1960s and 1970s labor movement activism offered an alternative vision for Turkish politics, economics, and society—one that stressed independence from foreign capital and military interests, and one that advocated a positive role for the state in addressing lingering economic inequities. Yet, the military coup of 12 September 1980 brought forceful state repression of leftist and labor movement activism. Consequently, the predominant view of the Turkish labor movement has been one that stresses its limited role in shaping contemporary Turkish politics. To the contrary, I suggest that analysis of the demands put forth during the labor movement’s resurgence in the late 1980s and 1990s, as well as in certain aspects of the contemporary Kurdish and Islamist movements in Turkey, reveals a shared organization of collective political action based on the premise that democratic citizenship and economic justice are both linked and fundamental—a premise articulated by the 1960s and 1970s Turkish labor movement’s politics of redistribution and recognition.

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Furthermore, it has become common in studies of Turkish political history to understand the 1980 military intervention as a radical break in Turkish politics. According to this logic, the military intervention effectively crushed the leftist and labor movement activism of the prior two decades. The thoroughness of this defeat has been understood within the context of broader international trends that signaled the declining importance of socialism and socialist movements. Within this understanding of Turkish and international political history, the political movements that became most important in Turkey during the 1980s and 1990s—the Kurdish and Islamist movements—have been analyzed as a reflection of this break. Such interpretations are assisted by the Turkish state’s response to Islamist and Kurdish politics—a response which has seen both through the lens of national security. Especially from the perspective of the military elite, very little seems to connect the leftist and labor movement activism of the 1960s and 1970s with the claims made by, and reasons for, popular support of the Islamist and Kurdish activism of the 1980s and 1990s. Consequently, the predominant frameworks for understanding Kurdish and Islamist politics in Turkey cast these movements as examples of ethnic politics, or the politics of identity that corresponds to the peculiar conditions of late modernity or postmodernity. In short, it has been argued that Kurdish and Islamist politics are best understood as typical of new social movements indicative of the break in world politics that accompanied the declining importance of socialist and working-class movements. Many analyses of Kurdish and Islamist politics in Turkey, therefore, focus on the ways that these movements present their activists with a shared political identity that can confront the uncertainty and flux associated with the processes of globalization and the conditions of late capitalism.3 For instance, in addressing the emergence of identity politics in Turkey, Sayarı states “The reassertion of ethnic and religious identities in Turkish society during the last two decades represented a watershed in the evolution of the Republic.”4 This notion imputes uniqueness to the Kurdish and Islamist social movements of the 1980s and 1990s—that they were new social movements after all. Such a premise is based on a distinction between the way contemporary movements promote a politics of recognition, stressing alternative answers to questions of who we are. These movements, it is alleged, are postmaterialist and analytically distinct from older movements that focused on a politics of redistribution.5 I find this distinction between new and old social movements both unhelpful and misleading. This is the case, I argue, because while movements driven by material motivations have important identity shaping consequences, so too do movements motivated by the articulation of alternative identities have material dimensions.6 In the theoretical framework I have developed for explaining social movement impacts, I have suggested that social movements that develop and sustain alternative collective subjectivities have more profound effects on state–society relations than movements that do not. Furthermore, I have suggested that even such movements that ultimately fall victim to massive state repression can have an enduring legacy insofar as the claims made by such movement may resurface at a later date. The literature on social movements has identified a number of mechanisms by which movements that mobilize alternative collective subjectivities can influence

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future state–society relations. Nancy Whittier, for example, suggests four main routes of influence—four mechanisms by which movements have consequences for each other.7 First, one movement can influence others through biographical and generational connections. In other words, a movement’s influence can result when the same people involved in one movement or cycle of mobilization are later involved in different movements or future cycles of mobilization. Second, a movement’s influence can come through networks and organizational contacts, where organizations in one movement come into contact with other external organizations. Third, movements can transform the social movement sector in a polity by sharing and modeling successful tactics and frames. Finally, movements can create broader cultural and political changes. She concludes, “As [movements] change frames and discourses in mainstream culture, they alter the cultural context with which other social movements engage.”8 In short, movements can make opportunities to mobilize and political visions that have popular appeal visible to future activists. This chapter draws on these mechanisms in order to evaluate whether and how interpersonal connections helped translate and bring forward political visions previously articulated by leftist and labor movement activism in Turkey during the 1960s and 1970s; and how the transfer of repertoires of contention—such as public demonstrations and the formation of political parties—are linked to the transfer of broader understandings of who Turks are and what kind of world they want to live in. This chapter examines the extent to which the legacy of movements that build and sustain alternative collective subjectivities—even after facing repression—involves the diffusion of political ideas over time. In the case of the Turkish labor movement, evidence for an enduring impact can be found in at least three aspects of contemporary Turkish politics: First, the legacy of prior labor movement mobilization can help explain the resurgence of political unionism in the late 1980s and 1990s critical of the 1982 constitution, as well as of privatization reforms and neoliberal globalization. Second, the labor movement’s legacy can be seen in important aspects of Kurdish demands for recognition and redistribution—demands that have sought to address economic injustices associated with the underdevelopment of Turkey’s southeast, and to confront the state’s historical denial of the legitimacy of a politics informed by Kurdish ethnicity and culture. Finally, the labor movement’s legacy can explain important aspects of Islamist politics (in the form of both unionism and political parties). Specifically, it can help explain the growth of popular support for Islamist politics insofar as Islamist political mobilization has inherited the labor movement’s tradition of organizing collective political action designed to promote the goal of addressing the socioeconomic concerns of Turkey’s urban working class and subproletariat. In the analysis that follows, biographical and generational ties can be found, for instance, in the resurgence of labor activism in the 1980s and 1990s, and in the infusion of DİSK activists into Hak-İş. The importance of organizational contacts is best exemplified in the historical interaction of labor activists working side-by-side with Kurdish activists. The legacy of prior labor movement activism on the social movement sector in Turkey is evident in the way more contemporary movements have

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appropriated the successful tactics and frames developed by labor movement activists of the 1960s and 1970s—especially those organizing in urban centers and making public claims for the state to play a more active role in addressing economic inequities. Finally, the legacy of Turkish labor activism involves the way that the growth of shared perceptions of the Turkish state’s failure to promote economic justice has constrained and shaped the frames of more contemporary instances of movement activism. Moreover, where some scholars see the repression of labor that followed the 1980 military coup in Turkey and conclude that the labor movement was, at best, dependent on the state or hampered by abstract theoretical conflicts, and at worst, weak and inconsequential, I see a more far-reaching and enduring impact. And, where some scholars see the emergence of Islamist and Kurdish movements in the 1980s and 1990s as evidence of the emergence of new, identity-based social movements after a radical break in Turkey’s political development, I see a confluence between the political movements in contemporary Turkish politics and the critiques advanced by labor activists of the 1960s and 1970s. Furthermore, just as recent historiography has sought, by examining points of ideological, political, economic, and social convergence, to downplay what the Kemalist elite wished to present as a radical break from the Ottoman past, so too, I hope to raise skepticism about what the military regime sought to portray in the early 1980s as radical break from the “anarchic” politics of the previous decade.

The resurgence of political unionism In June of 1980, the Turkish government tried to implement an IMF-imposed stabilization package, the main costs of which would have fallen on the working class and unions. Yıldırım Koç writes of this: “It became evident that the austerity, stabilization and re-structuring program could not be implemented in peace.”9 Citing the need to save the country from the artificial divisions that had marred recent Turkish history, the military staged a coup on 12 September 1980. In the months that followed, the National Security Council came down hard on labor unions: three confederations (the Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions—DİSK, the Confederation of Righteous Trade Unions—Hak-İş, and a smaller, Nationalist Confederation of Labor Unions— MİSK) were closed; compulsory arbitration replaced collective bargaining; and the right to strike was suspended.10 In addition, 1,955 unionists from DİSK were arrested, many spent years in prison waiting for their trials to be heard.11 Furthermore, the new law covering organized labor (Law Number 2822) restricted the scope of legal strikes.12 For Koç, “The 1980–1983 period were the darkest years for Turkey’s history of human rights, democracy, and fundamental workers’ rights and freedoms.”13 Perhaps as part of the military regime’s strategy of seeking a partner for promoting industrial peace, only Türk-İş escaped the coup virtually unharmed. In a letter published in its magazine three months after the coup, Türk-İş adopted a cautiously supportive stance: “One need not forget that, in the period before 12 September, no one in this country was free to move about, even at home [we] lived in fear.”14 Moreover, the leadership of Türk-İş held out hope that “with today’s administration’s success normal

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democracy” would shortly return.15 In fact, Türk-İş’s general secretary, Sadık Şide even became a minister (for social security) in the military government. However, the restrictions faced by the Turkish labor movement did not put a permanent end to labor activism. In 1984, the first strike and nonstrike activity since the coup, though limited, resumed. This was followed in 1985 by a total of 21 strikes and an increase in passive resistance. In February 1986, Türk-İş held a “Bread, Peace, Freedom” meeting, which was followed in June by a “Government Protest” meeting as opposition to the Turkish state’s postcoup labor policies began to spill over into the public sphere.16 Subsequent marches in İzmir and Eskişehir in the months leading up to the 1986 elections indicated that despite repression, the re-emergence of political unionism was already beginning—even while legal cases against unionists were still pending.17 Workers meetings held throughout the country in 1987 and 1988 led the leadership of Türk-İş to call for a referendum to change the constitution and its antidemocratic provisions. Protests in the oil and mining sectors drew thousands to events that raised criticism of falling wages, the government of the Motherland Party, and the rising cost of living.18 In 1989 Türk-İş unions began engaging in an increasing number of actions targeting the state’s antilabor restrictions. Concentrated during the spring, there were a total of 171 strikes in 1989 (7 in the public sector and 164 in the private sector). Most strikes triggered other nonstrike actions of support, which in combination with the strikes have become known as the Spring Actions (Bahar Eylemleri).19 At the Türk-İş convention in December 1989, the confederation declared that it must move to the front of the struggle for democracy. As Koç reports, “Türk-İş unions resorted to all forms of industrial action, from sit-down strikes, ‘work-to-rules,’ lunch boycotts, slowdowns, late reporting-in for works to mass-sickouts.”20 If the actions of the spring of 1989 created “A new tradition of united legitimate mass struggle against the government, in which trade unions and class consciousness dominated over various differences,”21 then the coal miners’ march and strike a year later showed the power of this renewed penchant for political unionism. In 1965, as I argue in Chapter 4, it was the wildcat strike by coal miners in Zonguldak that set the tone for the political unionism that predominated during the remainder of the decade and throughout the 1970s. In short, it is in the confrontation between the gendarmes, the military, and the workers that the alternative collective subjectivity that guided labor activism in the 1960s and 1970s emerged. Similarly, when the coal miners challenged the state’s privatization policies and were met with military and gendarme opposition on the road between Zonguldak and Ankara, it became clear that the labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity had not been destroyed by the repression of the early 1980s. The history of the coal mining industry in the Zonguldak region on Turkey’s Black Sea coast is bound to the Turkish state’s project of industrialization and modernization.22 Throughout the formative years of Turkey’s industrialization Zonguldak’s coal was used to build domestic industry by providing the state’s other industries with a cheap energy source. Prices were kept low by keeping the mining industry labor intensive. However, the mandate on the Turkish government in the 1980s—both internally from

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industrialists but particularly externally from institutions of international capitalism— was to get the state out of industry. It was in the contexts of low wages (there had not been a wage increase for the miners in Zonguldak in the period from 1980 to 1988), and the increasing push for the privatization of state–owned enterprises, that labor unrest began to boil over.23 In 1988, a strike was narrowly avoided by a last minute deal with the Türk-İş affiliated miners’ union, Genel Maden İş. In  1989, however, the union membership elected a more radical leadership with Şemsi Denizer becoming the union’s leader. In  1990, this new leadership led a fight for a 500% wage increase, investment in health and safety, and against privatization. The Motherland Party government dismissed these demands saying they would worsen inflation. Indeed, even Türk-İş was hesitant to give initial support for the miners’ demands.24 Despite this opposition, on the morning of 30 November 1990, 47,000–48,000 members of Genel Maden İş went on strike.25 The workers found broad support for their efforts in the communities surrounding the mines. Beginning the morning of the second day, the union organized daily marches in various areas in and around Zonguldak. These marches were joined by coal miners, their families, and by broader members of the community.26 After Türk-İş moved to back the miners, a march on the nation’s capital was called for on 4 January 1991. Buses were to take the miners and their families from Zonguldak to the outskirts of Ankara, where the workers and their families were to march to the office of the Turkish President, Turgut Özal. However, the governor of the Ankara Province and the governor of Zonguldak Province moved to prevent this march and the buses were prohibited from entering Zonguldak.27 On the morning of 4 January 1991, thousands of supporters had gathered on the narrow streets outside of Genel Maden İş’s headquarters in Zonguldak, and decided to march from Zonguldak to Ankara.28 According to Erol Kahveci, 100,000 people joined the march, which on the third day (about 100 km from Zonguldak) was met with a police and military barricade.29 While the march ended, the strike continued until 25 January, when it and all other strikes were enjoined by the Turkish government, whose actions were justified by citing the Gulf War and concerns for national security.30 Kahveci summarizes the overall importance of the coal miners’ strike: At Zonguldak about 70,000 marched daily. Women led the marches through the city, calling for ‘bread, peace, and democracy.’ Turkey had never experienced anything like this before. This strike marked the strengthening of the Turkish workers’ movement after 10 years of military backed governments.31 By 1991, DİSK had been granted permission to operate again, and the resurgence of political unionism in Turkey was accompanied by cooperative efforts between the major union confederations. According to Yıldırım Koç, in the 1980s there was a basis for cooperation between union confederations on two levels: the state’s effort to control radical labor reduced the ideological differences between the major confederations, and the 1990s economic crises provided material incentives for unified collective action. There was also grassroots demand for collaboration from the rank-and-file within

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many unions and within the larger public.32 The collaboration between the major union confederations was focused both on securing changes to the legal restrictions imposed by the 1982 constitution and postcoup legal environment, and on organizing opposition to the state’s privatization reforms and capitulations to the institutions of neoliberal globalization. In 1993 the major union confederations began an effort to formalize collaboration in order to pursue a united political and economic agenda. This early collaboration focused on issues including the impact of the IMF and World Bank mandated transformations, joblessness, the ability of public and private workers to organize, declining wages, and inflation. Declaring their intention to show strength and unity in pursuing this agenda, the confederations issued a statement in January 1993 asserting, “The three confederations, too, join in decisiveness to abolish the September 12 legal order, to speed the progression of democratization, and to put aside all forms of antidemocratic organization.”33 On 11 November 1993, Türk-İş, DİSK, and Hak-İş put forth a unified “Democracy Platform.” In essence, this renewed political unionism was based on the resurgence of labor’s leftist nationalism. In the 1990s, the state’s commitments to market reforms and privatization, as well as the legal curbs on democratic participation, were fundamentally challenged. Union activists believed that the 1982 constitution and subsequent labor laws restricted labor rights in order to assure privatization reforms.34 As Osman Yıldız from Hak-İş pointed out, labor unions were challenging the state’s answers to questions on distributional issues. In the state’s pursuit of economic liberalization, he said “Nobody is questioning the model.” If reform was needed then unions were demanding “Let’s discuss its role and place.”35 This sentiment was echoed in Hak-İş publications examining the state of the labor movement in Turkey and the need for greater oversight of the impact of privatization. From Hak-İş’s perspective, “In Turkey, we see a privatization without consciousness.”36 This unified support also brought a return of massive May Day demonstrations in Turkey’s major cities beginning in 1994. In its 1994 “May First Declaration” Türk-İş declared: On May 1, 1994 let us raise our voices one more time against the threat and influence of exploitation, against the antidemocratic stabilization program, against unemployment, costliness, the closure of workplaces . . . . To our country, to our people, to our workers, this stabilization program will give great harm. . . . in the legal changes is prepared a new antidemocratic order.37 Addressing the large protests held on 1 May 1994, Türk-İş President Bayram Meral affirmed, “Tens of thousands of people from different political inclinations joined these meetings with the purpose of promoting ‘bread, peace, freedom and democracy,’ and to contribute to the creation of a more peaceful Turkey.”38 One of the challenges for labor unions in the 1990s was to lift the restrictions on public service unions that had been in place since the early 1970s. In 1990 Law 4688 allowed public servants the freedom of association, and in 1995 constitutional changes

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(to article 53) officially spelled out the rules and rights of public servants to unionize.39 One consequence of this expansion in union rights has been the emergence of two new labor union confederations: the Confederation of Public Laborers’ Unions (Kamu Emekçileri Sendikaları Konfederasyonu – KESK) and the Confederation of Public Servant Unions of Turkey (Türkiye Kamu-Sen). In  1999 these confederations joined Türk-İş, DİSK, and Hak-İş in the drafting of a second platform of shared principles—the “Labor Platform.” Announcement of the “Labor Platform” was accompanied by a 400,000 person rally in the Kızılay neighborhood of Ankara.40 The rally cry was: “Kahrolsun IMF, Bağımsız Türkiye” – “To hell IMF, Free Turkey.”41 Indeed, echoing themes that were central to labor movement subjectivity in the 1960s and 1970s, contemporary Turkish labor activists have framed the issue of privatization and globalization as one of giving up national independence and sovereignty to the IMF, multinational corporations, or American imperialism.42 On the whole, the resurgence of political unionism has led Koç to conclude “The 1989–2003 period was the period with the most widespread mass action in the Turkish working class and unionist movement’s history.”43 However, while the resurgence of political unionism appears to frame political subjectivities in ways that reflect themes raised by labor activism in the 1960s and 1970s, not all of the differences between the union confederations have disappeared. In fact, despite the united stance against the effects of globalization, there is disagreement between the confederations about whether or not to support Turkey’s bid for European Union (EU) membership. Generally, Türk-İş and DİSK have taken stances that are skeptical of the pursuit of EU membership. Their decisions are based largely on the perception that EU membership would only deepen the state’s privatization efforts and further erode the status of unions. Hak-İş, however, has adopted the stance shared by Turkey’s leading Islamist party—namely that EU membership can help advance the cause of democracy and human rights in Turkey.44 This paradox, though, is not lost on activists within these confederations: One member of Hak-İş acknowledged that while the EU may be good for democratization, it may be harmful economically;45 and one member of DİSK was hopeful about the democratizing reforms the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – AKP) has instituted in the name of EU membership, despite opposing EU membership in general.46 Another important cleavage within the Turkish labor movement is evident in several incidents of union competition. For example, in May and June 2004, the DİSK-affiliated Birleşik Metal İş issued a formal complaint to the International Labor Organization about raids on its unions by the metal workers’ union affiliated with Türk-İş, Türk Metal İş. According to one of these complaints, on the night of 11 March 2004, third shift workers at a factory in Gebze, “were locked in the factory till next morning and then they were forced to resign from our Union and to register to another Union.”47 From an academic perspective, these incidents demonstrate that competition between the union confederations is still an important element of the Turkish labor movement. It also suggests that DİSK’s lower membership numbers are not entirely the result of an increasing rejection of socialist ideas, but rather owe partly to concerted efforts to draw workers away from its member unions.48

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Despite these divisions, the labor movement in Turkey has remained generally committed to a politics that critiques the state’s failure to address socioeconomic injustice and calls for greater democratization. Over the course of my research I asked several current union activists to reflect on the role of the labor movement in Turkey. I asked them to consider the meaning of workers’ rights, democracy, socialism, and the state’s role in the life of workers. Those I spoke with consistently emphasized the labor movement’s struggle for democracy, freedom, and a better life for the working class. A worker affiliated with the municipality employees’ union, Genel-İş, a DİSK affiliate, said “According to me, socialism is working together and struggling together; democracy is in the struggle for freedom.”49 Those I spoke with emphasized the widespread poverty in the country, and the need for the state both to address these economic concerns and to better enforce union rights. A member of the metal workers’ union affiliated with DİSK, Birleşik Metal İş, argued, “In Turkey, in the life of workers, the state, in the last degree, plays an influential and restrictive role. The state creates the most serious obstacles for workers in Turkey and in the union movement.”50 Another union member affiliated with Birleşik Metal İş listed three criteria that are found in democratic countries: political parties, free speech, and the right to strike. “If the right to strike is limited, or is not there,” he said, “it is not possible to speak of democracy.”51 In short, as it was in the political activism of the labor movement in the 1960s and 1970s, the strike is viewed as a political, rather than simply economic right. In the end, it became clear that the state’s economic policies and restrictions on labor unions, combined with the perceived threat of international capitalism to Turkish sovereignty, remain a central focus of labor movement activism in Turkey. Moreover, the impact of the labor movement of the 1960s and 1970s on the current state of the labor movement in Turkey is evident by the endurance of the labor movement’s sustained organization of political action focused on a radical politics of recognition and redistribution. When asked about the legacy of the labor movement in Turkey, Koç responded that it has “contributed to the democratization of the country—contributed to the democratization of families, because unions cannot develop without changes in the family.” It has led to “a democratization of human relations.” Labor unions, he concluded, boost the “self-confidence, individually, of workers.”52 This legacy has endured despite the efforts of the military regime to control and limit political unionism. On the whole, the legacy of the Turkish labor movement’s sustained mobilization of an alternative collective subjectivity is evident in the reemergence of political unionism in the 1980s and 1990s. Beginning in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, labor union activists engaged in contentious political action designed to critique the democratic restrictions put in place after the coup, the state’s liberal economic reforms, as well as the state’s commitment to neoliberal globalization. This political action reflects the fact that repression of labor activists may have driven labor unionists’ critique of the state underground, but this acquiescence did not signal compliance. Indeed, at the first opening, these hidden transcripts became public again.

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The “Kurdish question” reconsidered Writing in the midst of the Turkish state’s military conflict with Kurdish activists during the 1990s, Andrew Mango asserted, “Kurdish nationalism constitutes the biggest single problem Turkey faces today.”53 For Mango, the crux of this problem involved the reality that assertions of a Kurdish ethnic identity undermined the fact that “The republic of Turkey . . . was assumed to be nationally homogeneous.”54 Kurdish politics has most often been considered exclusively as an example of ethnic politics—an important case of the recent and growing trend of social movements organized around ethnic identities in search of the right to self-determination.55 Sefa Şimşek exemplifies such an understanding of Kurdish politics—one that recognizes the connection between earlier political movements and Kurdish politics, but concludes that “Old ideologies and organizations reemerged under different forms and with new demands as they underwent a deep transformation in accordance with the effects of globalization.”56 In this section, I argue that Kurdish activism, both in its more radical PKK form and in its more mainstream political party form, demonstrates important commonalities with the labor movement activism of the 1960s and 1970s. Contemporary Kurdish activism grew out of the socioeconomic critiques raised by the Turkish leftist nationalism of labor movement activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The persistent problem of economic inequality and underdevelopment plaguing the Turkish southeast became an important concern for the activists and leaders of the Turkish Workers’ Party in particular. Subsequently, Kurdish activists, first during the 1960s and 1970s and later during the1980s and 1990s, organized political action based on support for a similar politics of redistribution—one that drew its economic analysis primarily from socialist and Marxist ideas. Yet, whereas labor activism stressed the need to address the cultural injustice resulting from socioeconomic disparities by stressing the positive potential of collective action based on class solidarity, much of the Kurdish politics of the 1980s and 1990s stressed the need to address the cultural injustice stemming from socioeconomic disparities by emphasizing the importance of ethnic differences and not simply class-based solutions. As an ethnic group, the Kurds were at the center of state–society conflict in the Middle East throughout the twentieth century.57 In the case of Turkey, the position of Kurds within the Republic has been an omnipresent source of state–society conflict at various times and in differing contexts.58 Antipathy for permitting Kurdish ethnic rights originally emerged in the early years of Turkish state formation. After the Kurds were promised the right to self-determination by Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Point Programme for World Peace at the close of the World War I, “Atatürk’s aggressive policy of Turkish nationalism shut out any hope of Kurdish autonomy or even recognition of a separate non-Turkish cultural identity.”59 This was the case because just as the foundational Kemalist principles saw a threat in class-based politics, so too were ethnic politics seen as a threat to the unity and cohesion of the nascent Turkish Republic. As Nicole Watts points out, “Preventing the development of an ethnic Kurdish cultural and political movement has been a priority of the Turkish state since the Kurdish-led Shaykh Said Rebellion of 1925.”60 However, the combination of military repression,

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the increasing importance of Turkey’s Kurdish areas for electoral success after the start of multiparty politics in 1946, and the migration instigated by the mechanization of agriculture helped to control pro-Kurdish politics.61 The growth of contemporary activism dedicated to Kurdish nationalism and proKurdish politics in Turkey is rooted in and shaped by the leftist and labor movement activism of the 1960s.62 The reemergence of pro-Kurdish politics in the 1960s and 1970s took place in conjunction with important economic and social upheavals in Turkey’s Kurdish areas. By the late 1950s and early 1960s government policies promoting the mechanization of agriculture, while strengthening the position of large landowners, helped to squeeze out small and tenant farmers. These economic changes contributed to significant migration to urban centers both in the southeast and to the industrial centers of Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir.63 According to David McDowall: These were the socioeconomic changes which were eventually to play a key role in the burgeoning national movement in the 1980s. This movement was borne by economic deprivation, social injustice and physical displacement as well as the ideas of ethnic identity, all of which combined in the late 1970s to create the conditions for revolt.64 In conjunction with these socioeconomic changes, pro-Kurdish politics during the 1960s and 1970s was connected with the challenges of leftist and labor activists to the antidemocratic aspects of the Turkish state and lingering economic inequities. According to Hayri Şahin, socialism offered appealing solutions to the Kurdish people’s problems.65 Consequently, “the entry of a public Kurdish figure into Turkish political culture during the 1960s . . . . began as part of a collaborative effort between Turkish and Kurdish socialists to change the nature of the Turkish state.”66 Toward this end, Paul White concludes, “the central factor behind the [Kurdish] movement’s rebirth . . . was the general resurgence in Turkish political life during the 1960s.”67 While Kurdish areas were an important source of votes for Turkish political parties, through its military and policing institutions, the state remained suspicious of any Kurdish political claims. More broadly in Turkish society, animosity toward Kurds was manifested in overt racism. Amid this climate, McDowall argues, “It was only with the Left that Kurds felt they were treated more or less as equals.”68 During the 1960s and early 1970s, the Kurdish cause was embraced by, for example, the Turkish Workers’ Party. In the early 1960s, the emergence of an “Eastern Group” within TİP demonstrated the important ties between Kurdish activists and broader leftist and labor activism. As Nicole Watts points out, the Eastern Group “included many of the fledgling Kurdish movement’s most active intellectuals.”69 As a result of these connections, TİP’s 1964 program highlighted economic and cultural problems in Turkey’s southeast as central aspects of the labor movement’s challenge to the Turkish state’s legitimacy. In addition, Kurdish support proved important to the 1965 electoral success of TİP, which was able to organize rapidly in Kurdish areas.70 In  1967, TİP began holding “East Meetings,” which further placed a socialist lens on the Kurdish question.71 According to Şahin,

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“In those who attended the East meetings, a Kurdish nationalist consciousness developed,” and socialist ideas played the most important role in shaping this.72 At the 1968 TİP convention, the seventh article approved dealt specifically with Kurdish issues. It stated that although there was supposed to be equality before the law between all religious, thought, and ethnic groups, as each label refers to three types of groups restrictions on Kurdish and Arabic speakers created second-class citizens.73 Finally, at its 4th Congress, in 1970, the Turkish Workers’ Party became the first political party to officially acknowledge problems with the state’s treatment of Kurds.74 Moreover, as Şimsek concludes, “the Kurdish movement started to gain visibility in the 1960s as it merged with Leftist labor and student activism.”75 In short, the growth of leftist and labor movement activism and its affiliation with Kurds were promoted by the shared concern over economic hardship and socioeconomic justice, as well as by the spread of socialist ideologies.76 For Kurds, affiliation with the left “was also attractive because it offered a means of organizational power for ordinary people, through the [Turkish Workers’ Party] and affiliated unions.”77 Among those within TİP who had an influence in the Eastern Group were individuals such as Musa Anter, Yasar Kemal, Mehdi Zana, Tahsin Avcı, Tarık Ziya Ekinci, Mehmet Ali Aslan, Kemal Burkay, Naci Kutlay, and Burhan Cahit Ünal.78 Many of these individuals, but especially Mehdi Zana and Kemal Burkay, “played important roles at the head of the Kurdish nationalist movement in the 1980s and 1990s Turkey.”79 Though direct ties between other leftists and labor unions were never completely severed, after the state’s closure of TİP in 1971, a growing disappointment (first surfacing in the late 1960s) with Turkish leftwing parties’ and organizations’ focus on nationwide class concerns over those specific to Kurds and the southeast helped promote the rise of more exclusively Kurdish political activism. Of this period, Martin Van Bruinessen states, “Most of [the leftist organizations] did recognize that the Kurds were subjected to cultural oppression, and that the eastern provinces were underprivileged and economically exploited.”80 However, the Turkish left promoted a strategy that stressed socialist and working-class politics, rather than specific Kurdish ethnic rights as the solution to the Kurdish problem. Consequently, Watts points out, “many Kurds left the Turkish parties and organizations of which they were members and joined the separate Kurdish organizations.”81 In short, the Turkish leftist nationalism gave rise to an emergent Kurdish leftist nationalism. Perhaps the most important result of these tensions was the establishment of the Revolutionary Eastern Cultural Hearths (DDKO) in 1969 and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in 1978. According to Watts, “Many DDKO founders and members were either past or present members of TİP,” and consequently, the organization was “shaped by the Turkish leftist movement and articulated its demands within the paradigm of socialist discourse.”82 The PKK emerged as a political organization based on an ideology Andrew Mango describes as “Marxist, anti-imperialist, and secessionist,”83 Its founder Abdullah Öcalan had previously been a member of the leftist, socialist student group Dev Genç (Revolutionary Youth). The 1980 military coup, the repressive military regime that followed, and the antidemocratic constitution of 1982 presented pro-Kurdish political activists with

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dramatically restricted political space. The combined weight of this effort helped to diminish the ability of leftist organizations and labor unions to promote Kurdish concerns. Yet, repression did not change the fact that through integration with leftist activism, Kurdish activists gained “organizational experience, [developed] personal relationships with other activists and, significantly, [were] better situated to influence those who [were] or may move into positions of power.”84 It is within this context that the PKK waged an armed conflict for Kurdish independence and self-determination, and less radical pro-Kurdish political parties sought to “re-make official ideology and policies by working from within.”85 The PKK’s method of challenging the hegemony of the Turkish state was violent revolution, whereas beginning with the foundation of the People’s Labor Party (Halkın Emek Partisi – HEP) in 1990 and continuing with its successor parties, the Democracy Party (DEP) the People’s Democracy Party (HADEP), and the Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP), pro-Kurdish political parties used parliamentary means to pursue a policy agenda calling for the democratization of the Turkish state.86 Yet, as Paul White points out, this growth of pro-Kurdish politics cannot simply be understood as an indicator of the importance of ethnic, rather than class identifications. Indeed: virtually all the organizations claiming to represent Kurdish ethnic nationalism in Turkey have been born out of political tendencies claiming (accurately or otherwise) to represent the interests of proletarians. This would seem to indicate that ethnic factors are inadequate, by themselves, to mobilize the Turkish Kurdish workforce politically; the nationalists’ practice seems to tell us that some sort of social (class) self-identification must also be evoked.87 On the whole, in the 1980s and 1990s, Kurdish challenges to the Turkish state involved the desire to address socioeconomic disparities, to lift antidemocratic restrictions, as well as the desire of many Kurds to retain their language and culture in the face of a massive effort to inculcate a universal Turkish national identity. In other words, Kurdish challenges to the Turkish state drew from and continued the politics of recognition and redistribution that infused the labor movement of the 1960s and 1970s, even though the nature of these claims and the tactics utilized changed over time. For Hamit Bozarslan, the PKK and the pro-Kurdish political parties (HEP, DEP, HADEP, and DEHAP) “are products of the same radical response to a system that failed in integrating genuine Kurdish representation.”88 In other words, rather than representing an entirely new political phenomenon, the politics of recognition and redistribution of more recent Kurdish social and political movements in Turkey has been inspired by the leftist and labor movement’s critique of the Turkish state. This Kurdish leftist nationalism represents the legacy of prior Turkish leftist nationalism. While the PKK waged its Marxist–Leninist guerrilla war against both the landed Kurdish elite and the Turkish state, the emergence of pro-Kurdish political parties signaled the start of an effort to fundamentally challenge the legitimacy of Turkish state officials and policies by working within Turkish political institutions. According

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to Watts, the political activism of these parties, and their ability to gain allies within the mainstream of Turkish politics, has been a critical counterpoint to the PKK. For Watts: The HEP’s political evolution from within the Turkish party system, its alliance with [the Social Democrat Populist Party], and its stated commitment to non­ violent methods of solving the Kurdish problem allowed it to cultivate resistance from within the political establishment and to highlight the contradiction between Turkish nationalism as traditionally implemented by the state and the state’s espoused commitment to democratization.89 Consequently, pro-Kurdish parties during the early 1990s were able to exploit different interests within the Turkish state, gaining strategic allies within the political system, even while other actors within the state (especially, the military, the police, and military courts) sought to exclude them. As the Kurdish problem became an increasingly important element of post-1980 Turkish politics, some union leaders and activists who had been at the forefront of the union activism in the 1960s and 1970s supported the Kurdish cause. This support was evident, for example, during the formation of HEP in 1990. Thus, “Among HEP’s founders can be found DİSK’s president Abdullah Baştürk and general secretary Fehmi Işıklar.”90 This tradition of support continued across the formation of DEP and HADEP. In the 1995 elections, Münir Ceylan, a former president of the labor union Petro-İş; Alilay Ayçin, a former president of Hava-İş; and Hasan Biber, president of Liman-İş, actively supported HADEP. In fact, Ceylan and Ayçin were even sentenced by state security courts for promoting separatism in 1993 and 1995, respectively.91 This support of labor activists for pro-Kurdish politics reflected awareness that ethnic problems in Turkey shared a connection with labor union and working-class problems; and that these problems involved enduring socioeconomic injustices, the state’s failure to remedy these, and the state’s denial of legitimacy to any class or ethnic political mobilization that emerged in response to these injustices. Indeed, these connections have been explicitly drawn by labor leaders. For example, when asked about the relationship between labor unions and Turkey’s Kurdish problem, Şemsi Denizer of the miner’s union Genel Maden İş declared, “The problems are not unrelated. At heart, they are part of the struggle for democracy.”92 In an interview with Turkish Daily News another labor union activist and Republican People’s Party deputy chairman Yaşar Seyman echoed these sentiments. “Today, the most vital problem in Turkey is the Kurdish question,” she said in an interview in 2000, “The unions should not unite in one voice only during natural catastrophes and earthquakes . . . Democratization, human rights and the Kurdish problem should be on the agenda of Turkish intellectuals and the working class at least as much as that of Kurds.”93 In the end, Watts points out that despite the paucity of legislative victories, these parties had an important role in changing Turkish politics—creating a space in which the legitimacy and policies of the state could be challenged or reformed.94 Consequently, during the Spring of 2004, in a push to satisfy EU membership criteria, the ruling Justice

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and Development Party led a successful effort for constitutional changes disbanding military courts and assuring the release of the four Kurdish politicians who were still serving out their 15-year sentences. As part of these reforms, language restrictions have been lifted—Kurdish language newspapers are available and, in June 2004, the state– owned Turkish Radio and Television began short broadcasts in minority languages including Kurdish.95 On the whole, Kurdish activism in the 1980s and early 1990s was based on a combined politics of recognition and redistribution that criticized the antidemocratic nature of the Turkish state in ways that reflect themes that were central to the labor movement in the 1960s and 1970s (socioeconomic injustice, lack of democratic opportunities, and a restrictive understanding of legitimate political action). The links between prior labor movement activism and contemporary Kurdish activism include an overlapping of activists; shared repertoires including mass action and the formation of parties; and the appeal of socialist analyses of economic problems. Conflict persisted insofar as Turkish state policies generally sought to address demands for redistribution in ways that proscribed the development of Kurdish-identified groups with autonomous political power. It should be no surprise that initial support for Kurdish political quests came from unionists and the Turkish Workers’ Party. In the end, considering the Kurdish movements of the 1980s and 1990s in relation to the alternative collective subjectivity promoted by Turkish leftist and labor union politics in the 1960s and 1970s helps explain the nature and historical basis of this important aspect of state–society relations in contemporary Turkish politics. Indeed, Paul White concludes, “The historical record shows that the Kurdish proletariat cannot be considered separately from that existing throughout Turkey.”96 As Watts argues, the legacy of the labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity is twofold. First, the leadership of Kurdish movements in the 1980s and 1990s emerged within the leftist and labor activism of the 1960s and 1970s—sharing with them an emphasis on the importance of socialist and Marxist analysis of lingering Kurdish socioeconomic problems. Second, the legacy of the labor movement’s alternative collective subjectivity helps to explain why Kurdish politics in Turkey, through its ties to the left, differs, for example, from other Kurdish political movements. Kurdish politics in Turkey differs, for example, from Iraqi Kurdish politics, where it was the right, under the leadership of Mustafa Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party, which (from the early 1960s until recently) used traditional tribal structures to organize resistance against the extension of state authority over Iraq’s Kurdish regions. In the end, contemporary Kurdish politics in Turkey is better evaluated by understanding the ways Kurdish leftist nationalism emerged from, drew upon, and even moved beyond Turkish leftist nationalism.

From socialism to Islamic politics As with the analysis of Kurdish politics, the popularity of political Islam in Turkey beginning in the 1980s and continuing today has typically been explained as part of the global trend marked by the emergence of new social movements based on identity

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politics that has come about within the context of globalization and the deconstruction of modern political identifications. Haldun Gülalp, for example, argues: Just as in the West the crisis of ideologies based on modernism has led to the proliferation of several post-modernist politics of identity, so too in Turkey Islamism has arisen as a cultural politics of identity. . . . The postmodern condition has allowed for the popularity of a movement which was hither to unable to gain a widespread following by questioning the unquestionable truths of the westernization project in Turkey.97 However, I briefly demonstrate that analysis of Islamist politics in Turkey reveals that a significant part of its popularity has to do with its ability to address the state’s failure to help the poor, unemployed, and marginal elements of Turkish society. For M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic political identity is not simply a reaction against modernity, but a challenge to the undemocratic nature of the current political environment.98 While Islam has always been an important source of state–society conflict in Turkey—especially during the secularizing reforms instituted at the foundation of the republic—the nature and shape of Islamic politics has evolved over time, and I argue that an important aspect of the popularity of contemporary political Islam in Turkey results because it has more in common with the labor movement of the 1960s and 1970s than with earlier religious conservatism or the religious fundamentalism that exists in other countries.99 Indeed, when labor unions and socialist ideologies were being repressed, Islamist politics emerged to facilitate collective political action designed to address working-class concerns for socioeconomic justice and democratization. Islamist politics in Turkey is not and has never been monolithic, and as Gülalp points out Islamist politics, which in the 1970s had “a conservative appearance and only a marginal following . . . became a political force with mass following in the 1990s.”100 Islamist parties in the 1970s appealed primarily to small- and medium-sized business interests who opposed the larger, urban industrial elites who benefited from the state’s import substituting industrialization policies.101 Accordingly, supporters of the Islamist political parties sought not radical transformation of the state, but access to the state’s resources, or at least an ability to compete with industries with strong ties to the state. Consequently, while secularism remains a foundational principle of the modern Turkish Republic, the emergence and growth of Islamic movements in Turkey during the 1960s and 1970s was not understood as a challenge to prevailing state ideology. Instead, Islamist politics benefited from a Cold War environment where Islam was seen in the eyes of state authorities as more desirable than antireligious communism.102 The National Order Party, the first explicitly Islamist party, was formed by Necmettin Erbakan in 1970. This party, renamed in 1972 as National Salvation Party, played an important role in coalition governments during the late 1970s. According to Heinz Kramer: This inclusion of Islamic organizations into the political system proved to be an effective means in preventing the political radicalization of Islam in Turkey. At

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the same time, the inclusion united the center-right parties, the Islamist groups, and the military leadership in the struggle against leftists and communists, who were regarded as a serious threat to the republican order during the 1960s and 1970s.103 The National Salvation Party suffered the same restrictions all parties faced after the 1980 military coup, and was closed in 1981. Nonetheless this trend of seeing religion as “an effective vaccination against leftism”104 was advanced by the leaders of the 12 September 1980 military coup, who blamed the influence of communist, socialist, and leftist ideologies for the political instability that boiled over into violent conflict in the late 1970s. Consequently, leaders of the military regime looked to Islam and religion as a means to counteract these ideologies. According to Jenny White, “The military had intended Islam to be a socially unifying force that would heal the societal rifts that precipitated the 1980 coup, and that would replace the left-wing ideas and discourse of Turkey’s youth with a more cohesive religious culture.”105 While unions were being disbanded and labor leaders arrested, the military government “opened new Qur’anic courses, made religious instruction compulsory in public schools, and employed new preachers.”106 The post-1980 military government still sought to subordinate religion to the state, but the promotion of religion had the unintended consequence of advancing the Islamist political action that has subsequently challenged antidemocratic aspects of the Turkish state. This is the case, because Islamist political mobilization began first to emphasize the themes of socioeconomic justice and democratization that infused the mass political action of the leftist and labor movement activists in the 1960s and 1970s, and then formulated active responses to them. White summarizes, “Despite the visible changes in the economy,” brought about by the economic liberalization that took place after the coup, “the fundamental inequities that had fueled the raging battles of the previous decades had not disappeared.”107 While it would be misleading to suggest that Islamist politics was not an important part of Turkish politics prior to the 1980s, it is nonetheless with the permission granted by the military regime for the formation of the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi – RP) in  1983 that Turkish Islamist political mobilization began to take its current form. It is in key aspects of the RP and its successor parties’ programs and ideologies (and subsequent attainment of working-class support) that we can see the legacy of prior leftist and labor union activism playing out. According to Yavuz, Islamist politics in the 1980s were not a revival of older religious loyalties, but rather a response to the political and economic politics of the military regime.108 He writes, “As the state’s inadequacy in the social, economic, educational, and healthcare spheres became apparent, Islamic groups increasingly moved into these spheres with financial means, organizational experience, and dedicated workers.”109 The social, political, and economic changes that accompanied the 1980 military coup were part of a broader international trend toward neoliberal economic restructuring. The impact of this economic restructuring helped to promote the economic interests of small-scale industrialists and exaggerate the socioeconomic

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injustice faced by the working class, both of which came to constitute the basis of RP’s electoral constituency.110 One ubiquitous consequence of globalization has been the transformation of productive processes. Industrial production has increasingly relied on subcontracting and outsourcing, which has meant a decentralization of production and the proliferation of small-scale enterprises, particularly involving labor–intensive manufacturing. Part of the success of Islamist political mobilization in Turkey can be explained by the increasing importance of small-scale manufacturers who sought to critique the ties between big industry and the Turkish state.111 Through the RP and its successor parties, political Islam has provided an important source of collective identification for members of this growing stratum of small- and medium-scale businessmen, which has come to be known as Turkey’s Islamic bourgeoisie. However, the impact of globalization has also had the ubiquitous effect of increasing economic inequality, worsening social dislocation, and hastening the “decline in the bargaining capacity of labour unions.”112 Consequently, the RP’s criticism of the ties between big industry and the state did not just appeal to the so-called Islamic bourgeoisie. Rather, “in the context of the collapsed welfare state, a worsening distribution of income, a continually high rate of inflation, and constant rumors of government corruption, the discourse that identified the exploiters as those who rely on the state and its Kemalist ideology won significant support from the working class.”113 While the appeal of the RP and its successors extends beyond the working class, those who support political Islam for business interests tend to be a force for liberalizing reforms, whereas those who support Islam for working-class interests tend to be a force for the promotion of democratization and the leveling of socioeconomic disparities. Writing of these social bases of RP support, Öniş concludes: What is common to both groups is that they are part of the ‘excluded’, but excluded in a very different sense of the term. The poor and the disadvantaged who form the principal electoral base of political Islam are excluded in the sense that they do not share in the benefits of growth in the age of globalization. The professionals, the businessmen and the intellectuals whom we would classify as the rising ‘Islamic bourgeoisie’, are clearly benefiting from globalization and modernity, yet also feel part of the excluded by not being part of the real elite in society.114 The attraction of Islamist politics in working-class communities reflects the themes that the Turkish labor movement articulated in the 1960s and 1970s, which involved the appeal of mass politics organized around the call for greater democratization and socioeconomic justice. Organizing in urban neighborhoods, RP activists sought to address the real, material concerns that structured the lives of those who were left out. Omer Taspinar suggests that the dispossessed and economically destitute, especially in urban centers, “became a natural constituency for movements and ideas espousing alternatives to the socioeconomic and political order that had largely ignored their needs.”115 He concludes, “In the 1970s, they responded to leftist movements and in the 1990s, to the Welfare Party.”116 As in the case of contemporary Kurdish politics, here too the political

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space opened up by prior Turkish leftist nationalism was filled by Islamist nationalism. Toward this end, the RP’s goal of bringing about a “just economic order” (Adil Ekonomik Düzen) can be interpreted as an important connection between the socioeconomic critiques previously raised by leftist and labor activists, and working-class support for Islamist politics in the 1980s and 1990s.117 At the 1993 convention of the Welfare Party, Erbakan described what a just economic order meant. It stood for “spiritual development, protection of the environment, elimination of corruption, decentralized administration, promotion of individual enterprise, and withdrawal of the state from all economic activities.”118 The concept of Just Order sought private control of the economy, with state supervision. It involved both a rejection of capitalism, with its incumbent diseases of “hunger, poverty, high prices, inflation, the mafia, corruption, moral decay, backwardness, wars, and exploitation,” and a rejection of communism.119 Through the concept of the Just Order, RP activists sought to mobilize political action by promoting a view of society as Islamically solidaristic, but not as class divided.120 However, the extent to which this belief in “congruence of interest between workers and employers, government administrators and the people” mattered to the RP’s working-class supporters is questionable.121 According to Yavuz, supporters of the RP ascribed three general qualities to the party: honesty, equality, and justice. In essence: The aims motivating RP supporters to become involved in politics were not solely religious but rather [built on] the search for community, representation at the center, and relief from the skewed distribution of resources. Islam became a cultural depository for new models and ways of understanding Turkey’s ethnopolitical and socioeconomic problems.122 Furthermore, Gülalp points out that in evaluating working-class support for the RP, “A . . . . survey revealed that a majority of Welfare supporters did not have much knowledge of Welfare’s program for creating a ‘just order,’ but believed that it had something to do with creating an ‘egalitarian’ and ‘nearly socialist society.’”123 In short, the RP was the organizational form through which Islamist political mobilization built upon the domain of collective political action stressing working-class concerns for socioeconomic justice and greater democratization opened up by prior labor movement activism. As Binnaz Toprak summarizes: Imagine yourself as someone on the margins of Turkish society, in the ranks of the urban poor, buffeted by subsidy cuts and 100 percent inflation. There appears this party which talks about a just order, which employs a Marxist analysis without employing a Marxist discourse, which denounces the exploitation of the toiling man by anonymous market forces. This was the message of the Islamic party, and it appealed to many people.124 In local elections in  1994 and general elections in  1995, the Welfare Party sent shockwaves through the Turkish political establishment, capturing 28 of 76 mayoral

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positions in Turkey’s provincial capitals and increasing its share to 19% of the popular vote.125 RP’s campaign themes included: “social justice, domestic peace, regional equality, religious freedom, ethnic impartiality, respect for labor, interest-free economy and end to corruption.”126 The Kemalist and secularist elites have relied on repression in order to forestall perceived Islamist threats. This repression, however, has often failed to see how promises to address economic inequality underpin a good deal of working-class support for Islamist parties. Certainly among the working class, the popularity of Islamic parties owes to the perception that they take seriously claims of internal socioeconomic injustice and the negative cultural effects associated with globalization and market reforms. Rather, defenders of Kemalist secularism see Islamist political mobilization as an existential threat to the state derived from external sources. In short, from the point of view of the protectors of Kemalist secularism, Islamism is a threat that does not simply pose challenges for the state to address enduring economic disparities and to democratize, but one that strikes directly at national security.127 Repression of Islamist politics, thus, has involved the closing of Islamist political parties—the RP in 1998 and its successor, the Virtue Party, in 2001; the enduring restrictions on Islamic dress, particularly the refusal to allow headscarves to be worn in public buildings and universities; the arrest of politicians for allegedly inciting religious hatred—most notably Istanbul’s former mayor and current Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in April, 1998; and the military coup by memorandum of 1997, which led to the ouster of the RP-led government and resignation of Erbakan as prime minister. Despite this repression, Islamist political mobilization spawned yet another political party in 2001, the Justice and Development Party. In general elections in 2002 and local elections in 2004, AKP emerged as the strongest political party in Turkey, translating its 34% of the popular vote into a parliamentary majority. It has only expanded this dominance in subsequent elections. According to Yavuz, “The 2002 election . . . was not about establishing an Islamic state or instituting Islamic law but rather about redrawing the boundary between state and society, consolidating civil society, and reconstituting everyday life in terms of a shared vision of the ‘good life.’”128 An important part of AKP’s success—particularly in urban centers—owes to its emphasis on the themes of socioeconomic justice and democratization that, in previous decades, motivated mass participation in leftist groups, parties, and labor unions, and which in the 1980s and 1990s helped garner mass participation in Islamist political mobilization. As Soner Çağaptay concludes, “AKP appealed to middle and working class voters, who were unsatisfied with the economic plans of the outgoing government that were backed by the International Monetary Fund.”129 In its official party program, among the Justice and Development Party’s principal goals are to “Eliminate the gap in the distribution of income, thus raise the welfare of our people,”130 and to “Involve citizens and non-governmental organizations in the public administration and create synergy within society.”131 AKP’s economic program places an emphasis on privatization and the market that does not generally reflect the preferences of organized labor in Turkey. Nonetheless, these differences are moderated insofar as the party “favors that the structural

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transformations brought about by globalization be carried out with the least [social] cost.”132 The party believes that this can be assured through its support for “reducing unemployment, preventing a high cost of living and ensuring justice in the distribution of income.”133 Moreover, AKP’s program embraces the legitimacy of labor unions and supports strengthening unions’ rights and freedoms. Accordingly, “The freedom of organizing shall be allowed, unionization shall be promoted, and necessary amendment changes shall be made in the legislation for public employees to benefit from union rights and freedoms of collective bargaining and strikes.”134 How long the AKP can balance its development strategies and commitment to market capitalism with populist rhetoric touting a commitment to reducing inequalities remains an open question. The legacy of labor movement subjectivity is also evident in the way class-based associations have benefited from and reshaped Islamist politics. Toward this end, Ayşe Buğra recently conducted an analysis of the way Islam is used as an organizing and political tool for members of different classes. Specifically, she examines both Hakİş and MÜSİAD (The Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen). Buğra concludes that while each organization uses the language, symbols, and themes of Islam to challenge state policies—especially as they have come to embody a commitment to an exchange or market-oriented view of how the world should be ordered—they offer different alternatives. Yavuz particularly stresses the role of MÜSİAD as a catalyst for changes in Turkey’s domestic politics. He argues that the emergence of an Islamic bourgeoisie—embodied by MÜSİAD and the Anatolian tigers—has been the key factor behind recent political transformations.135 While there is no denying the political role played by this Islamic bourgeoisie, I argue that when it comes to the push for democratization, it is a supportive rather than driving role. That is, while at the forefront in the push for economic liberalization these middle class and bourgeois activists only play a role in promoting democracy when they are accompanied by demands from below. In short, while serving as an important ally, I argue that this new bourgeoisie is not the primary actor in the processes leading toward political transformations.136 Hak-İş, on the contrary, has effectively drawn from the alternative collective subjectivity forged by prior labor activism in order to become a force for democratization and economic justice both within the Islamist movement and in Turkish politics more broadly.137 Hak-İş was established in the 1970s as an alternative to the socialist and communist ideologies that infused much of the Turkish labor movement. The confederation maintained strong, though unofficial, connections with Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party. Consequently, the confederation originally had a strong religious basis—stressing “Muslim brotherhood,” not class conflict.138 Yet, Duran and Yıldırım point out that compared to its counterparts, Hak-İş did not have a significant following in the 1970s—its working-class appeal was limited to “workers who shared the religious identity of [the National Salvation Party].”139 The confederation was shut down briefly by the military regime after the 1980 coup, but was reestablished in February of 1981. After re-forming, Hak-İş’s leadership “embarked upon constructing a new image of Hak-İş among workers,” embracing

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working class images, rhetoric and concerns.140 Hak-İş abandoned its initial Islamic rhetoric in favor of a “democratic unionism, with the need to address larger-scale, secular, economic and social issues that usually dominate the agenda of trade unions.”141 Duran and Yıldırım conclude, “Hak-İş had to imitate tactics of other unions if it was to survive. It was forced to recognize the reality of conflicting interests between workers and employers.” Thus, “The early Islamist rhetoric of Hak-İş was at first weakened and later transformed into a civil society and democratic one.”142 Today, the confederation is an umbrella organization for eight national unions, and claims a total membership of 320,000.143 According to Osman Yıldız, Assistant to the President and Director of International Relations for Hak-İş, the original and governing principle of the confederation is premised on the claim of “harmony of interest between employee and employers.”144 This is not to say that the confederation believes this to be the current state, but rather the way things ought to be. In practice, this involves addressing workers’ problems “whatever they are— wherever they are.”145 By focusing on the protection of workers, Hak-İş has raised concerns in a range of political and economic contexts—criticizing state policies, the practice of subcontracting, privatization, and the impact of technological change, for example. Hak-İş has had broad connections to the Islamist political movements of the 1980s and 1990s. For instance, in the 1995 elections that saw the RP win more votes than any other party, Hak-İş President Necati Çelik ran as one of its candidates.146 The confederation also publicly supported the RP during the 1997 military intervention. Yet, as Duran and Yıldırım emphasize, the confederation’s adoption of prior labor activism’s diagnosis and prescriptions for economic inequities has contributed to important differences, as well. These differences primarily involve Hak-İş’s emphasis on the importance for democratization to take into account working-class concerns. Hak-İş, for example, has not always supported the economic policies of Islamist parties, and the confederation has criticized the antilabor views held by Muslim businessmen.147 According to Duran and Yıldırım, the confederation has consequently “contributed significantly to the democratization of Islamism in Turkey,” and therefore, “might be considered as the forerunner of the Muslim democratic leaning of the Justice and Development Party.”148 Indeed, Hak-İş draws from themes raised by the labor movement in the 1960s and 1970s, combining insights from the left’s socialist analysis of economic conditions and call for the state to address lingering economic inequities, with the language of Islam. As Buğra points out: In the post-1980 period, the constituency of Hak-İş has come to include a not negligible number of workers formerly affiliated with the radical leftist confederation DİSK. . . . [Hak-İş leaders] argue . . . that the affirmation of cultural identity constitutes the basic characteristic of most contemporary social movements, including the labor movement. Under these circumstances, labor unions are in a position to replace the materialistic values of the technologycentered, mass consumption society with people-centered approaches.149

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That Islamist politics has assumed some of the role once filled by the socialist ideologies of labor movement activists has not been lost on today’s leftist unionists. Toward this end, during the course of a small group interview I conducted at the national headquarters of the textile workers’ union affiliated with DİSK (Tekstil İş) when discussion turned to the ability of Islamist activists as well as Justice and Development Party activists to capitalize on working-class socioeconomic needs, one union organizer, marveled at how “these girls with their heads covered” can go into the community and organize political action. “This was what the socialist party (TİP) was doing in the 60s and 70s.”150 In Turkey, contemporary Islamist politics may play itself out in ways that highlight the politics of identity—the battle for women to be able to wear headscarves in state buildings and universities, for example. However, significant support for Islamic politics shares a common thread with the economic concerns of the alternative collective subjectivity forged by labor movement activists in the 1960s and 1970s. Like their predecessors, Islamist activists in the 1980s and 1990s challenged the state’s answers to questions of who Turks are and what they want by addressing socioeconomic injustice and calling for greater democratization and political participation. In the process, the specific legacy of prior labor activism has helped shape and democratize Islamist political mobilization in Turkey.

Conclusion: Continuities in contemporary Turkish politics Throughout this book, I have offered an alternative framework for evaluating how a social movement matters that focuses on five indicators of impact. In this chapter, I have focused primarily on the fifth indicator of a movement’s impact: the influence of a social movement on the emergence and trajectory of future movement activism. Moreover, I have argued that the enduring impact of the alternative collective subjectivity formed by the labor movement in the 1960s and 1970s continues to shape the contemporary landscape of Turkish politics. The crux of the alternative collective subjectivity that emerged as a result of labor activism in the 1960s and 1970s involved a radical politics of redistribution and recognition that sought to challenge the legitimacy of the Turkish state both in terms of socioeconomic justice and in terms of the legitimacy of class-based politics. This alternative collective subjectivity drew attention to, challenged, and organized mass political action calling for state actors to address economic inequities in a way that flew in the face of enduring state efforts to deny the saliency of class cleavages in Turkey, and in the process sought to expand political rights and freedoms—to expand, that is, the scope of democratic participation. Furthermore, contrary to those who focus on the 1980 military coup as an indicator of both the limited impact of the Turkish labor movement, and as breaking point after which identity-based Islamic and Kurdish movements, starkly different in their aims, have dominated the landscape of Turkish politics, I have argued that there are important continuities between contemporary political movements and prior labor

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organization. In this, I have drawn from my own research, as well as the research of others. Indeed, Christopher Houston, in looking at the politics of Islam and Kurds in Turkey concludes: “Who could deny that a bitter class conflict is in process in Turkey today?”151 Rather than relying on the distinction between new and older movements, I have offered as a better means to evaluate movement impacts an approach that avoids this distinction, and instead stresses the presence or absence of alternative collective subjectivities. This approach argues that the impact of movements that develop and sustain alternative collective subjectivities involves challenging who has the right to rule, the questioning and reshaping of legitimacy, and the endurance of such challenges over time. The evidence demonstrates that the Turkish labor movement did develop and sustain an alternative collective subjectivity, and that despite suffering massive state repression with the military coup of 1980, this alternative collective subjectivity influenced more recent political movements. In short, the Turkish labor movement had an enduring impact on state–society relations in Turkey. Still, even during the most contentious days of the 1960s and 1970s, wage labor and unionized labor constituted a minority of the Turkish working world. In recent years, legal restrictions and privatization reforms coupled with the pressures of globalization and international capitalism compounded the difficulty of union organizing in a country with a pool of excess labor.152 My intention, though, is not to advance a naïve and rosy historical reconstruction. To suggest that the Turkish labor movement has shaped contemporary Turkish politics is not to suggest that the legacy of Turkish labor politics is the only source of inspiration for individuals or groups who struggle for Kurdish or Islamic rights. Indeed, in some cases, prior labor movement activism may be of little importance. Nonetheless, I argue that our understanding of the landscape of contemporary Turkish politics can benefit from a reevaluation of the legacy of labor movement activism in the 1960s and 1970s. Reşat Kasaba points out that the political movements of the 1980s and 1990s were a reflection of a Turkish public grown tired of a state that promised a better, more democratic future. Indeed, he concludes, “it is hard to avoid the impression that Turkish modernization reached some kind of turning point in the early eighties.”153 However, rather than appearing as entirely new political phenomena, the political movements that have emerged in the 1980s and 1990s reflect the endurance and reemergence of the politics of recognition and redistribution first articulated by the alternative collective subjectivity forged by prior leftist and labor movement activism. Kurdish activists, Islamists, and labor unionists continue to organize collective political action based on the premise that democratic citizenship and economic justice are both linked and fundamental—and they continue to do so in ways that reflect the ideas and values articulated by the Turkish labor movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Meanwhile, those who safeguard Kemalist ideology deny the fundamental importance of this link; the historical actions of the military deny it, as well. Yet, while repression may have contributed to the appearance of calls for redistribution and recognition in different guises (i.e. Kurdish politics or political Islam), the central challenge to the state’s legitimacy remains.

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Notes 1 Interviews referenced in this chapter were conducted between March and July 2004. In this chapter translations from Turkish, unless quoted from another author, are mine. 2 Nancy Fraser, Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the ‘Postsocialist Condition (New York: Routledge, 1997), 15. 3 Among those who suggest the social movements that emerged in Turkey in the 1980s and 1990s are the result of a radical break in Turkey’s political development, see Sefa Şimşek, “New Social Movements in Turkey Since 1980,” Turkish Studies 5, no. 2 (2004) and Sabri Sayarı, “The Study of Turkish Domestic Politics: Continuities and Changes in Research Agendas,” in Turkish Studies in the United States, ed. Donald Quataert & Sabri Sayarı. (Bloomington: Indiana University Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies Publications, 2003). 4 Sayarı, 51. 5 For an overview of new social movement theory, see, Enrique Larana, Hank Johnston, and Joseph Gusfield, eds., New Social Movements: From Ideology to Identity (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994), and Hanspeter Kriesi, Ruud Koopmans, Jan Willem Duyvendak, and Marco G. Giugni, New Social Movements in Western Europe (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). On the concept of postmaterialism, see, Ronald Ingelhart, Modernization and Postmodernization: Cultural, Economic, and Political Change in 43 Societies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997). 6 I base this understanding on insights developed within the work of Marxian critical theory. Thus, for example, Gramsci, Lukacs, and others point out that identity construction is in no way secondary to material concerns, but rather that they are both dialectically linked. Material changes contribute to changes in identity and changes in identity have material consequences. 7 Nancy Whittier, “The Consequences of Social Movements for Each Other,” in The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements, eds. David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule and Hanspeter Kreisi. (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 541–8. 8 Whittier, 546. 9 Yıldırım Koç, Workers and Trade Unions in Türkiye (Ankara: Demircioğlu Printing Co., 1999), 57. 10 Ibid., 59. 11 Of these arrests, Koç writes: “The majority of them suffered torture of various degrees. The martial law military public prosecutor requested the execution of 78 leaders, imprisonment of 1399 and the liquidation of the trade unions and DİSK.” Koç, “Workers,” 64. For more information on the legal case against DİSK, 28 of its member unions, and its activists, see Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “DİSK Davası.” 12 For example, Dereli points out that under the legal changes, “a lawful strike or lockout deemed likely to endanger public health or national security may be suspended for sixty days by government order and taken to compulsory arbitration at the end of that period.” Toker Dereli, “Turkey,” in European Labor Unions, ed. Joan Campbell. (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1992), 472. 13 Yıldırım Koç, Tűrkiye İşçi Sınıfı ve Sendikacılık Tarihi (Turkey Working Class and Union History) (Ankara: YOL-İş, 2003), 196.

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14 Quoted in Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v.” Türk-İş,” 341. 15 Quoted in Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v.” Türk-İş,” 341. 16 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v.”İşçi Hareketleri,” 110. 17 On this point, see, for example: Ilter Turan, Siyasal Demokrasi, Siyasal Katılma, Baskı Grupları ve Sendikalar (Social Democracy, Political Participation, Pressure Groups and Unions) (Istanbul: Türkiye Denizciler Sendikası, 1986). 18 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Türk-İş,” 345. 19 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “İşçi Hareketleri,” 110. 20 Koç, “Workers,” 64. 21 Ibid., 65. 22 For more detail on the history of coal mining in Turkey and in Zonguldak, see: Turhan Oral, Özelleştirmeye Karşı Műcadele ve Genel Maden-İş (The Struggle Against Privatization and Genel Maden-İş) (Ankara: Tűrk-İş Eğitim Yayınları, 2001); Erol Kahveci, “The Miners of Zonguldak,” in Work and Occupation in Modern Turkey, ed. Erol Kahveci, Nadir Sugur, and Theo Nichols (London: Mansell), 177–98; and Theo Nichols and Erol Kahveci, “The condition of mine labour in Turkey: Injuries to miners in Zonguldak, 1942–1990,” Middle Eastern Studies 31, no. 2. (1995): 197–214. 23 Oral, “Özelleştirmeye,” 41. 24 Kahveci, 196. 25 Turhan Oral, Varoluşun Destanı (The Legend of Existence) (Zonguldak: Genel Maden-İş Yayınları,1997), 81. 26 Oral, “Varoluşun,” 89–90; and Kahveci, 196–7. 27 Oral, “Varoluşun,” 104–5; and Kahveci, 197. 28 Oral reports, for example, that the crowds filling the streets adopted the slogan, “This is Turkey, not Israel. Çankaya we are coming” (“Burası Türkiye İsrail değil. Çankaya geliyoruz.”) Oral, “Varoluşun,” 111. 29 Kahveci, 197. A comprehensive history of these events can be found in Şemsi Denizer Anlatıyor: “Zonguldak Gerçerği” (Şemsi Denizer Explains: “The Real Zonguldak”) (Zonguldak: Genel Maden İş, 1991). 30 Kahveci, 197; and Oral, “Varoluşun,” 137–8. 31 Kahveci, 197. 32 Personal interview at Yol-İş national headquarters in Ankara, 22 April 2004. 33 “Collective Explanation of the Meeting of the General Secretaries of Türk-İş, Hakİş, and DİSK (1993)” (“Türk-İş, Hak-İş, ve DİSK Genel Sekreterleri Toplanısı Ortak Açıklama (1993)”), in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarihi Vol. 4, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 1. 34 OLEY İS, 9 Olağan Genel Kurulu Çalışma Raporu (9th Common General Committee Working Report) (Ankara: OLEY İS Eğitim ve Basın-Yayın Dairesi, 2003), 83. 35 Personal interview at Hak-İş headquarters in Ankara, 30 April 2004. 36 Salim Uslu, İkibine Doğru Yeni Bir Sendikacılık ve Yeni bir Tűrkiye Düşünmek (Toward 2000, A New Unionism and a New Idea of Turkey) (Ankara: HAK-İş Konfederasyon, 1996), 35.

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37 “May 1st Declaration (1994)” (“1 Mayıs Bildirisi (1994)”), in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarihi Vol. 4, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 137. 38 “Türk-İş President Bayram Meral’s Declaration Concerning the Events Brought into the Public Square after the May 1 Meetings (1994)” (“Türk-İş Genel Başkanı Bayram Meral’ın 1 Mayıs Mitingleri sonrasında Meydana Gelen Olaylarla İlgili Açıklaması (1994)”), in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarihi Vol. 4, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 145. 39 Only civil servants who work in prisons or in civilian roles in the military establishment are denied the right to organize. 40 Koç, “Türkiye,” 240. 41 Ibid., 255. 42 See, for example, “Türk-İş President Bayram Meral’s Speech on Behalf of Those who Organized the Labor Platform Meeting (1999)” (“Türk-İş Genel Başkanı Bayram Meral’ın Emek Platformu Tarafından Düzenlenen Miting Konuşması (1999)”) in Belgelerle Türk-İş Tarihi Vol. 4, ed. Yıldırım Koç. (Ankara: Yorum Matbaası, 2002), 145. As in the 1970s, the leftist nationalism of organized labor is central to labor’s critique of state actors for selling out the nation. 43 Koç, “Türkiye,” 294. 44 The role of European Union membership in assisting democratization in Turkey is an important, but ultimately supportive rather than decisive force. Thus, political mobilization calling for democratization existed and helped shape politics in Turkey prior to the immediate prospects of gaining EU membership. 45 Personal interview at Hak-İş headquarters in Ankara, 16 April 2004. 46 Personal interview at Lastik-İş offices in Istanbul 10 June 2004. The critique here was a bit more complex. This individual, while pleased with the reforms, lamented their being done in the name of EU membership and not because democracy is a good the Turkish people should enjoy regardless of the EU. 47 “Violations of Trade Union Rights in Colakoğlu Metalurji A.S. in Turkey,” unpublished complaint to the ILO/Committee on Freedom of Association. 48 In 1997, for example, DİSK reported a total membership of 325,404—a little more than half the number of members it had in the days preceding the 1980 military intervention. 49 Personal interview at Genel-İş offices in Istanbul, 8 June 2004. 50 Personal interview at the Birleşik Metal İş offices in Gebze, 8 June 2004. 51 Ibid. 52 Personal interview at Yol-İş national headquarters in Ankara, 22 April 2004. 53 Andrew Mango, Turkey: The Challenge of a New Role (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994), 31. 54 Ibid., 31. 55 See, for example, Kemal Kirişçi and Gareth Winrow, The Kurdish Question and Turkey: An Example of a Trans-State Ethnic Conflict (London: Frank Cass, 1997) and Stephen Kinzer, Crescent and Star: Turkey Between two Worlds (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001). 56 Şimşek, 131. 57 About 90% of the 26 million Kurds live within Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. Kurds, though, have been divided by language and religious difference, not just international borders. See, for example, the chapter on “The forgotten Kurds” in: Beverley MiltonEdwards and Peter Hinchcliffe, Conflicts in the Middle East Since 1945, Second Edition (London: Routledge, 2004), 72–83.

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58 For a more extensive history of Kurdish nationalism in Turkey see David McDowall, A Modern History of the Kurds (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996). 59 Milton-Edwards and Hinchcliffe, 81. 60 Nicole F. Watts, “Allies and Enemies: Pro-Kurdish Parties in Turkish Politics, 1990–1994,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 31 (1999): 631. There are, of course, disagreements about the extent to which the Shaykh Said Rebellion represented an early example of ethnic conflict. For instance, the rebellion has been variously ascribed to resistance against ethnic turkification, resistance against state–imposed threats to Islamic symbols and institutions, and the agitation of British-backed provocateurs. 61 See, for example, Milton-Edwards and Hinchliffe, 81; McDowall, 399; and Martin Van Bruinessen, “The Kurds in Turkey,” MERIP Reports no. 121 (1984):7. Moreover, Paul White concludes, “The Kurdish national movement in Turkey took a long time to recover from the military defeats and devestation of the 1920s and 1930s.” Paul White, Primitive Rebels or Revolutionary Modernizers: The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey (London: Zed Books, 2000), 130. 62 Following Watts, I differentiate here between Kurdish nationalism and pro-Kurdish politics, because not all supporters of pro-Kurdish politics embraced a nationalist agenda. 63 McDowall, 399–401. 64 Ibid., 401. 65 Hayri Şahin, “Kürt Solu: Doğuşu Gelişimi, ve Bugünü” (“The Kurdish Left: Its Birth, Development, and Today”), in Kürt Solu (The Kurdish Left), ed. Ali Koca. (Istanbul: Gün Yayıncılık, 1999), 273. 66 Nicole Frances Watts, “Routes to Ethnic Resistance: Virtual Kurdistan West and the Transformation of Kurdish Politics in Turey” (Ph.D. diss, University of Washingtion, 2001), 91. 67 P. White, 130. 68 McDowall, 407. 69 Watts, “Routes,” 104. 70 Şahin, 273. 71 These meetings were held, for example, in: In Suruç – July 17, 1967; Silvan – August 13, 1967; Siverek – September 24, 1967; Batman – October 8, 1967; Tunceli – October 15, 1967; Ağrı – October 22, 1967; Ankara – November 18, 1967. 72 Ibid., 273. 73 Ibid., 274. 74 For more on this move and its repercussions, see: Igor Lipovsky, The Socialist Movement in Turkey, 1960–1980 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992), 78; and Christ Kutschera, “Mad Dreams of Independence: The Kurds of Turkey and the PKK,” Middle East Report no. 189 (1994): 13. 75 Şimsek, 131. 76 McDowall, 410–11. 77 Ibid., 407. 78 Şahin, 274 and Watts, “Routes,” 112. 79 Watts, “Routes,” 112. 80 Van Bruinessen, 10. 81 Ibid., 10. 82 Watts, “Routes,” 125.

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87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

96 97 98 99

100 101

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Mango, 42. Watts, “Routes,” 94. Watts, “Allies,” 633. HEP was closed by the Constitutional Court in 1993, and DEP was founded soon thereafter by HEP’s supporters. DEP, too, was closed in 1994, but HADEP soon emerged in 1995 to take its place. In March 2003, HADEP was closed by the Constitutional Court for allegedly assisting the PKK, and DEHAP was formed to take its place. P. White, 120. Bozarslan, 142. Watts, “Allies,” 650. Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 77. Ibid., 77. Metin Sever, Kürt Sorunu Aydınlarımız ne Düşünüyor (What do our Intellectuals Think about the Kurdish Problem) (Istanbul: Cem Yayınevi, 1992), 110–11. Gül Demir, “The push for workers’ rights and a May 1 labor holiday in Turkey,” Turkish Daily News, May 1, 2000. Watts, “Allies,” 650. See, for example, Turkish Daily News 27 April 2004. There has been, more recently, a flare-up in the violence between state and Kurdish actors. This includes a suspicious bombing on 9 November 2005 in the Southeastern town of Şemdinli. Some evidence pointed to possible gendarme involvement in this incident. Among those who have voiced their support for the victims of the attack include many labor leaders. Indeed, according to the Turkish Daily News, “The Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (KESK), the Labor Confederation (Hak-İş), the Confederation of Revolutionary Workers’ Unions (DISK), the Civil Servants’ Trade Union (MemurSen), the Turkish Union of Engineers’ and Architects’ Chambers (TMMOB) and several other unions released a joint statement . . . declaring their intention to not allow any attempt to cover up what had happened in Hakkari over the last week.” Turkish Daily News 18 November 2005. Instability in Iraq, especially if it contributes to Kurdish separatism there, could further destabilize Turkey’s efforts to find a solution to the Kurdish question. P. White, 114. Haldun Gülalp, “Political Islam in Turkey: The Rise and Fall of the Refah Party,” The Muslim World, 89, no. 1 (1999): 23. M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), 22–3. See, for example, Yavuz, 9. For a good overview and history of the early and limited social resistance to Kemalist reforms and the state’s drastic reactions see, Gavin D. Brockett, “Collective Action and the Turkish Revolution: Towards a Framework for the Social History of the Atatürk Era, 1923–1938,” in Turkey Before and After Atatürk: Internal and External Affairs, ed. Sylvia Kedourie. (London: Frank Cass, 1999) and Binnaz Toprak, “The Religious Right,” in The Modern Middle East, eds. Albert Hourani, Philip S. Khoury, and Marcy C. Wilson. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Gülalp, “Political,” 22. Haldun Gülalp, “Globalization and Political Islam: The Social Bases of Turkey’s Welfare Party,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 33, no. 3 (2001): 435.

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102 Yavuz, 34. 103 Heinz Kramer, A Changing Turkey: The Challenge to Europe and the United States (Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 64. 104 Ibid., 64. 105 Jenny B. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), 113. 106 Yavuz, 69. 107 J. White, 41. By visible changes in the economy, White is referring to the economic liberalization and privatization reforms that were instituted in the 1980s in response to the IMF’s stabilization package. 108 This, of course, is generally true of the mass support for RP and Islamist politics. However, Yavuz also points out a difference between the conservatism and religious fundamentalism of older RP leaders including Erbakan, and the younger generation, including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who embraced democracy. See, Yavuz, 222–7. 109 Ibid., 81. 110 On this latter point, for example, Gülalp points out that the 1980s saw a continued rise in urbanization (59% of the population was living in cities by 1990, up from 32% in 1960), accompanied by a decline in real wages. Furthermore, the distribution of income became increasingly “skewed toward the top.” According to the State Institute of Statistics, in 1994 the top 5% of the population took in 30.3% of the total income. Gülalp, “Globalization,” 441. 111 Ibid., 436–40. 112 Ziya Öniş, “The political economy of Islamic resurgence in Turkey: the rise of the Welfare Party in perspective,” Third World Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1997), 746. 113 Gülalp, “Globalization,” 440. 114 Öniş, 749. 115 Omer Taspinar, Kurdish Nationalism and Political Islam in Turkey: Kemalist Identity in Transition (New York: Routledge, 2005), 146. 116 Ibid., 146. 117 For an overview of the RP’s conception of a just economic order, see Mehran Kamrava, “Pseudo-Democratic Politics and Populist Possibilities: The Rise and Demise of Turkey’s Refah Party,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 25, no. 2 (1998), 288. 118 Gülalp, “Political,” 27. 119 Kamrava, 288. Moreover, “With a heavy socialistic rhetoric, denouncing exploitation, capitalism, imperialism, and Zionism . . . this economic order surpasses both capitalism and communism, in that it includes their positive aspects but excludes the negative ones.” Gülalp, “Political,” 27. 120 Yavuz, 215–18. 121 Kamrava, 289. 122 Yavuz, 222. 123 Gülalp, “Globalizaton,” 442. According to Taspinar, the rhetoric of economic justice captured by the RP’s concept of a “Just Order,” meant that “the [RP] did not appear fundamentally different from a typical, social-democratic party on the left.” Taspinar, 148. 124 Binnaz Toprak, “Religion and State in Turkey,” http:www.dayan.org/mel/toprak.htm (accessed March 4, 2005). 125 J. White, 116.

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126 Gülalp, “Political,” 27. 127 Concerning this notion of the state’s framing Islamist (and Kurdish) political activism as the result of negative external or foreign influences on Turkish domestic politics, see, Dietrich Jung and Wolfango Piccoli, Turkey at the Crossroads: Ottoman Legacies and a Greater Middle East (London: Zed Books, 2001), 116. 128 Yavuz, 256. 129 Soner Çağaptay, “The November 2002 Elections and Turkey’s New Political Era,” Meria 6, no. 4 (2002): 42. 130 AK Partesi, “Development and Democratization Program,” http://www.akparti.org. tr/ (accessed March 4, 2005). 131 Ibid. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. In practice, however, the new Labor Code adopted by the Justice and Development Party in 2003 was not well received by labor activists. See, for example, Levent Akin, “Termination of Labor Contracts and Unfair Dismissal Under Turkish Labor Law,” Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal 25, no. 561 (2005), 561–91. 134 Ibid. 135 Hakan Yavuz, “Ideology and Organization of the JDP” (Presented at The University of Utah Middle East & Central Asia Politics, Economics, and Society Conference, September. 9–11, 2004). Anatolian tigers is a term that has been used to characterize those small-scale industries that have successfully grown and developed in the towns, villages, and cities throughout Anatolia. 136 On this point, see for example: Çağlar Keyder, “The Turkish bell jar,” New Left Review 28 (July–August 2004), 65–84. 137 This argument is the central claim advanced by: Burhanettin Duran and Engin Yıldırım, “Islamism, Trade Unionism, and Civil Society: The Case of Hak-İş Labour Confederation in Turkey,” Middle Eastern Studies 41, no. 2 (2005): 227–47. 138 Ibid., 232. 139 Ibid., 232. In 1979, Hak-İş reported 135,412 members. 140 Ibid., 233. 141 Ibid., 228. 142 Ibid., 243. 143 These numbers, though, are somewhat misleading insofar as they include both active members, and those who simply pay dues as part of a contract. 144 Personal interview at Hak-İş headquarters in Ankara, 30 April 2004. 145 Ibid. 146 Türkiye Sendikacılık Ansiklopedisi (Encyclopedia of Turkish Unionism), s.v. “Siyasal Partiler ve İşçi Harketi,” 78. 147 Duran and Yıldırım, 239–41. 148 Ibid., 242–3. 149 Buğra, 189. 150 Personal interview at Tekstil İş offices in Istanbul, 10 June 2004. This particular remark is attributable to the son of one of the founders of TİP and DİSK. 151 Christopher Houston, Islam, Kurds, and the Turkish Nation State. (New York: Berg, 2001), 56. 152 Osman Yıldız of Hak-İş, for example, related a story about a recent drive by grocery workers to form a union affiliated with the confederation. When the company learned of the effort, he said, it summarily fired all of its employees. As long as a

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pool of cheap labor remains available, employers can use the prospect of a stable and secure income as a wedge to divide Turkish workers. Personal interview at Hak-İş headquarters in Ankara, 30 April 2004. 153 Reşat Kasaba, “Kemalist Certainties and Modern Ambiguities,” in Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, eds. Sibel Bozdoğan and Reşat Kasaba. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), 16. From Kasaba’s perspective, though, the political movements of the 1980s and 1990s are not a radical break from the past, but the continued expression of the fundamental ambiguity and uncertainty within the social, political, and economic changes of modernity.

6

Japan, Turkey, and the Comparative Analysis of Social Movement Impacts In the previous chapters, I have argued that by examining the extent to which Turkish labor activism in the 1960s and 1970s forged an alternative collective subjectivity, it becomes clear that the prior activism of Turkish workers has had an important and enduring role in shaping political life in Turkey. Indeed, not only did prior Turkish labor activism have an important impact on the development of Turkish state– society relations during the 1960s and 1970s, but also its legacy continues to be felt in contemporary labor, Kurdish, and Islamist political mobilization. In short, Kurdish and Islamist politics in Turkey would not look the same had there not been the labor activism of the 1960s and 1970s. In this chapter, I examine normative and empirical implications of research that takes the causal importance of movement collective subjectivity as its focus. In particular, I demonstrate how this framework can help to reevaluate the impact of the postwar Japanese labor movement. As in Turkey, the long-term legacy of a period of radical labor activism in Japan seems to have been rather limited. In Turkey, labor activists suffered massive state repression, especially after the military coup in 1980, while in Japan, the demands of postwar radical labor activism appeared to have been co-opted by the creation of a system of lifetime employment. Yet, far from inconsequential, extending this framework to Japan suggests that radical labor activism played an important and enduring role in shaping the development of state–society relations in postwar Japan. I conclude the chapter by reflecting on the extent to which this framework accounts for how social movements in general, and labor movements in particular, can be more or less democratic.

“Give us rice,” “give us peace”: The impact of labor radicalism in Japan In the 1980s, Americans were often told that the success of the Japanese economy, and even its threat to American manufacturing, was the result of the compliant culture of Japanese workers. Such cultural explanations for Japan’s economic prowess were panned, for example, by the 1986 film Gung Ho, where workers in an American autoworkers union resist the work ethic their new Japanese bosses try to inculcate. In more academic

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circles, culture has often served as the basis for explaining the lack of labor conflict and union radicalism in Japan. Iwao Ayusawa, for example, argued that: The first and most important cause of the comparative slowness of the workers of Japan in acquiring class consciousness as an industrial proletariat despite the rapid rise of industrialization was the survival of time-honored feudal ethics. Honesty, industry, self-denial, gentle obedience—these where cardinal virtues the common people had been taught under feudalism.1 Presumably, it is these cultural characteristics that can explain the appearance of labor peace and economic resurgence in postwar Japan. In his study of state–labor relations in Japan, Sheldon Garon provides a useful summary of such cultural arguments. “In Japan,” according to historians cited by Garon, “employers evaded crippling labor unrest by relying on age-old vertical bonds between the paternalistic master and his loyal subordinate—whether they be the feudal lord and his retainer, or the modern manager and his employee.”2 In short, Japanese society was (and to some possibly still is) culturally incompatible with the ideologies of labor radicalism. To be sure, such studies must at least acknowledge the period of labor radicalism that took place in Japan during the late 1940s and 1950s, but as this radicalism disappeared in the 1960s behind the emergence of a system of lifetime employment, it has become easy for some to continue to discount the emergence and impact of radical, leftist labor activism in shaping contemporary Japanese state–society relations. Indeed, although his analysis is fairer to this history of labor activism, Rudra Sil has more recently concluded that the success of Japan as a nonwestern late industrializing country owes to the ability of Japanese business leaders to develop a syncretist strategy for governing labor relations that draws both from cultural norms and from modern theories of human relations.3 These cultural arguments, at best, diminish and distort the importance of labor activism in Japan, and at worst, they leave the impression that labor movement activism has been relatively inconsequential to postwar Japanese politics. In this section, I argue that the evolution of postwar Japanese politics and economics— including the development of what Sil calls the three pillars of the postwar system (cooperative unions active at the enterprise level, lifetime employment, and seniority wages) as well as the formation of the Liberal Democratic Party (and its subsequent monopolization of political power) represents a response to the threat posed by radical labor activism. As in Turkey, the Japanese labor movement experienced the emergence of an alternative collective subjectivity that presented a real threat to the legitimacy of the political system. In the Japanese case, postwar labor activists forged an alternative collective subjectivity that stressed economic justice, a peace platform that rejected the role of the US military, and the rejection of capitalism. And, as in Turkey, it was an alternative collective subjectivity forged out of a commitment to militant political activism. To be sure, not all within the Japanese labor movement subscribed to this alternative collective subjectivity, but the impact of those who did on the shaping of the postwar Japanese political and economic system ought to be taken more seriously.

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In the remainder of this section, I explore the history of labor radicalism in Japan, focusing specifically on the emergence of an alternative collective subjectivity, and the way its impact can be ascertained from the repression of labor activism, changes in public policy, and the restructuring of the party system.

Prewar labor activism in Japan While the growth of labor unions and appeal of socialist and communist ideas reached their peak in Japan during the 1940s and 1950s, the prewar history of labor activism in Japan raises significant doubts about arguments that radical labor activism and communism are culturally incompatible with Japanese society. Indeed, the Japanese labor movement had its beginning with the industrialization that took place in the late 1800s. While the relative lack of industrial development in Japan limited the scope of this labor activism, it nonetheless was enough to provoke state reforms, resistance from industry, and ultimately the repression of the fascist state during the 1930s. Rather than concentrating on this prewar period, I seek only to highlight continuities in prewar and postwar labor activism that suggest that workers in Japan were not, in fact, culturally averse to radical labor activism. Union activism emerged in Japan during the late nineteenth century as a response to the negative externalities that accompanied industrialization. The initial formation of labor organizations was promoted by owners of industry, who sought a more reliable labor force; by would-be union leaders who had interacted with and received training from the American Federation of Labor; and by socialist activists.4 However, it was during the period of liberalization known as the Taisho democracy (1912–1926) that increased social conflict coincided with and contributed to increased labor movement growth. During this time, the Friendly Society (Yuaikai), founded in 1912, was perhaps the most important organizational advance in the Japanese labor movement. At first, the Friendly Society promoted a vision of social harmony that allowed it to survive and evade repression, but in 1921, the organization transformed itself into the Japan General Federation of Labor (Sodomei), the first national confederation of labor unions in Japan.5 As Garon characterizes this transition: “The new labor unions constituted a political as well as an economic challenge to established elites. Firsthand experience with repression convinced many labor leaders that they must turn to political activity to remove the obstacles to organizing labor.”6 By 1922, Sodomei radicalism advanced a platform that declared “that capital and labor were absolutely incompatible with each other and that the working class must engage in an out-and-out struggle with the capitalist class.”7 Along with the growth in labor organizations, increased direct action included the first May Day demonstrations held in Japan (in 1920), as well as the largest work action conducted by the Japanese labor movement prior to World War II, a strike at Kobe’s Kawasaki and Mitsubishi Shipyards (in 1921).8 To be sure, differences persisted within the Japanese labor movement. In the mid1920s, for example, moderates within the leadership of Sodomei sought to commit the organization to business unionism and expelled 25 communist unions. These unions then formed an alternative confederation, the Japan Council of Labor Unions

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(Hyogikai). Subsequently, “From 1925 to 1928, the Hyogikai and Sodomei battled for the hearts and minds of Japanese workers.”9 Despite this difference, the labor movement continued to grow, reaching its peak in 1936, until it became a victim of World War II. Sil, however, suggests that this early working class organization reflected not an ideology of class antagonism, but rather an assertion of long-held cultural values including respect, dignity, and the securing of subordinates’ welfare.10 “Thus,” he concludes, “the growing labor unrest of the Taisho period and the leftist rhetoric invoked by trade union activists should not be mistaken for a revolution in most workers’ basic attitudes and expectations.”11 On the other hand, it seems equally plausible, given the response of the Japanese state, that the building blocks for the alternative collective subjectivity that would quickly emerge within the postwar Japanese labor movement were present, or at least feared during the prewar era. In prewar Japan, the state’s response to labor movement activism involved a combination of repressive and corporatist policies.12 Efforts to counteract the nascent Japanese labor movement involved more than just state actors. As Garon summarizes, “the new strength of organized labor proved a critical element in the emergence of several employers’ associations during and after World War I.”13 This included the creation of the Japan Industrial Club, which opposed greater union rights, rejected increased benefits through social policy, and emphasized “time-honored beautiful customs” associated with harmony.14 Industry elites, as Sil points out, attempted to promote the model of the family firm, emphasizing internal harmony within a firm.15 In addition, in 1919 a coalition of government officials and business elites formed the Cooperation and Harmony Society (Kyochokai), which sought to curb labor radicalism, while at the same time endeavoring to address the social implications of urbanization and industrialization.16 In the end, the onset of World War II, which began for Japan with the occupation of Manchuria in  1936, presented the most significant obstacle to prewar labor organizing. Indeed, as Garon concludes, “the rising tide of nationalism discredited the very concept of trade unionism, predicated as it was on the recognition of conflicting interests between classes.”17 Toward this end, in 1935, the Home Ministry adopted a Japanist outlook toward labor that stressed “unity of labor and capital.”18 This effort to institutionalize the unity of labor and capital ultimately led to the state–sponsored development of the Industrial Patriotic Society (Sanpo) beginning in 1938. By 1940, as Moran reports, “trade unions were abolished.”19 In the face of fascist pressure, the Japanese labor movement declined from a high of 973 unions with 420,000 members in 1936 to 3 unions with 895 members in 1942 and virtually no unions by the end of the war in 1944.20 Yet, despite the collapse of the Japanese labor movement, it may be too strong to see the onset of World War II as a permanent end to the radical labor ideologies that had begun to emerge in the prewar decades. As an indicator that corporatist appeals to traditional values did not fully resonate with workers, although the emergence of Sanpo put an end to unions, it did not do away with labor disputes.21 Rather, faced with extreme coercion, socialist and communist labor radicalism became what

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James Scott might call a hidden transcript.22 Thus, as Garon notes, “Deprived of their own organization, the demoralized workers protested in the only ways possible— absenteeism, job switching, slowed production, and the manufacture of defective goods.”23 Moreover, that historical roots of radical labor activism hadn’t disappeared was made quite clear by how quickly these hidden transcripts became public again once political opportunities changed in the postwar years.

The impact of postwar labor radicalism in Japan The restrictive, fascist labor policies adopted by the Japanese government in the 1930s were quickly reversed by the occupation authorities upon Japan’s surrender in 1945. For the Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP), a free labor movement was to serve both as a mechanism for consolidating democracy in Japan and as an antidote to the more recent fascist past.24 Consequently, the Allied Post-Surrender Policy for Japan called for encouraging “the development of organizations in labor, and agriculture, organized on a democratic basis.”25 This decision resulted in what can be described as an opening of political opportunity structures for the Japanese labor movement. Drafted by the Far Eastern Commission, which had been established to administer Japan after the war, a set of principles for Japanese trade unions released in  1946 marked this new era of opportunity. Among its provisions, the statement of principles declared: Japanese workers should be encouraged to form themselves into trade unions for the purpose of preserving and improving conditions of work participating in industrial negotiations to this end, and otherwise assisting the legitimate trade union interests of workers, including organized participation in building up a peaceful and democratic Japan.26 The document further called for the right of union formation to be codified in law, as well as the rights of unions to speech and assembly. Furthermore, it went on to argue, “Strikes and other work stoppages should be prohibited only when the occupation authorities consider that such stoppages would directly prejudice the objectives or needs of the occupation,” and that, “Trade unions should be allowed to take part in political activities and to support political parties.”27 The net effect of SCAP’s promotion of union rights was the dramatic reemergence of Japanese labor unions. Table 6.1 illustrates the growth that took place between October 1945 and July 1946. In essence, in the immediate aftermath of the end of the war, there was an opening of political opportunity structures, which, combined with the threat of economic dislocation, inflation, and food shortages, provided an ideal set of conditions for the growth of the radical labor activism. The shape of this activism depended on the framing processes of labor activists. It is my contention that this renewed labor movement activism was based on and shaped by an alternative collective subjectivity characterized by a commitment to

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Table 6.1  Union growth October 1945–July 1946 Month, Year October, 1945

Number of unions 8

Number of union members 4,026

November, 1945

74

67,484

December, 1945

508

379,631

January, 1946

1,516

901,705

February, 1946

3,242

1,536,560

March, 1946

6,537

2,567,467

April, 1946

8,530

3,022,933

May, 1946

10,540

3,413,653

June, 1946

12,006

3,677,771

July, 1946

12,923

3,813,665

Source: Ayusawa, 258.

leftist (communist and socialist) understandings of economic justice, a platform for peace, and a rejection of the US occupation of Japan. The nature of this alternative collective subjectivity and its appeal within the postwar Japanese labor movement can be understood with reference to the new organizations that emerged in the immediate postwar era, as well as to the actions and agendas they adopted. Leftist unionism reemerged in postwar Japan with the seizure of the printing plant by workers at the Yomiuri Newspaper Company from October to December 1945. This plant seizure represented an innovative repertoire of contention; a new form of labor radicalism known as the production control strike. This seizure of control of production is similar to factory occupations and sit-down strikes that have variously been part of the repertoire of contention employed by labor movements throughout the world. Yet, production control strikes were distinguished from other types of sitdown strikes insofar as “workers would seize a plant, oust the management, and then carry on business as usual until the management was forced to come to terms.”28 In addition to a wave of similar production control strikes, mass protests over food shortages, inflation, and flat wages took place on May Day, in 1946, where “Over 250,000 men assembled at the Plaza in front of the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.” 29And, throughout October 1946, a coordinated set of actions demanded higher wages, reduced income taxes, and a uniform labor contract for all workers. Then, in early 1947, the communist led Sanbetsu organized for a general strike in protest of government plans to cut 130,000 railway jobs. As Swearingen describes these events, “The militant elements succeeded in carrying along the moderates on a wave of popular enthusiasm for a general strike,” as some 2.6 million workers prepared to strike on 1 February 1947.30 Although SCAP authorities intervened prior to the strike, communist unions continued to engage in a militant actions ranging from “mass absenteeism, wildcat strikes, factory walkouts, rejection of overtime work, rainy-season tactics, ‘home with a cold,’ and localized scattered strikes.”31

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The organization that best exemplified the alternative collective subjectivity that emerged in postwar Japanese labor activism was the Japanese Congress of Industrial Organizations (Sanbetsu Kaigi), which was formed by Communist Party activists in 1946. Communist activists clearly recognized the immediate postwar period as an opportunity for organizing radical leftist labor activism. In his 1965 report prepared for the Rand Corporation on Communist Strategy in Japan, Swearingen quotes the Secretary General of the Japan Communist Party: The Communist Party of Japan must establish as soon as possible its Party Fractions, which will lead their affiliated unions into Communist unions. Further, it must establish industrial unions under the pattern of revolutionary trade unionism and unify the labor front through a national congress based on such industrial unions.32 In August of 1946, Sanbetsu emerged as the dominant labor organization in Japan, with a membership of 1,570,000.33 It drew significant working-class support because of the way it addressed the real material concerns faced by the Japanese people. As Swearingen points out, communist organizers addressed issues ranging from the “‘give us rice’ demonstrations of the early occupation period to ‘give us peace’ meetings of the late occupation.”34 All along, he concludes, “the targets remain the same: the Japanese government, big business, and the United States.”35 To be sure, not all elements of the Japanese labor movement adopted the more radical subjectivity offered by Sanbetsu and the communists. Indeed, many moderates specifically blamed instances of labor repression on labor radicalism, and consequently sought to build alternative (and less radical) labor organizations. Perhaps the most important alternative organization to emerge was the General Council of Japanese Trade Unions (Sohyo), formed in July 1950 as a “reaction against the domination of the Communist leaders in the trade union movement.”36 Yet, the popular appeal of Sanbetsu’s alternative collective subjectivity proved difficult for these more moderate organizations to ignore. Consequently, by the mid-1950s, Sohyo’s rhetoric and platform became less distinguishable from its more radical counterpart. By 1953 Sohyo had adopted the communists’ goals and rhetoric, especially over questions of peace, the American military presence, and the nature of capitalism.37 As Swearingen concludes, “it had become obvious to even the casual observer that Sohyo had made nearly a 180 degree turn since its organizational meeting of July 1950.”38 Moreover, from 1945 through (at least) the mid-1950s, we can note the emergence of a radical, leftist alternative collective subjectivity within the Japanese labor movement. This collective subjectivity both motivated militant labor activism, and presented a challenge to the ruling elite; a challenge that could hardly be ignored. A central component of this analysis is the argument that social movements (or in this case labor movements) that organize and sustain  alternative collective subjectivities are more likely to have more profound impacts on the shaping of state– society relations than movements that do not. This is the case, to reiterate a point made at the outset, because alternative collective subjectivities involve a sustained challenge

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to the legitimacy of political authority. The impact of the Japanese labor movement is indicated by the effort of both the Japanese state and the occupation authorities to repress radical, leftist labor activism; by public policy changes designed to curb radical labor activism and to purchase the support of less radical elements within the Japanese labor movement; and by changes in the postwar party system.

Repression and red purges That postwar Japanese labor activism was built on an alternative collective subjectivity that threatened the ruling elite is illustrated by the efforts of both occupation authorities and the postwar state to repress radical labor activism. Repression began in  1947 when General MacArthur intervened to prevent the February general strike; to have radical labor leaders dismissed form their jobs; and to purge procommunist cabinet officials.39 In June 1950, the first major purge of Japanese communists began, and after the outbreak of the Korean War, “Communists were discharged from government bureaus and private offices, from state and national public enterprises, as well as from private industries.”40 As Ayusawa reports, over 12,000 communists lost their jobs. The result of this repressive red purge was particularly profound for the membership of Sambetsu. From a membership of over 1.3 million in 1948, Sambetsu declined to just 47,000 members in 1951.41 In addition, the government encouraged “the formation of more cooperative, anti-Communist ‘second unions’ within enterprises.”42

Repressive and corporatist policy changes Two types of policy changes help indicate the impact of radical labor activism on the shaping of Japanese state–society relations: the first type involves greater restrictions on labor rights and the second involves positive incentives for more moderate unions. Concerning the former, in 1948 the American authorities and the Japanese government moved to curb the labor freedoms granted three years earlier. Legislation was adopted that prevented public employees from striking; that denied the ability of civil servants to engage in collective bargaining; and to grant “the government and labor relations commissions greater control over the certification and internal procedures of unions.”43 Yet, despite these restrictions on labor rights, labor unrest continued. Indeed, as Levine points out, 1952 was the “biggest strike year of Japan’s history.”44 Consequently, two key restrictive laws were adopted in the early 1950s: the Destructive Activities Prevention Act and the Strike Restriction Law. Both laws were intended to place greater limits on radical labor activism. At the same time, the foundations for the labor peace that would take hold in Japan after the mid-1950s were the result of legislative efforts to create incentives for workers and labor leaders to reject the alternative collective subjectivity offered by communist unions. Thus, Ikuo Kumo demonstrates that despite being dismissed as docile and powerless, the Japanese labor movement had a critical impact in shaping postwar industrial relations and economic policy. By examining the impact of unions in securing wage increases, anti-inflationary public policy, and job security, as well as

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the participation of unions in industrial policy formation, Kumo concludes, “Japanese labor played an active and crucial role in institutionalizing the postwar Japanese political economy in a way that allowed it to secure substantial improvements for its members.”45

Party realignment and the impact of labor activism One final indicator of the impact of radical labor activism on the shaping of Japanese state–society relations involves the emergence of the so-called 1955 system. Indeed, the merger of the Liberal and the Democratic Parties in 1955 came at the behest of the United States. From the American perspective, the creation of the Liberal Democratic Party could definitively prevent labor radicals and communists from influencing political and economic decisions. Indeed, this alliance between rural farmers and big business has proven remarkably resilient and relegated socialists in Japan to permanent secondary status.46

Labor activism and the shaping of state–society relations in Japan and Turkey State–labor relations in Japan have hardly been defined by a culture of harmony. Rather, the history of the Japanese labor movement has been characterized by a complex interaction between labor, capital, and the state. Moreover, within each sector, divisions and disagreements over strategy and ideology, not cultural unity, have defined state–labor relations in Japan. Although radical labor activists ultimately failed to win the day in Japan, the legacy of this leftist labor activism is quite clear. Without the postwar radical labor activism, the Japanese state might not have sought less radical allies within the labor movement and, consequently, the system of labor harmony and lifetime employment that underpinned Japan’s postwar economic boom might have been stillborn. In short, radical labor activism helped to define the postwar economic system in Japan. In addition, without postwar radical labor activism, the impetus for the merger of the Liberal and Democratic Parties may not have come about. In reality, in order to create a formidable front against radical labor, the so-called 1955 system brought about the Liberal Democratic Party, which monopolized the Japanese political system for much of the time since its creation. The broader implication, therefore, is that far from inconsequential, radical labor activism played an important and enduring role in shaping the development of state–society relations in Japan. Japan and Turkey are examples of what might be called most different systems. Yet, despite their differences, both states experienced periods of radical labor movement activism. And, in both cases, this radical labor activism had a lasting impact on the shaping of state–society relations. Such a reinterpretation of the Japanese and Turkish cases suggests the need to rethink how other seemingly failed movements nonetheless matter. I have argued that our understanding of social movements in general, and

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labor movements in particular, ought to consider the nature of collective subjectivity formed during critical junctures in movement formation. In addition, I have argued that by focusing on certain measures of a movement’s impact, we can gain a better understanding of how social movements matter than has traditionally been the case for analyses that focus primarily on dichotomous measures of success and failure. Indeed, the history of radical labor activism in Japan and Turkey highlights the importance of movement activism that forges alternative collective subjectivities even when those movements might rightly be classified as having failed to achieve their goals.

Alternative collective subjectivities and the study of social movements One pitfall that could arise from focusing on cases of labor movement mobilization might involve the potentially peculiar and qualitatively different nature of labor movements from other types of social movements.47 That is, one must be sure that any explanatory patterns that fit with labor movements are not there because of the peculiar nature of labor politics. My belief, though, unlike advocates of new social movement theory, is that the differences between newer movements and older, labor movements are not so stark. All social movements encompass both material and identity shaping concerns. Consequently, insights about the importance of movement collective subjectivity can be applied to different kinds of movements. Indeed, my analysis of Kurdish and Islamist politics in Turkey represents one way in which this project formally makes this extension. It isn’t difficult to think about how other social movements can fit into this framework—enhancing our understandings of them. For instance, in the US Civil Rights movement we might find the importance of a social movement—facing the same institutional constraints faced by the AFL—that forged an alternative collective subjectivity, which fundamentally challenged the legitimacy of the American political system. The importance of alternative collective subjectivities could also be used to enhance our understanding of social movements varying from the Italian fascist movement of the early twentieth century, to Steven Biko’s Black Consciousness movement in Apartheid South Africa. The presence or absence of alternative collective subjectivities can help explain why, for example, the organized activism of union workers in Mexico was required before the state moved to nationalize its oil in 1938, and why China’s reaction to student protests in Tiananmen Square was as harsh as it was. Certainly, I do not wish to imply that social movements are the only means by which answers to the basic questions of politics get challenged, reaffirmed, or reshaped. Indeed, any examination of recent news coverage clearly demonstrates how wars, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, everyday acts of resistance, important court decisions, and a myriad of other events matter. Nonetheless, focusing on the presence or absence of alternative collective subjectivities helps to explain how social movements help shape the political world in which we live.

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Furthermore, this book suggests a broader rethinking of the way in which the comparative analysis of social movements understands repression. Indeed, one implication of this study of state–labor relations is that there is no direct, uniform link between repression and the moderation of movement tactics. Rather, I suggest the impact of repression varies depending on the nature of movement collective subjectivity. Where movements forge widespread alternative collective subjectivities, I argue, repression can often strengthen activists’ resolve and commitment to more radical tactics and beliefs. Indeed, as della Porta and Diani summarize, “many forms of repression, particularly when they are considered illegitimate, can create a sense of injustice which increases the perceived risk of inaction.”48 This implies that for repression to lead to the moderation of movement activism, at least one of two general conditions must be identifiable. First, movements that do not form alternative collective subjectivities are more likely to moderate tactics in the face of sustained repression in order to achieve desired outcomes. Indeed, this pattern is precisely what scholars note when they focus on the opposition from employers and the state faced by the American labor movement during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Hence, in the history of the American labor movement, repression, combined with absence of an alternative collective subjectivity, meant business unionism. Second, the thoroughness of repression also has some importance for moderating movement activism—even the activism of movements that mobilize alternative collective subjectivities. Yet, as the case of the Turkish labor movement suggests, in these instances, the moderation of activism is often only a temporary condition.

Normative implications: Alternative collective subjectivities and democracy I conclude, then, by reflecting on normative implications of alternative collective subjectivities for questions of liberty, democracy, and democratization. In Chapter 1, I suggested that politics involves the collective effort to ask, answer, and act upon questions of who “we” are and what kind of world “we” want to live in. Let me suggest here, that how these questions are answered and acted upon has implications for the extent to which politics is democratic. A more democratic form of politics is one that allows for the answers to these questions to emerge out of dialogue, debate, and contestation. From this perspective, the most democratic answers to questions of who “we” are, are contingent and context-specific; they do not seek to reach definitive and permanently conclusive answers, but rather are attuned to the structural, relational bases of identity formation; they allow for collective identities to be reformed and reshaped over time. Furthermore, democratic answers to questions of what “we” want are contestable. Certainly, history demonstrates a tendency to converge around preferable and somewhat enduring answers to these questions. However, democracies must, from time to time, reevaluate these understandings. Thus, according to Rawls, a liberal society has no final ends; it has a set of shared basic principles—rights, liberties,

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and opportunities—but the exact policies that get implemented as a result of these are contestable, changeable, and open for discussion and revision.49 On the contrary, definitive answers to these questions are illiberal and can only lead to tyranny and undemocratic practices. Definitive answers to questions of who “we” are and what “we” want, as Rawls points out, tend to be based on comprehensive doctrines. Thus, for example, in order to enforce a definitive answer to the question of who Turks were, the nascent Turkish state resorted to well-documented policies designed to coerce behavior ranging from population relocations to the construction of People’s Houses to the denial of class and ethnic differences. And what better example do we have for the tyrannical results of efforts to definitively answer and act upon answers to questions of what “we” want than the evolution of the Soviet Union under Stalin after Lenin laid out what was to be done?50 A similar critique could be levied at those who advocate neoliberal globalization. That is, by enforcing the hegemony of market politics, advocates who see neoliberal globalization as a benevolent inevitability are also creating a tyrannical situation whereby definitive answers to the question of what kinds of policies ought to be supported are predetermined and justified in the name of free market economics. Definitive answers to these basic questions of politics are illiberal and undemocratic because they deny human difference and plurality, and in the process they rely on force to prevent alternative views from being expressed in public. Rawls puts this another way: “a continuing shared understanding on one comprehensive religious, philosophical, or moral doctrine can be maintained only by the oppressive use of state power.”51 In relation to social movements, then, a philosophically informed understanding of democracy and democratization leads us to see that alternative collective subjectivities may be more or less democratic. They may, for example, as in the case of fascist movements, movements based on religious fundamentalism, and even some leftist labor movements offer answers to questions of who “we” are and what “we” want that are based on comprehensive doctrines (nationalism, religion, and possibly communism). Movements that forge alternative collective subjectivities may attempt to portray movement solidarity as an authentic identity—intolerant of difference and incapable of incorporating diverse viewpoints. In short, even when they challenge the most undemocratic states, movements that forge alternative collective subjectivities may not actually be a stimulus for democratization—they may simply replace one undemocratic force with another.52 Moreover, if movements that forge alternative collective subjectivities may not always be a force for democratization, then the reverse is also true—movements that do not forge alternative collective subjectivities may (at times) be important promoters of democracy. Movements that seek reforms within existing political, economic, and social structures, in other words, may be contributing to democratic processes of interpreting, debating, and reevaluating political identities and policies. Thus, for example, it certainly is not my contention that the US labor movement has not contributed to American democratic development. In the United States, as Robert Putnam points out, union members have been better than average citizens— participating in civic and social engagement—in building social capital.53

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In the study of social movements, comparativists should not be afraid to draw from normative political theory. We should not, that is, shy away from pointing out when and how particular movements have antidemocratic tendencies and when and how they are forces for democratic change. Yet, the comparative analysis of social movements needs to acknowledge that democracy involves “more than a form of government and a set of procedures; it is in fact a way of living.”54 I hope that the concept of alternative collective subjectivity can contribute empirically to the comparative analysis of social movements by providing a conceptual focus for explaining the factors that shape movement impacts. At the same time, classifying movements by the presence or absence of alternative collective subjectivities alone does not necessarily tell us when social movements will be more or less democratic. There should be no doubt, though, that considering social movements in relation to questions of democracy, democratic transformations, and democratic consolidation is more important than ever, and combined with philosophical understandings of democracy, a focus on movement subjectivity can contribute to this project.

Notes 1 Iwao F. Ayusawa, A History of Labor in Modern Japan (Honolulu: East-West Center Press, 1966), 53. 2 Garon, cites, in particular, James Abeglen’s study of the Japanese factory. Sheldon Garon, The State and Labor in Modern Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 1. 3 Rudra Sil, Managing ‘Modernity’: Work, Community, and Authority in LateIndustrializing Japan and Russia (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002). 4 For a discussion of business interests maintaining a more consistent and reliable labor force, see Garon, 12–14 & 23–5. For a discussion of how interactions with the AFL shaped early Japanese unionism, see Ayusawa, 59–63. The Socialism Study Society, founded in 1898, signaled the first time in Japanese history that socialism served as an important alternative means of understanding social relations and inspiring action. This organization was the precursor to the Social Democratic Party, which announced its formation in May, 1901 by publishing a platform, “inspired in part by Marx’s program in the Communist Manifesto.” Hyman Kublin, “The Origins of Japanese Socialist Tradition,” The Journal of Politics 14, no. 2 (1952): 267. 5 In its initial goals, the Friendly Society’s leaders, “promoted productivity by regulating labor markets, furnishing new skills, offering mutual aid, and raising the ‘moral character of workers.’” Garon, 33, 42. 6 Ibid., 42. 7 Ayusawa, 142. 8 Garon., 71. 9 Ibid., 115. 10 Sil, 135. Thus, Sil argues that the response of Japanese workers to problems associated with industrial production including “absenteeism, alcoholism, and poor discipline on the shopfloor,” was to rely on traditional values. Ibid., 141.

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11 Ibid., 145. 12 For an overview of repressive legislation, especially the 1900 Public Peace Police Act, see Ayusawa, 17; Garon, 30; and Kublin, 267. Kublin’s account of the impact this repressive legislation had on labor activism is perhaps too strong. For an overview of corporatist legislation during the early twentieth century, see Ayusawa, 109–10 & 216–17; and Garon, 21. 13 Garon, 44. 14 Ibid., 45. 15 Sil, 146–7. The reality of the family firm, however, was that: “the family firm came to be characterized by a highly restrictive definition of membership in the enterprise community . . . , strict controls over blue-collar workers’ rights, bureaucratic organization with separate tasks in separate workshops, and a new generation of welleducated autocratic managers who were seldom visible on the shopfloor.” Ibid., 149. 16 Sil, 146 and Garon 74. 17 Garon, 202, 18 Ibid., 202. There is some debate as to the roots of this fascist labor corporatism. Garon, for example, suggests it can be directly tied to the “impact of Nazi models on contemporary Japanese policies, particularly those relating to the demise of labor unions.” Garon, 212. Ayusawa, on the other hand, argues that the source of these labor policies was not Nazi Germany, but local police officers who sought to maintain control and order during wartime. Ayusawa, 229. 19 William T. Moran, “Labor Unions in Postwar Japan,” Far Eastern Survey 18, No. 21 (1949): 241. 20 Ayusawa, 228. 21 Ibid., 238. 22 James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). 23 Garon, 255. 24 Garon, for example, states, “SCAP officials desired a strong union movement as a political counterweight to the entrenched pre-surrender elites, and they were initially willing to tolerate some Communist Party influence within organized labor.” Garon, 238. 25 Ayusawa, 241. 26 Quoted in Ayusawa, 243. 27 Ibid., 243. 28 A. Roger Swearingen, Communist Strategy in Japan, 1945-1960 (Santa Monica, CA: The Rand Corporation, 1965), 96. 29 Ayusawa, 263. 30 Swearingen, 99; Ayusawa, 268; and Ronald J. Gilson and Mark J. Roe, “Lifetime Employment: Labor Peace and the Evolution of Japanese Corporate Governance,” Columbia Law Review 99, no. 2 (1999): 521. 31 Swearingen, 103. 32 Quoted in Swearingen, 91. 33 Ibid., 93. 34 Swearingen writes, “By linking the problems of the workers, the economic chaos, and other difficulties directly to war and to capitalism, the [Japan Communist Party] attempted to discredit the capitalist and the ‘reactionary’ prewar Japanese governments.” Ibid., 94.

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35 Ibid., 94. 36 Ayusawa, 373. 37 For instance, Swearingen points out that, at its 1953 meeting, Soyho declared, “It is apparent that war originates from the nature of capitalism, and, for this reason, they [the capitalists] have to cover up the defect even in peacetime by the enforcement of a war policy and economy.” Quoted in Swearingen, 139. 38 Swearingen, 138. 39 Sil, 161. 40 Ayusawa, 302. 41 Garon, 241. 42 Ibid., 240. 43 Ibid., 239–40. 44 Solomon B. Levine, “Prospects of Japanese Labor,” Far Eastern Survey 23, no. 5 (1954): 68. Throughout 1952, Sohyo organized a series of strikes and protests against repressive labor laws, including a strike wave in April that involved nearly 1.1 million participants, the bloody May Day protests in Tokyo, and a second strike wave in June that involved 3.2 million workers. Ayusawa, 324–6. 45 Ikuo Kume, Disparaged Success: Labor Politics in Postwar Japan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), 14. 46 For one explanation on how the formation of the LDP represented a political strategy designed to curb the influence of radical labor activism, see, Roger W. Bowen, Japan’s Dysfunctional Democracy (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2003), 34. 47 In addition, a potential limitation of both this particular empirical study, and of the alternative collective subjectivity framework, involves the focus on the state as fundamental to social movement analysis. This project takes states as central to the political geography of movement analysis insofar as alternative collective subjectivities are alternatives to state ideologies and state actors. The explanatory power of this concept might be limited, then, by the extent to which social movements do not actually make claims against the state. For instance, Michael Brown suggests that for AIDS activists in Vancouver, Canada, it is in the provision of services (often in conjunction with the state), and not in activism targeting and criticizing the state, that we can identify the spaces of radical democratic citizenship. Michael P. Brown, Replacing Citizenship: AIDS Activism & Radical Democracy (New York: The Guilford Press, 1997), 77. Social movements that make claims predominantly against other non-state actors and groups, or that challenge the boundaries between state and society, present an important and necessary place to extend the analysis of movement subjectivity. 48 della Porta and Diani, 211. 49 John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 41. 50 Stephen Hanson, for example, argues that the history of Marxism from Marx’s early works through the collapse of the Soviet Union involved a “150-year revolutionary experiment in the building of a new type of society based on the charismatic-rational conception of time.” Consequently, he traces the trajectory of elite conceptions of time that infused Soviet leaders’ efforts to convey answers to questions of who the Soviet people were, what kind of society they should want, and how then they should behave. Moreover, the implications of these revolutionary conceptions of time were imposed through “a continual reliance on terror to induce artificially a sense of revolutionary struggle.” Stephen E. Hanson, Time and Revolution: Marxism

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51 52

53 54

Evaluating Social Movement Impacts and the Design of Soviet Institutions (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 200-1. Rawls, 37. One example of this might be found in Zimbabwe, where an antidemocratic white supremacist regime was replaced by an opposition movement that proved, ultimately, to be based on its own intolerant and undemocratic answers to questions of who Zimbabweans were and what they should want. Yet, as Putnam notes, both the quantity and quality of union participation has been on the decline. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), 80–2. Steven Hood, Political Development and Democratic Theory: Rethinking Comparative Politics (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2004), 152.

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Interviews: Interviews drawn upon in the Chapters 4 and 5 were conducted between April and July, 2004 with members and leaders from Hak-İş; Türk-İş; Türk-İş affiliates Yol-İş and Genel Maden İş; DİSK; and DİSK affiliates Tekstil-İş, Genel İş, Birleşik Metal İş, OLEYİS, and Lastik-İş.

Index 1871 Trade Union Act  31–2 alternative collective subjectivities  xi, 8–12, 154–7 American labor movement  41–3, 46, 48, 51–4 British labor movement  26–7, 34–6, 38–40 Japanese labor movement  146–52 labor movement mobilization  13–16 linked elements  10 state-society relations  12–13, 15 Turkish labor movement  61, 74, 79–80, 86, 88–94, 96, 99, 103–4, 113–15, 117, 121, 127, 133, 135–6, 145 alternative institutions  8–9, 80 Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE)  36 American Federation of Labor (AFL)  26–7, 41–53, 59n. 109, 59nn. 113–14, 59n. 119, 60n. 134, 72, 154 American labor movements AFL  42–3 alternative collective subjectivity  41–3, 46, 48, 51–4 American exceptionalism  41, 49–52 antistatism  44 business unionism  26–8, 41, 46–50, 52–3 collective subjectivity  41 core beliefs, American ideology  44 courts role  50–1 economic depression  52 federalism and two-party system  51–2 Haymarket Square Riots  48 Homestead strike  48 immigrant workers  47 The Knights of Labor  41–2 Pullman car strike/boycott  48–9

race and ethnicity  46–7 radical organizations, emergence of  49 repression  49–50 trade union epigrams  43 American Labor Union (ALU)  49 The Association of Independent Industrialists and Businessmen (MÜSİAD)  133 Boilermakers’ Society, Hornby versus Close case  31 British labor movements alternative collective subjectivity  26–7, 33–6, 38–40 vs American labor movements  26–7 Boilermakers’ Society, Hornby versus Close  31 court cases and effect of decision  37 Criminal Law Act Amendment  32 economic downturn  31 labor representation and national politics  29–30 legitimacy of the state  38–9 Liberty and Property Defense League  38 Lib-Labism  33 local trade councils  29 LRC  36–7 Luebbert’s analysis  39 neoliberal economic policies  40 “new” unionism, rise of  34–5 1867 Reform Act, passage of  31 Royal Commission majority report  30–1 Sheffield Outrages  30–1 1871 Trade Union Act  32 trade unionism  28–9 working-class political participation  27–8 World War I  39–40

178

Index

Clayton Act of 1914  51 coal miners’ wildcat strike  79–80, 86, 88–9, 100–1, 117, 150 collective subjectivity  10 see also alternative collective subjectivities comparative historical analysis  14, 19n. 6, 25, 50, 52, 155, 157 concept of Just Order  131 Confederation of Public Laborers’ Unions/Kamu Emekçileri Sendikaları Konfederasyonu (KESK)  120, 141n. 95 Confederation of Revolutionary Labor Unions/Devrimci İşçi Sendikası Konfederasyonu (DİSK)  86, 88, 91–9, 101–3, 107nn. 51–2, 55, 108nn. 69, 73, 78, 109n. 86, 111nn. 123, 124, 134, 115–16, 118, 120–1, 126, 134–5, 139n. 48 Confederation of Righteous Trade Unions (Hakİş)  115–16, 119–20, 133–4, 152n. 143 Confederation of Turkish Labor Unions (Türk-İş)  72–3, 85, 87, 90–1, 93–4, 97, 116–17, 119 American unionism  73 DP’s strategy  73–4 goals  72 international support  72 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO)  52–3, 60n. 143 contained social movements  11–12 contentious politics  80 Cooperation and Harmony Society (Kyochokai)  148 counter-mobilization  7, 36, 49, 52, 79, 96, 103, 113

Destructive Activities Prevention Act  152 Doug McAdam’s study of rise of labor movement insurgency  81–2, 84, 103

democracy  70, 81, 93, 98, 117, 119–21, 133, 147, 149, 155–7 Democracy Party (DEP)  125–6, 141n. 86 Democratic People’s Party (DEHAP)  125, 141n. 86 Democrat Party/Demokrat Partisi (DP)  69–74, 78n. 84, 82–3

Japan Council of Labor Unions (Hyogikai)  148 Japanese Congress of Industrial Organizations (Sanbetsu Kaigi)  151 Japanese labor radicalism alternative collective subjectivity  146–52

electoral success  79, 90, 97–9, 123 European Union (EU)  120, 126, 139nn. 44, 46 General Council of Japanese Trade Unions (Sohyo)  151 Glasgow Trades Council (GTC)  29 Gung Ho film  145 Haymarket Square Riots  48, 59n. 119 Homestead strike  48 Independent Labor Party (ILP)  35–6 industrial capitalism  25 Industrial Patriotic Society (Sanpo)  148 International Workers of the World (IWW)  49–50, 59n. 125 Islamist politics  114–16 concept of Just Order  131 Hak-İş  133–4 Justice and Development Party  132–3 Kemalist secularism  132 MÜSİAD  133 National Salvation Party  128–9 neoliberal economic restructuring  129–30 popularity  127–8 RP activists  129–31 Istanbul general strike  79, 84, 86, 88, 90, 94–5, 99, 101 IWW see International Workers of the World (IWW) Izmir protests  80–1, 86, 94–5, 101–2

Index

179

cultural characteristics  146 Friendly Society (Yuaikai)  147 postwar history Leftist unionism  150 repressive and corporatist policy changes  152–3 repressive red purge  152 Union growth  150 prewar history  147 hidden transcripts  149 repressive and corporatist policies  148 Japan General Federation of Labor (Sodomei)  147 Justice and Development Party/Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP)  120, 132–3 Justice Party/Adalet Partisi (AP)  87, 100, 106n. 36

leftist nationalism  16, 104, 113, 119, 122, 124–5, 131 London Trades Council (LTC)  28–30, 55n. 11 London Working Men’s Association (WMA)  29, 55n. 16 LRC. see Labor Representation Committee (LRC)

Kemalist principle of populism CHP’s arrows  62–3 classless society  64 secularizing reforms  63 social theory of Ziya Gökalp  63–4 strikes, struggle for independence  65–6 working-class organization policy changes  66–7 suppression  67 The Knights of Labor  41–2 Kurdish politics  114–16 cultural injustice  122 pro-Kurdish political activists  123–5 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)  122, 124–5, 141n. 86

People’s Democracy Party (HADEP)  125–6, 141n. 86 People’s Labor Party/Halkın Emek Partisi (HEP)  125–6, 141n. 86 policing of protest  7, 17, 20n. 24, 79, 96, 100–3, 123. see also repression political party platforms  7, 79, 82, 96–100 politics of recognition and redistribution  113–14, 121, 125, 127, 136 postwar Japanese labor activism leftist unionism  150 repressive and corporatist policy changes  152–3 repressive red purge  152 Union growth  150 prewar Japanese labor activism  147 hidden transcripts  149 public policy changes  4, 6, 32–3, 66, 96–7, 152 Pullman car strike/boycott  48–9

labor movement Great Britain (see British labor movements) Japan (see Japanese labor radicalism) political institutional settings  26 Turkey (see Turkish labor movement) United States (see American labor movements) Labor Representation Committee (LRC)  36–7

May Day rally  66, 79, 81, 86, 94–6, 99, 102 Nationalist Action Party/Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi (MHP)  95 Nationalist Confederation of Labor Unions/(Milliyetçi İşçi Sendikas. Konfederasyonu (MİSK)  116 National Order Party. see National Salvation Party National Salvation Party  128–9

1867 Reform Act  30–1 repression  4, 7, 13, 16, 41, 48–50, 52, 66, 71, 79–80, 87, 94, 100–4, 113–17, 121–2, 125, 132, 136, 145, 147, 151, 155

180

Index

Republican People’s Party/Cumhuriyet Halk Partis (CHP)  61–6, 68–72, 75n. 8, 82–3, 87, 98–101, 106n. 36, 110n. 112, 111nn. 124, 138, 113 Revolutionary Eastern Cultural Hearths (DDKO)  124 right to strike  13, 65, 70, 75, 82, 84, 99–100, 104, 116, 121 Sanpo see Industrial Patriotic Society (Sanpo) Sheffield Outrages  30–1 Social Democratic Federation (SDF)  34, 36, 56n. 47 Socialist Party of Turkey  69 Socialist Worker and Peasant Party of Turkey  69 social movement outcomes crucial problems  1 indicators  6–7 intramovement outcomes  3 success and failure  4 state-labor relations. see labor movement Strike Restriction Law  152 subjectivity  9 Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (SCAP)  149 Trades Dispute Act of 1906  37 Trades Union Congress (TUC)  26, 28, 30–3, 35–6, 38–40, 43, 58n. 91 Trade Unions Act of 1913  37 transgressive social movements  11 Turkish labor movement alternative collective subjectivity  61, 74, 79–80, 86, 88–94, 96, 99, 103–4, 113–15, 117, 121, 127, 133, 135–6, 145 counter-mobilization  103 Islamist activism  114–16 concept of Just Order  131 Hak-İş  133–4

Justice and Development Party  132–3 Kemalist secularism  132 MÜSİAD  133 National Salvation Party  128–9 neoliberal economic restructuring  129–30 popularity  127–8 RP activists  129–31 Kemalist principle of populism CHP’s arrows  62–3 classless society  64 secularizing reforms  63 social theory of Ziya Gökalp  63–4 strikes, struggle for independence  65–6 working-class organization  66–7 Kurdish activism  114–16 cultural injustice  122 pro-Kurdish political activists  123–5 labor unions  70–2 military intervention  54, 74, 83, 102–4, 113–14, 134 policing and repression  100–3 policy changes  96–7 political party platforms  97–100 political unionism, resurgence of  115–21 populism multiparty politics  68–72 single-party rule  62–8 strike activity, overview of  66 Turkish Workers’ Party/Türk İşçi Partisi (TİP)  85 Welfare Party/Refah Partisi (RP)  129–32, 134, 142nn. 108, 117, 123 Wolverhampton Trades Council  31 working-class politics  54n. 3, 61, 63, 80, 94, 101, 113, 124