Secularization and state building in the former Ottoman World

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-282).Disciples of the State seeks to explain why some former Ottoman states succeeded in effectively secularizing schooling and law and regulating religion upon independence - thereby consolidating state power- whereas others did not. The bulk of the project centers on a detailed investigation of three former-Ottoman country cases: Turkey, Greece, and Egypt. The main argument is built around a comparison of the critical historical antecedents that preceded independence in these three countries. My findings suggest that when manpower for early modernizing reforms in the 19 th century was severely constrained, state-builders were more likely to employ strategies of institutional reform based on coöptation, thereby integrating religious elites into nascent state structures in a piecemeal fashion. This turbulent (and at times violent) process of integration and coöptation spawned a dynamic of differential growth that severely weakened religious institutions. When religious institutions were weakened in this way in the 19 th century, it became possible for states to exert full control over the religious establishment upon independence, producing what we consider today to be successful "secular revolutions". I find that this dynamic played out in places as different as Greece and late Ottoman Turkey. Conversely, when manpower for modernizing reforms was more readily available (often as a result of colonial occupation) state-building strategies took a different form. Instead of coöptating religious actors, state-builders created new sets of "parallel" disciplinary institutions that largely excluded traditional elites. In this context, rather than sharing expertise, religious institutions became largely insulated from the state, re-entrenched themselves, and grew in size over the late 19th and early 20th century. Upon independence, founding regimes thus inherited a deeply fractured system of disciplinary control making "secular revolutions" much more difficult to impose. I find the that this dynamic characterized state-building trajectories in Egypt.by Kristin Elisabeth Fabbe.Ph.D

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Civilians who have fled violent conflict and settled in neighboring countries are integral to processes of civil war termination. Contingent on their attitudes, they can either back peaceful settlements or support warring groups and continued fighting. Attitudes toward peaceful settlement are expected to be especially obdurate for civilians who have been exposed to violence. In a survey of 1,120 Syrian refugees in Turkey conducted in 2016, we use experiments to examine attitudes towards two critical phases of conflict termination – a ceasefire and a peace agreement. We examine the rigidity/flexibility of refugees’ attitudes to see if subtle changes in how wartime losses are framed or in who endorses a peace process can shift willingness to compromise with the incumbent Assad regime. Our results show, first, that refugees are far more likely to agree to a ceasefire proposed by a civilian as opposed to one proposed by armed actors from either the Syrian government or the opposition. Second, simply describing the refugee community’s wartime experience as suffering rather than sacrifice substantially increases willingness to compromise with the regime to bring about peace. This effect remains strong among those who experienced greater violence. Together, these results show that even among a highly pro-opposition population that has experienced severe violence, willingness to settle and make peace are remarkably flexible and dependent upon these cues

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