DISCURSIVE STRUGGLES OVER THE TURKISH AGRICULTURAL COOPERATIVE FIELD: LIBERAL VS ETATIST FRAMES DURING THE EARLY REPUBLICAN ERA, 1930-1933

ABSTRACT Purpose - This study aims to solve a historical puzzle in Turkish cooperative history and illuminate the failure of a discursive medium, the journal of Türk Kooperatifçisi, to realize its ambitious goals of disseminating liberal ideas into the field of agricultural cooperatives. Given the strong state influence on Turkish cooperatives for over a century, this article strives to articulate when and how the anti-etatist cooperative discourse experienced an absolute defeat in the face of state hegemony. Methodology – This historical case study carries out hermeneutical discourse analysis on the archival data collected from the National Library of Turkey. Drawing on the first Turkish cooperative periodical, namely the Türk Kooperatifçisi, the researchers have read 214 articles, amounting to 966 pages. After a systematic interpretation of the collected data, the researchers have further situated archival evidence onto a plot and accordingly constructed a historical narrative, thereby illuminating the underlying reasons for the short life span (1930-1933) of a liberal cooperative periodical in early Republican Turkey. Findings- The findings of this study suggest that towards the end of the 1920s, the sharp turn in the economic policy of Turkey triggered a series of events, leading the agricultural cooperatives to become state apparatuses. Correspondingly, the liberal frame regressed in the face of the etatist frame and became defeated in the discursive arena. Conclusion- The contest between frames both shapes and becomes shaped by the ideological shift in the Turkish state polity. However, this macro-level change yielded in the Turkish agricultural-cooperative field an open forum where opposing discourses challenge for the settlement of expedient cooperatives.

___

  • Ahmad, F. (1993). The making of modern turkey. London: Routledge.
  • Aschhoff, G. (1982). The banking principles of Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. In W. Engels, & H. Pohl, German yearbook on business history 1982 (pp. 19-42). Cologne: Springer-Verlag.
  • Birgen, M. (1930a). İktisat buhranı ile mücadele programı [The economic program against the Depression]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(2), 1-9.
  • Birgen, M. (1930b). Dünyanın derdi bizim derdimiz [The global problem is our problem]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(3), 1-5.
  • Birgen, M. (1930c). Türkiye'de kooperatif hukukiyatı [The cooperative law in Turkey]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(5), 1-5.
  • Birgen, M. (1930d). Türkiye'de zirai itibar meselesi [The issue of the agricultural credits in Turkey]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(5), 20-25.
  • Birgen, M. (1931a). 1. ziraat kongresi [The first agricultural congress]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(11), 1-7.
  • Birgen, M. (1931b). Kooperatif rejiler. Türk Kooperatifçisi(13), 1-14.
  • Birgen, M. (1931c). Kooperatifleşme veya kooperatifleştirme [Cooperatives or psuedo-cooperatives]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(15-16), 1-11.
  • Birgen, M. (1931d). Suphi Nuri Bey'e cevabım [My response to Suphi Nuri Bey]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(19-20), 11-16.
  • Birgen, M. (1931e). İktisat vekili muhterem mustafa şeref beyefendiye [To Mustafa Şeref, the Minister of Economics]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(12), 1-7.
  • Birgen, M. (1933). Kariyelerimize [To our readers]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(32), 24.
  • Boland, R. J., Newman, M., & Pentland, 2. (2010). Hermeneutical exegesis in information systems design and use. Information and Organization, 20(1), 1-20.
  • Buğra, A. (1994). State and business in modern turkey: A comparative study. Albany: State University of New York.
  • Cornelissen, J. P., & Werner, M. D. (2014). Putting framing in perspective: A review of framing and frame analysis across the management and organizational literature. Academy of Management Annals , 8(1), 181-235.
  • Creed, W. E., Langstraat, & Scully, M. (2002). A picture of the frame: Frame analysis as technique and as politics. Organizational Research Methods, 5(1), 34-55.
  • Erçek, M., & Soydemir, C. O. (2017). The emergence of cooperatives as organizational forms in Turkish history, 1864-1938. Academy of Management Proceedings. doi:https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2017.17450abstract
  • Fairbairn, B. (2017). Raiffeisen as social innovator. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 425–448.
  • Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. New York: Longman Inc.
  • Fairclough, N. (2005). Peripheral vision: Discourse analysis in organization studies: The case for critical realism. Organization Studies, 915-939.
  • Farr, I. (2007). Farmers' cooperatives in Bavaria, 1880–1914: 'State-help 'and 'self-help' in imperial Germany. Rural History, 18(2), 163-182.
  • Genç, M. (2000). Osmanlı imparatorluğunda devlet ve ekonomi [State and Economy at the Ottoman Empire]. Istanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat.
  • Gilbert, C. G. (2006). Change in the presence of residual fit: Can competing frames coexist? Organization Science, 17(1), 150-167.
  • Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Boston: North Eastern University Press.
  • Gopinath, C., & Prasad, A. (2012). Toward a critical framework for understanding MNE operations: Revisiting Coca-Cola’s exit from India. Organization, 212–232.
  • Grant, D., Hardy, C., Oswick, C., & Putnam, L. L. (2004). Introduction: Organizational discourse: Exploring the field. In D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick, & L. L. Putnam, The sage handbook of organization discourse (pp. 1-36). London: Sage.
  • Guinnane, T. W. (1997). Regional organizations in the German cooperative banking system in the late 19th century. Research in Economics, 51, 251–274.
  • Guinnane, T. W. (2012). State support for the German cooperative movement, 1860–1914. Central European History, 45, 208–232.
  • Gurses, K., & Ozcan, P. (2015). Entrepreneurship in regulated markets: Framing contests and collective action to introduce pay tv in US. Academy of Management Journal, 58(6), 1709–1739.
  • Hale, W. (1980). Ideology and economic development in Turkey 1930–1945. British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Bulletin, 7(2), 100-117.
  • Hargadon, A. B., & Douglas, Y. (2001). When innovations meet institutions: Edison and the design of the electric light. Administrative Science Quarterly, 476-501.
  • Hazar, N. (1990). Kooperatifçilik tarihi [The history of cooperatives] (3rd ed.). Ankara: Tarım Kredi Kooperatifleri Yardımlaşma Birliği Yayınları.
  • International Co-operative Alliance. (2019, 12 22). Co-operative identity, values & principles. Retrieved from Coop International Co-operative Alliance: https://ica.coop/en/whats-co-op/co-operative-identity-values-principles
  • Jepperson, R. L. (2002). Political modernities: Disentangling two underlying dimensions of institutional differentiation. Sociological Theory, 20(1), 61-85.
  • Kerr, R., Robinson, S. K., & Elliott, C. (2016). Modernism, postmodernism, and corporate power: Historicizing the architectural typology of the corporate campus. Management and Organizational History, 11(2), 123-146.
  • Kipping, M., & Üsdiken, B. (2008). Business history and management studies. In G. Jones, & J. Zeitlin, The Oxford Handbook of Business History (pp. 96–119). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Kipping, M., & Üsdiken, B. (2014). History in organization and management theory: More than meets the eye. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 535-588.
  • Kipping, M., Wadhwani, R. D., & Bucheli, M. (2014). Analyzing and interpreting historical sources: A basic methodology. In M. Bucheli, & R. D. Wadhwani, Organizations in time: History, theory, methods (pp. 306-329). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Koyuncu, A. (1945). Kooperatiflerin birleşmesi [The merge of cooperatives]. Karınca(101), 10-16.
  • Kyratsis, Y., Atun, R., Phillips, N., Tracey, P., & George, G. (2017). Health systems in transition: Professional identity work in the context of shifting institutional logics. Academy of Management Journal, 60(2), 610–641.
  • Leblebici, H. (2014). Organizational research in history and organization theory in the first decade of the 21st century: Potential for a transdisciplinary convergence. In M. Bucheli, & R. D. Wadhwani, Organizations in time. History, theory, methods (pp. 56-99). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Leblebici, H., & Shah, N. (2004). The birth, transformation and regeneration of business incubators as new organisational forms: Understanding the interplay between organisational history and organisational theory. Business History, 46(3), 353-380.
  • Leibel, E., Hallett, T., & Bechky, B. A. (2018). Meaning at the source: The dynamics of field formation in institutional research. Academy of Management Annals, 12(1), 154–177.
  • Lewis, B. (1961). The emergence of modern Turkey. London: Oxford University Press.
  • Maclean, M., Harvey, C., & Clegg, S. R. (2016). Conceptualizing historical organization studies. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 609-632.
  • McLaughlin, E., & Sharp, P. (2019). Competition between organisational forms in Danish and Irish dairying around the turn of the twentieth century. Business History. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2019.1575366
  • Murphy, M. E. (1946). Centenary of the British Coopeartive Movement. Journal of Marketing, 270-278.
  • Navis, C., & Glynn, M. A. (2010). How new market categories emerge: Temporal dynamics of legitimacy, identity, and entrepreneurship in satellite radio, 1990–2005. Administrative Science Quarterly, 55(3), 439-471.
  • Nuri, S. (1931). Suphi Nuri Bey'in cevabı [The response of Suphi Nuri Bey]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(19-20), 5-10. Ocasio, W., Mauskapf, M., & Steele, C. W. (2015). History, society, and institutions: The role of collective memory in the emergence and evolution of societal logics. Academy of Management Review, 41(4), 676-699.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2000). Intervention during the great depression. In Ş. Pamuk, & J. G. Williamson, The mediterranean response to globalization before 1950 (pp. 321-339). London : Routledge.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2008). Economic change in twentieth-century turkey: Is the glass more than half full? In R. Kasaba, The cambridge history of turkey: Turkey in the modern world (Vol. IV, pp. 266-300). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Pamuk, Ş. (2017). Türkiye'nin 200 yıllık iktisadi tarihi [Turkey's 200 years of economic history] (7th ed.). Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları.
  • Phillips, N., & Brown, J. L. (1993). Analyzing communication in and around organizations: A critical hermeneutic approach. Academy of Management Journal, 36(6), 1547-1576.
  • Phillips, N., & Oswick, C. (2012). Organizational discourse: Domains, debates, and directions. The Academy of Management Annals, 435-481.
  • Prasad, A., & Mir, R. (2002). Digging deep for meaning: A critical hermeneutic analysis of CEO letters to shareholders in the oil industry. Journal of Business Communication, 92-116.
  • Rao, H. (1998). Caveat emptor: The construction of nonprofit consumer watchdog organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 103(4), 912-961.
  • Rao, H., & Greve, H. R. (2017). Disasters and community resilience: Spanish flu and the formation of retail cooperatives in Norway. Academy of Management Journal, 61(1), 2-25.
  • Rao, H., & Singh, J. V. (2001). The construction of new paths: Institution-building activity in the early automobile and biotech industries. In R. Garud, & P. Karnøe, Path Dependence and Creation (pp. 243-267). London: Erlbaum.
  • Rowlinson, M. (2004). Historical analysis of company documentation. In C. Cassell, & G. Symon, Qualitative methods in organizational (pp. 301-311). London: Sage.
  • Rowlinson, M., & Hassard, J. S. (2013). Historical neo-institutionalism or neo-institutionalist history? Historical research in management and organization studies. Management and Organizational History, 8(2), 111-126.
  • Saka, R. (1962). Meşrutiyet Türkiyesi kooperatifçiliği [Cooperatives in the Constitutional Turkey]. Karınca(304), 12-18.
  • Schneiberg, M. (2013). Movements as political conditions for diffusion: Anti-Corporate movements and the spread of cooperative forms in American capitalism. Organization Studies, 34(5-6), 653-682.
  • Soydemir, C. O., & Erçek, M. (2019). Self-help or vassal? State ideology and discursive legitimization of Turkish cooperatives, 1934-1960. Academy of Management Proceedings. doi:https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.18304abstract
  • T. C. Resmi Gazete. İ'tibari zirâi birliği kanunu. 24 May 1924. Issue: 71, Başbakanlık Basımevi, Ankara.
  • T. C. Resmi Gazete, Tarım kredi kooperatifleri kanunu. 2 October 1935. Issue: 3146, Başbakanlık Basımevi, Ankara.
  • Tekin, H. H. (2015). Devlet ve birey arasında bir güç alanı olarak kooperatifler [Cooperatives as a power field between the state and individual]. Üçüncü Sektör Sosyal Ekonomi, 50(2), 135-151.
  • Topçuoğlu, N. (1931). Kooperatifler nasıl çoğalır? [How do cooperatives spread?]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(12), 7-11.
  • Tracey, P., Dalpiaz, E., & Phillips, N. (2018). Fish out of water: Translation, legitimation, and new venture creation. Academy of Management Journal, 61(5), 1627-1666.
  • Trampusch, C., & Spies, D. C. (2014). Agricultural interests and the origins of capitalism: A parallel comparative history of Germany, Denmark, New Zealand, and the USA. New Political Economy, 19(6), 918-942.
  • Türk Kooperatifçisi. (1930). Türkiye'de zirai îtibar meselesi [The issue of agricultural credit in Turkey]. Türk Kooperatifçisi(4), 19-22.
  • Üsdiken, B., & Kieser, A. (2004). Introduction: History in organisation studies. Business History, 46(3), 321-330.
  • Werner, M. D., & Cornelissen, J. P. (2014). Framing the change: Switching and blending frames and their role in instigating institutional change. Organization Studies, 35(10), 1449–1472.
  • Yates, J. (2014). Understanding historical methods in organization studies. In M. Bucheli, & R. D. Wadhwani, Organizations in time: History, theory, methods (pp. 265-283). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • York, J. G., Hargrave, T. J., & Pacheco, D. F. (2016). Converging winds: Logic hybridization in the colorado wind energy field. Academy of Management Journal, 59(2), 579–610.