ABSTRACT
Essentially this book proposes to develop an historical case-study of the evolution of the state in Turkey by focusing on Michael Mann’s construction of the nature and distribution of social power. Before progressing to analyse Turkish development, Mann’s theoretical and historiographical framework will be set out and critically discussed. As such, this chapter aims to offer an impression of the current debate over social power, historical sociology and the role of the state. Within the first section, different components of Michael Mann’s theoretical model will be explained and compared to earlier work. In a comparable way to his analysis of Western development, these will constitute the primary analytical tools with which to examine large-scale change and state development in Turkey. The second section will consider Mann’s approach in relation to the discipline of historical sociology as a whole before, in the third section, moving on to examine the critical debate surrounding both the diachronic approach that Mann favours and the overall validity of the macro-historical method.
