TURKEY IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS: OBSTACLES, PREMISE AND PROSPECTS

compared on the basis of backwardness-forwardness dichotomy. The Industrial Revolution has made the polarization between developed and underdeveloped countries deeper. Those countries that could not complete their industrialization process in the last two centuries are now aware that their less-developed positions and prefer to target the level of developed countries. Turkey’s development endeavor goes back to the Ottoman Reform Movement Era in which the Ottomans tried to imitate the development model of Western European countries. This perspective has gradually expanded from advancement in military technology and administrative structure to political, economic and socio-cultural fields. Thus, the value system of the West concerning development has been taken as a point of reference during the Republic. As a consequence, the last two centuries of Turkey has been passed with successful and failed attempts to reach to the level of modern civilization. This paper investigates on the how far Turkey’s development efforts have gone, what opportunities have been missed, at what level now Turkey stands in the development process, what similarities and differences can be identified between Turkey and Western countries, and at which extent Turkey’s development endeavor provides some clues for transitional countries. In this paper, the fundamental questions are on whether the administration of development process (e.g. misallocation of resources, inefficiency and waste, corruption) is in the “right direction”