Ali Arslan

Who Rules Turkey: the Turkish Power Elite Ali Arslan

This book aims to analyse, the power structure of Turkish society and the Turkish power elite. In accordance with the pluralists views one could argue that, power has been diffused and fragmented among many people or elite groups which together participate in the decision-making process in contemporary Turkish society. Nevertheless, decisive and effective power (parallel with the main thesis of the elitist view) has been concentrated and centralised in the hands of the small number of elite groups which are called the Turkish Power Elite. The contemporary Turkish power elite is composed of economic, military, political and media elites. Decisive power has become centralised into the hands of these groups of people. They control the state and the elite recruitment process. Briefly, the Turkish power elites are the most powerful and wealthy people in society. They define the final shape of socio-political and economic decisions. They not only define the roles of millions of people, they also define the future of Turkish society.