Είναι ευρέως γνωστό ότι η έννοια των εργασιακών σχέσεων, τόσο ως πεδίο α-

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1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AS AN ACADEMIC FIELD IN TURKEY H ANAΠTYΞH TΩN EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN ΩΣ AKAΔHMAΪKOΣ TOMEAΣ ΣTHN TOYPKIA By: ENGIN YILDIRIM, SUAYIP CALIS* Εισαγωγή Είναι ευρέως γνωστό ότι η έννοια των εργασιακών σχέσεων, τόσο ως πεδίο α- καδημαϊκής έρευνας, όσο και ως πρακτική προέρχεται από την αμερικανική και βρετανική εμπειρία, (Hyman 2001: 226). Το τελευταίο διάστημα δε, καταγράφεται αυξημένο ενδιαφέρον στην ακαδημαϊκή ανάπτυξη των εργασιακών σχέσεων και πέρα από τις αγγλόφωνες χώρες, (Frege 2003, Kaufman 2004). Όμως, σε ένα πρόσφατο άρθρο του σχετικά με την έρευνα των εργασιακών σχέσεων, ο Ackers παρατήρησε ότι πολλές από τις χώρες που αναφέρονται στο βιβλίο του Kaufman δεν έ- χουν βαθιά ριζωμένη πνευματική παράδοση στις εργασιακές σχέσεις, η παράδοσή τους αναλογεί σε μέγεθος ελάχιστα μεγαλύτερο από αναφορά στις υποσημειώσεις (2005:97). Συνολικά, συμφωνούμε με το συμπέρασμα του Acker, παρόλα αυτά, πιστεύουμε ότι η έρευνα της γνώσης γύρω από τις εργασιακές σχέσεις σε διαφορετικές κοινωνίες και χώρες συμβάλει γενικά στην κατανόηση της διαδικασίας διάχυσης και θεσμοθέτησης των εργασιακών σχέσεων ως πεδίο επιστημονικής μελέτης. Η Τουρκία έχει μια παράδοση έρευνας σε θέματα απασχόλησης και εργατικού δυναμικού, η οποία χρονολογείται από τη δεκαετία του 1930, όταν μετανάστες Γερμανοί καθηγητές απομακρυνόμενοι από τους ναζί, εισήγαγαν την κοινωνική πολιτική (sozialpolitik) στην τουρκική ακαδημαϊκή κοινότητα. Η μεταφορά γνώσης κοινωνικής πολιτικής αντιμετωπίστηκε τότε ως στοιχείο καθοριστικό στη διαδικασία οικοδόμησης και εκσυγχρονισμού του έθνους. * ENGIN YILDIRIM is PROFESSOR, IIBF, Dept.of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations Sakarya University. MR SUAYIP CALIS is PhD Candidate, Sakarya University, IIBF, Dept.of Labour Economics and Industrial Relations. EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN 35

2 Η γερμανική επιρροή άρχισε να ξεθωριάζει μετά το δεύτερο παγκόσμιο πόλεμο και νέοι όροι οικονομικών της εργασίας και εργασιακών σχέσεων εμφανίστηκαν στη δεκαετία του 60 και του 70 με τη διάχυση της αμερικανικής επιρροής. Σε συνέχεια μιας αναδόμησης του συστήματος ανώτατης εκπαίδευσης, στη διάρκεια του στρατιωτικού καθεστώτος, στις αρχές της δεκαετίας του 80, δημιουργήθηκαν τμήματα οικονομικών της εργασίας και εργασιακών σχέσεων και στη δεκαετία του 90 έγινε μια αποτυχημένη προσπάθεια να αντικατασταθούν οι εργασιακές σχέσεις με τη διαχείριση των ανθρώπινων πόρων. Η μετακίνηση από την κοινωνική πολιτική (sozialpolitik) στις εργασιακές σχέσεις άρχισε πρόσφατα να αντιστρέφεται. Παρατηρούμε την επανεμφάνιση της κοινωνικής πολιτικής (sozialpolitik) ως υποκατάστατο των οικονομικών της εργασίας και των εργασιακών σχέσεων, στο ακαδημαϊκό πεδίο. Δεδομένου ότι η πνευματική και ακαδημαϊκή διαμόρφωση και θεσμοθέτηση της γνώσης προσδιορίζεται από εθνικές πραγματικότητες και δεδομένα, εξετάζουμε πώς η κοινωνική πολιτική και οι θεσμικοί παράγοντες επιδρούν στη δημιουργία και τον προσδιορισμό της γνώσης για τις εργασιακές σχέσεις, στο τουρκικό πλαίσιο. Επίσης, θέτουμε συγκεκριμένα το ερώτημα πώς οι Τούρκοι ερευνητές των εργασιακών σχέσεων προσδιορίζουν και ερμηνεύουν το θέμα της μελάτης τους. Προτείνουμε ότι η ανάπτυξη των τουρκικών εργασιακών σχέσεων μπορεί να κατανοηθεί ως τροποποιημένες και υπεραπλουστευμένες εκδοχές της γερμανικής κοινωνικής πολιτικής (sozialpolitik) και της αγγλοαμερικανικής σκέψης για τις εργασιακές σχέσεις. Abstract It is a well known fact that the idea of industrial relations both as an academic field and practice derives from the American and British experiences (Hyman 2001: 226). There has recently been an increased interest in academic development of industrial relations beyond English speaking heartlands (Frege 2003, Kaufman 2004). However, in a recent paper on industrial relations research, Ackers has maintained that many of the countries discussed in Kaufman s book have no deep rooted IR intellectual tradition and merit little more than footnotes (2005: 97). While broadly agreeing with Acker s conclusion, we still believe that examining industrial relations knowledge in different societies contributes our understanding of the process of diffusion and institutionalization of industrial relations as a scientific endeavour. Turkey has a tradition of research on labour and employment issues dating back to the 1930s when émigré German professors fleeing from Nazis introduced sozialpolitik into the Turkish academia. Transfer of social policy knowledge was then seen as an essential ingredient in the modernization and nation building process. The German influence began to fade away after the Second World War and new terms of labour economics and industrial relations emerged in the 1960s and 1970s with the spread of American influence. Following a restructuring of the higher education system during the military regime in the early 1980s, departments of labour economics and industrial relations were established and there was a failed attempt to replace industrial relations with human resources management in the 1990s. The move from sozialpolitik to industrial relations has recently begun to be reversed. We are witnessing the reemergence of sozialpolitik as a substitute for labour economics and industrial relations as an academic field. Considering that the intellectual and academic construction and institutionalization of knowledge is shaped by national realities and 36 EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN

3 specificities, we examine how social, political and institutional factors impinge on the construction and definition of industrial relations knowledge in the Turkish context. We also specifically ask the question of how Turkish industrial relations researchers define and interpret subject matter of their discipline. We suggest that development of Turkish industrial relations can be understood as distorted and oversimplified versions of German sozialpolitik and AngloAmerican industrial relations thought. Introduction It is a well-known fact that the idea of industrial relations both as an academic field and practice derives from the American and British experiences (Hyman 2001: 226). There has recently been an increased interest in academic development of industrial relations beyond English-speaking heartlands (Da Costa 2006, Keller 2006, Lee and Lee 2006, Kaufman 2004, Frege 2003) However, in a recent paper on industrial relations research, Ackers has maintained that many of the countries discussed in Kaufman s book have no deep-rooted IR intellectual tradition and merit little more than footnotes (2005: 97). While broadly agreeing with Acker s conclusion, we still believe that examining industrial relations knowledge in different societies contributes our understanding of the process of diffusion and institutionalization of industrial relations as a scientific endeavour. There have not been many attempts to explain specificities of national scientific discourses in industrial relations (Frege 2003: 878). The aim of this paper is to discuss the process of diffusion and institutionalization of IR scientific knowledge in the Turkish context. We address the question of how and why industrial relations as an academic field has been constituted as it is in Turkey. Considering that the intellectual and academic construction and institutionalization of knowledge is shaped by national realities and specificities, we examine how social, political and institutional factors impinge on the construction and definition of industrial relations knowledge in the Turkish context. Various forms and degrees of institutionalization can be used as measures of the maturity of an academic discipline. These include the existence of a necessary critical mass of dedicated scholars, courses in undergraduate and postgraduate levels, professional organizations and publications of journals and textbooks. Introductory textbooks are of major importance for the existence and future of a discipline as they shape intellectual boundaries, its core values and summarize existing knowledge (Keller 2006: 241). The paper will use the above measures to asses whether IR is an established discipline in Turkey. Diffusion of Industrial Relations (IR) Ideas There has recently been an increased interest in the processes and practical outcomes of international diffusion of management ideas (Frenkel, 2005: 277). A similar interest is also evident for the spread of ideas related to industrial relations. Industrial relations knowledge is produced and diffused through a world-wide institutional complex that includes universities, work organizations and international organizations. Scholars, intellectuals, businessman and politicians are the main actors in the process of diffusion and institutionalization of knowledge. Cultural and organizational factors are also important. They need to be combined in a social and EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN 37

4 historical dynamic conducive to that diffusion and institutionalization (Alvarez 1998: 45). Economic backwardness results in a stronger tendency to import ideas from more advanced countries (Guillen 1994). This mainly emanates from dependence on theories and ideas developed in the advanced countries as scientific culture of the less developed societies lack relevant conceptual and theoretical devices. These earlier tendencies are likely to have a lasting impact on the later development of local scholarly activity. Later evolution and the possibilities of theoretical change are likely to be shaped by the nature of external pressures on academic and educational organization and the institutional context surrounding academic work (Usdiken 1996). The late arrivals of social sciences and delayed economic development play an important role to import and imitate theoretical and conceptual understandings. IR came into existence as a problem-solving field in response to the late 19 th century labour problem in the United States and Britain (Strauss and Whitfield 1998: 6). In the developing world, IR was embroiled from the outset in the concerns for economic development and the attendant discourses of 1950s and 1960s of modernization, development and industrialization. International and supra-national organizations such as the ILO and the EU play an important role in the spread if IR ideas. Social Policy as a Precursor of IR Turkey has a tradition of research on labour and employment issues dating back to the 1930s when émigré German professors fleeing from Nazis introduced sozialpolitik into the Turkish academia and policy-makers. Social policy (SP) came at a time when institutional and disciplinary formations were weak. It came to a setting where there were few, if any, alternative actors which had been making claims of knowledge about social policy. In the 1930s, the Republican nation-building project that had the dual objectives of industrialization and westernization was in full swing. As part of the project, a higher education reforms was realized in 1933 with the establishment of the University of Istanbul. The German professors who were required to restructure the new University founded an Institute of Economics and Sociology within the Faculty of Law in With the founding of the Faculty of Economics in 1936, SP was allocated a separate chair taken up by Gerhard Kessler an emigrant German professor who had studied in the universities of Berlin and Leipzig. He taught sociology and social policy between at the Istanbul University and is regarded as the founder of social policy research in Turkey. Social policy knowledge and practices was regarded as an essential ingredient in the modernization and industrialization process. Kessler presented social policy as initiatives to be undertaken by the state to ameliorate specific problems of lower classes, which would inevitably emerge as the industrialization progressed (Kessler 1945: 4). The Durkhemian-inspired Republican nation building project assumed that a spirit of cooperation and harmony had to be developed between individuals and social units to realize the needs of state and society. Cooperation and harmony were seen as the most effective way of building a powerful economy and state. Liberal individualism was seen by social policy advocates to have resulted in poverty and social instability, leading them to insist that it is the duty of the state to remedy the misery of the workers. 38 EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN

5 Social policy ideas embraced social harmony as the primary objective of reform. The emphasis was on men as part of a larger community. SP knowledge would act as a barrier to the emergence of conflict between capital and labour and was justified as a necessary ingredient of westernization and industrialization. SP entered at a critical juncture as it arrived as the new state structure was being established. Because of the early stage of industrialization which it was adopted it was concerned above all with prevention of class conflict. SP academics asserted the intellectual distinctiveness of their discipline and its usefulness for practical purposes (Talas 1961, Zaim 1962). The 1940s to 1970s saw the propagation, diffusion and the consolidation of social policy. Publications proliferated primarily in the form of text books but also as articles in academic and popular outlets (Tuna and Yalcintas 1976). To promote social policy ideas and study their implications for Turkish society and policy, social policy conferences open to public and academics were initiated. These conferences were published under the same title in the journal format. The journal aimed at mainly scholars interested in social issues. Each issue dealt with labour law, some aspects of social conditions, social policy, trade unionism and international labour. Social policy had become a recognized part of academic life in Turkey with a considerable literature of its own and some access to practitioners. From Social Policy to Industrial Relations Since Turkey acquired a strategic importance for the USA in the context of the Cold War, there was a strong inflow of American management ideas into Turkey after the 1950s. One of the main aims of the Marshall plan was to transplant American management methods and industrial relations practices. This resulted in a move from sozialpolitik to industrial relations from the 1960s onwards. The German influence began to fade away after the Second World War and new terms of labour economics and industrial relations emerged in the 1960s and 1970s with the spread of American influence. American government and Ford foundation sent industrial relations scholars and trade union leaders to Europe including Turkey. The Fulbright programme brought a number of academics to the US for advanced training and doctoral degrees in industrial relations (Miller 1962). Institute of Economics and Sociology received funding from American sources to invite guest speakers and developed collaborative links with Cornell University s School of Industrial and Labor Relations (Usdiken 2004). During this period, Cahis Talas a Swiss-trained academics began to teach social policy and social economics in Ankara University. Later, he founded a chair of social policy in the same university. His approach was influenced continental European understanding of social policy. Human relations and organizational behaviour were also part of the social policy corpus in the 1950s and early 1960s. In a lecture in the academic year the associate director of the IES considered human relations as a part of the social policy discipline (Zaim quoted in Usdiken 2004: 262). In later years, human relations and organizational behaviour lost their place in social policy and industrial relations and began to be housed in separate management departments. EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN 39

6 The concept of IR started to be used in the late 1960s and the first text books with IR on the title started to appear the 1970s. Textbooks under the title of labour economics also began to emerge in this period. Nusret Ekin, a professor in Istanbul University, was the first person to introduce the Dunlopian concept of an IR system and since then Dunlop s system model has been influential. Ekin s successive editions of Endustri Iliskileri (1979) takes Dunlop s model as its basis. The general receptivity within Turkey to system model was affected by a range of factors. The prominence it gave to government agencies was a feature that tallied well with the traditional role of the state in Turkey. It was also suitable for teaching purposes as it neatly summarizes complexities of industrial relations. IR was taught as a highly multidisciplinary area and included economics, law, sociology, organizational behaviour. In the pre-1980 period, both industrial relations and labour economics constituted important elements of social policy. There were two chairs of social policy and they were located in Istanbul University and Ankara University. A distinctive feature of social policy teaching and research was (and still is) the large significance of labour law. This may have to do with the strong presence of the state in Turkish IR which has led to juridification of the academic field. Following a restructuring of the higher education system during the military regime in the early 1980s, social policy chairs in Istanbul and Ankara were transformed into departments of labour economics and industrial relations. In the course of the transformation military appointed authorities dismissed several social policy academics from their posts because of their left-wing views (Isikli, ve Gülmez 1990: 32). The provision of industrial relations education in Turkey has expanded in the past two decades throughout the country in the form of undergraduate departments. There are currently 15 stand-alone labour economics and industrial relations departments. Although a professional association (TEID), which organized several conferences in the mid 1990s, legally exists, it has become almost defunct for a variety of reasons in recent years. The main academic outlets of IR research were until recently journals of Sosyal Siyaset Konferanslari (SSK,) Ankara Universitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi (AUSBFD),Istanbul Universitesi Iktisat Fakültesi Dergisi ( IUIFD) and Amme Idaresi Dergisi,( AID). These journals are all published by universities and research institutons. In recent years, journals published by labour (e.g. Calisma,, ve Toplum) and employer organizations (e.g. Mercek, and TISK Akademi) have also emerged as an important medium for IR academics to publish their works. Policy-oriented rather than discipline-oriented nature of research has dominated the scene. Many publications are not the outcome of empirical research. Even when this kind of research exists, it often lacks broader theoretical framework. There has been a problem of under-theorizing. Problem-solving rather than science building has been the dominant tendency in Turkish industrial relations research. There was a failed attempt to replace industrial relations departments name with human resources management in the 1990s. Some within the IR community argued for a broadening of industrial relations teaching and research to accommodate HRM or integrating HRM and IR. The interest in HRM is mostly driven by a desire to increase the popularity of the subject among students, academics and policy-makers and practitioners. 40 EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN

7 Table 1: The Number of Articles in terms of Subjects Published in IR-Related Journals Journals Pre Post-1980 son. SSK IR HRM AID IR HRM IÜIFD IR HRM AÜSBFD IR HRM Total IR HRM As the above table shows although the number of HRM articles tends to increase, IR continues to dominate the subject. The impact of relatively new approaches such as strategic choice model on the study of industrial relations has been minor. A new range of industrial relations issues such as the decline of unionism, human resources management, European Union and increased level of non-standard employment have stimulated considerable interest among the IR academics. The move from sozialpolitik to industrial relations has recently begun to be reversed. We are witnessing the reemergence of social policy as a substitute for labour economics and industrial relations as an academic field. In addition to the existing IR departments, some researchers in leading universities have begun to take interest in social policy issues. For examples, there is an active social policy research group at Bogazici, University calling itself as Sosyal Politika Forumu. Concluding Remarks Social policy ideas were introduced into Turkey in the mid 1930s. In its early years labour research and policy were very influenced by the German approach of sozialpolitik. Germany and the US have had the greatest impact on the discipline of industrial relations in Turkey. The discipline went through its own transitional periods. The first was its legitimatization and institutionalization in the major academic institutions. The formation of an IR academic community with some resources assured its development. Although industrial relations is an established independent discipline, the future development of the field lies in developing substantive topics and researches. The study of industrial relations from its early days has been most closely linked to law and economics. There has been a reliance on overseas research which had little relevance for Turkey. References Ackers, Peter (2005), Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Global IR History, the British tradition and the European Renaissance, Comparative Labor Law and Policy Journal, vol 27. pp: EPΓAΣIAKΩN ΣXEΣEΩN 41

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