Political Violence in Turkey, 1975–1980. The State at Stake

Review of Benjamin Gourisse, 'Political Violence in Turkey, 1975–1980. The State at Stake' (I. B. Tauris, 2024. ISBN: 9780755646470.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels famously wrote in The Communist Manifesto (1848) that the executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the bourgeoisie. For Marx and Engels, the rising new bourgeois class had captured the state. Other political theorists have imagined the state mechanism to be a more neutral force, partial to be sure in protecting the interests of its own cadres, but active in implementing the program of the government of the day. But even here, because political parties institute governments, it is the policies of the ruling party that bureaucrats apply, enacting (more or less enthusiastically) its ideologies. Formal party control over and political appointment of the administration is merely a step away. Nearly all party-governments claim to represent the common good of society; but given there is no agreement about what this is, too often the language of the common good or of national interest obfuscates the organic relations political parties have with ruling class power.