encounter and participate in patronage and client-
age in a variety of roles, such as citizens, household
members, rural agriculturalists, recent migrants liv-
ing in cities, and in social and political movements.
Patronage and clientage have proven remarkably
portable and adaptable during the past century as
Turkey has transitioned from a new, mainly rural
state in which patronage and clientage existed most
classically in the landlord-peasant relationship, to a
modernizing, urbanizing state in which they now
characterize machine politics and myriad other
economic/social relationships (Güneç-Ayata 1994).
The concepts of patronage and clientage, espe-
cially as they concern women’s lives, have come to
be morally laden because they challenge the individ-
ualistic, egalitarian ideal articulated by the late
modern Turkish state. Studies of Turkish politics
and governance, economic development, and civil
society (Balci, Burns, and Tongun 2002) and policy
papers by multilateral organizations such as the
World Bank (2000) often emphasize women’s roles
in patron-client networks, which the authors regard
as related to or synonymous with “corruption.”
Patronage and clientage in
households
While patronage and clientage are usually asso-
ciated with male-dominated social arenas, in actu-
ality they may have more everyday relevance in
Turkey for women than for men. Adaman and
Çarko(lu, who define corruption in Turkey as the
presence of bribery and patronage networks (2001,
2), note that “women, on the average, turn out to
have a higher perceived intensity of corruption” of
local governments, and speculate that this is due to
women’s engagement in “ordinary life struggle”
such as “shopping, escorting children to and from
schools, cleaning houses... etc.” (ibid. 18). White
(1994) characterizes the relationship between a
woman and her daughter-in-law in Turkey’s pa-
trilineal, patrilocal households as a patronage
relationship. Özye(in (1996) has characterized the
relationship between Turkish female employers
and domestic workers as based on patronage.
Workers received benefits such as loans, educa-
tional assistance for their children, and small
castoff or new items.
Studies of Turkish peasant communities (Kudat
1975, Sayari 1977) portray communities where
patronage and clientage script virtually all social
relationships. In such communities, women’s ac-
tivities have provided essential household suste-
nance. As village economies have been gradually
impacted by the market, women’s contributions
have been devalued as cheap imported goods
turkey 541replace those they once crafted (Delaney 1991,
267).
Millions of households in Turkey have left village
life altogether, and more than half of Turkish
women now live in urban areas (Hemmasi and
Prorok 2002, 399). A major cause of urbanization
has been the breakdown of patron-client landlord-
peasant relationships due to agricultural mecha-
nization since the 1950s, which has prompted rural
families to migrate to towns and cities in Turkey
and abroad. Upon arrival, the migrants again
“enter into patron-client relationships in terms of
work, welfare and political organization” (Akçit,
Karanci, Gündüz-Hoçgör 2001, 14).Patronage and clientage and
social movements
Women in Turkey have challenged patronage
and clientage through a variety of means. Parti-
cipants in the 1980s feminist movement among
urban elite women implicated patron-client rela-
tions by attributing inequality to the networks of
gender and production relations (Sosyalist Feminist
Kaktüs 1988, cited in Arat 1994, 104). Religious
women’s organizations, such as the 40 that com-
prise the Islamist Istanbul Rainbow Women’s
Platform (Houston 2001, 140) provide an alterna-
tive to mainstream patronage and clientage. Since
they lack linkages to the powerful business, bank-
ing, and media circles, they are able to avoid the
rentier and patron-client relationships of the main-
stream parties (Balci, Burns, and Tongun 2002,
48). Finally, the separatist Kurdistan Worker’s
Party, one of the few revolutionary movements in
the Islamic world to engage women as combatants,
challenged large landowners and other patrons
during its violent campaign against the Turkish
state from the mid-1980s to 1999.Conclusion
Although from the start the Kemalist Turkish
state granted women significant civil and political
rights, it was still patriarchal in most respects and
neglected to set up a system that allowed women to
exercise these rights. Instead, the system that has
prevailed in Turkey is based on patronage and
clientage. It is daily invoked and challenged by
women in relationships ranging from ideologically
diverse public social movements to the most inti-
mate settings of their families and households.Bibliography
F. Adaman and A. Çarko(lu, Engagement in corruptive
activities at local and central governments in Turkey.
Perceptions of urban settlers, Marseilles 2001.
Y. Arat, Women’s movement of the 1980s in Turkey.