Science Policy in Turkey and the Organizational History of TUBITAK: Institutional Logics Perspective

Date

2025-4

Author

Aşer, Zeynel Hakan

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This study examines the trajectory of science policy in Turkey and the transformation of Scientific and Technological Research Council (TUBITAK) in terms of social institutions and organizational structure. Explaining the historical transformation of the Council, I employ an institutional logics perspective, on the one hand, corresponding to academic values pertaining to scientific community and the historical formation of scientific ethos in Turkey as academic logic, and on the other, the premise of stimulating research for military, economic and social development under the concept of policy logic. To capture the complexity of different fractions internal to organizational structure of TUBITAK, and external expectations from the organizational field, in which TUBITAK is situated at multiple levels such as international and national contexts, I analyze a good amount of archival material consisting of TUBITAK’s official documents, OECD and NATO Archives, legislation documents, memoirs, biographies, and TUBITAK’s anniversary publications. Through this historical analysis, I argue that TUBITAK is developed around an academic logic between 1963 to 1983, undergone a transformation after 1983 to 1987 in relation to the establishment of a higher governance body, Supreme Council for Science and Technology (SCST), and finally transformed into a fully policy-driven organization after 1990. During this transformational period, I argue that several key organizational actors were quite influential. In relation to the interplay of institutional logics and organizational actors, I argue that the latest transformation has been accomplished in context of a general state reorganization that took place after the 12th of September Military Coup and economic turn after 1980.

Subject Keywords

Science, Governments, Science Policy, Social Institutions, Organizations, Institutional Logics

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/114446

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis