THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE IN STATECRAFT

Culture, as defined in Devlet, is “a set of social interactions within an ethnic group”. While other definitions tend to focus on parts of those social interactions and, more often even, the results from those interactions, the devletist definition also encompasses behavioural patterns at the micro and macro levels. Rather than centralising culture around language, food or music, culture in the devletist sense also applies to how politics is structured within a society. In this work, the influence of culture on statecraft is analysed by examining some cases. It is essential to understand that statecraft within a nation is bound to the structure of its society’s culture. It would be wrong to assume that culture limits policymaking, but culture instead directs policymaking into certain areas of strength and affects how policy ideas are translated into reality. The most crucial point, however, is that the alignment between statecraft and culture determines the success of societal progress. As we will see in just a bit, all successful nations design policymaking around the strengths of their respective societies. This is not merely a correlation but a causally connected process. Shaping policymaking in a way that allows nations to organically develop in areas they are culturally dispositioned to amplifies the positive effects on development in these realms. On the other hand, unsuccessful nations usually drift into decadency, or decay in general, due to a lack of awareness of their culture and misaligned policymaking. In the following, the Turkish and Euro-American societies are analysed in the light of how culture and policymaking play together.

Türkiye

Turks are one of the few old civilisations that still remain relevant within the international state system. Next to the Israelis and Chinese, this people managed to remain influential in international politics, although with major ups and downs over the countless centuries of its existence. The Turkish societies that came and went are characterised by a high frequency of political change, fluid territorial policies and inter-ethnic conflict. Originating in the steppes of Central Asia, the mode of living was nomadic, and policymaking followed suit. Rather than relying on agriculture and building fortified cities, the Turkic societies were constantly moving. Economic policy was, therefore, not built around production but rather trade. As the production of higher technology and the research and development of innovations required a sedentary lifestyle, Turks relied on improving relatively simple technologies and mastering their use. In the military sense, it was, for example, the bow. Although quite simple in essence, the Turks’ bow and their archers were so much more advanced that the military policy was structured around the use of tactics that perfectly utilised those strengths. Turkish armies were characterised by such a high degree of mobility that most opponents, even technologically more advanced ones, did not stand a chance. This again connects to economic policy. As the technological backwardness and lack of production persisted, military capability was utilised to raid enemy territories to obtain those technologies and products or to extract diplomatic value from the raids.

With the conquest of Anatolia, Turks adapted and began to produce more advanced products. At some point during the Ottoman Empire, Türkiye became the leading nation in military technology, astronomy and literature. Switching to a sedentary lifestyle helped to channel societal efforts into the development of those technologies. It could be argued that the transformation of Turkish life from nomadic to static was a difficult one, but one must not forget that nomadism naturally increases a person’s, and therefore a people’s, adaptability. Hence, the switch did not cause societal disruption of decadency. Furthermore, the expansionist approach by the Ottoman Turks can be seen as a channel for those nomadic tendencies. Another cultural characteristic that was carried into Ottoman times was the egality towards foreign cultures. As nomads, Turks raided and controlled enemy territories to extract material gains but never aimed for normative conquests. Other than Islamic and Christian expansionism, Turkish expansionism was always administrative in nature. It needs to be added that Turkish politics was always built on distrust, and the non-normative expansionism was not necessarily based on respect for other cultures. Again originating in the nomadic lifestyle, the harsh conditions and competition for scarce resources in the steppe makes cooperation among societies impracticable and undesirable. Due to the same reasons, warring is also a costly option. Accordingly, the egality towards other societies’ internal affairs, as well as a military strategy centred around highly mobile archery forces that can reduce casualties, can be seen as a product of the original lifestyle of Turks.

Because all of those core cultural elements from nomadic times were directly or indirectly carried into later phases of the Turkish nation, it was able to be so successful. It was only during the late Ottoman rule, after diplomatic ties with Europeans intensified that the empire began to struggle. More interconnection and an increased amount of trust in international relations, as well as inexperience in economic warfare, opened the doors for foreign penetration of the Turkish system. The internal coherence of the economic system was the first to suffer from the early days of globalisation. The cultural penetration from the outside was not limited to this phase but intensified during the course of the republican period. Today, the penetration of Turkish culture from the Europeans and Arabs has reached a point where Turkish policymaking is often dysfunctional. Unfortunately, one of the core properties of the Turk amplifies this effect: his adaptability. With increased interference in the societal life of the Turk from the outside, his leniency in adapting leads him to abandon his primary culture as he adapts to new circumstances. Pulled away from this cultural core, already weak policymaking becomes more ineffective due to unclarity about the internal values. As Türkiye was not able to maintain the egalitarian distrust towards other nations and became victim to its own adaptability, the nation is developing far below its potential. Also, the Turkish nation saw a return to its archaic economic form: consumption and trade. In light of its culture, we can see that the Turkish nation moved up and down with the alignment of politics and cultural core properties. By integrating those core properties into policymaking, weak points were also addressed and almost eliminated.

Euro-America

The peoples of Europe have the biggest biological burden of all ethnicities. They evolved under rough weather conditions, such as constant rain, wind, mountainous terrain, little sunlight and, most importantly, scarce food resources, while the available food resources are hard to obtain. In addition to that, the reproductive dominance of those people is behind other ethnicities, which made effective societal life through a large population difficult. To survive, Europeans, here confined to the Anglo-Germanic sphere, needed to improve their chances of survival through much more innovation than other ethnicities. They also merged with the Roman ethnicity, which became innovative through mind-challenging geographic advantages, such as beautiful landscapes, abundant working materials, and fertile soil. Through this mix, the Anglo-Germanic-Roman ethnicity that we call European quickly evolved into a leading ethnicity in various branches of science. Cooperation and competition had equal influences on the development of this ethnic group, as the dynamic natural conditions forced it to utilise both at different times and sometimes even simultaneously. The European culture has, therefore, always been quite fluid. At some point in time, tribes supported each other to survive ice ages, and at different points in time, they competed for scarce resources, such as food and suitable geographical positions. It is this contact with the cooperative methods of intersocietal conduct that also helped the ancient Greek and Roman Empires to ascend to their greatness. A solid understanding of the importance of rule-based cooperation, paired with the need for situational competition.

As the centuries past by, the Europeans built a basis of trust among themselves, as they understood that even military competition is situational. This trust is also the reason why the European Union not only works so well today but also why it came into existence in the first place. The Second World War has left such deep wounds in European society as a nation among perceived peers tried to break this trust by positioning itself normatively, culturally and ethnically above the others. Surely, the First World War also caused chaos for the continent, but the reasons here were rather mechanical rather than normative. We can see that the highs and lows of European society correlate with the amount of trust among those nations. The historic empty space between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance is filled with high inter-communal competition. Whether we look at France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the Benelux states and even England, we can see that during this period, the fragmentation led to the decay of the continent. Only with the establishment of kingdoms that recognised each other as equals could the continent even entertain economic relationships during wars. But the long history of inter-European trust and competition also meant another very important thing: constant external distrust. While inter-European conduct was marked by a common cultural understanding and communication, the outside world has always been enemy territory. Combined with the innovative nature, this distrust turned into a feeling of superiority towards the world outside of Europe – even today, those people call their nations the “First World”. Also, there is the reproductive weakness. Adding this to the cultural properties of the European, it becomes logical that the social innovation, named racism, originated from here. Racism as the class system between ethnicities proved to be a highly effective policy tool for the European. It asserted the innovative capacity of the European towards other nations and created a narrative to prevent ethnic mixing. It also strengthened the internal cohesiveness and boosted inter-European trust.

Policymaking for the European is, therefore, most successful when concentrated on preferential conduct among peers and second-class treatment of outsiders. We can see that the flourishing times of Europeans, including European immigrants in North America (Euro-Americans), correlate with high internal cohesiveness, like today. Free trade zones, defence alliances, economic and social organisations and even a supranational body like the European Union reduce transaction costs in inter-European conduct while amplifying the innovative facet of this people’s culture. However, those high times, also seen during the great European empires of the past, also correlate with aggressive expansionism. As internal success attracts the perceived enemy, the social innovation of racism led the European to always seek normatively dominating expansionism. The century-long slave trade, colonialism, economic warfare in the Ottoman Empire, the Cold War, the cultural war against the Muslim world and the trade war with China are all products of the necessity to shield internal success and divert the focus away from the biological weak points of the European. It is also insufficient for the European to merely apply one of the two tactics (internal success through cooperation or normatively aggressive expansionism). Only when both play together the European and its North American descendants are able to push for societal development, and both tactics carry the core cultural notions from this ethnicity’s early days. The European’s innovative capacity can only flourish when he can cooperate with his peers. As his advancement attracts outsiders, he is at risk of being biologically dominated by others. To prevent that, he needs to create a subjective superiority through racism so that the outsider has a false perception of the physical and biological power situation. Once in a position of consolidated progress, the European policymaking externalises this subjective superiority and expands with this narrative into outsider territory. Surely, this is today no longer done geographically but rather culturally. Either way, policymaking of the European is greatly informed by a consciousness of ethnic dynamics. And as long as this is the case, European policymaking will be successful.

Concluding Remarks

Much of what we assess today as successful or unsuccessful policymaking can be traced back to the origins of each society. If politics align with the core cultural properties, success (depending on the definition of political success) can be guaranteed. The cultural properties are, in turn, a product of the early experiences of a people within their main territory. The way they obtained food, searched for shelter, organised economic conduct, interacted spiritually and many other natural factors shaped the ethnic characteristics of each people. This is why each society is so unique. What remains to be rectified is our understanding of the purpose of politics. Luckily, Devletism sets out the most sustainable and advanced framework for statecraft, including culturally oriented policymaking. It is only a matter of time until the consciousness around those important aspects of policymaking is being implemented by states to improve our international societal progress.