The Limits of Westernization

In a 2001 Turkish poll, the United States ranked highest in response to the question, "Which country is Turkey's best friend in international relations?" Yet, it also scored exceptionally high when the question was reversed to "Which country is Turkey's number one enemy in international relations?" Focusing on the twentieth century as the crucible of U.S.-Turkish relations, The Limits of Westernization unpacks this love-hate relationship. The book demonstrates from both perspectives how Turks reacted to the rise of the United States through a discourse of westernization as necessary and desirable but also liable to excess and cultural damage. Initially considered a good model for Turkey's development, the United States became the primary fount of degeneration in the Turkish imagination. At the same time, U.S. policy-makers saw Turkey first as the main figure of Oriental barbarism (i.e. "the terrible Turk"), then, during the Cold War, as a success of modernization theory, in contrast to "the bad Arab." As the Cold War transitioned to the War on Terror, Turks rebelled against the "moderate Islam" that U.S. policy makers began to impose. Folk culture hybridized with American cultural products (and local conceptions of westernization) operated as resources for Turkish anti-Americanism. The book demonstrates how, as U.S. policy-makers cast Turkey in various roles, Turks anticipated, manipulated, and contested these attempts through the local logics of westernization. Taking Turkey as a case study, the author traces the co-evolution of Orientalism and westernization as intersecting political discourses. Adopting a transnational and comparative perspective, she demonstrates how and why the United States failed in figuring the world in its own image in the twentieth century.