During the top-down appointment of a rector at Boğaziçi University, many people reacted against a columnist’s characterization of “elitism”. Likewise, comments were made pointing out the invalidity of interpreting the incident through center-periphery theory. Given the intricate socio-economic structure of Türkiye, it is clear that such concepts and theories are profoundly reductionist. So how, then, should we interpret the situation at hand? This article should be read as an effort to contribute critically to the ongoing debate surrounding Boğaziçi University, questioning the prevailing consensus within academia. I wish to underscore that the primary focus here is on the subjects and structures within the social sciences, since the author does not possess sufficient knowledge to venture into the state of affairs in the natural sciences.
Reading hegemonic relations at the national level solely in terms of a single power “center” and its “peripheral” dominated individuals or groups is problematic. Social structure is not simply the aggregate of isolated individuals each tied hierarchically to a national power hub. In Pierre Bourdieu’s terms, society is the sum of various sociological “fields.” Each field enjoys, to different degrees, its own power structure, networks of relations, and modes of interaction that are relatively autonomous from a central hegemony. According to Bourdieu, the academy itself constitutes one such field. Within these micro-fields of power lie the unwritten, disciplinary rules that shape both the subjects who inhabit them and the relationships among those subjects: shared patterns of perception, accepted performance metrics, and ingrained norms. Regulating and reproducing individuals’ ways of thinking and acting is a “habitus”, the internalized structures, perceptions, and practices through which the field’s dominant social and cultural order is continually recreated. Through their habitus, social fields define their own internal power relations, set the boundaries of membership, dictate the conditions for inclusion or exclusion, and even determine what may or may not be said. In effect, they construct their own subjects. And if you wish to belong to that field, it is not enough merely to fit into its cognitive framework, you must also demonstrate your belonging through your performance.
Universities, and Boğaziçi University in particular, constitute autonomous “micro‐fields” capable of reproducing their own hegemonic relations. The national political center seeks to bring every societal (semi-)autonomous field of power directly under its umbrella of national hegemony. These fields, which exist like archipelagos, maintaining a degree of autonomy parallel to the national center and possessing the capacity to lend legitimacy to discourses produced in opposition to political hegemony, are inevitably targeted by the political will. From professional organizations to universities, and even cultural and artistic activities, any structure capable of resisting the central authority and deriving its resistance from its own field-based hegemony is being dismantled one by one. The micro-power “archipelago” fields are being forcibly consolidated into a monolithic landmass, tethered to the absolute sovereignty of a single central power. This political macro-power field is a Leviathan in which micro-power fields are subsumed by force. That said, these semi-autonomous, resistant micro-fields do not necessarily embody a democratic order.
The disruption of Boğaziçi University, a micro‐field of power, by a direct intervention from the political hegemony’s center would, of course, set off a cascade of consequences. This micro‐field maintains its ideological homogeneity (and thus its own hegemony) to the greatest extent possible through internal instruments of power—appointments, promotions, commissions, committees, networks, and the like. For example, the statistical profile you would obtain by asking faculty in any given social‐science discipline “Which party did you vote for in the last general election?” would tell you something significant about that homogeneity. The only visibly heterogeneous group within this field consists of those students admitted purely on the basis of their written‐exam scores. Yet over time, even these students, especially in the social sciences, undergo a transformation as they are forged by the field’s uniform political culture. That evolution, unquestionably, is worth observing or studying in its own right. Moreover, the field regards ideological conformity as a form of cultural capital—one of the factors that ensures a student’s successful integration into its prevailing habitus.
When we consider not only the potentially transformative effects of hierarchical, vertical flows of information and interpretation on minds but also the horizontal influence of the institutional student ecosystem, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine how an average student, one without strong mental defenses from family or social circles (and yes, such students, though exceptions, do exist in many places) would be shaped as a subject within this habitus. And the agents who continuously reproduce that hegemony and ideological continuity are, above all, the professors themselves. A top-down intervention may not drastically alter students’ day-to-day lives, but it does endanger the faculty and their intellectual authority within this micro-field. For losing the internal university-level instruments of power mentioned above carries the latent potential to overturn Boğaziçi’s entrenched institutional order. Who knows, perhaps one day, God forbid, even a Turkish nationalist, a so-called “fascist,” might serve as a lecturer in Boğaziçi’s social-science departments. If we listen to what Mim Kemal Öke has recounted on this matter, our point becomes even clearer.
This micro‐field of power inevitably demands certain “acceptable Boğaziçi performances”. Under this expectation of conformity, you must swallow any objections you might raise, such as noting that rector elections are not inherently a rational method of governance, or that in the most advanced countries, examples of the entire faculty electing the rector are quite rare. The habitus of the Boğaziçi micro‐field obliges you, in order to count as a legitimate subject, to demand an “elected rector.” As long as you participate in these performances, your headscarf (which you may one day shed, God willing!) will not be an issue. Expressing sympathy, or at least empathy, for the Kurdish freedom movement will render an Islamist stance tolerable. Likewise, singing violent “guerrilla anthems” on campus is acceptable, while publicly commemorating the success of Operation Olive Branch will mark you as “not a proper Boğaziçi person”. For instance, opposing same‐sex marriage is not merely a personal choice here but a disallowed delirium that the assumed “pluralism” of this micro‐field cannot tolerate. My own views on these examples remain private and are beside the point. What I wish to emphasize is that the habitus of Boğaziçi and similar micro‐fields exerts disciplinary (and far from indulgent) pressures on their members.
One thing is certain: Boğaziçi is not an ordinary university but one of Türkiye’s most prestigious state institutions. It is where the nation’s top students receive their education. The privilege this university enjoys stems less from its administrative success or the quality of its faculty than from the caliber of the students it attracts. According to Foucault, the nature of the “institutional site” where a discourse is produced also determines that discourse’s legitimacy and impact. Given Boğaziçi University’s standing in Türkiye, any ideological “positional” loss here is consequential. Moreover, one of the underlying motives of this controversy is the struggle to shape the worldviews of tomorrow’s “elites.” Interpreting the matter normatively as a dichotomy of freedom versus captivity is a mistake. The real battle is over power within a micro‐field, and in such a struggle the victor holds no moral superiority over the vanquished. “Neutralizing” one’s stance under the guise of “scientific discourse” is a Schopenhauerian rhetorical maneuver. In reality, Boğaziçi’s institutional order adopts an “ideological,” not a “scientific,” position and yet it seeks to establish a moral hierarchy by presenting itself as “scientifically neutral.” This conflict is not an ideological attack on a neutral scientific body, but an ideological assault on an ideological stronghold. Those who oppose this intervention damage their own credibility by hiding behind “empty signifiers” such as “scientificity,” “neutrality,” and “democracy” to shield their ideological positions. The national political hegemony is intent on centralizing power by dismantling autonomous fields one by one. Yet the micro‐power structures resisting this encroachment are no less “totalitarian” (I use the term deliberately) than the central authority they oppose. Totalitarian control is in fact more readily achieved in small groups and specialized fields than at the national level. Thus, the pleas for “democracy” from those who, given the chance, would ideologically bar even a deserving Turkish nationalist youth from undergraduate admission ring entirely unconvincing to the broader society.
