Representation and Merit in the Military: Explaining the Origins and Persistence of Recruitment and Promotion Patterns in the Turkish Officer Corps (1848-2015)

Abstract

This research offers a systematic study of the sources of inequality and merit in the military. It explores the origins and persistence of representation and promotion patterns in the military's officer corps. Going beyond prevailing approaches emphasizing the role of interethnic and ideological rivalry, this research reveals resilient organizational and social mechanisms persistently reproducing the original ethnic make-up of the officer corps. Drawing on about 150 years of original historical recruitment and promotion data from the Turkish case, my research findings show that the initial stages of state-building are pretty impactful for the long-term trajectories of promotion and recruitment. Demographic patterns that crystallize at the initial stages of state building tend to be quite durable. Quantitative and qualitative evidence from the Turkish case elucidates how recruitment networks and autonomous promotion patterns specific to the officer corps ensure the perpetuation of promotion and ethnic representation patterns by mitigating the effects of major political and socio-economic shifts and the demographic designs of political and military leaders. The research embraces a mixed methodological approach combining ethnography and archival work with statistical analysis. It draws on extensive field research in Turkey between 2016 and 2019, in which I held in-depth interviews with military officers, academics, journalists, and politicians and collected archival and library data to construct three original datasets of the ethnic background and career paths of close to 25,000 officers serving in the Turkish military from 1848 to 2015.