Hotels and Highways

The early decades of the Cold War presented seemingly boundless opportunity for the construction of "laboratories" of American society abroad: microcosms where experts could scale down problems of geopolitics to manageable size, and where locals could be systematically directed toward American visions of capitalist modernity. Among the most critical tools in the U.S.'s ideological arsenal was modernization theory, and Turkey emerged as a vital test case for the construction and validation of developmental thought and practice.

With this book, Begum Adalet reveals how Turkey became both the archetypal model of modernization and an active partner for its enactment. Through her analysis of the flow of aid money and expertise between the U.S. and Turkey, the planning of the American-funded Turkish highway network, and the development of the Turkish tourism industry, Adalet also highlights how "problems of knowledge" are fundamentally entwined with "problems of the political order": social scientific theories are produced in material spaces, through uncertain encounters between transnational actors and policy networks. In tracking the growth and transmission of modernization as a theory and in practice in Turkey, Hotels and Highways offers not only a specific history of a postwar development model that continues to influence our world, but a widely relevant consideration of how theoretical debates take shape in concrete situations.

Review: "At first sight,Hotels and Highwaysappears to be a work of architectural history, urban studies, and infrastructural geography. But it goes beyond strict disciplinary fields, presenting important insights from the perspective of political science...[W]hat makesHotels and Highwaysan outstanding work is its critical take on the topic and its focus on knowledge production through the perspective of science and technology studies."--Husik Ghulyan, H-Socialisms

"Hotels and Highways tells an absorbing story-from accounts of the modernization theorists' favorite research methods and the significant role Turkish intellectuals played in mutually shaping modernization theory itself, to the physical manifestations of their theories in infrastructures of modern capitalism in Turkey. A rich and fascinating account of how modernization theory came to Turkey." -- Laleh Khalili * University of London *

"By scrupulously recognizing the agency of multiple actors and reinstating perspectives that were deliberately erased or omitted from the record, Adalet demonstrates how intersections of theory with conditions on the ground produced myriad consequences that were often unpredictable and, at times, undesirable....[She] writes with lucidity and an economy of language that conveys much subtlety in few words, making this an eminently accessible book for a broad range of audiences." -- Zeynep Kezer * Traditional Dwellings and Settlements Review *

"Adalet's deeply researched work regards modernization theory...as shaping the "central components" of US Cold War policy in the region. Wide-ranging chapters deal with modernization theory, sociological methods (e.g., survey research), and the role of highways and hotels in shaping modern Turkey. While the term "modernization" seems one more academic theory, Adalet sees it as a tool in the US political tool kit. On multiple levels, this is an important study of how the link of "theory" to "practice" serves key political interests. Must reading across several disciplines." -- H. Steck * Choice *

"Hotels and Highways gives a clear understanding how U.S. hegemony was conceived and implemented in the aftermath of World War II and how thorough and decisive was its domination in Turkey and other similar places. Anybody interested in twentieth century experiences of modernity and U.S. power in the Middle East will need to read this book." -- Resat Kasaba * University of Washington *

"A brilliant history of the idea of modernization in the postwar period. By studying the projects and places in which concepts were shaped, Begum Adalet opens a new perspective on twentieth-century political thought." -- Timothy Mitchell * Columbia University *

"Hotels and Highways is a leap in scholarship on Turkey, with its sound exploration of American imperialism's modernization endeavors in Turkey during the Cold War. In addition to this, Adalet's book is also an exciting call for new study areas in order to understand the second half of the twentieth century in Turkey, and the Middle East."--Ilker Hepkaner, EuropeNow

This chapter outlines how American scholars, experts, and policy makers treated Turkey as a model and laboratory of modernization theory during the early phases of the Cold War. It introduces the social scientific and infrastructural measures that contributed to the production and enactment of modernization in the postwar Turkish landscape. These measures included large-scale survey research, the extension of a highway network, and the jump-starting of the tourism industry with Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan funds. The chapter discusses the unintended consequences of developmental thought and practice, such as the resistance of recipient subjects and anxieties and hesitations on the part of practitioners. It situates the book in the literature on global histories of development and concludes with a commentary on the archives and methodology employed in the project. It also provides a chapter outline.

1Beastly Politics: Dankwart Rustow and the Turkish Model of Modernization chapter abstract

This chapter traces the emergence of modernization theory and its Turkish archetype by drawing on the published work and private papers of political scientist Dankwart Rustow. Rustow was a seminal but hesitant participant in academic and policy circles during the Cold War. The chapter proceeds by analyzing Rustow's engagements with the Committee on Comparative Politics of the Social Science Research Council, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the political science faculty at Ankara University. His travels between these institutions underscore the transnational linkages of American social science and policy making as well as the anxieties of those who benefited from the circuits of funding that joined academic centers, government agencies, and private foundations.

2Questions of Modernization: Empathy and Survey Research chapter abstract

This chapter examines survey research as an experiment that occasioned the enactment of modernization theory, with a focus on the work of sociologist Daniel Lerner, and of other research that was funded by organizations like the Voice of America, the US Agency for International Development, and the Turkish State Planning Organization. These studies, which were conducted to measure and record the attitudes of peasants, students, and administrators in Turkey in the postwar period, were also efforts to create modern subjects; the interview setting in fact was designed to produce the forms of subjectivity and interpersonal relations articulated and idealized by modernization theory. Drawing on responses from the original questionnaires as well as from interviewers' unpublished commentaries, the chapter also shows how the dissemination of survey methodology and attendant theories of modernization were derailed by skeptical respondents and disorderly interviewer behavior.

3Material Encounters: Experts, Reports, and Machines chapter abstract

This chapter examines the American-funded and -planned Turkish highway network in the immediate aftermath of World War II by focusing on the interactions between the US Bureau of Public Roads, the Turkish Directorate of Highways, and the Economic Cooperation Administration. It shows how the arrival of American aid, experts, and machinery was expected to instigate modernization in administrative and mechanical terms by acquainting the new highway organization and its civil engineers with rational methods of record keeping, time management, and machine maintenance. The location of highways, the circulation of reports, and the labeling of roadbuilding equipment were material sites where the agencies competed over the management of the Turkish economy and staked out their claims to authority and visibility. The chapter concludes by drawing attention to the personal and intimate dimensions of expertise that are otherwise often occluded by its technical and political aspects.

4"It's Not Yours If You Can't Get There": Modern Roads, Mobile Subjects chapter abstract

This chapter situates the US-funded highway program in a longer history of mobility management in Turkey, including policies of land reform and forced migration and settlement. Turkish and American social scientists, experts, and officials construed the provision of roads to the countryside as a civilizational necessity, one that would cultivate the ability for individual mobility. Developers believed that roads would grant access to remote areas populated by Kurdish minorities and that highways would shrink distances between different parts of the country, allowing its subjects to participate in a shared national space and economy. Although the experts and policy makers aimed to produce the conditions and subjects of individual economic and political rights, their projects in fact ended up enabling new critiques of inequality.

5The Innkeepers of Peace: Hospitality and the Istanbul Hilton chapter abstract

This chapter chronicles the efforts to develop a tourism industry in Turkey in the aftermath of World War II, with a focus on the design and construction of the Istanbul Hilton Hotel, which was financed by the Turkish Pension Funds and the Marshall Plan. The actors involved in the creation of the hotel alternately framed it as a bulwark against the threatening march of Communism and the signifier of a hospitable mindset, an attitude considered to be a necessary corollary to modernization. The chapter examines episodes that undermined the hotel's status as a showcase for American modernism, focusing on how local architects and politicians protested the hotel's role in the proliferation of the corporate International style, the incursion of foreign capital, and the expropriation of a public park.

Conclusion chapter abstract

This chapter traces the continuing effects of modernization theory in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent projects for its reconstruction, which once again brought together social scientists and experts who staged ideological and political battles to shape the attitudes and beliefs of their targets. It also discusses the resurgence of the Turkish model of modernization and democracy in the context of the Arab uprisings, highlighting the roots of this failed trope in the projects of social scientists, policy makers, and experts of the early Cold War period.