Examining The Relationship Between Sports, Politics and the State in the Context of the Social Structure of the Tanzimat and Early Republican Periods

Abstract

Sport is a social institution that shapes social and daily life and provides the needs of individuals and society (health, entertainment, communication, leisure time activity, pleasure, etc.) on the basis of patterned behavioral styles. Therefore, from a sociological perspective, sport has many social functions. Within the framework of social structure and institution relations, politics and state institutions have a regulatory and directive effect on sports as a social institution. In this study, the relationship of sports with power, politics and the state from the Ottoman Empire to the present day is examined in the context of the modernization process, one of the most important transformations of the historical process. The aim of this qualitative study, which was conducted by using secondary sources with the literature method, is not to generalize or to reach a theory, but to make a sociological analysis in the light of historical sources. Within the framework of Talcott Parsons' “Social Systems Theory”, the functional characteristics of the sports institution in Türkiye were evaluated within the framework of the concepts of “structure” and “function”. As a result of this study conducted in the context of the historical process research model, it can be said that in the modernization process that started with the Tanzimat Period, the institution of sport has two functional characteristics in the focus of social structure and change processes. Accordingly, it is seen that the phenomenon of sports was institutionalized and diversified by showing an instrumental feature in terms of integration with the West, and in the early Republican period, it came to the fore as an element that contributed to national identity and social integration within the framework of the principle of “statism in sports”. The common characteristic of both periods is that the state, which is in power, handled the institution of sports functionally in transforming the social structure.