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ACADEMIC ANALYSIS AND
DISCUSSIONS IN SOCIAL, HUMAN
AND ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCES
EDITOR
DR. OZAN BATIGÜN
ACADEMIC ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSIONS
IN SOCIAL, HUMAN AND ADMINISTRATIVE
SCIENCES
EDITOR
DR. OZAN BATIGÜN
E-ISBN • 978-975-447-440-4
1. Baskı • Aralık, Gaziantep 2022
Dizgi/Mizanpaj • Mehmet ÇAKIR
Kapak Tasarımı • Özgür Yayınları
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v
Contents
CHAPTER 1
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer 1
Nil KONYALILAR
CHAPTER 2
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its
Migration Policies 19
Murat AKTAŞ
CHAPTER 3
Profession as a Category of Society 45
Ali DEMIR
CHAPTER 4
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance: Evidence
from Turkey 71
Özgecan ÖZER
vi
CHAPTER 5
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration 95
Dilara SÜLÜN
CHAPTER 6
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of
Disability 111
Mustafa POLAT
CHAPTER 7
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus: A Re-
Examination in the Case of Airbnb 135
Nezahat DOĞAN
CHAPTER 8
Second Language Learning Process in Terms of Neurolinguistics 157
Zeynep Zeliha SONKAYA
CHAPTER 9
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital
Technologies Such as Artificial Intelligence on Brand Cities and
City Marketing 167
Sevgi AYDIN
Kemal Gökhan NALBANT
1
CHAPTER 1
Value Creation Behavior With the
Customer
Nil KONYALILAR1
1. INTRODUCTION
Since the 1990s, “social marketing” and “value creation” issues
have started to gain momentum all over the globe, especially in
the United States of America. According to Davidow and Malone
(1992), the main point that managers should focus on is to be able
to convince their customers that their businesses create value and
market value-creating products. This change in the understanding
of marketing forms the basis of value-based marketing and stands
out as the determining factor that will guide the marketing
understanding of the future (Davidow and Malone, 1992).
While a traditional product and relational customer loyalty
is still a valid concept in marketing, value creation, research has
1 Asist.Prof.Dr., İstanbul Topkapı University, nilkonyalilar@topkapi.edu.tr, OR-
CID: 0000-0002-7310-7779
2 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
revealed changes in the last few years, and thanks to the dominant
logic of service, value in marketing has gained a new perspective
(Blocker and Barrios, 2015).
The concept of residual value-based marketing has emerged
as a new approach that integrates marketing with the shareholder
value creation process. Manufacturers strive to create exceptional
value for their customers that will meet their physical and
emotional needs; consumers, on the other hand, have become
an extraordinary value for the company, increasing growth in the
short term and profitability in the long term. According to the
result of these explanations, while the conditions of marketing, like
the market conditions, are changing very rapidly, the marketing
methods are also changing (Ziliani et al., 2004).
A firm’s value is measured via professional investors’ valuation
of the company’s management power to dominate the evolving
market environment. The value of the firms increases as the firms
demonstrate their superiority by creating strategies related to
continuity in the market (Doyle, 2003). Value-based marketing is
based on three key elements. First of all, value-based marketing is a
set of beliefs about marketing goals. The first element of marketing
is to develop strategies in which the shareholders will gain the most.
The second is to establish coherent strategies, marketing decisions
and principles. These form the basis for future cash inflows to
be created by the strategy to calculate the value created to the
shareholder. Finally, value-based marketing is a set of processes that
will enable developing, selecting and advancing a balanced strategy
in line with the decisions and principles we have mentioned. The
processes mentioned are related to the management of financial
marketing and organizational value objectives of the firms (Doyle,
2003).
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer | 3
2. CUSTOMER VALUE CONCEPT
2.1. History of Value Creation
One of the most important issues supporting the value-based
management approach is the correct identification of “value-
creating” customers and products. According to Grönroos and
Annika Ravald, one of the successful ways to provide value is to
reduce costs for the customer by minimizing the cost of establishing
and developing relationships for the customer (Grönroos and
Ravald, 1996).
Customer value as a concept has been the subject of many
articles from past to present. Researchers have reached various
findings using the concept of customer value. The relationship
between total quality management customer value and perceived
value should be interpreted in a unified approach. Previously it was
stated that customer value is an acceptable way to achieve sustainable
competitive advantage. Customer value is an acceptable tool for
competitive advantage for process efficiency as well. Investigators
examined the relationship between innovation, customer value
and perceived value. Grönroos and Ravald (1996) stated that there
was a connection between communication customer value.
A relationship between ethical actions and successful buyer/
seller. It was revealed the relationship between financial values
such as equity/currency, sales value, relationship investment,
promotional investments and customer value and perceived value.
A relationship between competence/expertise and customer value
also plays an important role (Albaili, 2006).
Considering the claim that the value proposition is the most
important organizational principle of the enterprise and the fact
that very few enterprises develop, communicate and use value
propositions, examining how pioneering and exemplary companies
formally develop their value propositions constitutes an important
field of application (Albaili, 2006).
4 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Value creation for the customer is an approach to what the
customer wants and what they get after purchasing and using the
product. Value creation for the customer refers to the meaning
and situation when the customer gets more than he/she expects in
return for what he pays. At the same time, creating value for the
customer encompasses the trade-off between what the customer
gains from a product and what concessions he makes in obtaining
the product. In other words, value creation is providing additional
benefits to customers at no cost. The important point here is;
expected, hoped, perceived situation. If the value created is not
customer-oriented, it does not mean much (Yim et al., 2008).
2.2. Definition of Customer Value
It is possible for companies to survive in an intensely competitive
market and to provide competitive advantage by offering products
and services that meet the demands and needs of customers at the
highest level. Producing products and services that exceed the needs
and expectations of customers and presenting them to customers at
the lowest possible cost has revealed the importance of the concept
of customer value for businesses (Aydin and Ozer, 2005).
The concept of customer value has become an emerging topic
in recent years, as it is seen a critical value for businesses’ market
management and performance criteria. The impact of customer
value on market performance is due to the fact that it is not a one-
way evaluation like quality and price, but a multi-factor evaluation
that reflects the proportional relationship between benefit and cost.
As quality and price alone may not mean much to the customer, it
is stated that customer value, which is defined as an evaluation that
deals with the features, benefits and costs of the product together
and reveals the proportional relationship between them, is more
effective in customer preferences (Lin et al., 2005).
Producing and presenting products and services that will
best meet the expectations of customers; It will be possible
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer | 5
by accurately determining the wishes and needs, lifestyle and
consumption habits of the customers constituting the target
market, and by constantly monitoring possible changes. The
competitive advantage of the manufactured products will be
achieved if the firm has sufficient information about the product
and service strategies of its competitors. Therefore, these two facts,
which are inevitable in order to create superior customer value,
lead companies to establish a dynamic process that will provide a
continuous flow of information from customers and competitors.
This will be possible if companies adopt a learning-based customer
and competitor-oriented culture that collects, interprets and shares
necessary information from customers and competitors (Bennett
and Barkensjo, 2005).
A customer- and competitor-oriented business culture will
inevitably bring about the ability of businesses to learn, because
obtaining information from customers and competitors,
interpreting them and sharing them within the enterprise constitute
the basic dynamics of the learning process. In this context, it can
be mentioned that there is a close relationship between being
learning-oriented and being customer- and competitor-oriented, in
terms of identifying customer requests and needs and the strengths
and weaknesses of competitors. On the other hand, competitor,
customer and learning orientation can be considered as concepts
that complement each other to develop a competitive strategy by
creating a synergetic effect. Competitor and customer focus will
enable to focus outside the business, while learning orientation will
enable to focus on internal assets and capabilities of the business.
In this respect, the firm’s commitment to learning, which expresses
its sensitivity and determination in learning, will gain importance.
Therefore, it can be said that a competitive and customer-oriented
organizational learning approach can be more effective in creating
customer value for companies (Caceres and Paparoidamis, 2007).
Customer value is generally defined as the relationship between
the benefits and costs offered to the customer, or what is received
6 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
and paid by the customer. Some studies on customer value have
added many different dimensions to the concept (Lin et al., 2005).
Therefore, due to the dynamic nature of the concept, a
comprehensive definition covering all its dimensions could not be
made. However, there is consensus that the measure of customer
value will be determined not by the benefits offered to customers
by the firm, but by the customer’s perception of what is offered to
him (Caceres and Paparoidamis, 2007).
Therefore, the efficiency in the efforts of the company to create
customer value brings a customer-oriented perspective. In parallel
with this, examining the basic dynamics of the company’s efforts
to offer more value to the customer will contribute to a better
understanding of the concept. The basic dynamics of companies’
customer value efforts; It is possible to consider three groups
as creating value in products/services and customer relations,
minimizing monetary and non-monetary costs, and highlighting
competitive differences (Caceres and Paparoidamis, 2007).
2.3. Creating Value in Product, Service and Customer
Relations
Customer value is related to the characteristics of the product
and service, as well as the way they are presented and customer
relations. For this reason, companies have to create value in three
different areas: the features of the product and service, the way
it is presented and the relationship with the customer. Since the
perceived value will vary from customer to customer and the
characteristics of products and services will differ by sector, it is
very difficult to identify specific value areas. However, the general
benefit areas related to products and services; physical features,
service features and technical support (Eggert and Ulaga, 2002).
In relation to these areas, the areas that will create more benefit
in particular may vary according to the sector. In this framework,
Lapierre (2000) identified the elements of customer value in these
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer | 7
three areas, namely product, service and relationship-oriented
in the information, communication and entertainment sectors.
In short, alternative solutions (product related), product quality
(product), product customization (product), responsiveness
(service), flexibility (service), reliability (service), technical support
(service), company image (relation), trust (relation), solidarity
(relation), price (product, price), time, effort, energy (relational) and
conflict (relation). Companies that want to create customer value
have to consider all intangible and tangible value areas related to
the products and services they produce and customer relations
(Lapierre, 2000).
When purchasing a product or service, customers have to
bear some costs in the face of the benefits offered to them. It is
possible to consider these costs in two groups as monetary and
non-monetary costs. As it is known, monetary cost is directed
to the price of the product. Non-monetary costs, on the other
hand, consist of factors such as the labor, time and energy that
the customer spends to obtain, consume or use the product and
service they want, and to dispose of them after use (Donio, 2006).
Sometimes, non-monetary costs may be more important to the
customer than monetary costs. In some cases, the customer may
also consider the price of a very high quality product to be high.
In this respect, it would be useful to consider both costs together
in determining customer value. The total costs of the customer to
obtain a product or service is defined as the sum of money, time,
research, learning, emotional, mental and physical costs. They
stated that these costs will carry financial, social and psychological
risks within themselves and that these costs will be valid not only
during use but also before and after use/consumption. From this
point of view, it can be said that the costs paid by the customer in
the value perception process are more effective than the benefits
obtained (Eggert and Ulaga, 2002).
8 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
3. IMPORTANCE OF CUSTOMER JOURNEY
(EXPERIENCE) IN VALUE CREATION
What kind of motivations and through which processes
consumers make their purchasing decisions is a subject that has been
tried to analyze for decades. Marketing and consumer behavior,
which is a sub-discipline, are frequently modelled in a complex way
than it actually is. In this process, while the purchasing behavior
is seen as the final decision, the dynamic process that leads the
consumer to this decision should be investigated (Donio, 2006).
Customer experience is one of the most prominent concepts in
this process. Contrary to the classical understanding, which sees
consumption as a rational action, the new understanding defines
consumption as a constant flow of fantasies, emotions and pleasure
and named it “experiential view”. In the new understanding,
consumption primarily expresses the personal dimension of
consciousness and is defined with a wide variety of symbolic
meanings, hedonistic actions and aesthetic criteria (Davids, 2007).
With the evolution of the concept of consumption, the view of
the consumer has also changed as consumer, colleague, partner,
co-creator in value formation, co-developer in knowledge and
talent production. In this new understanding of consumption,
what the business, especially the marketer, should do is to create
the appropriate environment for the customer to experience the
desired experience rather than providing the desired experience
(Çal, 2015).
Purchasing behavior is essentially a problem-solving action
for the consumer. Every problem solving action includes an
information processing process. Researchers from different
disciplines offer different explanations such as intuitive, cognitive,
natural, automatic, schematic, internal and rational. Accordingly,
when consumers encounter a purchasing situation, they make
evaluations based on two thinking styles; the first is cognitive
thinking governed by factors such as consciousness, logic, utility;
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer | 9
the other is intuitive thinking in which senses, social environment
and external factors are effective in its formation (Çal, 2015).
From business point of view, it is important to manage this
cognitive and/or intuitive problem solving process in which the
customer is involved. A well-managed customer experience
process is expected to produce positive behavioral results such
as repeat purchasing, word-of-mouth, and customer satisfaction.
These results, on the other hand, are thought to be of critical
importance for businesses that need to make great efforts to ensure
their financial sustainability in today’s competitive environment
(Davids, 2007).
Making choices for individuals or their social environment
requires a number of skills. Perhaps the most important of these is
thinking, which is a skill that includes complex mental processes.
When these preferences are looked at holistically, it is seen that they
form certain patterns for each individual. In other words, a thinking
style comes into play in every preference an individual has, and
the individual completes his/her choice within the framework of
this thinking style. Therefore, it can be said that determining this
individual-specific thinking style can facilitate the estimation of the
decisions and preferences of the same individual (Dikici, 2014).
Although it includes the process in different dimensions, the
whole process actually fits the definition of “modular mind” put
forward by Fodor (1983). Defending that the human mind is far
from showing a single functioning structure, Fodor says that the
mind consists of different branches or abilities adapted to different
problem-solving situations. According to the author, thinking is
actually a form of computation, and humanity has achieved its
evolutionary existence throughout history thanks to this ability. In
other words, the individual’s internal and external harmony takes
place due to the multi-part, multi-functional structure of the mind.
The experience process also occurs within this multi-
departmental structure of the mind. The customer experience,
10 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
which emerges as a result of multiple interactions such as product-
business-brand-social environment, is shaped according to the
messages given to the individual by the purchase action, which is
basically a problem-solving situation. These occur as a result of the
reflections of internal or external stimuli in the mind. Therefore, it
seems critical to examine the thinking process of the mind to learn
how the customer experience process unfolds (Gentile et al., 2007).
3.1. Customer Satisfaction
The primary target that is tried to be reached with the customer
value created as a result of different mental processes is customer
satisfaction. On one hand, customer satisfaction is cognitive, as it
is based on comparing the current perceived level of performance
with another benchmark. On the other hand, since satisfaction is
an emotion at its core, it emerges as an emotional/intuitive process.
In other words, the customer’s cognitive and intuitive experience
process finds its way in customer satisfaction. The concept is also
accepted as a strong indicator on behavioral variables such as
repurchase intention, word of mouth, brand loyalty (Gentile et al.,
2007).
Customer satisfaction is explained by many researchers with
the disconfirmation of expectations paradigm. Accordingly,
customer satisfaction occurs as a result of comparing the product
performance faced by the individual with the previously formed
expectations for the possible performance of the similar product.
Dissatisfaction/dissatisfaction as a result of expectations exceeding
product performance; Satisfaction occurs when expectations are
met or product performance exceeds expectations. The theory
assumes that the individual has a certain stock of knowledge
and expectations for the product encountered. In order for these
expectations to be formed, the individual, the people around him
or the reference groups must have experienced that product or
similar products before, and therefore must have a certain opinion
(Lee and Feick, 2001).
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer | 11
There is a strong belief that the comparison of expected and
actual performance level is primarily a cognitive process. Individuals
experience psychological conflict when there is a significant
discrepancy between previous experiential elements and their new
perception of performance. In order to minimize this conflict,
they tend to adapt their perceptions to their expectations; that is,
the formation of customer satisfaction is based on the process of
constantly processing old and new data (Lin et al., 2005).
3.2. The Relationship Between Value Creation and
Cusomer Satisfaction
Today, customer demands and requirements show great
changes compared to the past due to technological developments
and increasing competition. Customers now demand that they are
valued, that goods and services are in line with their expectations,
close, warm and trusting relationships are established and
maintained with them. Mass marketing methods, which were very
popular previously, lose their validity in parallel with the changes
in customer needs (Evanschitzky, 2006).
The loyalty established between the customer and the company
can be realized if the customers believe that the value offered
consistently is achieved at a lower cost than the competitors
(Hammouri, 2003). In the consumer-based system, the concept of
value is defined by the market and evaluated by the market. One of
today’s most basic marketing strategies is activities based on creating
value for customers. Customer satisfaction is accepted as one of the
most important criteria for customer loyalty. Businesses are trying to
increase customer satisfaction and customer loyalty by adding more
value to the basic products or services they offer. In this context, the
concept of providing value to the customer and customer satisfaction
are completely interrelated (Garland and Gendall, 2004).
While the customer satisfaction approach focuses on the
satisfaction of the people who use the product or service of the
12 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
business, the customer value approach focuses on how customers
choose among competing businesses. In the past, customers have
judged the value of a product or service based on a combination
of price and quality. Today’s customers, on the other hand, value
the products and services they buy, such as usefulness, after-sales
service, reliability, prestige, etc. They have a broader understanding
of value that includes concepts. In addition, businesses need to
clearly identify what the source of value is. It is necessary to reveal
whether the company finds a way out from the product it offers,
from the brand image or from the business identity.
The point that should not be forgotten about customer
satisfaction is that the cost of acquiring a new customer is much
higher than the cost of retaining an existing customer. In addition,
it should not be overlooked how many customers a customer who
leaves the business can take with him. Looking at the companies
that can be described as excellent in the world, it is seen that each of
them has perfect customer service goals. This is so important that
businesses adopt being close to the customer as an unmistakable
philosophy in order to create a “loyal customer”, and as a result,
they develop different services and offer them at different levels.
In the new economic structure, the customer structure is also
changing. Today, we are faced with a more participatory and
more demanding customer structure. Therefore, businesses had
to develop marketing strategies for the new customer structure.
In this context, businesses have tended to create value for their
customers beyond customer satisfaction. Today, competitive
advantage is based on providing value to the customer (Fyall et
al., 2003).
4. PERCEIVED VALUE CONCEPT
Research on perceived value often examines the relationships
between price and perceived quality. Perceived value is the
customer’s overall assessment of what is given and what is received.
Value Creation Behavior With the Customer | 13
Costs perceived by customers include not only money but also
non-monetary values such as time and effort. Perceived value, on
the other hand, includes other internal or external qualities (such
as environment, behavior, courtesy) as well as perceived quality (Suh
and Yi, 2006).
Value, which increases repurchase intention and is a feature that
encourages behavior. It is possible to define perceived customer
value as the ratio of perceived benefits to perceived sacrifices.
Perceived altruism includes many costs that customers face when
purchasing. These are purchase price, transportation, assembly,
ordering and the cost of receiving repairs and maintenance, risk of
failure, or poor performance (Suh and Yi, 2006).
Perceived benefits are some combination of physical attributes,
service attributes, and technical support in relation to the particular
use of the product. According to another view, customer value
perception is; Perceived value is the customer’s overall assessment
of the usefulness of a product based on his perception of what
is given and received. This definition also draws attention to the
subjective and individual nature of perceived value. Therefore,
perceived value varies among customers (Wang et al., 2004).
Different perceptions of customers are highly dependent on
personal values, needs, preferences and financial resources of the
customer. A buyer’s presentation of the value chain is needed to
fully understand the customer’s perceived value. The buyer’s value
chain is the starting point for understanding what is valuable to the
customer. a product offered to the customer or how the service is
actually used is determined by the customer’s own priorities and
values. Establishing what value the customer actually expects from
a firm’s offering is therefore a starting point for delivering the right
value retention benefits (Suh and Yi, 2006).
Any business attempting to deliver competitive value to its
customers must have a detailed understanding of their customers’
needs and the actions that make up their customers’ value chain.
14 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Otherwise, the chances of gaining customer loyalty will be reduced
due to the task of providing the right value to customers (Suh and
Yi, 2006).
5. CONCLUSION
Customer value is one of today’s most fundamental marketing
strategies. forms. Customer value refers to an emotional process
that occurs in the mind of the customer as a result of comparing
the product/service purchased with monetary value. Customers
buy the products and services of businesses that offer them the
highest value. Businesses, on the other hand, try to create customer
satisfaction by adding more value to the basic products or services
they offer. Customer satisfaction is a reaction that occurs as a
result of purchasing and using the product and service and affects
the customer’s subsequent purchasing preferences. The customer
satisfaction that occurs after purchasing the product and service
will be reflected in the subsequent purchasing behavior of the
customers. This is important in the formation of behavioral and/
or attitudinal brand loyalty in customers.
One customer’s perception of value may differ from that of
another customer. For customers, the price, quality reputation and
prestige of products and services are considered as a value element.
The most important value is the price of products and services.
Customers who consider it as a factor of interest prefer a low-
priced accommodation business. Identifying the elements valued
by customers and determining strategies for these elements will
provide a competitive advantage to the business.
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19
CHAPTER 2
The Legitimization Process of the French
National Front and its Migration Policies2
Murat AKTAŞ3
1. INTRODUCTION
In Europe, especially in the last three decades, we have witnessed
the rise of far right and populist political parties and movements,
which spread to many European Union countries as a disease.
France is one of these countries. The French National Front (Front
National-FN4) is one of the first far right political parties founded
after the World War II in Western Europe and constituted a role
model and the leading example for most contemporary extreme
2 This publication was made possible (in part) by a grant from the TUBITAK
2219-International Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Programme 2017/2.
3 Prof. Dr., Mus Alparslan University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative
Sciences, Political Science and Public Administration Department, muratmha@
hotmail.com, ORCID ID 0000-0002-7249-4957.
4 The French far right and populist political party National Front (Front Natio-
nal-FN) changed the name to Rassemblement National (RN) in 2018.
20 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
right movements and political parties in Europe (Rydgren,
2003:45-68). Many parties have adopted the discourses and
slogans of the National Front (Mudde, 2012: 4). Therefore, it has
an important impact on the contemporary European politics.
The far right, which had fallen down after the World War
II in France, has regained momentum with the Algerian War
of Independence started in 1954. In order to prevent Algeria’s
independence from French colonial rule, French paramilitary and
nationalist groups founded a paramilitary organization called the
Secret Armed Organisation (Organisation Armée Secrète-OAS). The
OAS waged a terrorist campaign against Algerian independence
during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-62). Especially
after President Charles de Gaulle opened the path for independence
for Algeria in order to establish the peace, in September 1959,
French far right political personalities and the Algerian War former
soldiers and officers began to work to establish a political party in
order to legitimize the far right institutions and groups. To create
a far right political party, the extreme right groups founded a new
extreme right organization called the New Order (Ordre Nouveau)
on December 1969. This would also act as a protective shield to
prevent prosecution of some of the former far right groups and
officers and the fight against communism.
The National Front was founded on October 5, 1972 by
former activists and members of the OAS and the New Order,
attempting an electoral come-back of the French extreme right
(Mayer and Sineau, 2012: 43); Delwit, 2012: 13). Jean-Marie
Le Pen, who was prominent among the OAS’s members and a
soldier in the French army and voluntarily sent to Algeria as an
officer, was appointed as the president of the party. Many of the
National Front’s founders and leading members of the group were
extreme right organizations’ members such as the OAS, the New
Order and the Jeune Nation. Some of them had even relationships
withGermaineNazis(Kauffmann,2016:Delwit,2012).Thelegal
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 21
authorities accepted the foundation of this far right party founded
by former Nazis instead of judging them.
In order to understand the current success and legitimation
process of the National Front it is useful to remember the origins
of legitimization of its ideology and the roots and extensions of the
party in the French State and bureaucracy. This will give us some
important clues about the legitimation process of such a far-right
party’s discourses by mainstream political leaders and presidents.
This article analyses the participation of the French mainstream
political leaders and intellectuals to the legitimization process of
the far right political party, the National Front and its discourses
about immigration. The article shows how the mainstream political
leaders and intellectuals helped and participated in the National
Front’s legitimization process and its migration policies. While the
National Front has scapegoated immigrants and pointed them out
as the biggest threat to national identity, security and the future
of the country by adopting a pure French racist vision for years,
some of the main stream political leaders and presidents ignored
the progress of this far right political party. The paper shows
that knowingly or unknowingly some mainstream politicians,
presidents and intellectuals played a crucial role on the construction
of legitimization process of the National Front’s policies and
normalisation of its propaganda by using anti-immigrant and
securitocratic discourses.
2. THE NATIONAL FRONT AND THE NEW RIGHT
From its foundation in 1972 until the beginning of 1980s, the
National Front was not a significant actor in the French political
scene. It was a marginal political party using a discourse against
communism described alike as mere “spectator” and “occasional
agitator” on the outer margins of an inaccessibly bipolarised system
(Shields, 2014:41-65). After the defeat of the Nazis in the World
War II, racism began to be seen as unacceptable in Western Europe
and in a significant part of the world, the political and cultural
22 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
hegemony in France, as in many European countries, changed the
hand. Ideology and the ideological apparatus of the State were
in the hands of left wing, social democrat and/or liberals. The
National Front decided to change the ideological apparatus of the
State by adopting the strategy of the French New Right.5 This
phenomenon created a refined European-wide political culture of
the far right in an anti-fascist age. The racist ideas were being re-
justified with the claim of the cultural differences (Bar-On, 2011:
199-223). Therefore, the French New Right creates a new image
for the far right ideas.
The National Front gained space and power mainly by adopting
an anti-establishment view based on a pan-European cultural
identitarianist strategy and programme against democratic and
multicultural societies. This was the strategy of the GRECE. This
new type of racism called also neo-racism fed the legitimization
and normalisation of the far right political ideas and parties, and
turned former French ultra-nationalists into pan-Europeanists
(Bar-On, 2011). Particularly, the ideologues of the French New
Right and the founders of the GRECE have adopted this approach
by using Gramsci’s theory of hegemony.6 They organized their
movement through magazines, intellectuals and civil society to
spread their ideology.
5 The French New Right is a cultural school of thought leaded by the GRECE
(Groupement de Recherche et d’Etudes pour la Civilisation Européenne-Research and
Study Group for European Civilization) which was kind of a far right think thank
and school of thought founded in the early 1970s. Particularly New Order leaders
François Brigneau, François Duprat and Alain de Benoist have played crucial role
on the National Front’s ideological frame against migration. Alain de Benoist, for
example, who is founder and leading thinker of the GRECE and the French New
Right in post-1968 France, is one of the main protagonists in the formulation of
the anti-migration ideas in France. See Alain De Benoist and Charles Champe-
tier, Manifesto for a European Renaissance,London:Arktos,2012;DanaKennedy,
‘The French Ideologues Who Inspired the Alt-Right’, The Daily Beast, Published
December 05, 2016 and updated April 13, 2017, online: https://www.thedaily-
beast.com/the-french-ideologues-who-inspired-the-alt-right.
6 See; Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Eds. and Translation,
Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, London: Elec Book, 1999.
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 23
“The appropriation of Gramscian themes provided the New
Right with novel strategic insights, and facilitated its attempts to
blur the traditional distinctions between Left and Right in ways
that could neutralize the polemical force of left-wing usages of
Gramscian tropes while simultaneously adorning radical right-
wing positions with a certain revolutionary appeal and post-fascist
intellectual credibility.” (Drolet and Williams, 2021:1-23).
For an ideological movement the best way to win the
legitimization and hegemony is through shaping the debate in the
cultural field. This means that schools, universities, magazines,
newspapers (nowadays mass media and internet) can all be combined
with their own ideological perspective. Consequently, media and
the phenomenon of “civil society” have a great importance for the
spread of the hegemony of the desired culture (Bates, 1975: 351).
Therefore, the GRECE would gradually organise new journals,
publishing houses, think tanks and fora to disseminate ‘new right’s
ideology by using the theory of hegemony. The aim was to “unify
… France’s 1000 brightest and most powerful people in order to
create the possibility of an anti-liberal revolution.” (Sharpe, 2017).
3. THE PROGRESS OF THE NATIONAL FRONT
AND JEAN-MARIE LE PEN
Jean-Marie Le Pen leaded the National Front from 1972
to 2011, and then his daughter Marine Le Pen overtook the
leadership of the party from her father from 2011 to nowadays.
In his first presidential election, Jean-Marie Le Pen achieved only
0.8% of the national vote. The National Front’s best result was
about 1.3%, but its fortunes turned in the early 1980s as it posed
strong showings in mayoral elections. Especially, after the French
mainstream right’s defeat at the elections in 1981, a modus vivendi
was reached between the far right and the mainstream right. In
1982, the National Front won its first significant result in regional
elections scoring over 10% of the votes. In 1983 local elections in
24 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Dreux (a French town 92 km to Paris), the National Front won
16.7% of the vote (Hainsworth, 2008).
Then the National Front won 11.2% of the votes and 10 seats
in the 1984 European elections. However, the NF made its big
progress in the 1986 legislative elections, winning about 10% of
the vote and 35 seats in the National Assembly. Later, in the early
1990s the NF raised its votes significantly and even doubled in
2000s. In the presidential election in April 2002, the National
Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen gained 16.9% (4.8 million)
of the national vote in the first round and produced a political
consciousness in France and through Europe, and he has succeeded
to carry on his party to the second round. In the second round he
had, 17.8% (5.5 million) of the national vote. This was the highest
score for the post-war far right in Western Europe in terms of the
actual number of voters. France was shocked by Le Pen’s success
and the French media described the result as a ‘political earthquake’
(Berezin, 2006: 269-272).
The National Front, which at the beginning was monarchist,
colonialist, anti-communist, anti-Semitism party still defends
that the pure French should have privileges in terms of social
benefits and work in the public sector compared to migrants. By
adopting a pure French racist vision, the National Front points out
immigrants as the biggest threat to the national security and gets
support from a wide range of citizens.
4. MARINE LE PEN
Moreover, the National Front made a huge progress under the
leadership of Marine Le Pen who took over the leadership of the
party from her father in January 2011. She extracted his father
from the party and changed the party’s discourse in order to gain
more votes. For instance, in the European Parliament elections in
May 2014, the National Front gained 24.86% of the votes. In the
first round of regional elections held on December 2015, the NF
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 25
got 27.73%. In the first ballot of the presidential elections in 2017,
Marine Le Pen had 21.4% of the votes and succeeded to pass to
the second round where she had 33.94% of the votes. In the first
ballot of the presidential election held in April 2022 Marine Le
Pen had 23.2% of the votes and again succeeded to pass to the
second round where she gained 41.5%, which is a historical score
for a far right candidate after World War II in a western European
country.
Since her election to the head of the party, Marine Le Pen
has softened discourse and the image of the National Front. In
order to get more support and reach the power, she has tried to
moderate the extremist image of the party and adopted a more
populist discourse than extreme right (Stockemer, 2017). She has
tried to give the party a modern image and refrain the party from
the openly racist and anti-Semitic baiting that was usual under
her father’s leadership. To get rid of its neo-Nazi image, she has
steadfastly condemned anti-Semitism and defined “the Holocaust
as “the summit of human barbarism”. However, she refused to
condemn the Vichy government or French Nazi collaborators”
(The Economist, 2012). Marine Le Pen has claimed that far
from being “racist”, her party is the defender of secularity and
of democracy, against the fundamentalist Islam presented as a
religion of fanaticism, harassing women, homosexuals, and the
Jews (Mayer, 2013). Furthermore, Marine Le Pen claimed that
“France has been ‘invaded’ by Muslims and needs to ‘resist against
this new form of occupation.” (Caron, 2012: 223-237).
Marine Le Pen has even proposed to change the name of the
party in March 2018. Her party has accepted her proposition
and the National Front changed its name to National Rally
(Ressemblement National-RN) in June 2018. However, in reality,
she has not changed main policies and approaches of the party and
she still defends the “national priority” for the French. The RN has
continued to follow a policy against immigrants and defends that
the pure French should have privileges in terms of housing, social
26 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
benefits and jobs in the public sector compared to immigrants
(Mayer, 2013).
5. THE LEGITIMIZATION PROCESS AND
MITTERRAND
As many political parties, the National Front has not just
unexpectedly and mysteriously appeared on votes at election
time. Not only has it been founded but also has been supported,
developed, and strengthened (Declair, 1999). There are different
raisons of the National Front’s success but the paper will focus on
the mainstreaming of the party’s discourse on immigration. One
of the most important reasons for the rise of the National Front is
the legitimization of far right ideas and discourses by mainstream
politicians, including presidents. Many French mainstream
political leaders and presidents played role in the legitimization
process of the far right. President François Mitterrand is one of
them (Simmons, 1996). For instance, knowingly or unknowingly
President Mitterrand may have opened the door or the way of
political scene for the National Front (Wieviorka, 2013; Mayer,
2019) in order to split the mainstream conservative opposition.
As Art mentioned; Mitterrand helped the extreme right in two
occasions:
“First in May 1982, Le Pen wrote a letter to Mitterrand
complaining that France’s state television was not covering the
FN’s party congress. Given that the FN had won a more than
0.2% of the votes in 1981 legislations elections, the lack of media
attention was not surprising.” (Art, 2011).
After having received a letter from Jean-Marie Le Pen, President
Mitterrand told the Communications Minister to speak to the
director of the television and radio stations about the airtime
given to Jean Marie Le Pen on primetime political programs.
Following the warning Jean Marie Le Pen was invited to perform
on the evening television news. After Le Pen appeared on the TV
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 27
program everything has changed (Shields, 2007). Following the
first program Jean-Marie Le Pen appeared several times on radio
and televisions repeatedly. “Therefore, the National Front central
office received sacks of letters from people who wanted to join
the party. This was undoubtedly a factor in the party’s electoral
breakthrough in the 1983 municipal elections.” (Art, 2011).
Hence, by 1983, Le Pen was on his way to becoming a media
phenomenon and a sougth-after guest on political interview
programs. Of course, his appeal as a media personality was enhanced
by his consummate skill as a debater and self-publicist. According
to the French journalists who investigated the issue; “contrary to
all logic, the media rise of Le Pen preceded his electoral success:
recognition before legitimacy” (Faux and al, 1994). Mitterrand’s
decision to restore proportional representation for French
parliamentary elections was another gift to the National Front. Of
course, his main aim was to keep his own party in power, but the
result mostly served the legitimization process of the National Front
and its leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Also in 1980s due to Mitterrand’s
simplification of immigration policy, “immigration became a more
relevant subject in France. These demographic changes began to
increase the fears against immigrants (Stockemer, 2017). The New
Right has presented immigrants, multiculturalism, globalisation
and later the European Union as the causes of many problems.
François Mitterrand is not the only French president and
politician who opened the way to the National Front. There are
many others: Jacques Chirac, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, Nicolas
Sarkozy etc. In 1976, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac made a
connection between France’s one and half million unemployed
and its one and half million immigrants, as the National Front’s
leader Le Pen often stated in the last four decades. Later in 1984,
the Prime Minister Laurent Fabius defended that Le Pen “asked
the right questions”. Following these politicians, while former
president Valery Giscard d’Estaing linked immigration to an
‘invasion’ in 1991, the socialist Prime Minister Edith Cresson
28 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
expatriated illegal immigrants to the contentment of the National
Front (Mondon, 2013: 22-40). Jean-Marie Le Pen claimed an
“ideological victory” by forcing authorities to make immigration
the main political issue.” (Los Angeles Times, 1991).
The same year, the right wing mainstream future president
Jacques Chirac gave a speech about immigrants. “Our problem
is not foreigners; it’s that there is an overdose. … We must put a
moratorium on family reunification… On his HLM (social house),
a so-called worker sees a family crammed together with the father,
three or four wives and around twenty kids, who receive 50,000
francs in social benefits without, of course, working. … If you add
to that the “noise” and the “smell” (of African families), the French
worker on the landing goes crazy. It’s not being racist to say that.”
(Bourgneuf, 2019).
6. SARKOZY AND LEGITIMIZATION PROCESS
Nicolas Sarkozy is the most known French President adopting
the National Front’s rhetoric and policies. Prior to the presidential
election of May 2007, its implementation dates back to 2002, with
the closure of the Sangatte Camp in France by Sarkozy, Minister of
the Interior, and in Europe the acceleration of intergovernmental
collaboration to make tighter borders and outsource asylum
procedures to the margins of Europe. In France, the symbolic pivot
is today the Ministry of Immigration, Integration, National Identity
and Co-development, created in May 2007. The mechanism also
includes the establishment (by Sarkozy Minister of the Interior) of
annual quotas of 25,000 expulsions, and the adoption of a new law
on immigration making it possible to apply DNA tests to migrants
applying for family reunification (Agier, 2008).
Nicolas Sarkozy who has taken a tough stance on immigration
also has chosen the National Front’s “rhetoric. In parallel to such
approaches against immigrants, the National Front’s votes have
increased as a result. In addition, the National Front made a huge
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 29
impact on other mainstream and centrist parties in France such
as UMP to appeal the public opinion. Besides, the exclusion and
discrimination against migrants have increased.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidential campaign in 2007 deliberately
borrowed the same rhetoric that the National Front had been using
for years, thus he was able to woo potential voters of the National
Front to his side. By using the rhetoric that most people connected
with the National Front, Sarkozy legitimized not only the language,
but also the National Front as a whole. Thus, the National Front’s
advancement was both a cause and an effect of this politicisation of
immigration issue: it has played on existing concern and helped to
fan the flames of hostility towards immigrants, especially Muslim
immigrants. It would be wrong to see the National Front as the
only sole driver of the politicisation of immigration, because not
least, that would be completely mistreatment of the mainstream
parties’ role they played on this issue.
Scapegoating immigrants and stimulating the fear of the
‘other’, both characteristic right wing populist devices had become
common; nevertheless, Nicolas Sarkozy is quiet innovative for
some reasons. While other mainstream politicians have “made use
of far-right rhetoric in the past three decades, none did so in such
a consistent and open manner as Sarkozy.” (Mondon, 2013: 33).
7. MACRON FOLLOWED SARKOZY
President Emmanuel Macron was also criticized for using a
“divisive rhetoric” like Nicolas Sarkozy and the National Fronts’
leaders. For instance, comments Macron made about Africa saw
him accused of racism by many of the international media outlets.
Asked on whether he would support a “Marshall Plan” for Africa,
Emmanuel Macron mentioned that external support can do little
to alleviate poverty there.
“More precisely,” he said, “civilization” issues, including high
birth rates, need to be addressed. “This statement reversed cause
30 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
and effect -high birth rates are due to underdevelopment, not the
other way around. It also drew on racist stereotypes dating back
to colonial times.” (McQueen, 2017). This is not the first time
Emmanuel Macron has been accused of racism. He also joked about
the fragile “kwassa kwassa” boats used by Comorian immigrants to
reach the French department of Mayotte -so-called “death boats”
because of the thousands of Comorans who drowned during the
voyage.” (McQueen, 2017).
Macron has also drawn widespread criticism in much of
the Muslim world after arguing the right to caricature Prophet
Muhammad after the Charlie Hebdo newspaper re-circulated
caricatures featuring the Prophet. Macron has also confronted a
reaction from Muslim protestors for arguing in a speech in October
2020 that Islam was “in crisis globally” and pronounced his plan
“to reform Islam”. “European Muslim organisations have called
on President to end his “divisive rhetoric”, as the fallout between
France and the Muslim world continues.” (Al Jazeera, 2020).
It is important to see the mainstreaming of the National Front’s
discourse despite the “cordon sanitaire”7 put in place by mainstream
parties from the left and the right. Some have even argued that the
only way to stop the electoral success of the National Front is not
to allow it to have the monopoly on the issue of migration on the
political agenda.
8. THE IMPORTANCE OF MIGRATION ISSUES
AND MAINSTREAMING
The National Front leaders, such as other European far right
and populist leaders have used migration as an instrument to
legitimize their extreme policies (Caviedes, 2015; Carvalho, 2014;
7 The “cordon sanitaire” consisted of refusing any electoral or institutional coope-
ration or coalition with the National Front and systematically calling their sup-
porters not to vote for any NF candidates. Even if that means, for example, for a
conservative party to call its supporter for voting for a socialist candidate rather
than the ideologically closer the National Front.
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 31
Hargreaves, 2007; Schain, 2006). They also blame immigrants for
the loss of jobs and frame them as a menace to national identity,
authenticity and security (Bergmann, 2020; Mudde, 2016). They
demonize other political parties as representing elite interests
and other leaders as self-interested actors who promote policies
that benefit minority groups. Their impact can be either direct or
indirect. (Williams, 2018).
While globalization and de-industrialization applies mutual
pressures (Caviedes, 2010) they use the “mobility crisis” as their
moment of the shock doctrine and Europe’s mainstream parties
remain unable or unwilling to provide a solution. Through their
framing, they have been able to convince “the people” that they
need strong “legitimate” political actors with the capacity to
respond to the crisis (Balta and Ozel, 2018).
“Therefore, the counter-mobilization by the National Front
has fed the political debate on immigration… French politicians
responded by arguing in favour of ‘zero immigration’ (also one
of the National Front’s claims) and the government translated the
principle of ‘zero immigration’ into policy by adopting the ‘Pasqua
Law’ of 1993” (Guiraudon, 2001).
In 1998, a new immigration law adopted and introduced
several modifications. It did not only reform the most controversial
aspects of the 1993 reforms but also added a few innovations. The
National Front has been largely responsible for the right wing
populist prevalence that has allowed to more restrictive French
immigration policies. It has magnified rhetoric about the security,
cultural and economic threats that immigrants and refugees may
pose to the native populations, exacerbating negative group
threat dynamics and emphasizing the potential negative effects
of immigration on the labour market. This rhetoric has not only
instilled fear in French people but has also led to more restrictive
immigration measures as politicians take active measures to avoid
losing voters to the National Front.
32 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Especially the 2002 National Front victory in the first round of
presidential elections brought the migration issue into the political
spotlight more and more, forcing French mainstream political
leaders to either address and mitigate voter concerns regarding
“uncontrolled” immigration, or lose seats in upcoming elections.
This is the hegemony of the far right politics, which feed the hate
against immigrants and invaded public sphere. These dynamics
continue up to these days, it is impressing to observe that even,
nowadays -French political “right and left appear to have agreed
not to disagree on immigration, at least at the national level.”
(Guiraudon, 2001).
Anti-immigration sentiment is on the rise in France as in the
whole Europe. For instance, according to a survey carried out by the
IFOP more than half of French citizens believe that immigration has
a negative impact on their country. They believe that immigration
has negative impact on a wide range of areas such as the economy,
national cohesion, security, and that it is not desirable to welcome
more foreigners. According to the survey 58% of French people
consider the role of immigration to be negative in general, and the
trend is found in almost all of the themes listed: growth (54%), the
country’s future (55%), the country’s identity (58%), respect for
secularism (61%), social cohesion (64%), or even security (66%).
Regarding the European context, and the Union’s difficulties in
finding a common position on the management and distribution of
migratory flows to Europe, French citizens are mostly in favour of
a national solution, since 63% of them are in favour of abolition of
the Schengen agreements establishing the free movement of people
within the EU, thus pronouncing de facto for a re-establishment of
national borders (IFOP, 2018).
Despite the difficulty of isolating the causes of racism,
immigrants in France bear the brunt of it, much more than the rest
of the population. This is the conclusion, without appeal, of an
IFOP poll commissioned by the government and the Jean Jaurès
Foundation. According to the study carried out for the inter-
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 33
ministerial delegation for the fight against racism, anti-Semitism
and anti-LGBT hatred 42% of Muslims living in France claim to
have been the subject of at least one form of discrimination linked
to their religion at least once in their lifetime. Discrimination
experienced by Muslims in France is experienced “during a police
check” (13%), “when looking for a job” (17%) or even housing
(14%). The study also notes that discrimination affects people aged
30 to 40 and women more (46%, compared to 38% for men). 60%
of women who often wear the veil have been discriminated against
at least once in their life, and 37% of them have been exposed to
insults or defamatory insults. However, 44% of women who never
wear the veil have also done so (IFOP, 2019).
Marine Le Pen criticises immigrants and in particular Muslims
in the name of defending the ethno-cultural identity of the initial
community. The point devoted to the defence of sovereignty by
the National Front made it possible to realize that the National
Front rejects immigration for economic reasons. It appears that
the National Front of Marine Le Pen rejects also foreigners for
cultural reasons. The criticism of immigration more particularly
that of Muslim origins then made in the name of the defence of
republican values. Some immigrant populations would therefore,
be according to the politicians of the National Front culturally
incompatible with the democratic foundation values of France.
In the French context, the National Front focuses its criticism of
immigration on Islam and Muslims that would threaten public
freedoms, but also the Christian roots of French society.
According to the National Front leader, most immigrants
would hardly be ‘assimilable’ in French society. In assimilation, the
members of the National Front oppose the integration they perceive
negatively. Indeed, by promoting the expression of the ‘cultural
specificities’ of immigrants and thus their official recognition,
integration would lead them to communitarianism. This is what
Marine Le Pen (2006) takes up in her autobiographical work,
À contre flots (Against the Waves) when she asserts that the left
34 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
then the right has gradually abandoned the republican mechanics
of assimilation in favour of the dramatic ideology integration,
allowing immigrants to maintain their way of life and to publicly
express their religion even if they were in flagrant contradiction
with those of the French.
The National Front of Marine Le Pen omits, however, to specify
that the republican model of integration has never aimed at the
exaltation of cultural particularisms. The assimilation advocated
by the National Front’s politicians is envisaged in order to see
cultural differences disappear from the public sphere. By rejecting
immigrants who do not want to melt into the French landscape,
the National Front tends to make the rejection of immigration
morally acceptable.
9. THE LEGITIMIZATION PROCESS AND
INTELLECTUALS
This is nowhere true than in France, where xenophobic and
Islamophobic public intellectuals have been all the rage since
the mid-2000s. While not (for the most part) publicly claiming
allegiance to the National Front, such right-wing celebrities
undoubtedly created the intellectual framework that was to deliver
Marine Le Pen’s 10.6 million votes in the second round of the
French presidential elections in 2017 -the highest share of the vote
gained by a far-right candidate in Europe since the Second World
War (Fekete, 2018).
Before 2017 French presidential election, more than half of
police officers and gendarmeries have said that they are going to
vote for Marine Le Pen because of her strong anti-terror stance.
Marine Le Pen also proclaimed mass-migration a “tragedy” for
her country and savaged the European Union. She also promised
to suspend all immigration if she wins the presidency, saying her
rivals support ‘savage globalisation’ (Burrows, 2017).
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 35
When I asked to French Professor Gilles Bataillon his comments
about the more than half of French police officers voting for
Marine Le Pen, he explained that because most of the police
officers perceive human rights as “bandit rights”. They think that if
immigrants have more rights, they will be more dangerous. Marine
Le Pen, on the other hand, says it will provide more authority and
opportunities to the police officers, thus she gets their support.
The National Front is not only supported by police officers and
gendarmeries in France but also by celebrities, and even writers.
One of the France’s best-known new right fiction writers is Michel
Houellebecq who won France’s leading literary prize, the Prix
Goncourt in 2010 for his book “The Map and the Territory”, (La
Carte et le territoire). His book called “Submission” (Soumission),
set in France in 2022 and imagines a France ruled by Islamists
and anti-National Front alliance (Houellebecq, 2015). The novel
updates aspects of the French life and the role of Muslims in daily
life and the danger Islam poses to the French, a perception that
causes hatred and hostility against Muslims. Similarly, in the book,
the image of Islam, the contradictions and the perception of this
religion in France present a danger for the French (Musttaff,
2021). This book was an instant success when it was published
in 2015 in France. Michel Houellebecq (2001) himself, did not
hesitate to frankly announce his hostile vision of the Islamic
religion, considering it a dangerous religion signalled by its desire
to submit the world.
Another new-right celebrity is TV intellectual and Le Figaro
columnist Éric Justin Léon Zemmour. His bestselling nonfiction
polemic of 2014, “The French Suicide: The Forty Years that Defeated
France” (Le Suicide français: Ces quarante annees qui ont defait la
France) argues against the ‘halalisation’ of France characterised
by the creation of ‘Islamic Republics in certain neighbourhoods’
(Zemmour, 2014). The “French Suicide” sold 500 thousand copies
-more than 6 thousand a day at one point- making him one of the
most widely read authors in France that year. Zemmour claims
36 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
that the French society has become too feminine and the Vichy
regime, the Nazi collaborated French administration during the
Second World War, was misunderstood. In his other book, the
“French Destiny” (Destin français) published in 2018, Zemmour
argues against the French history as a product of diverse ethnic and
geographical influences (Zemmour, 2018). For Éric Zemmour,
the strict hierarchical social order native of Catholicism, separated
from the church and linked with the principles of Roman law is
what gives French society its unique structure (Zerofsky, 2019).
The National Front has pursued a policy against immigrants since
its foundation, and which refrains from using racist discourses
from time to time, defends “supremacy of Catholic Europe”
(Camus, 1996).
Here, Éric Zemmour is a very good example to Gramsci’s theory
of hegemony. At this point, Gramsci points out that “intellectuals”
(“organic” and “traditional”) have important duties in terms of
“infrastructure and superstructures” and to achieve hegemonic
power. In this system, intellectuals are the carriers of structural
relations to the superstructure, those that establish and carry the
organic link between “structure” and “superstructure”. As Gramsci
(1999) underlines in areas where intellectuals lose their influence
individually, the “party” will step in and educate the masses in
a method that can be expressed in the form of “intellectual and
moral management” and provide cultural transformation as the
component of hegemony.
The prominent gay writer Renaud Camus was more open in
his support for the National Front’s leader Marine Le Pen in 2010
when he echoed the Eurabia theme (Liogier, 2012) and coined the
term ‘le grand replacement’ to describe the colonisation of France by
Muslim immigrants, which threatens to ‘mutate’ the country and
its culture permanently (Fekete, 2017). Former left-wing journalist
Elisabeth Levy and the historian Gil Mihaely founded the journal
Causeur in 2007. They believed that the journal was needed since
mainstream publications “were too afraid” to discuss issues like
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 37
immigration and national identity. French neo-reactionaires (as
called by their critics) have been raising their voice since then
(Fekete, 2018).
The National Front owes also nationalists for the spread of their
ideas to outside the French-speaking countries such as Sweden,
Belgium etc. For example, Swedish-born former mining executive
Daniel Friberg, began Arktos, now the biggest alt-right publishing
company in the world. Therefore, “the rise of extremist movements
with a cultural or religious edge to them poses a basic challenge to
liberal democratic societies because of their intransigent opposition
to tolerant pluralism.” (Bréchon and Mitra, 1992: 63-82).
10. CONCLUSION
In parallel to the emergence of far right, the exclusion and
discrimination against immigrants, especially Muslims living in
the European Union countries, have risen since 1990s and it has
been alarming by the beginning of 2000s. Especially the terrorist
attacks committed in Europe have provided pretext for the far
right and populist politicians to accuse Muslims of terrorism in
many EU countries including France. Gradually spreading anti-
Islam and anti-Muslim sentiments, which have been commonly
referred as “Islamophobia”, has been associated with 9/11 attacks
and subsequent terrorist attacks in London, Madrid, Paris, Brussels
for some. It may be associated with them, but this is not the only
reason. As we have seen above, the hate against immigrants and
Muslims existed even before the mentioned terrorist attacks.
Since its establishment in 1972, the National Front has strongly
supported French nationalism and advocated against migration,
and it often has been indicted of fostering xenophobia and anti-
Semitism.
As we have seen above, one of the most important reasons
of emergence and non-stop progress of far right in France is the
legitimization of far right policies and discourses about immigration
38 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
by mainstream politicians (including presidents) and intellectuals.
In addition, as Cas Mudde (2016) underlines, the populist far
right creates a radicalization of mainstream interpretations, that
key features of the populist far right are now being shared by the
mainstream. Actually, in many countries the populism invaded the
mainstream and it has become more and more difficult to separate
the two (Bergmann, 2020). “For many, this is part of a broader
trend of the mainstreaming of far right ideas” (Halikiopoulou,
2019). This fact can also be added to the National Front’s effects
to the contemporary European politics.
The National Front managed to gain a wide electoral success
by using New Right strategy based on the theory of hegemony
politicizing migration issue and the invented security problems. It
has not only advocated stopping immigration but also defending
expulsion of immigrants from France. Also, the mainstream
politicians are accused by the National Front for having pursued an
irresponsible immigration policy and supporting multiculturalism
and insecurity. Thus, for the National Front, it is the immigrants
that keep coming who are the enemy; it is the outsiders that
constantly interfere with the internal affairs of sovereign country
who are the problem.
In addition, the National Front is not anymore the only subject
of this struggle for hegemony. Various groups and formations in
the mainstream, which have a wide range of influence, are also part
of this struggle for hegemony. Otherwise, it would not be so easy
to produce this consent. When the mainstream political leaders and
presidents adopt the rhetoric of the far right which marginalises
and insults immigrants they would receive great reactions from the
society and politicians would not repeat them. The rise of extreme
right and populism is also a phenomenon that points to the crisis
of liberalism and socialism. The extreme and populist discourses
are much more attractive alternative to the centre right and left
policies for the masses in crisis with the liberal order.
The Legitimization Process of the French National Front and its Migration... | 39
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45
CHAPTER 3
Profession as a Category of Society
Ali DEMIR8
1. INTRODUCTION
Professionalization is nowadays a term used to explain modern
society by defining it as the explanatory feature of society. Max
Weber, Emile Durkheim, Herbert Spencer, Talcott Parsons, Niklas
Luhmann and Jürgen Habermas have used concepts such as
centralization, rationalization, universalization and communication
indescribingand explainingsociety(Kurtz,2006; Kurtz,2011:
31-33). In this context, centralization and rationalization on
the one hand, universalization and communication on the other
hand, can be understood as two complementary processes.
Centralization could be defined as the process of unification both
on the basis of geography (center-periphery) and structure and
function. On the other hand, rationalization means the process of
unification based on effectiveness and efficiency. Universalization
8 Assist. Prof. Dr. Ali Demir, Avrasya University, Faculty of Economics and Admi-
nistrative Sciences, alidemirden@gmail.com, ORCID: 0000-0002-7955-0085
46 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
and communication, for their part, go together, since they too
mean like the two explanatory patterns of the same process. For by
universalization is meant the standardization of society according to
principles held to be generally valid. In this context, universalization
is a normative concept, while the concept of communication does
without the above-mentioned standardization.
But these processes of an increase in complexity could also be
examined under the concept of bureaucracy, especially since the first
two cases deal with the development from a monarchy to today’s
democratic rule of law. Indeed, precisely this point of view can be
questioned by the fact that, above all, today it is not the global and
extensive theories that are at stake, but their micro-foundation in
the functional systems of society (Demir, 2022c). This view would
use the organization as the explanatory variable. From this point
of view, the unit of analysis should no longer be the world, man or
ethics as such, but their manifestations in the respective subsystems
of society. Therefore, the process of centralization, rationalization
and universalization can be examined as the change from structures
to functions in an organisation. The question would then be where
exactly does this micro foundation take place?
Professionalization is a possible answer to that question. With
that answer, we determined actually professionalization as the
unit of investigation instead of centralization, rationalization and
universalization. That means, that we have to put personality in
the centre of the argument instead of society and culture (Parsons,
1951;Luhmann, 1997; Stichweh,2005a; Kurtz2022).For by
professionalization is meant, first of all, the educational process
from which a person becomes a professional. The child is taken
out of the safe framework of the family and equipped with the
appropriate skills and abilities for specific purposes, in order to
accomplish what is not inherent in his biological nature but in his
social identity. In this respect, it is primarily a matter of training
the next generation of elites. Education and formation are objects
of pedagogy. The question is how pedagogy, in view of the fact
Profession as a Categori of Society | 47
that, first, in contrast to natural science, in social science there is no
generally validly secured system of knowledge from whose results
could be drawn or with whose goals, insights, methods could
have been worked, and second, in everyday pedagogical life it is
about practical education and upbringing, should be regarded as a
science, as a discipline at all (Natorp, 1904: 154 f; Dilthey, 1986:
65; Dewe and Radtke, 1991: 154-157). A possible answer can be
derived with Dilthey from it itself, from “pedagogy,” which goes
back to as ancient Greek word paideia.
“This paideia is so splendid a structure of the Greek total
spirit as art and science. Once as education itself, but then in
its interweaving with the formation of the nation in general,
which in this comprehensive sense is something else than
scientific or artistic creation. Finally, it is the shaping of
the work of art of the person or of personal education, the
essential thing which produces the culture of an age and
makes possible all its individual achievements. It is the unity
of the same.9” (Dilthey, 1986: 21)
Dilthey also refers in advance to the term “paidagogia” as the
“accompaniment and supervision of the boy by the boy’s guide”
and intends paideia to clarify the internal relationship between
instruction and education as opposed to dressage (Dilthey, 1986:
20). Pedagogy as the action of teaching, as of boy-leading is here
complementary with the education as a discipline. In fact, as Dilthey
also nicely points out in the quotation, in the term “paideai” there
are unity, identity, artifact, and the harmony, as well as action in the
form of an art value. Here is still included the praising of the gods,
the singing for the gods, the harmonizing with them. Here Plato’s
9 Original wording: Diese paideia ist so herrliches Gebilde des griechischen Ge-
samtgeistesalsKunstundWissenschaft.EinmalalsErziehungselbst,dannaber
in ihrer Verwebung mit der Bildung der Nation überhaupt, die in diesem um-
fassenden Sinn noch etwas anderes ist als wissenschaftliches oder künstlerisches
Schaffen.SieistschliesslichdieGestaltungdesKunstwerksderPersonoderder
persönlichenBildung, dasWesenhafte,was dieKultureines Zeitalters hervor-
bringt und alle seine Einzelleistungen ermöglicht. Sie ist die Einheit derselben.
48 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
idea of a perfect, unified, unifying state is still preserved, but also
the idea of a common identity not (only) on the basis of descent,
but also through practical participation in common education and
upbringing.
The Greek tradition of paideia was later specified by the Latin
word humanitas from the morality of the gods back to man on
earth, thus also acquiring a stronger reference to society. With this
first disenchantment, pedagogy was now no longer solely about
higher values such as morality, but also about concrete education
and training of the next generation of statesmen, judges, teachers,
craftsmen, soldiers, but also artists and/or slaves, for example, for
the artful but also deadly battles in the colosseo. In this respect, it is
not surprising that even today pedagogy is not only about higher
values, about being human, about general education, but also, for
example, about vocational training, competence acquisition and
certificate or master of advances studies, as Reichenbach points
out (Reichenbach, 2013: 93 f).
From that point of view, professionalization is a concept that
basically goes back not only to question of education, of boy-
leading, but also to the question of the theory-practice relationship.
But Talcott Parsons was transferred this question to the discourse
about the types of action and the corresponding rationality.
Accordingly, purposive, rational action based on a legitimate value
not only takes place in religion, economics and law, as Weber has
already worked out, but also in medicine. Professionals monopolize
their actions by offering an essential service based on knowledge
and technology. Science, art, sport, tourism etc. could be counted
among these today. Accordingly, professions can arise in almost
any area, provided that there knowledge and skills are reflected
and monopolized as a service with appropriate fee. In view of the
establishment of the professions, Parsons’ concept of the profession
and thus its explanatory power was variously discussed and further
developed (Larson, 1977; Abbott, 1988; Stichweh, 2005b and
2006; Demir, 2022b).
Profession as a Categori of Society | 49
In the more recent, but also primarily system-theoretical
contributions, professions are not only seen as part of modern
society, but also as a reflection of it. In the systems-theoretical
approaches, professions also take on the function of communication
and integration between the sub-systems of society. They either
carry out the decision made according to the plan, or they oppose
the plan and thus cause the opposite of the communicated intention.
They are thus assigned the function of leading the decision to a
questioning or exactly the opposite, namely the questioning to a
decision. In this respect, they are the mediators who convert the
communicated will into a yes or no decision depending on the idea
and interests. In this understanding, professions have the function
of an improbable possibility; not the success, but their inclusion in
the sense of communication is at the center of the debate (Becker,
1962; Hartmann, 1968; Geison, 1983; Siegrist, 1988; Luhmann,
1990and1997;Kurtz,2011and2022).
The end result today is systems and action-theoretical
approaches, models and theories of professionalization (Lenzen,
1991; Oevermann, 1997; Kurtz, 2005 and 2006; Burawoy,
2021;Kurtz,2022).Today,almostallprofessionsareknowledge-
based, both in training and in practice. In the spirit of Hughes
interactionism, it is about ensuring a common understanding that
is guided by a general principle (Hughes, 1958 and 1963). Mere
knowledge would not be sufficient for successful communication
between the professional and the person claiming the professional’s
service. Without the socially shared value base, pure knowledge
would not explain either the existence of the profession or the need
for the patient to seek out professionals. In this respect, today it is
not about knowledge as such, but about a kind of knowledge that
is accepted in the processes of the legitimate institutions of society
and considered right, good and just. Classic professions such as
lawyers, pastors, doctors and teachers have the advantage that
society trusts them to interpret the knowledge anchored in society
in their own interest but to the advantage of general interests.
50 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Today’s experts lack this advantage. Stichweh’s contribution
should be embedded in this moment of tension.
2. STICHWEH’S CONCEPT OF PROFESSION
In this contribution the main focus is on the approach of Rudolf
Stichweh. What sets Stichweh apart from the other researchers
that he was one of the first, writing about a connection between
professions’ research and theory of society (Stichweh, 1994).
Based on Luhmanns concept of society, he stresses the fact that
it needs to be explained that society at the transition from the
old type of society i.e., ordered according to certain structures,
to newly functionally differentiated societies has assumed a new
form without discontinuities, i.e., without social revolutions
(Luhmann, 1990; Kurtz, 2011). For this he operates with the
concepts, namely of structure and function. The question remains
unanswered, however, how this transition became possible?
How were old structures assigned new functions? The concept
of profession is a possible answer to that question. Stichweh
consequently traces this transition in the “relationship between
performance and complementary roles as a professional/client
relationship” (Stichweh, 1996: 60). Here, it is not so much
professionals, but functional systems that can and must meet the
expectation of specialization and generalization at the same time.
Stichweh thesis will be discussed mainly with his two
complementary contributions (1996; 1987). These deal with a
communication that initiates the transition from concrete persons
to abstract functional systems. Professionalism emerges here no
longer as the functional interaction pattern of an integration at a
structurally hierarchical society, but as the characteristic of inclusive
organizations, of inclusive functional systems of modern societies.
For this analysis, the transition from the “old” to modern societies
will first be described. Then this transition will be explained with
the example of science as a system by differentiating it into science
and profession. Thereby, the question of functional equivalence of
Profession as a Categori of Society | 51
this differentiation in its historical continuity will be raised; how
was a property and capital based status of a citizen within a society
as a whole transitioned to a belonging to a profession within in the
system of science achieved through knowledge and its reflection?
2.1. Parson’s theory of professionalization
However, to understand Stichweh we have to start the
discourse on professionalization with Parsons. For that, we must
first state that Parsons himself based on Max Weber’s concept
of action and rationality presents a theory of professionalization
using physicians as an example (Weber, 1980). There he poses the
question of how nursing practice has changed from a voluntary
activity with a tendency to magi, pseudo-science to a full-time
commitment under rational conditions (Parsons, 1951: 313-
318). In this context, Parsons sees the distinguishing feature of
professions in the fact that they offer something essential in return
for payment, institutionalized, and bound by universal norms.
Thus, within the health care system, physicians offer their service
on the basis of a technical-scientific education according to their
Oath of Hippocrates life.
„It is not only that the patient has a need to be helped, but
that this need is institutionally categorized, that the nature
and implications of this need are socially recognized, and
the kind of help, the appropriate general pattern of action in
relation to the source of help, are defined. It is not only the
sick person’s own condition and personal reactions to what
should be done about it which are involved, but he is placed
in an institutionally defined framework which mobilizes
others in his situation in support of the same patterns which
are imputed to him, which is such an important feature of
his role. The fact that others than the patient himself often
define that he is sick, or sick enough for certain measures to
be taken, is significant.
52 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
On the other side of the relationship, the collectivity-
orientation of the physician, and its universalism, neutrality
and specificity, make it possible for the things he has to do
to perform his function to be made acceptable to the patient
and his family. These include validation of his professional
authority and justification of the ‚privileges’ he must be
accorded.“ (Parsons, 1951: 319 f)
Parsons emphasizes, on the one hand, the role of the patient
as the institutionally entitled recipient of the professionals’ service
and, on the other hand, the rationalization of the conditions of
service as well as the hidden resistances to these modernization
efforts (Parsons, 1951: 291 f). In this context, he treats this system
of expectations in terms of deviance and social control (Parsons,
1951: 33, 169-219).
„Deviance and the mechanisms of social control may be
defined in two ways, according to whether the individual actor
or the interactive system is taken as the point of reference. In
the first context deviance is a motivated tendency for an actor
to behave in contravention of one or more institutionalized
normative patterns, while the mechanisms of social control
are the motivated processes in the behavior of this actor, and
of the others with whom he is in interaction, by which these
tendencies to deviance tend in turn to be counteracted. In
the second context, that of the interactive system, deviance is
the tendency on the part of one or more of the component
actors to behave in such a way as to disturb the equilibrium
of the interactive process (whether a static or a moving
equilibrium). Deviance therefore is defined by its tendency to
result either in change in the state of the interactive system,
or in re-equilibration by counteracting forces, the latter being
the mechanisms of social control.“ (Parsons, 1951: 169 f)
In this context, Parsons lists the reasons, motives for deviation
(170 f), relates them to the structures of the respective society (191
Profession as a Categori of Society | 53
f), and then brings them into a relationship with social control
(Parsons, 1951: 201-219). In this system of expectations, Parsons
relates illness to a dysfunctionality of the system of expectations.
This is because illness appears here as the state of an agent’s inability
to perform effectively (Parsons, 1951: 289). Illness is a deviation
because it puts the given person in a dependency element. The
incapacity of the diseased person is the basis for a leverage of social
control (Parsons, 1951: 174, 193). This social control is in the
hands of the physician as a representative of society. Therapy is used
as an occasion to bring the patient to social control in the socially
accepted manner. The patient and the doctor act during the therapy
according to the principle of collective orientation. In return,
the patient is absolved of certain social, societal responsibilities
according to the element of permissiveness (Parsons, 1951: 201-
217). For example, the patient does not have to work during this
period. He is not legally prosecuted for his actions. On the other
hand, the doctor treats him according to universal characteristics
of his profession for specificity and the affective neutrality.
Depending on the expectation, the patient is met within the social
and professional value system either according to the reward or
punishment element of social control (Parsons, 1951: 212).
2.2. The transition to functionally differentiated societies
Stichweh follows Parsons but generalizes the professionalization
theory to society at large. Just as Parsons considered in patient-
doctor relationship as an example of his theory of social systems,
Stichweh sees in his theory of professionalization an example of
the execution of systems theory. Niklas Luhmann had already
attributed an independence to the functional systems of society
in his book Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (Society of Society).
On the basis of Luhmann’s explanations, Stihweh intends to
verify the assumptions of this theory using the example of science
(Kurtz,2011).Inthe following,the approachofStichweh will
be discussed, who follows the assumption of system theory and
54 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
explains the question of the reasons for the emergence of the
profession as well as its differentiation within the transition from
structures to functions.
According to Stichweh, the transition to modern society was
accompanied by a generalization of functional systems. No longer
specific professions, but the respective functional systems became
structure-forming. In this respect, professionalization would
mean “a certain relationship between the establishment of the
system/environment relationship of a functional system and the
institutionalization of professionalism in this system” (Stichweh,
1996: 58). In doing so, Stichweh differentiates profession into
performance and complementary roles. “Performance roles choose
to specialize in the communications that the autopoiesis of the
respective functional system accomplishes. Complementary roles
institutionalize an audience status and thus introduce an asymmetry
into the autopoiesis of the system.” (Stichweh, 1996: 59 f)
In modern, autopoietic societies and within their functional
systems, the relationship between performance and complementary
roles is institutionalized in the structures of professions as a
professional-client relationship. Borrowing from Lange and
Luhmann’s question (Lange and Luhmann, 1974) about “whether
professionalism could still be an independent sociopolitical factor-
like stratification and organization?” he assumes that professions
concern “the form and degree of integration of modern society”
(Stichweh, 1996: 49 f). “Professions are a phenomenon of the
transition from the estates-based society of old Europe to the
functionally differentiated society of modernity, and that they have
their social significance primarily in this.” (Stichweh, 1996: 50)
With this thesis, Stichweh first deals in general with functional
systems in terms of their generalization and differentiation;
thus, economics can integrate a number of professions, such
as entrepreneurs, managers, economists, MBAs, technicians,
engineers, accountants, etc., in its functioning. Nevertheless, in
Profession as a Categori of Society | 55
its generality, it remains structuring for a number of professions.
Stichweh attributes similar capacity to politics, religion, law, health,
mass communication, sports, and tourism (Stichweh, 1996: 57 ff).
“In all these systems, other professions exist besides that of
the doctor, the clergyman, the teacher, the lawyer (lawyer,
judge), and the professional soldier. In all these cases,
however, it is true that a hierarchy of professional work has
been established, which takes the form that the respective
leading profession controls the work of the other professions
in the system.” (Stichweh, 1996: 61)
Stichweh uses the example of the scientific enterprise, the
universities as the unity of scientific disciplines and professional
operations of action, to examine the differentiation of a functionally
differentiated society (Stichweh, 1987: 278). In doing so, he ties
in with the differentiation already made by Parsons between a
rationality of action, using the example of the market economy,
and that of an administrative execution of action, which for
Parsons were in communication with each other via the cultural
system (Stichweh, 1987: 281; Parsons, 1951). Stichweh conceives
this differentiation in its own unity as a theory of inclusion
under the aspect of generalization (Stichweh, 1987: 281). This
differentiation takes place by replacing the vertical hierarchization
of the old society with a new type of hierarchization, and from this,
the old structure was then transformed into an internal asymmetry
between science/discipline and profession:
“An asymmetry of university-institutionalized science and
profession then lies in the fact that professors in ‘professional
schools’ may be dispensable practical experience with
professional work, but conversely not that elite and even
professorial status in a profession would be attainable today
without prior academic study. This asymmetry, however,
is now resymmetrized by the professions by restoring the
balance of academic-scientific and professional-client values
56 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
even at the top by creating dual elites almost without
exception.” (Stichweh, 1987: 286)
There is a hierarchy in science today as well, but it is (a) functional
and in this function it brings about inclusion (b), which in turn
is a function that enables functional systems to couple to society
as the unit of units. This is the core of this theory. Professions,
according to this understanding, are the functional equivalence of
the old structure of belonging, acquired on the basis of property
and capital and integrated into estates (Stichweh, 1996: 55).
2.3. Genealogy of the profession
Stichweh reads the process of the emergence of professions from
a genealogical perspective. According to this, this differentiation
owes itself to an internal dissolution of the culture of scholarship,
which was cultivated until the 19th century, itself leading to a decay
of professional roles, which were dually specialized either in the
address of the businessman to the goods and services in economic
markets or in the person of the civil servant to the safeguarding
of public order in the bureaucracy (Stichweh, 1987: 287 f). Both
roles merge in the professions of modern society, each with its
own specific characteristics. From this point of view, professions
are a phenomenon of the transition from a hierarchically structured
community of old Europe to a horizontally differentiated society of
modern, autopoetic society. The choice of profession is carried out
by differentiating from a normative, genetically determined vocation
to an achievement acquired not only by talent but also by personal
commitment. Instead of attributions and affiliations to statuses
that are considered innate, skills such as willingness to perform,
performance and organizational fit are becoming more important.
The formation of structure is no longer ordered down by the king,
but also experienced from below through individual decisions (51).
Instead of attributions that are considered innate, choosing a career
based on social skills and abilities and performance is becoming
more important. Stichweh’s understanding is presented below.
Profession as a Categori of Society | 57
Table 1: Old Europe and the new, modern society
Old Europe Modern Societies
Differentiation Vertically hierarchized Horizontally differentiated
attained through personal
achievement in society
Personality Status attributed
personality
Personality acquired
through own achievement
in society
Occupation Stand and property (trade)
as appointed vocation
performance earned thanks
to talent
as part of profession.
Knowledge Religion as organization
to personal knowledge and
value
Pedagogy as organization
of self-observation and
observation by others
Communication Communication about
religiously legitimized
office-holding through
practical office-buying
Communication
about instrumental
disinterestedness through
secularized corpus of
knowledge
During this phase, professions with a monopoly potential are
assigned the function of profanation, after which the knowledge
acquired in them with an otherworldly orientation was rationalized
as well as individuated according to a professional idea and the
corresponding canonization, as well as their factual and social
teachability.
“The outside observers conclude from external signs
about inner predispositions, and from the handling of this
competence the profession of the educator emerges as an
activity that is no longer absorbed in a transmission of
knowledge and values considered unproblematic, but rather
presupposes the observation of individuality.” (Stichweh,
1996: 51)
The individuation of the profession corresponds to the phase
of professional individualism on the market, which according to
58 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Stichweh was initiated in Germany with Allgemeine Landrecht of
1794, in which the modern professional is prompted to activism
and functional specification of his action (Stichweh, 1987: 300).
Consequently, on the one hand, in place of diffuse attributions,
more general and specific intrinsic performances about knowledge
and possession become important, and on the other hand, in place
of acting and not acting, reflection, the justifiability of choice
become more important (Stichweh, 1987: 303 f).
In this transition, Stichweh sees a first specificity of
professions in their role-formality, which can be experienced
when certain expectations are communicated from alter to ego.
If a profession accepts this communication even contrary to its
objective, it is a profession. In contrast, according to Stichweh,
its difference from science, from discipline, is that disciplines,
as self-sufficient social systems, can ignore precisely these pre-
determinations (Stichweh, 1987: 310). Accordingly, disciplines
can react to attempts at hierarchization from the environment by
withdrawing without suffering any damage from it. Conversely,
they would assert their claims even if other functional systems do
not adjust to them.
According to Stichweh discipline is claimed by theorists. Not
action but non-acting is the main modus vivendi by theorists. Their
communication would be directed inward to colleagues, in the
form of abstract problems, used both for ensuring the creation,
production, organization, training of next generation and for self-
representation. The people with the role would be perceived as
scholars without expectation of charisma, who also perform their
job without an exhilaration mission, without an orientation to
audience outside the discipline. On a personality level, scientists
lead reclusive lives. This isolation of the scientist allows him or her
an unconventional lifestyle and communicative informality, but
also the strict rationality in working life and its reversal in private
life.
Profession as a Categori of Society | 59
Professions, on the other hand, are accordingly the specialists
with a reference to action. Their generality consists in their
practical relevance, which is why they, if anything, conduct applied
research and have a close communication, and yes relationship
to their clients. Communication with colleagues would be
through practical referrals (of the client and the information),
in which associations would be monitored. On the personality
level, professionals are said to have, on the one hand, a certain
marginality and, on the other hand, a trustworthiness vis-à-vis a
critical audience, because of peculiarities of the cultivated contacts
and the resulting relative intimacy with clients even outside of
work. Structurally, professions are characterized by a monopoly
claim with an inclusion function. As a rule, professionals cope with
crises typical of action theory from their clients, which endanger an
integrity of life. This inclusion function with a monopoly claim is
duplicated in the respective knowledge systems (Stichweh, 1987:
310-319; Stichweh, 1996: 53 f).
The status assignments tied to status, land ownership and
property are sought functional equivalents in the profession with the
corresponding knowledge type (Stichweh, 1996: 51 f). According
to Stichweh, the rationalization of the professional function not
only marked the transition from structurally hierarchical estates to
horizontally organized professional functions, but also “diversified”
and “de-hierarchized” the existing professions (teachers, judges,
and doctors) (52). In them, not only property and capital, but
also knowledge and skill are established as the central condition of
social belonging. The independence of the citizen based on his or
her land ownership, property and capital and the corresponding
right to vote was thus restructured by a right of co-determination
of the professions. Thus, professors, physicians, and lawyers, as
holders of state-guaranteed academic degrees, became politically,
socially, and functionally equal to property and capital owners
(Stichweh, 1996: 52).
60 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
“While commerce and landed property acquire their special
position by the fact that they each come into question as
representatives of a significant social interest, the special
nature of professions lies precisely in the fact that they do not
possess or embody an interest of their own and therefore are
peculiar to themselves as the objects of trust of a not small
number of citizens.” (Stichweh, 1996: 53)
Uninterest is thus the equivalent of incumbency, which,
after all, could be transformed into office-buying. According
to this, both in the case of a citizen’s independence attained
in land ownership, property and capital, that is, the one actor
who belonged to the castle, and in the case of the professional’s
independence attained in knowledge and skill, the claim to
generality was raised. In the first case by the interest and in the
second case by its reversal, namely by a disinterest in the interests
of the bourgeoisie (Stichweh, 1996: 55).
This showed its consequences according to Stichweh in the fact
that these professionals claim a new type of knowledge with a high
generality, specification and flexibility, which is also the reason
for the fact that, for example, lawyers represent and act according
to their own maxims in politics, science, economy, army, etc.
(Stichweh, 1996: 54). In this new function, professions represent
the new inclusion principle of social differentiation on the basis of
the profane factual criteria and the corresponding secular corpus
of knowledge. They, too, must demonstrate a general competence.
And they do this by appearing as general practitioners, thus also
evading certain trends (Stichweh, 1996: 54 f).
In the economic markets, this reorientation takes place through
a communication of disinterest in the function of the professions
in the new society in that it is no longer the customers themselves,
but the professionals who provide an objectified justification
in each case before and/or after the subjective demands of their
customers. This would have the consequence first of all that
Profession as a Categori of Society | 61
certain demands could be ignored despite the solvency of the
customers and at the same time however other, risky services and
products could be made available by the establishment of the
insurance systems. In both cases, the professional would obtain a
high autonomy, independence, which could be achieved especially
through specializations in certain products and/or markets. The
unitary system thus achieved their stability no longer from political
power, but through the system’s own type of communication of
scarcity, signaled by the limitations of the number of professionals,
practice times, waiting times, etc. (Stichweh, 1987: 289 f).
2.4. Structure of professional action
Professions are characterized not only by a specialization in
a crisis-like constellation of a risky application of knowledge,
but also by the uncertain control over the consequences of
performed actions. The actions performed in professions are
in fact inversely related in terms of complexity to the available
knowledge and control, as already emphasized by Parsons. In this
respect, professional action is a unit of action of contradictory
components. In its positive interpretation, this would be reflected
in the autonomy of the professionals’ problem definition. In fact,
in every profession there is a non-standardized, homogeneous role
expectation, which is communicated by the fact that professionals
and clients can react personally depending on the constellation,
with the power of definition about when this is the case and when
it is not completely in the hands of the professional (297). This
is the structural prerequisite of the above-mentioned objectifiable
aspects of need in the markets according to their own criteria.
At the same time, it can also be seen as the reversal of the king’s
security in old society, which is now reproduced in the form of the
professions’ insecurity (Stichweh, 1987: 296-310).
Professionals consequently appear from this logic either as a
response to the increase in contingency through science with
the expectation of a reduction in complexity, or as a reaction to
62 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
uncertainty with an execution of action or its omission (Stichweh,
1987: 298; Demir, 2022a). In addition to this precondition of the
emergence of professions, Stichweh lists two further reasons with
which a difference from the preceding as well as from disciplinary
science is determined. These are “differentiation of client orientation
and the assertion of the primacy of action reference” (299). By
differentiation of client orientation Stichweh means on the one
hand the self-attributions that may be derived from a professional
ethic, and at the same time so that not the client as a person, but
his situation is represented or taken into the focus of consideration
(299). According to this logic of argumentation, “the preference
for a self-understanding, the partiality of commitment to a client”
has been favored only since modernity and has become factually
possible with the establishment of professions (Stichweh, 1987:
300). The significance of this reinterpretation lies in the fact that
Stichweh sees in it a new type of organizational formation.
“Only when, in addition to persons as clients, organizations
increasingly appear as clients, or when processes of internal
differentiation in a profession (example: specialization of
medical activity in the modern hospital) create a need for
coordination, does the formation of organizations on the
part of the professionals increase.” (Stichweh, 1996: 64)
One consequence of this, according to Stichweh, is the
separation between the process of admission to the profession
and internal control through professional association. New,
free associations are formed, which also deal with questions of
ethics, continuing education, scientific publication, patterns of
specialization, advertising and profitability, etc., according to their
functions. At the same time, this resulted in a destratification in
society and a strengthening of the tendency towards the emergence
of a functionally differentiated society (Stichweh, 1987: 291-296).
The conversion of society from the vertical hierarchical pattern
of action to horizontal relationships was thus reproduced in the
structures of the profession and, in the case of lawyers, an internal
Profession as a Categori of Society | 63
differentiation into barrister and solicitor was also made. In this
structural formation, according to Stichweh, in addition to the
old high/low duality, the internal differentiation of in/out (inside/
outside) can now also be observed (Stichweh, 1987: 291-296).
2.5. Professions, semi-professions and disciplines
Stichweh analyzes this new hierarchy in the structures of
professions with a distinction between professionals and professions
mediating with clients and semi-professions (Stichweh, 1987:
320-324). According to this, semi-professions are characterized by
a mechanization of work processes and diffusivity of competencies,
so that “the result is a subordination under dominant professional
and disciplinary groups”, as is the case with notaries and librarians
(Stichweh, 1987: 321). For the description of mediating
professions, that is, those that mediate between professional and
client, Stichweh reconstructs the professionalization of orderlies
(Krankenwärter) and nurses in Germany who were not nuns
and deaconesses. In them, Stichweh sees the consequences of
destratification of professions and deprofessionalization of pre-
modern occupational groups. Thus, pharmacist profession
positions itself with high influence between natural science and
medicine. In contrast, he sees the homogenization of physicians
as an example of the dysfunctionality of pharmacists. Training
length, specialization and client orientation are moments of that
differentiation (Stichweh, 1987: 321).
Careers in disciplines and professions, according to Stichweh,
have no structural connection with professional practice in the
respective fields of action. This has two consequences; first,
professions would not know an upward and/or downward
progression in the distinction between technical to administrative
functions, which is why administration is tied to professional
personnel (322). Second, the recruitment of professional elites
is not tied to the prerequisite of a research and/or practice. But
64 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
there is a mobility of profession between professions and semi-
professions (Stichweh, 1987: 322 f).
He classifies the teaching profession and social work among the
professions, although the teacher was counted as part of theology
and although all almost subjects in school are “the subject of a system
of disciplinary knowledge production” (Stichweh, 1987: 323). It
was only in the new schools that the transition from religious to
secular bodies of knowledge and the transmission of knowledge
through the scientific disciplines was accomplished. Functionally,
the teaching profession is a mediating profession, since in school
not only knowledge is imparted, but also education (Stichweh,
1987: 323). According to Stichweh, social work is also a type of
action without its own independence, neither in the definition of
the problem, the determination of the object, nor in the method
and its theorization. It is exposed to an instrumentalization against
which it cannot defend itself (Stichweh, 1996: 63 f).
3. CONCLUSION
Two conclusions can be drawn from the discourse; firstly,
professions are characterized by their type of knowledge, their
unconditional structure and their type of organization. For example,
in political consulting we can speak of a knowledge structure
that, on the one hand, is distinguished from everyday knowledge
by its high quality and density, and, on the other hand, differs
from scientific knowledge in that it requires a purpose-rationally
determined type of knowledge. From the consultation the advisor
expects a knowledge type supporting the goal of the (re)choice.
The advice should help to create the election atmosphere to own
advantage before the election and to motivate the electorate to
own course during the election. Any knowledge that approximates
the actor to this objective is good. Conversely, all knowledge
that distances the actor from this objective is bad. In this respect,
knowledge is needed that contradicts neither everyday knowledge
nor scientific knowledge.
Profession as a Categori of Society | 65
Arrived at this insight, the question arises, by what the work
of the consultant is to be measured. The answer can be derived
from the type of knowledge, since it primarily serves the objectives
of the person who uses the advice but not the self-purposes of
the advising person. There is at least a tension between these two
actors. In this respect, an orientation to the type of knowledge
would lead to a tautology; knowledge is good if it serves the
purpose, so success depends on the knowledge. In this form,
there is causality between knowledge type and success, but no
relationship between knowledge type and degree of success of the
two different actors. Therefore, another variable is needed that not
only distinguishes these two actors from each other, but also sets
the difference between profession and experts: The experts in any
profession can, may and must work according to a given objective.
In contrast, the members of the professions must act according to
a universalistic value that is reflected, regulated and accepted as
well as agreed upon according to general principles within their
own ranks, that is, within their own society. In contrast to experts,
professions are oriented to this internal unconditionality structure;
whoever the client is, with whatever objective, motive, value and
consequences the person appeals to the professions, the professions
act within the framework of this unconditionality structure. This
framework consists, on the one hand, of these values, principles
and theories and, on the other hand, of the type of organization
in which the professions are located. Here, too, the contrast with
experts can be helpful for clarification; while the organizational
structure of experts requires a high, vertical hierarchy due to
their orientation towards effectiveness and efficiency, professions
organize themselves in horizontally dense structures. Monasteries,
universities and parliaments are good examples of the professions’
organizational type.
The second conclusion is: Stichweh presents an approach
oriented to T. Parsons and N. Luhmann, which is not about the
integration of a personality deviating from the norm, but about
66 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
the communication of inclusive functional systems without a
socially predetermined normative target state. Stichweh deals
with professionalization no longer as a form of rationalization of
an inner logic of a subsystem of the society with a tendency to
deviation, but as the transition from the old Europa to the new type
of society, which in its function serves Stichweh a confirmation of
his thesis, according to which professions can be worked out in
its continuity at the transition to modern society. Professionalism
is the functionally equivalent interaction pattern of a social
transition from feudal-sacral to capitalist societies organized
around the distribution of profane goods with the corresponding
functional systems. Therefore, the question was how without a
discontinuity from estates to professions, to a society of profession
passed. Professions join the line of the businessman, the scholar
and the civil servant thanks to a change in society. Stichweh treats
professionalism no longer as a pattern of interaction between
laymen and professionals (patient-doctor relationship), but as an
inclusion mechanism of a functionally differentiated society using
the example of organizations/functional systems. The structure-
forming claim to integration of the old society is communicated
within the new, functionally differentiated society in the inclusion
function of its units.
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CHAPTER 4
Effects of Conservative Reporting on
Value Relevance: Evidence from Turkey
Özgecan ÖZER10
1. INTRODUCTION
Accounting information disclosed by financial statements has
an important role especially in the decision-making process and in
the development of efficient capital markets. Importantly, major
recent efforts in accounting have been to expand the concept of
corporate governance and establish a single financial reporting
standard to obtain comparable, useful, understandable and reliable
accounting information.
Conservatism (prudence), which is one of the basic concepts
of accounting practices, has an important place in development
and efforts. Conservatism is defined by Watts (2003a) as the
10 PhD. Instructor, Baskent University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative
Sciences, Department of Management, ozgecanozer@baskent.edu.tr, ORCID:
0000-0003-1115-1675
72 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
differential verifiability required for the recognition of profits
versus losses. Penman and Zhang (2002) define it as a consistently
applied accounting practice that keeps the book value of net assets
relatively low. In its most extreme form, accountants traditionally
define conservatism with the rule: “Do not expect profits but
estimate all losses.” (Basu, 1997). Despite criticism from many
quarters, including standard-setters, conservatism has not only
existed in accounting for centuries but has grown in the last 30
years.
As an emerging capital market, Turkey has been strongly
affected by the accounting reforms in the world, and thus, the
accounting reform has been carried out with the mandatory
implementation of International Financial Reporting Standards
(IFRS) from publicly traded companies in 2005, after the
regulatory agency. Capital Markets Board (CMB) has published the
principle-based standard (Communiqué Serial: XI No: 25) called
TurkishAccountingStandards inCapitalMarkets(Kocakulahet
al., 2009). In addition, the CMB enacted new laws on corporate
governance principles in order to harmonize Turkish legislation
with international markets and created the Corporate Governance
Index. One of the main pillars of institutional arrangements is to
encourage companies to be more conservative (Acar and Aktürk,
2009). Regulations controlling prudence-related issues include the
Tax Procedure Law enacted by the Ministry of Finance, the Turkish
Accounting Standards (TMS) issued by the Turkish Accounting
StandardsBoard(TMSK),andtheTurkishCommercialCodeby
the Ministry of Justice.
The adoption of IFRS in Turkey has been an important step
towards providing more relevant information for more financial
statement users. The Conceptual Framework of IFRS does not
explicitly address the prudent/conservatism principle. It expresses
the idea that calculations should not reflect an overly optimistic or
overly pessimistic view of reliability and objectivity, and therefore
provisions should reflect reality. Due to the current view of events,
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 73
it cannot be increased and only “plus” profits (IFRS Workbooks-
PWC). In general, the harmonization of IFRS may have changed
the level of conservatism in financial reports, as valuation principles
have changed from historical cost measurement to fair value
measurement. However, current research studies on the impact
of IFRS on the level of conservatism do not provide conclusive
and consistent results due to the lack of cumulative data after the
implementation of IFRS.
The purpose of this research is to examine the level of
conservatism in the Turkish Accounting System before and after
IFRS and to investigate the effects of prudent or non-prudent
reporting on the value relevance of earnings in Turkey over two
sub-periods of 2000 -2003 and 2006-2009. The motivation to
undertake research stems from two reasons. The first reason is
the incentive to test whether the level of conservatism has been
affected after the transition to IFRS. Second, given the limited
literature on the relation of earnings relevance and conservatism
in accounting information, it is important to explore whether
conservatism describe earnings for market prices. Thus, due to the
results of two sub-periods, before and after the adoption of IFRS,
it will be examined whether IFRS affects had any impact on the
level of conservatism along with the value relevance of accounting
information.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The academic literature about earnings conservatism and
its relation with the relevance of accounting information has
become controversial given two different research paths that are
not independent of each other. First of all, it has been presented
that the effects of conservatism has been increased in the United
States and many other countries over the past four decades (Givoly
and Hayn, 2000). ; Holthausen and Watts, 2001; Grambovas
et al. 2006; Bushman and Piotroski, 2006). As another way of
investigating the earnings quality, he revealed that the relationship
74 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
of earnings and book values shows a decreasing trend pattern over
the same time period (Collins et al., 1997).
Regarding the different ways of evaluating the effect of
conservative reporting on the value relevance of earnings, there
are conflicting results on this subject. However, there is an
observable approach that conservatism can be a possible reason
forthedecreaseinthevalueofearnings(Kusenidisetal.2009).
Kusenidisetal.receive.(2009)observedanon-linearrelationship
between two figures and states that the information content of
accounting earnings for stock returns decreases over time, while
the level of conservatism showed a rising trend among firms after
2009, although it did not increase.
In addition, Sterling (1967) and Watts (2003a) underline the
benefits of conservative accounting, such as providing reliable
information to capital markets. Balachandran and Mohanram
(2006) find that the value relevance of accounting information
that involves conservative reported earnings is greater than for
non-conservative earnings. However, they stress that the degree
of conservatism is unlikely to be related primarily to the degree to
which it relates to the value of accounting gains.
In addition, Watts (2003) argues that conservatism reduces some
accounting measurement errors and thus increases the reliability
of financial statements. Considering its importance for decision
makers, reliability is one of the major characteristics of financial
reports, and conservative reporting may then positively affect the
value relevance of earnings and the accounting information.
3. ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK AND
METHODOLOGY
3.1. Measuring Conservatism
Basically, there are several models for measuring conservatism
that stand out in the accounting literature. Basu (1997) defines
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 75
conservatism as the timelier recognition of bad news about future
cash flows than good news about earnings, and states that stock
returns in efficient markets reflect all publicly available news
symmetrically and quickly. Therefore, he defines conservatism as
an asymmetrical way in which good and bad news are accepted
in earnings, and its methodology becomes one of the leading
criteriaformeasuringconservatismintheliterature(Kusenidiset
al. 2009).
Givoly and Hayn (2000) derive alternative measures from the
accrual-based approach. They examine the relationship between
earnings and cash flows to identify structural changes in the
accounting reporting system and investigate whether changes in
the time series characteristics of earnings, cash flows, and accruals
are consistent with increased discretion. For this reason, the
precautionary criteria they use in their articles are based on the
accumulation of NPLs, the actuality of earnings related to good
and bad news, the characteristics of the earnings distribution, and
the market/book ratio. Its results reveal an increasing conservatism
in financial reporting over time. Penman and Zhang’s (2002)
conservatism measure focuses on accounting practices based on
inventory, research and development, and advertising reserves
and identifies poor-quality earnings from prudent accounting and
investment changes.
This research paper will apply Basu’s (1997) methodology to
measure conservatism. Specifically, he argues, because accountants
expect future losses, not future profits, conservatism results in
gains that are more timely and also more sensitive to publicly
available bad news than good news. Since earnings are expected to
be strongly correlated with concurrent negative unexpected returns
as a proxy for bad news and positive unexpected returns as a proxy
for good news, his model uses stock returns to measure news.
(1)
76 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Where EPSi,t is the earnings per share of firm i at year t; Pi,t-
1 is the price per share at the end of the three months after the
previous fiscal year; DVi,t is a dummy variable that takes the value
1 if returns of firms i at year t are negative and 0 if positive; Ri,t
is the annually compounded stock returns of firm i at year t; and
RDVi,t is the stock return of firm i at year t times the individual
DV dummy variable. Thus, RDVi,t will be equal to Ri,t if returns
are negative and zero otherwise.
In particular, Basu model is inverse regression with Ordinary
Least Squares standard errors as the dependent variable and the
test statistics are better specified when the leading variable is
specified as independent and the lagging variable as a dependent
(Basu, 1997). According to Basu, the slope coefficient β3 measures
the increasing explanatory power of negative returns over positive
returns for earnings and can be used as a measure of conditional
conservatism. The higher the level of conservatism, the greater the
asymmetry in the recognition of good versus bad news. Therefore,
a higher level of conservatism leads to a higher value of the β3
coefficient.
In addition, the article also uses the market-adjusted returns
in the model (1) to eliminate the effect of independent market
variables that could not observe from the first model. The
regression model with abnormal returns is presented as follows:
(2)
where ADVi,t is a dummy variable that becomes 1 if abnormal
returns of firms i at year t are negative and 0 if positive; ARi,t
is the annual abnormal stock returns of firm i calculated to end
three months after the fiscal year t and ARDVi,t is the abnormal
stock return of firm i at year t times the individual ADV dummy
variable.
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 77
3.2. Measuring the Value Relevance of Accounting
Information
The widely used model to test for changes in the value relevance
of accounting information under various reporting obligations
is the valuation model developed by Ohlson (1995). The model
obtains the value of a firm using a function of the firm’s earnings
per share and the book value per share of the firm’s equity. To
explore the impact of IFRS on the value relevance of accounting
information, the following regression models developed from
Ohlson’s methodology will be used:
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
where Pi,t is the share price of firm i at the end of the third month
after fiscal year t; BVSi,t is the book value per share of firm i’s equity
in year t; EPSi,t is earnings per share of firm i in year t; MCi,t, the
market value of firm i in year t, BVi,t, the book value of firm i’s equity
in year t, and NIi,t, net income of firm i in year t. Here, equation (4)
is developed to examine the change in the value relevance (R2) with
the price extinguished variables. Equation (5), on the other hand, is
another version of the Ohlson model that regresses the book value
of equity and the market capitalization (price times the number
of shares) on net income. Finally, equation (6) is the normalized
version of equation (5), similar to model (4). Value relevance for all
four equations is assessed by the adjusted R2 level of the regression
results. The main reason for using four different variations of the
Ohlson model is to perform robustness tests for empirical results
in order to minimize possible violations in the assumptions of the
actual model from which the data is generated.
78 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
In addition, Easton and Harris (1991) model, which similarly
defines the value relevance of accounting information as its ability
to explain the market returns of earnings, will also be used and the
value relationship will still be measured by its magnitude. adjusted
R2 from the following earnings-return model:
ti
ti
ti
ti
ti
ti P
EPS
P
EPS
R,
1,
,
2
1,
,
10,
εααα
+
∆
++=
−−
(7)
where ∆EPSi,t is the change of EPS of firm i between the
beginning and at the end of period t. The change in earnings variable
captures the information content of earnings for stock prices while
the coefficient of earnings defines the information content of book
values for stock prices. The model of Easton and Harris (1991)
is also employed for assessing the association between changes in
conservatism and the value relevance of accounting information for
each period. Accordingly, returns-earnings analyses will be run to
examine the quality of historical-cost and IFRS-enforced earnings
and also to find out whether there exists a significant difference
between the two approaches.
3.3. Hypotheses
The first hypothesis of the research article is based on the view that
the harmonization of IFRS and the change in valuation principles
for fair value measurement affects the level of conservatism in the
financial reports and will be assessed with the Basu model defined
in the equation (1) and (2).
Hypothesis 1: H0: The degree of conservatism is not different
after IFRS when compared for the pre-period of historical cost
accounting between 2000 and 2003.
Since the data is separated into two sub-periods as pre- and
post-IFRS, Basu’s model for examining conservatism will be used
for each period separately. Therefore, if the slope coefficients β3 in
equations (1) and (2) are found to be significantly positive for the
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 79
pre-IFRS period, the null hypothesis will be rejected due to the
change in the post-IFRS level period.
The second hypothesis is related to the correlation between
conservatism and value relevance and was established by Watts
(2003b), who argued that conservative accounting reduces possible
measurement errors and improves the reliability of accounting
information. Similar to Watts (2003) the IASB states that the need
for conservative behaviour increases credibility from relevance.
Therefore, the article will examine whether there is a relationship
between the level of conservatism and the value relationship of
accounting earnings.
Hypothesis 2: H0: The presence of conservatism helps earnings
to disclose better information content for stock prices.
If the value of R2 and the related slope coefficients of the
Ohlson, Easton, and Harris models are high and significant in
a sub-period with greater conservatism, then the null hypothesis
will be rejected for that period. A positive relationship between
conservatism and value relevance.
4. DATA AND SAMPLE SELECTION
The sample data consists of 57 companies listed on the Istanbul
Stock Exchange (ISE) for the 2000 – 2003 and 2006 – 2009
periods, thus creating data for four years before and four years
after IFRS. The number of publicly traded companies between
2000 and 2009 according to the reporting method is given in
Table 1 and in Table 2, the numbers of companies that made loss
and profit from the data sample of 57 companies are given. Data
for the year 2004 have been obtained due to the obligation of
companies to report their financial statements, taking into account
the high inflation in Turkey, which is mandated by the CMB. In
addition, 2005 data were excluded because of concerns that they
were considered as the transition period to IFRS in financial reports
and were prepared incorrectly due to inconsistency in the financial
80 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
statements before 2005. The sample firms were selected based on
the availability of relevant accounting data in both historical cost-
based and IFRS-applied financial statements. They concentrate in
manufacturing (33), finance-non-banking (19), wholesale-retail
trade (2), technology and communication (2), and tourism (1)
sectors. In addition, 94 companies listed on the stock exchange,
which voluntarily started to implement IFRS in their 2003
financial reports, were excluded from the data sample and only
companies that prepared unconsolidated financial statements for
the post-IFRS period were included in the sample.
Table 1: Number of Listed Firms in ISE
Years
Total
Number
of Firms
Historical
Cost
Inflation Fair Value (IFRS)
Solo Consolidated Solo Consolidated
2000 306 306
2001 306 306
2002 297 297
2003 295 200 126 94 42 52
2004 306 9 125 96 35 54
2005 319 1 172 156
2006 324 172 166
2007 330 171 175
2008 322 160 176
2009 324 163 177
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 81
Table 2: Number of Loss and Profit Companies
loss firms profit firms
2000 24 33
2001 22 35
2002 19 38
2003 15 42
2004 23 34
2005 16 41
2006 17 40
2007 10 47
2008 34 23
2009 19 38
Daily stock price data were collected from Datastream and
related accounting information from ISE database. At the end of
each fiscal year, from the first trading day in April to the last trading
day in March, daily stock price and yield data will be used to measure
annual returns. Since the financial statements were announced at
the end of March, annual returns are calculated to expire three
months after the end of the financial year, in order to ensure that
the market reaction is cleared of previous year’s earnings. Earnings
per share (EPS) is calculated by dividing net income by the book
value of paid-in capital, which usually represents common stock
outstanding. Finally, the analysis for hypothesis testing in the
article will be done with the help of Eviews software.
5. ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
5.1. Descriptive Statistics
According to the descriptive analysis with the help of Eviews
software, the results for the variables annual return (RET),
earnings per share (EPS), book value per share (BVS), net income
(NI), and book value of shareholder’s equity (SHE) are presented
in Table 3 for pre- and post-IFRS transition.
82 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Table 3: Descriptive Statistics
Before IFRS adoption (2000-2003) After IFRS adoption (2006-2009) Test for Equality of
Means
Mean Median Maximum Minimum Mean Median Maximum Minimum t-statistics p-value
RET 0.42 0.12 18.79 -0.89 0.35 -0.18 15.67 -0.77 0.46 0.65
EPS 4.33 0.26 499.59 -21.25 1.50 0.13 105.98 -11.14 1.15 0.25
BVS 16.74 2.71 690.01 -2.09 13.99 1.91 458.25 -0.77 0.45 0.65
NI 2,132,354 590,098 57,208,635 -85,383,142 6,412,571 1,485,981 150,000,000 -151,000,000 -2.04* 0.04*
SHE 33,253,202 9,700,455 875,000,000 -9,418,223 99,792,311 33,011,652 1,530,000,000 -10,260,063 -4.29** 0.00**
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 83
RET is the annual returns calculated to end three months after
the fiscal year, EPS is the earnings per share, BVS is the book value
per share, NI is the value of net income or net loss of each company
and SHE is the value of shareholder’s equity. *Significant at the
5% confidence level. **Significant at the 1% confidence level.
According to the results, significant differences are observed
between historical cost-based and IFRS-based financial ratios. In
general, historical cost-based annual returns, earnings per share,
and book value per share is higher than values based on IFRS. On
the other hand, balance sheet items such as net income and equity
appear high after IFRS adjustments to the financial statements.
Especially the annual returns show very wide ranges between
2000-2003 and 2006-2009, with an average of approximately
42% and 35%. This indicates that share prices fluctuated between
188% and -89% in one period and between 157% and -77%
in the other period. It is observed that these abnormal increases
especially in 2009 after the global financial crisis, which took effect
in mid-2007, and in 2008 when all companies participating in this
research showed high negative returns.
Results for earnings per share also indicate a decrease after the
IFRS adjustment. This result may be due to the fact that companies
have rearranged their income and expenses in accordance with the
principles of international standards, which significantly affect their
net profit values in the income statement. Also, similar to annual
returns, earnings per share, book value per share, net income, and
equity values show high scales both before and after the transition
to IFRS.
Overall, the figures show that returns, earnings per share and
book values per share decreased after the adoption of IFRS, while
net income and equity increased significantly. However, when
looking at the t-test analysis for equality of means between series
before and after IFRS, it is seen that only the net profit and equity
values for the period before and after IFRS show significant
changes at the 1% confidence level.
84 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
5.2. Conservatism
Panel A in Table 4 presents the cross-sectional regression results
for the historical cost accounting period and for the period of IFRS
adjusted financial statements. To test the rationality of the first
hypothesis regarding that there is a high level of conservatism before
IFRS, the Basu model is estimated and the relevant conservative
measure (β3) is shown in a shaded area. The slope coefficient β3 is
positive and is estimated at 1.098. In addition, while it was found
to be significant at the 1% significance level after the transition to
IFRS for the period 2006 – 2009, it was found to be insignificant
in the historical cost accounting period. These figures show the
general view on the impact of IFRS implementation in reducing
the level of conservatism in the financial statements, and therefore
the initial null hypothesis will be rejected. Therefore, according
to Basu’s approach, it is said that the degree of conservatism for
the post-2006-2009 IFRS period is higher than for the prehistoric
cost accounting period between 2000-2003.
The second and third regressions in Panel A break down the
company’s annual observations into examples of good news and
bad news, depending on whether the annual return is greater
than or less than zero. Adjusted R2s from separate regressions for
negative and positive returns for both historical cost accounting
and the IFRS period show that the explanatory power of negative
returns, which is 6.20%, especially for the post-IFRS period, is
1.45% more than positive returns. These findings are consistent
with Basu’s results, which indicate that earnings are timely or
simultaneously more sensitive to publicly reporting bad news than
good news. Thus, the implication is that only bad news or negative
returns have an impact on reported earnings in the post-IFRS
period. In addition, loss-making firms are conservative only after
the application of IFRS, not in the pre-IFRS period.
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 85
Table 4: Regression Results for Conservatism of Historical Cost and IFRS-
enforced data.
Panel
A: Basu
Model
Period β0β1β2β3R2 Adjusted
R2N
2000-2003 3.616746 -0.795422 0.236753 4.938245 0.697 -0.633 228
(0.0725) (0.8706) (0.8072) (0.6317)
2006-2009 0.144785 0.245369 -0.049276 1.097961 5.3977 4.1307 228
(0.0925) (0.0841) (0.1396) (0.0008)*
Negative
Returns
2000-2003 2.821323 5.174994 1.5443 0.4968 96
(0.1306) (0.2277)
2006-2009 0.390154 1.048686 6.8493 6.2024 146
(0.0007)* (0.0014)*
Positive
Returns
2000-2003 3.616745 0.236753 0.0287 -0.7403 132
(0.1558) (0.847)
2006-2009 0.144785 -0.049276 2.6702 1.4536 82
(0.0952)*** (0.1424)
Panel B: Basu Model with market-adjusted returns
Period β0β1β2β3R2 Adjusted
R2N
2000-2003 5.061542 -4.662352 -0.043710 0.460868 1.4216 0.1013 228
(0.0152)** (0.1774) (0.9672) (0.9403)
2006-2009 0.046306 0.182903 -0.054521 0.491538 3.3169 2.0220 228
(0.5166) (0.0962)*** (0.1157) (0.0382)**
EPSi,t is the earnings per share of the firm i in fiscal year t; Pi,t-1 is the price per share at
the end of the three months after the previous fiscal year, DVi,t is a dummy variable that
takes the value 1 if returns of firms i at year t are negative and 0 otherwise; ADVi,t is a
dummy variable that takes the value1 if abnormal returns of firms i at year t are negative
and 0 otherwise; Ri,t is the annual stock returns of firm i calculated to end three months
after the fiscal year t; ARi,t is the annual abnormal stock returns of firm i calculated to end
three months after the fiscal year t; RDVi,t is the stock return of firm i at year t times the
individual DV dummy variable and ARDVi,t is the abnormal stock return of firm i at year
t times the individual ADV dummy variable. Thus, RDVi,t and ARDVi,t will be equal to
Ri,t and ARi,t respectively if returns are negative and zero otherwise. *Significant at 1%
confidence level. (P-values are shown in parentheses). **Significant at 5% confidence level.
(P-values are shown in parentheses). ***Significant at 10% confidence level. (P-values are
shown in parentheses).
86 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
In addition to the Basu model, a market-adapted return version
of his model is made to control non-stationary time series in the
return processes that may affect the explanatory power of the model.
Returns are adjusted with ISE-100 Index values representing
market variables. The results presented in Panel B in Table 4 show
that the adjusted R2 for post-IFRS regression was no higher than
the adjusted R2 in the first model; This suggests that the market
is not effectively capturing the unobservable variables that affect
firms’ earnings. Was chosen as the research sample. However, it
is observed that the model still confirms the significance of β3 for
the post-IFRS period at the 5% significance level and indicates
higher conservatism after the application of IFRS to the financial
statements.
5.3. Value Relevance of Accounting Information
Regarding the information content of historical cost and
accounting information applied by IFRS, the coefficient estimates
and R2 values obtained from the estimation of cross-section
regressions of prices on historical cost-based variables and the
variables applied by IFRS are presented in Panel A in Table 5. The
regression results of Ohlson’s (3) model show that book values per
share are statistically significant at the 1% level in both periods.
However, while earnings are not particularly significant in the
post-IFRS period, they show only conditional significance with a
10% confidence level in the pre-IFRS period. It is therefore said
that book values are significantly correlated with stock price values,
while earnings are relatively uncorrelated in post-IFRS years.
These results are inconsistent with previous studies where both
earnings and book values were significantly correlated with stock
prices. In addition, adjusted R2 measuring the information content
of historical cost data is 3% and increases to 10% for accounting
information applied by IFRS. Therefore, these figures indicate
that IFRS adjusted accounting information is more relevant than
historical cost accounting information.
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 87
Table 5: Regression Results for Value Relevance of Historical Cost and IFRS-
enforced data.
Panel A: Ohlson Model
Period γ0γ1γ2R2 Adjusted R2N
2000-2003 2.606901 0.025118 -0.031193 3.8664 3.0119 228
(0)* (0.0035)* (0.0699)***
2006-2009 6.868076 0.13139 -0.097246 11.0834 10.2931 228
(0)* (0.0001)* (0.6027)
Panel B: Ohlson Model with price deflated variables
Period γ0γ1γ2R2 Adjusted R2N
2000-2003 1.388658 0.006368 -0.005223 0.3369 -0.549 228
(0)* (0.6148) (0.7821)
2006-2009 1.008078 0.183031 -0.342491 7.2766 6.4524 228
(0)* (0.0001)* (0.0094)*
Panel C: Ohlson Model with market capitalization (MC)
Period δ0δ1δ2R2 Adjusted R2N
2000-2003 -11953025 1.502697 -1.525733 86.7236 86.6056 228
(0.0064)* (0.0002)* (0)*
2006-2009 -1851026 0.99535 2.383269 79.5362 79.3543 228
(0.8388) (0)* (0)*
Panel D: Ohlson Model with market capitalization (MC) normalized by MCt-1
Period δ0δ1δ2R2 Adjusted R2N
2000-2003 2.510099 0.030803 -0.048173 15.0848 14.33 228
(0.0001)* (0)* (0.1427)
2006-2009 0.617811 0.460916 1.576294 38.1141 37.564 228
(0.0208)** (0)* (0)
Panel E: Easton and Harris
Model
Period α0α1α2R2 Adjusted R2N
2000-2003 0.429902 -0.00592 0.015457 1.1443 0.2656 228
(0.0001)* (0.4913) (0.1564)
2006-2009 0.372427 -0.340639 0.250135 1.855 0.9826 228
(0.0003)* (0.0772)*** (0.064)***
Pi,t is the price per share at the beginning of the fourth month of the fiscal year, BVSi,t is the
book value per share of equity of firm i at year t, ∆EPSi,t is the difference of earnings per share
of firm i between two points in time: at the beginning and at the end of period t, MCi,t is the
market capitalization of firm i at year t, BVi,t is the book value of equity of firm i at year t
and NIi,t is the net income of firm i at year t. *Significant at 1% confidence level. (P-values
are shown in parentheses). **Significant at 5% confidence level. (P-values are shown in
parentheses). ***Significant at 10% confidence level. (P-values are shown in parentheses).
88 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
In addition, Ohlson’s model was run with discounted book
values and earnings per share variables in the model (4). Results
are shown in Table 5, Panel B. The first regression model for
the pre-IFRS period has very low explanatory power due to its
meaningless coefficient estimates and negatively adjusted R2
values. On the other hand, It is observed that for the post-IFRS
period, both earnings and book values are statistically significant at
the 1% level and adjusted R2 is 6.45%. These findings again imply
that the data period applied by IFRS is more value-related than the
historical cost data period.
In model (5) in Panel C of Table 5, another version of the Ohlson
model, a regression of the market capitalization on the book value
of equity and net income is performed to examine the difference
in coefficient estimates and adjusted R2s. Using the original book
values of the variables without normalizing with prices, It is found
that relatively very high adjusted R2s and significant coefficients
for both the pre-and post-IFRS periods. Unlike the fifth model,
model (6) in Panel D uses the same variables normalized to the
previous year’s market capitalization values. The results show a
more realistic picture with R2 adjusted lower than the fifth model
but higher than the third and fourth regression equations. They are
similar to the third model in that, again, only the book values are
statistically significant for both periods, but they are not similar,
as earnings are now correlated only after the adoption period of
IFRS. However, the adjusted R2 of 37.56% is still higher than
the adjusted R2 of 14.33% for data applied by IFRS. for historical
cost data. As a result, the overall picture shows that the post-IFRS
period is relatively more value-related than the pre-IFRS period.
In Panel E in Table 5, Easton and Harris’s model for the value
relevance of accounting information offer very low explanatory
power, especially when compared with other studies running the
same model. Although it still reveals a higher adjusted R2 for the
post-IFRS period, model (7) is not viewed as a conclusion for the
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 89
information content of accounting information for both periods,
as adjusted R2s are less than 1%.
In general, accounting data for the information content applied
by IFRS is higher than historical cost information because the
explanatory power of post-IFRS regressions in models (3), (4),
and (6) is greater than pre-IFRS regressions in the same models.
Specifically, Ohlson’s price-discounted model implies that both
book value and earnings per share capture the information in
estimating stock returns in the 2006-2009 period. Therefore,
accounting information in the post-IFRS period may be considered
more valuable in Turkey.
5.3. Conservatism and Value Relevance
Considering the effect of conservatism on value relevance of
earnings, the IFRS implementation period was found to be quite
conservativeandalsohighlyvaluerelated.UnlikeKusenidis(2009)
there is observable finding that conservative reporting cannot be a
possible reason for the decrease of value relevance of earnings. This
also means that extreme conservatism can have an increasing effect
on the earnings-return relationship. Consistent with earlier work
such as Balachandran and Mohanram (2006), the information
content of earnings prudently reported for stock returns in 2006-
2009 exceeds the information content of non-prudent earnings in
2000-2003.
Similar to Sterling (1967) and Watts (2003a), who emphasize
the advantages of conservative accounting, such as providing
reliable information to capital markets, the findings lead to the
approval of the second hypothesis, which states that the presence
of conservatism helps account gains to reveal higher value relevance
for earnings. Furthermore, this interaction shows that investors
are very cautiously concerned with earnings to be more relevant
to value, especially during the existence of bad news or negative
returns after the application of IFRS to financial statements. As a
90 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
result, it is suggested that IFRS affects not only the conservatism
in the financial statements but also the value relevance of earnings
and thus the accounting information in the Turkish accounting
system.
6. CONCLUSION
In this study, main intention is to draw attention to the level of
conservatism in the Turkish accounting system and the information
content of earnings. The sample data consists of companies traded
in the ISE, and the analyses were made on the basis of before and
after the application of IFRS to the financial statements after 2005.
For this reason, the research data is divided into two sub-periods,
2000-2003 and 2006-2009, that give a chance to compare the
level of conservatism and its relation with the value relevance of
data for pre- and post-IFRS sub periods.
The results show that conservatism in financial statements has
increased as a result of the transition from a uniform accounting
system to a system in which fair value measurement is a valuation
principle in the 2006-2009 period in Turkey. financial statements
will be referred to as IFRS-based accounting system. Therefore,
consistent with the notion that compliance with IFRS may have
changed the level of conservatism, it is concluded that the country’s
new international reporting system has increased the realization
of bad news in earnings to present financial statements that are
relevant and faithfully presented. The lower level of conservatism
overview in the post-IFRS period only makes sense if considering
the conservatism principle as estimating risk provisions based on
valuation principles. However, the term conservatism is absent in
IFRS, but it does indicate a direction for companies to be prudent
when making judgments about probabilities and other estimates.
Therefore, IFRS has more detailed conservative practices than
the uniform accounting in Turkey and therefore provides a higher
degree of conservatism in the financial statements.
Effects of Conservative Reporting on Value Relevance... | 91
The findings also show that book value and earnings
information content has increased due to the adoption of IFRS
in reporting. Because financial statements under IFRS need to be
understandable, relevant, reliable and comparable, the increased
information content of the data applied by IFRS is an expected
pattern and therefore leads to an increase in the value relevance of
accounting information.
However, unlike previous studies, the findings do not show
that higher conservatism is associated with lower value interest in
accounting information. Therefore, concluding that conservative
financial reporting reduces possible measurement errors and
increases the reliability of accounting data, it is undeniable that
there is an observable connection between conservative and value
relevant financial data.
The limitations of this study can be grouped into three
categories. First, the presence of the scale effect in the data does
not allow the cross-sectional regression results to reveal higher
explanatory power. In particular, the scale effect on paid-in capital,
net income and book values used in the calculation of earnings per
share and book values per share is quite high. Second, the length of
the subperiods precludes obtaining time series results that require
more observation, especially compared to previous empirical
results. Finally, the unobservable effects of the market do not allow
the equations to yield better coefficient estimates and R2 values.
The findings have several key implications for the Turkish
accounting literature. Basically, the evidence presented in the study
coincides with the possibility that IFRS has an impact on the level
of conservatism in financial reporting. Also, unlike several previous
studies, the results imply that there is no inverse relationship
between conservatism and the value relevance of accounting
information, especially in the data applied by IFRS. Therefore,
this article recommends examining the consolidated financial
statements listed on the ISE in terms of the conservatism level and
92 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
the information content of earnings in order to gain a broad view
of the earnings quality in Turkey. By employing companies that
report consolidated financial statements in addition to individual
reports, the degree of conservatism, value relevance and the
relationship structure between them can be compared according
to different financial reporting structures in the Turkish accounting
system.
REFERENCES
Acar, D.& AktürkA. (2009).Muhasebede İhtiyatlilikKavrami ve
İmkb Sinai Endeksinde İşlem Gören İşletmelerde İhtiyatlilik
Üzerine bir araştirma. Afyon Kocatepe Üniversitesi, İ.İ.B.F.
Dergisi
Balachandran, S. V., & Mohanram, P. S. (2006). Conservatism and
the Value Relevance of Accounting Information: Unpublished
Working Paper, Columbia University.
Basu, S. (1997). The conservatism principle and the asymmetric ti-
meliness of earnings. Journal of Accounting and Economics,
24,3−37.
Bushman, R., & Piotroski, J. (2006). Financial reporting incentives
for conservative accounting: The influence of legal and poli-
tical institutions. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 42,
107−148.
Collins, D., Maydew, E., & Weiss, I. (1997). Changes in the value-re-
levance of earnings and book values over the past forty years.
JournalofAccountingandEconomics,24,39−67.
Easton, P. D., & Harris, T. S. (1991). Earnings as an explanatory va-
riableforreturns.JournalofAccountingResearch,29,19−36.
Givoly, D., & Hayn, C. (2000). The changing time-series properties
of earnings, cash flows and accruals: Has financial reporting
become more conservative? Journal of Accounting and Econo-
mics,29,287−320.
Holthausen, R., & Watts, R. (2001). The relevance of the value-rele-
vance literature for financial accounting standard setting. Jour-
nalofAccountingandEconomics,31,3−75.
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Grambovas, C., Giner, B., & Christodoulou, D. (2006). Earnings
conservatism: panel data evidence from the EU and the US.
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of Financial Statements
Kousenidis,D.V.,Ladas,A.C.&NegakisC.I.(2009).Valuerele-
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mation. The International Journal of Accounting. 44, 219-238.
Kocakulah,M.C.,Sımga-Mugan, C., Hosal-Akman,N., andAldo-
gan, M. (2009). Growing Tendency to Harmonisation with
IFRS: Some Evidences from Turkey. International Journal of
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661-687.
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77 (2), 237.
Sterling, R., (1967). Conservatism: The Fundamental Principle of
Valuation. Abacus (Dec), 109-132.
Watts, R. (2003). Conservatism in accounting part I: Explanations
andimplications.AccountingHorizons,17,207−221.
Watts, R. (2003). Conservatism in accounting part II: Evidence and
researchopportunities.AccountingHorizons,17,287−301.
95
CHAPTER 5
Euro and its Contribution to the European
Integration
Dilara SÜLÜN11
1. INTRODUCTION
The full monetary union by 2000 was considered as a huge
advancement in the European political and economic integration.
Despite big oppositions to the ratification of common currency
and to the monetary union in some countries, the “single currency
and the monetary union” was finally ratified and enforced on 1
November 1993.
The effects of the Monetary Union on the European economy
are reflected in many ways. First, we can say that there is no
more exchange rate risks, and there is no more foreign exchange
conversion nor transaction costs. The transparency of prices and
11 AssociateProfessor,İzmirDemokrasi University,FacultyofEconomicand Ad-
ministrative Sciences, International Relations, dilara.sulun@idu.edu.tr; ORCID:
0000-0001-8874-5194
96 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
the reliability of the financial markets is also important in terms
of expanding the total economic and investment activities into the
economic area.
This study first explains and defines economic unions, with
emphasis on different types of economic integration models and
on the theoretical perspective of “Optimal Currency Area”. It
evaluates then the origins of the “Euro” and its different stages
and examines the “Delors Report”. The two emerging entities, the
European Monetary System” (EMS) and the European Central
Bank (ECB) are assessed and out of this evaluation, the study
analyzes the economic and wider political benefits of the Euro and
its contribution to the European integration.
2. EXPLAINING THE ECONOMIC AND
MONETARY UNION
Monetary union is the formation that occurs when a number of
countries unite among themselves in exchange rates and mutually
abolish the restrictions placed on capital movements.
The European Union, as a supranational entity, worked and
looked for further integration at the EU in many ways. The
dynamics that have pushed the EU for more integration can be
analyzed in two categories.
The first category includes the internal dynamics such as the
pro-integrationist EU countries that have always supported and
desired for greater economic and political integration. The second
category covers changes and dynamics in the global political
economy. Thus we can say that there were many reasons behind
the will to form a wider economic union at the EU.
In a monetary union, products as well as the production
factors are in free movement, and economic and fiscal policies
are harmonized. Since the EMU aims a monetary and financial
stability, the fiscal policies are strict.
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 97
There are indeed various forms of economic integration which
can be seen in different regions worldwide.
Table 1. Forms of Economic Integration
Free
Trade
Area
Customs
Union
Common
Market
Economic
Union
Political
Union
Reduction or abolition
of customs duties or
taxes with equivalent
effect and quantity
restrictions between
member states
x x x x x
Application of a
common customs tariff
to third countries
x x x x
Free Movement of
Capital and Service
Between Member States
(Different national
regulations)
x x x
Application of common
commercial, economic
and monetary policies
between member states.
x x
Common Government x
Source: J.P Rodrigue (2020), The Geography of Transport Systems, Routledge
In a “Free Trade Area”, import tariffs between member countries
are either very low or totally eliminated However, they have their
own national tariff for countries that are outside the free trade area.
In a “Customs Union”; members of the union apply a common
external tariff for non-members.
In a “Common Market”; the circulation of capital and services
is free, but member states have different market regulations based
on their national standards.
98 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
In an “Economic Union” which is also called as a “Single
Market”, there is no tariff standing between member states; all
tariffs are abolished. There is no national boundaries as labor
and workers are allowed to move within the union. Additionally,
financial policies are converged, and this harmonization reflects
a certain will of political integration. Another level of economic
union covers a monetary union as in the case of the EU.
The last and highest level of integration can be seen in a
“Political Union” where there is a common government and
national sovereignty is delegated to the central authority. This type
of integration is actually only present in federations. The EU could
not reach a full political union yet as nation-states reject delegating
their sovereignty in many sensitive areas including foreign and
defense policy (Rodrigue, 2020). When there is greater economic
integration, the regulations also become more complex due to
harmonization of the regulations, the enforcement and monitoring
of these regulations as well as setting mechanisms for arbitration.
According to Ballassa (1976:3), the EEC was the dominant
integration model in developed economies. When EEC became
operational:
• many quantitative restrictions on intra-area trade were
abolished,
• tariffs on intra-EEC area trade were reduced and eliminated
and
• a common tariff for third countries imports (extra-EEC
area) was established.
The elimination of obstacles to trade brought a quick increase
of trade between member countries. From 1959 to 1971, trade
increased almost sixfold between EEC countries.
The EMS became operational in March 1979 and developed
quite successfully in the 1980s (Verdun, 1999:3). The former
European Commission President Delors, the former President of
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 99
France Miterrand and the former Chancellor of Germany Kohl
besides many leaders were supporting the EMU (Dinan, 1994:
158-160). The EMU was a huge step toward a deeper European
integration as it marked the political and economic will in a
concrete development and reflected the weight of politics beyond
economics.
2.1 The Single European Act (SEA) and the Optimal
Currency Area
The SEA was signed in 1986 to create an area without national
frontiers where products, people, services and capital are in free
movement: Monetary co-operation has also been added.
An Optimal Currency Area (OCA) is an area where the single
currency’s availability is optimal. To be more explicit; Mundell
(1961) discussed the following criteria for OCA:
• labor mobility,
• similar inflation rates,
• product diversification,
• wage and price flexibility and
• high financial, monetary and trade integration.
The OCA theory suggests to fix exchange rates within the
currency area and to flex exchange rates outside the currency area
(Ata and Silahşör, 1999: 15). Mundell exposed the theoretical
foundations of the Optimum Currency Area and discussed
whether all countries should have their national currencies flexible
or not; and whether fixed exchange rates would benefit more the
EEC. Mundell defines first the “currency area” as a zone where
exchange rates are fixed and discusses then the different scenarios
for countries and regions with different levels of economic
development (Mundell, 1961: 657).
100 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
2.2 The Look at the EMU in Germany
German policy makers were at the beginning skeptical toward
the EMU and despite the initial public opinion, many politicians
supported the process (Pond, 1996:4).
German unification brought many questions along, the first
being whether Germany was willing to abandon the Deutschmark,
for a new currency which might be a “softer currency” (Sloam,
2003:12).
On the other side, concerns about nationalistic identities
following the unification of Germany led many European leaders
to strengthen and deepen EC institutions. Their main idea was that
a nationalistic Germany could be prevented by binding Germany
to the European Community (Baun, 1995: 607-610).
French government officials and Delors presiding the European
Commission were among the most active supporters, they
considered a weak integration at the Union consisting only of a
commercial bloc may carry the risk of being subject to German
dominance. Therefore, France was trying to protect the French
influence over EU issues.
Germany proposed a “double-speed approach” to EMU, where
in the first step countries with strong economic convergence
would join the EMU and other countries which would take part
when ready. In conclusion, 3 stages were projected for the EMU,
the first stage starting from January 1994 with the Single Market
and providing independency to national central banks.
3. THE DELORS REPORT AND THE STAGES OF
THE EURO
Following the “Hanover European Council” in 1988, under the
presidency pf J. Delors, the “Delors Committee” was established
for studying and preparing the EMU. The “Delors Report”
established a framework to present the EMU in three stages,
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 101
including the creation of “European System of Central Banks”
(ESCB), that was designed to decide and execute the monetary
policy and also manage foreign exchange rates and policy. The
Delors Report was approved in mid -1989 and it was agreed to
start the first EMU stage on 1st July 1990.
The three stages approved for the for EMU were as the
following:
First Stage included:
• Enhanced collaboration between central banks for monetary
policies,
• Elimination of obstructions to enhance financial integration,
• Monitoring national economic policies,
• collaboration in budgetary policy;
Second Stage covered:
• Preliminary phase for EMU,
• Foundation of ESCB and delegation of fiscal policy to the
EU institutions,
• Reduction of change margins in the exchange rate
mechanism;
The stage was started from 1st January 1994 and projected
the foundation of the “European Monetary Institution” (EMI).
However, monetary policies remained in national sovereignty
within this phase of progress. The role of the EMI was to contribute
to both national monetary policies and to EMU requirements.
EMI was formally taken over by the ECB by the end of this second
stage.
Third Stage covered:
• Entry and circulation of the Euro in the market ,
• Delegation of the financial policy to the ESCB.
102 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
An essential part of the principles introduced and presented
in the Delors report were later used as EMU provisions in the
Maastricht Treaty. Each EC member state that would reach the
“economic convergence criteria” would access the EMU. However
Great Britain used an opt-out preference which was a right given
by the EU to assess and delay Britain’s final decision on it.
3.1 Treaty of Maastricht and Convergence Criteria
The Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993 and was seen
as the locomotive of both political and economic integration. It
enforced the power of EU institutions and aimed an enhanced
collaboration and policy cooperation in:
• social affairs,
• research and innovation,
• technology,
• immigration,
• border controls,
• foreign and security policy.
The Maastricht Treaty has set the schedule for the EMU by
the beginning of the 2000. The completion of the EMU meant
enhanced cooperation in strategic affairs (Grieco, 1995: 21). The
Treaty is also considered as an expected outcome of the European
integrationist theories and the continuation of economic
integration policies.
The Maastricht Treaty set economic “Convergence Criteria”
for Member States to access the EMU, regarding (European
Commission, 2022)
• Inflation Rates: the annual average inflation rate should
not be superior to the average of the 3 member countries
with the lowest inflation rate in the EU by more than 1.5 %.
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 103
• Public Finances: (Polasek and Amplatz, 2003 :667):
There are here two important indicators here:
Government Deficit: Member state budget deficits should not
be above 3 % of GDP.
Government Debt: The government debt should not exceed
60% of GDP.
• Interest Rates: should not exceed the average interest rate
of the 3 member countries with the lowest inflation rate by
more than 2 %.
• Exchange Rates: Member countries’ currencies should be
included in the European Monetary System Exchange Rate
Mechanism.
3.2 The Launch of EMI and ECB: Second Stage of the
EMU
At the European Council held in December 1995 the single
currency was named “Euro” and the date of 1st January 1999 was
accepted as the last phase of EMU. A three-year transition period
was agreed (European Parliament, 1995). The EMI was constituted
prior to the establishment of the ECB, in order to make sure that
all the necessary preparations were performed. Eleven countries
took part in the Euro in 1999. These countries were:
1. Austria,
2. Belgium,
3. France,
4. Finland
5. Germany,
6. Ireland,
7. Italy,
104 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
8. Luxembourg,
9. Netherlands,
10. Portugal and
11. Spain.
The European Central Bank (ECB) was established in 1998 and
replaced the EMI. Its presidents are appointed by the European
Council. The current president of the ECB is Christine Lagarde
who was appointed in 2019.
3.3 Final Stage of EMU
Euro entered into force on the 1st of January 1999 and the ECB
became operational by conducting the monetary policy on behalf
of the EU. This marked the last phase of the EMU.
Euro zone financial markets started using the Euro in their
foreign exchanges, shares and bond markets. Government financial
balances and debts also started to be issued in the new currency,
from 1 January 1999. Greece fulfilled the convergence criteria and
joined the Euro from January 2001.
3.4 Launch and Circulation of Euro: 1st January 2002
Approximately 8 billion notes and 40 billion coins of Euro have
been introduced within the 12 Euro member states which formed
the Euro zone. Banks have delivered Euro notes through automatic
cash machines to the general public and shops. In September
2003, there has been a referendum in Sweden regarding Swedish
membership of the Euro however Swedish people voted against
the Euro, just like the Danish public.
3.5 Accession of Ten New Member States to the EU and
Their Membership of the Euro
The European Union had its largest enlargement with the ten
new Member States in May 2004. This enlargement marked a
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 105
highly political motivation considering the wish of the EU to keep
the Eastern European countries close to the EU. These new ten
member states did not have a fixed timetable to join the Euro.
They were expected to join the Euro after fulfilling the Maastricht
convergence criteria for membership.
Out of this largest enlargement, the following countries adopted
the new currency:
• Slovenia was the first country to use the Euro from these 10
countries, on 1 January 2007.
• Cyprus joined the Euro zone from 1 January 2008.
• Malta adopted the Euro on 1 January 2008.
• Slovakia adopted the euro on 1 January 2009.
• Estonia started using the common currency in 2011.
• Latvia adopted the Euro on 1 January 2014.
• Lithuania adopted the Euro on 1 January 2015.
Croatia is the latest country that joined the EU, in July 2013
and is officially accepted in the Euro area starting from January
2023 (European Central Bank, 2022). This adoption is considered
as symbolic because of Croatia’s desire to distant itself from its
communist past and its will to overcome the economic struggles.
With this latest Euro zone membership, there are currently in
total 20 countries in the Euro zone. Thus, the seven non-eurozone
members of the EU are:
1. Bulgaria,
2. Czech Republic,
3. Denmark,
4. Hungary,
5. Poland,
106 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
6. Romania and
7. Sweden.
4. EUROPE’S ROLE IN THE WORLD
4.1 Advantages for Europe’s International Role
Euro is currently the official currency of 20 EU member states
and its impact goes beyond European borders. As Charles Michel,
the President of the European Council indicated, 60 countries
outside the EU use the Euro either as their currency or by pegging
their currency to it (European Council, 2022).
This wide use of Euro helps to maintain and stabilize exchange
rates between countries and thus allows long-term predictability in
trade and business activities.
Euro is currently the second most important currency in
the global payments. This means that the Euro is becoming an
international investment and reserve currency. Besides, single
currency and EMU also empowers Europe’s role in international
institutions.
There is no doubt that a single currency makes the Euro area
more attractive for non-EU countries in their trade and business
activities and thus trade and investment is promoted in Europe
and worldwide.
The use of the Euro in international trade strengthens Europe’s
weight in global economy. A stronger Euro would also enhance
Europe’s geo-economic and geo-political decision-making.
An increased use and value of the Euro is expected to contribute
to EU’s sustainable development and innovation, through fundings
and investments.
An attractive Euro provides wider access to international
financial markets while a single currency makes Europe a strong
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 107
partner. With the single market, foreign companies can benefit
from lower costs in their business activities in Europe.
Indeed, the European Single Market offered the four free
movements and thus facilitates working, traveling, shopping,
studying and even retiring anywhere in the EU. Therefore, the use
of the Euro provides practical benefits along with the benefits of
the Single Market.
Finally, the option of pricing goods and commodities in Euro
will become more attractive over time (such as oil and metals for
example)
4.2 Political and Wider Benefits
The Euro has widely contributed to the further integration in
the EU by showing that common actions of Member States can
generate widespread benefits to all those who take part. Common
currency also marks a common identity. Besides, the Euro has also
changed the “one nation/ one money” hypothesis. Money is used
as a political and social tool to form collective identity among
its users (Kaelberer, 2004: 1). Thus, we can say that Euro has
facilitated the development of a European identity.
Euro has also helped to conform the French view by becoming
an important rival and counterweight to the dollar in international
transactions. It has thus changed the U.S economic prevalence and
advantage of being the dominant global currency.
As it reached high records against the dollar, and the question
of whether it can compete with the American Dollars as a global
currency and limit America’s flexibility in economic policy is
always on the agenda (Sullivan, 2003:3).
However, despite the rivalry between the European and American
currency, the Clinton administration has indeed supported the Euro
and President Bush said in Berlin in 2002, that European economic
union allows collective growth which in return provides security to
Europe and America (The Economist, 2003).
108 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
5. CONCLUSION
The single currency was not a mere economic project. It
included many aspirations and objectives toward further European
integration at monetary, fiscal, political, symbolic and psychological
levels. The national currency is an important symbol of the national
identity. It also provided economic benefits at the macro level for
the EU such as:
• Eliminating exchange rate risks and costs
• Strengthening the single market
• Promoting investment and trade in the Euro area
• Converging member states’ economies
• Facilitating price comparisons as well as travelling in
member countries
The European integration process is a broad and wide process.
It involves many different decisions in economic, political and
social levels. The single market, the single currency, the common
monetary policy and the European Central Bank reflect the biggest
part of the economic integration.
The Euro definitely changed the structure and the operations
in the European and global financial markets. Even though its
evolution has been faster in some sectors, the overall adaptation
and functioning has been successful in general. Finally, the
economic benefits have also been followed by political benefits.
The Euro zone which started with 11 members, gathers now 20
member states in total. A strong and widely used Euro would serve
European businesses and citizens wealth which can also enhance
EU’s strategic impact in the world.
Euro and its Contribution to the European Integration | 109
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111
CHAPTER 6
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social
Construction of Disability
Mustafa POLAT12
1. INTRODUCTION
The notion of disability, just like the notions such as gender
and race, directly involves the ontological classification of human-
related kinds through some observed or imagined characteristics
which constitute the defining rationale behind the relevant
classification. Accordingly, the locus of philosophical debates on
the disability classification rests on this underlying rationale which
enables us to mark someone as disabled. Hereby, the underlying
question is whether this particular classification hinges on some
biological characteristics or is socially constructed under the socio-
hierarchical relations built into the very fabric of society. Although
the above question reflects a sharp distinction between two
12 Dr.Arş. Gör.Gaziantep Üniversitesi, Fen-EdebiyatFakültesi,FelsefeBölümü.
mpmustafapolat@gmail.com. ORCID: 0000-0002-8745-3576
112 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
alternative stances about the disability classification, the question
might also compatibly allow us to ask to what extent disability is
socially constructed or biological.
Any analysis of the above question indispensably falls under the
fundamental considerations employed to define the very category
of disability in the first place. According to the biologicalist camp,
some biological variations and atypical bio-medical traits- imagined
or factual- constitute disabilities entirely. Hence, the disability
classification seems to stem from purely descriptive and objectively
discernible facts about human beings in terms of their biological
features. Thereby, the disability classification, according to this
stance, exclusively emerges independently of social and political
aspects of disability in the sense that merely biological facts ground
disability regardless of thinking whatever people’s decisions,
thoughts, constraints, and constructs might be as to the disability
classification. As this stance further implicates, some condition x is
a disability if and only if x pairs with some observed or imagined
biological impairment y relevant to x in a material constitution.
In brief, this biologicalist stance generally portrays the disability
category only with a reference to its allegedly constitutive category,
i.e. the impairment category. So, every impairment always pairs
with at least a single disability. As a result, aphasia, for example,
always corresponds to a single or multiple disabilities related to
speech and learning. 13
On the other hand, social constructivism vehemently opposes
biologicalism and it holds that conceptualization of disability
solely relies on under what social discourse it emerges and persists.
In this respect, the disability classification appears to be a social
construct in the sense that a mark of disability follows from
society’s prevailing decisions, thoughts, constraints, and their
13 Aphasia is a neurological and often degenerative disorder caused by lesions in the
areas of brain which are directly responsible from linguistic comprehension and
well-formed articulation.
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 113
resultant constructs regardless of thinking what biological traits
and conditions establish atypicalities or impairments in one’s
biological well-being. Therefore, there seems to be a principled
reason for disambiguating disability from impairment to the effect
that disability becomes a matter of social suitability in terms of
given constructs. Instead of grounding disability by impairments
on biological grounds, the social constructivist view holds that
disability simply stands for one’s particular state or level of social
suitability in the face of the suitability conditions for the relevant
social constructs. Thus, ‘being disabled’ means ‘being unsuitable
for some social constructs’ regardless of whether these disabilities
involve any observed or imagined impairment.
Hereafter, I will tentatively take for granted the social
constructivist approach to disability although I refrain from the
one extreme tenet that the notion of impairment is also a social
construct. Rather than grounding disability as a social construct,
I will hereby be seeking to scrutinize the philosophical grounds
underlying how this notion of disability ought to be manifested
and reproduced in social practices. Respectively, I will hold and
defend the following tenets throughout the paper: (a) Disability
is the social meaning of impairment; (b) the disability category
is socially constructed based on its devised connection with the
notion of ‘normality’; (c) The disability category is often used
to justify the discrimination of ‘disabled’ people and thereby we
might come up with ethical and political reasons to construe some
relevant policies to demolish such a construct in favor of social
justice.
Regarding the first tenet, I will highlight the disability
classification as a social construct whereas I separately recognize
the biological variations and atypicalities that put human beings
into states of discomfort, pain, and struggles in their current
material conditions which are by no means socially oriented or
determined. In doing so, I will follow a similar line of thought
with the standard feminist conviction that the gender category
114 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
is the social exposition of the concept of sex. As to impairment
(temporary or permanent), I believe no one can coherently appeal
to the extreme claim that one’s having borderline personality
disorder, for instance, is a social construct.14 Unlike the disability
classification, the impairment classification merely indulges with
such and such biological capacities in accordance with their
relevance to one’s using and sustaining the ascribed functions of
the relevant organs without any complication and discomfort. In
the impairment classification, these ascribed functions cannot be
socially determined, but they are discovered and projected as a
result of scientific conjectures concerning with some statistical data
and empirical means, which provide a general understanding of
what capacities an average human being is conjectured to possess
for the sake of physiological well-being. On the other hand, the
disability classification pertains to how these ascribed dysfunctions
become relevant to social discourse and practices.
Considering the second tenet above, I will further discuss how
the disability classification occurs and persists in our social practices
in reference to the notion of normality. In doing so, I will draw
on Hacking (1990, 1999) and Baynton (2013) to show that the
disability classification has been historically paired with the notion
of ‘normality’ which strictly functioned to obscure the factual
marks of impairment with the social validation of these marks.
Based on this analysis, I will discuss how the disability notion is
14 Psychiatric disorders and psychological impairments might especially seem to be
intricate subjects to refute as social constructs since each such condition evidently
has a social aspect about how people with such conditions interact or connect
with the others in their narrow or wide social environment. Yet, it does not mean
that such impairments by themselves such as a chronic hormonal imbalance or
neural damages are produced or formed by the social environment. It is worth
noticing that impairments have different kinds of effects some or all of which
are cashed out by society in terms of their relevant constructs. To illustrate, the
cases of schizophrenia have such effects on social life because of our communi-
cational and ontological constructs resting in a sensible linguistic exchange. Yet,
our linguistic means and their embedded rules do not determine what biological
dysfunctions result in this psychiatric disorder.
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 115
employed to justify the mistreatments and stigmas towards certain
groups or individuals in a society. Relevantly, the final tenet which
I defend will follow Haslanger’s (2000) feminist project of social
constructivism to define the concept of disability in terms of its
socio-political status in the hierarchical orders of society. As far as I
am concerned, this sort of definition is a good start to realize why
it must be deconstructed since such a social construct entails social
and political subordination.
2. IMPAIRMENT AND DISABILITY
Initially, any profound analysis of the disability classification
must saliently discern the biological aspects from the social aspects.
These aspects are generally introduced in a dichotomous manner
depending on how biologicalism and social constructivism about
disability discuss the legitimacy and the extension of the relevant
category. These biological and social aspects in question are often
embodied in the dichotomy between ‘impairment’ and ‘disability’.
In this vein, these categories can be stipulated as follows:
“1.0 Impairment: an injury, illness, or congenital condition
that causes or is likely to cause a loss or difference of
physiological or psychological function.
2.0. Disability: the loss or limitation of opportunities to
take part in society on an equal level with others due to
social and environmental barriers.” 15
Hence, disability is held to be the social meaning of impairment
in as much as the given token of impairment is taken into account
in terms of its relevant value in the given social discourse with some
hierarchical structure, conditions, and factors. Hence, the status of a
person with an impairment is socially constructed as disabled if she
has an observed or imagined impairment recognized to be unfit for
15 http://disability-studies.leeds.ac.uk/files/library/Northern-Officers-Group-defi-
ning-impairment-and-disability.pdf
116 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
the requirements, expectations, and predicaments of a given social
discourse. One upshot is that the disability category does not entail
the entire extension of impairments. In other words, there might
be some impairments that pass unnoticed or at least get relatively
recognized due to the case that some impairments might simply
be irrelevant to the given social discourse in terms of its embedded
conditions and such. Again, it is apparent that society might not
even be aware of the presence of some impairments and their
observable effects to assign these impairments any import in terms
of their social value or status. To illustrate, many impairments are
not at noticeable degrees so that someone with a lower degree of
scoliosis, for instance, does not seem to belong to the category of
disabled in terms of her labor efficiency in a given society even
if she might be labeled to be an inapt worker for certain tasks.
Again, some impairments or biological variations do not have any
noticeable hint of dysfunction to the effect that anyone with partial
syndactyly in his toes is not taken to be disabled even if the aesthetic
disfigurement in his toes can be seen as an imperfection in the
value system of a given society. Thus, disability and impairment do
not seem to share the same domain of discourse. To reinforce the
dichotomy stipulated above, three distinguishing marks related to
the notion of disability can be underlined: (1) social admissibility;
(2) axiological prescriptivity, and (3) context sensitivity.
For one thing, impairment, as it is hinted before, covers
diverse tangible conditions at varying degrees of noticeability in a
community and it merely entails the medical conditions which are
respectively associated with factually detectable atypicalities in the
subjects with the relevant impairment. From a scientific point of
view, impairment is not a matter of social admissibility in the sense
that what a token of impairment factually entails does not depend
on if any non-scientific community manages to perceive some facts
or their effects concerning with some given token of impairment.
To explicate it better, it is worth focusing on what the concept of
treatment in a medical case normally indicates. Broadly speaking, a
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 117
medical treatment stands for a set of medical exercises to regulate,
soothe or eradicate the factual conditions causing the impairment
in question. In comparison with medical treatment, any social
exercise about impairments or a set of shared beliefs about them
cannot causally intervene on the very factual conditions construing
these impairments in the sense that impairments and their factual
effects are non-cancelable by any intervention derived from social
percepts or commonly-shared beliefs about their appearances in a
community. On the other hand, the disability category itself seems
to heavily hinge on social admissibility in the sense that there can
be no token of disability if it is impossible to cancel some instance
of disability by socially intervening on some given social exercises,
socio-economic conditions or cultural habits which surround the
given disability. To illustrate, dyslexia would never be pinpointed
as a sort of disability if the given community had the pedagogical
and technological infrastructure which merely promotes auditory
and visual learning.
Secondly, the category of disability stretches far beyond the
domain of impairments since the limitations associated with
impairments are charted out based on the social environment and its
relevant requirements rather than being characterized by objective
biological variations which result in physical or psychological
dysfunctions or limitations accompanied by experiences of pain or
discomfort. For instance; any ethnic, socio-economic, or gender-
related class of people has nothing to do with the impairment
category, however, it can be misleadingly characterized as a form
of disability with respect to the ascribed inherent traits which are
unfavorable in the given social context (Baynton, 2013; Wasserman,
2013). After all, each social construct prescribes its own norm
or value system to demarcate the limitations for being a suitable
candidate, and thereby each social construct decides on which
people ought to go under those limitations. As we shall see in the
next section, these norms and axiological systems could be realized
and reinforced through the concept of normality. Thus, if disability
118 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
follows from some relevant loss or limitations defined in the face
of a social suitability criterion, then this criterion might function
as a prescription about how the given community –including the
so-called disabled group of people- ought to succeed in the face of
some supposed loss and limitations. Although disability becomes
a matter of axiological prescriptivity, the impairment category only
undergoes nomological laws and principles by which biological
phenomena abide. In this respect, the impairment category does
not entail how a subject with some impairment ought to endure
some social exercises and conditions.
Finally, every social construction is contingent on what sort
of social mechanisms and practices prevails behind using such
and such constructs, and thus there is, by default, more than one
viable way to construe the extension of the disability category
depending on the distinct norms, social interests, and other socially
oriented factors. This contingency might be most adequately
captured by how Hacking (1999) depicts the implications of
endorsing something as a social construction. As he articulates,
“X [a token of disability] need not have existed, or need not be
at all as it is…X, or X as it is at present, is not determined by the
nature of things; it is not inevitable” (1999, p.6). Thereby, the
disability classification as it is at present or the entire classification
could not have existed in the social reality. Hence, the disability
classification as it is now could have followed a different track in
terms of what it covers as a disability. This contingency factor in
a social construction makes the disability classification sensitive
to the social context in which occurs, and it explains why the
extension of the given classification can expand further. Briefly,
how to construe the disability classification varies across the social
context of communities which shifts by some varying parameters
such as time, sex, race, political order, religion, and socioeconomic
status. Thereby, it is purely a matter of contingency if someone
with a certain degree of a particular impairment falls under the
extension of the disability category. Hence, deducing disabilities
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 119
from some bio-medical atypicalities is not rigidly determined on
factual grounds. Moreover, the extension of the disability category
becomes almost ever-expanding since the disability classification
varies across social contexts. At this point, it is worth noticing
that the contingency of the disability classification indicates its
modifiability and dispensability for changing our social settings in
favor of socially disadvantageous groups in their current status. If
the disability classification as it is present is a contingent construct
based on the given social setting of our community, then it means
that we are to re-construct and de-construct the given classification
by adjusting our present social setting to eliminate the limitations
associated with disabilities.
Reinforcing the distinguishing marks of the disability
classification, the impairment category needs to be elaborated
in terms of its domain of discourse. This category is generically
redeemed to consist of such and such natural kinds that cause a
loss or deviation of an ascribed physiological and psychological
function. Hereby, it appears to provide what the world is like
through the bio-medical facts which are not socially oriented. For
instance, biological deviations, genetic mutations, and anatomic
atypicalities do not concern with ascribing social values to
phenomena based on some prescriptive category such as normality.
Rather, such phenomena are defined based on the facts about the
human body that stands for a bio-statistical category (e.g. average
or mean) which provides an objective description of how most
commonly observed formations of an organ, for instance, work
without any discomfort, pain or any external intervention in
a specific portion of the life cycle. In as much as the course of
scientific inquiry allows, the impairment category can also expand
or narrow in terms of its domain of discourse. After all, a scientific
inquiry usually acquires new results about its subject matter while
disconfirming previously obtained ones. In addition, the nature
of conditions related to human anatomy has also progressive
and dynamic aspects so that impairments might be undetectable
120 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
or dormant during one’s life span, or else distinct bodies and
metabolisms might manifest fluctuating bio-medical outcomes
under the very same impairment condition.
Hence, neither disability nor impairment saliently yields a
conclusively determinable domain of discourse. Although it is
difficult to map out their extensions, the extensions of these
categories can be qualitatively distinguished from one another
based on the point that the impairment category consists of
biological kinds whereas the disability category consists of socially
constructed kinds. Nonetheless, it is worth discussing whether this
qualitative difference adequately grounds the distinction between
impairment and disability. In this regard, some theorists dismiss the
idea that the impairment category is exhausted by biological kinds
and they instead argue for the social construction of impairment
based on the idea that social constructs- from social practices to
institutions- causally and ontologically predetermine the factual
aspects of impairments. In favor of the impairment category as a
social construct, Wendell (1996) hereby offers a model of disability
in which she roots factual aspects of impairments into social
constructs. Thus, she includes impairments, which are biological
kinds, into the domain of disability because she believes that social
constructions prearrange the initiating grounds for impairments.
In this vein, she argues:
“I see disability as socially constructed in ways ranging from
social conditions that straightforwardly create illnesses, injuries,
and pour physical functioning, to subtle cultural factors that
determine standards of normality and exclude those who do
not meet them from full participation in their societies…
it is easy to recognize that social conditions affect people’s
bodies creating or failing to prevent sickness and injury…
Many do in fact cause disability given the demands and
lack of support in the environments of the people affected,
In this direct sense of damaging people’s bodies in ways
that are disabling in their environments, much disability is
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 121
created by the violence of invasions, wars, civil wars, and
terrorism, which cause disabilities not only through direct
injuries to combatants and noncombatants, but also through
the spread of disease and the deprivations of basic needs
that result from the chaos they create…The availability and
distribution of basic resources such as water, food, clothing,
and shelter have major effects on disability, since much
disabling physical damage results directly from malnutrition
and indirectly from diseases that attack and do more lasting
harm the malnourished and those weakened by exposure.
Disabling diseases are also contracted from contaminated
water when clean water is not available.” (pp.58-59)
I think Wendell’s picture of the disability-impairment
distinction muddles a few things about being a social construction.
First, the material conditions such as the lack of basic sources to
sustain a healthy life can indeed be determined by social factors.
Nonetheless, this situation only plays a causal role in determining
the quantitative framework of impairment such as demographics.
In other words, the material conditions affected by social factors
do not construct what a token of impairment or disease formally is
although they circumstantially contribute to how this impairment
in question occurs. For another thing, causation is not the same
thing as construction even if what is constructed brings out
certain material conditions playing a causal role in occurrences of
certain biological states. Hence, it can be said that Wendell fails to
recognize impairments as purely biological and socially inactive
kinds with their current dysfunctional effects on people’s average
bodily states.
Recognizing impairments as biological kinds carries out a
furtherpointaboutWendell’sargument.Ifwe drawonKripke’s
notion of rigid designation in modal contexts, then it can be
held that poliovirus refers to the very same being in the same
composition even in a possible world where every host is immune
122 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
to poliovirus.16 In a scenario with no infected person, one might
consider that what falls under the impairment category also seems
to be contingent on some external conditions. However, it would
be quite presumptuous to hold that the impairment category is
contingent in the same sense as how the disability category hinges
on the percepts and constructs varying across social contexts. On
the one hand, a bio-medical state becomes an impairment only
when it is causally and naturally connected with any bio-medical
discomfort or dysfunction. Here, it is fair to say that one would
not consider this given bio-medical state as an impairment if
it does not inflict any discomforting effect at all. In this sense,
impairments as biological kinds are only contingent on how
people in these natural states manifest any medical discomfort or
dysfunction. Nonetheless, this sort of contingency does not mean
that the impairment category depends on social factors.
Another point indicating the ambiguity of the above categories
concerns with medicalization and de-medicalization of certain
social constructs (Hacking, 1990). According to this, one socially
designated abnormality can be medicalized to the effect that it
becomes a part of the impairment category. To illustrate, the rise of
eugenics studies in the 19th century showed a clean-cut case of how
to medicalize socially attached stigmas. In this respect, Douglas
Baynton (2013) proposes a historical survey on how the concept
of disability has functioned to justify political inequalities which
cast away not only disabled people but also racial minorities,
women, and immigrants. Moreover, Baynton covers a few
‘disability’ arguments against and for the inequalities derived from
the medicalization of racial discrimination. According to one of
16 Kripke(1972)discussesthatpropernamesincludingnaturalkindtermsrigidly
designates the very same being irrespective of how language users mean to use
such terms. Although the descriptions or connotations which language users pair
with these terms might vary, these terms always correspond to the same referents.
Water, for instance, always corresponds to such and such molecular entity even if
some uses the term to mean something entirely different as in the cases of calling
things in liquid form as water.
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 123
these historical examples, Dr. Samuel Cartwright (1851) claimed
there are two types of mental diseases to which are commonly
African Americans subjected: (i) Drapetomania: one’s running
away from his natural or normal course of life as a result of mental
alienation (e.g. run-away slaves); (ii) Dysaethesia: one’s lacking
desire to work and causing mischief (e.g. ‘free black people’)
(Bayton, 2013, pp.40-41). As these instances of the medicalized
social constructs suggest, some tokens of the impairment category
fallaciously collapse into the disability category when one
stipulates some ad hoc medical assumptions to allegedly ground
some folk percepts or social constructs which occur following the
given socio-political interests under the relevant social context.
Yet, I believe the medicalization process of disability cases ought
to be eliminated to draw an unambiguous distinction between
disability and impairment. In this respect, Hacking’s distinction
between “interactive kinds” and “indifferent kinds” might come in
handy for offering a clean-cut distinction between the impairment
category and the disability category. Hereby, we might fairly hold
that the impairment category - excluding some mental conditions
which emerge from looping effects (e.g. Hypochondria)- consists
of a way of classifying indifferent kinds instead of interactive kinds.
Hacking (1999) points out that the classification of concepts or
kinds can differ based on what sort of relation the classified kind
has with the classification itself. Here, he portrays the distinction
between indifferent kinds and interactive kinds. As to indifferent
kinds, entities which are classified as such and such are indifferent
to the relevant classification in the sense that these entities do not
take any stance on the descriptions under which they are classified.
On the other hand, the interactive kinds apply to the classifications
under which beings can interact with how they are classified (1999,
p.103). For instance, self-conscious agents are capable of taking
stance on how they are classified and they can influence how they
behave or how this classification applies under the descriptions
provided by the relevant classification (1999, p.104).
124 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Thus, the classification itself can be revised or replaced through
these interactions since interactive kinds can impact the very
course of the classifying process in question. Regarding Hacking’s
given distinction, the medicalization of social constructs might
fairly be held as a possible outcome of interactive kinds. After all,
people are apt to interact with how they are objectively classified
in the impairment category to the effect that they can convert
it into the category of disability. Again, their such and such
interactions at the conscious level might transpire to justify one
category by an objective one. Furthermore, even their interactions
can unconsciously reinforce or acknowledge someone’s being
classified as such and such because these interactions can already
have foundations in the institutions and the practices relevant to
the given classification. Therefore, it is possible for the disability
category to be medicalized or to rest on medical classifications
although it does not change the fact that it is socially constructed
no matter how it exploits the category of indifferent kinds.
3. THE CONSTRUCTION OF DISABILITY VIA
‘NORMALITY’
Now, I would like to turn my focus on how the disability
classification functions to discriminate against disabled people via
the conception of ‘normality’. Particularly, the provided analysis
includes some historical misapplications of the impairment-
disability distinction through the concept of ‘normality’. As it has
been discussed in the previous chapter, the disability category has
been devised to justify systematical exclusions of people who do not
fit into the relevant norms or expectations of the given community.
As many authors such as Hacking, Wendell, and Baynton point
out; justifications for excluding people as disabled rest on the
concept of normality, and thereby this concept acquires a key role
to legitimize certain groups while marginalizing others based on
some implicitly or explicitly acknowledged interests, expectations
and various accommodations in a particular social context.
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 125
In this respect, Baynton (2013), in a historical analysis of
disability, suggests that the arguments for the exclusion of so-called
disabled people often appeal to the seemingly inherent limitations
of disabled people which consist of “physical, intellectual,
and psychological flaws, deficits, and deviations” (pp.34-36).
Furthermore, these so-called flaws and deviations, which are
allegedly sufficient to disregard some people in such and such
social rights, are not biologically defined atypicalities; instead,
they are socially ascribed deviations grounded in social reality
via the concept of ‘normality’. That is to say, “the normal is the
center which deviation departs” and yet the normality is socially
prescriptive rather than descriptive (Hacking, 1990, p.164).
Hence, normality, as the historical examples have shown, works
as a socially prescriptive means of measuring, categorizing, and
managing populations. To clarify the social impacts of normality,
we can draw an explanatory connection with social Darwinism
which theoretically seeks to naturalize the decentralization of
certain groups and becomes a catalyst for discriminative programs
such as the Eugenics movements.17 Social Darwinism provides a
vivid picture of such a misapplication of the normality concept
in the sense that normality signifies the ideal progress bar of
evolutionary hierarchy in social reality in which allegedly inept or
unfit groups cannot survive through due to their allegedly inherent
ineptitude about some so-called survival exigencies. Hence,
the concept of normality marginalizes whatever disconfirms
the supposed bar of expected progress. Hereby, the concept of
abnormality, in a social Darwinist sense, further corresponds to
whatever lags behind the alleged norm of evolutionary progress in
some socially acknowledged respects such as physical or intellectual
aptitudes. Thus, the concept of normality generally lurks into the
17 The Eugenics, as a set of pseudo-scientific beliefs and political practices, typically
advocates to select and control human populations and their social status based
on their psychical and mental fitness for improving the society in some allegedly
significant respects. Such movements historically includes policies such as cont-
rolled-breeding or cleansing of certain groups for some planned improvement.
126 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
disability category to provide a pseudo-objective criterion for
excluding certain groups. In this regard, Hacking provides a brief
genealogical analysis of being ‘normal’ to show how this concept,
which is supposed to describe the set of generic facts about a
kind, also works to assign values to the relevant kind of entities.
According to this genealogical picture, the term initially emerged
as a geometrical term and it was taken to be synonymous with
being orthogonal to a given reference or a plane. In this sense of
the term ‘normal’, being normal only describes how something is
positioned with a reference to some fixed point. Nevertheless, this
initial use of the term, according to Hacking (1990), has evolved
from its descriptive sense towards an evaluative sense to the effect
that we ended up with the term to say how something ought to
position with a reference to some socially endorsed norms.
Here, Baynton seems to provide more concrete examples to
follow how normality becomes an evaluative means to justify
exclusions of people passing under the progress bar drawn by this
very concept. For example, in 1866, Down’s syndrome was initially
called Mongolism because the syndrome was believed to be the
result of a biological reversion by Caucasians to the Mongol racial
type which was taken to be an evolutionary throwback (pp.36).
Again, he further points out that the scientists in the 19th century
defended slavery based on the idea that the physical capacities of
Africans are suitable for serving and overcoming heavy tasks. As
their misconception implies, these enslaved people would suffer
from various diseases if they abandoned living by their nature.
Moreover, such a misconception rests on the normality criterion
that those who do not live by their inherent aptitude ought to be
regarded as ‘disabled’ (Bayton, 2013, pp.37-41).
Regarding the exploitive use of the term ‘normality’, Wendell
(1996) offers some further insights into the practical consequences
of how the notion of normality functions in society. According to
her, this notion frequently and exclusively applies to those who
cannot keep up with the expectations of performance relevant to a
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 127
particular social context. Thus, those who fail to keep up with these
expectations are marked as abnormal. In this regard, she states:
“Societies that are physically constructed and socially
organized with the unacknowledged assumption that
everyone is healthy, non-disabled, young but adult, shaped
according to cultural ideals, and, often, male, create a great
deal of disability through sheer neglect of what most people
need in order to participate fully in them.” (Wendell, 1996,
p.60)
Hence, public transportation or sidewalks, for example, have
been heavily designed for ‘normal’ pedestrians and not for elderly
people or people with certain impairments. In other words, the
normal as a means of exclusion has been built into every concrete
and abstract aspect of the social environment since the term
‘normal’ corresponds to an evaluative criterion for assessing one’s
performances of some socially ascribed tasks in a given social
context.
4. HASLANGAR’S DEFINITION OF ‘DISABILITY’
In this final section, I would like to revise the definition of
disability since the disability classification must also be reckoned
in terms of oppressions, exclusions, and subordinations which
have been historically accompanied by this classification. In this
regard, I will take Haslanger’s definition of gender into account
to remodel the definition of disability. Hereby, it is worth
mentioning how Sally Haslanger (2000) defines gender from a
social constructivist point of view. Firstly, she offers an account
of gender and race which mainly contends that both gender and
race are socially real categories and these categories are constructed
through social relations which systematically mark one group as
subordinate or privileged in some dimensions of social hierarchy
(economic, political, legal and so on) regarding presumptively
physical features such as sex, reproductive capacities, skin color,
128 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
and ancestral links. Her stance seeks to characterize gender and race
in terms of oppression which socially and historically emerges in
various forms. Thereby, the gender question, for Haslanger, can be
answered only by means of realizing and assessing the oppressive
factors and practices which chart out these categories in social
reality. That is to say, she defines these categories with reference to
her feminist and anti-racist theory so that these oppression-laden
categories are to be removed or refined to meet the prospect of her
feminist and anti-racist political agenda. In this vein, she proposes
the following definition for the gender category for women:
“S is a woman iff S is systematically subordinated along some
dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.) and S is
‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined
bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological
role in reproduction” (Haslanger, 2000, p. 39).
Holding this definition, Haslanger mentions that the overall
project is to relinquish this category by removing the relevant
inequalities. This definition is of course sensitive to the regional
and contextual differences of a society in which the given gender
category occurs in the face of related oppressive factors and
practices. It might seem to overlook some micro levels of gender
conception in a society (e.g. being a trans-gender refugee with
some auditory impairment) and some intertwined aspects of
oppression (e.g. being a second-generation refugee woman with
some permanent speech impairment). Recognizing such rarefied
cases of gender, Haslanger states “someone functions as a woman
in context C iff S is observed or imagined in C to have certain
bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological
role in reproduction” and this marks S “within the ideology of C
as someone who ought to occupy certain kinds of social position
that are in fact subordinate” (pp.42-43).
Drawing on Haslanger, I believe that the disability category
can be defined in the following way: S is disabled if and only if S
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 129
is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic,
political, legal, social, etc.) and S is ‘marked’ as a target for this
treatment by observed or imagined bodily impairment presumed
to be evidence of a bodily role in evaluative expectations (e.g.
performance, appearance, communication, and accommodation)
of a given society.
In this vein, I hold that this definition makes two features of
the category salient: being a social construct and being a source of
exclusion. Although I prefer to hold the definition for the sake of
these features, it is not difficult to imagine some cases of disability
which do not fall into the definition. For instance, a person who
suffered from a chronic illness can continue to experience being
disabled even after her full recovery. Here, there is no time barrier
for a society to evaluate one’s state in terms of its expectations. She
can still be evaluated to be a possible liability in society. Again, there
is no apparent conceptual barrier for a society to hold someone
to be disabled because the domain of discourse is quite dynamic
and interactive to the extent that even seemingly irrelevant social
features can bring out a disability. In this regard, the uses of the
term ‘disability’ resemble the instances of figurative speech or
metaphoric expressions which are taken to be literally by time.
Moreover, I share the same agenda with Haslanger in the
sense that the overall goal is to eliminate the entire category by
deconstructing the conditions behind this exclusion. Furthermore,
the opponents of Haslanger’s account often criticize her revisionary
goal by indicating that people from such and such categories
also share and create certain values which they do not want to
relinquish. That is to say, Haslanger is criticized to undervalue
‘gay pride’ or ‘black pride’ in her account by offering to relinquish
these categories. After all, the oppressed people often acquire some
epistemic or social merits through their struggles against what
subordinates them to the effect that the oppressed people cultivate
group solidarity and shared lore in the face of subordinating
conditions. So, one might fairly consider that relinquishing gender
130 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
or race categorically costs the oppressed people to lose their alt-
culture which represents the merits and achievements of their
struggles against the oppression.
The very same critique might be directed to the revised
definition of disability since the elimination of the disability
category can be regarded as underestimating the communal
bounds among disabled people facing the same or highly similar
limitations. However, I think the Haslangarian definition sets a
possibility of wider communal bounds even if it undermines the
communal bounds established under a particular category within
a minor community. For one thing, endorsing and reinforcing the
Haslangarian definition of disability prompts society to realize the
social constructs and percepts which consequently subordinate
people based on some imagined or real impairments. Hence, the
Haslangarian definition of disability leads to more comprehensive
lore or epistemic status about the constructed axes of oppression in
society. For another thing, endorsing the Haslengarian definition
sheds a strong light on how such categories are unjustly and falsely
constructed for excluding some group or groups in a society so that
a given society might justly use it for unifying their community
based on ethically and politically righteous grounds.
Moreover, eliminating one oppression-laden category does not
necessarily rule out nor undermine the communal culture shared
by the people exposed to the same systematic oppressions. That
is to say, the communal bounds which occur and subsist in the
historical continuum of cultural memory do not necessarily pale
into insignificance when the continuing oppressions cease to
exclude the relevant community. After all, I think the significance
of the communal bounds comes from what the community has
so far lived through the relevant oppressions and what epistemic
and normative commitments they commonly have pursued about
these oppressions excluding them. Thus, the communal bounds
would not simply fade away as a result of canceling out the ongoing
oppressions. Since the community, even after canceling out the
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 131
oppressive category, would still share the same commitments and
cultural memory about how the socially constructed category
in its canceled form oppresses them. Briefly, such commitments
and cultural memory are essential to distinctively construe such a
community in the first place so that the very communal bounds
accompanied by the cultural merits such as ‘black pride’ subsists
only for the sake of these essential tenets of the community.
Furthermore, the very reason why people ought to appeal to the
Haslangarian definition already concerns with their normative
commitment and their epistemic status about the oppressions to
which they are systematically exposed in society. After all, such
a social environment inherits disorderly and disadvantageous
conditions for those who do not physically and psychologically fit
into the non-substantially and even arbitrarily designated criterion
for being a ‘normal’ candidate to exercise some social customs,
public practices, or institutional duties and general tasks in this
society in question.
5. CONCLUSION
As has been discussed thus far, a disability is merely a matter of
one’s suitability for some social constructs whereas an impairment,
observed or imagined, comes out as a matter of someone’s
biological traits in terms of scientifically deliberated bio-medical
typicality for humankind in general. In this context, demarcating
the distinction between impairment and disability plays a crucial
role in comprehending how disability is socially constructed by
mediating it with some observed or imagined impairments based
on their relevance to some given set of social norms, exercises,
infrastructures, and institutions. At this point, it is indispensable to
underline that an impairment does not necessarily entail a disability
because a token of disability occurs only if some relevant impairment-
observed or imagined- discords with some acknowledged sense of
normality for some prevailing construct in a given society. From
this constructivist perspective, everyone, with or without any
132 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
genuine or supposed impairment, is disabled to satisfy or cohere
with some social construct regarding the fact that distinct social
constructs in the different portions of different societies might
enforce varying demands for physical or psychological norms
of suitability. People with some inflammatory forms of visual
impairments are considered to be disabled in the sense that they do
not accord with certain tasks- in certain manners- which have only
socially ascribed values about a particular level of visual capacity.
Yet, such an individual can still manage to complete this task in an
unacknowledged manner (e.g. self-taught practices for perceiving
the surrounding) or she can replace it with any other equally
beneficial task through her own biological condition determined
by the relevant impairment. Better yet, society might collectively
figure out how certain tasks can be adjusted, reset, transformed, or
dropped out for certain groups by altering the current constructs
regardless of jeopardizing the social utility of these tasks - if they
have any essential utility for society at all. For instance, improving
the medical know-how about treatments of such impairments or
downsizing the social and practical disadvantages of being disabled
for this task would be obvious initiations for adjusting people for
these tasks.
In this respect, we ought to deconstruct this arbitrary category,
i.e. disability, and its accompanying discourse instead of ossifying
it together with the impairment category. Furthermore, this
arbitrariness of the disability category not only implicates a
theoretical incoherence about providing a substantial definition
but also results in unjust criteria for systematically marking certain
groups as subordinate in society. Hence, eliminating this arbitrary
category further bears political and ethical significance in negating
the subordination of people. In this respect, the Haslangarian
definition of disability, as proposed in the previous section,
adequately displays how oppression, which comes from the
suitability norms of social constructs, becomes relevant to chart
out disability to the effect that we vividly recognize our ethical
A Philosophical Perspective on the Social Construction of Disability | 133
and political duties for abolishing people from such systematic
oppression and its discourse in society.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baynton, D. C. (2013). Disability and the justification of inequality
in American History. The Disability Studies Reader, 17, 33-57.
Hacking, I. (1990). The taming of chance (Vol. 17). Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Hacking, I. (1999). The social construction of what?. Harvard university
press.
Haslanger, S. (2000). Gender and race: (What) are they? (what) do
we want them to be?. Nous, 34(1), 31-55.
Kripke,S.A.(1972).Namingandnecessity.InSemantics of natural
language (pp. 253-355). Springer, Dordrecht.
Wasserman, D., Asch, A., Blustein, J. & Putnam, D. (2013). Disa-
bility: Definitions, Models, Experience. Retrieved fromhttp://
plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/disability
Wendell, S. (1996). The rejected body: Feminist philosophical reflections on
disability. Routledge.
135
CHAPTER 7
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and
Tourism Nexus: A Re-Examination in the
Case of Airbnb
Nezahat DOĞAN18
1. INTRODUCTION
This study aims to investigate the perceived risks associated
with usage of places in sharing economy through Airbn platform.
Airbnb as the most recognized sharing company is a leading web
based company that connects hosts with travelers. Hosts determine
their own policies and rules for guests such as smoking, in house
behavior, and price etc. And guests access Airbnb web platform
through their mobile phones and computers. However, all these
activities bring a question of perceived risks taken by travellers or
guests. According to the report written by Queensland Tourism
18 Assoc.Dr.,ArkınUniversityofCreativeArtsandDesign,FacultyofCommuni-
cation, Department of Communication Design and Management, nezahat.do-
gan@arucad.edu.tr, Orcid id: 0000-0002-7357-6030
136 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Industry Council (2014), unregulated sharing companies such as
Airbnb has some pros and cons for their consumers when compared
with regulated tourism businesses in terms of price, authenticity,
environmental, communication, reliability, transparency, health,
safety and quality. On the other hand, Airbn provides lower costs
for their users on average between 21.2 and 49.5% compared
to hotel prices by creating more supply (Prieconomics, 2013).
This price advantage provides win-win opportunity for both
hosts by generating extra income and for travellers by booking
accommodation at lower prices.
However, Airbnb or sharing economy users can face with some
other concerns related to risks. Tseng and Wang (2016) emphasizes
that, to understand the traveller’s motivations and incentives to
use Airbnb, researchers and web providers need to be aware of
individual characteristics and their perceptions about the risk of
possible uncertainties. To our knowledge, this study will be the
first in analyzing the perceived risks and incentives of travellers
or potential users of Airbnb as a leading company in this respect.
With this, it will be possible to understand which variables affect
the decisions of the users of sharing economy for both potential
customers and marketing strategies of service providers. It also
provides more comprehensive approach because of the model used
in the study.
Most of the studies in the literature focus on the online booking
on regulated business services, such as Hotels, and customer
intentions to use Internet for this purpose (Amaro and Duarte,
2015;Liu and Zhang, 2014; Bigne et al., 2010). On these studies,
researchers have mostly focused on online purchase intentions and
its main determinants such as trust factors, price, quality of web
site, online reviews etc. (Agag and Masry, 2016; Wang et al., 2015;
LiuandZhang,2014;Jensen,2012;Kimetal.2009;Linetal.,
2009). However, there are very few studies examining the perceived
risk associated with online purchase for travel industry (Lin et al.
2009; Yang et al.,2015; Hong, 2015). Here, perceived risk can be
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 137
defined as the potential risk perceived taken by the potential traveller
in using the Airbnb as sharing economy company. While Dickson
and Dolnicar (2004) and Chang (2010) defined the perceived risk
as individual’s subjective assessment of the real risk, some others
like Fuchs and Reichel (2011) and Reisinger and Mavondo (2005)
defined perceived risk as individual or customer’s perception of the
uncertainty or negativity of course of action. From these points
of views, perceived risk has categorized by external and internal
factors in one of the studies conducted by Ynag and Nair (2014).
They reviewed research trend of risk in tourism by analyzing
46 articles and they classified the internal factors that can affect
perceived risk of tourists within the four dimensions as i) socio
demographic including age, gender, income and tourist role, ii)
socio cultural including nationality and cultural orientation, iii)
biological including personality and DNA, and iv) psychographic
including past experience, lifestyle, motivation, novelty preference,
attitude and value, while classifying the external factors include
media, travel advisory, and image of tourism destination. They
also pointed out that external factors are source of actual risk
information, however, internal factors determine perceived risk or
interpretations of risks. In the light of these studies, perceived risks
are classified and examined as i) social risks, ii) service risks, iii)
security risks, iv) environmental risks, v) economic and financial
risks, vi) privacy risks, vii) psychological risks, and viii) time loss
risks in this study.
Consistent with previous researchers, we defined the
components of perceived risks as given here. Political risk is a loss
such that the choice of using sharing economy may result in lack
of safety conditions, personal freedom, laws and regulations and
public health system in destination country (Sonmez and Graefe,
1998; Lepp and Gibson, 2003; Yang and Nair, 2014). Service
risk is the risk occurred when service provided by host does not
perform as expected or as promised or risk taken because of not
knowing the personality of the host (Hong, 2015; Yang and Nair,
138 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
2014; Yang et al.,2015). Security risk is the risk incurred when the
choice results in insecure conditions such as physical abuse, fire,
theft, or other kinds of crime in general (Lepp and Gibson, 2003;
Reisinger and Mavondo, 2005; Yang et al.,2015). Environmental
risks were not considering in previous studies much (Lepp and
Gibson, 2003). However we take it into account and it refers to
the harm to guest in sharing economy that a bad choice produces
due to air and water pollution, lack of clean environment etc.
Economic and financial risks are loss to user of sharing economy
due to lack of warranty and proper payment systems, payments
without written agreements, overpriced service, unexpected
expenses and hidden costs etc (Hong, 2015; Yang et al.,2015).
Privacy risks are the perception that the sharing economy users,
or host can make wrongful use of guests’ financial or personal
details (Yang and Nair, 2014; Yang et al.,2015). Psychological
risks represents the sensation of anxiety by not knowing the other
party, how to participate in social media, and the opinion of the
other people whose opinion they consider as valued such as family
and friends etc. This is expected to harm self- image and ego of
the visitor using sharing economy (Sun, 2014; Kushwaha and
Shankar, 2013; Hong, 2015). Time loss risks is the perception that
the user of sharing economy has required an excessive amount of
time for searching on web sites, sharing information and collecting
information from host etc.
AccordingtothestudiesconductedbyKolsakeretal(2004)and
Kimetal.(2009),perceivedriskaffectspurchaseofonlineairline
tickets negatively. Some other researchers has supported this results
and additionally found that travel services has negatively related
to customers’ intention to purchase travel online through attitude
(Jensen,2012;Kolsakeret.al.2004).Intheliterature,safetyand
security terms were sometimes used as a substitute terms for risk
(Sonmez and Graefe, 1998). However, Reisinger and Mavondo
(2005) considered security and safety as dimensions of risk and
mentioned that lower level risks affects the travel intentions of
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 139
tourist in the future. However, some other group of studies, such
as Plog (1974), suggested that risk could be a positive factor for
risk seeker and risk taker tourists. Dickson and Dolnicar (2004)
also pointed out a similar conclusion and mentioned that optimal
level of perceived risk is essential for exciting travel, especially
within the case of adventure tourism. Williams and Balaz (2013)
defined the tourism product as intangible and heterogeneous
and mentioned that purchasing a holiday is a risk in itself. They
also indicate that sociodemographic factors are one of the main
dimensions in analyzing the factors of risk perception in tourism.
Sun (2014) analyzed perceived risk for hotel service in China, as
an emerging market, by examining social, psychological, financial,
and performance risks separately in both individual level and firm
level, and found that social and psychological risks positively effects
word of mouth, but not on switching intention. However, all
these researches focus on the regulated businesses such as Hotels,
travel agencies, and airlines rather than focusing on the businesses
constructed under sharing economy, such as Airbnb.
To our knowledge, this is the first empirical study that measures
the perceived risk of using Airbnb in the context of sharing
economy. It also aims to understand user profiles in terms of their
behavior attitude and intentions to use this service with perceived
risks taken by them. Several practical implications can be drawn
from this study. Outcome of this study provides information for
both actual and potential sharing economy users through Airbnb
platform and also for businesses operating within the sharing
economy like Airbnb to expand their knowledge. It is expected
that increase in knowledge will lead lower level risk of using these
kinds of services. On the other hand, sharing economy businesses
and their managers will be informed through highlighting users’
perceived risk dimensions in the study as well. This may be helpful
for managers to use different approaches and marketing strategies
based on the level of perceived risk taken by its users.
140 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
2. DEVELOPMENT OF THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORK
2.1. Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
Nowadays, Information technology (IT) is one of the most
important tools of effective marketing, advertisement and sales
for the businesses. With growing needs for technology, even if
the companies do not have physical places to sell their goods and
services, they may design their web pages and selling their goods
and services through Internet. However, in this respect, customer
or user point of view and their willingness to use technology
does not ignorable. Davis, in 1985, proposed a model named as
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which explain and predict
user behavior and motivation of using information technology. He
defined perceived usefulness, attitude toward using, and perceived
ease of use as determinants of users’ motivation to use IT. Within
this concept, attitude toward using has considered to be affected
by both perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness as well,
while perceived usefulness has directly affected by perceived ease
of use. In turn, attitude toward using the IT has defined as main
determinant of actual system use or rejecting it. Davis modified
TAM in 1989 by introducing a new variable, behavioral intention
to use, into model, and eliminate another variable, attitude toward
using, because of obtaining direct impacts of perceived usefulness
and perceived ease of use on behavioral intention to use.
Over time, TAM has applied on tourism and hospitality services
by some researchers. For example, Bader et al. (2012) found that
perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, social influence and
self-efficacy are main drivers of behavioral intention to use mobile
tourism services by using 588 data for Switzerland. Some other
studies related to tourism and hospitality (Law and Jogaratman,
2005; Wang and Qualls, 2007) explained the reasons of using
technologies by hotels as decreasing cost, improving operational
efficiencies and service quality. However, all these researches focus
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 141
on the regulated businesses such as Hotels rather than focusing
on the businesses constructed under sharing economy, such as
Airbnb. Some should keep in mind that the main concern of this
paper is to analyze perceived risks taken by the potential customers
of Airbnb. Technology here is taken into consideration just as tool
affecting intention to use of Airbnb.
2.2. Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
The theory of planned behavior was proposed by Ajzen
(1985; 1991) and is based on three components to examine
individual’s decision to perform a behavior. These components
are subjective norms (social influence and/or pressure or other’s
opinions in respect of the behavior), perceived behavioral control
(beliefs regarding opportunities and resources such as money and
time needed to perform a behavior), and general attitudes (as a
measure the extend which an individual has positive or negative
way evaluation of behavior). According to the Ajzen behaviors
change through influencing intentions. According to the theory,
individual’s intention is affected by these three components
and defined as willingness of an individual to perform certain
behaviour. From this point of view, within the framework of this
study, intention to use sharing economy such as Airbnb again or
willingness to recommend it can be good indicators as a measure
of behavioral intention. Perceived behavior control influences both
intention and behavior of an individual.
The theory of TFP, as part of decision-making, has been applied
in tourism and hospitality framework for predicting behavior to
explain leisure participation (Ajzen and Driver, 1991), international
travelling (Lam and Hsu, 2004), gambling behavior (Oh and Hsu,
2001), destination choices (Lam and Hsu, 2006), and convention
participation (Lee and Back, 2009). In addition to these, a study
using TPB to examine risks and uncertainties on travel decision-
making and intentions to visit Australia, conducted by Quintal et
al. (2010), found that perceived behavior control and subjective
142 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
norms influenced attitudes have significant impact on intentions
in all country samples. And perceived risk has influenced attitudes
towardvisitingAustralia,JapanandSouthKorea.
From this point of views, we proposed to analyze decisions of
the users of sharing economy and their intentions by considering
some forms of subjective norms. By combining the indicators
from TAM and TPB will provide us more comprehensive approach
because of the model used in the study as well.
3. METHODS
To measure the perceived risk of using Airbnb in the context
of sharing economy, an online survey including 42 questions
regarding risks, 8 questions regarding intention to use and
attitudes, and additionally 10 questions regarding demographic
features of respondent with 3 sub-sections was designed by
using Google questionnaire tool. The first section consists of 8
categories of risk as components of overall perceived risk as social
risks, service risks, security risks, environmental risks, economic
and financial risks, privacy risks, psychological risks, and time
loss risks with five point Likert scale (1= Extremely Low Risk,
2=Low Risk, 3=Moderately, 4= High Risk, 5= Extremely
High Risk) in each item. The second section focuses on potential
user’s response on opinion about Airbnb experience. The last part
of the questionnaire contains questions regarding respondent’s
demographic characteristics such as gender, education, income and
region etc.
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 143
Table 1. Risk Categories Associated with Airbnb as a Platform of Sharing
Economy
Risk Categories Sub Categories
1. Political Risk
Socio-Political instability in the destination country
Safety conditions in the destination country
Personal freedom in the destination country
Public Health in the destination country
Laws and regulations in the destination country
2. Service Risks
Uncomfortable room(s)
Unqualified/Inexperienced host(s)
Lack of Home appliances
Unsociable host(s)
Lack of useful information (e.g. Map,
transportation, and so on)
Lack of independent access (key)
Lack of contact information of host
Mismatched services with the descriptions given on
the website
3. Security Risks
Theft/fraud
Fire
Physical Abuse
Crime in general
4. Environmental
Risks
Air pollution
Water pollution
Hygiene/Clean environment
Ignorance of environmental issues in the place
144 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
5. Economical/
Financial Risks
Currency fluctuations
Lack of proper payment systems
Higher prices compared to other places
Unexpected extra payments
No guarantee of refunds, in the case of error
Payment without written agreements
Occurrence of a mistake during the online payment
system
6. Privacy Risks
Sharing the personal information in the web
Wrongful use of personal details
Ignoring the ethical values by service providers
Privacy and quietness
7. Psychological
Risks
Feeling of pressure if there is loss in payment
Feeling of anxiety before meeting with the other
party
Feeling of anxiety if the service can not be provided
timely and/or provided as promised
Feeling of pressure from the family/friends/society
because of choosing shared accommodation system
Feeling of anxiety because of taking the risk of
sharing same room or house with another person
from opposite sex
Feeling of anxiety due to cultural conflicts at
accommodation
8. Time Loss
Risks
Wasting too much time for searching activities
Wasting too much time on tasks (reading, writing
e-mail etc)
Using too much time for finding good place in the
webpage
Using too much time for collecting information
about host from their profile
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 145
4. RESULTS
Total number of the respondents are 79 with 34 females and 45
males. Age group of respondents are distributed as 3 (4%) for over
60, 14 (18%) for 50-60, 16 (20%) for 40-49, 18 (23%) for 30-
39 and 20-29, and 10 (8%) for below 20. This results show that
Airbnb is preferred by mainly the people between the age of 20
and 50. Preferences of respondents in terms of the sharing room
are classified as shared room, entire apartment, private room and
entire home, and only 3 of the respondents preferred shared room
while 48 people choose private room. Entire room preference is
selected by 16 people and entire apartment option has been chosen
by 22 people. Regarding the income level of participants, most
have income under $24,999 and less (44%) or $30,000-$49,000
(25%). Most of the participants are from Europe with 48%, and
23% of them from Asia, 18% of them from Africa, 11% of them
from America.
Figure 1 provides results on risks on using Airbnb as a case
of sharing economy. It seems that almost all dimensions of the
political risk are defined by the participants as very important.
The results of the political risk are calculated as 4.20 for safety
conditions in the destination country, 4.08 for personal freedom,
3.81 for public health, 3.78 for laws and regulations and 3.73 for
socio-political instability. As a result, the average score pf political
risk is 3.92 over 5.
Figure 1. Political Risks on Sharing Economy
146 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Other important dimension of the risk is related to
accommodation facilities. Especially, uncomfortable rooms are
seen by the majority of participants as one of the main risk of
using Airbnb.
Figure 2. Risks in Accommodation Facilities-1
However, as can be seen from the figure 3, 40 people (51%)
mentioned the mismatched services with the descriptions given
on the website as extremely important. As a result of Figure 2
and Figure 3, the most important dimension of risk related to
accommodation facilities is lack of independent access with the
score of 3.94. Second risk has seen as lack of contact information of
the host followed by uncomfortable rooms with the values of 3.89
and 3.76 respectively. Overall score of the risk in accommodation
facilities is 3.56.
Figure 3. Risks in Accommodation Facilities-2
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 147
Another important dimension of using sharing economy is
security risk classified as theft/fraud, fire, physical abuse and crime
in general and the results are provided in Figure 4. As can be seen
from the responds of participants, majority of the participants with
68% defines physical abuse as extremely important compared to
theft/fraud, crime and fire. The most important dimension of the
security risk is physical abuse with the value of 4.58. Secondly,
theft risk score is calculated as 4.46. The scores of 4.30 and 4.15
belong to crime in general and fire respectively. Overall score of
the risk of security is 4.37, which is the highest score compared to
previous risk categories we described above.
Figure 4. Security Risk
Risk of environment issues consisting air and water pollution,
hygiene/clean environment and ignorance of environmental
issues are given in Figure 5. Almost all of the dimensions of
environmental risk is classified as high risk. Especially the clean
environment with the score of 4.18 and water pollution with the
score of 3.98 seem much more important than the other types of
environmental issues. Risk of environmental issues is calculated as
3.80 on average.
148 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Figure 5. Risk of Environmental Issues
Possible economic/financial risks are dominantly seen as high
risk. Especially, the lack of proper payment system is classified by
high risk by 36 participants (46%). The most important dimension
of economic risk is payment without written agreement with the
value of 3.97. No guarantee of refunds, in the case of agreement
follows it with the value of 3.95. Calculated average value of
economic/financial risk is 3.72.
Figure 6. Possible Economic/Financial Risk
The results of possible privacy risk are given below. The risk of
privacy and quietness, wrongful use of personal details, sharing
personal information in the web and ignoring of ethical values
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 149
by the service provider are calculated as 4.08, 4.05, 4 and 3.69
respectively. The average value of the possible privacy risk is 3.96.
Figure 7. Privacy Risk
The participants feel pressure if there is loss in payment
and this dimension seems very important for the respondents.
Figure 8 shows the results obtained from the participants for the
psychological risk. The average value of the psychological risk is
calculated as 3.23.
Figure 8. Possible Psychological Risk
150 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
From the results, it is very clear that possible time loss risk is
not that much important for the participants when we compared
it with other risks and risk dimensions. Using too much time for
collecting information about host from their profile has highest
value that defines it moderately important with the value 3. The
risk value of wasting too much time for searching activities is
calculated as 2.95, and overall average of time loss risk is 2.91.
Other dimensions are lower than the overall average of time loss
risk. The results are provided in Figure 9.
Figure 9. Possible Time Loss Risk
As a result, overall average of political risk is 3.92,
accommodation facilities risk is 3.56, security risk is 4.37,
environmental risk is 3.80, economic/financial risk is 3.72, privacy
risk is 3.96, psychological risk is 3.23 and time loss risk is 2.91.
Simply, we can rank the priorities of risk in using Airbnb can be
rank as follows with the calculated values;
Security risk (4.37) > privacy risk (3.96) > political risk (3.92)
> environmental risk (3.80) > economic risk (3.72) > risk on
accommodation facilities (3.56) > psychological risk (3.23) >
time loss risk (2.91)
Sharing Economy, Perceived Risks and Tourism Nexus... | 151
Security risk can be classified as extremely high risk while time
loss risk has moderate value. Including all dimensions, the most
important dimension for the participants is physical abuse under
the security risk. Figure 10 shows the feelings of participants about
staying at a place in sharing economy when travelling and 34 of
them found this experience as fair.
Figure 10. Feelings about Stay
This study examines the possible risks of staying at a place in
sharing economy. The finding indicates that the most important
factor for the Airbnb hosts is security risk while the least important
risk is time loss risk. However, this study does not focus on the
association between risk and host satisfaction. Privacy risk and
political risk are ranked as secondly and thirdly important risks.
Here, laws and regulations and by laws should be improved by local
authorities and Airbnb. They can also suggest insurance services to
Airbnb users to ensure their safety and increase their satisfaction.
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CHAPTER 8
Second Language Learning Process in
Terms of Neurolinguistics
Zeynep Zeliha SONKAYA19
1. INTRODUCTION
As it is well known, language is central in our lives and this is
the case not only of our native tongue, but also of other languages
have been needed to communicate within the international
community. Therefore, learning second language (L2) has become
more important in recent years.
Learning a new language is a difficult feat for which people have
to develop a complex set of linguistic skills, including encoding
the words of the new language, learning syntactic structure, and
integrating the resulting representations with existing language
knowledge. Especially in adulthood, L2 learning process is
19 Assoc.Prof.Dr., Ankara University Faculty of Educational Science, Department of
Turkish and Social Sciences, zbayazit@ankara.edu.tr,ORCİD:0000-0001-5307-
1791
158 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
notoriously difficult as opposed to first language (L1) acquisition
or child L2 acquisition (Tagarelli, 2014). In the literature, a great
deal of research has examined behavioral performance changes
associated with L2 learning (Conklin & Pellicer-Sánchez, 2016;
Orosco & Hoover, 2009; Roberts & Siyanova-Chanturia, 2013)
but little is known about what changes are happening in the brain
as L2 learning progress, when these changes occur during learning
and how can we determine differences in brain changes that reflect
successes of learning.
It is thought that although the research in L2 and cognitive
neuroscience has got a long way in characterizing the process
of adult L2 acquisition, methodological limitations have left
important gaps in the literature. From this point of view current
study takes to adress the investigation of adult second language
learning process that cannot be fully explored with behavioral
methods alone. In accordance with this purpose, this review study
takes an interdisciplinary perspective to present the neural activities
associated with L2 learning process by combining behavioral and
experimental approaches according to recent studies.
The determining of language localization in the brain has been
a matter of debate since early postmortem data from patients
suffering from language disturbances allowed speculation about
specific regions responsible for certain linguistic capacities
(Friederici and Wantenburger, 2010). Language localization
studies were first made by physicians Broca and Wernicke who
did autopsies on patients had several language difficulties before
their deaths. Broca’s area was found to be associated with speech
production, and Wernicke’s area was revealed to be related with
processing the meaning of language.
In recent years, in particular within the last decades,
neuroimaging techniques such as fMRI (Functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging), fNIRS (Functional Near Infrared
Spectroscopy), and PET (Positron Emission Tomography) have
Second Language Learning Process in Terms of Neurolinguıstics | 159
become a popular as an emerging monitoring technique for studying
the human brain reply to linguistic impulse in healthy individuals.
According to the results of neuroimaging studies, left hemisphere
has a specific role in the language acquisition network (Lazar and
Antoniello,2008;Karunanayaka,2008;Sonkaya;2018),butstill
it is unclear whether one-to-one association between language
and single determined brain areas as well. Besides, in some studies
the complexity of language processing is related to be dispersed
frontotemporal networks also consisting of regions in the right
hemisphere (Friederici and Wantenburger, 2010).
Cumulated evidence obtained from previous neuroimaging and
neurophysiological studies (Friederici and Wantenburger, 2010)
suggests that anterior temporal, posterior middle and superior
temporal cortex, angular gyrus and inferior frontal cortex have a
significant role in the sentences processing system.
In a similar line with reviewed neurophysiological studies, also
neuroimaging research are tried to determine the localization of
the neural network by concentrating on specific linguistic systems
and their interaction (Szaflarski et al, 2006; Kuhl and Rivera-
Gaxiola, 2008, Vannest et al., 2009; Yang et. al, 2015). Lesional
and neuroimaging studies, especially fMRI studies, have clearly
shown a left-hemisphere dominance for first language acquisition
(Vannest et al.,2009). Particularly, “left perisylvian areas in the
frontal lobe, also temporal and parietal lobes help to networks
promoting many constituents of language processing such as word
recognition, syntax and semantics” (Friederici and Wantenburger,
2010). In other respects, in some research it has been emphasized,
with increasing age, neuronal networks are changed vis-à-vis
proficiency of language acquisition. In one longitudinal fMRI
study, conducted by Szaflarski et al. (2006), it was investigated the
language development of children between the age of 5 and 11.
According to the study results, with increasing age, it was found to
be progressive participation in language processing by the inferior/
middle frontal, middle temporal, and angular gyri of the left
160 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
hemisphere. Also, authors highlighted the importance of lingual
and inferior temporal gyri of the right hemisphere and regression
of participation of the left posterior insula/extrastriate cortex, left
superior frontal and right anterior cingulate gyri, and left thalamus
(Szaflarski et al., 2006). Likewise, in a large cross-sectional group
of typically developing children ages between 5 and 18, Holland et
al. (2001) showed increasing specialization of language functions
to the left hemisphere as age increases. However, researchers
remarked that lateralization changes were more closely tied to the
period of acquisition for language tasks than to general maturation
(Holland et al.2001).
In the last decade, “brain and behavioral studies indicate a very
complex set of interacting brain systems in the initial acquisition
of language, many of which appear to reflect adult language
processing, even early in infancy” (Kuhl,2011:3). In particular,
while Brodmann area (BA) 44 (pars opercularis of the left
hemisphere) which corresponds with Broca’s area was referred to
as the neural seat of language production, neuroimaging findings
demonstrate a distributed network for language comprehension
process according to several neurolinguistic studies. This network
includes “several frontal and temporal brain regions working in
close connection both within and across the two hemispheres”
(Friederici and Wantenburger, 2010).
Increased interest in the relationships between the brain and
behavior over the past several decades has made neuroanatomical
proofs of L2 learning process a topic of study in disciplines like
neurology, psychiatry, neurolinguistics and neuroscience. Because
language is the central in our lives and this is the case not only of
our native tongue, but also of other languages have been needed to
communicate within the international community.
“Learning a new language is a difficult feat for which people
have to develop a complex set of linguistic skills, including encoding
the words of the new language, learning syntactic structure, and
Second Language Learning Process in Terms of Neurolinguıstics | 161
integrating the resulting representations with existing language
knowledge. Especially in adulthood, L2 learning process is
notoriously difficult as opposed to L1 or child L2 acquisition”
(Tagarelli, 2014). Therefore, especially in recent years, many of
studies focus the determine laterization and localization of L2
process in the brain (Paradis, 2001; Toentino and Tokowicz,2011;
Thomas and Backer, 2013; Li, Lagoult and Litcofsky, 2014). In
one study results conducted by Tagerelli (2014) showed that the
brain of adult L2 learners demonstrated highly dynamic activation,
even during the early stages of L2 learning process. According to
study findings brain activation was found in Broca and Wernicke
associated with L1. Additional areas were engaged, suggesting that
L1 mechanisms are not sufficient for L2 learning and processing.
At early stages of learning, hippocampal activation was found
for both vocabulary and grammar. At later stages, basal ganglia
activation was observed for grammar, particularly in the caudate
nucleus (Tagarelli, 2014). In same line with this study, Hirsch et al
(2000) at Cornell University used fMRI to identify how multiple
languages are represented in the human brain. They found that
native and second languages are spatially separated in Broca’s area,
which is a region in the frontal lobe of the brain that is responsible
for the motor parts of language-movement of the mouth, tongue,
and palate (Hirsch et al., 2000). Another fMRI study which was
carried out by Wang et al (2009) showed very little separation
in the activation of Wernicke’s area in two languages, an area
of the brain in the posterior part of the temporal lobe, which is
responsible for comprehension of language (Wang, et al, 2009).
According to several fMRI study findings, L2 learners show
the involvement of neocortical areas typically activated in L1
processing, like the inferior parietal lobe and left inferior frontal
gyrus, particularly BA44, and BA47 for lexical and semantics,
and BA44 and BA6 for grammar (Tagarelli, 2014). In addition
to L1-language areas, there were also brain regions activated in
the L2 learners that are not typically activated in L1 processing,
162 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
which suggests that the L1 language areas, while engaged, are not
sufficient for L2 learning and processing. First, activation was spied
on regions that are thought to be involved in learning and memory
consolidation, like the basal ganglia, hippocampus, mediotemporal
lobe and possibly the middle occipital lobe. It makes sense that these
brain regions would be comprised in an L2 learning paradigm, but
not in L1, because L1 processing studies are generally performed
on adults who have already learned their language (Skeide, Brauer,
& Friederici, 2014). Second, although L1 activation is typically
found in the left hemisphere, L2 learners show more extensive and
bilateral activation, and actually demonstrate right hemisphere
dominance for many of structures. In the literature many of studies
were demonstrated greater activation in L2 relative to L1 is likely
due to the increased effort involved in learning and processing an
L2 (Abutalebi, 2008; Skeide et al., 2014; Tagarelli, 2014), but the
reason for right hemisphere dominance is still unclear.
In conclusion, the results from neuroimaging studies like this
one may help with the issue of operationalize proficiency. Recent
neuroimaging research has showed that behavioral evidence alone
might not be sufficient for determining proficiency, since different
groups of speakers may perform similarly on language tests, but
show different brain patterns (Tagarelli, 2014). Regarding learners
who exhibit different levels of behavioral performance, findings
from this study demonstrate that those learners who perform
poorly on L2 tasks rely on different structures over the course of
learning from those who perform well. In particular, for grammar,
poorer learners show a greater reliance on structures related with
more declarative memory, like the medio temporal lobe and
hippocampus, whereas better learners show a shift to structures
related with procedural memory and implicit processes, like the
basal ganglia, BA44, and BA6. These suggestions that the profile of
a highly proficient learner might go beyond high performance on
behavioral tasks and consists of activation of certain neural regions
that suggest the ability to automatize grammar. The goal of L2
Second Language Learning Process in Terms of Neurolinguıstics | 163
teaching, then, might not only be to increase scores on language
tests, but also to determine what sorts of training conditions and
cognitive abilities can facilitate the involvement of these automatic
processes in the brain.
CONCLUSION
In this study, neuroanatomical proofs of L1 and L2 was
tried to investigate according to available neuroimaging studies.
Different study results suggest activation of specific brain patterns
is significantly correlated with highly effective learning of a L2.
These results highlight the implications for neurocognitive theories
of L2, and demonstrate the importance of integrating neural and
behavioral methods in L2 research.
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CHAPTER 9
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the
Effects of Digital Technologies Such as
Artificial Intelligence on Brand Cities and
City Marketing
Sevgi AYDIN20
Kemal Gökhan NALBANT 21
1. INTRODUCTION
A sign or symbol that assists in differentiating one person’s
products or services from those of another person’s goods or
services and that can be represented graphically is referred to as a
20 Assist. Prof. Dr., Beykent University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative
Sciences, Department of Business (Turkish), Turkey, e-mail: sevgiaydin@beykent.
edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0002-9507-5448
21 Assist. Prof. Dr., Beykent University, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture,
Department of Software Engineering, Turkey, e-mail: kemalnalbant@beykent.
edu.tr, ORCID: 0000-0002-5065-2504
168 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
brand. The brand may be a sign, its combination, and other visible
representations of information, such as phrases, names, slogans,
letters, numbers, drawings, and emblems; or spatial features of the
product itself, such as its appearance, packaging, shape, color, or
color combination. The appearance of a city is often considered
throughout the planning and development stages. The common
foundation for this is that a well-known toponym often creates
events, investments, and other kinds of activity. Quite a few
cities are concerted efforts to position themselves and promote
their strategic objectives. Frequently, the reputation of a city is
connected to its efforts to attract investment and tourists, as well
as to the number of prosperous enterprises located there (Alperytė
& Išoraitė, 2019).
The significance of urban marketing is growing as a result
of recent developments, such as the competition that has arisen
between products and businesses based in cities as a result of the
development of countries as a result of the assistance provided
by globalization, and the adaptation of brand strategies that
have traditionally been applied to products to cities to highlight
cities. The economic, social, and cultural growth of countries is
significantly impacted by the role cities play in these endeavors.
It is preferable to build a brand, which entails being distinct in
the eyes of the target mass, increasing one’s likelihood of being
recognized, and determining one’s values. Being a brand implies
enticing residents of the surrounding area and visitors from farther
afield, luring businesses to set up shop there, elevating the living
conditions of the local populace, and ultimately increasing the city’s
worth. The branding process aims to provide an identity unique to
the location and the city. Even while a city has the potential to be
a brand city with its values, the notion of “brand city” has rapidly
become more relevant in today’s world. This is especially true
owing to the needs of global competition, which raises the issue
that it should be professionally handled. The notion of a “brand
city” is one of the words that originated in business administration
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 169
andhassincefounditswayintourbanliterature(Tataroğluetal.,
2015).
For the last decade, there has been an explosion of interest in
studying city branding as a field of inquiry. The body of knowledge
consists of conceptual as well as practical information. At the level
of practice, many cities have come to an understanding of the
value of their brand and, to some degree, how it may be developed
and managed. The stakeholder idea has been around for a longer
time, but writers have only loosely begun to combine these two
strands in recent years. In a related vein, one of the most important
aspects of communications is having a comprehensive awareness
of the many groups of people with a stake in the situation. Typical
stakeholders include residents, companies, employees, investors,
and the government. It is believed that city branding may help
communications in various ways. First, it is a potential instrument
for ensuring that messages are integrated and consistent across
all levels. Second, city branding allows many stakeholder groups
to engage with a single brand rather than communicating with
several brands. Therefore, one of the most significant advantages
of city branding is that it makes it possible for various groups to
comprehend the overall city entity, interact with it, and connect to
it (Merrilees et al., 2012).
Different global places inside cities include lasting identities and
many more potentials to attract foreign visitors. Unfortunately,
city administrators, designers, and planners continually remind
people of a regular location. City planners must consider the basics
of urban living, working, and playing. Housing, transportation,
medical care, education and training, retail outlets, other public
amenities, and social contact are crucial. If these functional
conditions were realized in a single city, citizens might acquire
a unique view of that city’s qualities. They should pay attention
to popular items, distinct from home or job. These things have
different meanings, sensations, and sizes. Bilbao’s Guggenheim
Museum and the Berlin Wall are examples. Building a city brand
170 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
begins with a SWOT analysis to evaluate the city’s strengths and
weaknesses. The procedure should then concentrate on the city’s
forces (Rezvanpour & Bayat, 2017).
Research from the academic literature, including studies in
which technologies on brand cities play a role, has been scrutinized.
Sahin ve Baloglu (2014) integrated key brand associations
(cognitive, affective, and personality) into a city brand advocacy
model. They examined their differential effect on word-of-mouth
(WOM) advocacy behavior for distinct visitor groups based on
the purpose of travel. Polyorat (2016) wanted to look at how the
idea of a brand’s personality may be applied to the setting of a city.
He used a quantitative technique and factor analysis to uncover
personality characteristics and dimensions of a city in connection
to the notion of brand personality.
Green et al. (2016) stated that city branding research and
practice had various growth patterns. They analyzed municipal
branding research and training under a microscope to uncover
underlying ideas and beliefs changes. Zenker and Braun (2017)
questioned a “one size fits all” city brand utilized internationally.
They said municipal branding is more challenging than expected.
They presented a strategy to aid urban policymakers, academics,
and(place)marketerswithcitybranding.Khanetal.(2018)used
a simulation framework and valuable data sources to create AI in
utilities. The scalable BluWave-ai framework for deep learning in
the data center is also described. AI inference at edge computer
nodes and IoT sensors are being investigated to improve microgrids
at the home, neighborhood, campus, company, and community
levels.
Batubara et al. (2018) conducted a comprehensive analysis of
the relevant research to understand the current research issues,
problems, and potential future directions for deploying blockchain
technology for e-Government. Camero and Alba (2019) researched
Smart Cities CS&IT publications. They presented the topic using
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 171
data analysis methodologies to highlight major patterns and
provide a single entry point for newcomers. Cugurullo (2020)
investigated, both in theory and in reality, how the advancement of
AI overlaps with the promotion of urban planning and architecture.
The article contributes in three different ways. The study presented
a theoretical framework geared toward understanding AI in urban
environments.
Nam et al. (2021) drew attention to the essential elements of
blockchain technology in the smart city and tourism framework.
They posed assumptions about how it would evolve and influence
the industry. Ahmed et al. (2022) suggested using AI, blockchain,
and digital technologies to construct intelligent and eco-friendly
IoT apps. They emphasized blockchain’s advantages, which may
assist create smart city apps. They also proposed a conceptual
architecture based on cloud computing, IoT devices, and AI for
processing and receiving crucial information, providing digital
analytics, and storing the findings in blockchain and distributed
cloud repositories to support smart city applications.
City marketing is the focus of the second section of our
investigation. Branding considerations crucial to cities are discussed
in Chapter 3. The impact of the Covid-19 epidemic on brand cities
is discussed in Chapter 4. The disadvantages and benefits of Brand
City are discussed in Chapters 5 and 6. Branding strategies for
cities using “Smart City” technology is the subject of the seventh
chapter. Concluding remarks may be found in Section 8.
2. CITY MARKETING
City marketing improves the city’s image to establish its
brand. Nations cultivate photographs for many reasons. One
motive is to better associate with the economy and acquire a
position in the global market (Gaggiotti, 2008). Cities around
Europe are incorporating marketing ideas and methods into
their administration and governance procedures. Marketing skills
172 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
applied to city operations create issues and misalignments. This is
duetothemarketabilityoflocalesandcities(Kavaratzis,2004).
Since the late 1980s, city marketing has been a significant policy
for practitioners active in place management and development.
These practitioners include both local government and nonprofit
organizations. This new development not only represents a
substantial change in the practice of regional economic development
(LED), but it also has larger ramifications for how local government
institutions administer cities and regions on a more general level.
When we hear the word “city marketing,” for example, we instantly
think of organizations that are entrepreneurial, business-like, and
market-oriented (Millington, 2002).
Since the 1970s and 1980s, city marketing has become an
increasingly significant subfield of marketing that stands on its
own as an autonomous and vital field. Changes that happened
during this period pushed towns to take advantage of marketing
techniques that were available to them. The percentage of the
economy contributed by industrial operations began to decrease
in size in large cities. In contrast, the part contributed by the third
sector, sometimes known as the service sector, began to expand.
There is also a connection between that period and the beginning
of the process of globalization, which brought with it more
rivalry for visitors and investors. Cities and regions, in addition
to nations, are engaged in a competition to woo business people,
potential residents, tourists, and investors, as well as to persuade
these groups that it would be beneficial for them to settle in their
particular location. The role of cities has also changed as a result
of globalization and the evolution of human needs. Leisure time
and the pursuit of cultural and entertainment opportunities have
received more attention, and it has become essential to consider
what advantages a city can offer both in the short term (for
tourists) (Ivanyi, & Biro-Szigeti, 2018).
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 173
The city’s economic, social, cultural, and physical expansion
is marketing cornerstones. The degree of a city’s growth is
determined by its capacity to interact and work with all key players,
such as corporations, companies, local politicians, municipal
administration, unions, associations, non-profit organizations,
cultural and religious institutions, etc. Although the opinions and
interests of the many players are often varied and troublesome,
partial interests should be removed in favor of the city’s flexibility
and competitiveness, followed by implementing the remaining
claims into the city’s development plan. The city’s marketing uses
commodities, price, availability, place, promotion, and people. The
city plans everything on paper. It then transmits them to municipal
documents like a city plan, development strategies, and economic
and social growth programs (Stefko et al., 2017).
The marketing of cities uses a variety of IT solutions, some of
the most common of which will be discussed in more detail in the
following paragraphs (Ivanyi, & Biro-Szigeti, 2018).
- Audio play for guided tours; - Wi-Fi connection; - Phone
conversations; for example, contacting destinations directly; - Wi-
Fi connection for downloading data.
- A connection to Bluetooth, which allows for the downloading
of data. - Camera recordings may be used, for example, to scan QR
codes or for augmented reality.
- Near Field Communication (NFC) detection and connection
- for data transmission, much like QR codes
- Notifications are sent through “push,” including alerts on a
variety of events.
- Application Programming Interfaces, or APIs, include access
to social networking websites and Google Maps.
- Simple Syndication (RSS) Feeds: for example, to download
and show resource-related news and articles.
174 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
3. IMPORTANT FACTORS FOR CITY BRANDING
One of the most thorough lists ever created describes how people
see tourism destinations. This list includes natural resources (such
as climate, scenery, flora, and fauna), general infrastructure (such
as health services, public and private transport, roads, airports, and
commercial infrastructure), tourist infrastructure (such as hotels
and self-catering accommodations, restaurants, tourist centers),
and political and economic factors (such as political stability) (e.g.,
destination described as luxurious, fashionable, exotic, relaxing,
stressful, attractive, interesting, enjoyable, pleasant, etc.) (Górska-
Warsewicz, 2020; Beerli & Martin, 2004). Subheadings provide
further context on factors contributing to a city’s brand.
3.1. Tourism in the City
In recent years, creativity has emerged as a significant factor in
developing tourism in urban areas. As the level of rivalry between
cities continues to rise, more and more of them are looking for
ways to differentiate themselves via innovative tactics. However,
in the tourist industry, such techniques may be counter-productive
because the race to generate uniqueness often leads towns to
choose innovative development patterns that are identical to one
another. In particular, many cities depend on the ideas of so-called
“creativity gurus” like Richard Florida and Charles Landry to
give imaginative answers to various cultural, social, and economic
concerns. However, when cities adhere to such exogenous
prescriptions, implement different types of “quick policy,” and the
same ideas from other “creative cities” via “policy tourism,” the
outcome is often a sort of serial replication that is unpleasant to the
very visitors that cities want to attract (Richards, 2014).
One of the service industries that is now seeing the most
rapid expansion is tourism. There is no longer a need for
physical boundaries between nations due to the development of
transportation and communication infrastructure. The number of
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 175
individuals who desire to travel all over the globe is growing. This
is mainly because people’s incomes are increasing, and we now live
in an era when everything is more convenient. The ever-increasing
competition in the tourist industry has made it necessary for nations
to reinvent themselves continually and brand the cities in their
own countries. Since the early years of the twenty-first century,
“becoming a brand” has been a distinguishing characteristic for
tangible objects purchased from store shelves and for plenty of
other things that are more conceptual. Following the 1990s, several
nations have prioritized realizing their city’s brand positioning by
conducting research and making various expenditures (Sütcü et al,
2020).
3.2. Transportation System
Without reliable transportation, a city can’t be smart. ITS is
crucial to a smart city because of this necessity. Legacy ITS systems
are currently being deployed in smart cities throughout the globe,
but the next generation will rely on linked and autonomous
cars. Both technologies are being tested in cities throughout the
world. Even though these two new technologies are necessary for
establishing fully automated transportation systems, other parts of
roads and transportation still require automation (Menouar et al.,
2017).
3.3. Cultural Activities
One of the essential components of building a city’s reputation
is getting the population involved in various forms of artistic and
intellectual expression. These measures must attempt to educate
the typical person. In this atmosphere, academics considered
universities as a city advantage. They questioned the function
globalization of universities and the educational system may play
in city branding ambitions. Also, global events are considered
the cultural capital, which lives in people’s minds long after the
event ends. In the cultural part of city branding, including locals’
176 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
opinions is crucial. In the first phase, establish the city’s identity
and stress its physical signals such as cultural heritage, landmarks,
historical figures, and significant architectural projects if none of
these are accessible. The crucial stage in building a strong city brand
is recognizing the location’s strengths and engaging inhabitants in
the process. This is highlighted in cultural events (Dastgerdi & De
Luca, 2019).
3.4. Economic Performance
Numerous scientific investigations have shown that global
cities compete for resources and facilities. Some scholars even
alluded to nation-versus-town animosity. Urban economics may
be a response to a new competitive culture among cities. This
distinct milieu employs city branding to differentiate and increase
cities’ reputations. Therefore, urban economics talks are a response
to it. This instrument connects the city to worldwide financial
and credit organizations. It creates a unique image of the city and
reduces investment risk. This move will improve the host city’s
global economy-related activities, including tourism. Economic
growth in the host city may boost property values, employment,
income, and taxes, all of which enhance the quality of life for local
inhabitants (Dastgerdi & De Luca, 2019).
3.5. City Destination
Regarding place branding, determining brand equity based
on visitors’ views is of the utmost importance. This is because
destinations are unique sorts of goods that exhibit several
peculiarities compared to many other products. The one-of-a-kind
experience tourists have when visiting a location, in which they
get satisfaction from both the material and immaterial parts of the
destination’s offerings, contributes to the overall value that tourists
place on the location. Because of this reason, it is vital to measure
brand equity based on the views of tourists to build effective tactics
to raise tourism demand for a specific place (Duman et al., 2018).
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 177
4. COVID-19 PANDEMIC
The COVID-19 worldwide pandemic has provided even more
momentum for brand co-creation, which is very beneficial. These
industries have been ravaged by widespread lockdowns throughout
the country and a worldwide halt in tourism and hospitality, which
has hurt their brands and produced significant shifts in the behavior
of both customers and consumers. Some of these are substantial
accelerations of already-present tendencies, while others are newly
emerging trends. Two of the most important shifts appear to be
here to stay, and two of these shifts seem to have a disproportionate
amount of influence (Buhalis & Park, 2021).
The robot technology acts as a frontline fighter in the fight
to prevent the COVID danger from spreading further. It benefits
providing the necessary service, maintaining the lockdown, and
other similar activities. A cloud-based operating system is used
to implement this technology, which results in the creation of
intelligent and digital hospitals. It is the most effective method
for communicating with the physician in a virtual setting. The
following is a list of many essential aspects of robot technology
that may be used to reduce the danger of COVID (Jaiswal et al.,
2020):
(i) It is used to supply critical services in the hospital, such as
food, medication, medical equipment, and other services, to reduce
the likelihood of coming in touch with an infected individual.
(ii) It is used to keep a social distance and monitor the affected
region’s residents.
(iii) It is used to determine the temperature of an infected
individual’s body.
(iv) It is put to use in the process of sanitation.
(v) It is utilized for thermal screening in public locations such
as airports, train stations, shopping malls, and other entertainment
venues.
178 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
(vi) It is put to use for cleaning.
(vii) It is used to assist individuals in preparation for the
quarantine.
The danger of COVID is decreased with the use of technologies
based on drones (Jaiswal et al., 2020):
(i) It is used for thermal screening with the assistance of
artificial intelligence (AI)-based thermal camera to get an accurate
temperature reading.
(ii) It is utilized to maintain the social distance near the affected
region by using a drone system equipped with a loudspeaker to
minimize the secondary danger.
(iii) It is used to assist in the process of quarantine.
(iv) It can be used to do facial recognition with the assistance
of a camera-equipped for big data.
(v) It helps save time by delivering medical equipment and
transporting patient samples to laboratories for analysis, which are
necessary steps in the diagnostic process.
(vi) If you live in a remote region, having this ability to monitor
public areas is essential.
(vii) It is utilized to maintain law and order in the vicinity of
the affected region by connecting a camera and loudspeaker to the
drone and flying it over the area.
Smart cities need a new organizational structure that incorporates
several factors. Smart city administration and economics utilize
resources more efficiently than in traditional cities. Innovative
smart city business models have led to the establishment of smart
enterprises or organizations that use cutting-edge software and
computer programs. Both smart cities and smart companies
integrate AI, web technologies, smart mobile platforms,
telecommunications, e-commerce, and e-business. Application
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 179
areas include transportation, buildings, electronic health, utilities,
etc. (Impedovo & Pirlo, 2020).
5. BRAND CITY ADVANTAGES
The advantages of brand cities are as follows (Alperytė &
Išoraitė, 2019).
Employment: The proportion of the entire population that is
of working age relative to the total population that is employed.
When there is full employment, everyone looking for work can
find a job. Employment only available at certain times of the year
is known as seasonal work. It is of the utmost importance that the
city has the most significant employment rate possible since this
represents the community’s general health.
Education: The process of transmitting information and skills
not just to people but also to educational institutions, whether
officially or informally, is what we mean when we talk about
education. It is of the utmost significance that the city includes
educational institutions like schools, colleges, and universities that
contribute to its development.
Housing: It is of the utmost significance that housing be made
available to the people who live in the city.
Mobility Throughout Society: “Social mobility” is the
movement of people and groups within a society’s social
stratification system. There is potential for both upward and
downward mobility within the social network. Mobility may
be broken down into two categories: intergenerational and
intragenerational, often known as career mobility. The term
“intergenerational mobility” refers to the movement that occurs
from one generation and the next within a family, regardless of the
person’s class or position.
Transportation: It is critical that there be no bottlenecks in the
city’s transportation systems and that operations run smoothly at
all times.
180 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
Educated Labor Force: It is essential for companies to provide
their staff in the city with educational opportunities.
6. BRAND CITY CHALLENGES
The hazards linked with cybersecurity and privacy are perhaps
among the most generally acknowledged issues for the present
state of digital technology. Although preserving security has been
challenging for a while, the quick rise of public asset internet
access is new. This increases cyberattack threats. The theft of digital
information and other cybercrimes is on the increase. Thus smart
cities must be ready to tackle any security concerns; otherwise,
their benefits will quickly be swamped by their downsides.
Recent “ransomware” attacks on government offices, schools,
and businesses highlight the hazards cities confront as they
grow increasingly automated. Already, organizations are hacking
infrastructure systems to disrupt service and enrage the public
against elected officials who can’t resolve problems. Several end-
of-the-world scenarios are possible when malevolent actors take
control of networked and automated systems (Law & Lynch,
2019).
7. BRAND CITY TECHNOLOGIES
There is also a lot of importance placed on “Smart City”
features for city brands. For this reason, we will be discussing the
technologies that are employed for smart cities in this section.
Similar to other sectors, marketing is changing due to advances
in ICT. Alongside these advancements, the social media channels
that manifest themselves as Web 2.0 apps offer a variety of benefits
as compared to conventional media channels. Because of its
many benefits, social media platforms have found a position in
marketing efforts. The use of social media is being added to the
arsenal of marketing tools that nations may profit from to increase
the number of visitors they get, the amount of investment they
receive, and their level of prominence compared to other cities.
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 181
Cities get a great deal of value from social media because of its
characteristics of social media, which include the ability to reach
significant populations at a cheap cost, connect with users, receive
feedback quickly, and many other advantages (Gümüş, 2016).
Indicators of a smart city are provided in Table 1, which may be
seen below.
Table 1. The Smart City Indicators (Salamah & Yananda, 2019).
Characteristics Indicators
Smart Economy
(Competitiveness)
The ability to innovate, be entrepreneurial, have a
positive economic image and brand, be productive,
have a flexible labor market, be internationally
integrated, and change are all critical.
Smart Governance
(Participation)
Participation in decision-making, public and social
service, open governance, and political methods and
viewpoints are essential.
Smart People
(Social & human
capital)
Qualification level, commitment to continuous
education, socioeconomic and cultural diversity,
adaptability, creative potential, cosmopolitanism and
open-mindedness, and involvement in public life are
all factors to be considered.
Smart Mobility
(Transportation &
ICT)
Accessibility on a local level, accessibility on a
national and international scale, the availability
of information and communication technology
infrastructures, and a transport system that is both
innovative and sustainable.
Smart Environment
(Natural Resources)
The attractiveness of natural state, pollution,
environmental preservation, and sustainable
resources management.
Smart Living
(Quality of life)
Cultural amenities, health conditions, individual
safety, the quality of housing, educational facilities,
the attraction to tourists, and social cohesion are
some of the factors that are taken into consideration.
This study examines in further detail a number of the digital
technologies that contribute to creating city brands as part of the
“Smart City” concept.
182 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
7.1. Artificial Intelligence
AI, a strong notion in its infancy, might support sustainable
transitions to a more resource-efficient livable paradigm if utilized
appropriately. AI’s promise can only be exploited responsibly. AI’s
deep learning features may help computers solve problems. These
problems may transform urban environments as we know them
and usher in the “smart city” era. AI can rethink the transportation
business. Intelligent transportation systems and automated
transport may improve mobility and urban growth. Despite its
concentration on machines, AI-based mobility must be user-
centered and “understand” and “satisfy” humans, markets, and
society (Nikitas et al., 2020).
The rapid proliferation of digital communication,
infrastructure, and other frontier technology restructures social
life. Production, consumption, and people’s connections, labor,
and behavior are included. Enormous technologies and the spread
of ICTs provide new opportunities for enhancing municipal
administration and quickening the transition to “smart cities.”
High-speed internet, 5G mobile networks, IoT, and big data are
increasingly important in cities. Smart cities and automation are
boosting the urban application of AI and robotics. AI applications
are prevalent in healthcare (disease diagnosis, supported living
for an older population), transportation (traffic management,
advanced driver assistance systems), public safety and surveillance
(facial recognition), manufacturing (process control), and online
shopping. These features give AI a significant role in smart city
planning (Golubchikov & Thornbush, 2020).
7.2. Internet of Things
The notion of a “smart city” enabled by IoT technology is being
studied. Innovative city applications require IoT, security, software
architecture, AI, image processing, etc. These algorithms allow
municipal innovations. AI algorithms can operate buildings, cars,
Essential Factors for Brand Cities and the Effects of Digital Technologies... | 183
and other things automatically. Security algorithms govern smart
city app data. Software architectures are needed to incorporate IoT
apps (Jeong & Park, 2019).
Automation relieves workers of tasks requiring too much
human involvement, making products easier to use while lowering
the effort needed to produce them. Half of the world’s population
lives in cities or 2 billion people. This number is growing,
which poses significant challenges for an increasing population,
including increased traffic and noise, increased energy and water
consumption, land pollution, and waste. In smart cities, security
and sustainability should be addressed. Internet of Things is an
ordinary smart city method. Connectivity provided by the Internet
of Things is at the center of what constitutes a smart city, such as
sensor networks, wearables, mobile applications, and smart grids
that have been developed to harness the city’s most innovative
connectivity technology to provide services and better control its
citizens (Hassan et al., 2021).
7.3. Information And Communication Technology
ICT can drastically reduce risk. Intelligent technology may help
manage crowds, quarantine, government guidelines, food and
drug delivery, and social separation (Jaiswal et al., 2020).
8. CONCLUSION
Cities that have the necessary infrastructure are more likely to
attract tourists from nearby areas as well as those from farther afield,
including potential investors. This, in turn, causes an increase in
both the quantity of money received by inhabitants of the city as
well as the quality of life experienced by those who work in the city
as well as those who visit the city.
Before a city can be recognized as a brand city, it has to fulfill
a number of requirements first. It is important to give substantial
weight to a number of different criteria when evaluating brand
184 | Academic Analysis and Discussions in Social, Human and Administrative Sciences
cities. These criteria include those that pertain to tourism in
the city, the city’s transit system, cultural and artistic activities,
economic performance, and the destination of the city. When
evaluating brand cities, it is important to give substantial weight
to all of these criteria.
Cities that want to become brands must devote a significant
amount of resources to city marketing if they are to achieve this
goal. It is essential to increase the number of communication
activities in order to raise the value and appeal of cities, which
will, in turn, attract visitors, new settlers, and investors. This will
be accomplished by increasing the number of communication
activities. As a consequence of this, both the value of cities and
their allure to inhabitants and guests of such places will increase.
Brand cities are going to need to make investments in digital
technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things,
and information and communication technology as a result of the
acceleration of digital transformation brought on by the impact of
the pandemic. This will be necessary in order for brand cities to
remain competitive. The role of smart cities will ultimately replace
that of brand cities in the future of the digital era. Brand cities will
eventually become obsolete.
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