In the Ottoman system the population of the Empire was organized upon a confessional basis, not upon a territorial or linguistic one. It was composed of religious communities each of which had its own internal organization and was controlled by a religious hierarchy. Socially and culturally each community (millet) formed a separate entity, each kept apart from the other. There was no attempt to create uniformity. Consequently, no intercommunal solidarity or social integation evolved in Ottoman society.

Since the quadrupling of oil prices in 1973–74, OPEC and oil prices have made front-page news and captured the public imagination. It is no secret that oil prices are administered prices, where an economic agent is a price maker; other participants in the market have to adjust their behavior to this price. It is not a new phenomenon. From its early history, the oil industry in the United States — by far the world's first oil province — was dominated by the Standard Oil Trust. On the international scene, the role of the Seven Sisters hardly needs mention. They continued to control oil export prices until the 1960s.

The events of the Turco-Italian War (1911–1912) presented several complex problems for Germany's diplomatic and economic policies in the Near East. First, the War served as a test of strength for the Triple Alliance, because the Wilhelmstrasse (German foreign ministry) had guaranteed to maintain Italian interests in Tripolitania, but the hostilities threatened to spread into Macedonia where the Wilhelmstrasse had guaranteed Austrian interests. If the status quo of the Balkans was disturbed by the War, then an Austro-Russian diplomatic struggle might ensue, thus requiring German support for Austria-Hungary. The Germans were forced to support Italian interests in Tripolitania, while simultaneously preserving Austrian interests in the Balkans. Under these circumstances, could Germany preserve the solidarity of the Triple Alliance against internal dissension?

French economic development under the July Monarchy led the class that most benefited by it, the bourgeoisie, to demand increased political power. It was in the interest of the new regime of 1852, whose establishment was made possible by the support of the bourgeoisie, to favor the investment of capital acquired by its supporters, and to find new outlets abroad for the goods produced at an ever growing rate by France's new factories.

Laymen, Zionist leaders, and both Jewish and gentile analysts have maintained that in the 1930S the British government's policies toward Palestine were strongly affected by Britain's general orientation toward appeasement. Both contemporaneously and ex post facto, critics have made three assumptions about these policies. First, the decision-making elite which launched Britain's policy of appeasement was also responsible for Middle Eastern policies in general and policies toward Palestine in particular. Second, British actions in Palestine were an integral part of the general trend in British foreign and defense policies. Third, out of selfish interests Britain sacrificed the weaker democratic Jewish community in Palestine (the Yishuv) to its more aggressive protagonist (the Palestinian Arab community) which was supported by the leaders of neighboring Arab countries.

Over the last twenty years there have been several interesting attempts by scholars working both in Turkey and elsewhere to offer a critical examination of the workings of the competitive party system in Turkey, and to relate changes in the parliamentary arena to the tensions created in a rapidly developing society. This emphasis on the social and economic background to political change has tended to turn attention away from the constitutional and legal arrangements on which the proper functioning of parliamentary democracy also depends. What follows tries to assess the impact of one of these factors — the electoral system — on Turkish political development since 1950. It closes with some suggestions about the possible effects on Turkish politics of some hitherto untried systems of election.