Atlas / Organisations / Young Turks

Young Turks

Committee of Union and Progress · 1889–1918 · Ottoman Empire · Authoritarian Modernising · Held state power · coding confidence medium

+02ECmarket
+03CUtraditional
+09AUmonist
+09SCcentral
+08IDascriptive
+08CHcoercive

Each axis runs from −10 to +10, with zero a genuine mixed or balanced position rather than an absence of opinion. A score describes a stated position and a governing record; it is not a judgement of merit. What each score means →

Core principles

Constitutional restoration turned within a decade into a centralising nationalist dictatorship.

Economic model

National economy programme transferring commerce from minority communities to Muslim Turkish hands.

Organisation of powers

Restored parliament in 1908, then a party-military triumvirate ruling by emergency decree.

Reading note

Perpetrated the Armenian genocide. A constitutional-liberal movement that arrived at exclusionary dictatorship in nine years, without changing its name.

Check a claim about Young Turks. The interactive atlas measures the distance between any two organisations across all six axes and shows which ones carry the disagreement.

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The evidence for every score

All six cells are sourced. A rationale explains what the score is measuring and each artefact is something a third party can check without taking anyone's word for it.

EC · Economic organisation · scored +02

Coded +2: a national economy programme transferring commerce to Muslim Turkish hands.

  • Documented act or statuteMinority-owned businesses were expropriated or boycotted under the milli iktisat policy.

CU · Social and cultural order · scored +03

Coded +3: constitutional and secularising, then nationalist.

  • Programme textThe 1908 restoration was framed as liberty, equality, fraternity and justice.

AU · Organisation of power · scored +09

Coded +9: a party-military triumvirate ruling by emergency decree.

  • Documented act or statuteThe 1913 raid on the Sublime Porte installed a three-man dictatorship.

SC · Scale of decision · scored +09

Coded +9: centralisation against Ottoman decentralist and Arab autonomist currents.

  • Documented act or statuteThe 1913 provincial law increased central control rather than devolving it.

ID · Rule of membership · scored +08

At the exclusionary end: the Armenian genocide.

  • ScholarshipThe 1915 deportations and killings are estimated at around one million deaths.

CH · Method and tempo · scored +08

Coded +8: a constitutional movement that arrived at dictatorship in nine years.

  • Documented act or statutePower was taken by military conspiracy in 1908 and by coup in 1913.

Where it came from, and what came after

Nearest organisations by measured distance

Straight-line separation across all six axes, out of a maximum of 49.0. Proximity means similarity of stated position, not endorsement and not resemblance in outcome.

Countries

Turkey

Cite this page

Scores are revised on evidence, so a citation should carry the version it refers to. Version 4.3.1 is current; the revision log records every change.

McGrath, K. (2026). Young Turks. The Political Atlas, version 4.2. https://thepoliticalatlas.com/organisations/cup/ (accessed 2026-08-01).

Free to quote and reproduce with attribution. This is a synthesis rather than a peer-reviewed dataset — where an authoritative figure is needed, cite the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Manifesto Project or V-Dem.