The genesis of the left of center in Turkey: 1965-1967

Abstract

In the thesis the discourse of left of center which came onto the agenda before the 1965 elections was scrutinized in the context of the intellectual history and social democracies of Western Europe. The left of center entered Turkish political life as an attributed feature to the Republican People’s Party and then with the reception of this definition by smet nönü. In the consequent historical process the left of center has become devolved on the discourse of the Republican People’s Party or other parties calling themselves democratic left or social democratic. Thus left of center has been perceived as the beginning of Turkish social democracy. In the thesis the emergence of social democracy in the Western Europe and its development was investigated, and as a social movement and ideology social democracy’s general features were pointed out. Then the genesis period of left of center from the beginning of 1965 to the April of 1967 was examined. This thesis topic showed that the social democracy of Western Europe and the Republican People’s Party’s left of center have clearly dissimilar features; moreover, in many aspects, they have exactly contrary perceptions. In the thesis the political, economic, cultural and foreign effects that were influential in the formation of left of center are scrutinized particularly making use of primary sources. In this framework the main claim of the thesis is that the left of center emerged as re-production of Kemalism in the conditions of 1960s’ Turkey. This re-production was realized via the hegemonic views of the 1960s, nationalism and developmentalism. Thus the link between the left politics and Kemalism that was socially and culturally constructed was called left of center in terms of a special blend that was peculiar to the 1960s.