Yunus Emre

The Genesis of the Left of Center in Turkey: 1965-1967: Left of Center ? the Construction of Social Democracy in Turkey or Nationalism in Social Democratic Clothes? Yunus Emre

In this book the discourse of left of center which came onto the agenda in 1965 was scrutinized in the context of the intellectual history and social democracies of Western Europe. The left of center entered Turkish politics as an attributed feature to the Republican People's Party. In the consequent historical process the left of center has become devolved on the discourse of the RPP or other parties calling themselves democratic left or social democratic. Thus left of center has been perceived as the beginning of Turkish social democracy. The book showed that the social democracy of Western Europe and the RPP's left of center have clearly dissimilar features; moreover, in many aspects, they have exactly contrary perceptions. In this framework the main claim of the book 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 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.