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Perceptions of Democracy in Turkey in the Period 1945-1960: an Analysis of Letters Sent to Ahmet Emin Yalman by Urban Middle-Class Readers

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Perceptions of Democracy in Turkey in the Period 1945-1960: an Analysis of Letters Sent to Ahmet Emin Yalman by Urban Middle-Class Readers PERCEPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY IN THE PERIOD 1945-1960: AN ANALYSIS OF LETTERS SENT TO AHMET EMİN YALMAN BY URBAN MIDDLE-CLASS READERS A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY CANDAŞ AYAN IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN THE DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION SEPTEMBER 2020 Approval of the thesis: PERCEPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY IN THE PERIOD 1945-1960: AN ANALYSIS OF LETTERS SENT TO AHMET EMİN YALMAN BY URBAN MIDDLE-CLASS READERS submitted by CANDAŞ AYAN in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Political Science and Public Administration, the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Middle East Technical University by, Prof. Dr. Yaşar KONDAKÇI Dean Graduate School of Social Sciences Prof. Dr. Ayşe AYATA Head of Department Political Science and Public Administration Prof. Dr. Necmi ERDOĞAN Supervisor Political Science and Public Administration Examining Committee Members: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Fahriye ÜSTÜNER (Head of the Examining Committee) Middle East Technical University Political Science and Public Administration Prof. Dr. Necmi ERDOĞAN (Supervisor) Middle East Technical University Political Science and Public Administration Assist. Prof. Dr. Kadir DEDE Hacettepe University Political Science and Public Administration PLAGIARISM I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last Name: Candaş AYAN Signature: iii ABSTRACT PERCEPTIONS OF DEMOCRACY IN TURKEY IN THE PERIOD 1945-1960: AN ANALYSIS OF LETTERS SENT TO AHMET EMİN YALMAN BY URBAN MIDDLE-CLASS READERS AYAN, Candaş M.S., The Department of Political Science and Public Administration Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Necmi ERDOĞAN September 2020, 196 pages This study analyzes the democracy perceptions of the individuals belonging to the urban middle-classes in Turkey in the period between 1945 and 1960. Such a scrutiny makes it necessary to focus on individuals’ subjective experiences and witnesses to the period. In this context, this study analyzes the reader letters sent to Ahmet Emin Yalman, one of the most eminent intellectual journalists of the period between 1945- 1960. It is hard to believe that the democracy perceptions of the urban middle-class individuals were not fed by the hegemonic struggles and political developments of the period, and the democracy debates brought to the newspaper columns. In this respect, in this study, on the one hand the debates on democracy that took place at the intellectual and political levels of the period were examined, and on the other hand the class characters of Yalman’s readers were analyzed in order to reveal to what extent Yalman’s readers were fed by these discussions and influenced by the hegemonic struggles. Then, the contents of the reader letters were analyzed within the framework of a dual narrative. It was revealed that the democracy perceptions of the urban middle- iv class individuals were shaped under the influence of two factors during the period: the populist discourse that ‘the manifestation of the national will’, and the liberal- democratic mechanisms of checks and balances that limiting the executive power. As a result, this study reveals that the democracy perceptions of the urban middle-class individuals were shaped under the influence of the hegemonic struggle between elite factions, and the liberal ideology. Keywords: Reader Letters, Democracy Perception, Urban Middle-Classes, Populism, Liberal-Democratic Principles. v ÖZ 1945-1960 ARASI DÖNEMDE TÜRKİYE’DEKİ DEMOKRASİ ALGILARI: KENTLİ ORTA SINIF OKUYUCULARIN AHMET EMİN YALMAN’A YOLLADIKLARI MEKTUPLARIN ANALİZİ AYAN, Candaş Yüksek Lisans, Siyaset Bilimi ve Kamu Yönetimi Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Necmi ERDOĞAN Eylül 2020, 196 sayfa Bu çalışma 1945-1960 yılları arası dönemde Türkiye’deki kentli orta sınıflara mensup bireylerin demokrasi algılarını incelemektedir. Böyle bir inceleme, bireylerin öznel deneyimlerine ve döneme tanıklıklarına odaklanmayı zorunlu hale getirmektedir. Bu çerçevede, bu çalışma, dönemin tanınmış entelektüel gazetecilerinden olan Ahmet Emin Yalman’a 1945-1960 yılları arasında yollanmış olan okuyucu mektuplarını analiz etmektedir. Kentli orta sınıflara mensup bireylerin demokrasi algılarının, dönemin hegemonya mücadelelerinden, politik gelişmelerinden ve gazete sütunlarına taşınan demokrasi tartışmalarından beslenmemiş olması düşünülemez. Bu açıdan, çalışma içerisinde bir yandan dönemin entelektüel ve politik seviyede cereyan eden demokrasi tartışmaları incelenmiş, öte yandan Yalman’ın okuyucularının bu tartışmalardan ne derecede beslendiklerinin ve hegemonya mücadelelerinden ne derece etkilendiklerinin ortaya çıkartılması adına okuyucuların sınıf karakterleri analiz edilmiştir. Ardından, okuyucu mektuplarının içerikleri ikili anlatı çerçevesinde analiz edilmiştir. Dönemin kentli orta sınıflarına mensup bireylerinin demokrasi algılarının, vi dönem içerisinde iki faktörün etkisinde şekillendiği ortaya çıkartılmıştır: popülist ‘milli iradenin tecellisi’ söylemi ve yürütme gücünü denetleyen ve dengeleyen liberal- demokratik mekanizmalar. Sonuç olarak bu çalışma, dönemin kentli orta sınıflarına mensup bireylerinin demokrasi algılarının, elit gruplar arasındaki hegemonya mücadelesinin ve liberal ideolojinin etkisi altında şekillendiğini ortaya koymaktadır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Okuyucu Mektupları, Demokrasi Algısı, Kentli Orta Sınıflar, Popülizm, Liberal-Demokratik Prensipler. vii DEDICATION To My Dear Family who always supported my education, and To My Beloved İlknur. viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Writing this thesis during a pandemic has been a quite backbreaking process, and it would not have been possible to finalize it without the support and encouragement of certain people. Before all else, I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Necmi Erdoğan, for I owe him the elimination of several boundaries in my mind as I largely benefited from his classes and works in developing the core ideas constituting the backbone of this thesis. The thesis has become stronger and much more interesting with the long-term meticulous support, guidance and confidence he did not hesitate to show. I also wish to express my gratitude to the examining committee members for their critique and suggestions. I am thankful to Assoc. Prof. Fahriye Üstüner for her sincere criticisms and advices on my thesis, upon which she gave me constructive comments, along with her support of any kind. Besides taking part in my jury, I should express my special thanks to Assist. Prof. Kadir Dede for his comments and advices on my thesis about which he sincerely stated that he has been waiting for a long time to be completed. I owe my twenty-year-long close friend Aykut Öztürk a debt of gratitude for helping me access the materials on which this thesis was built. I should also thank him for his valuable feedbacks and advices. Without his support it would have been much more difficult for me to complete this thesis. I am grateful to Özgür Umut Baz for his patience and nurturing comments, and his sincere solicitude in making a word-by-word reading of the thesis. He strived much more than I would do for the language of this thesis. I should also thank Ulaş Taştekin, Erdem Güven, and Emir Aydoğan for their valuable feedbacks and advices. They have also been kind enough to listen to my concerns patiently and cheered me up in our regular enjoyable gatherings. ix I also want to acknowledge the Academic Staff of Political Science and Public Administration Department in Hacettepe University and my friends there for their provision of a peaceful academic environment in which I could pursue my studies for the thesis thoroughly. I should also thank Prof. Mete Kaan Kaynar for his contributions at the initial phases of this thesis and for his provision of me with significant sources about the issue. Needless to say, I owe my parents, sister, and of course my precious wife and friend İlknur a great debt of gratitude for all their love, everlasting support to my education, and sharing of all the high and low moments of my life. İlknur did not hesitate to share her companionship with me, which made me feel untroubled all the time. She did everything to ease my difficulties, worries, and make me happy. Finally, it is still both mournful and lovely to recall the memory of my grandfather Süleyman Ersoy. I wish he, one among the last generation of teachers who graduated from the village institutes, was alive today to see me share his determination to learn and teach. x TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM ....................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................iv ÖZ ......................................................................................................................... vii DEDICATION ..................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................ix TABLE OF CONTENTS .........................................................................................xi LIST OF TABLES...............................................................................................
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