Drawing on a diverse array of published and archival sources, Nicholas L. Danforth synthesizes the political, cultural, diplomatic and intellectual history of mid-century Turkey to explore how Turkey first became a democracy and Western ally in the 1950s and why this is changing today.

Between 1945 and 1960, the birth of a multi-party democracy and NATO membership radically transformed Turkey's foreign relations and domestic politics. As Turkish politicians, intellectuals and voters rethought their country's relationship with its past and its future to facilitate democratization, a new alliance with the United States was formed. In this book, Nicholas L. Danforth demonstrates how these transformations helped consolidate a consensus on the nature of Turkish modernity that continues to shape current political and cultural debates. He reveals the surprisingly nuanced and often paradoxical ways that both secular modernizers and their Islamist critics deployed Turkey's famous clichés about East and West, as well as tradition and modernity, to advance their agendas. By drawing on a diverse array of published and archival sources, Danforth offers a tour de force exploration of the relationship between democracy, diplomacy, modernity, Westernization, Ottoman historiography and religion in mid-century Turkey.

This book explores the intellectual debates and political movements of the religious establishment during the first half of the 20th century.

The study of politics in Turkey : new horizons and perennial pitfalls / Güneş Murat Tezcür -- Democratization theories and Turkey / Ekrem Karakoç -- Ruling ideologies in modern Turkey / Kerem Öktem -- Constitutionalism in Turkey / Aslı Ü. Bâli -- Civil-military relations and the demise of Turkish democracy / Nil S. Satana and Burak Bilgehan Özpek -- Capturing secularism in Turkey : the ease of comparison / Murat Akan -- The political economy of Turkey since the end of World War II / Şevket Pamuk -- Neoliberal politics in Turkey / Sinan Erensü and Yahya M. Madra -- The politics of welfare in Turkey / Erdem Yörük -- The political economy of environmental policymaking in Turkey : a vicious cycle / Fikret Adaman, Bengi Akbulut, and Murat Arsel -- The politics of energy in Turkey : running engines on geopolitical, discursive, and coercive power / Begüm Özkaynak, Ethemcan Turhan, and Cem İskender Aydın -- The contemporary politics of health in Turkey : diverse actors, competing frames, and uneven policies / Volkan Yılmaz -- Populism in Turkey : historical and contemporary patterns / Yüksel Taşkın -- Old and new polarizations and failed democratizations in Turkey / Murat Somer -- Economic voting during the AKP era in Turkey / S. Erdem Aytaç -- Party organizations in Turkey and their consequences for democracy / Melis G. Laebens -- The evolution of conventional political participation in Turkey / Ersin Kalaycıoğlu -- Symbolic politics and contention in the Turkish Republic / Senem Aslan -- Islamist activism in Turkey / Menderes Çınar -- The Kurdish movement in Turkey : understanding everyday perceptions and experiences / Dilan Okcuoglu -- The Transnational Mobilization of the Alevis of Turkey : from invisibility to the struggle for equality / Ceren Lord -- Politics of asylum seekers and refugees in Turkey : limits and prospects of populism / Fatih Resul Kılınç and Şule Toktaş -- A theoretical account of Turkish foreign policy under the AKP / Tarık Oğuzlu -- US-Turkey relations since WWII : from alliance to transactionalism / Serhat Güvenç and Soli Özel -- Turkey and Europe : historical asynchronicities and perceptual asymmetries / Hakan Yılmaz -- Turkey's foreign policy in the Middle East : an identity perspective / Lisel Hintz -- Turkey and Russia : historical patterns and contemporary trends in bilateral relations / Evren Balta and Mitat Çelikpala -- Citizenship and protest behavior in Turkey / Ayhan Kaya -- Gender politics and the struggle for equality in Turkey / Zehra F. Kabasakal Arat -- Human rights organizations in Turkey / Başak Çalı -- Truth, justice, and commemoration initiatives in Turkey / Onur Bakiner -- The politics of media in Turkey : chronicle of a stillborn media system / Sarphan Uzunoğlu -- The AKP's rhetoric of rule in Turkey : political melodramas of conspiracy from "ergenekon" to "mastermind" / Erdağ Göknar -- The transformation of political cinema in Turkey since the 1960s : a change of discourse / Zeynep Çetin-Erus and M. Elif Demoğlu -- Political music in Turkey : the birth and diversification of dissident and conformist music (1920-2000) / Mustafa Avcı.

A partisan but fascinating 1923 account of Grace Ellison's visit to Angora (Ankara), the new capital of the Turkish Republic.

This Handbook discusses the new political and social realities in Turkey from a range of perspectives, emphasizing both changes as well as continuities. Contextualizing recent developments, the chapters, written by experts in their fields, combine analytical depth with a broad overview. In the last few years alone, Turkey has experienced a failed coup attempt; a prolonged state of emergency; the development of a presidential system based on the supreme power of the head of state; a crackdown on traditional and new media, universities and civil society organizations; the detention of journalists, mayors and members of parliament; the establishment of political tutelage over the judiciary; and a staggering economic crisis. It has also terminated talks with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK); intervened in and occupied mountainous border areas in northern Iraq to fight that organization; occupied Afrin and strips of territory in northern Syria; intervened in Libya; articulated an assertive transnational politics toward “kin” across the world; strained its relations with the European Union and the US, while developing relations with Russia; flirted with China’s intercontinental Belt and Road Initiative; and carved out a presence in Africa, to name just a few of the most recent developments. This volume provides a comprehensive and wide-ranging overview of the making of modern Turkey. It is a key reference for students and scholars interested in political economy, security studies, international relations and Turkish studies.

In Media in New Turkey, Bilge Yesil unlocks the complexities surrounding and penetrating today's Turkish media. Yesil focuses on a convergence of global and domestic forces that range from the 1980 military coup to globalization's inroads and the recent resurgence of political Islam. Her analysis foregrounds how these and other forces become intertwined, and she uses Turkey's media to unpack the ever-more-complex relationships. Yesil confronts essential questions regarding: the role of the state and military in building the structures that shaped Turkey's media system; media adaptations to ever-shifting contours of political and economic power; how the far-flung economic interests of media conglomerates leave them vulnerable to state pressure; and the ways Turkey's politicized judiciary criminalizes certain speech. Drawing on local knowledge and a wealth of Turkish sources, Yesil provides an engrossing look at the fault lines carved by authoritarianism, tradition, neoliberal reform, and globalization within Turkey's increasingly far-reaching media.