Western and Turkish scholars have regarded the post-1945 rapprochement between Turkey and the United States as establishing Turkey’s complete dependence on the United States, bringing about a situation in which the Turkish government followed a complete dependent foreign policy, accepting the dictates of the United States. An examination of archival material and newspapers, however, points to the need for revision of such an established argument. In this study, I argue that the Turkish government did not accept its so-called passive role, and Turkish concerns over reputation played a central role for Turkey in the making of the post-War Turkish-American rapprochement. By showing a willingness to accept American aid, especially of the military kind, Turkey wanted to be treated as an ‘equal’ partner of the US-led Western Bloc. Both governing and opposition parties in Turkey, as well as Turkish journalists, diplomats, and students studying in the United States, waged a campaign to present Turkey as a reputable, modern, and civilized ally of the United States. Through establishing an information bureau in New York, trying to prevent the exhibition of American movies that misrepresented Turkey, and hosting American journalists who visited Turkey, Turkish authorities tried to convey the message that Turkey was under Soviet threat, deserved the Marshall Plan, and, more importantly, that Turkey needed the United States as much as the United States needed Turkey.

The Democratic Party was Turkey’s first governing party elected in open, competitive national elections, as such it has been a point of reference for Turkish leaders seeking to present themselves as defenders of democracy in the decades since. In retrospect, the party is presented as allowing greater religious expression in public life and pursuing liberal economic policies. Yet a striking aspect of the Democratic Party was the degree to which, in its own time, the party’s greater meaning was already subject for debate. Even as Democratic Party leaders were deciding on their policies and maneuvering for political advantage, social scientists in Turkey and around the world were debating its significance. The way the party is remembered, therefore, is less a product of retrospective analysis than it is a result of active shaping by Democratic Party leaders and a host of contemporary commentators who hoped to hold up the party as emblematic of their larger theories about democracy and modernization. The image we have of the party today is as much a result of 1950s wishful thinking as it is of reality. This paper considers the discussions surrounding the Democratic Party that occurred among social scientists in the 1950s in order to better understand how national political struggles, rooted in domestic political concerns, can be taken up by social scientists and presented as symbols of some larger truth—in this case modernization theory. Whatever the reality of the Democratic Party and its leaders, Turkey’s transition to liberal democracy was essential for asserting that a particular type of political development was possible in “non-Western” countries. It is important, therefore, that we disentangle what the Democratic Party was from what many analysts wanted it to be, and understand how those distinctions became so muddled.

The 1980 coup in Turkey is a critical juncture that resulted in a series of economic, political and social reforms. An often overlooked aspect of these policy changes took place in the educational arena. This paper looks at the ways in which the Turkish state began to use Islam in schools as a mechanism for warding off communism and leftist thought among youth in society after the 1982 constitutional reform. This paper analyses the compulsory religion courses and revisions to other components of curricula that were implemented following the coup, reflecting the security concerns Turkey grappled with at the time. We specifically look at debates in the Turkish Parliament, technical reports produced by the Ministry of Education, textbooks and public statements by key military figures during the 1980s to elucidate the ways in which state actors viewed education as a space to remedy their anxieties throughout this period of the Cold War and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Oral histories of key actors, including technocrats and policy makers are woven into this narrative to capture the ideas and politics behind the debates and regulations which emerged on education during this time period. The paradox behind secular political orientation and championing of Islam in schools and other social spaces was legitimated in the name of national security.

The late-1940s and early-1950s became the years of anti-communism and anti-Sovietism in Turkey. Both trends were not limited to the political environment or to economic affairs. A gender-related transformation also took place. Gender relations and the way women were represented in media radically changed as a result of setbacks in the Turkish-Soviet relations and Turkey’s improved relations with the United States. Evidence for such alterations abounded and was exemplified by the enhanced prestige of Nene Hatun all around Turkey. Nene Hatun’s increasing popularity in this period was no accident: she was a symbol of sacrifice during the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877–78. Nonetheless, she was not a popular figure until 1952. In August of 1952, during the national celebrations, the Turkish army decided to call her “the grandmother” of the Turkish forces in Erzurum, a Turkish city which was very close to the Turkish-Soviet border. Following the visit of Matthew Bunker Ridgway, an American General of NATO, she started to enjoy unprecedented popularity. After learning her story from his Turkish counterparts and meeting Nene Hatun in person, General Ridgway urged the Turkish authorities to revive Nene Hatun’s heroic and self-sacrificing image among the Turkish public. Accordingly, Nene Hatun regained her popularity and became a symbol of the campaign against ‘communist Russia.’ Although Nene Hatun passed away shortly afterward, in 1955, throughout the Cold War, she enjoyed massive reputation and prestige in Turkey: public and private schools bore her name, textbooks were full of her story, and her heroic sculptures were erected all around the country. For decades, her memories kept “the treats from the North” fresh in the minds of ordinary people. In short, as a result of collective attempts of the governments and the press, she symbolized the heroic Turkish women who had defended their own country against “the enemy of the Turkish nation,” i.e. communism and the Soviet Union.