Kemalism revisited

Abstract

Kemalism is a topic that occupies national and international historiography and provokes fruitful and controversial debates. This paper has four objectives: firstly, to place Kemalism in its historical context; secondly, to discuss whether Kemalism was an ideological continuation of the Unionists and to review the ideological programme of the Kemalist administration; thirdly, to discuss the political structure of the Kemalist administration; and fourthly, to characterize the Kemalist administration in socio-economic terms. The paper argues that Turkey experienced a double revolution during the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic. On the question of ideological continuity of the Unionists, the paper stresses both continuity and departure. On the political structure, the paper suggests that during the Kemalist era, power was concentrated in the hands of a few leading military-civilian bureaucrats, and thus the political structure was authoritarian, although it should be stressed that Kemalists retained essential institutions of representative democracy. In terms of the socio-economic characterization of the Kemalist administration, the paper argues that it was a coalition of military-civilian bureaucrats within which the disagreements occurred. The paper concludes that Kemalism was a national response aimed at bringing Turkey into the modern state-system.