Kemalism and Modern Turkey

Abstract

The paper is devoted to internal contradictions of Kemalism, resulting from two tendencies which were distinct visible in Turkey during the life of Kemal Atatürk: a democratic one, represented by the constitutional acts from the years 1920–1924, and an authoritarian one, which was connected with the ideology of Kemalism. The institutional changes in Turkey in the 1920s had been directed towards introduction of a democratic constitutional order, but lack of proper social and economic premises made application of democratic constitutional norms difficult, facilitating transition to the single-party system contradictory to democratic principles. In the first part of the paper the author describes the most important constitutional acts, beginning from the 1876 Ottoman Constitution till the 1924 Turkish Constitution. This analysis shows beyond doubt that the goal of political system's reform was introduction of the democratic constitutional order. The form of government chosen by Turkey had many disadvantages however which were listed in the paper. The second part of the paper is devoted to the second tendency, distinct visible in Turkey during the Atatürk presidency, i.e. the authoritarian tendency. The author underlines main events directing towards reversal of constitutional relations between the parliament (the Grand National Assembly) and executive in favour of the executive, and presents in a concise manner conclusions from an analysis of the six principles of Kemalism (‘the six arrows’). He maintains that incorporation of these prinicples into the Turkish Constitution in 1937 caused internal contradictions in the Constitution. The author tries to find reasons of the said contradictions.