Close encounters between Turkey and the US: American indirect influences on Turkey’s political and socio-cultural life during the 1950s

Download
2017
Yorgun, İbrahim
This thesis analyzes indirect American influences on Turkey’s political and socio-cultural Iife during a period when major political changes as well as cultural wars were ignited by the two major world powers: the US and the USSR. This was also the time when the world order was shaped by the Cold War in which Turkey played a major role. The study, without mentioning too much political details related to the major events, also attempts to analyze in a historical context how Turkey was drifted away from her neighbor Russia to the protector umbrella of the United States. The events do not constitute the core of the thesis, however, without their historical account it cannot be very possible to make a connection to the American socio-cultural influence on Turkey in the 50s. Therefore, this study aims to acquaint the reader with many of the important events of the time with a specific focal point about how they were portrayed and presented to the Turkish public. The thesis will also analyze the American socio-cultural influence upon the daily life of the Turks from various and selected walks of daily life ranging from education to food and from literary works to the Hollywood stars. These analyses are carried out to find answers to questions concerning Turkey’s dependence to a major power, adherence to foreign cultural values and the future expectations of young generations. The study claims that with all the means, the major power is not always successful to win the hearts of the people it targets to influence. 

Suggestions

Alliance trajectories of the Czech Republic, Latvia, Ukraine and Belarus: a neoclassical realist analysis
Yavuz, Burcu; Tanrısever, Oktay Fırat; Department of International Relations (2015)
Drawing on the observation that post-communist states in Central and Eastern Europe, having been Warsaw Pact members during the Cold War, made different alliance decisions in the post-Cold War period, this dissertation scrutinizes the reasons for the diversity in the alliance trajectories of post-communist states. The analysis is structured on the cases of the Czech Republic, Latvia, Ukraine and Belarus, which have differed among themselves in terms of their alliance decisions. This study first addresses th...
Turkish press and the early cold war (1945-1950)
Gökatalay, Semih; Boyar, Ebru; Department of Middle East Studies (2016)
This thesis investigated how Turkish press’ perceptions of the early Cold War were shaped from 1945 to 1950 by utilizing newspaper articles from the relevant period. The period at hand experienced Soviet demands from Turkey, Turkey’s drive to the West, and domestic political (i.e., transition to the multi-party system) and economic (i.e., transition to the liberal economy) changes. In this atmosphere, the Turkish press, which had organic links with politicians, had a vital role in shaping the domestic publi...
A Systemic analysis of the cold war and Turkey‘s postwar drive to the west /
Akdan, Tolgahan; Türkeş, Mustafa; Department of International Relations (2014)
This thesis attempts to account for the primary dynamics behind Turkey’s postwar drive to the West. It offers a conceptualization of the Cold War as an inter-systemic conflict, which then enables this study to integrate the geopolitical relations between Turkey and the Soviet Union in a systemic framework. In this regard, it suggests that the geopolitical tension between the Soviet Union and Turkey should be conceived of not as an “ontologically autonomous” ahistorical geopolitical tension but rather as a d...
Comparison of 1919 and 2011 revolutions of Egypt from social network analysis
Uslu Madenoğlu, Zeynep Setenay; Göçer Akder, Derya; Department of Middle East Studies (2019)
This study aims to analyze how workers and business elite as networks in Egypt evolved within the century by comparing two ruptures in country’s last century which are revolutions in 1919 and 2011. Social network analysis argues that networks are the mobilizing structures of the societies and in this regard, workers are the prominent network in Egypt. Their role has been compared with business elite to state two poles of the society when it comes to revolutions. Major finding is that workers are the pillars...
Turkish-American relations from 1964 to 1980: the period of crisis
Kalender, Yasemin Ece; Bağcı, Hüseyin; Department of International Relations (2019)
Turkey and the USA, allies under the umbrella of NATO since 1952, witnessed certain disagreements from 1964 to 1980, unlike the period from 1947 to 1964 which was the “golden age” or full convergence of Turkish-American relations. Amicable relations between the two states had a certain breakdown when the Johnson Letter received by the Turkish Prime Minister İsmet İnönü in 1964. The historic letter led a period of crisis until 1980 when the military coup d’etat took place in Turkey. The period was the almost...
Citation Formats
İ. Yorgun, “Close encounters between Turkey and the US: American indirect influences on Turkey’s political and socio-cultural life during the 1950s,” Ph.D. - Doctoral Program, Middle East Technical University, 2017.