Article

Political Liberalism in Turkish Politics in the 1990s

Abstract

Liberalism is one of the most spoken ideology in Turkey. Especially it has not been possible to see political practises as liberal sense in Turkey by the Republican era until 1990’s. In the 1990’s, it is the first time that the political liberalism demands brought an effective sense on the political agenda in Turkey and thus some parties like YDH and LDP and some intellectual groups like “İkinci Cumhuriyetçiler” and LDT emerged by this way. Although came with great expectations and discourses the political liberalism demands in the Turkish political life stucked in a narrow frame and inverted in an different direction in a short time. In this case according to Nilüfer Göle named as “revival of the liberalism” has been triggered by some points. One of the these points is civil society discourses that emerged in the 1980’s, the other one is neoliberal policies in Özal era and their implications in politics and society has become. However the fundamental issues of Turkish society and Turkish political life in these years led to this booming liberalism withdrawal of the politic stage in a short time. Aforementioned years, ethnic-based problems such as Kurdish and Alevi issues, discussions of secularism and the rise of political Islam as well as state-society relations and such as the emergence issues are the main reasons withdrawal of liberalism from the political scene.

Keywords

Liberalism New Democracy Movement (NDM) Liberal Democrat Party (LDP) Political Life Turkey.