Kemalism in Turkish Politics. The Republican People's Party, Secularism and Nationalism * By SINAN CIDDI (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), 224 pp. Price HB 75.00. EAN 978-0415475044.

Abstract

This book analyses the policies of the principal party of Turkey’s left, the Republican People’s Party, both in isolation and in relation to those of its principal rivals. The major question the author sets himself is how far the Republican People’s Party has been able to distance itself from the principles of Kemalism despite efforts to do so. He also takes into account the Democratic Left Party founded in 1983 after the abolition of all former parties by the military government established in 1980. This party was founded by Bülent Ecevit, who led the Republican People’s Party in its new left-of-centre stance after his election to the leadership of the RPP in 1972. Both these social-democratic parties, the RPP in particular, inherited and found it difficult to downplay the principles on which the Kemalist Republic was founded, namely secularism, republicanism, nationalism, populism, étatism and revolutionism (or reformism). The author clearly believes that the two most difficult to discard have been nationalism and secularism.