Atatürk Dönemi Türk Ekonomisinde Bir Kalkınma Modeli Olarak “Kooperatifçilik Siyaseti”

Abstract

This dissertation argues that cooperatives became an active “state policy” in the agricultural field in Turkey in the 1930s, and at the same time aims to clarify the social and economic foundations of this policy. The idea of cooperatives was first put on the agenda in Turkey during the Second Constitutional Period (1908-1918), when the modernisation process gained momentum, and efforts were made to put this idea into practice. Again, during the period of the National Struggle (1918-1923) and then in the early years of the Republic, activities for cooperatives continued. However, although these efforts led to a certain accumulation in the field of cooperatives, they did not bring about any concrete development. In fact, the idea of cooperatives could only be put into practice in Turkey through the “agricultural credit and sales cooperatives”, which were established by the state throughout the country in the 1930s. In this way, the phenomenon of the establishment and development of cooperatives in the agricultural sector by the state was conceptualised under the name of “cooperative policy” within the scope of the research. In the doctoral dissertation, a three-layered research process was carried out regarding the research topic. In the first stage, the historical and intellectual background of cooperative politics, which came to the fore in the 1930s, was reviewed. In the second stage, the emergence of cooperative politics was examined in the context of the social, political and economic conditions of the period. The study's third stage analysed the relationship between the statist economic policy of the period and the cooperative policy, as well as the implementation dimension of the cooperative policy in this context. This research has the potential to contribute to the literature by examining the developments in cooperatives during the Ataturk Period in Turkey, within its historical, social, and economic context, mainly through the documents and publications of the period.