Cumhuriyet Dönemi Din Politikası ve Din Siyaset-İlişkisi (1946-1960)

Abstract

In this study, multiparty system politics in Turkey during the period between 1946 and 1960 and the development of the relation between religion and in this process were was examined through document analysis as a qualitative research method. The interaction between religion and politics was interpreted by analyzing the content of written and visual materials in primary sources relevant with people, institutions and events. This analysis is based on the Parliamentary Minutes, Assembly Speeches, Laws, discussions of party conventions, election rallies, newspapers, biographies and periodical publications of 1946-1960. The study was organized on the basis of the policies of political powers ruling single-party and multi-party periods within the scope of relations and interactions between politics and religion. The dimensions of the relationship between religion and politics were examined according to the periodic differentiation of the policies of the Republican period. Administrative transformation-related changes were discussed in three sections. In the first part, the relation between religion and state from the “Tanzimat” period, which was accepted as the birth of the new movements in the Ottoman Empire, to the first years of the Republic was investigated by relating to global events. The reflection of the establishment of a new Turkish state and the World Wars on policies about religion and secularization were evaluated. In the second part, the transformation of the position of religion in the political life after the transition to the multi-party system and the establishment of Democratic Party (DP) was discussed. In the third part, the influence of democratic attempts with the rise of DP from the opposition party to the ruling power on the relation between religion and politics were examined. As a result of the three-section study, it has been concluded that the intellectual transformation and political events taking place during the 1946-1960 period played an important role in the softening of the relationship between religion and politics. Political competition increased with the multiparty system and the attitude towards religion which had been under the control of the political authority since the first years of the Republic was softened in order to gain advantage in this competition.