Browsing by Subject "Turkish-American Relations"

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Open Access
Bringing them together : Turkish-American relations and Turkish democracy, 1945-1950
(2005) Kayaoğlu, Barın
At certain times, the U.S. has been a complementary player in helping different countries to democratize without interfering in the affairs of the host country. During the Cold War, this policy owed to Washington’s anti-Communist disposition. Most of the time, anti-Communism, freedom, and democracy were used interchangeably. This thesis talks about such a case where the U.S. kept a close eye on the transition to democracy, namely Turkey from 1945 until 1950. Primary U.S. policy towards Turkey at the onset of the Cold War was to keep the Soviet Union out. Meanwhile, Turkish leaders’ democratic credentials, particularly those of Atatürk and İnönü, were the triggering factors for democratization. Treating the two traditionally separate phenomena, however, needs to be reconsidered. The thesis will look at the historical record to analyze how Turkish democratization was a factor in the relations between the U.S. and Turkey at the beginning of the Cold War. Contrary to expectations, the U.S. did not exert pressure on Turkey to democratize as Turkey moved steadily on that path. Also interestingly, Turkish statesmen and intellectuals saw democracy and the U.S. partnership as the manifestation of their modernization and Westernization. This point offers itself as another building block for the thesis.
Open Access
Labor in the US foreign policy during early cold war : the Marshall Plan and American-Turkish labor relations, 1945-1955
(2006) Öner, Sera
American foreign policy, parallel to the rise of the working class as of the 1860s, has included a new policy actor: labor. Likewise, in the aftermath of World War II and emergence of bipolar world, the United States of America actively made use of labor unions and rendered it an intrinsic Cold War value. This thesis describes America’s use of labor tool in its struggle against communism after providing a general account of labor movement and its role in American foreign policy making, through descriptive history method. Major objective of the United States was to redress Europe through military and economic aid vis-à-vis the specter of communism, to secure the periphery and contain the U.S.S.R. The road map of this new American global strategy became a monolithic one with the Marshall Plan and indoctrinated with the Truman Doctrine, which also included the labor element. The thesis will analyze the significant role that labor in the U.S. foreign policy, shaped with American exceptionalism; its development and support for the anti-communism policies. The reason why this thesis has been written is that there is no written source elaborating Turkish-American industrial relations from the perspective of Cold War. With this end, by making use of comparative history method, Turkish industrial relations case is studied to illustrate the know-how assistance and ideology trade-off of America to Turkish labor unions, which highlights the importance ascribed by the U.S.A. to labor as a foreign policy component.