Turkey's rushed liberalization: wartime neutrality and the devaluation of 1946

Abstract

This article reinterprets the Recep Peker cabinet’s 1946 decisions to devalue thelira and deregulate foreign trade, which are often described as US-encouragedand liberalizing. The authors argue that alignment with the US did not dictatepolicy. They begin with World War II and show that, by 1944, Turkey had alreadybeen drawn into an Anglo-American international order. The authors thensuggest that devaluation should be understood as a response: as a Europe-oriented policy with specific, short-term goals. They conclude that 1946 wasless a radical liberalizing pivot than an attempt to address the difficult legacyof wartime neutrality.