Diplomacy and business in capable hands: The American officials who shaped U.S.-Turkey economic and commercial relations in the early Cold War period

Abstract

Turkey-U.S. relations, which started to deepen at the beginning of the Cold War, turned into a political and military partnership with Turkey's joining NATO in 1952. As another significant pillar of this partnership, an integration in economic and commercial relations between the two countries can be mentioned. Turkey's inclusion in the Marshall Plan announced in 1947 not only increased American goods and services entering the Turkish market. At the same time, concepts such as free trade and privatization, which have an important place in the American economic model, have been adopted by Turkish decision-makers, and new laws encouraging foreign investment have been enacted in these years. The American political actors and economic consultants working in Turkey during this period played key roles in such changes. It is seen that high-ranking multinational company executives and academics from various branches of the American business world have been appointed to Turkey with titles such as ambassador and economic consultant representing the U.S. administrations. These actors, benefiting from their business orientation and political titles, significantly influenced the Turkish decisionmakers and have helped many American multinational companies to enter various markets and business areas of Turkey. This thesis aims to provide a comprehensive reading of the commercial and economic structure shaped between Turkey and the U.S. in this period through these people. Based on the personal memories of American political actors and primary sources such as company, state, and newspaper archives, this study aims to contribute both to the literature on Turkey- U.S. relations in the early Cold War period and to concepts such as business diplomacy and business diplomacy that are becoming more common nowadays.