| Summary/Abstract |
The meaning of republicanism in Turkish political thought is unclear. It has been viewed as a force for modernization and secularization that reached its apotheosis in the Republic founded by Mustafa Kemal. Another widely accepted scholarly view is that the Turkish Republic and its ideology, Kemalism, emerged abruptly in 1923 without any intellectually substantial foundation. This article challenges these views and demonstrates, by contrast, that it is a mistake to understand Turkish republicanism exclusively in Kemalist terms. In the formative period of the Republic (1922–24), its intellectual founders crushed all contesting and rival political viewpoints. The new state's foundational ideology was the sole victor among competing conceptions of Islamic and liberal republicanism. Modern-day Turkish republicanism represents the outcome of centuries of intellectual dispute between these conceptions.
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