“Everyday Protest” in Republican Turkey of the 1940s: Forms, Trajectories, and Constraints

This article examines the distinctive features of civil society in Turkey of the 1940s and analyses the modes and mechanisms of its interaction with the state in the context of wartime economic mobilisation. It contributes to the existing literature in two principal ways. First, it challenges the prevailing assumption of a weak, fragmented civil society under the firm control of a powerful state. This reframing invites a reconsideration of established interpretations of Turkey’s democratic transition during the 1940s and the interplay between internal dynamics and external influences shaping that process. Second, the study draws on a wide array of primary sources that have hitherto been rarely employed in the reconstruction of state-society relations in Republican Turkey. The article adopts a methodology based on detailed source analysis and comparison with previously established historical narratives. It demonstrates that, despite the absence of formal institutional channels, ordinary citizens retained the capacity to defend their interests and influence socio-political developments without resorting to overt, large-scale protest. Although the Kemalist state sought to project an image of strength and omnipresence, it ultimately proved susceptible to pressure from below. Neither the apparatus of coercion nor the establishment of a vast supervisory bureaucracy succeeded in enforcing the state’s ambitious plans for a wartime economy. On the contrary, diverse forms of everyday resistance hindered the implementation of government policy and compelled the authorities to introduce a substantive programme of social support by the mid-1940s.

Turkey, civil society, Kemalism, social protest, civic activity, military economy, social policy