The rise of new right policies in Turkey: 12 September military coup and Motherland Party government

With the adoption of the welfare state model, the representative of the rising New Right policies in Turkey was been the Motherland Party, which was founded under the leadership of Turgut Özal. His liberal and technocratic identity have came to the fore and formed the ideological basis of the New Right policies in Turkey. In addition, the January 24 decisions which had been put into effect by Turgut Özal before the Motherland Party came to power, constitute the ideological basis of the new right policies of the 1982 constitution in parallel with the military coup of 12 September 1980 and the political restructuring process. In this context, the atmosphere of oppression and domination created by the September 12 coup has accelerated the disintegration of the workers and the process of non-unionization, leading to the construction of neoliberal hegemony. Parallel to this, the New Right policy which is expressed as a restoration period to overcome the problems of capital accumulation, is expressed as the rationality of successfully managing Turkey's attempt to integrate into the global capitalist system. The New Right philosophy, which is accepted as the ideology of the Motherland Party, is described as an eclectic ideology consisting of neoliberalism in the economic field and neoconservatism in the political perspective. The crises experienced by the world economy in the last quarter of the 20th century and the solutions it produced against them determined the basis of the New Right ideology. In this context, Turgut Özal implemented the economic and political policies of the New Right philosophy in Turkey which came to the fore with Reagan and Thatcher in the West. Thus, the most fundamental fact that makes Turgut Özal long-term in Turkish politics after 1980 is his success in combining the contradictions of neoliberalism and neoconservative ideology. The political, economic and social structure transformed by the 1982 constitution in the period of Turgut Özal has a very significant place in the formation of legitimacy for the new right policies. For this reason, the main subject of the study is to discuss the legitimacy of the rising new right policies in Turkey with the Motherland Party and to analyze the basic dynamics in the construction process of neoliberal hegemony from a critical perspective. Additionally, the new right ideology that shaped the Motherland Party's approach to economic, political and foreign policy helped Turkey's relations with Western countries gain a new dimension after 1980.