Ideological analysis of the election campaigns of DP, RPP, NP and LP in the 1957 general elections

The 1950 general elections that was the beginning of the multi-party system became an important breaking point in Turkish political life and with the 1950 elections, first time in Turkey the people declared a decision that reached to an outcome with regard to who will be in their charge. Just like the Democratic Party was founded by unhappy members of Republican People's Party those who were complaining in the DP left and founded the Nation Party and with the multi-party system being institutionalized in Turkey the ideological life gained some sort of animation. With the 1957 general elections again another important step was taken. The 1957 general elections was the fourth multi-party elections in Turkey and it was the last one before the first military coup of 1960. What happened before the elections and the political atmosphere that had formed increased the RPP's hope to win the elections quite significantly. Besides the other leading opposition parties the Republican Nation Party and the Liberty Party felt their importance in the election race and carried out very active campaigns. This study purposes to analyse the political campaigns in the 1957 general elections that can easily be considered as an important turning point. In this purpose the method of descriptive content analysis is applied. As the primary sources for this study many works that highlight the period in question are referred and also the important newspapers are strutinized to get to the statements made about the elections. The main question of the study is "What are the predominant ideological elements in the campaigns of DP, RPP, RNP and LP in the 1957 elections?" The main conclusion reached is that the parties stretched out their ideological boundaries when the election race has more possibility to affect the elections result. During the election campaign, on one hand the religious discourses increased significantly and on the other hand the emphasis on liberty and democracy increased heavily.