The role of Democrat Party on the democratisation and authoritarianism of politics

Republican People's Party (CHP) governed (ruled) Turkey for 27 years after its foundation with a direct authoritian rules. This approach resorted to anti-democratic laws and practices, creating a socio-poitical unrest, depression and opposition to the societial interests. However, due to the emergence of second world war, the Republican People's Party could not remain indifferent to the bipolar world order (United States of America - Socialists Republic of Soviet Union), andhad to take side with the USA, this resulted to the first steps toward democratization. These steps are as a result of the controlled groups or direct opposition from within the CHP. Therefore, the opposition, which had never got into the debates during its establishment, established a political party called the Democrat Party (DP). DP gave a democratic momentum to politics by voicing serious democratic demands between 1946-1950. And through this processes, DP won the general elections of May 14, 1950 by gaining the support of a large group of people who were against and/or reactive to the policies of the CHP that came to power on its own. Thus, DP continued this success in the 1954 and 1957 general elections. However, on May 27, 1960 the army siezed the control of administration and the DP's powers were brought to an end. In this study, the direct effects of DP government on democratization and authoritarianism of politics legally and functionally is examined. From this point of view, the theoretical framework of the concepts of democratization and authoritarianism has been created and within this framework, DP's actions and discourses while in opposition and in power, have been tried and analyzed with the multi-case qualitative research methods.