The place of art policies in the relationship between the state and society: The foundation period of the Republic of Turkey (1923-1950)

The thesis focuses on the relationship between state and society through art policies, and approaches the phenomena of state and public administration in relation to ensuring the welfare and happiness of societies. In addition, the thesis puts the field of art as vital as education from the fields of public policy. In line with all this, the idea put forward in the thesis is as follows: Art has -mentally and emotionally positive- transformative power on societies, and therefore states need to produce effective policies in this area. The argument that imposes such a requirement on the state is based on the idea that the state, which is the most organized organization of the countries, is the most effective means of encouraging and deterring through laws and enforcement power. In this context, the aim of the thesis is to reveal the art policies of the state in the founding period of Republic in a way that includes its reflections on the society and the art worlds. In line with the aim of examining the art policies of the founding period of the Republic in a holistic and in-depth manner, the thesis tries to reveal the subject it deals with, through historical research method. On the basis of this method, primary documents such as parliamentary minutes, party and government programs, legislative arrangements, reports, memoirs, etc. were used. In addition to these, it was tried to support the qualitative method with quantitative data by referring to the numerical data of the artistic activities of the period and the participants of these activities. As a result of the in-depth analysis of the state's policy-making process in the field of art during this period, the questions of "whether the state should support art financially or not", which were commonly asked about how the state should establish a relationship with art in order to transform society, went one step further and the necessity of developing new questions in the context of the specific conditions of societies has emerged.