Social democracy and foreign policy in Turkey: Example of Bulent Ecevit

Bülent Ecevit is one of the main actors in the emergence and increase of social democracy in the political arena in Turkey. Ecevit, who is one of the pioneers of the social democracy movement that started in the Republican People's Party with the slogan of the ''Left of the Center'', left his party after 1980. He identified with the Democracy Left Party founded as a social democratic party, and he ended his political life in this party. In this study, the foreign policy understanding, discourses, and practices of Bulent Ecevit, who adopted the ideology of social democracy, in the Republician People's Party and the Democratic Left Party were analyzed. It was determined that Bulent Ecevit adopted a social democracy-based foreign policy starting from the 1950s and 1960s. The main question to which an answer was sought in the study in parallel with this understanding of foreign policy adopted by Bulent Ecevit, was whether there was a continuation or break in his foreign policy perspectives, discourses, and practices in the Republician People's Party and the Democratic Left Party periods of his political life. When Ecevit's foreign policy understanding in the Republician People's Party and the Democratic Left Party periods was compared, it was claimed that there were certain deviations as a result of national and international events.