(Re)imagining Turkey : Bureaucratic relations in the creation of a national identity during the Kemalist single-party regime 1932-1951

Abstract: This study is an exploration of the social engineering of the single-party era through the lenses of state officials in their work of propagating the nationalist state ideology. It aims to bring the state officials, in their (re)production of the beliefs and values as products and as the (re)producers of the state ideology, to the forefront. More specifically, it studies the negotiations and the contestations between state officials in regards to three main social structures which are (ethno)nationalism, womanhood, and laicism. A fourth social structure is the hierarchical relations within the state bureaucracy. A deeper understanding of the social engineering through the lenses of state officials is provided through a discursive close reading of the archival data regarding the activities of Halkevleri (People’s Houses), which were state institutions through which the state ideology was propagated to the people.