Abstract:

During the Cold War period, the struggle between the United States of America (USA) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in the military, economic and political fields was also the competition of communism and capitalism/liberalism. The countries in both communist and capitalist blocs used to regard each other as a threat to the existence of their ideology and state. The representatives of both blocs built their strategy of strengthening and expanding their bloc on the concept of “we and others” and the threat perception was risen from the other bloc. The defenders of both blocs, therefore, securitized the opposing ideology by presenting it as a threat to the existence of their own bloc. The leaders of the period played an important role in the securitization of the opposing ideology and group with their discourse. During this period, Turkey, as being in the Western Bloc, had also securitized the left ideology and movements in its domestic politics. During the 1950s and 1960s, the most intense years of the Cold War, Democratic Party (DP) also accelerated the securitization of left ideology and movements. This study aims to analyze the discursive and actual dimensions of the securitization process of left ideology and movements in Turkey during the DP era. By examining the parliamentary minutes and secondary data of the period, the securitization of social and political facts and events in the period subject to the study were examined from the discursive dimension. In terms of the operant dimension of securitization, the extraordinary measures taken by DP to diminish the left ideology and movements were analyzed. This study utilizes the concept of Securitization developed by the Copenhagen School. Case study, academic journals, and documentary analysis technics of the qualitative method are employed to collect, process, and analyze the data

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