ABSTRACT

In the single party era, for a long period, a fundamental social legislation wasn’t constituted. After the foundation of the Republic, many labor laws had been drafted, however, the adoption of the Labor Law was possible in 1936. Turkey’s later regulations on socio-economical life were implemented on the basis of the aforementioned law which was in force not only during the single party era, but also after the transition to the multi-party system. Therefore, the analysis of the Labor Law is of great importance in determining the socio-economical objectives of the single-party period. The concepts of solidarism and corporatism, which are especially associated with the Republican People’s Party’s principle of populism, often come into question when analyzing the social policies in the single party era. For this reason in this study, the regulations brought by the 1936 Labor Law are being discussed and it is being scrutinized whether these two concepts can be used to describe the single-party period. The social policies adopted by the Republican People’s Party in the single-party era reflect a solidarist understanding based on the claim that different social classes don’t exist in the country or there should be no conflict of interest between the classes. However, the efforts to avoid a potential class conflict in the country have not led to a corporatist model in which workers and employers are organized entirely under state control and in a hierarchical structure. Instead, the state-controlled organization of the producing sectors was kept limited as much as possible.