Dissertation
From socialism via anti-imperialism to nationalism
This dissertation explores how domestic political power struggles in Greece and Turkey during the Cold War engaged with the ongoing conflict in Cyprus and aims to demonstrate how socialist parties in Greece and Turkey struggled with the concept of the “nation” in battling for power and political positioning within their own capitals.
- Author
- Nikos Christofis
- Date
- 03 February 2015
- Links
- Leiden University Repository
This present dissertation explores how domestic political power struggles in Greece and Turkey during the Cold War engaged with the ongoing conflict in Cyprus. Furthermore, it demonstrates how political parties in both states used – and often maintained – the unsettled and contentious legal positioning of Cyprus in order to reinforce their own political prowess domestically and vis-à-vis one another.
In so doing, the thesis traces how socialist and left-leaning parties in Greece and Turkey developed into nationalist ones, and their relation with nationalism in general, adopting ideologies that in effect claimed Cyprus as their own. After presenting a lengthy and analytical account of the Greek and Turkish legal socialist parties and their political agenda, focusing not only on Cyprus but in domestic and international affairs also, the study moves with an explorative contrast and comparisons between the two parties.
In five comparative chapters, the study aims to demonstrate how socialist parties in Greece and Turkey struggled with the concept of the “nation” in battling for power and political positioning within their own capitals.
Promotor: prof. dr E.J. Zürcher