Assimilation, Security and Geographical Nationalization in Interwar Turkey: The Settlement Law of 1934

Abstract

This paper discusses the relationship between the geographical dimension of the Turkish government’s population homogenizing measures and security policies in the Settlement Law of 1934. Investigating the division of the country into three zones of settlement by the law in question, the paper demonstrates that security concerns became one of the key factors in the governmental policy, which aimed at changing the demographic structure of certain strategic areas in favor of the Muslim-Turkish population.

Keywords

• settlement
• nationalism
• security
• interwar Turkey
• Turkification
• demography