Health and citizenship in republican Turkey: an analysis of the socialization of health services in republican historical context

Abstract

This thesis presents an evaluation of the Turkish health system by focusing on the socialization of health services undertaken in 1961. The historical analysis is situated within a theoretical framework that addresses the questions pertaining to social policy and citizenship through the analysis of welfare regime typologies and health care systems. The thesis also draws on the theoretical contributions to the analysis of state and class in Turkey. The fragmented health care system in Turkey created a hierarchy of access and accordingly citizenship. By means of different security systems the state established differential relationships with its citizens, dividing them along the lines of their affinity with the state and their employment status. The problems within this inegalitarian system and the current attempts at its modification constitute the starting point of this thesis. Although the study focuses on the attempt at the socialization of health services undertaken in 1961, after the military intervention of 27 May 1960, it will present a comprehensive picture of the Turkish health system in the Republican period with a view to providing the historical background against which the current debate around health sector reform can be better understood. Through the socialization of health services everyone, without any distinction in terms of economic power, status in employment, region, ethnicity, and rural/urban divide would be provided health service, both preventive and curative. However, the efforts to establish socialization of health services as the health system of Turkey has failed mainly due to the simultaneous development of inegalitarian corporatist system which provides medical coverage to those in the formal sector.