Changes in the cultural policies of Turkey and the AKP's impact on social engineering and theatre

The principal historical problem for Turkey is modernisation and westernisation. During the first years of the Republic in Turkey, culture and western art were an important part of its ideology concerning social and human engineering through ‘new human design’. In the 1980s, the neoliberal, Turgut Özal, proposed a new human model for the country. Although there was strong resistance to the first design of the Republic, the latter was accepted easily and adapted very fast by the society. The new millennium again proposed another design for the society. The Justice and Progress Party (AKP) governments have tried to impose a soft religious‐democratic state model on the world. Although they claim that they are the protectors of democracy and secularism, their first attack was directed at the institutions of the republican ideology. Naturally, theatre got its share of these attacks. Hence, the research question is to evaluate the new human and society designs of the AKP by examining its approach to the theatre.