18. yüzyılda başlayan Osmanlı modernleşmesi çeşitli alanlarda 19. Yüzyıl boyunca devam etmiştir. Bu süreçte yönünü Batıya dönmüş olmakla birlikte Osmanlı modernleşmesi, toplumda var olanhukukîkültürel yapıyı büyük ölçüde koruyarak bir modernleşme stratejisi izlemeye özen göstermiştir. Cumhuriyet modernleşmesini Osmanlı modernleşmesinden ayıran en önemli farklılık ise mevcut hukuksal, kültürel ve toplumsal değerlerin ve kurumların yerini tamamen Batılı olanlarla değiştirmesi olmuştur. Cumhuriyet modernleşmesi çok boyutlu olup toplum ve devlet hayatının bütün yönlerini kapsamaktadır. Bu çalışmada Türkiye'nin 1923-1945 yılları arasında izlediği modernleşme politikaları içinde hukuk ve siyaset ekseninde aile ve sosyal politikalar ele alınacaktır. Birinci Dünya Savaşı'nı ve Kurtuluş Savaşı'nı yaşamış İmparatorluk bakiyesi Türkiye'de 1923-1945 arasında ekonomik ve sosyal bakımdan yoksul bir toplum ve istihdam açısından yetersiz bir nüfus göze çarpmaktadır. İzlenecek sosyal politikaları bu etkenler belirlemiştir. Cumhuriyetin ilk yıllarında nüfus politikalarının ve sosyal politikaların belirlenmesinde kurucu parti olan Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi (CHP) ile 7.5 ay kadar kısa bir süre siyasal hayatta muhalefet partisi olarak yer alan Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası'nın (TCF) görüşlerine karşılıklı olarak yer verilmiştir. 1923'ten sonra nüfusu artırmayı teşvik eden yasal düzenlemeler ve uygulamalara genişçe yer verilen çalışmada 1930'lardan itibaren yerel yönetimlerin sosyal politika uygulamalarındaki yerine de değinilmiştir. Geniş bir köylü toplumu olan 1920'ler ve 1930'ların Türkiyesinde köylüyü en çok etkileyen Yol Vergisi uygulaması irdelenmiş, Bekârlık Vergisi tartışmaları değerlendirilmiştir

Unlike the Ottoman modernization throughout the 18th and 19th century, Republican modernization has made its choice for replacing the current legal, cultural and social values and institutions with purely Western ones. Republican modernization is multi-dimensional and covers all aspects of the life of society and the state. In the study, modernization steps in the first quarter-century of the Republic are discussed in the context of social politics in legal and political terms. Mentioned period is between the two world wars. Struggling with several wars, Turkey stood out as a poor society in economic and social ways with a meager population for employment in the period 1923-1945. These factors have played a significant role in determining the adopted social policies. Reaching an adequate and qualified population and fighting against economic poverty emerged as the main policies. It is seen that the Republican People's Party (RPP), founder of the Republic and the opposition party, the Progressive Republican Party (PRP), operating in 1924-1925 had similar views in terms of family, population and other social policies. Both parties regarded increasing population and fighting against poverty as urgent needs. In the study, legal regulations and practices promoting the increase of population were given wide publicity in Turkey which was comprised of largely a peasant society in the 1920s and 1930s. The policies and practices promoting the increase of population continued until the 1960s. Some main policies can be listed as; lowering the age of marriage, prohibition of import and marketing of birth control drugs, prohibition of abortion, some measures to reduce child mortality, awarding mothers having 6 or more children an medal and allowing them to travel freely on the trains, establishment of maternity houses by the governor and local administrations, and getting the population with a Turkish origin living abroad back to Turkey. Road tax enacted in order to provide villagers’ contribution in the construction of the highways in the developing Turkey is also examined in terms of social policies. Road tax is a practice which largely affected the social and economic life of the Anatolian peasants. Those who could not afford it did physical labor instead. Exempting the families with a lot of children from road tax, the state used it as a means to promote having children. The place of local administrations in the social policy practices as of 1930s is also mentioned in the study. Municipality Law of 1930 included some mandatory services such as pharmacies, treatment, orphanages, funeral services, dispensaries, psychiatric hospitals, hospitals, and homes for nursing mothers. They are advanced social policy instruments considering the conditions of the period. The debates on celibacy tax, an interesting proposal reflecting the social psychology in 1920-1940 and the extent of demands on increasing population are also evaluated. Celibacy tax proposals were brought to agenda as taxing people at a certain age who are not married without any excuse, or taxing them with a higher rate than other taxpayers. Yet, they were not enacted. Development and modernization policies followed in the early years of Republican modernization cannot be considered as successful at the desired level. Elimination of poverty also failed. It was crucial to ensure public participation and their moral and material support for the success of development initiatives. However, the founders of the Republic did not choose it and adopted an authoritarian way of modernization from the state towards the society instead. In the considered period, Turkey had the image of a closed society struggling with its own internal issues. Modernization-development initiatives fulfilled with pressure and compulsion should be regarded as a waste of country’s energy to convert public. Even if some supportive steps were taken and some legal regulations were made to increase the number of children and empower families, desired results were hindered by the authoritarian policies of the state attempting to convert the public with jacobin methods in the fight against economic weaknesses. As a result, Anatolian people lived the first quarter-century of the Republic under administrative-political pressure. State-public disintegration and distance was experienced instead of state-public integration. The people governing the country under a single-party rule wasted a large part of their energy for the revolutions named as superstructure revolutions in the areas like law, language, culture, art, history, and dress contrary to the moral and material development goals, and in a way they caused emotional alienation between the State and the Anatolian people. It is impossible to say that the founders established a healthy communication with the public during the period. For instance, the Free Republican Party (FRP) which was made to be established as a controlled opposition party in 1930 as a result of the necessity of supervising the ruling party along with the idea that the superstructure revolutions in the 1920s had been settled was forced to be abolished after realizing that the party would get high attention by the public. Yet, the political power did not conclude that; the public was tired of pressure and poverty following the abolition of the Free Republican Party and it was necessary to allow them to participate in the government. Contrary to this, they further increased authoritarianism of the regime deducing that the society was not converted enough. Another example showing that citizen satisfaction was not considered in terms of social policies in the single-party period is about road tax. Reaching the conclusion that they failed to collect road tax by the year 1929, the government chose to tighten the collection proceedings and punish non-payers instead of eliminating the problems and complaints of the public because of the tax. Some positive social policy regulations for the families of the workers and officers in the Labor Law in the 1930s and the laws related to the state officials in the late 1930s and the early 1940s could not be applied due to the Second World War conditions and most of these rights were suspended by the National Security Law. One remarkable post-war development is the tendency and effort to turn social policy into a discipline.