Previous studies of Turkey's relations with the League of Nations suggest that in the 1920s, the relationship was marked by Turkey's exclusion from the League and disputes over territories and sovereignty. Only at the end of the decade did Turkey begin to join the international community, culminating in its becoming a member of the League in 1932. This article proposes a fresh reading of Turkey's internationalization (i.e., its participation in international organizations) in the 1920s. Not only do we begin to see Turkish membership in a considerable number of smaller international organizations, but the government also developed ties with the League Secretariat and the International Labour Office, even though it formally remained a non-member of the League. These more subtle forms of cooperation, this article argues, were part of a balanced strategy of internationalization that reflected the (semi)colonial underpinnings of many international organizations and the Ottoman experience with them. This internationalization strategy was grounded in the Kemalists' ideological conceptualization of the global order as profoundly shaped by European hegemony. In so arguing, this article adopts a postcolonial perspective. However, it also points out the limits of such a perspective, stressing that power asymmetries on the international level were connected with internal asymmetries within Turkey itself.

The international recognition of Turkey through the Treaty of Lausanne is often seen as the foundational moment of Turkey in international diplomacy. This article approaches diplomatic history from a decentred perspective. It highlights the activities of various non-state actors and semi-official figures who became engaged in international politics during the Turkish War of Independence (1919)(1920)(1921)(1922)(1923). They used citizen diplomacy, public propaganda, as well as other clandestine and public channels of transnational diplomacy to strive against the Allied peace terms. Notwithstanding their divergent political visions and agendas, these unofficial diplomats strengthened-though not always intentionally-the international recognition of the Turkish nation-state formation, only to be absorbed by the Ankara government's growing monopoly on foreign policy. Informed by the New Diplomatic History approach, this article illustrates the important role of unofficial, transnational dynamics that escapes state-centred accounts of Ottoman-Turkish diplomacy during the aftermath of the First World War.

This article traces intersections between Turkey's relations with the League of Nations and violent homogenization in Anatolia in the two decades following World War I. It advances the argument that the strife for creating a homogenous population—a core element of Turkish nation building—was embedded in the international order. This is explained on two levels. First, the article stresses the role of international asymmetries on the mental horizon of the Turkish nation builders. The League's involvement in the allied plans to partition Turkey had the organization wrapped up in a mélange of humanitarian concerns, civilizing doctrine, and imperialist interests. Turkish nationalists wanted to avoid those imperialist pitfalls and overcome international minority protection by means of Turkification. They saw international humanitarianism as an obstacle to their nationalist line. Second, the article highlights the ways in which the League itself supported the Kemalists’ drive for Turkification, either directly, especially in the case of the “population transfer” between Greece and Turkey, or indirectly through prioritizing Turkey's sovereignty over minority concerns.

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