This book enhances our understanding of 'the popular' in the study of politics through a critical examination of the uses and constructions of 'the people', from the establishment of the Turkish Republic to the present. It proposes ways of reading the insertion and operationalisation of the notion of 'the people' as a concept, a political subject, the object of policy and politics over the past century. The author assesses the ways 'the people' have been shaped by the history of the republic and how in turn they have informed ways of visualising society, the country's political culture and institutional architecture, and framed the parameters and repertoires of political action.