This article seeks to explain how in the beginning of the 1960s in Turkey the right to strike was adopted as a social right. The existing literature is divided regarding the factors that led to the shift in governmental policy. While some argue that the state granted this right without any struggle on the side of the workers, others propose that the main determinant in the process was the struggle of workers. By scrutinizing the interaction between political developments at the state and party levels, and the actions of the workers in that period, I argue that the recognition of the right to strike was the combined result of several interrelated political developments at the local and global level. This article seeks to explain how in the beginning of the 1960s in Turkey the right to strike was adopted as a social right. The existing literature is divided regarding the factors that led to the shift in governmental policy. While some argue that the state granted this right without any struggle on the side of the workers, others propose that the main determinant in the process was the struggle of workers. By scrutinizing the interaction between political developments at the state and party levels, and the actions of the workers in that period, I argue that the recognition of the right to strike was the combined result of several interrelated political developments at the local and global level. This article seeks to explain how in the beginning of the 1960s in Turkey the right to strike was adopted as a social right. The existing literature is divided regarding the factors that led to the shift in governmental policy. While some argue that the state granted this right without any struggle on the side of the workers, others propose that the main determinant in the process was the struggle of workers. By scrutinizing the interaction between political developments at the state and party levels, and the actions of the workers in that period, I argue that the recognition of the right to strike was the combined result of several interrelated political developments at the local and global level. This article seeks to explain how in the beginning of the 1960s in Turkey the right to strike was adopted as a social right. The existing literature is divided regarding the factors that led to the shift in governmental policy. While some argue that the state granted this right without any struggle on the side of the workers, others propose that the main determinant in the process was the struggle of workers. By scrutinizing the interaction between political developments at the state and party levels, and the actions of the workers in that period, I argue that the recognition of the right to strike was the combined result of several interrelated political developments at the local and global level.