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ABSTRACT
This article explores how notions of conservative populism animate Turkish foreign policy. It explicates the construction of the ‘us’ and ‘them’ in conservative populism and how it became the dominant or hegemonic discourse of the AKP regime. While demonstrating various aspects of the peculiar conservative populism, the paper will try to point out the specific governmental ethos that conservative populism generates in the case of the AKP. By emphasizing how conservative populism is intermingled with Turkish-Islamist ideology, the paper explores the background of the AKP’s pro-active and assertive foreign policy as well as the devastating effects of the de-institutionalization of the bureaucratic state structure and decision-making mechanisms.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 For the varying features of “populist foreign policy” in different cases and the peculiar features of the Turkish case see Taş, “The formulation.”
2 For the varying significance of the supply and demand side of populism see Sawae, “Populism.”
3 Mudde and Kaltwasser, Populism.
4 Zafer Yılmaz’s sophisticated study demonstrates how the AKP’s popularity Turkish-Islamists’ populist ideology depends on a repeating discourse of victimization and self-pity. However, he firmly argues that those feelings and self-perception of the people are the result of a continuous process of “deliberate construction” by the assistance of Turkish-Islamist intellectuals and later by the help of mass-media which can be traced back to the 1950s. See Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” as well as Kaliber and Kaliber “From De-Europeanisation.”
5 It may be necessary to indicate that the notion “ideology” is used interchangeably with the notion of “discourse,” because at some point, the term “discourse” becomes more suitable to define some socio-political formations. However, this article does not rely on “discourse analysis” in the sense of a “rhetorical analysis” but it instead tries to demonstrate the parameters, mindset and logic of an ideologically created socio-political identity or ‘subjectivity’, its internalizations and externalizations which, in turn, corresponds to what is meant by “discourse” See Purvis and Hunt, “Discourse, ideology. . .”; Howarth and Stavrakakis, “Introducing Discourse Theory”; Howarth, Discourse, 1-15; and Laclau, “Identity and Hegemony.”
6 Yuval-Davis, The Politics of Belonging, 10.
7 Sawae, “Populism,” 264.
8 The substitution of the national “people” with a transnational “umma” as a civilizational identity was also appropriated by the former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. See Başkan and Taşpinar, The Nation.
9 Yavuz, “The Motives.”
10 See Balta, “The AKP’s Foreign Policy”; Öztürk, “Turkey’s Post-2016”; and Ege, “Foreign Policy”
11 Verbeek and Zaslove, “Populism,” 611.
12 Verbeek and Zaslove “Populism,” 619
13 Verbeek and Zaslove “Populism,” Most other studies make no such categorization, often acknowledging the peculiarity of each case in producing a populist foreign policy. For an extended discussion and examples, see Chrissogelos, “Populism in Foreign Policy.”
14 Arısan, “From Clients.”
15 For the different articulations of “Neo-Ottomanism” in the Özal and Erdoğan eras, see Yavuz, Nostalgia for the Empire, 116–125 and 162–178
16 Taş, “Erdoğan and the Muslim Botherhood.” See also Gürpınar, “Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood,” and
17 Demir, Morieson, and Yılmaz, “The Islamist Populism”; Kaliber and Kaliber “From De-Europeanisation”; and Ege, “Foreign Policy,” 13.
18 Verbeek and Zaslove “Populism,” 627.
19 Heper, State Tradition in Turkey.
20 Ege, “Foreign Policy.” For a critical account of this specific utilization of Kemalism by conservatives, see Aytürk, “Post-post Kemalizm” and Aytürk, “Post-Kemalizm Nedir.”
21 The September 12, 1980 military coup and the following military regime eliminated the leftist articulations of Kemalism and instead employed a rigidly state centered and national security oriented Kemalism, which caused a radical rupture between the Turkish socialist left and Kemalism. See Durgun, “Left-Wing Politics in Turkey” and Yılmaz, “Sol-Kemalizmin Tasfiyesi”
22 See, Özdalga, The Veiling Issue,; Secor, “Islamism”; and Saktanber and Çorbacıoğlu, “Veiling and Headscarf.”
23 Heper and Güney, “The Military and Democracy,” and Narlı “Concordance and Discordance.”
24 Özbudun, “The Institutional Decline,” and Taşkın, “AKP’s Move.”
25 Balta, “The AKP’s Foreign Policy,” 14.
26 See Balta, ibid., Özpek and Yaşar, “Populism and Foreign Policy”, Sawae, “Populism”, Kaliber and Kaliber “From De-Europeanisation”; and Taş, “The formulation,” 4.
27 Özbudun, “AKP at the Crossroads,” and Kubicek, “Majoritarian democracy.”
28 Destradi and Plageman, “Populism and International Relations,” 14–17 quoted in Taş, “The Formulation,” 6y.
29 Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” 483
30 Çapan and Zarakol, “Post-colonial Colonialism.”
31 Yavuz, Nostalgia for the Empire, 198. Also see Erdoğan, “Yeni Türkiye Vizyonu.”
32 Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” 484-85.
33 Although Özal introduced a version of (neo-)Ottomanism and Islamism when ANAP was in power, it was employed more systematically as the ideological and/or philosophical basis of the Turkish foreign policy in the 2010s by Ahmet Davutoğlu, who emphasized Turkey’s civilizational identity. See Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik.
34 Mikhail, “Why Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s.”
35 Of course, this particular dichotomy does not rely on actual racial differences in Turkey because there are none. This completely depends on an allegorical reference that is based on class difference appropriated and employed by the AKP and Erdoğan. The arrogant, elitist, and anti-Islamist “White Turk” is also a particularly popular theme among Turkish-Islamist media intellectuals. Erdoğan has proudly declared that he is a “Black Turk” and that Muslims are Turkey’s “Blacks”. As argued by Demiralp, Erdoğan was “Black” not just because he was a practicing Muslim, but also because he was from provincial Anatolia. See Demiralp, “White Turks, Black Turks?” 511, See also Bora, “Muhafazakar ve İslamcı Söylemde Beyaz Türk Hıncı” and, specifically for the binary discourse of Turkish conservatism, see Bora and Erdoğan “Biz, Anadolu’nun Bağrı Yanık Çocukları … ” For Erdoğan’s speech, see “I am Proud To Be A Black Turk,” Daily Sabah, June 25, 2015.
36 Brown, States of Injury, 60.
37 Öztürk, “Turkey’s Post-2016,” 4-5.
38 Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” 487, and Singer, “Erdoğan’s Muse.” Also see Anatolian Agency (AA) News, “Cumhurbaşkanı Erdoğan: Necip Fazıl bu millete ruh kökünden aldığı kuvvet ve cesaretle var olabileceğini gösterdi,” May 13, 2022, available at https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/gundem/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-necip-fazil-bu-millete-ruh-kokunden-aldigi-kuvvet-ve-cesaretle-var-olabilecegini-gosterdi/2587391
39 Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” 500.
40 Williams, “Dangerous Victims,” 88, quoted in Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” 500.
41 Açıkel, “‘Kutsal mazlumluğun psikopatolojisi,” 190, quoted in Yılmaz, “The AKP and the Spirit,” 500.
42 Başer, “Shift of Axis.”
43 Kara, “Linking,” 11
44 See “İbrahim Kalın: FETÖ’cüleri Türkiye Cumhuriyeti’ne İade Etsinler.” Milliyet, October 26, 2017.
45 Taş, “The formulation.”
46 Heper claims that from the transition to multi-party politics in 1946 up to recent times, Turkish political history is basically composed of the tensions between state-bureaucrats (state elites) and politicians (political elites). See Heper, State Tradition in Turkey.
47 Taş, “The formulation,” 6-8.
48 Balta, “The AKP’s Foreign Policy.”
49 Erdoğan, “Yeni Türkiye Vizyonu.”
50 Öztürk and Baser, “The Transnational Politics.”
51 Öztürk, “Turkey’s Post-2016,” 4.
52 Kara, “Linking,” 14.
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Mehmet Arısan
Mehmet Arısan is an Associate Professor at Istanbul University, Faculty of Political Sciences, Department of Political Science and International Relations. He received his PhD at the University of Essex and wrote his dissertation on Turkish political modernization and democratic culture. He has published book chapters and articles on Turkish political transformation, modernity and emergence of national identity. His current research interests are Political Discourse Analysis, Formation of Political Subjectivities and Turkish Political Modernization.