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ABSTRACT
Based on the findings of fieldwork conducted in the spring of 2017 with the supporters of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Istanbul and the supporters of the National Front (FN) in Toulon and other French cities, this article aims to compare the ways in which both groups highlight nativist, anti-multiculturalist and Eurosceptic positionalities. Having a republican and laicist legacy, both states have similar paths in terms of state-building processes. There is also another similarity in both countries regarding the ways in which both right-wing populist parties have capitalized on socio-economic and nostalgic deprivations of various societal groups who are exposed to the detrimental effects of global flows. The main premise of the article is that both parties contribute to the rise of civilizationist rhetoric by culturalizing what is social, economic and political in origin. It will be argued that it is not only social-economic deprivation that make some people attracted to populist rhetoric, but also nostalgic deprivation, which prompts them to try to find remedies to cure the feeling of loss resulting from the disappearance of established notions of nation, identity, culture and heritage in the age of globalism.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Ayhan Kaya is Professor of Politics and Jean Monnet Chair of European Politics of Interculturalism at the Department of International Relations, Istanbul Bilgi University. Some of his recent books are Turkish Origin Migrants and their Descendants: Hyphenated Identities in Transnational Space (Palgrave, 2018), Islam, Migration and Integration: The Age of Securitization (Palgrave, 2012) and Europeanization and Tolerance in Turkey (Palgrave, 2013).
Max-Valentin Robert is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Sciences Po Grenoble (UMR Pacte, France). His main fields of interest include democratization in Muslim societies, minorities’ voting behavior and the Turkish party system. He also works on far-right in a comparative perspective and the current developments of French politics. He is co-author (with Raul Magni-Berton) of ‘Maximizing presidential coattails: The impact of the electoral calendar on the composition of the National Assembly’ (French Politics, 2017).
Ayşe Tecmen is a researcher at the European Institute, Istanbul Bilgi University. She has a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Bristol. She graduated from Emory University in the U.S.A. with a B.A. degree in Political Science and received her M.A. degree in European Studies with high honors from Istanbul Bilgi University. Her fields of interest include public diplomacy, nation branding, commercial nationalism, culture, tourism, and European identity.
Notes
1 Body-Gendrot, “L’universalisme français”; and Tribalat, “The French ‘Melting Pot.”
2 The defining distinctiveness of the early Republic was Turkification, which sought the dominance of Turkishness and Sunni Islam as the defining elements in every walk of life, from the language spoken in the public space to citizenship, national education, personnel regime in public enterprises, industrial life and even settlement laws. Having an imperial legacy, many of these regulations and laws were attempts to homogenize the entire nation without any tolerance for difference. It is highly probable that the underestimation of ethno-cultural diversity among the Muslim population of the Republic was due to the preceding Ottoman millet system borrowed by the Republican political elite. The millet system did not consider ethnic differences among Muslims. All Muslims, regardless of their other differences, belonged to the one and the same ‘Muslim nation.’ Paradoxically, the successful nature of the Turkish revolution/rupture lays in the continuity of the Ottoman notion of millet. See Kadıoğlu, “Denationalization of Citizenship”; and Kaya, Europeanization and Tolerance in Turkey.
3 Safran, “Religion and Laïcité.”
4 Kaya, Islam, Migration and Integration; and Koenig, “Europeanising the Governance of Religious Diversity.”
5 Davison, Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey.
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid., 341.
8 The Front National rebranded itself as Rassemblement National (the National Rally) in June 2018 to prepare for the 2019 European Parliamentary elections. However, in the following pages, the authors will continue to use Front National to reflect the fact that it was the name the supporters were affiliated with during the time of interviews conducted in the spring of 2017.
9 For a better assessment of the populist political style see Worsley, “The Concept of Populism”; Taguieff, “Political Science Confronts Populism”; Laclau, On Populist Reason; and Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism.
10 Laclau, On Populist Reason; and Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism.
11 Kaya, Populism and Heritage in Europe.
12 Barthes, Mythologies, 3.
13 Bell, “Mythscapes,” 75.
14 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe.
15 See Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties. For a discussion of Mudde’s definition of populism, see also Rooduijn, “The Rise of Populist Radical Right.”
16 Kalb, “Headlines of Nation,” 14.
17 Gest, Reny, and Mayer, “Roots of the Radical Right.”
18 President Erdoğan’s speech is available at (in Turkish) at http://www.ihu.edu.tr/cumhurbaskani-erdogan-medeniyetler-surasinin-resmi-acilisinda-konustu/, accessed on November 10, 2018. Translation by Ayhan Kaya.
19 Gökalp, Türklesmek, Islamlasmak, Muasırlasmak, 25.
20 Çınar, “Turkey’s ‘Western’ or ‘Muslim’ Identity,” 177.
21 Ibid.
22 Kaya, Populism and Heritage in Europe.
23 Radio MMC-RMC, February 14, 2008; see also https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/26/marine-le-pen-emmanuel-macron-french-elections, accessed on May 17, 2019.
24 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 693289. Information on the CoHERE project is available at: https://research.ncl.ac.uk/cohere/.
25 Özdemir, “Turkey’s Justice and Development Party.”
26 Ibid., 5.
27 Marcou, “Turkey’s Foreign Policy.”
28 Çınar, “Turkey’s ‘Western’ or ‘Muslim’ Identity”, 177–8.
29 Ibid.
30 These conflicts also affected the interlocutor selection during the fieldwork. For instance, three potential interlocutors expressed that the recent conflicts with European countries, especially Netherlands and Germany, made them question the purpose of our research into culture and heritage in Europe. Others expressed that they are suspicious of EU’s motives. They noted that they have a distrust in academia/academics and assumed that the research will be too critical of the AKP government.
31 Brown, Regulating Aversion; and Brubaker, “Between Nationalism and Civilization.”
32 In the referendum, 51.41% voted in favor of the executive presidency. General elections were scheduled to take place on 24 June 2018, and were won by Erdoğan and the People’s Alliance.
33 Taggart, Populism, 1.
34 Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties.
35 Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism, 66.
36 Ostiguy, “The High-Low Political Divide.”
37 Imam hatip schools are secondary education schools in Turkey which train imams, who lead Islamic prayers and services.
38 As of 7 February 2019, there are 3,644,342 Syrians under protection in Turkey (http://www.goc.gov.tr/icerik6/gecici-koruma_363_378_4713_icerik). The majority of the Syrian refugees in Turkey are Muslims. Christian Syrian refugees have reported that they do not feel welcome in Turkey due to their religious identity and ‘some 45,000 Christians who fled Syria and Iraq are forced to hide their religious identity in the Turkish provinces of Yozgat, Aksaray and Çorum,’ see Rifat, “Christian Refugees Face Difficulties.”
39 For more information on AKP’s populist rhetoric and its implications on foreign policy see Hale and Özbudun, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism; Kaya, “Islamization of Turkey”; Kaya, “The Rise of Populist Extremism”; Davutoğlu, Alternative Paradigms; and Davutoğlu, Stratejik Derinlik.
40 Zaslove, “Here to Stay?”
41 Chopin, “The ‘Populist Moment’”; and Schmidt, “Britain-Out and Trump-In.”
42 Ivaldi, “Du néolibéralisme au social-populisme?”
43 Colbertism is a doctrine which claims for protective tariffs and for a strategist State intervention in the economic life.
44 Ivaldi and Zaslove, “L’Europe des populismes.”
45 Berezin, “Appropriating the ‘No’.”
46 Reungoat, “Le Front national et l’Union européenne.”
47 Ivaldi, “Contesting the EU in Times of Crisis.”
48 Socialist politician and ex-candidate in the 2007 presidential election. She was the first woman who ran in the second round of a French presidential election.
49 Stockemer, “What is Right-Wing Populism.”
50 Mudde, “The 2012 Stein Rokkan Lecture.”
51 Schulz et al., “Measuring Populist Attitudes.”
52 Gest, Reny, and Mayer, “Roots of the Radical Right.”
53 Ibid., 2.
54 French citizens from European descent, who lived in Algeria during the colonial period.
55 Socialist politician and ex-minister of National Education, from August 2014 to May 2017.
56 Freeden, “After the Brexit Referendum.”
57 Müller, What Is Populism?
58 Mudde, “The 2012 Stein Rokkan Lecture”; and Bastow, “The Front National.”
59 Taguieff, “The Doctrine of the National Front.”
60 Crépon, “La politique des mœurs au Front national.”
61 Akkerman, “Anti-Immigration Parties.”
62 Farris, In the Name of Women’s Rights.
63 Brubaker, “Between Nationalism and Civilization.”
64 Ibid.
65 Reynié, “The Spectre Haunting Europe,” 51.