De-Europeanisation through Discourse: A Critical Discourse Analysis of AKP’s Election Speeches

Abstract

This article takes issue with the question of whether Turkey has been turning away from Europe in recent years, by adopting a critical constructivist lens to understand how, rather than why, Turkey’s presumed distance from the European Union (EU) is taking place. In doing that, it seeks to analyse the ways in which the political–societal transformation of the country as distanced from the EU is enabled by certain discursive practices which in turn contribute to the growing rift between Turkey and the EU. This is mainly conducted through a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of texts produced by former Prime Minister and now President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Europe and the EU during key election periods starting with the 12 June 2011 general election.

Keywords:

• Turkish foreign policy
• EU–Turkey relations
• discourse analysis
• identity
• foreign policy discourse

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Ayhan Aktar, Gencer Özcan, Soli Özel and Bahar Rumelili for their helpful comments on the previous versions of this article. I would also like to acknowledge the support of the Science Academy Young Scientists Programme (BAGEP) in making this study possible.

Notes

1. The majority of the speeches (117) were accessed in a transcribed form from the party archives accessible at: http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/haberler/arsiv/basin-odasi. The rest (52) were transcribed from videos accessed at: http://www.akparti.org.tr/site/videogaleriler/mitingler/145. The translations are the author’s own.

2. For a similar approach, see Van Dijk (1993).

3. İzmir, 4 June 2011.

4. Denizli, 8 July 2014.

5. Antalya, 12 July 2014.

6. Ankara, 16 June 2013; İstanbul, 17 June 2013.

7. See, for instance, İstanbul, 29 May 2011; İstanbul, 17 June 2013; Samsun, 23 June 2013; Elazığ, 6 March 2014; Erzurum, 24 June 2013; Adana, 23 July 2014; Muğla, 6 August 2014.

8. A synecdoche is a term for a part of something that is used to refer to the whole of the same thing or vice versa.

9. See, for instance, İstanbul, 17 June 2013; Erzurum, 10 June 2011; Bursa, 23 May 2011; Kocaeli, 23 March 2014; Urfa, 13 July 2014; Ordu, 19 July 2014; Bursa, 18 July 2014; Hatay, 20 July 2014; Van, 31 July 2014; Istanbul, 3 August 2014; Adana, 23 July 2014; Mardin, 31 July 2014.

10. Osman Gazi was the founder of the Ottoman Empire.

11. See, for instance, Ankara, 16 May 2011; Nevşehir, 25 May 2011; Mersin, 2 June 2011; İstanbul, 31 March 2014; Samsun, 5 July 2014; Denizli, 8 July 2014.

12. See, for instance, Balıkesir, 12 May 2011; Yalova, 12 May 2011; Van, 20 May 2011; Hakkari, 21 May 2011; Bursa, 22 May 2011; Gaziantep, 9 June 2011.

13. Metonymies ‘replace(s) the name of a referent by the name of an entity which is closely associated with it in either concrete or abstract terms’ (Wodak et al. 2009, p. 43).

14. The Sèvres Syndrome is named after the Sèvres Treaty which partitioned the Ottoman Empire among the European powers after the First World War.