![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article examines the AKP’s youth politics in the aftermath of the 2013 Gezi Protests. It focuses on a seemingly mundane cultural practice of essay writing and student essay competitions to investigate the party’s message and methods in addressing young people. In particular, it examines the politics of history and emotional politics in the party's effort to construct and administer youth publics. The article argues that the AKP’s power is embedded in and reproduced by the articulation of political differences and mobilization of emotions, which play a significant role in the party’s broader bid to reorganize society, redefine collective identity, and control dissent.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Öykü Potuoğlu-Cook, Senem Aslan, Leyla Neyzi, Fatma Müge Göcek, Turkish Studies’ editor Paul Kubicek, the special issue editors, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions. I would like to also thank numerous colleagues, who gave feedback at presentations of this work at Northwestern University, the University of Arizona, the College of William and Mary, and at conferences of the American Anthropological Association, the Middle East Studies Association, and the Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Note on contributor
Ayça Alemdaroğlu is a political sociologist and the associate director of Program on Turkey at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. Her research engages with a broad range of theoretical and ethnographic issues, including youth culture and politics, gender and sexuality, experiences of modernity, nationalism, eugenics and higher education. Her publications include ‘Spatial Segregation and Class Subjectivity in Turkey’ published in Social and Cultural Geography; ‘Dialectics of Reform and Repression: Unpacking Turkey’s Authoritarian Turn’ (with Sinan Erensu) in Review of Middle East Studies, and ‘The AKP’s Problem with Youth’ in MERIP. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. She serves in the editorial boards of MERIP and Sociological Theory.
Notes
1 The Unity Foundation (Birlik Vakfı) was founded by a group of former members of the National Turkish Student Union (MTTB) led by Ismail Kahraman on 29 May 1986, the 533rd anniversary of the Conquest of Constantinople. The governing board of the organization included many previous and current influential politicians including Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the former President Abdullah Gul. There is little analysis of the activities of the Birlik Vakfi. Atacan (‘Explaining Religious Politics’) reports that the foundation supported Erdoğan since his election as Istanbul’s mayor in 1994. While less visible in the media in comparison to new pro-government or government-organized youth organizations, the Foundation has also served as a platform to organize and support conservative youth through scholarships, seminars, and other events.
2 The MTTB is the oldest youth organization in Turkey. It was established in 1916 during World War I by the Young Turks with the idea of mobilizing university youth with nationalist ideology against the allied forces, and to prevent the dissolution of the Empire. The organization could not help prevent the dissolution but it sustained itself into the new Republic. The Republican leaders were very much aware of the importance of youth and the potential role that could be played by the MTTB in the creation of the nation-state and national identity. Nevertheless, in the context of increasing authoritarianism of the single party in the 1930s, the union was closed down and remained closed until 1946. With the transition to the multi-party system, the organization was re-established as an anti-communist platform for ultra-nationalist and Islamist students against leftist student groups. In the 1960s and 1970s, the MTTB played a significant role in the political socialization of conservative youth. Many MTTB members including Erdoğan and Gül, later filled the leadership of the political Islamist parties in the 1990s and finally formed the Justice and Development Party in 2001. The organization was closed down by the military coup in 1980 and remained closed until the 2000s. See Okutan’s Bozkurt'tan Kuran'a for a detailed history of the organization between 1916 and 1980.
3 See “Birlik Vakfı, Başbakan Adına Sikke Bastırdı,” SonDakika.com, May 30, 2014.
4 For Erdoğan’s speech see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcVg6okwTvE
7 Imam Hatip schoolswere founded in the 1920s as vocational schools to train government-employed imams but throughout the 20th century they became an alternative education path for the children of culturally conservative and religious families.
8 The actual competition titles were ‘Understanding Sultan Abdülhamid’ and ‘Necip Fazıl and the Characteristic of Ideal Turkish youth.’
9 See the Competition Call at https://www.meb.gov.tr/lise-ogrencileri-15-temmuzu-kompozisyonlarla-anlatacak/haber/12091/tr
10 The outcome of the AKP's youth politics is a different and a larger question that needs to be assessed in the long run against the background of all other factors.
11 48.3 percent of the Turkish population is under age 30, and 24.4 percent is between the ages 15–29. See https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-policies/en/content/youthwiki/overview-turkey# (retrieved 17 April 2020).
12 In 2023 elections, about 5 million young people will vote for the first time. How to gain youth vote is a common theme of conversation among pro-AKP intellectuals and party strategists. See https://www.aa.com.tr/tr/turkiye/genc-secmenlerin-oylari-kimlikleri-gibi-esnek/1530578
13 The AKP introduced a number of changes in the status and provision of Imam Hatip schools, which considerably grew their reach from 84,000 students in 450 schools in 2002 to 1.3 million students in over 4,000 schools in 2017. See Bekir Gur, “What Erdoğan Really Wants”; Alemdaroğlu, “The AKP’s Problem”; Lüküslü, “Creating a Pious Generation”; and Özgür, Islamic Schools.
14 Doğan, Mahalle'deki AKP, and Uzun, “Youth Politics.”
15 Yabancı, “Work for the Nation.”
16 Baç and Keyman, “Turkey Under the AKP.”
17 Gürakar, Politics of Favoritism, and Yörük, “Welfare Provision.”
18 Tuğal, “Religious Politics,” and Altınordu, “The Political Incorporation.”
19 Erensü and Alemdaroğlu, “Dialectics of Reform.”
20 Lüküslü, “Creating a Pious Generation.”
21 The Gülen organization is a religious and business network led by a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gülen. The government has blamed the organization for orchestrating the 15 July 2016 coup and expropriated the companies, schools, and media organizations linked with the organization, while also imprisoning over 50.000 people who the government has accused of being members of the organization.
22 Previously, religious-nationalist ideology guided the reorganization of national education, especially the introduction of obligatory courses on religion in schools following the 1980 military coup. The emphasis on religion then was justified as a way to "fortify national unity" among politically divided youth while also fighting communist influence. See Copeaux, Türk Tarih Tezinden; Kaplan Türkiye’de Milli Eğitim İdeolojisi; and Kaplan, The Pedagogical State.
23 Öktem and Akkoyunlu, “Exit from democracy.”
24 See “70 bin öğrenci hapiste,” Cumhuriyet, October 30, 2017.
25 The lack of youth support for the AKP is a phenomenon discussed by both pro-government and opposition columnists and writers. For examples, see Sencer Ayata, “Gençler, AKP’den neden kopuyor?,” T24.com, August 5, 2017, and Elif Çakır, “AKP ve gençler arasındaki makas neden açılıyor?,” Karar, May 3, 2018. Eksisözlük – a popular user-contributed online information platform (similar to Wikipedia), generally used by young people, also has an entry on “the reasons for youth’s non-voting for the AKP” (“gençlerin AKP'ye oy vermemesinin sebebi”).
26 Tuğal, “Religious Politics.”
27 De Leon et al., Building Blocs, 2.
28 Tuğal, “Religious Practices.”
29 Keyder, “Law of the Father”; Tuğal, “’Resistance Everywhere’”; and Yörük and Yüksel, “Class and Politics.”
30 KONDA, “Gezi raporu”; Patton, “Generation Y”; and Bee and Chrona, “Youth Activists and Occupygezi.”
31 Amnesty International, “Gezi Park”; Tahincioğlu and Göktaş “Bu öğrencilere”; and Karakaya-Stump, “Gezi’yi Alevileştirmek.”
32 Porter, “Distributed Agency.”
33 Foucault, “The Foucault Effect,” 95.
34 Porter, “Distributed Agency,” 8.
35 Porter, “Distributed Agency,” 9.
36 Snow and Benford, “Master Frames,” 137.
37 Snow and Bedford, “Master Frames.”
38 Both Kısakurek and Asya were prominent poets, whose poems shaped the religious and nationalist sensitivities of religious conservative young people in Turkey. Both figures were embraced by conservative right-wing political parties and politicians throughout the 20th-century.
39 While ‘uyutulmaya çalışılan’ can be translated as ‘hypnotized’ or ‘deceived’, indicating an enemy perception, I preferred to translate it in the most neutral sense as ‘being tried to put to sleep’ based on the second half of the sentence that contrasts it with ‘hard-working’ and ‘striving’ youth.
40 Fetih Ruhu, 100–103. My translation from Turkish, “Zifir karanlıkta, aksütün içindeki ak kılı fark edecek kadar gözü keskin olmalıdır.”
41 Çınar, “National History,” 365.
42 Fetih Ruhu, 32–33.
43 White, Muslim Nationalism.
44 Ibid., 9.
45 My translation. For the original, see: https://www.birlikvakfi.org.tr/Fetih-Ruhu-Fatih-ve-Genclik-kompozisyon-yarismasi-odul-toreni--y1539.html
46 Fetih Ruhu, 62–63.
47 Kadıköy is a major district in İstanbul known for its oppositional politics and a population with secularist politics and liberal social attitudes.
48 Somers, “The Narrative Constitution.”
49 The burgeoning literature on affect and emotion sometimes makes a distinction between these two terms – that emotions refer to a display or social expression of personal feelings and could be genuine or feigned. In contrast, affect is a more non-conscious and bodily response, which cannot be expressed in language, or that emotion always requires a subject while affect does not. See Massumi, “Parables for the Virtual.” Here these terms are used interchangeably to refer to emotions that the government and pro-government organizations promote and circulate.
50 Mouftah, “Faith Development Beyond Religion,” and Parkinson, An Emotional State.
51 Kaplan, The Pedagogical State.
52 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 48.
53 Stoler, “A Sentimental Education,” and Race and the Education of Desire.
54 Erişen, “Emotions as a Determinant,” and Aslan, “Piety, Intimacy, and Emotions,” and “The Politics of Emotions.”
55 Aslan, “The Politics of Emotions,” 11.
56 Fetih Ruhu, 90–91.
57 Fetih Ruhu, 83–85.
58 Hage, Against Paranoid Nationalism.
59 Gramsci, Selections.
60 See, for instance, Yerlikaya, “Kültürel iktidar’ mücadelesi,” and Bilgin, “Kültürel iktidarın adı var.”
61 Türk, Muktedir.
62 KONDA, “On yılda.”
63 De Leon, Desai, and Tuğal, Building Blocs.