Nation–states and ethnic boundaries: modern Turkish identity and Turkish–Kurdish conflict

Ethnic and religious conflicts are two of the most pressing issues facing Turkey today. This article offers the argument that the development of the Turkish state and identity, and Turkey’s peripheral position in the interstate system, have collectively determined the parameters and dynamics of the conflicts. It is argued that modern Turkish identity has been forged by the state through the nation–state formation process that began in the 1920s. During the transition from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic it was deemed necessary to redefine the state and Turkish identity. At the historical juncture, Islam was replaced with other ideals and universals such as Turkism, modernity and étatism. The sudden and large–scale shift away from religion followed by vigorous ethnic assimilation efforts created a contradictory context between the state and ethnic/religious segments of the population. The change also marked the beginning of a new era in the Turkish–Kurdish discord. Another assertion of the article is that the state’s approach to ethnic/religious issues and demands is consistent with the assumptions and predictions of the ethnic democracy model.     

Imagining the Turkish nation through ‘othering’ Armenians*

Abstract. National identities are socially constructed and inherently relational, such that collective imagination depends on a dialectical opposition to another identity. The ontology of otherness becomes the necessary basis of social imagination. National identity can hardly be imagined without a narrative of myths, and the Turkish nation is no exception. This article argues that the Turkish nation was imagined as a modern nation with territorial sovereignty after the erosion of traditional Ottoman umma (religious community) identity. During the process of this imagination, the Armenians became the first ‘others’, whose claims over eastern Anatolia were perceived as a real threat to Turkish territoriality and identity. Based on the analysis of modernist theories of nationalism, the methodological concern of this study is twofold: to explore the causal link between the policies of Ottoman modernisation and the emergence of Turkish nationalism; and to incorporate the self and other nexus into the relationship between the emergence of Turkish nationalism and the process of ‘othering’ the Armenians.     

Reconsidering Elitist Duality: Persistent Tension in the Turkish–Egyptian Relations

Since the Muslim Brotherhood's ouster in July 3, 2013, tension has escalated between Turkey and Egypt and gained media attention as an unprecedented incident in bilateral relations. However, disagreement has characterized bilateral relations since the declaration of the Egyptian Republic and the launch of diplomatic relations with Turkey in the 1950s. By tracking the history of both countries’ bilateral relations, this study contends that, according to the elitist duality thesis, Turkish – Egyptian relations were an exception to the Turkish – Arab relations, as they were not influenced by the ruling elite. It argues that regardless of the ruling elite identity, tension has disrupted the normal course of relations. By relying on extensive interviews conducted with members of the Justice and Development Party, and academicians and staff members in the Turkish ministries of economy and foreign affairs, the study analyzes the unaddressed tension in the Turkish – Egyptian relations since the 1950s until 2013 and provides policy recommendations to improve bilateral relations.     

Archaeology as a Source of National Pride in the Early Years of the Turkish Republic

Abstract

This paper investigates the change of discourse related to the inculcation of national pride through archaeology in the first 15 years of the Turkish Republic. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, archaeological knowledge was used by Turkish scholars in the propagation of national identity and pride by illustrating that Turks were an ancient people with a long and remarkable past. After the commencement of the first Turkish excavations in 1934, archaeology assumed a different role. More than the data produced, the practice of archaeology itself became a source of national pride because it was an important indicator that Turkey was a modern country that could contribute to international scholarship. This change of discourse can be followed in archaeological field reports and in the papers presented at the first two meetings of the Turkish Historical Society in 1932 and 1937.     

Pax Ottomanica No More! The “Peace” Discourse in Turkish Foreign Policy in the Post‐Davutoğlu Era and the Prolonged Syrian Crisis

Turkey's eight years between 2008 and 2016 has been dominated by Ahmet Davuto?lu's vision of foreign policy, which was derived from his multi‐edition book Strategic Depth (2000). In order to be able to present itself in its larger periphery as a pro‐active, trustworthy actor, Davuto?lu argued, Turkey needed to change the foreign‐policy paradigms with which it was stranded. As the Strategic Depth vision unfolded, it drew explicit parallels between modern Turkey and the Ottoman neighborhood policy. Turkey‐Syria relations since 2008 had been providing the seekers of neo‐Ottomanist tendencies in the contemporary Turkish foreign policy with abundant examples, because Syria, once an Ottoman territory and always a challenge to modern Turkey, came to be the first poster country in the shift towards Turkey's imperial awakening. In the post‐Davuto?lu era, however, the rhetoric and practices of the past eight years seemed suddenly to disappear from the use of the Turkish agents of foreign policy; the new code of terms and actions to replace the Strategic Depth version is yet to be decided. This study seeks to pin down the neo‐imperialist character of Turkey's foreign‐policy discourse of the aforementioned eight years and contribute to discussions of the Turkish aspiration of neo‐Ottomanism with focus on the Syrian crisis through the Justice and Development Party's re‐invented peace discourse. In doing so, it aims to find out and elaborate on the current tendencies of Turkish foreign policy, which are no longer as explicit and articulated as they were during Davuto?lu's ministry and prime ministry. As Turkey's cross‐border operation to Syria — the Euphrates Shield — ends and another one in Idlib begins, a discursive analysis stretching from Davutoglu's diplomatic “zero problems” with Damascus to the military use of ground troops and air force is timely. Such an endeavor would be essential in understanding the spectacular swing from one edge to the other in Turkey's inclination over a phantasmagorical empire.     

Turkish nationalism and ethno‐symbolic analysis: the rules of exception

This article examines the applicability of the ethno‐symbolic approach to the study of patriotic Turkish nationalism. In this venue, first it addresses the issue of why many of the existing theoretical models are difficult to use for attending to the case of Turkish nationalism in a comparative framework. Capitalising on the ethno‐symbolic understanding of ideological and ethno‐cultural continuities in the formation of modern nationalisms, this study provides an analysis of points of contestation regarding the history of modern, patriotic Turkish nationalism. It then discusses the demographic and socio‐cultural background of the bonding of exiled masses of Ottoman Muslims with the native Muslims of Anatolia under the banner of a revived, independent Turkish nation. The debate offered here is based on a critical evaluation of the myths and symbols of Turkish national identity within the larger context and time frame of Ottoman/Turkish history.     

Turkey and Erdoğan’s rising “Lausanne Syndrome”

In this article, I analyze the rise of the “Lausanne Syndrome” in Turkish politics during the twenty‐first century through the prism of ontological security theory. The arguments are presented through the examination of the legacy of the “Sèvres Syndrome”, the impact of the Turkish‐Israeli diplomatic break‐up during the 2010s on the Turkish self‐narrative, and the declaration of the second war of independence following the failed coup attempt of 2016. The “Lausanne Syndrome” serves both as a domestic and foreign policy tool, as it relates to Erdo?an’s search for ontological security and geopolitical strategy.     

Constitution‐writing,nationalism and the Turkish experience

Until recently there has been relatively little attention paid to the question of how the relationship between the state, its citizens and the nation is articulated in constitutional texts. This paper seeks to address this gap through an examination of how the rules of belonging to the nation are discussed by the political elite and how these discussions find their final formulation in the constitutional texts. The analysis focuses on the Turkish case at two constitution‐writing moments (1924 and 1961). While such moments have conventionally been assumed to be ‘revolutionary’, the data on Turkey highlights continuities rather than radical changes over time. More particularly, it underscores the resilience and salience of the principle of nationalism over time.     

Displacement,memory and home(less) identities: Turkish Cypriot women’s narratives

Abstract

This study is an analysis of the narratives of Turkish Cypriot women in the north of Cyprus who were displaced during the ethnic conflict between the 1950s and 1974. We have conducted 21 interviews with Turkish Cypriot women who were living in different parts of Northern Cyprus. We used oral history, both as a method and as an epistemological stance to re-phrase the near past of Cyprus and the Cyprus issue from the perspective of gender/women’s studies. The study follows the traces of modernity, patriarchy, and nationalism in women’s narratives, about the place, home, belonging and homelessness. The narratives describe Turkish Cypriot women’s experiences of being a woman in conflict and displacement (‘göçmen olmak’ in daily talk in Turkish) making a home out of a house and undertaking daily routines for their families. The study also reveals that ethnic conflict and displacement have empowered women to a certain degree.     

Turkish nationalism and the evolutionary idea (1923–1938)

This paper sheds light on the role of evolutionary ideas in the making of Turkish nationalism during the Kemalist era (1923–1938). By so doing, it aims to challenge some of the dominant historiographical viewpoints as to the nature of Turkish nationalism. One is related to the Kemalist elites' predisposition towards the so‐called “scientism” seen as one of the bases for nationalism. We intend to turn upside–down the relation between the Kemalists' use of science and Turkish nationalism. Second, we problematize the “culturalist” origins of Turkish nationalism arguing that the seemingly “culturalist” reflections of the time were, indeed, materialist formulations based on the science of the times. We discuss in this respect the Kemalist elites' use of evolutionary ideas. By synthesizing the ways in which these elites employed evolutionary ideas in the fields of history, language, geography, anthropology, biology, eugenics, and pedagogy, we aim to understand the specific nature of Turkish nationalism before 1945. This secular nationalism conceived culture as having materialist bases and differed fundamentally from the culturalist varieties of Turkish nationalism coloured by Islam in the post‐1945 era. Furthermore, the paper empirically enriches the complex and entangled story of evolutionary ideas in the early Turkish Republic.     

Erdoğan’s pragmatism and the ascension of AKP in Turkey: Islam and neo‐Ottomanism

This article aimed to analyze the ascension of Justice and Development Party—Adalet ve Kalk?nma Partisi (AKP)—in Turkey and its political measures regarding both Islam and the country's Ottoman past, in order to comprehend the party's role in a potential shift of Turkish national identity and in Turkey's relationship with the Middle East. The article does this through a content analysis of decrees, laws, and other measures taken by the AKP that emphasizes its cultural and religious policies, as well as revisiting literature produced about the subject. Analyzing Recep Tayyip Erdo?an's government during his time as Prime Minister (2003–2014), two noteworthy features come to light: its Islamic influence and its so‐called neo‐Ottomanist outlook. However, this article argues that besides an identity‐ and ideology‐based motivation, the AKP had pragmatic intentions in adopting such approaches, aiming to gather support both domestically and regionally.     

U.S. Latina/o Muslims Since 1920: From “Moors” to “Latino Muslims”

This article provides a historical overview of the development of the U.S. Latina/o Muslim community. U.S. Latina/os have been converting to Islam since the 1920s. Early converts were primarily found in African‐American‐majority Islamic communities, though there were some others who entered Islam through ties to Muslim immigrants. In both cases, the U.S.'s racist social system had brought the two communities together. In New York City during the 1970s, however, a group of around a dozen Latina/o Muslims felt that neither the African‐American‐majority nor the immigrant‐majority communities sufficiently addressed Latina/os' particular culture, languages, social situations, and contributions to Islamic history. To correct this, they created the first known U.S. Latina/o Muslim organisation, the Alianza Islamica, a group which fostered a “Latino Muslim” identity. Since that time, due to the growing numbers of U.S. Latina/o Muslims, as well as a tendency to foster ties with Latina/o Muslims in countries outside of the U.S., U.S. Latina/o Muslims are more and more adopting the “Latino Muslim” identity, which is now being promoted by several organisations and prominent leaders.     

Performing the nation in anti‐colonial protest in interwar Morocco

This article applies a process approach to the study of nationalism, analysing anti‐colonial protest in interwar Morocco to address how and why elite‐constructed national identity resonates for larger audiences. Using Alexander's social performance model to study nationalist contention, it examines how a Muslim prayer ritual was re‐purposed by Moroccan nationalists to galvanise mass protest against a French divide‐and‐rule colonial policy towards Moroccan Berbers that they believed threatened Morocco's ethno‐religious national unity. By looking at how national identity was forged in the context of contentious performances and why certain religious (Islam) and ethnic (Arab) components were drawn on to define the Moroccan nation, this study offers a model for answering why national identity gets defined in specific ways and how the nation gains salience for broader publics as a category of collective identity.     

Examining the Impact of Turkey's Approach Vis‐à‐Vis Syria into Turkey's Iraq Policy

The tension between “international order” and justice has long been a focus of critical attention of many scholars. Today, with the rise of the humanitarian crises, the debate is once again visible, and Turkish foreign policy is one of the most important areas of observation of this tension. Indeed, the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq in 2003 paved the way for Turkey to actively engage in regional affairs. Meanwhile, the need to bring human justice into world politics makes Turkish foreign policy decision makers operate on a much more humanitarian basis. Nevertheless, active humanitarian engagement poses an important challenge to traditional Turkish foreign policy as it is mainly based on the notion of “non‐interference,” as well as on the elementary components of international order, by raising suspicions on the intentions of the Turkish authorities. This article aims to explore the challenges Turkey has been facing since the U.S.‐led invasion of Iraq, and diagnose Turkish foreign policy vis‐à‐vis Iraq in the shadow of the Syrian civil war from Hedley Bull's framework of “order” and “justice.” It argues that Turkey's recent fluctuations in the Middle East could be linked to Turkey's failure to reconcile the requirements of “order” with those of “justice” and the Turkish governing party's (AKP) attempts to use justice as an important instrument to consolidate its power both in Turkey and in the Middle East.     

Excesses of nationalism: Greco‐Turkish population exchange

This article studies 1923 compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey through a case study of its experience in Izmir. It traces the ways the early Republican state engaged in the project of reshaping the population by eliminating the non‐Muslims who were rendered as ‘excesses’ in the spatial and discursive matrices of the nation‐state. Through the experience of the exchange in Izmir, it argues that the process of the accommodation and assimilation of the exchangees played a significant role in shaping the modalities of Turkish nationalism by creating new lines and fissures, further dividing the ‘Muslim brethren’ into ever restrictive constructions of Turkishness. It also underlines that this forced displacement is not just a significant episode in Greek and Turkish histories but that it represents a turning point in the project of nation formation in general.     

Ethno‐religious ‘unmixing’ of ‘Turkey’: 6–7 September riots as a case in Turkish nationalism*

Abstract. This article examines the structural and ideological factors that paved the way for the eruption of violence against non‐Muslims in Turkey on 6 September 1955. I argue that the conventional explanations that treat this instance of collective violence either as spontaneous rioting caused by over‐excited masses or as a government conspiracy that eventually got out of control are insufficient in that they fail to answer how and why so many people participated in these riots when we know that nothing on this scale ever took place in the history of the republic. In order to adequately understand the dynamics behind these riots one first needs to situate them in the broader historical context of the emergence, development and crystallisation of Turkish nationalism and national identity that marked the non‐Muslim citizens of the republic as the ‘others’ and potential enemies of the real Turkish nation. This historical analysis constitutes the first part of the article. Since ethno‐national riots do not always occur whenever there are conflicting identities, one also needs to explain the processes through which ethno‐national identities become radicalized and polarized. Thus, in the second part of the article, I focus on the economic, political and social conditions of the post‐single‐party era (post‐1950) that helped to radicalise the sentiments of the growing urban populace against the non‐Muslim ‘others’. I argue that it was the socio‐economic, ideological and political transformations of the Democrat Party era that made it possible for ethnic entrepreneurs and state provocateurs to mobilise the masses against a fictitious enemy.     

LETTER WRITING AND ELITE IDENTITY IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1770–1850

This essay argues that correspondence was an important means for the Dutch elite in the period 1770–1850 to develop, consolidate and express an elite identity. Children were taught a “natural” epistolary style, which often meant “decent” or “as fits an elite child”. In line with Bourdieu's thesis that elites are so confident of their leading position that they feel free to deviate from language norms, adolescents diverged from decent language, whereas lower‐class correspondents composed humble letters to their superiors. Daily correspondence and ceremonial letters served to keep upper‐class values in mind and to hold the elite together.     

Definitions of Turkish in‐group boundaries: national participation and essentialism as predictors of inter‐group attitudes in Turkey

The present research investigates how definitions of national in‐group boundaries predict inter‐group attitudes in Turkey. In Study 1, we explore definitions of Turkish in‐group boundaries as well as perceptions of the Turkish in‐group's relations with other groups among 64 university students. In Study 2, conducted among 324 university students, exploratory factor analyses reveal two dimensions of Turkish in‐group boundaries: national participation (a more civic definition) and national essentialism (a more ethnic definition). They also reveal four dimensions of the relations with others. Regression analyses show that national participation predicts more negative inter‐group attitudes. However, national essentialism is not found to predict the inter‐group attitudes. These results are compared with those of previous studies, mostly conducted in Western countries. The comparison suggests that conclusions about the positive role of Civic and the negative role of Ethnic/Cultural definitions in intergroup relations may be less general than is previously thought.     

A bargain between the secular state and Turkish Islam: politics of ethnicity in Central Asia

Abstract. This paper reveals and analyses the ethnic politics mobilised by a fast‐growing Islamic movement, the Gülen movement, which emerged in the 1980s in Turkey and expanded to Central Asia in the mid‐1990s. Following the micro‐sites, where nationness is reproduced as an everyday practice, my ethnographic research in Almaty‐Kazakhstan explored the emergent Islamic sensibilities for the nation and ethnic identity. Revivalist Islam has often been essentialised as incompatible with nationalism, since it has been widely associated with the Muslim community rather than nations and nation‐states. I argue that this bias is facilitated and maintained by the deep division in the literature. Scholarly work on both Islam and nationalism are split into two opposing approaches, state‐centered and culture‐centered. The findings of the present study challenge the binary thinking that juxtaposes politics against culture and dichotomises ethnic and state‐framed base of nationalism and nationhood. My major finding is that the Gülen movement has not only inherited the symbols and myths of descent from the founding fathers of the Turkish state, but it is also currently reproducing the related ethnic politics in cooperation with–not in opposition to–the secular states in the post‐Soviet Turkic world. The study reconciles ethno‐symbolic and state‐centered approaches in explaining the convergence between Islamic and secular nationalism in the formation of ethnic politics in Almaty‐Kazakhstan.     

Turkish foreign policy since 2002: between a‘post‐Islamist’government and a Kemalist state

This article discusses Turkish foreign policy over the past four years, since the election of a ‘post‐Islamist’ administration. It argues that although this period has been ‘Huntingtonian’, in terms of the diff erent political values and origins of the government on the one hand and the largely Kemalist state on the other, in the realm of foreign policy at least the relationship has been more cooperative and complementary than confictual. By focusing on seven areas of Turkey's foreign relations, as diverse as the EU, Cyprus, Syria and the Israeli—Palestinian conflict, the article identifies four types of experience in the overall conduct of policy: convergence; contained disharmomy; managed ideological divergence; and neutrality. It concludes by arguing that, providing Turkey's political institutions remain robust, there is no reason why this surprisingly successful cohabitation should not continue into the next parliament after 2007.